THE B-TEAM

If this election was going to be a contest between Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, we would be in familiar territory. A centrist Democrat running against a conservative Republican would make it an unremarkable race between true representatives of the two parties that have dominated the American electoral landscape now for more than a century. It would likely cause a low turnout, because passions around these two candidates would not run very high and it would almost certainly result in a Democratic victory, because that is where demographics are steering the outcome of our national elections, all other things being equal.

It is enticing to think that this ‘B-Team election’ might still come to pass, even though it is getting to be late in the day. There are a good number of people who believe that Donald Trump will abandon the race at some point, before November 6 if he sees that he cannot win or after November 6, if he gets elected. The reasoning goes 1) that his candidacy, from day 1, was all about enhancing the Trump brand and proving to the world that a fraud could actually win a presidential election in the USA, even though this would undermine his claim that ‘the system is rigged’; and 2) that he never had the intent to occupy the White House, but just wanted to get on the cover of every magazine and monopolize the media for almost two years. I don’t share this opinion, because I think that he would have picked another, more electable, running mate, if this had been his intent all along. But we can’t rule it out given all the other tricks Trump has already pulled in this campaign, his proven disdain for the GOP and his demonstrated disregard of anyone’s interest other than his own.

John Oliver, the host of HBO’s ‘Last Week Tonight’ show, latched only half-jokingly on this theme when he explained that dropping out would be in the best interest of the Trump brand by saving him from the embarrassment of defeat or being condemned to a government job (and government housing) for the next four years.

On the other side of the race, the pressure on Hillary Clinton keeps mounting. The public seems to have already accepted that she is not trust worthy (not any better than her opponent) and apparently (disturbingly) that fact alone is not enough to deny her a victory in November. But between the continuing FBI investigation of her use of private email servers, the questionable role that the Clinton foundation has played in her service as a public servant (Senator and Secretary of State) and now rumors about her health, more and more facts come out that could derail her presidential ambitions at the last moment.

Given this state of affairs, we can’t completely rule out that, in the end, the race for the White House would be contended by two candidates who were never elected in primaries but nominated by their parties’ first choice candidates. And that, in turn, could mean that America will elect a President who was not vetted in the exhaustive primary process, but simply put in place by a personal decision from a disqualified contender. That does not look like a democratic outcome, does it?

But in this case we simply may have to accept an imperfect execution of the democratic process (who said that democracy is a messy process?) and here is why.

The country could not have come up with worse first choices than it has done in this go-around. Conventional wisdom says that we have to respect the outcome of the political process. That the will of the people, as expressed in the voting booths, will have to be obeyed. But sometimes we have to be contrarian because conventional wisdom is hardly ever forward looking and unequipped to deal with exceptional circumstances.

If we let the A-team have its way, we are going to hand over the leadership of the Western world to a septuagenarian (over the hill) who, for good reasons, is mistrusted by more than half of the American population. If it is Hillary Clinton, we elect someone who has demonstrated to consider herself above the law, of a privileged caste and entitled to the throne. We get a self-serving ‘First Couple’ in the White House that will have put its personal ambitions above the interest of the nation. The only reason why Hillary Clinton would deserve getting votes is to keep Donald Trump out of the White House.

If it is Donald Trump, we elect someone who takes advantage of the growing number of dispossessed by whipping up the flames of their anger, hopelessness and frustration. Someone who refuses to do his homework, disrespects the law, disrespects women, minorities and immigrants and makes us wonder, at every outburst of campaign rhetoric, about his mental state and capacity. We would hand over the reins to an unbridled egomaniac who aspires to nothing else than putting the Trump brand on America’s identity.

Is this an acceptable choice for a time when America’s global position and reputation is at stake?

I long for decency, normalcy and predictability and will be rooting for the B-Team.

CLEVELAND 2016

One has to wonder if the people who pushed very hard some time ago to get the Republican Party to hold its 2016 national convention in Cleveland are having buyer’s remorse, much like the initiators of the ‘Leave’ campaign for the BREXIT referendum in England.

