US politics

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Partisan Thoughts

At the moment it is common to see the partisan state of its politics as a major problem for American democracy. A picture is painted of the Republican and the Democratic parties retreating behind increasingly high walls of partisan prejudice. Dialogue and debate being replaced with name calling and assertion. Both sides having blind faith in a revealed truth, impervious to criticism and reinforced in echo chambers of the like minded. In consequence there is a popular dismissal of of all political debate and a pervasive cynicism where the views of all politicians are dismissed as self serving bunkum.

Whilst there certainly is a more aggressive debate in America, and a very clear divide between the two major parties, a universal condemnation of partisanship is misplaced. It leads to an exasperated response of, “a plague on both your houses”. At the extreme a view that there is no such thing as truth, or no such thing as truth other than what my side thinks. This is dangerous.

This needs to be resisted. In the current political debates within the United States there is no comparison between the position on fundamental issues between the Republicans and the Democrats. One is just more right than the other, by a lot.

No one has a monopoly on truth. However, that does not mean truth does not exist. Real distinctions can be made between right and wrong when the wrong in question is egregious. Similarly, between science and fanciful, self serving propaganda. If we reject this then we are allowing a world where “alternative facts” are real. Where debate is pointless as there is no way to arbitrate between what is personal preference and what is true.

It is not partisan to believe there are scientific truths that exist independent of my beliefs. Partly because there are people who devote their lives to something called the experimental method which in area after area has demonstrated the truth and effectiveness of this fundamental belief.

It is not partisan to believe climate change is real. Nor that man, through CO2e emissions, is affecting it. To believe thousands of scientists across the globe, in dozens of different disciplines all providing evidence pointing in one direction are part of a massive conspiracy is not partisan, it is stupid.

To believe that Covid-19 is a non-partisan killer because medical experts and epidemiologists say so, … oh, and also because there are a lot of dead people, is not partisan. It is common sense supported by science and should not compared in any way with the views of those who believe they will not catch the virus because they are immunised by the blood of Christ. 

The first priority of a national leader is to protect their citizens. There are a host of ways in which this can be done. Suggesting it might make sense to ingest disinfectant is not one of them. That is not partisan thinking outside the box, it is not thinking. It betrays a lack of common sense, never mind scientific awareness, of breathtaking proportions.

Trump did not create the current pernicious divides in US politics. In truth they have been decades in the making. He is however their apotheosis. When you start down a road where you denigrate science in the interests of carbon extractive interests; where you try to tip the scales of justice in your favour by gaming the appointments system of justices; where you undermine the role of the state as a part of the problem not the solution; where you denigrate public service; where you use the law to persecute your opponents; where you blame foreigners for the problems besetting more and more of your fellow citizens, eventually you end up with a disaster like Trump.

This is not the unfortunate outcome of a mutually destructive partisanship. It is a result of a conscious process funded by an ultra wealthy elite. An elite which is growing in confidence as to what it can get away with. One which avoids, an already regressive taxation system, and prioritises economic growth over peoples lives, without compunction.

We laugh too much at President Trump. His outrageous stupidity is his best defence. Challenging and opposing him is not partisan politics it is a life and death struggle for the future of American democracy. At the moment the Republican party in the US is just wrong and the States are paying an awful price for this.

Being a partisan is about being a strong supporter of a party or cause. It is not about surrendering your capacity for critical thought. The Democrats are partisan however when you compare what they are attempting to do on a whole range of issues their partisan proposals make sense. They are in no way equivalent to what the Republicans are defending if not supporting. The Republicans are wrong not because they are partisans. They are wrong because they are wrong.

 

 

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Foreign to Policy

As in everything he does President Trump brings to foreign policy a unique approach. One unweighed down by precedent, existing alliances, traditional enmities or common sense. I recently referred to a book “On Grand Strategy” written by JL Gaddis. He employs a distinction used by Isiah Berlin to categorise different types of leader. On the one hand there are those who know one big thing on the other those who know many small things. President Trump, again in a category of his own, knows nothing.

His foreign policy triumphs include haranguing NATO allies and threatening to pull out of the post-war bulwark against the Soviet Union and latterly Russia. Around the same time inviting the Russian ambassador into the oval office without US minders (no adults in the room) and sharing intelligence provided to the US by an ally. Keeping your adversaries confused is  the kind of mundane strategy the President eschews in favour of keeping his allies confused.

