Month: September 2018

As I see it, here are the fundamental premises of liberal democracy:

1. Government is a man-made construct designed to provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people.  The powers that be are not there by divine right, but are subject to change in the interest of the public as a whole.
2.  To the extent that truth can completely be known, it is as the result of freedom of inquiry and discussion, not revelation or conquest.
3.  Human nature being imperfect, it is too dangerous to entrust arbitrary power to any one person or any group of people.
4.  A large group of people is generally wiser, in the long run, than a small group or a single individual.
5.  The interests and feelings of all individuals are of equal value to the state.

As a result, all working liberal democracies have the following features:

1. A depoliticized criminal justice system;
2. All persons are equal under the law;
3. At least some free and independent media;
4. A written or unwritten constitution that is enforceable by the judiciary against the government;
5. Freedom of religion, speech, and association;
6. Fair elections;
7. Universal adult suffrage; and
8. Protection for private property rights.

These features leave open a lot of discretion relative to policy and the precise nature of any particular government’s machinery.  A liberal democracy can have a presidential or a parliamentary system; it may be largely capitalist or socialist; it may result in great or minimal inequality; it may have important anti-democratic elements, or not; and it may provide for some public media, or not.  Theocracy, communism, and fascism, however, cannot be logically reconciled with it.

The merits of liberal democracy are currently being debated to an extent not seen in the recent past.  Its perceived weaknesses will be the topic of tomorrow’s post.

Violent crime is way down in this country from the levels seen in, say, the 1980s.  And yet, the GOP can’t stop talking about it; campaign commercials all over the country are full of it.  Why?

Part of it, of course, is to emphasize the GOP’s status as the swaggering daddy party that kicks the butts of the evil outsiders.  In the absence of a conspicuously successful war against a foreign enemy, that will have to suffice.  But part of it is a reflection of what is on TV.  The local news everywhere I go is dominated by stories about crime, and, of course, so is the entertainment programming.  No wonder people have the inaccurate impression that criminals are running wild in the streets; in the virtual world, they are.

In the end, the Great Recession was attributable to greed and negligence.  Greed, of course, is always with us, and is the engine that drives the capitalist train.  The negligence was on the part of risk managers, ratings agencies, and to some extent, the government and its regulatory agencies.  That part was not inevitable.

The responses by the American and European governments were fundamentally different.  In the US, the response of the Obama administration was based on Keynesian principles, and while you could certainly argue that it was too weak, and that Obama had his FDR in 1937 moment in 2010, the economy recovered fairly quickly, unemployment fell, and the Democrats won in 2012.  The Trump victory in 2016 was accomplished with three million less votes than Clinton, and was due more to the perceived weaknesses of the Democratic candidate and the normal bored dissatisfaction with eight years of Democratic rule than the desire for a counterrevolution.  In Europe, on the other hand, austerity was the order of the day, recovery was halting, and the governments paid the price for it.  Even there, however, the growth of illiberal democracy was more attributable to issues with immigration from the Middle East and Africa than to slow growth.

To put it another way, unemployment was at four percent in the US at the time of the 2016 election.  Do you believe the result of that election would have been different if a few bankers had gone to jail in 2010, or if a faster recovery (with more stimulus) had caused the unemployment rate in 2011 to be a point or two lower?  I don’t think so; people vote based on where they are now, not five years ago.

And so, in response to my question, the bad guys don’t always have to win after a financial crisis; after all, FDR won in 1936, 1940, and 1944.  The success of right-wing populists over the last few years wasn’t primarily due to the Great Recession.  That said, the following things annoyed me then, and still do:

1.  I don’t agree with the critics of Paulsen, Bernanke, and Geithner, who complain that their successful efforts to prevent a collapse on the scale of the Great Depression just led to more inequality.  That’s true, but preventing inequality was not their job; they already had plenty on their plate.  That was up to the Obama administration and Congress.
2. Because greed and negligence were pervasive in the system, it really doesn’t bother me that no bankers went to jail.  What does piss me off, however, is that no one from Wall Street ever expressed any remorse or held himself accountable for what happened to the nation as a whole, and no one showed any gratitude for the bailouts.  Practically the minute the immediate crisis was over, Wall Street was whining about overregulation and a lack of respect and working to undermine the new system even though the market was soaring.  They should have considered themselves lucky under the circumstances that they weren’t nationalized in exchange for the bailouts.
3. A fairly large segment of the American public permitted itself to be persuaded that the real problem in the country was with poor people and illegal immigrants, not the people who actually caused the economic mess.  This, of course, was stoked by GOP propaganda.  As a result, the populist anger of 2010 was, in the longer run, actually turned into a vehicle controlled by the financial institutions who created the problems in the first place for the purpose of dismantling the new regulatory system.  In that sense, the bad guys truly did win, at least until the next crisis, at which time the GOP will have great difficulty swallowing its past rhetoric and supporting any bailouts, and the country as a whole will suffer for it.

