Try The Grand Continent. The ideas and analyses you won’t find anywhere else. But you’ll see them everywhere soon. In your inbox from eight euros per month
Donald Trump casts himself as the image of a formidable man in power, an inevitability. Yet several Supreme Court decisions, and even moves by the Fed, show that checks and balances continue to function. What is your assessment of the state of the balance of powers in the United States, more than six hundred days into his second term?
The answer comes down to a single sentence. The Constitution has endured, and with it our system of checks and balances. Donald Trump has undoubtedly sought to seize autocratic power and has succeeded in widening the executive’s grip. But nearly every time he crossed a line, he met resistance. Economically, the Federal Reserve stood firm. Politically, the Supreme Court struck down his tariffs and blocked his attempt to oust a Federal Reserve governor. Federal courts, at trial and on appeal, handed him setback after setback. Trump is, in many respects, a president far weaker than feared immediately after his inauguration. He remains unpredictable and dangerous, and the fight goes on. Yet the essential point remains: the Constitution has held.
From Europe’s standpoint, your optimism may surprise. Is it because the guardrails appear to hold domestically, while foreign policy and military matters seem more exposed?
Yes. The principal flaw in our system is an external executive with outsized power.
Donald Trump himself acknowledged this after the Supreme Court voided his tariff measures, protesting that he could “destroy a country” but could not make it pay a dollar in tariffs…
We inherit an era when the United States was a small republic and information circulated slowly. There was a need for someone who could decide swiftly. Since 1945, the practice has significantly expanded presidential power, and today the United States wields imperial-level influence. A single individual can weigh heavily on the affairs of hundreds of countries and billions of people. It is a power that neither justifies itself nor is effectively governed by ethical, legal, or rational calculations that once allowed preceding presidents to know that cooperation underpinned security and shared prosperity far more reliably than domination did.
Should Europeans brace for a chaotic stretch until the end of the term, or could the midterm elections reverse this regime-change push?
Everything today points to a heavy defeat for the Trump administration. Starting in January, Democrats will be able to exercise far greater control over the president’s domestic and international actions. But the issue goes deeper than that.
That is to say?
From Europe you may find it hard to perceive, largely because Trump occupies all the space. Yet many Democrats and independents have used this campaign to sketch a nearly revolutionary project to transform the country. And the rhetoric sharpens and radicalizes with each passing day.
On what foundations?
Anger toward Trump plays a crucial role, but it extends far beyond him. It targets the oligarchs, the machinery of oligarchy, and the boundless autocratic power of large corporations. It attacks a concentration of power and wealth that has become extreme.
The great flaw of our system is an executive with outsized power in external affairs
Barry C. Lynn
A platform against oligarchs is emerging. It goes well beyond anti-Trump sentiment and even wins over some Trump voters. A new movement for freedom is beginning to demonstrate its strength.
Could this aspiration give the Democrats a political project again?
There is a attribution to Justice Louis Brandeis: “We can have democracy or wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but not both.” Fixing this imbalance could spark a contagious renewal. And for that, the United States has powerful levers at its disposal.
Yet America is still viewed as the home of tech giants more than as a battleground against monopolies…
We possess a remarkable legal toolkit, designed precisely to curb oligarchs and protect individual liberty. We had forgotten it. At the dawn of the neoliberal era under Ronald Reagan, these laws were simply buried.
But we are digging them up and putting them back to work.
In recent years these laws have been unearthed, and historic lawsuits have been filed. Google was twice convicted of abuse of dominance—first in search, then in advertising. Meta won in the initial ruling, but the case continues on appeal.
These suits have also exposed the limits of our laws, as judges twice declined to dismantle Google. Yet the key point is that Americans are reconnecting with the founding antitrust principles of their tradition, reviving democracy, safeguarding individual freedom, and strengthening the Republic. We are learning to mobilize all other regulatory tools at our disposal to achieve equivalent outcomes by different legal avenues. We are living in a moment of extraordinary significance.
The Open Markets Institute, which you founded, warns of the danger posed to public discourse by those who control information flows, platforms, and algorithms able to steer behavior and votes. Could you explain to a European audience how these issues have become politicized?
It is, in many respects, the fundamental threat to the United States, to Europe, and to democracies everywhere.
