Francis Fukuyama, pondering America’s checks and balances:

As a political scientist, I am looking ahead to his presidency with great interest, since it will be a fascinating test of how strong American institutions are. Americans believe deeply in the legitimacy of their constitutional system, in large measure because its checks and balances were designed to provide safeguards against tyranny and the excessive concentration of executive power. But that system in many ways has never been challenged by a leader who sets out to undermine its existing norms and rules. So we are embarked in a great natural experiment that will show whether the United States is a nation of laws or a nation of men.

In the past, Fukuyama has advanced the argument that America is a vetocracy, a system of government gridlocked by countless checks and balances. In light of Trump, he sees this vetocracy as a double-edged sword.