BLOODLANDS

 ‘Bloodlands’ is the title of a book professor Timothy Snyder wrote in 2010 about the East European territory that took the brunt of the titanic 20^th century struggle between Stalin’s communism and Hitler’s Nazism. A struggle that, in Snyder’s estimation, took fourteen million lives in twelve years of killing policies unrelated to combat (with Russian and German combat casualties estimated at another eleven million).

The bloodlands in which this struggle took place are comprised of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, and Western parts of Russia. Ukraine was at the heart of it and, together with Poland, took some of the hardest blows. When the Second World War finally ended in Europe, there was a strong worldwide sentiment of ‘never again’ that resulted in the formation of the United Nations and economic cooperation between the former European opponents which, in stages, resulted in the European Union of today. The Western allies chose for a joint security arrangement by creating NATO and the Soviet Union responded by combining force with their East European satellites in the Warsaw Pact. These two huge military blocks, both equipped with nuclear power, kept each other in balance by the threat of mutually assured destruction, and by all these means an uneasy peace was kept in Europe for almost eighty years, with only one exception of the Balkan wars of 1991-1992. As FDR, Churchill and Stalin redrew in the final stages of the Second Word War  the map on European borders and spheres of influence, a norm against territorial conquest developed and was enshrined in the UN Charter. With the fall of the Soviet Union, rapid globalization of the world economy, and the unprecedented growth of technology and prosperity in Europe, there was a reasonable expectation that the big European wars were behind us, forever.

But now we know it was not to be. And it is again the bloodlands that are getting brutally hit after seventy-seven years of uneasy peace. For the time being, the bloodshed is limited to Ukraine and its adversary Russia, but the conflict has every chance of expanding to the bloodlands beyond the Ukrainian borders. In fact, Poland is already significantly affected by the influx of 2.6 million refugees from Ukraine, and the people of Russia are feeling the pain of the war in large numbers of military casualties and a collapsing economy under the pressure of economic sanctions leveled by the West. But the conflict is only seven weeks old and can, at any time, conflagrate into a much wider war. All it takes is a spark that crosses over into NATO territory.

In the meantime, the world is helplessly watching Vladimir Putin flaunting all the norms and rules of international law by invading Ukraine and indiscriminately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in his conquest to restore a part of the Soviet empire that broke apart in 1991. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was right on target when he asked the UN Security Council in a virtual address on April 5 what the purpose was of having a security council that proves incapable of maintaining the security of the members of the United Nations. His plight has surfaced the uncomfortable truth that the current UN Charter is deficient in several respects, including the fact that Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, can block a referral of its transgression to the International Criminal Court. If a permanent member of the Security Council violates the rules of the UN Charter, it should be barred from voting on UN action against such transgression. In the UN as the guardian of the international order, no single member should be above the law. As professor Tanisha Fazal states in a great article in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs magazine titled ‘The Return of Conquest?’: “If the global community allows Russia to subsume Ukraine, states may more frequently use force to challenge borders, wars may break out, former empires may be reinstated, and more countries may be brought to the edge of extinction.” Her article has the appropriate subtitle ‘Why the Future of Global Order Hinges on Ukraine.’

As it is, blood is flowing in rivulets again in the bloodlands and the global community has no tools to stem the flow. The conflict resembles a heavyweight boxing match that bloodies both sides but will not end until one of the combatants throws in the towel. Putin speculates that it will be Ukraine, which is why he will not stop hitting Ukrainian cities and people from the air with missiles, artillery, and bombers. The West rightly accuses him of committing war crimes, if not genocide, but must admit that it used the same tactics to bring Nazi Germany to its knees. Unfortunately, there is nothing new under the sun. The only difference is that the Allies in the Second World War were fighting to defeat the aggressor and this time it is the aggressor who flaunts the rules of war.

