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Hello. and we hope you take us up on it. Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics,

power and prejudices. This year, 2024, is an election year in America, a presidential election year.

And so we will be doing two podcasts a week, rather than our usual one, because we want to,

and because we know you can't get enough Americano in your life.

I am delighted to be joined today by Curtis Yavin, friend of the show. I think I can say, can I claim that?

You can claim that. You can claim that. We've drunk together. We've drunk the Polarge. I think that that's a kind of initiation, a kind of baptism, a kind of mafia moment.

Exactly. So now I can say you're a friend of the show.

Friends of the show, Curtis Yavin.

And what are we going to talk about?

I think we're going to talk about the imperial presidency.

Ah, the imperial presidency.

Indeed.

And you've been talking about it a lot recently.

I prefer the term constitutional presidency.

It's not imperial, is it? No, no, no. It's in the highest,

it's in the highest principles of the Constitution. Well, let's start with that. So you want Joe Biden to be elected because, and I don't think this is just fishing for controversy, because you

fundamentally believe that the presidency should, as much as it can, ape a monarchy. Is that

right? Well, the presidency was really devised in the 1780s as a sort of monarchy.

...