Our analysis
At Beyond the Spectacle, we provide analysis that examines the substance behind political theater. Our articles focus on governance patterns, leadership approaches, and their implications for democratic institutions.
Each analysis draws connections between leadership decisions and their broader context, helping readers recognize patterns that often go unnoticed in daily coverage. Browse our latest examinations below, or use the filters to explore specific governance areas.
-
Beyond Politics: The Machine-Centered Civilization Emerging Before Our Eyes
Current political disruptions signal a profound civilizational shift toward machine-centered governance. Beyond the Spectacle examines how AI and algorithmic systems are reshaping democratic institutions and human society.
-
North American Power Dynamics: Carney’s Ascension and the Challenge to Economic Nationalism
An evidence-based analysis of how Mark Carney’s emergence as Canadian Prime Minister creates a substantive challenge to economic nationalism, examining market volatility indicators, Republican Party dissension, and the systemic implications for North American economic relations.
-
Designing Democracy’s Next Phase: Practical Strategies for Navigating America’s Systemic Transition
A forward-looking guide offering multi-level strategies for individuals, communities, and institutions to positively shape America’s current democratic transition, drawing on historical patterns and systems thinking to provide practical approaches for democratic renewal.
-
Accelerated Disruption: The Historical Context of America’s Current Democratic Challenge
A historical analysis placing America’s current democratic challenges within a broader pattern of creative destruction, examining how today’s unprecedented technological capabilities and accelerated pace of change create unique risks and opportunities.
-
The Silicon Valley Playbook Goes to Washington: Democracy at the Crossroads
An in-depth analysis of how Silicon Valley’s disruptive business methodologies are being applied to federal governance, threatening the institutional foundations that have historically supported American innovation and democracy.
-
Global Perspectives: How the World Sees American Democracy
International democracy indices reveal concerning trends in perceptions of American governance. Beyond the Spectacle examines how global allies and adversaries are responding to shifts in U.S. democratic stability.
-
The Cabinet of Loyalists: A Framework for Analyzing Future Trump Appointments
Examining how potential Trump cabinet appointments could prioritize personal loyalty over traditional qualifications, and what this might reveal about governance priorities and the machine-centered civilization framework.
-
The Weaponization of Tariffs
Trump’s tariff threats against allies reveal a pattern of using economic disruption as political leverage. Beyond the Spectacle examines the market volatility, consumer costs, and global stability risks of weaponizing tariffs.
-
Beyond the Spectacle
In this inaugural conversation for Beyond the Spectacle, editors Morgan Treadwell and Taylor Veritatis discuss the patterns emerging in Trump’s second administration, particularly focusing on how character traits manifest in governance decisions. Their discussion examines the recent Trump-Zelenskyy meeting and its broader implications for American democracy and international standing.
-
The Circus of Democracy
The American experiment in self-governance was never meant to be a circus. Yet increasingly, that’s what it resembles—a three-ring spectacle where constitutional norms are treated as optional, expertise is subordinated to loyalty, and the audience watches in stunned disbelief as one institutional guardrail after another gives way.