In a small town like Cleveland, holding an event like a national convention, during a work week in the city center, imposes unreasonable burdens on people and businesses that want to go about their life and business without additional stress. As if the stress of daily life and work in the city in a hot July is not enough! Between the delegates, the security people, the media, the protesters and their entourage, center city Cleveland will be totally taken over, occupied, by the invasion of conventioneers and the people who normally live and work there will be deprived of their normal ingress and egress, their parking spots, their cafes and restaurants and their freedom of movement. No surprise then that a number of businesses, those  that can afford to do so, have chosen to move their offices out to the suburbs for the duration of the GOP convention. Of course, there are beneficiaries too, like the hotels and restaurants that will be fully booked all week and be able to charge top price for their services. And the owners of mansions and condominiums that can rent their real estate out for the week and demand exorbitant prices for doing so.

It looks like the GOP convention in Cleveland is going to be the perfect metaphor for what ails this country and for what drives the anger that is brewing at or just below the surface in this election year: All the burden is going to be on the ordinary citizens and all the spoils go to the select few.

I am a greater Cleveland resident but I have long ago decided that I don’t want to be anywhere near this scene. My family will spend the last two weeks of July at an Atlantic coast beach to escape the madness and the inconvenience.

So far, this year 2016 has been an exceptionally good year for Cleveland. LeBron James has delivered on his promise to bring an NBA championship to the Cleveland Cavaliers and, at the brink of the All Star Game, the Cleveland Indians are overwhelming the competition for the leadership in the central division of the American League. The city, that has worked hard to shed its image of a corrupt and bankrupt place where even the river could catch fire, has justifiably taken pride in being chosen as the site for the GOP convention, that is, until the primaries had played themselves out and it had become clear that what was supposed to be a festive convention would turn into either a coronation of a fraudulent demagogue or an unprecedented last minute power grab by the party establishment. Either way, with all the other protests already alive on America’s streets, it is hard to see how the Cleveland convention can be spared the ignominy of turning into a street fight.

What happens in Cleveland between July 18 and 21 transcends the interest of the Republican Party and its adherents. It poses a dilemma of constitutional significance. It will put the question to the nation: ‘When will the interest in a competent, trustworthy and responsible person in charge of the highest office in the free world trump the expressed will of primary voters?’

I will not go as far as comparing Trump to Hitler or Mussolini, but I will use their names to illustrate a point. And the point of analogy is that Hitler and Mussolini too were sanctioned by the constitutional rules in place at the time in their respective countries. It was only after the constitutional process had placed these misfits in a position of power that they systematically abused that power with disastrous consequences for their nations and the world.

By my book there is a legitimate question: ‘When will good governance require that the expressed will of the voting public be overruled on the grounds that the chosen candidate is morally, emotionally and intellectually unfit to ascend to the highest office in the land?’ Think about all the death and demise the world would have been spared if Hitler and Mussolini had not been allowed to rise to power!

In the case at hand it is important to establish that even though Trump got more votes and won more delegates than any of his GOP contenders only a small fraction of the American voting public gave him a vote of confidence (that is the nature of primary elections).

Our constitution does not offer a ‘work-around’ for situations like this. This is somewhat remarkable given the fact that our founding fathers loudly and repeatedly warned against the rule by the mob. But, of course, in their time only the economically and intellectually privileged men had voting rights, which addressed that threat. In this day and age, under normal circumstances, the general election should expose the flaws in the nominee of either party and lead to the election of the nominee of the other party. But this year is anything but normal with the presumptive nominee of the opposing party despised by many, representative of an un-American dynasty mentality, and narrowly escaping prosecution for mishandling sensitive and secret information. If there ever was a choice between the lesser of two evils, this is it! Our nation, desperately in need of getting things done, would not be well served with such choice.

That’s why maybe, in this case, Republican leaders need to step in at or before the Cleveland convention and prevent a Trump ascendency. You may not want to be in the streets of Cleveland when that happens. But you may not want to live in America when it does not.

PERFIDE ALBION

Growing up in the Netherlands, my history teachers made very sure that I understood the meaning and the history of the expression “La Perfide Albion”. Albion, of course, being the archaic name for Great Britain. After all, the Dutch had fought three wars against the British, all in the seventeenth century when the Netherlands was a power at par with England and even felt compelled to sail its Dutch fleet up the river Thames to scare the daylight out of Londoners and teach the British a lesson. And we were not alone in our mistrust in the British. The French coined the phrase “La Perfide Albion” after the French revolution when England turned its back on the French Republic and aligned itself with the other great European powers who all had preserved their monarchies.