Contemplating all this, I can’t help but wonder how this new chapter of the bloodlands tragedy will end. And I dare to look back at the American Revolutionary War for guidance. That too was a fight of David against Goliath and I see more similarities: First, motivation and popular belief and support. Just like the American Revolutionaries fought for their independence, the Ukrainians know that they are fighting for the right of their nation to exist. The belief to be fighting for a just cause is a powerful motivator for the Ukrainians and one that the Russians, despite all Putin’s rhetoric, miss. Second, the strong support of the Ukrainian military effort by the use of diplomacy. Just like Benjamin Franklin tenaciously courted the French to support the American cause with financial and military assistance, so does President Zelenskyy do a phenomenal job on rallying the support of the free world for his cause. In both cases, part of the diplomatic message is the unshakable conviction that the cause is just, and the fight can be won. It is not hard therefore to predict that ultimately Ukraine will win. The question is at what price? The Revolutionary War took six years to be decided because the British had to concede in the end that they could not continue to take the losses of life and treasury in a fight on foreign territory. With the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that even if the British had fought the war to a stalemate, in the end they would not have been able to deny America its independence and sovereignty. Whatever happens next, I do not believe that Putin can make good on his belief that Ukraine is not an independent country and has no right to exist other than as a part of the Russian empire. But, in the meantime the bloodlands are living up to their name again.

OR ELSE

Tomorrow it is exactly four weeks since Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine, a sovereign country bordering Russia and long considered a friendly neighbor. It was so predictable. Putin had systematically positioned a massive military force all along the Russian border with Ukraine and yet most of us refused to believe that he would make the fateful decision to cross the border and start a war, even though he had previously done so with Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008 and Crimea and Donbas in 2014.

Putin took months of preparation and amassed a formidable force of more than 160,000 troops on his border with Ukraine in plain view of the world and his point of the spear was positioned a mere 236 miles from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. It is abundantly clear that Putin’s speculation was that he would capture Kyiv in a matter of days, decapitate the Ukrainian government, install a puppet regime, and then proceed to force the Ukrainian military into surrender. And it is equally clear that he speculated that, despite US warnings of severe repercussions, the West would not seriously impede his ambitions. After all, it had allowed him to get away with all his transgressions in 2008 and 2014. Four weeks later things look a little different.

War is horrible and this one is no exception. We get minute by minute images of human suffering and material destruction inflicted by overpowering weaponry in a deliberate attempt to pound fearful defenseless civilians into submission. There are reports of more than 10 million displaced persons out of a population of 44 million Ukrainians, including 3.3 million refugees who have sought safety in the bordering states of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova. And the death toll, although shrouded in the fog of war, is measured in tens of thousands. The Ukrainians are paying a terrible price for the defense of their sovereignty and, indeed, the protection of a democratic world order.

And yet, the democratically elected Zelensky government is still in place and in control in Kyiv. The Ukrainian parliament is able to vote, the central bank is working, trains are running, local governments function, groceries, if they are not bombed by the invaders, are open, and the Ukrainian people are heroically defending their freedom. Putin has evidently been unable to disrupt the Ukrainian command and control. His ground troops, hampered by material breakdowns and supply shortages, are finding themselves in a quagmire, and are reportedly taking heavy casualties. And he has yet to establish complete control of the airspace over Ukraine. 

For too long we have been held back by the assumption that NATO intervention would create an unacceptable risk of triggering a full-blown European war. It kept us from telling Putin: “You stop the aggression, or else”, because we were unsure how we could credibly fill in the ‘or else’ part. We should now capitalize on the Russian failure to execute its war plan, by turning the table on Putin.

When it comes to the West, Putin has fatally miscalculated. His unprovoked aggression has met with a determined, unified, response from NATO and the EU and the sanctions imposed on him by a unified front are crippling his economy. In an impressive show of defiance of Putin and solidarity with the Ukrainian case, the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia visited last week with President Zelensky in Kyiv while it was under attack from Putin’s military. Most damaging to Putin is the determination by the West European countries that they made a strategic mistake in thinking that Russia, under the Putin regime, could be depended upon for the supply of a substantial part of their need for oil and gas without jeopardizing the security balance in Europe. The whole idea that by establishing strong economic ties between Russia and Western Europe, the Putin regime could be held in check and the peace in Europe could be maintained, is now out of the window. The mood in Western Europe has changed. Confronted with naked aggression from an authoritarian Russian regime, it has accepted the need for increased military spending, and it realizes better than before the value of the NATO alliance. Sweden and Finland that have sit on the sidelines and stayed out of NATO are now rethinking that position.

