Where We've Landed

Lord Sumption, the Saudi nuclear deal, and the terrifying reality of what happens after the guardrails are gone.

Earlier this week, I was reacting with outrage bordering on hostility to something that came and went on our screens — just another entry in a week of outrageous conduct from this president. No, I don’t mean him calling LeBron James a racist, although that was bad enough. I mean the deal to help Saudi Arabia build a nuclear program — with a real door left open to enriching its own uranium.

A nation with a terrible human rights record at best, a nation that put an American journalist through a bone saw, a country that’s been at the center of Middle East tensions for as long as I can remember.

There’s no shortage of frames I’ve already built for moments like this — the Houses argument, the tempo of change, the architectural shift. I’ve written all three at length, and I could have reached for any of them here.

But I was stuck.

For thirty years I believed political decisions were strategic — legible, if you knew the language. That’s why I keep looking for something else. The language isn’t working anymore.

Then I came across a piece titled “The American disaster: Can British Democracy Avoid the Same Fate?” Once again from the UK, written by a former UK Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption.

Worth noting: he is a conservative. Or at least something in that vicinity.

In fact, he was named the “47th most influential right-wing figure”in British politics. I read more about Lord Sumption, and actually I wouldn’t consider him “right wing” but still, he is not of the resistance. Not even close.

(Side note: He retired from the British Supreme Court in 2018 when he reached their mandatory retirement age of 70. Imagine that: a high court with built-in offramps. Biden proposed 18-year terms and ethics reform back in ‘24, but in our system, fixing the court requires a two-thirds consensus that no longer exists. But let’s save that for another day.)

What Sumption wrote about our current moment in American democracy answered something I’d been circling. It’s better than anything I could have written myself because it comes from a different vantage point entirely.

It’s paywalled so I’m sharing just a few of his insights, along with my notes, but if you can sign up and read in full, do it.

Note: if you are looking for simple solutions or calming insights, this ain’t it.

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Thoughts from a British Lord

Insight can come from some unexpected places. Here is conservative jurist Lord Jonathan Sumption, without the wig.

All democratic constitutions... are vulnerable to the collapse of the basic cultural norms on which democracies depend. When this happens, the formal institutional framework usually survives. There are elections, legislatures, courts and so on in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. But the rule of law and substance of democratic accountability have gone, replaced by a brutal autocratic reality.

Sumption notes that despite this kind of collapse “the formal institutional framework usually survives.” That is the part that trips up every cable news pundit and Democratic strategist. Modern autocracy doesn’t bother demolishing the building; it just changes the lock on the front door. We still have a Senate. We still have press briefings. We still have elections. But when a president can trade sensitive nuclear capabilities to a foreign regime on a unilateral whim, the shell of the republic is just that.

Trump exhibits the three classic symptoms of the totalitarian mind: a personal cult around a charismatic leader; the total identification of the state with himself; and a refusal to accept the legitimacy of any opposition or dissent... He has also conformed to the pattern observable throughout history — that sooner or later the authoritarian rulers of powerful states become international predators.

Look at how this played out in today’s New York Times exposing the money trail behind this deal. While non-proliferation experts were wringing their hands over uranium centrifuges in the desert, the Times reporters followed the money. The Trump boys holding stakes in nuclear fuel suppliers. The family media venture merging with energy startups. Cabinet secretaries and mega-donors positioned right along the supply chain.

Sumption calls them “international predators.” Here on Substack, I call them the Houses. It turns out we’re describing the exact same thing. This isn’t foreign policy or regional balance-of-power strategy. It’s a family deal wrapped in the Seal of the President of the United States.

A liberal democracy can only survive if these differences are transcended by our common acceptance of the legitimacy of the decision-making process, even when we disagree with the outcome... You have to care more about ensuring that the decision-making process works, than about 'winning' on any particular issue.

This quote is a tough pill, especially for those of us who spent thirty years believing the process was sacred. For decades, the Democratic Party’s core belief has been that if you follow the rules, write the white paper, and respect the committee hearing, the arc of the moral universe will bend toward a floor vote.

Sumption gently points out that caring about “the process” only works when both teams are playing the same sport. One side is playing chess under Marquis of Queensberry rules; the other side just bought the chessboard, rebranded it, and put it up as collateral for a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth loan.

Of course, if you are the Democratic Party, you can spend the week debating whether South Carolina, Nevada, or New Hampshire should host the first primary in 2028.

And finally, this last note from Sumption. This one hurts:

It is easy to say, as we observe these things, that the current constitutional problems of the United States are all down to the megalomania of one individual. But that is to underestimate the gravity of the situation. The real problem is that this unlikely figure represents something very attractive for many Americans.

The people who want to confer supreme executive power on someone like Trump will still be around in future presidential elections. The critical question, therefore, is not why Trump behaves as he does, but why so many Americans applaud him.

How do you argue with that?

If some people are applauding the destruction of the norms, it’s because the norms stopped delivering anything worth defending a long time ago. You can’t white-paper your way out of a broken contract. You have to name who broke it.

Tell me where I’m wrong (or Lord Sumption is wrong) in the comments.

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