US Election

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Bad and Badder, Dumb and Dumber

The Conservative leadership process has whittled the runners down to two. This may be as a result of an incompetent attempt to game the process or it may be the will of the Party but the two candidates are vying with each other to appear farthest to the right. The continuous drift in that direction over the past decade has resulted in a number of bizarre decisions. With “One Person Toryism” exemplified by Boris Johnson removing the whip from such giants of “One Nation Conservatism” as Michael Heseltine and perhaps culminating in the appointment of Liz Truss as Prime Minister. Someone whose blind ideological fervour was only excelled by her gross incompetence and lack of personal insight.

At one time this drift to the right would be seen as a strategic mistake. The orthodox view being that there were bedrocks of political support on the right and the left and in order to win, parties had to extend their appeal as far as possible in the direction or their opponents to secure the floating voters who would determine the outcome of the election. This had a moderating effect preventing parties drifting too far away from the centre ground.

It may be argued that this balancing process reasserted itself at the last election. However other “theories” are available to explain this landslide shift. The “pendulum theory” which suggests the electorate just feel its time to give the other side a go. A theory based on young children’s universal appeal to fairness when they have not “had a turn” on the bouncy castle yet. Another is that a party which has been in government for a long time has “run out of steam”. They are “exhausted” and unable to come up with new ideas to address the evolving challenges they face. Again it relies on an analysis which simplifies and anthropomorphises a complex social/political reality.

My own guess is the main driver of the last election was, above all, the complete lack of credibility of the Tories, informed by their spectacular incompetence in managing, public services, the economy, a global pandemic, the national finances, in fact, pretty much anything they turned their inattention to.

Supporters of the Labour party may rejoice at the options being put forward for the Conservative Party leadership. They may feel the option of bad or badder for their opponents is a positive thing as both candidates seem set to push the party further away from the “centre” where elections are supposed to be won.

This view may be too optimistic. If we look across the Atlantic we have in the Republican Party a situation which could be characterised as dumb and dumber but none the less may have a winning strategy. A strategy based on moving the bedrock.

Donald Trump is certainly not the sharpest knife in the draw. His record demonstrates he does not have the moral insight, the intellectual capacity nor the personal interest to address the fundamental problems facing the United States at the moment. His shortcomings are well documented and largely come out of his own mouth.

He does have one real strength however. He has, inadvertently, acted as a lightening rod for the broad discontent which has been building across America for at least the last two decades, but with roots going much further back. The growing awareness that the age of the American Dream has passed and the sense that history might be moving East has created a level of uncertainty about the future which has not existed previously for many Americans. Whilst the Dream may never have existed as promoted, there was a long period of sustained and significant growth in the US which meant it was normal for parents to expect their offspring to be better off than they were.

The tectonic plates of growing inequality, a concentration of economic power and willingness to use this to exercise political influence/control, ignored by both Republicans and Democrats, began to reveal themselves in tensions and fissures in the body politic. This process exploded into sharp relief in the earth shivering event which for short hand was called the credit crunch in 2007/8. The credibility of the political elite was significantly undermined by its response to this crisis created by the purely profit motivated innovations of the banking and wider financial sector. To address the rapidly building catastrophe Main Street was sacrificed to Wall Street. Millions of hard working Americans lost their homes and their life savings whilst the banks were bailed out.

Prolonged austerity, “difficult decisions”, technological change and globalisation seemed to be leaving huge numbers of Americans behind. Low wage, short term jobs replaced the blue collar jobs that had sustained decent lifestyles for millions, their circumstances becoming increasingly challenging and, indeed, desperate if any members of the family fell ill. A widespread feeling they were the victims of processes they did not understand but a strong feeling of unfairness, being ignored and left behind.

Fertile ground for someone to come along with slogan simple solutions. Particularly, ones which focused the blame on foreigners in general and immigrants in particular. This approach has manifest risks both for the United States (indeed their very unity) and the wider world given the pivotal role the nation plays in global economics and diplomacy.