President Biden’s efforts to restore the Western alliance have been boosted unexpectedly and immensely by Putin’s folly. As of this writing Biden is on his way to visit Brussels and Warsaw and we should not be amazed if he would risk arranging an unannounced meeting with President Zelensky in Lviv or even Kyiv. It would give the Ukrainians an invaluable show of support and it would demonstrate for the whole world to see that Putin does not set the rules of engagement.

The risk, of course, is that in the face of such ongoing humiliation Putin will double down on the course he already has been forced to embark upon by the failures of his ground troops to capture territory: The indiscriminate targeting of Ukrainian civilians, infrastructure, and property from the air and from the sea. The near total destruction of Mariupol and Kharkiv gives evidence of his disregard for the rules of warfare, and we should take him seriously when he threatens the use of nuclear weapons in the face of continuing resistance by the Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian people. US intelligence has warned of the probability that Putin will resort to the use of chemical or biological weapons if he can’t prevail using conventional means. Either way, the devastation in the Ukrainian cities, in only four weeks, is already of biblical proportions and the real question is: How long will NATO stand by and allow these atrocities to go unanswered. That question is likely to be the centerpiece of the talks later this week in Brussels and Warsaw.

What can the free world say or do to stop Putin from continuing his path of destruction? Is there a credible red line that the free world can draw and say to Putin “to here and no further” without triggering WWIII in the process?

I hope that the NATO leaders will agree this week to tell Putin that, if he continues to attack non-military targets in Ukraine with artillery, missiles, and bombs he exposes himself to NATO retaliation against Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. NATO should be prepared to target the invader with the same weapons that are used by Putin, but only if and to the extent the invader is present on Ukrainian territory. The justification for such intervention would be found in prevention of further crimes against humanity. The United Nations could show its continued relevance by having its General Assembly authorize such NATO intervention.

Others have written, and I agree, that it is high time that we deny Putin the right to dictate the rules of the game. He is the aggressor and should be stopped. And if sanctions alone don’t get the job done, we need to have the courage to resort to even more punishing action. We simply cannot stand by idle while he flattens one Ukrainian city after another. President Obama drew a redline in Syria and then backed off from enforcing it against Assad and Putin. President Biden should not make the same mistake. He should cash in on his credit with other Western leaders and get NATO to draw the line for Putin, preferably with a UN mandate. Putin should be told “stop here, or else” and he should be left under no illusion as to whether the ‘or else’ part will be enforced. Once the violence against civilians has ended, negotiations about the future of security arrangements in Europe can start.

NAKED POWER

The same sense of foreboding that came over me when in 1956, when I was just twelve years old, the Soviet Union moved on Budapest to put down the uprising of the Hungarian people against the Soviet dominance of the country, is coming back to me now that today Putin’s Russia is moving into Ukraine to impose its political will on another nation yearning for deliverance from Russian imperialism. I have never forgotten that on June 16, 1958 the Soviets finished the job by executing the Hungarian prime minister Imre Nagy and I bet you that President Zelensky has not forgotten that either even though he was not born yet when it happened.

As in 1956, in 1968 when the Soviets put down the Prague velvet revolution, and in 2014 when Putin overran and annexed Crimea, the sense of powerlessness overwhelms me. With all its military, economic, and political might, the Western alliance has nothing more than sanctions to respond with, is utterly incapable of changing the course of events, and has no choice but to leave it to the Ukrainians to defend themselves, their nation, and their freedom. Our power proves to be naked. The only hope to offer Ukrainians is that in the long run they may yet prevail, as the Hungarians and Czechs ultimately did when the Soviet Union broke apart.