Since the founding of our republic, we have regulated our means of communication—from the postal service to the telegraph, from the telephone to the press, from radio and television to the early internet. The aim was to prevent anyone from using these channels to manipulate how citizens exchange information and ideas, and to guarantee everyone the freedom to think, speak, and connect with whomever they wish.
No one will rush to Google’s rescue, and no one will take to the streets to defend Amazon, X, or OpenAI.
Barry C. Lynn
But for internet platforms we did not impose the same rules. The result: companies like Google, Meta, or X can significantly influence—sometimes determine—what you read, where you go, and with whom you speak. They also sway the debates you hear, what you buy, and the prices you pay. It’s true in the United States, in Europe, in Brazil, in South Africa, in all democracies.
Ultimately you share Jaron Lanier’s view: “No society can endure if two people who want to communicate can do so only through a channel funded and controlled by a third party that seeks to manipulate them.”
It’s self-evident. Here, power lies with the oligarchs who control these platforms. They use it not only to accumulate more power but also to destabilize our democracies. Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg use these levers to promote the radical right, and at times the radical left. They also undermine the legitimacy of moderates and all those seeking constructive compromises. They polarize public discourse, and thus hinder our ability to regulate them.
For us, that is the number-one problem. If you can no longer control what you read, who you talk to, or with whom you debate, you lose any real capacity to effect change. We have made substantial progress. Now the job must be finished.
To achieve this, you propose widening the fight against monopolies well beyond the tech sector, even to agriculture…
Yes, because farmers and ranchers experience the same dispossession as users of platforms. A handful of suppliers and buyers dictate their prices. This struggle transcends partisan divides. Both Democrats and Republicans fear what these corporations could do to our country, our livelihoods, and our children.
If it is through seeking cross-partisan consensus that a new republican project could take shape in the United States and elsewhere, how can we avoid the gridlock sometimes produced by consensus-building?
Our strength lies in a public opinion that shares the same diagnosis and calls for deep change in one unified voice. The will to challenge monopolies transcends partisan lines. Democrats and Republicans alike fear what these firms could do to our country, our lives, and our children. It’s a tremendous opportunity. We can move forward knowing that Americans will back us, no matter how radical the reforms may be. No one will rush to Google’s rescue, and no one will take to the streets to defend Amazon, X, or OpenAI. A broad majority will back any leader who has the courage to confront these companies—the most powerful in history—so long as they stand up for freedom.
How can we rekindle the transatlantic dialogue around this shared agenda, while an increasing portion of the American establishment ignores Europe, or even scorns it, as the Washington Post editorial board recently showed regarding the Canada–EU rapprochement?
No democracy has ever thrived alone. During our Revolution, French allies who shared our ideals lent us their support. During the Civil War, while their governments wavered, British workers, French liberals, and volunteers from across Europe backed our fight against slavery.
If you no longer control what you read, who you talk to, or whom you debate with, you lose any capacity to change things.
Barry C. Lynn
We later repaid that debt—first in 1917 with Wilson, then with Roosevelt and Truman—believing that defending democracy in Europe also served America. This link between our civil societies remains our best asset, across eras and governments.
France has long stood among the staunchest defenders of liberty and the right of peoples to determine their own destinies. We must now work together, in Europe and the United States, to confront the threat posed by tech giants and by Donald Trump, who aligns himself with them.
That is why we recently organized in Paris, with civil-society groups, regulatory authorities, and scholars, the first conference on the risks to democracy posed by the concentration of economic power.
From the outset of Donald Trump’s presidency, J.D. Vance came to Europe urging the German establishment to lift its “sanitary cordon” around the far right, and European regulators to loosen the reins. In early September, Donald Trump and Elon Musk celebrated the AfD’s victory in Saxony-Anhalt. On the eve of a crucial election year in Europe, doesn’t this American push for regime change risk leaving an enduring mark on the continent?
I don’t think so. I am optimistic. If we keep hope alive and know precisely what we want, we can win this battle for a new liberty—the liberty to lead one’s life, to think for oneself, and to build one’s own communities. And perhaps, in doing so, to make the world a better place.
After more than a decade of struggle, we know far better the weaknesses of our opponents as well as our own strengths. Final victory remains to be achieved, but we have already won many battles. We hold all the tools needed to go the distance.
The same goes for France, for Europe, and for the United States. Despite the level of threat, if democracy’s supporters in Europe as in the United States keep hope and a clear vision of what they want, they will prevail.