Seen in this context, there seems to be nothing new in England’s decision to turn its back on the European Union. You can never rely on the Brits to be predictable. Days after the fateful vote in the BREXIT referendum most observers and even most actors in the event are still in disbelief with the outcome. Europe went to sleep on June 24 thinking that the British voters, when it came to brass tacks, would not have the audacity to leave the EU. After all, virtually all the pundits, the markets and even the bookies had told them so. That explains the depth of the shock experienced when people and markets were waking up the next morning to the reality that more Brits had chosen to leave the EU than to remain, be it only by a small margin. To bet against the prevailing wisdom must have paid off handsomely!

But here we are, the British voters have spoken and now the real question is “what’s next”. Judging by the developments of the last few days, that question will not be easily nor quickly answered. Both in Brussels and in London officials are struggling to make sense out of the chaos created by the referendum. One thing has become abundantly clear: Much like after the Pyrrhus victory of the USA over Sadam Hussein’s Iraq, the Pyrrhus victory of “Leave” over “Remain” exposes the ugly reality that the politicians who were actively promoting BREXIT have failed to have even a rudimentary plan in place for how to proceed now that they have won. They may have won the battle, but can they win the war? 

David Cameron made a crucial mistake when he decided to appease the anti-EU faction in his party by offering to put the BREXIT question to a referendum. As much as he believed (and was told) that he could not possibly lose that vote and had, therefore, offered an empty pacifier in an attempt to once and for all end the Conservative party rift on the issue of the EU, he failed to unequivocally stand up and make the argument that leaving the EU would be like turning the clock back forty-three years. It looked like preserving party unity was more important to him than preserving EU strength in solidarity. The other mistake he made is that he allowed the referendum to be decided by a simple majority. If he felt that a referendum was the appropriate tool by which to resolve the dispute, he should have required a qualified majority for an exit decision. The decision to break up 43 years of European integration is so momentous and consequential that it should not have been decided against the will of a large minority, which included almost all business and opinion leaders in the UK.

It seems though that, in the end, Cameron’s principal opponent, Boris Johnson, who ostensibly came out as the winner in this contest, may have made even bigger mistakes and managed to put himself in a no win situation. He has little choice but to run for the leadership of his party now that David Cameron is resigning. If he fails to get the party behind him, he is finished. But if he does, he will have to follow through on the promises he made in the BREXIT campaign, when it is already clear that delivering on these promises is unwise, impractical and virtually undoable. If he fails to give his supporters what they voted for he will also be jettisoned. Finally, if he becomes the Conservative leader and British prime minister and he pulls the UK out of the EU, the UK itself will break up, the EU will play hardball and the British economy and people will be suffering the consequences. There seems to be no way to win for Boris. (He apparently realizes his conundrum and announces just now that he does not want to stand for the leadership of the Conservative party.) Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is in no better position. He failed his party and his people and yet resists stepping down after convincingly losing a no-confidence vote.

There is a real question mark if the politicians who drove the “Leave” vote have the quality, the capacity, to now do the hard work of negotiating the exit conditions with the EU and the bilateral trade agreements they will need, now that they will be excluded from the EU trade umbrella.

The fundamental and serious problem with all of this stumbling is that when politicians fail, the people are paying the price.

I grew up in an era of admiration for the Brits who, at their own peril, stood up against the Nazis and fought a long hard and bitter war against the Axis. Without the Brits (Churchill’s leadership), America would have stayed out of the war in Europe and the Allies would have lost. European unity would have been imposed and enforced by Nazi Germany in a much different way from how the European Union was put together. On the other hand, the perfidiousness of Albion showed up immediately after the war when Churchill, who had engineered the victory, was unceremoniously dismissed by the British voters.

Britain, after the war, has been a faithful and reliable partner for the US in the Cold War and a dependable force in building global institutions, like the UN, NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, that could take the sharp edge off nationalist tendencies that had disturbed the peace for centuries. And it still is. With the continuing globalization, the threat of radical Islam, the resulting refugee problem and the emergence of China as a formidable undemocratic world power, the western alliance, of which the USA, Great Britain and the EU are the linchpins, should be strengthened rather than weakened.And the rift, caused by the British BREXIT vote, can only be detrimental to the strength of that alliance. It should, and easily could, have been avoided.

