When Governance Becomes Political Hostage Taking (🇺🇸 US-UK🇬🇧 Edition)

What happens when governing itself becomes a bargaining chip?In this episode of Civics Unhinged, I examine a revealing moment from a recent meeting between Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers—one that illustrates a broader shift in how power is exercised in Washington.Rather than treating legislation as a means of addressing public problems, the meeting suggested something different: using economic policy as leverage for political priorities involving voting rules and cultural disputes. The setting of the meeting—Trump’s private Florida resort rather than the institutional spaces of government—only sharpened the symbolism.The episode explores what this moment reveals about a governing style increasingly organized around political messaging, loyalty signals, and strategic leverage rather than institutional deliberation.Republics can survive disagreement. They cannot easily survive a system in which governing itself becomes a tool of political negotiation.— DunneaginCivics Unhinged Get full access to ~ Civics Unhinged: Dispatches From Trumpistan ~ at dunneagin.substack.com/subscribe