To blame the current problems of the United States just on Donald Trump, even accepting the wide range of personal failings he suffers from, is unfair. The leadership of the conservative right in the US has to accept a substantial proportion of the blame. They have remained dumb when some of their number have turned their back on bipartisan politics and the conventions which resulted and sustained that approach. The refusal of a Republican Senate to confirm appointments to the Supreme Court of the sitting president was a particularly egregious example of this, which happened before Trump was elected.

When you start down this road you are faced with having to rationalise and make sense of statements and policy proposals which are incomprehensible, inconsistent or even contradictory. A lot of very clever people have to race around trying to minimise the damage being done. Ultimately you end up having to support a convicted felon as your candidate for the White House.

Remaining dumb in the face of a clearly unqualified candidates ramblings, or “weavings”, results in a spiral into a realm of dumber and dumber actions which may have existential implications not just for the United States and not just for countries around the world but indeed for the future of the planet.

The party political system has many functions. One of its key functions in the past has been to train and develop political leaders. And, perhaps more importantly to winnow out those who are simply incapable of doing what is a very difficult task. On both sides of the Atlantic the parties of the right have failed in this critical function. Their desire for power has overwhelmed all other considerations. Leaders and political policies have become judged first and foremost on whether they will secure power not whether they will contribute to the welfare or wellbeing of their citizens.

Such a value free environment is set I fear to end badly. Conservatives who should and probably do know better need to stand up and be counted. Easier to propose than to do. Liz Cheney, a person of impeccable right-wing conservative credentials took a very public and brave stance against Trump and paid the price as her party turned against her and ousted her. Indeed there are many Republicans who have made a stand but the Republican party machine is so much in awe of Trump’s ability to shift a bedrock of voters that they continue to boost his credibility by backing him.

Going back to the theory about how the floating voters in the centre of politics are a reassuring stabiliser against extremist positions. This mechanism breaks down if the bedrocks of political support move and the centre ground is shifted to the right or indeed the left. What The Republicans have done in the US has been to shift the centre to the right. This process has been going on for many years however it became supercharged when Donald Trump came to dominate the political landscape. His character, or lack of it, has raised the stakes significantly. His challenge to the rule of law, constitutional conventions, the very notion of rational argument and, indeed, any view of the world other than his own has changed the very nature of politics.

This same process of the centre right being undermined from the far right is evident in the the United Kingdom but has not had a character as egregious as Trump to supercharge it. However problematic they are bad and badder do not constitute the same level of threat to democracy as the dumb and dumber issue that the States face… yet.

It may seem odd for someone on the left to be concerned about the health of the right. However, democracies have to be based on compromise. There needs to be a broad degree of agreement of what is acceptable and what the aims of government, in the broadest sense, are. When this breaks down, whatever the longevity or sophistication of its institutions and conventions might be, democracy is at risk. When this is combined with an unstable demagogue much worse may happen. If Donald Trump is elected in November the Republican Party will have to take responsibility for what follows. They may regret this for a very long time.

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Losing the Transition

Comparing Napoleon the First and Louis Bonaparte Marx wrote, “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historic facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” Donald Trump, for whom uniquely an ad hominem attack is virtually always justified, manages to combine both simultaneously.

Having lost the credibility of a substantial proportion of the population and consequently the election he is now set on losing the transition. It is clear public opinion, including amongst Republican supporters, has been moving away from President Trump as his increasingly strident but increasingly discredited rhetoric about election fraud has continued.

His latest, and, to date, most egregious actions inciting a rally of his supporters to “walk to the Congress” and “fight” produced an event which combined farce and tragedy in equal parts. Whilst his actions may not meet a statutory definition of sedition they certainly pass the common sense and everyday meaning of the word – “the use of words or actions that are intended to encourage people to oppose a government” (OED).

However, this call to insurrection betrayed all the hallmarks of the Trump presidency. Born out of wishful thinking with no consideration of the realities of the situation. A complete absence of concern for the consequences on his colleagues, the legislature, the government of the United States and its standing in the world. But most cynically of all, the consequences for his supporters.

The invasion of the building did not approach the political sophistication of a student sit-in. Shockingly, the security which faced the invaders appears to have been of a similar vintage. Sheer weight of numbers more than sufficient to secure entry.