There is plenty of room for constructive criticism of what the EU has morphed into. It is a valid question if it has been too ambitious in growing its membership, in taking away more authority from the member states than it had to in order to be effective. And the growth of its faceless bureaucracy and stifling regulation is cause for legitimate concern as is the cost of supporting this super national apparatus. But all of these issues could have been addressed inside the union. If there is any good to come out of BREXIT it is that it will compel the leadership of the EU and the member nations to seriously address the merit of significant and structural changes to the system of European super national governance. That discussion should have been had, with British participation, a long time ago.

BREXIT is a case study in miscalculation, political arrogance and unintended consequences. It was brought about by the Brits, voting to give up on the European Union. Which will give the history teachers of my grandchildren good reason to teach them about the Perfide Albion.

IT SHOULD NOT BE THIS WAY

It should not be this way. Democracy is supposed to be an uplifting, inspired and inspiring experiment, but America in election mode is a most dispiriting experience and never more so than in the seemingly endless run-up to the 2016 presidential election. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why do we allow the agony, like a slow torture, to be interminable? Who wants it this way? 

I find it hard to believe that the candidates are driving this. Getting up early every day before dawn, for two years and without reprieve, to be ready to confront the press that is following you like a dog on the scent of a female in heat and deliver the same message over and over again at county fairs, high school auditoriums, VFW halls and road-side diners. Who would enjoy this? And what do you get, when you win in the end? An impossible job, where every misstep you make can have catastrophic consequences, while your opportunity to do good is limited by something that is called ‘division of power’ and the fact that about half of your constituents want you to fail.

The two parties don’t want this. A two year election campaign becomes a free for all and the parties are losing control, which has never been as evident as this year.

The public, or at least a majority of the public does not want it this way, because their favorite TV programs get interrupted every few minutes by campaign commercials and the campaigns exacerbate the polarization that divides families and put strain on personal and business relationships. And, in the meantime, the nation’s business gets neglected, put on the backburner.

The only beneficiaries, it seems, of the American way of electioneering are the TV Stations, the cable companies and the press. For them our misery is their windfall that keeps on giving. But is their support enough to continue to play by the same rules ad infinitum?

This year’s presidential election campaign is unusually distressing because it brings to the fore two candidates who, even within their own party, are widely despised and rejected. How can we expect the general voting public—and the world watching us—to get enthused about this proverbial ‘lesser of two evils’ choice? America is in an existential crisis and the lesser of two evils will have to lead it out of the danger zone and into a new era of world dominance? It is now clear that the 2017 inauguration will crown a seriously flawed character, aged at or near 70, as the presumed leader of the Western world. Is that the best America can do? Is that the leadership that we need and deserve? It is maddening to think that in four years this mess will get repeated again and that the world will pass us by, in no mood to wait for us to get our act together. America moves from one era of missed opportunity to the next.

Maybe this is the way it has to be. Maybe, the only way America can get its act together is by letting things get so bad that it will finally dawn on us that fundamental change of our political system is in order to right the ship. In that sense a Trump win might be just the thing America needs. But hold on to your seats, because we would be in for a bumpy and potentially dangerous ride. If Donald Trump is elected President and if he makes good on only half of his promises and threats, America will be in a world of trouble before we get to evaluate the pace setting first hundred days of the Trump Presidency. Ian Bremmer, founder and president of the Eurasia Group and author of the book “Superpower, Three Choices for America’s Role in the World”, gave us an excellent preview of what we can expect from a Trump presidency in his June 3 article for Politico, titled “Trump and the World: What Could Actually Go Wrong.” It is frightening and what is even more frightening is that the defeated and deflated republican establishment is standing by, powerless to stop the madness.

What America needs, but will not get from either candidate, is a fundamental restructuring of the American political system, i.e.