In the far east he has engaged in a costly and misguided tariff war with China in the belief that the tariffs he imposes will be paid by the Chinese.  He is currently having to bale out the US farming industry damaged by the consequential Chinese response.

His calming influence on the Korean peninsula has provided the pariah leader of the North with a boost to his legitimacy. Worse, the comparison between the ramblings of the dotard and the sharp responses of the rocket man, and their relative diplomatic success, has undermined the credibility of the leader of the free world. It really is only President Trump who could lose a shouting war with the leader of a failed state whose economy is ranked 204th in the world.

Unfortunately for the Middle East this has been an area that has benefited from a significant amount of Trump diplomacy. Red lines have been drawn with missile strikes on Syria following the use of chemical weapons. Unfortunately the Syrians and their Russian allies went around the red lines with the indiscriminate use of Barrel Bombs and traditional munitions to kill civilians and combatants alike in their destruction of ISIS and those within Syria opposed to Assad.

Early on the President, keen to demonstrate his grasp of the dynamics of the region and fresh from dancing with the Saudis, announced that Quatar was promoting terrorism. This is a state which is home to the largest US military base in the region with some 11,000 US military personnel. A place that mistakenly thought it was an ally of the US. To be fair a misapprehension the State Department was also under.

Not content to bring his own distinctive brand of incompetence to the area Trump has secured the services of his son in law, Jared Kushner to deliver the “ultimate deal” resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This seems to be retreating into the long grass following the electoral problems of Benjamin Netanyahu and the “other” problems of Mohammed Bin Salman. These were the two key contacts for an honest broker deal which has shifted the American embassy to Jerusalem and stood by as more land has been taken by Israeli settlers. No doubt the Palestinians are waiting with bated breath for the revelation of the “ultimate deal”.

There is more, much more but the clowning achievement to date must be the tweet following his conversation with President Erdogan of Turkey, another great defender of democracy, giving the green light to an invasion of Syria. An invasion to exterminate the Kurdish fighters who had been fighting the US’s war against ISIS for them in Northern Syria and dying for that cause. How naive to believe that would qualify them as allies.

With his characteristic penchant for inconsistency however, as soon as preparations for invasion were announced President Trump Tweeted that “…if Turkey does anything that I in my great wisdom consider to be off limits I will totally destroy and obliterate the economy of Turkey…” So far his “great wisdom” has not judged indiscriminate shelling and air attacks, the creation of 100k refugees and the escape of ISIS sympathisers in the fog of war as off limits.

To date it seems, President Erdogan, Muhammad Bin Salman, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jin Ping, and most of all Vladimir Putin have run rings around the Wise One. His approach to foreign policy is straight out of the BSD school outlined in Liars Poker by Michael Lewis. Just about as crude and just about as beneficial.

The brilliant theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli did not suffer fools gladly. After reading a paper by a colleague he said “It is not even wrong.” The same criticism applies to Trump and his negotiation of relationships with foreign powers. It is a policy free, strategy free, tactic free, idea free zone. It is so bad that even the supine GOP is struggling to rationalise his actions much less support them.

We know that Trump is not up to the job and we know he doesn’t even understand that. The damage he is doing to the United States of America, politically, socially, economically, internationally just goes from bad to worse and the Republicans must be held to account for their collusion in this  process. We must pray in 2020 both he and they are.

 

 

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The Case for Impeachment

It is a sad but unsurprising comment on the Trump Presidency that in April this year (2017), less than three months into his term of office, an American professor of history, Allen J Lichtman, should think it worthwhile publishing a work entitled “The Case for Impeachment”. The book considers Trump’s behaviour generally and specifically in his first few weeks in office to present the “… foundation for building a case for his impeachment”.

He makes the point that impeachment proceedings are not confined to the actions of a President in office. Politically unlikely, but constitutionally possible is the impeachment of Trump for actions which were committed before he became President. More likely such actions may be considered as evidence of his character and propensity to behave in particular ways as part of an impeachment hearing for things related to his campaign for the Presidency and his time in office.

Professor Lichtman summarises a whole series of areas which he believes provide grounds for action to impeach Trump. A key one is his attitude to the law. He summarises the various laws that Trump has broken over the years: racial discrimination in housing; illegal use of charitable funds; failure to pay taxes; sexual discrimination against female  employees in his casinos; establishing a fraudulent “University” (one which offered no course credits, conferred no degrees, did not grade students and did not submit to outside review); and, perhaps most ironically, the exploitation of undocumented immigrants in the construction of Trump Tower in 1980.