Like many other Republicans before him, Donald Trump promised to “run government like a business” when he was elected.  Has he kept his promise?

Not all businesses are created equal.  The Trump Organization is not exactly GM.  As a businessman, Trump shamelessly sought publicity, screwed over his contractors and investors, took extreme positions in negotiations, took pride in his unpredictability and his ability to change positions on a dime, was accountable to no one but himself, and sucked up to Russians with money.

In other words, yes, he is running the government in the same way that he ran his business.  Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it.

Conservatives have complained for decades that the liberal vision of the GOP as a white nationalist party was just a caricature, and that the party was actually run by small government idealists.  A few of them probably actually believed it.  Trump destroyed that comfortable illusion in 2016, and nothing has changed since he took office.  As Dennis Green would say, “They were who we thought they were.”

Can the racist genie be put back in the bottle after Trump leaves the scene?  There are three scenarios for the GOP after he’s gone:

1.  The party continues to be an overtly white nationalist organization;
2.  The party divorces itself completely from white nationalism and becomes the principled small government organization that the Never Trumpers thought it was; or
3.  The party reverts to “dog whistle” tactics, using terms like “political correctness” to send the message to the Reactionaries that the leadership is still really on their side even if it can’t say so in so many words.  Reactionary positions continue to prevail on issues such as immigration and entitlement cuts.

#2 is electoral suicide, as the Reactionaries are the largest faction, by far, within the GOP.  It won’t happen.  #1 probably won’t wear well with time.  The best bet is #3.  Hey, it worked for years before Trump–why wouldn’t it work again?

California Bashing

All my friends are red

And the state is blue.

Mueller’s coming for me.

Don’t know what to do.

Poll numbers are dropping.

Lots of votes are gone.

California bashing.

It’s time to get it on.

 

Went to Mar-a-Lago

Preparing for a fight.

I won’t get down on my knees

‘Cause I know I’m right.

Jerry Brown’s a dickhead

And Hollywood just sucks.

California bashing.

It’s time to change my luck.

 

Parody of “California Dreamin'” by John and Michelle Phillips

If you’re like me, you’ve probably watched film clips of Hitler giving speeches and wondered why the German people responded so strongly to what appears to be an unattractive little man ranting and raving.  Based on a little research and some recent experience, I think I know the answer.

From what I’ve read, Hitler typically started slowly, but then built up to a powerful climax.  There was little that was positive or inspiring about his speeches;  they were dark and sarcastic, and they focused on the dangers created by the country’s many enemies and how they had to be overcome.  His audience had, in the recent past, experienced military defeat, a spell of hyperinflation, and a depression;  he consequently tapped into a reservoir of anger and fear, and he exploited it to the hilt.

If this isn’t ringing any bells in your head, you have to be deaf.

Donald Trump lives in a universe that is completely dominated by himself.  There is nothing else in his bubble that inspires awe, reverence, love, or even fear.  As far as he’s concerned, he might as well be God.

As a result, he lacks any sense of tragedy.  The ancient Greeks had a word for this–hubris.  Nemesis is the inevitable outcome.

Let’s just hope it only comes for him, and not for us.

“Make America Great Again” has been endlessly mocked, imitated, and parodied.  That is proof of its success;  it is the perfect Reactionary slogan.  Why?

Let’s break it down word by word:

1.  “Make”:  It’s up to us;  it’s a question of will.  That’s an approach that would appeal to the far right.
2.  “America”:  We’re talking about the collective, not individuals, much as the “Chinese dream” differs from the “American dream.”  Reactionaries are not libertarians;  they want a strong state that produces benefits for the right kind of people and punishes the rest.
3. “Great”:  Reactionaries probably differ somewhat on what makes America “great,” but the word is vague enough to encompass anything you want.  It can be the English language, baseball, fundamentalist religion, white people, or whatever.  In Trump’s case, we know what it means–military and economic power.
4.  “Again”:  When was America last great?  Reactionaries disagree.  Many would say it was during the 1950’s; some would go back to Calvin Coolidge; some might say the Taft administration; the most extreme would even go as far as Buchanan.  The slogan doesn’t make you choose.  You can read anything you want into it.

And so, MAGA incorporates all of the vague sense of longing for a mythical past golden age that is inherent in Reactionary thought without forcing anyone to take a position on when and what it was.  It unites the entire tribe in its desire to sweep away the corrupt status quo.

Originalism, of course, purports to be an attempt to ascertain how the framers of the Constitution understood the meaning of its language.  But were the framers originalists themselves?  Did they think that Americans of 2018 should be bound by their values?