·         An end to the two party system (which may actually result from the party conventions that will show more acrimony than unity)

·         Banning or severely curtailing the money influence in American politics

·         Open primaries in all States

·         A six months limit on the whole process of primaries, conventions and general election campaign

·         Reduced frequency of elections and term limits for all elected offices

·         An end to gerrymandering of voting districts

Without such drastic restructuring of the American political system we will not—regardless of who occupies the White House—be able to begin to address the top imperatives for America’s success in the future that has already begun. Rather than invigorating our economy, reducing the destabilizing inequality, working on a modern infrastructure and a healthier environment, we will continue our internecine battles and abandon the values of tolerance, pluralism, open borders, equality before the law and care for those who can’t care for themselves, which have made America the exceptional nation it once was and still can be.

PITBULL POLITICS

These days I’ll do just about anything to insulate myself from the election rhetoric and speculation and stay away from the cable news channels on TV. Thus I find myself occasionally watching shows like ‘Pit Bulls and Parolees’ or ‘Cesar 911’. 

I like dogs and I have had two dogs, Duke and Rose, as faithful companions in my life but, unlike my youngest son Michael, I’ve never succeeded in becoming a dog whisperer. I now know that showing your dog unwavering love, attention and respect while all the time asserting yourself as the ‘alpha leader of the pack’ is key to success in training a dog to be the companion you want to have. That, together with plenty of physical exercise and positive reinforcement of desired behavior (and absence of abuse and corporal punishment) will shape or rehabilitate the behavior of just about any dog that is considered aggressive, dangerous or unmanageable by their untrained owners and their community. It is amazing to see what a difference people like Cesar Millan (in Cesar 911) and Tia Torres (in Pit Bulls and Parolees) can make in the behavior of dogs who, by their owners and bystanders, are considered beyond control.

This, as a recurring nightmare, brings me back to thinking about the 2016 presidential election. It strikes me that the voters, who have brought Trump to the top of the GOP ticket and Sanders close enough to give Hillary Clinton and the DNC the jitters about a repeat of the 2008, are much like the misunderstood and mismanaged pit bulls of the dog rescue shows. If a dog’s aggressive and unruly behavior can be blamed primarily on bad treatment and neglect from its owner, so can the voters’ ballots in favor of unconventional candidates like Trump and Sanders and their disdain for conventional candidates like Bush, Clinton and Kasich, be blamed on near criminal neglect of the voters by the political establishment. So many constituencies that, together, form the American voting bloc have good reasons to be raving mad about the disregard for their plight and grievances demonstrated by the ruling political elite. It seems that all three branches of government are failing the American people at the same time, just like dog owners who don’t provide proper care and leadership to their pets are failing their ‘best friends’. None of the pressing issues facing the American public get resolved. Not the monstrous inequality, not the out of control national debt, not the immigration reform, not the addiction problems, not the cost of education or healthcare, not the unfunded future of Medicare and Social Security. The political establishment rather sticks its head in the sand than face the need for corrective action.

It is only logical then that people start looking for a dog whisperer, a pied piper, who gives them a voice and articulates their grievances. In different times and nations this would be a time for revolution, for forced quantum change in government like a military take-over or a dictatorship based in an activist power base. In contemporary America, people seem to be pinning their hopes on a dramatic change in control of the White House and are willing to place their bets on candidates that, in their words and politically incorrect behavior, promise a diametrical change in policy. That is why they flock in droves to the two populist demagogues this campaign has put forward.

But this is where the analogy with the dog whisperers ends. The dogs that end up in the care of Cesar Millan or Tia Torres are lucky to be in competent hands that have the expertise and means to rehabilitate the ones that were about to be given up on. The American people are not so lucky. If they follow the pied piper and put either Trump or Sanders in the White House, they are sure to be more malcontent and mad four years from now than they are today. And if the silent segment of the voting public prevails and brings Hillary and Bill back to the highest office in the land, the next four years will look much like the past sixteen and the frustration is likely to grow. It will make the dogs only meaner and more unruly.

What allows the dog whisperers to turn around a seemingly lost cause is the assertion of commanding leadership, supported by compassion, trust and respect for the beneficiaries of their leadership. All of that is sorely missing from this election campaign.