Whilst impeachment may not be instituted because of any of the above transgressions they provide evidence of his attitude towards the law. Details of the above cases betray an attitude which sees it as a tool to gag and intimidate people who oppose him but to be ignored or subverted where it stands in the way of what he wants to do. His modus operandi is to spend his way out of trouble by, for instance, paying $25m to settle the case relating to his bogus university whilst at the same time claiming this as a victory. He has certainly had plenty of practice finessing the law it being reported he has been plaintiff in 1,900 legal actions, defendant in 1,450, and involved in bankruptcy or third-party suits 150 times.

The book catalogues the various and multiple conflicts of interest created by Trump’s ongoing business interests around the world and makes the point that the high level of debt many of his companies rely upon creates real leverage for the holders of that debt if something goes wrong and his businesses cannot repay their loans. The only way to avoid these conflicts and risks would be by selling all his assets, liquidating his debt and putting the proceeds into a blind Trust operated by a third part not reporting to the President. He has refused to do this rather handing over control of his business empire to his two sons!

Trumps propensity to see the truth as whatever serves his purpose is considered. The independent fact-checker PolitiFact reviewed all the presidential candidates at the end of the nomination process and found Trump had more “Pants on Fire” ratings than all twenty-one other candidates… combined! The point is made that lying under oath about his relationship with Ms Lewinsky was a key driver of the impeachment of Bill Clinton. A series of outstanding lawsuits against Trump could result in his having to testify under oath and create a similar risk for him if he failed to tell the truth.

Of course the big issue is the Russia connection and the book provides a summary of the nature of the pro-Trump Russian intervention in the election and the many links Trump has to Russia, and oligarchs close to Putin. It charts the pro-Russia interventions made by the Trump administration and the links going back to the 2013 Miss Universe pageant which Trump took to Moscow. It also mentions the fact that, at the time, Trump had tweeted “Trump Tower Moscow is next.” Since the book was published in April evidence has emerged that Trump Tower Moscow was more than a vague dream. It appears, despite statements to the contrary, that Trump Tower Moscow is a live project. Indeed in 2016 Mr Trump signed a letter of intent about the project.

Given what we know about the actions of Trump since the election the question arises, why has he not been impeached already. The cold reality according to Prof. Lichtman is that the Republican Party has a programme of change they want to see through. It involves, tax reform, de-regulation, eviscerating climate change laws, repeal of the affordable care act, shifting investment towards the military away from social programmes, and generally reducing the role of the state. Whilst it is judged Trump is capable of delivering on this the Republicans will not move against him and their control of the House and Senate means therefore impeachment would not succeed.

Given Trump’s spectacular failure to deliver pretty much anything since he came into office the GOP may well be starting to think about plan B. If they were to impeach Trump then, theoretically, Mike Pence, as Vice President, should take over which may have looked an attractive option at some point. However, this may not be so appealing if there is a risk that the investigations of special counsel Bob Mueller finds that Mr Pence has, in some way, colluded in the Russia connection or, even worse, the cover up of the same.

It is difficult to see how President Trump can survive to the end of his first term. His propensity to dig  when he is in a hole is spectacular. Whilst it is a comment on the times a book could be published 4 months into his Presidency making the case for impeachment it is even more instructive that 6 months later the book looks significantly out of date as to the weight of evidence mounting and pressure building on this presidency.

There is a sense President Trump has created a new standard for shock. He has set the bar much higher for outrage. However, in the background the prosaic investigations of the Mueller inquiry grind on. The President may find at some point the civilised standards of ordinary people reassert themselves and that no one is above the rule of law. If he does not – God help America.

The Case For Impeachment. A J Lichtman. Harper Colllins 2017

 

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That Fight is Ours Too…

Politics in the United States is not the obvious place to look for inspiration at the moment however Senator Elizabeth Warren’s book “This Fight is Our Fight: The Battle to Save Working People” is like a shaft of light in  a dark cave. Ms Warren is the senior US senator for Massachusetts and a Democrat. Her book provides an analysis of how the US has been transformed over the past four decades from a nation characterised by a stable and growing middle class optimistic about its future to a society riven with insecurity and fear.

She is a genuine patriot, particularly proud of the amazing growth of the middle class in the states following the Great Depression driven by FD Roosevelt’s government which took on the multi-millionaires of the time. Promoting trade unions, breaking monopolistic practices, regulating competition, investing in education for all and creating a nascent welfare state.

