Power & Institutions

In a recent post, I looked at how differently modern presidents approach conflict. For most presidents, the law is something the state uses. Agencies investigate. Regulators act. The Department of Justice files suit. Conflict moves through institutions, slowly and impersonally, buffered by process and precedent. The president may set priorities,…

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/trump-obama-post-white-house.html I have spent most of my professional life working across borders—geographic, cultural, institutional, and ideological. Aviation, by its very nature, demands this. Airplanes do not care about politics. Physics is stubbornly bipartisan. And progress, when it happens, almost always comes from collaboration among people who do not think…

Donald Trump is clearly a different kind of president than Biden, Obama, Bush, or Clinton. For them, conflict tends to be institutional. Disputes move through agencies, regulators, and courts in the name of the public. The president may set priorities, but the litigation itself is impersonal—buffered by process, precedent, and…

A question that hit closer to home than intended. I received an email recently with the subject line: “Who is running the world?”It contained a list of prominent companies and political offices led by people of Indian origin, followed by the implied conclusion that “Indians” are now somehow in control…