When, ever, has a populist demagogue become the salvation for a nation? Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines? Juan Peron in Argentina? Fidel Castro in Cuba? Hugo Chavez in Venezuela? Abdul Nasser in Egypt? Lenin in Russia? Adolph Hitler in Germany? Benito Mussolini in Italy? Francisco Franco in Spain? They all found the words that soothed the pain of neglect and humiliation in their followers but they lacked the moral authority and statesmanship required to offer their people more than a band aid. To the ears of experienced listeners, the words of Trump sound so hollow, so phony, demeaning and biased and the words of Sanders, while genuine, sound so impractical and retrograde that I find it hard to believe that the voters in November will swallow them as gospel. Yet, if the voters do just that and put their trust in a modern day pied piper they put a nation at risk at a time that it needs to pull together behind a future oriented strategy to stay ahead in the global competition for economic strength and social stability.

Yes, voters have good reasons to be raving mad, but they are barking up the wrong tree.

LEADING NATION

The overriding promise that brought Donald Trump triumph in the GOP primary season is that ‘he will make America great again’. With that slogan he nailed down, with precision, the popular sentiment that so many Americans are harboring these days. It satisfies a yearning that resides deep inside the American psyche. That, of course, is what politicians do. Obama, in 2008, promised a much desired ‘change’ from the Bush attempt to lead the world. And Trump just carries this a step further and promises to make America great again. What is wrong with that? It has caught on like wildfire and upset all the conventional wisdom about American election politics. The problem is in the presumption implied in the message.

This presumption, that Trump builds his whole campaign on, is false. America is a great nation by any yardstick or measurement. It is just the American political system that stinks and—if that is the problem—Trump is the must unsuitable candidate to do something about it.

For a world power to be called a ‘leading nation’ in this age of globalization there must be a flock of sympathetic nations to lead and Trump has been doing a terrific job of alienating just about every ally we have. Admittedly, there was a time, like when Britannia ruled the waves, that a nation could lead the world simply by extension of power, but that era has come and gone. The world now looks for real, substantive, leadership in world governance, in advancing the world economy and improving the living conditions for the whole world population now and in the future.

America will safeguard and preserve its status as a great nation not by the hollow, boisterous and outrageous pronouncements by a demagogue presidential candidate but only by leading by example, by being better than any other nation in creating wealth, in protecting the environment, in attracting the world’s best talent, in respecting everyone’s culture and religious belief and in giving all of its inhabitants a fair shake. A great nation also accepts responsibility for maintaining world peace and prosperity.

A man should be taken at his word. A true leader will say what he is going to do and will do as he says. The only saving grace in the Trump ascension to the GOP throne is that, to the critical thinker, it should be clear that Trump cannot and will not, probably does not even have an intent to, deliver on his more provocative promises.

Build a wall between the USA and Mexico and make Mexico pay for it? Are we finally going to take revenge for the Alamo?

Deport 11 million undocumented aliens and then allow them to come back through the turnstiles of the INS? A sure way of wrecking the economy by taking out the workers, on the farm, in our yards and kitchens, we rely on to do the jobs that Americans don’t want to do anymore.

Refuse people of the Muslim faith entry into the USA? Apart from the dubious constitutionality of such measure, do we really need more hatred, disdain and animosity from and towards the Islamic world?

Put all the mineworkers back to work? To produce coal with nowhere to go than up in the air to give nature an uninvited hand in the speed-up of naturally occurring global warming?

Bringing back waterboarding and a whole lot worse? Apart from the flaunting of American values and the dubious reliability of intelligence gained from these methods, where is he going to find the operatives in our intelligence and security forces, who have already moved beyond such counterproductive techniques, to apply torture in defiance of rules of conduct applied to them?

Revoking NAFTA and other major trade agreements? Can we really afford to ‘go it alone’ in a globalized environment and leave it to China to sign up the trade partners that we now reject? Do we simply ignore the overwhelming evidence that free and fair trade, as a rising tide, lifts all boats?

Reject the nuclear deal with Iran and give the Iranians a clear, unimpeded path, to deployment of their own nuclear arsenal?

It is true that, by the wisdom of our constitution, there is only so much that the President can do on his own and, if elected, Trump will find that he will have to eat crow on most everything he has declared he will do when in office. But, if people are concerned about Obama constantly testing the limits of executive power, wait until you have Trump, who is used to getting it his way in his empire, in his place. And, just by his ‘policy’ statements he can do a world of harm if he does not change his tune once he would occupy the White House.

