Similarly to the U.S., European countries are also democracies and it is a fact of life for us that administrations and leadership change. Today it’s the U.S. that’s not a reliable partner, yesterday it was Poland or someone else. Authoritarian regimes like to criticize this as unstable, but it’s worth noting that this surface level lack of stability also means frequent recalibration and stress testing. In consequence there is a deeper stability and fitness.
The point of a democracy is to also have guardrails by splitting up executive, legislative and judicial powers - the U.S. is still not a dictatorship. European leaders know this, and professional politicians know that you can go hot and cold very fast. Today there is drama - tomorrow might rapidly turn over and flip.
And to get even more practical, “stability” is a comfort word rather than proof of a local optimum. We are not surprised when a dictatorship subdues an uprising because we are not surprised there was an uprising.
The point of a democracy is to also have guardrails by splitting up executive, legislative and judicial powers - the U.S. is still not a dictatorship. European leaders know this, and professional politicians know that you can go hot and cold very fast. Today there is drama - tomorrow might rapidly turn over and flip.