United States

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A House Divided.

In 1858 Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Illinois Republican State Convention, which had just nominated him as their candidate for the position of Senator. The speech was about the issue of slavery and how it was dividing the States of the Union. His key phrase in the speech was that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The divisive issue of the time was slavery. An appalling institution but one which has a very tangible and clear definition.

At the moment the US is a house divided probably as vehemently as it was in 1858. Three years after that speech America was at war with itself.

The dividing line this time is less tangible. It is those that see MAGA as a theory of the world. One which addresses the reduction of well paid, middle class, jobs to the, “others” within, (or immigrants), and the “others” without, (notably China). A host of other economic and social issues are swept up into this portmanteau of grievance.

What it does effectively is point to genuine failures of the US to protect its citizens from the ravages of a financially driven economic system, one which is, wholly and exclusively focused on achieving the maximum rate of return on investments. A system which had concentrated wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and, with that wealth, power. Power, which has been used to defend existing riches and support their increase, partly by diverting resources from public services which historically played such an important role in redistributing wealth.

Simplistic slogans, like smaller government and lower taxes together with a host of socially repressive measures are presented as the way of MAGA.

At the moment the other side of the debate is poorly articulated and weakly promoted. The Democrats are AWOL, providing little incisive critique, nor the volume of justifiable outrage at the actions of the new President. Actions which are contradictory, but shifting, on the diplomatic level; the US from its Atlanticist position to little more than a mouthpiece for Putin; on the economic level, towards trade wars which will damage the US as much as its targets; and on the social level towards a patriarchy opposed to every form of equality which challenges white male supremacy.

Some of these shifts will be difficult for traditional Republicans. The GOP has, however, been cowed by Trump’s electoral success. Power before principle is an ever present risk in democracies. As his actions become increasingly outrageous one can only hope some may start to raise their heads above the parapet. An immensely brave action given the awesome power a US President wields, particularly one with little regard to the Constitution, much less the conventions which have evolved to ensure it remains fit for the operation of a liberal democracy.

It is quite possible that this Presidency will implode at some point. If it does, however, it will only be after millions of people have suffered and died, at home and abroad because of his megalomaniac certainty. If it does then it will likely not be because of the actions of the political elites. Rather, some more popular revolt, as the damage he inflicts on the US becomes apparent to some of those who voted for him because they thought he would bring positive change.

The MAGA brethren, those who have a millenarian faith in the truth and power of their leader will never change. But many ordinary Republicans may come to regret their vote.

Implosion is one option but there is a far darker one. The Nation made clear their concern about the sacking of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General, Charle Brown Jnr, by Trump, and his replacement with a far less qualified loyalist. The headline “Make No Mistake, This Is Trump’s Worse Move Yet”. The reason they felt this was set out in the sub-heading which concluded, “Prepare for autocracy.”

In four years time the US tradition of a peaceful handover of power will be put to its most severe test in its history.

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It’s a Landslide!

Back in June I predicted Joe Biden would win the 2020 presidential election under the contrarian headline “Why Joe Biden will not win the US Election”. My point was President Trump would lose it. However, for a second, I will bask in the glory of calling the outcome correctly so far out.

At the time I berated myself for thinking that the future was my specialist subject and I was correct. As the months went by and the CovEcon-19 leviathan killed people and employment I convinced myself we were in for a “blue wave” election with a Biden landslide.

I was wrong. President Trump actually secured an increase in his popular vote. He was only beaten by a record turnout which favoured Biden by 4m votes or just over 2% of the electorate. It pains me to say it but it is a real achievement for Trump to secure that much of the vote in a democracy.

Much will be made of this incredibly close and highly contested election. It will be called in evidence of the partisan divide. Illustrating how far apart Americans are. And it is true there is an enormous amount of reconciliation to be achieved by a Biden presidency, which will not be easy as some of the issues are not susceptible to a compromise solution.

However, the true winner here was democracy. Whether they supported Biden or Trump the American people, in unprecedented numbers, chose to do so by voting. Yes, there have been dark noises off, not least from the incumbent, but at the end of the day 70m+ Trump supporters thought the way to provide that support was through the ballot box.

