A secondary observation concerning democracy in general. I'm Norwegian. In my country, unelected bureaucrats have tremendous power.
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The Norwegian democratic system itself is one of the best around. Multipartisan and mostly fair. But a huge amount of power is nondemocratic
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Much power is held by officials who were not elected, but hired.
in Norway, job security is so good they can stay there until they retire.
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Over time, these people develop huge networks. They know laws and regulations better than the elected officials (who are busy with politics)
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As a result, they wield far more power than their job titles would indicate. Often, they define virtually all policy at a practical level.
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The US is in many ways a similar system, although lobbyists - already powerful in Norway - are also vastly more powerful.
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Culturally, this is not widely recognized in the US. It is easy to miss how much power belongs to those appointed rather than elected.
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It's not unreasonable to trace a lot of the US's rampants militarism to outside the executive branch. This will be a problem under Trump.
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