The ubiquitous still and moving images of the event create an unforgettable and rich evidential source for future prosecutions. One has to think the political commitment to “no masks” by the organisers might not have been as thoroughly thought through as it could have been.

What came across was a front line of individuals, mainly men in outlandish costumes with racist and anti-semitic slogans printed on their t-shirts and bodies. These, on the ground “leaders”, were followed by rag tag flock of “sheep” consisting of what looked like a lot of middle-aged and elderly moms and pops. These, cannon fodder were closely “supported”, from three miles away, by the Trump family General Staff sitting in the White House bravely engaged in watching the battle on tv.

Tragically, the aggressive front line reinforced by the unthinking weight of support from the rear led to events like the crushing of riot police in doors and the totally unanticipated “success” of accessing the House and the Senate. Of course it is one thing to threaten and even to succeed in occupying the concourse of a university building. It is another altogether to prevent the legislative arm of government doing its constitutional duty of counting the votes in a presidential election.

In form this was an insurrectionist act. However, from the start it lacked credible content. Having successfully breached the security of the building they had no idea what to do next other than steal a lectern and leave adolescent notes on the desk of the leader of the House of Representatives.

The events of 6 January are truly shocking, and become more so as further video evidence emerges showing the aggressive violence of some of the insurgents. Whether it was incompetence, conspiracy, or mature restraint the death toll could have been much greater if the defenders had committed early to the use of deadly force.

The question of how different it might have been if this had been a Black Lives Matter invasion has been raised by many. Whatever may have happened in those circumstances it is worth remembering what did happen to a Vietnam War protest in 1970 at Kent State University where 4 students were shot dead and nine others wounded by the National Guard. The stain of the actions of the insurgents may be indelible but it could have been a great deal bloodier.

Beyond this however one has got to ask the question; five lives lost, for what?

Neither General Trump, nor his misguided militia had any sensible, much less credible, plan of action. This was not a coup it was a mindless stamping of feet. Like so much of his thinking his notion of a coup rests on the firm theoretical foundations of what he sees on tv. He wants to remain President so he thinks all he has to do is issue an instruction. “Make it so Number One.” Republican Senators, those responsible for the election count, his Vice President and his sadly misguided supporters all told to “Make it so”.

As President he had the power to shape much of the external world to fit his internal picture, and where he could not, eg. when Covid-19 ignored presidential edicts, he frightened those around him into agreeing it looked the way he said it did. As his power and influence ebbs away the pressure of reality is starting to push in upon him, and it hurts.

There is no doubt that he will continue to lash out. His irresponsible thrashing may well cause significant damage and may even, unforgivably, cause further deaths. He will not achieve his goal however, indeed, every outrage, every irrational outburst is reducing his credibility and isolating him.

He is of course the most powerful man on earth until noon on 20 January. I for one will not breathe easy until that moment comes. I draw some comfort from the fact some of his most loyal supporters show signs of growing up. It is, however, long past time they started to become the adults in the room.

President Trump lost the election and he is now losing the transition. His erstwhile loyal followers need to understand this and move from verbal condemnation to action. In truth they bear a heavy responsibility for what has happened. But Trump is sui generis and nothing should detract from the current priority of preventing him doing further damage to the United States and the world and seeing him out of office.

It is time to bring this tragic farce to an end.

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Republican Risk

President Trump did remarkably well in the election. He got the most votes of any Republican presidential candidate. He inspired the largest turnout since the Civil War. He increased his vote with black and latino voters. He ran an amazingly energetic campaign in the last weeks which was particularly impressive for a man of his age recovering from Corona Virus. Whatever you think of the man these are genuine achievements and the Republican Party should recognise if not celebrate.

However, he lost. He lost the popular vote by some 6m votes, around 4% of the electorate. This loss was magnified via the “quaint”electoral college system to a 14% loss with Joe Biden getting 306 out of the 538 votes available. Interestingly the result in 2016 gave candidate Trump the White House with exactly the same majority of electoral college votes despite candidate Clinton having a 2.8m (2%) majority of the popular vote.

