#190 - A Republic - If You Can Keep It!

“The point of our lives is not comfort,  security, or even happiness; but training.  Not fulfillment but preparation.  [This world] is a lousy home, but it’s a fine gymnasium.” Dr. Peter Kreeft - Making Sense of Suffering

“"Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" “A Republic - If you can keep it!” - Elizabeth Powel to Benjamin Franklin, Franklin’s response

“I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, summarizing Voltaire’s views on Free Speech

A Republic, If We Can Keep It: Donald Trump and the Myth of the Monarch

Benjamin Franklin once said we had been given “a republic, if you can keep it.” It was not a jest but a prophecy. A republic is a delicate thing, forever teetering between the mob and the monarch, forever in danger of collapsing into tyranny or dissolving into chaos. Ours is not a democracy in the way the Greeks understood it, nor is it a throne. It is a contraption of checks and balances, a perpetual balancing act where three branches of government are set against one another like wrestlers, each preventing the others from running away with the match.

And it is precisely this arrangement that makes the frequent accusation that Donald Trump is a monarch—or worse, a fascist—so peculiar. For if he is a king, he is a remarkably shackled one. If he is a fascist, he is one presiding over the most obstinate opposition, the most litigious press, and the most opinionated Congress imaginable. The man cannot even build a wall without twelve lawsuits and seventeen court orders arriving on his desk before breakfast.

Machiavelli, who knew something of republics (and of their collapse), taught that governments cycle endlessly: monarchy becomes tyranny, aristocracy becomes oligarchy, democracy becomes anarchy, and then some weary people cry out for a strongman to start the cycle over again. The Founders knew this well, and so they designed a system that was neither monarchy nor mob rule. Madison warned in Federalist No. 10 that pure democracies are “spectacles of turbulence and contention” and have “ever been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Thus they gave us representation, law, and separation of powers — not so much a machine as a living organism, with each part keeping the others honest.

Consider what happens when presidents really do try to overreach. Richard Nixon tried to lock away the evidence of his own wrongdoing; the Supreme Court said no, Congress said no, and Nixon went back to California in disgrace. Ronald Reagan’s administration, in a cloak-and-dagger mood, funneled money to Nicaraguan rebels against Congress’s express command. The scandal was dragged into the light of day by televised hearings; men were tried, convicted, and shamed. Reagan’s ratings sank. The republic did what republics are supposed to do: it chastened its rulers without breaking its frame.

Donald Trump has been tested by this same machinery, and found not above it. He has been impeached twice — the very definition of constitutional accountability. He has been sued, subpoenaed, and second-guessed by his own appointees. After the 2020 election, he tried every legal avenue to contest the result, and when those avenues failed, he left office. The transfer of power happened, messy and noisy but intact. That is not how monarchy behaves; it is how a republic, with all its bumps and bruises, survives its storms.

Fascism, properly speaking, means the abolition of opposition, the regimentation of society, and usually a nice war of conquest to go along with it. Trump did none of these things. He did not outlaw rival parties; he did not cancel elections; he did not put the press under state control. Niall Ferguson quipped that the only war Trump really wanted was a trade war. One may dislike his manners or his policies, but those are the quarrels of democracy, not the bootsteps of dictatorship.

The death of Charlie Kirk has put the nation on edge, and the temptation on all sides is to shout for more power—more mob rule on one hand, more crackdowns on the other. But the genius of the republic is that it belongs to neither side; it belongs to the Constitution. If Trump is dangerous, so is every president, for the presidency is always perched precariously between monarchy and mere popularity contest.

Franklin’s challenge remains: we have a republic, if we can keep it. The keeping requires courage — courage to resist both tyranny and anarchy, courage to argue and vote and stand firm. Trump is not a king. He is, like every president before him, a temporary steward of a very old experiment. The question is not whether he will keep it, but whether we will.

Investor’s Corner

Charlie Munger: investment selection accounts for 99% of your returns - Link

Michael Burry - the moment your country’s interest payments surpass your defense spending, you’re toast - Link

Brookfield CEO - “there are too many PE firms” - Link

Blackstone's Jon Gray on the Economy, AI as “The Main Thing,” and Where to Invest Now | Sept. '25 - Link

$30 billion in private credit CLOs already this year, surpassing last year’s pace - Link

The oil-to-gold ratio is now 6 standard deviations above its long-term trend. Link

Dev Kantesaria calls ASML the most predictable way to invest in the AI cycle - Link 

Here are 10 of the most profitable business models in the world - Link

Technology Corner

Investment in information processing took credit for 92% of GDP growth in H1 - Link

Will AGI replace us or will the economy be just fine? Link 

Visa on the growth of stablecoins: "In the space of several months, we've quadrupled the amount of volume that we're doing on the stablecoin settlement space." - Link

Ben Horowitz on AI, Culture, and the Future of Innovation | Columbia Business School - Link

In stablecoins we trust? Chicago Booth Review - Link

Balaji Srinivasan | The Network State | Renegade Futurism 2025 - Link

The ENTIRE AI Value Chain - & the Stocks Powering It - Link

Politics, Philosophy, Theology Corner

The 9/11 Files: The CIA’s secret mission gone wrong - Link

Charlie Kirk + Q&A at Cambridge Union - Link

Niall Ferguson on Preserving Liberty After Charlie Kirk's Senseless Murder - Link

Jesus DID Claim to be God: The Evidence - Alex O’Connor w/ Dr. Brant Pitre - Link

Did the Sun Ever Set on the Age of Empire? (with Niall Ferguson and Nathan Gardels) - Link

Return of the God Hypothesis in Cambridge with Stephen Meyer - Link