The American Fix - How To Fix The American Government. Monday's Edition
How to restore trust in America after the Trump-Republican regime falls. Series 16 #1
After the Trump Republican regime ends, the United States will still face a credibility crisis. International partners, allies, and investors no longer trust the U.S. government. The Republican Party supports fascism, the Democratic Party takes no substantive action to preserve democracy, and while some of its citizens protest, the majority either support the new government or are willing to live with it. The message to the world is clear: the U.S. is no longer stable, competent, or democratic. The damage runs deeper than one administration because American institutions fail basic tests, such as peaceful power transfers, qualified experts in positions of power, and political compromise for the good of the nation and world.
The world has seen the U.S. system fail. Congress can block Trump’s dangerous policies or invoke the 25th Amendment to have him removed, courts can strike down his unconstitutional orders, but none of this is happening. And it's worse than that, because it's not just that Republicans are refusing to stop him, they're actively supporting him by passing his policies, confirming his appointments, and defending his actions in the media.
The numbers tell the story. Pew Research Center's spring 2025 survey found that only 49% of adults across 24 countries hold favorable views of the United States. In Mexico, favorability collapsed from 61% in 2024 to just 29%. Canada dropped from 54% favorable to 34%. Sweden registers 79% unfavorable, the most negative assessment of any nation surveyed. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, which measures trust across society: government, media, business, and NGOs, places the United States among the least trusting nations globally, with a Trust Index of just 47. When business leaders worldwide rank political stability, the United States now scores lower than Botswana.
This matters because trust enables everything else. Countries sign trade agreements with partners they believe will honor commitments. Investors put money in nations with predictable economies. Allies share intelligence with governments that protect classified information and follow institutional norms. When trust disappears, so does everything else.
The problem isn’t partisan. Both parties have contributed to institutional decay. Trump and the Republican Party are just the symptoms of the problem. The solution requires structural reforms that transcend a single election cycle. Other nations have built government systems that function and prevent authoritarian takeover. These countries demonstrate that stable, competent government is the result of specific institutional design. We’ve identified four elements of functional government from various nations that could restore international confidence in the American government.
First, treat politics like the profession it is, with professional competency standards to ensure elected officials understand what they’re doing, similar to Singapore, China, and France.
Second, create technocratic policy councils untouchable by political forces. Advisory bodies of qualified professionals who develop evidence-based recommendations that survive partisan turnover. The Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea have similar systems as do France, Singapore, and China.
Third, change to a parliamentary system. Research is clear that parliamentary systems outperform presidential systems in virtually all categories. Examples include the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Iceland, and many others.
Fourth, guarantee inclusive representation. Diversity produces better outcomes and prevents distrust. 85 nations have proportional representation systems.
And, I hope this goes without saying: remove money from politics.
These aren’t abstract theories. Countries around the world have implemented versions of these reforms and built governments that their citizens and the international community trust. This week, the cultural perspective examines each reform in detail, drawing lessons from functioning nations that maintain stability, competence, and legitimacy. Tuesday covers professional standards. Wednesday examines technocratic councils. Thursday explores the parliamentary system. Friday looks at inclusive representation. Saturday shows what the new American government would look like with these changes and how it fits the culture.
The question isn’t whether America needs reform; the world has already answered that. The question is whether Americans will make changes that prevent the next authoritarian from exploiting the weaknesses that Trump and the Republicans exposed. Other democracies show it’s possible. The cultural perspective reveals how.
SIDEBAR: Comparison of U.S. Trust Index To Nations with High International Trust
U.S.: 47 (among the lowest globally)
Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland: 65-75
Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany: 60-70
Singapore, Japan: 55-65
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It’s increasingly clear that it's too little, too late. Even if the current political nightmare ends, foreign governments aren’t going to rush back into Washington’s embrace when the underlying system that produced the crisis is still broken and extraordinarily difficult to reform. The proposed institutional fixes are sensible in theory, but the odds of them passing in the current environment are super small. Real stability would require deep structural changes to both American society and its political architecture, changes that, if they ever begin at all, will take years to implement. Add to that the reality that roughly 30% of the U.S. electorate sits at or below OECD literacy benchmarks, making widespread critical‑thinking‑driven political judgment even harder to expect.
And then there’s the havoc that Trump has unleashed, along with the complicity, incompetence and amorality of those backing him. International reactions to the Epstein files, and the near‑total lack of movement inside the U.S. in response, are enormous red flags for any nation considering “cozying back up” to America. From the outside, it looks like a country unwilling or unable to police its own elites, constrain its own extremists, or repair its own institutions. Trust doesn’t return in that environment; it evaporates.
American failure is Architectural. We are trying to run a hyper-complex 21st-century society on an 18th-century operating system designed to maximize friction (Checks and Balances). The result is a system that generates heat (rage) instead of motion (governance).
However, the proposal suffers from a thermodynamic fallacy: The Activation Energy Problem.
To switch from a Presidential to a Parliamentary system requires a level of consensus that the current system is structurally incapable of generating. You cannot rewrite the source code (Constitution) while the machine is running at 100% CPU on a culture war.
These reforms are the "Correct Engineering Solution," but politics is not engineering; it is psychology at scale. Without a mechanism to lower the emotional temperature first, these structural rationalities are dead on arrival. We know what to build; we have simply lost the ability to agree on the blueprints.