In October 2016 Candidate Trump claimed the up coming election was “absolutely rigged” by the “dishonest media” and “at many polling places”. His attempt to undermine the democratic process did not start when he lost, it started before he won. What is rather different is that in 2016 Mike Pence his running mate made clear he would accept the outcome of the election. Four years on Mike Pence and pretty much the whole of the National Republican Party, its representatives in the legislature and senior members of the executive either passionately or spinelessly supporting baseless and evidenceless claims of electoral fraud. There are a few honourable exceptions.

The toddler tantrum of President Trump is currently doing untold damage to the United States. He is attempting to overturn the result in increasingly desperate and dangerous ways as he flits between bunkers on the golf course and in the White House.

As in 2016 he started early claiming before a vote was cast that the system was rigged and riddled with potential fraud because of postal ballots. A system he uses himself and which has worked in the past without issue.

Once the voting stopped he waited until the votes counted gave him a majority and then attempted to claim the election. When people continued counting the vote he became increasingly agitated and aggressive. Claiming that the election was being stolen.

Once the election results were clear and gave Biden the election the President refused to concede and started legal action to demonstrate that votes for him had been hidden, destroyed, suppressed and that votes for Biden had been counterfeited and multiplied. His followers wound up by all this claimed that in state elections the same ballot papers had secured tremendous wins for seats in the Senate and the House which should stand but cheated the president out of his second term so should not be counted!

Rudy Giulliani explained, on Fox news, in stark terms why the election was stolen and what evidence he was going to take to courts in the swing states to get votes for Biden rejected. His passion was such as to melt his clown paint. In court under oath his mountains of evidence turned into molehills of hearsay which were rebuffed at every turn.

Given that he it looks increasingly clear he cannot change the results of the popular vote the president has turned his attention to the electoral college. He “invited” the Republican members of the Michigan legislature as part of a strategy to secure the votes for the electoral college despite the outcome of the election. In anything like normal circumstances this would not even be considered an option and most feel it is doomed to failure.

However, what president Trump has demonstrated time and again is that when he is supported by the GOP in the legislature and senior cabinet members in the executive he can challenge even the most basic precedents of democratic government and indeed the founding principles of the constitution.

The adults in the room that were so frequently talked about when president Trump entered office, have gone AWOL. Either they are consciously engaged in what has all the hall marks of an attempt at a soft coup or they are so spineless that they cannot face standing up to someone who is actively engaged in undermining the democracy they profess to love.

They fear that because of his popularity a tweet from the president could destroy their career. To be fair they have good reason to do so based on what has happened in the past. However there are things the members of the GOP should now think about.

Firstly, do they have any higher moral purpose than reelection? The good news is there are republican legislators and officers across the country who do and take their oath to protect the constitution seriously.

Secondly, just how powerful will Donald Trump be when he leaves the White House. No one should underestimate the shift in power that will happen when Joe Biden walks into that building.

Finally, how much political credibility is Donald Trump using up as he continues to wage an increasingly desperate war against the US electorate?

The Pew Research Centre has been monitoring elector’s views post election. The bad news is opinions about the election are sharply divided along partisan lines. This is corrosive of trust and is something that Mr Biden needs to address.

However, there are some positives which could be built upon. Firstly there is a clear majority, 59%, of voters who believed either “very” or “somewhat” that the elections were “run and administered well”. Clearly some of these must be republican voters.

When you look at whether voters were confident that “their votes were accurately counted”, again a majority, 59%, were “very” confident and 26% were “somewhat” confident.

Perhaps most interesting is the view voters have of the conduct of the president and president elect since the election. This shows 54% of electors think president Trump’s conduct has been poor since the election and only 13 % think it excellent. This compares with 20% who think Biden’s conduct poor and 38% who think it is excellent.

It looks as though more than those that voted for him think Biden is doing either an excellent or good job whereas far less than those that voted for him think the same of the president.

These results followed a survey conducted between 12 and 17 November. Just as President Trump lost the election through his own efforts he may now lose the transition through his ongoing denigration of American democracy. He may be alienating even those that voted for him by his increasingly outrageous behaviour.