Ultimately, for the USA to remain the leading nation, it will require a functional system of government in which the executive and legislative branches come together to address the real needs of the nation that are currently unattended to, even as they are at the root of the restlessness of the voting public we see in the emergence of unconventional candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE

What we are witnessing in the 2016 election year is a lot of pent-up anger and frustration with the failure of the public sector (the federal government in particular) to acknowledge and address the worries of the average American citizen and now, like eight years ago, people are looking for a ‘fresh face’ promising to finally give them some satisfaction.

That is why Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders get so much traction and following.

But are our malcontents barking up the wrong tree?

If you think about the things that our malcontents are upset about, it is not clear at all that a simple change of face at the White House can provide the desired relief. After all, Barack Obama was going to offer change that we could all believe in, but after two almost complete terms it is clear that not much of substance has changed. At least not in the plight of the average American citizen.

What is it that our malcontents are most upset about and fearful of? It may not be the same for everyone, but it will definitely include:

·         The lack of income security combined with an ever increasing burden to pay taxes, medical and educational expenses and to save money for retirement, for children’s tuition and weddings and for elder care for parents; the money pool is shrinking and cost is inexorably rising.

·         The anxiety about the increasing prevalence of addictions, obesity, depression and other mental disorders affecting their lives and the lives of their children.

·         The widening gap between their living conditions and the affluence of the wealthiest Americans.

·         Dissatisfaction with their elected representatives who promise the world but fail to deliver on their promises or hold political/ideological beliefs they don’t share.

The malcontents have yet to come to grips with the fact that the world has irreversibly changed as a result of technology driven global competition. They have good reason to feel let down by their government for not preparing them for the changed environment and for not offering them the cushioning effect of retraining and income support programs. So, they are suckers for anything and anyone offering them the nirvana of a better future. And for someone who promises to go after the perpetrators of their misfortune. Unfortunately they are almost certainly setting themselves up for another disappointment. The ancient Romans already had an expression for this phenomenon: “Mundus vult decipi, decipiatur ergo” which translates to “the world wants to be assuaged by deception, so let it be deceived”.

If the malcontents manage to challenge their furor into the election of a radically different, non-conventional, president of the United States—like Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump would be— they are in for another huge let down. They fail to recognize that the problem is not with whoever happens to occupy the White House but with the intransigence of the American political system. Notwithstanding all the campaign promises, a new president can’t bring about a Wall Street revolution nor can he wave a magic wand that will make America great again by curing it of all the ills afflicting it today. Do we ever learn? With each transition from one presidency to the next, particularly when it shifts from one to the other party, comes the promise and the hope that things will fundamentally change, but all we ever get to experience is tinkering at the margin. What stands in the way of real change?

1.       The US Constitution which has carefully crafted a balance of power between the three branches of government.

2.       Two parties dividing congressional seats, as long as they have roughly equal support from the voting public.

3.       The election system, including the frequency of elections, the terms for office holders, the electoral college and some archaic rules of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

4.       The influence of money in politics.

Suppose for a moment that one of the ‘mavericks’ gets voted into the highest office of the land. How will he convince Congress (against the will of the special interests) to begin to roll back the income- and wealth inequality, to simplify the tax code and eliminate most if not all of the exemptions, to shore up the major entitlement programs, to come up with a comprehensive immigration reform plan, to provide relief for the exorbitant cost of healthcare and higher education and to deal with criminal justice reform? The other party, after missing out on control of the White House, will engage the help of the ‘money men’, and not allow the newcomer to steal the show.

There is nothing in the works to change the American political system as we know it. That has some merit, because it protects against an ideologically driven, authoritarian, push by a populist president. But it also stands in the way of badly needed policy adjustments that would put America back on the right track. All the demagoguery of the populist candidates in the election campaign to the contrary, the next president will not be able to do more, or better, than his predecessors unless the gridlock in Washington DC is broken by fundamental changes in the political system.

In the meantime it is alarming that the two populist candidates, as far apart ideologically as they and their parties appear to be, are fanning the flames of the anti-immigration and anti- free trade sentiment expressed by the malcontents who fail to see that import of talent and youth and free and fair global trade are crucial to growth and prosperity for future generations of Americans. In that respect too, the malcontents are barking up the wrong tree.