It is agony to hear the Ukrainians under siege asking, like the Hungarians and the Czechs did before them, “where is the West when we need them” and to have no answer, no comfort, no help to give them. But the reality is that short of nuclear power, the West has nothing in its arsenal that can militarily turn back the Russians and Putin has clearly demonstrated that he has no time or respect for diplomacy. The best we can hope for is that Putin, in his delusion and arrogance, pushes his ambitions further that the Russian people and its military are willing to go and in the process is digging his own grave. Kyiv may ultimately become Putin’s Waterloo once the body bags are coming back to the motherland in large numbers, the sanctions are seriously hurting the home front and the oligarchs, and the ordinary Russians are wondering why they would be fighting their Ukrainian brethren. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is like the USA invading Canada or the Netherlands invading Belgium.

With ‘Naked Power’ I mean power that on paper looks formidable but in practice is unusable. The weakness of NATO is that its only serious deterrence to Russian aggression is in its nuclear capabilities, but these awesome capabilities are matched, if not outmatched, piece by piece by the Russian nuclear systems and, if put to use, are certain to produce catastrophic mutual destruction. The lesson of WWII is that Europe, without massive American reinforcement, lacks the military readiness and cohesion to defend against a force that is organized to attack and is led by a determined despot.

There is a US domestic component to this Ukrainian tragedy. As of the time of this writing there is no official coordinated response from the Republican leadership to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but it is clear from utterances from former President Trump and some of the right-wing media that in part of the GOP there is more sympathy and support for Putin than for Ukraine. Undoubtedly fueled by speculation that a win for Vladimir Putin will be seen by the American voters as a loss for Joe Biden.

There used to be a time when the American political tradition was that the divisiveness between the political parties would stop at the water’s edge (the water being the ocean water). It meant that, when it came to conflict with foreign powers, the parties would close ranks behind the commander in chief. That tradition has gradually eroded by ill conceived military interventions, without prior congressional approval, in the Balkans, in Iraq, and Afghanistan, but it never has been flaunted as much as in recent days when the former President, his acolytes, and his media voices, in defiance of the Biden foreign policy, have openly sided with Putin in his invasion of Ukraine. While it remains to be seen whether the GOP aisles in Congress will follow the Trump route and withhold support for the sanction regime designed by the Biden administration in close coordination with its European allies, it hints at the possibility that the GOP will push this issue to the point that it will hurt the party in the upcoming elections of 2022 and 2024. Just like Putin may find to have shot himself in the foot by overreaching in his imperial ambitions to the point that he will lose the support of the Russian military and the Russian people, the Trump faction of the GOP may be disqualifying itself in the eyes of the American voters by siding with Putin in his attack on Ukraine. We will find out in the coming weeks and months.

In the meantime, we are relegated to standing by as the Ukrainians struggle to maintain their sovereignty. If we don’t want to be confronted with the nakedness of our power at the next go-around, America better gets busy reorganizing NATO into a force that can actually deter any enemy with military might that does not rely on a nuclear arsenal. Otherwise, article 5 of the NATO charter may prove to be a empty letter. Putin may just be betting it is. Let’s pray that Putin’s next move, if he does not get tripped by his Ukrainian escapade, will not be directed towards the Baltic, where our resolve to stand by our commitment under article 5 of the NATO charter would be sorely tested.

ONE YEAR IN

Today the Biden administration starts its second year in office and the President marked the occasion with a rare press conference, that, I think, was intended to demonstrate that the 79-year-old President is in full control of his faculties, does not evade the spotlight cast upon him by the Washington press corps, and has the stamina to stand on his feet, answering probing and sometimes hostile questions, for more than two hours. He did reasonably well in this endurance test, but his handlers must have known that their boss could not pull this off without some offering up some gaffes that the President is known for throughout his career in politics. In his press conference yesterday, he made two of them, which, combined with a lot of rambling, hesitation, and awkward silences, made for an unconvincing show of governance control and competence.