The election process involves hundreds of thousands of Americans in the direct process of polling and counting. Their work is observed by thousands of members of the political parties. The process is overseen by thousands of elected officials. At every level there are probably as many Republicans as Democrats engaged in this mammoth exercise in democracy. These people, many volunteers, will have worked their socks off over the past month. Their reward for administering the most secure election in American history? Claims by their president that they have overseen the most corrupt election ever.

At the same time as the President expends every ounce of energy he does not use on the golf course in running down the work of American patriots the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be very low on his radar. Now 250k people have died. Conservatively assuming that each one of those was known reasonably well by 50 people that means 12.5m Americans now have some direct contact with the disease. Word of mouth will obviously expand this enormously.

The Republican leadership should start to wonder how these experiences are shaping opinion in the States. Yes there are millions who would follow Trump to hell in a hand cart whatever he did. But it is risky to assume that all of the 74m that voted for him will do the same. It may well be that some of them are already experiencing buyers remorse over the expenditure of their vote.

As he tweets and screams about fraud ever more aggressively he may be losing credibility with traditional Republicans that voted for him in an exceptionally partisan election which ironically has lowered the bar for Mr Biden with those Republican and Democrats in the centre ground. If president Biden fails to declare all power to the Soviets on 21 January tens of thousands of Republican voters will heave sigh of relief but start to wonder what other misleading information they were given. If the Republican leadership are not careful their credibility may go the same way as Mr Trump’s. They might just consider the arc of popularity of the ex leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, Nigel Farage.

By supporting Trump the GOP leadership are: fomenting division within the States, making the country increasingly difficult to govern, whoever is in power; reducing the credibility of the US in the eyes of its allies; delighting its opponents and all those who oppose liberal democracy; overseeing the decline of a global superpower. That is before one thinks about the basic failure in governance to protect the nation against harm in the shape of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The GOP leadership face a real choice. Are they for democracy or against? It is as simple as it is profound. Time is against them.

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The Coming Victory of Democracy.

In 1938 Thomas Mann, the Nobel Prize winning novelist, carried out a coast to coast speaking tour of the United States. He started his talk as follows:

“The expression “to carry owls to Athens” is a familiar humanistic expression in Germany. It denotes an act of superfluous effort, the transfer of an article to a place where such things already exist in abundance…

In undertaking to speak on democracy in America, ladies and gentlemen, I feel as if I, too, were carrying owls to Athens. It looks as I were not aware that I am in the classic land of democracy, where the mode of thought and the type of social structure which are characterised by this name are essentially at home and a universally ingrained conviction; where, in short, democracy is an all-pervading matter of course, upon which the Americans need no instruction – least of all from a European.”

How disappointed would he be with the quality of the current leadership of the City on the Hill? The refusal of President Trump to concede is appalling but worse yet is the moral bankruptcy and craven fear of the GOP.

There are many explanations put forward for the failure of leading Republicans to call out the unconstitutional behaviour of the President. Their use of the slippery language of a razer parsing literalist lawyer to pretend that what is happening is perfectly normal when the world cries out against them.

It is said they are frightened of Trump because he may stand for election again in 2024 and wreak his vengeance on those who fail the loyalty test. The are worried he will set up a PAC and use its funds to attack those he sees as traitors. They believe Trump will turn his 70 million voters against them. If anything these are all reasons for action against an incipient tyrant.

At some point it might just be worth their thinking about what is the right thing to do rather than what is in their short term political interest. Further they may not even be right about that interest. They might reflect on the fact that many Republican voters may retain that, “universally ingrained conviction” for democracy which Thomas Mann spoke so passionately about. Whilst they voted for President Trump their belief in him may evaporate if he clearly appears to be trampling on the democracy which they engaged with in such large numbers.

Thomas Mann’s reticence to offer advice from Europe remains valid. The title of his talk however is germane to the current context. Whilst America might need no lessons in democracy, it seems clear their current president and the leadership of the Republican Party could do with a few owls.