American Democracy is not a self-organising system. It is not the case that local interaction drives Democratic processes. On the contrary, there is a top-down hierarchy featuring a massive Judiciary and Law enforcement machinery which ensures that Elections are held to timetable handed down from on high.

Network theory only has salience if there is no top-down hierarchical command structure. Trump is not a 'superhub'. He is the President of the United States with certain well defined powers subject to Judicial review and Legislative oversight. He is not the 'most well-connected 'node' located in the centre of the system. He has the power to change networks, subject to the aforementioned constraints. He is like a 'system administrator'.

Trump is himself a 'circuit breaker' of a certain sort. Does the author not understand that the President can issue Executive Orders and refuse to sign Bills put forward by the Legislature?



The most effective way to destroy a complex system is to destroy its units. 'Manufacturing chaos', for a self-organising system means having a mechanism to generate random outcomes- this is a good thing because it is required to climb a fitness landscape. Economists studying perfect, unregulated markets, have realised that noise is necessary to drive the system. However, regulation can do the job just as well. Indeed, this is the other side of the Myerson General Feasibility Theorem.

The author says 'in situations of absolute uncertainty, it is advisable to assume the worst'. This is untrue. No Decision theorist has ever said anything so foolish. Knightian Uncertainty is a feature of the real world. Hannan Consistent Regret Minimization is the correct response. It does not 'assume the worst'. To do so is not Muth Rational. Indeed, 'assuming the worst' is condemned by all theories of Rationality and can't give rise to Nash equilibria.

There are no indicators at all of a 'potential hostile takeover' of liberal democracy by Trump and his cohorts any more than there was any evidence that Obama was born in Africa, raised as a Muslim, was linked to Communists, and had a plan to introduce 'Death Panels' under the guise of Affordable Care.



In 2014, Bannon condemned Julius Evola and other anti-capitalist, racialist, 'thinkers'. Trump is a political outsider. He has never held any sort of Public office. He is an elderly man who blurts out truly shocking nonsense. However, he has been elected because people believe that Washington Politics is hopelessly corrupt and self-serving. Why? Well, it's a big theme in American TV drama as is the notion that Mexican gangsters have already taken power in border counties and that they operate with savage impunity.

Trump has no choice but to abide by the Constitution. It is absurd to suggest otherwise. In the Milligan Case, during the Civil War, the Supreme Court established that it remained the ultimate arbiter of what can and can't be done under 'martial law'.

The author believes that 'the judicial system’s design assumes that everyone will operate within it'. The author is utterly wrong. The American Constitution, ab ovo, was built on the assumption that everyone will seek to subvert it.



It appears that every paragraph of this article contains egregious errors similar to those listed above. Is this article meant as satire?