The worst gaffe he made was by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the next election(s) with the John Lewis voting rights act heading for defeat in the Senate. He can fend off any danger to a free and fair election outcome by working with Congress on a revamp of the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

The other gaffe came in answer to questions about Vladimir Putin’s intentions about the Ukraine, first by speculating that Putin may decide to invade and then by suggesting that ‘minor incursions’ would trigger a lesser response from America and NATO than a full-fledged invasion. He seemed to be saying that Russia would be permitted to trespass on Ukraine’s sovereignty as long as it stayed short of an occupation. I don’t think that he meant it that way, but it certainly came across that way in Washington, Kiev, and Moscow. On this topic, he should have stayed with warning Putin that he would come to regret any violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

In all of this we need to realize that Joe Biden is fighting two demons: He needs to pull the country away from the populist, anti-democratic, and QAnon wave, set in motion by the Trump ascendency in the Republican Party; and he needs to hold off the activist left wing within his own party which feeds the right’s narrative that under Democratic Party rule the country would descend into a socialist backwater. The way out seems obvious. He should reset his agenda and explore with the same Republicans who voted for his infrastructure bill, who voted to impeach Trump in February of 2021, and who voted for the Stopgap funding bill in November, which parts of his agenda can obtain bi-partisan support. If the Infrastructure Bill passed the Senate by a 69-30 vote and the Stopgap Bill by 69-28, isn’t it worth exploring what else can pass with at least 60 votes in the Senate?

The best President Biden can do for the country is forging a coalition that permanently closes the door on Trump and the Trump inspired anti-democratic movement. For that he will need the support of Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Joe Manchin, and, maybe, Mitch McConnell. Biden is the quintessential ‘middle of the road’ man. He now needs to build on his strength and craft a ‘middle of the road’ coalition of Democrats, Independents, and conventional Republicans.

Let’s find out what that kind of coalition can agree on. It is evident that voters need to be swayed, by effective governance, to not only show their confidence in their election integrity by coming out en masse when called to the voting booth, but also to convincingly defeat those who are actively subverting our democratic systems.

The President would be well advised to put the democratic (small d) credentials of the coalition partners to the test by asking them if they are for or against:

·        Automatic and same-day voter registration

·        Making Election Day a Federal Holiday

·        Increased accessibility to voting for Native American and Alaska Native citizens

·        Making it a federal crime to hinder a person from registering to vote or helping someone to register to vote

·        Universal and free preschool for all 3–4-year-olds

·        Childcare subsidies for low- and mid-income families

·        Paid family leave

·        Tuition free access to Community Colleges for children from low-and mid-income families

·        Perpetuating the expanded Child Tax Credit

·        Medicare’s authority to negotiate drug prices

·        Elder care subsidies for low-and mid-income persons

And then push forward with that part of this agenda that can gain a majority vote in the House of Representatives and 60 votes in the Senate. Any such push should include a prescription for how to pay for the proposed benefits. Don’t say it isn’t possible. Look at the 69 votes in the Senate that created the Infrastructure Bill and the Stopgap Bill of November of the same year.

Good public governance requires five essential hallmarks:

1.       A vision of where the country should be heading

2.       Competency at each component of the Executive Branch

3.       Avoidance of corruption and cronyism

4.       Excellence in execution and implementation

5.       Clarity and honesty in communication

If President Biden can avoid further gaffes, build a ‘middle of the road’ coalition, and lead his administration to gain high marks for each of these five hallmarks, he can look forward to a very successful one term presidency and America can dispel the specter of authoritarianism.

LEFTOVERS

We are rapidly approaching the end of the year and there are still a few things I’d like to get off my chest. Matters that have surfaced or resurfaced this year and deserve more than a casual tweet but are not worked out enough for a full column. Here are three of them:

1.)    Consumerism

The media have for weeks, if not months, been buzzing about the supply chain problems and the tragedy that our Christmas presents might not make it from China in time to be put under the Christmas tree. I look at this a little differently. Year after year I’ve been aghast at the degeneration of a religious holiday into a celebration of American consumerism. “Are you ready for the Holiday? Oh, no, I have still to find something for my aunt Betsy and my twin cousins Jesse and Josh.” Really? What happens if you just treat them to a warm welcome at your house, for a great meal, fine spirits, and some meaningful conversation? Or maybe just go to church together or take them caroling in your neighborhood?