It is early days and trumped up legal challenges, poisonous tweets and attempts at transition sabotage may well raise the temperature but 146m Americans have thrown their weight behind a system which provides for a peaceful transfer of power. Neither candidate may have secured a landslide but democracy did.

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President as C E Ohhh!

Many of those that elected President Trump voted for him because he was a business man. They thought if he could run a successful business empire, 4 bankruptcies notwithstanding, he should have transferable skills to run the country efficiently. The case is often made that people successful in business will almost certainly be better at running government than career politicians and it is clear President Trump believes this also.

Whilst there may be superficial similarities and some overlapping skill sets, such as managing people and negotiating there are profound differences which in truth mean the two jobs are not just quantitively different they are qualitatively different as well.

Firstly, there is a level of accountability in government that is far in excess of that of both public and private companies. It is one thing to give a motivational speech at the staff conference to a group of people who’s careers depend in large part on your view of them. It is a wholly different issue to have your every utterance picked over by your peers who have a career interest in demonstrating that what you are doing is wrong.

The relative power and ability to challenge of, on the one hand, staff, customers and shareholders and on the other Congress, pressure groups and the media is immense. In the former case the executive has an information resource which translates into a real power advantage. In the latter it may often be the case that citizens, think tanks and pressure groups are much more informed about an issue than the President. Worse they can demonstrate in public his ignorance.

There is also an important difference in the relationship between means and ends. In most businesses there is a fairly well defined objective in terms of growth and profit. There may be debates about how this is achieved but those debates are largely within a relative well defined area. In politics the ends are often in question and the means so diverse and contested as to reignite challenge as to the nature of the ends.

Another huge difference lies in relation to the transparency of the processes of government and business. Even where there is not out and out secrecy there is much within business which remains behind the corporate veil. Intellectual property law, commercially sensitive data, compromise agreements for staff leaving organisations all provide more (or less) legitimate protections of corporate information. In liberal democratic governments the presumption is of the peoples’ right to know and only in clearly specified areas, such as national security, is there an ability for the state to limit transparency. Even then there is often oversight by independent individuals to ensure policies are not being breached.

Leading a country is about persuasion, consensus building and the ability to compromise. Running a private business you are the principal owner of is unlikely to be a good learning environment for those skills. Indeed it is very unlikely that direct challenge of any kind is going to flourish. From his behaviour in the course of the campaign and his month in office no one is going to describe President Trump’s management style as collegiate.

He clearly cannot tolerate anyone questioning his view of the world. His behaviour in the recent press conference confirmed this. He is hectoring and plain rude when he deals with people who do not simply say “Yes, Mr President”. His style betrays a lack of real confidence. He seems to need approbation and confirmation of his brilliance.

His continued attacks on Hilary Clinton are instructive, they are those of someone who, despite having won the election, is not convinced he has beaten her. At one point in the press conference he felt compelled to state. “I won the election.” Who was he trying to convince? Himself?

It looks very unlikely that President Trump will learn from his mistakes. Difficult when you do not think you have made any. He will plough on as he has started. As time goes by more and more people will say no to Mr Trump, eventually even those within his “team” will start to abandon him. He will become ever more beleaguered. The outcome is unlikely to be good. There is a chance he may resign in a fit of pique and speak to “his people” about how he has been undermined by the Washington establishment.

Alternatively he may start to manufacture reasons for dismantling the bulwarks of liberal democracy. He has already started undermining the legitimacy of the courts, the press and the opposition in Congress. With a divided America the opportunity for authoritarian action should not be underestimated. The idea that “it can’t happen here” was challenged by Sinclair Lewis in the 1930’s when populist right wing parties were growing across Europe. His warning has a new currency which should not be ignored.

Many see President Trump as an outrageous clown, a gift to the satire industry, a reason to open Twitter to see what latest irrational rant he has supplied for our entertainment. This is a mistake. President Trump is a dangerous liability.

He has identified a genuine and difficult problem. The existing political elite of Republicans and Democrats have failed to protect the interests of many millions of ordinary Americans. That issue will remain after President Trump has gone. Once he has gone if the narrative of “elite conspiracy” gets hold there are a lot of very angry and very well armed Americans who’s remaining faith in democratic change might be destroyed. If he does not go he may well become a genuine threat to American democracy.