Jefferson was in Paris during the Constitutional Convention, so, technically, his views shouldn’t count, but in practice, they do.  There is no doubt that he wasn’t an originalist, because he stated openly that no generation had the legal and moral right to bind its successors.

As to the rest, they were just struggling to create a political system that would survive the problems of the day.  The issues we face today don’t bear any resemblance to the kinds of issues that existed in 1787.  In addition, most of the legal questions that give rise to originalism revolve around the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment, which were not discussed during the Constitutional Convention.  So, on balance, it is clear to me that the Founding Fathers were not, in fact, originalists themselves.

Serena Williams has a strong claim to be the best female tennis player in history.  There is no doubt that, as an African-American woman of size, she has been subjected to a lot of unwarranted racist and sexist abuse throughout her career.  As a result, she has a large group of admirers who are willing to defend her vocally regardless of the circumstances.

The fact is that Serena behaved boorishly during the U.S. Open final and deserved to be punished for it.  Not every episode involving an African-American operating outside the rules is an example of speaking truth to power.  Not every African-American athlete is Muhammad Ali, or John Carlos, or Colin Kaepernick.

Donald Trump once said, and correctly so, that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing some of his supporters.  The blue team needs to maintain a higher standard than that.

Macron may not be Jupiter, but he certainly is a colossus;  he occupies all of the political center in France.  His opposition comes from the extreme left and right.

In the long run, this is a dangerous situation.  What if he fails?  Is France then faced with a choice between neo-fascism and the hard left?

Pray for the French that we never find out.

As I noted about ten days ago, the Reactionaries were a fairly placid lot until the 2008 election.  My, how things have changed!  But why?

In the previous post, I indicated that the principal changing circumstances were the election of an African-American president and the rise of Fox News, which reminded the Reactionaries that they were the new oppressed class on an hourly basis.  I would also like to add the following items:

1.  The Great Recession and the bailouts:  Steve Bannon’s theory, of course, is that 2008 ultimately resulted in the election of Donald Trump.  You don’t have to accept every part of his reasoning (and I don’t) to agree that the Reactionaries thought they were getting screwed from both the top and the bottom.
2.  The Iraq War:  Reactionaries make up a disproportionate percentage of the military and its most active supporters.  The failures of the Bush administration in Iraq consequently fell hardest on them, and they became more vocally skeptical of the “establishment.”
3. Gay marriage:  Suddenly, beliefs that had been completely orthodox for thousands of years became evidence of bigotry.  That had to be a terrible blow for the Reactionaries, and it made them feel like victims.
4. Publicity given to the notion that white Americans will be a minority in the foreseeable future:  No elaboration is necessary.

Once Kavanaugh has been confirmed, the Supreme Court may overturn Roe, or it may just kill it with a thousand cuts.  The result will be essentially the same:  in red states, abortion will be effectively illegal; in purple states, it will be severely limited; and in blue states, the status quo will prevail.  The result, obviously, will be a patchwork.

The questions for today are:

1.  Will overturning Roe be a poisoned chalice for the GOP?  Will women rise up and vote Republicans out of office en masse in red states?
2.  Will either side accept the patchwork solution?

My responses are:

1.  Based on what has happened in red states to date, the answer is no.  The GOP has not paid any obvious price for supporting very strict limits on abortion as of today, so why should things be any different in the future?
2.  No.  Both sides have principles that they cannot compromise.  For the red side, abortion is murder;  for the blue team, it symbolizes freedom and equality for women.  As a result, if Roe is overturned, both sides will fight for a federal solution governing all fifty states.  The resolution of the issue, therefore, would be tied up with the fate of the filibuster (which would be put in unprecedented jeopardy) and the composition of Congress.  A blue or red wave election, or the abolition of the filibuster, could result in national abortion legislation;  otherwise, it will continue to be regulated at the state level.

It is interesting to note that any federal legislation either permitting or banning abortion throughout the country would have to be based on the commerce clause, and would be challenged legally.  The Supreme Court would consequently be ruling on whether either side could bind the entire country on this issue.  If the Court struck down the legislation, in an odd way, both sides would lose, and the federalist compromise would prevail.

In most of what we anachronistically call the “free world,” reactionaries are on the front foot.  From the UK to the US, from Italy to Poland, the clock is running backwards.  France is the only notable exception.

How can this be reversed?  The short answer is that all governments fail eventually, and reactionary governments, which typically spurn the assistance of experts, are more likely to stumble than most.  The public will eventually tire of them.  The better question is whether reactionary governments will permit themselves to be voted out of office, or will go the full Maduro when faced with mounting opposition.  I don’t think there is a single answer to that;  it depends on the personalities and ethics of the affected politicians.