Warren BookAll of this meant that over the period from 1935 to 1980 some 70% of all the income growth went to the bottom 90% of the population and 30% went to the top 10%. It meant that an enormous middle class was created whose experience was of steady employment, with good pensions to look forward to and a faith their children would be able to build on the foundations they had laid and gain a better future through education and their own efforts.

Do not think Ms Warren looks back through rose tinted spectacles however, at “the good old days”. Her personal experience as a child of how precarious existence could be when her father had a heart attack and could not work prevents that. When her mother became the only breadwinner in the house and got a minimum wage job at Sears things were tight, however, in the mid 1960’s, that one minimum wage kept a family of three afloat paying the mortgage and keeping food on the table.

It is not that everything back then was perfect, it was just that there was a sense the arc of history was bending in the right direction. Since then however the arc of history has been pushed in a different direction. Whilst the cost of living has increased significantly the value of the minimum wage has plummeted in real terms and the idea that a single minimum wage, could keep a family of three afloat is laughable. The current Federal minimum being $7.25 although in many states higher rates are paid up to $15 (£9) per hour. Worse, median wages have stagnated so that over a thirty year period working Americans have seen virtually no real increase in their pay. Why is this?

One of the reasons is that in the period since 1980 to 2015 the income growth of the country mentioned above got shared out differently. The amount received by the bottom 90% was a large round number – zero. And for those who struggle with maths this means the top 10% have taken 100% of the growth. How could that happen?

Well not by accident. Back in those crazy communist days of the 1960’s the 10% started to become discontent with the mere 30% of the wealth they received. This discontent was channelled in 1971 by a confidential memo written by a corporate lawyer named Lewis Powell which was essentially a call to the rich to transform themselves in to the rich and powerful.

To do this they were encouraged to invest their wealth in gaining control of the political agenda. Whilst this included funding supportive politicians in increasingly costly election campaigns it was more insidiously about capturing the realm of ideas. To do this they should fund research, think tanks, media shows, anything which promoted their ideas. Ideas which could be boiled down to low taxes for the rich and an ever reduced role for the state in the provision of services, regulation and, worst of all, transfer payments.

Ms Warren draws on her own experience and that of a number of individuals to illustrate what that process has done to people and their life chances. She talks about Gina, the woman whose family income has halved over the past 20 years from $70k to $35k. “No crisis. No Accident. No tale of woe. Juts the grinding wear and tear of an economy that doesn’t work for families like Gina’s”

She talks about Kai a young woman who worked hard through school and wanted to work in design. She paid to go to a private University but after the first year could not afford the fees so decided to return to her home state and complete her degree there only to find the credits from the Private University were not recognised so had to repeat a year. The upshot is she now has $90k of the $1.4 trillion US student loan debt and is repaying it out of her job as a waitress.

Finally, Michael who worked hard at his job at DHL for 16 years securing a house with  a mortgage and what he though was a solid middle class life ahead. Then 2008, DHL eliminated 14,900 jobs including Michael’s. He then got a call asking if he wanted his old job back. Not his full time job with benefits though, a part time job with no guaranteed hours and no benefits. He had to take on two jobs but even then he could not pay the penalous mortgage he had been mis-sold so lost his home.

Even then he did not give up but just kept on eking out jobs here and there until he got work in a Nabisco factory putting the cream in Oreos. Just when he thought he was getting back on his feet the factory was closed and production relocated to Mexico.

The real life stories of individuals trying to live up to the myth that hard work is all that is needed to secure a reasonable living are heartbreaking. They translate debates about trade deals, de-regulation and labour rights into a increasingly depressing reality for millions of American. As “the economy” and Wall Street does well and the stock market booms the 90% get left further and further behind.

Ms Warren is under no illusion about the implications for working people of a Trump presidency backed by a Republican Congress. However she draws strength from the millions of Americans who want to stand up against bigotry, for a fairer economy and most of all for Democracy. Her battle for Democracy has implications far beyond the States. Democracy there has been infected most by the “greenback virus” but it is happening in many other places including the UK where election expense rules are starting to be challenged by being ignored. We have a common interest in Ms Warrens fight.

If this book is a kite being flown to test support for a 2020 campaign run it gets my vote. Ms Warren comes across as intelligent, incisive, authentic but most of all humane. If voters want a choice of opposites in the 2020 election she would provide it.

 

Elizabeth Warren. This Fight is Our Fight: The Battle to Save Working People. Harper Collins. 2017.