I have no problem with exchanging some gifts of things that, otherwise, would have been bought anyway, like clothing and other life essentials; nor do I begrudge those who want to add luster to the Holidays with special treats, delicacies or gift cards for a great restaurant, spa-service, a bookstore, or entertainment. But who needs any of the crap from China that is now still locked up in a container in one of our congested ports?

I see a challenge in the fact that our economy has become excessively dependent on consumption and our consumption disproportionally dependent on China. This is bad for America’s contest with China and, implicitly, bad for the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism, and very bad for the environment. I shudder to think of the mounds of, mostly plastic, trash that will be the visual leftover from Christmas and will add to our already overflowing garbage dumps, where ultimately all these Chinese presents will end up as well.

America is much better at meeting it ‘wants’ than at meeting its ‘needs’. Our economic health is far too dependent on consumptive spending. We can put heaps of presents, wanted or not wanted, under our Christmas trees, but we can’t offer our immigrant population a stable outlook, we can’t offer our aging population affordable, quality eldercare, we can’t offer our children of all ages the best affordable education, we can’t make insulin affordably available to all of our diabetics, and we can’t even guarantee all of our citizens that they will be fairly represented in Congress, that they can vote on these matters, and that their votes will be counted.

2.)    Abortion

It now looks likely that the Supreme Court will change the law of the land with respect to abortion and give States’ legislatures further leeway in restricting a woman’s right to an abortion than allowed under its 50 years old ‘Roe vs Wade’ ruling. On this subject, that has disproportionally and undeservedly influenced American politics, I have a few thoughts.

In the first place, it is a shame that an existential matter like abortion should be decided by the courts rather than by federal legislation. The way it is going, we will end up with widely diverging abortion rights and prohibitions between individual States. To me that looks like a very undesirable outcome.

Second, when I think about the topic of abortion, the first thing that comes to mind is the need to make sure that, if an abortion is needed and warranted, it will be performed by licensed professionals in a safe medical facility. History shows that abortions will be sought and performed, whether they are allowed by local rules or not. In a civilized world abortion should not be pushed back into the dark back alleys of a black market. Abortion, like prostitution, drugs, or alcohol, can’t be wished away or outlawed, it can and should be regulated.

Third, I look at abortion as a ‘last resort’ resolution of an unwanted situation, after the options of carrying the pregnancy to term and/or adoption have been carefully considered and turned down. That choice can ultimately only be made by the woman, but it should not be made without input from the father-to-be and professional guidance from social services.

Fourth, in the case of rape or incest the woman should have the right to terminate the pregnancy without interference from anyone.

Fifth, in Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Court established a woman’s right to an abortion up to the time of ‘viability’ of the fetus, defined as being able to survive outside of the womb. Generally, it is assumed that this occurs after 22 weeks of pregnancy. In the Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health case, now before the Supreme Court, a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy is at stake. And from the oral arguments in that case and the current composition of the Supreme Court we can expect the court to let that Mississippi law stand and, in effect, reduce the time for a legal abortion from 22 to 15 weeks (a more recent Texas law, which may also come before the Supreme Court reduces the time for a legal abortion to only six weeks). The ‘viability’ threshold seems to me to make more sense than an arbitrary number of weeks. After all, the moral argument is about whether by an abortion we are snuffing out a life. My view is that, in case of an unwanted pregnancy, the law should give a woman the time to assert her pregnancy and come to grips with it and a reasonable time to determine how to deal with it. I have difficulty thinking of any situation in which these determinations could not be made before the fetus becomes viable but imposing an arbitrary time limit of six to fifteen weeks seems hard to justify if a woman’s right to an abortion is recognized at all. 

The law should also protect the woman’s physical and mental health going through this process and assure that, if it comes to abortion, it is performed by medical personnel in a safe place. If the pregnancy puts the life of the mother at risk, the law should allow the woman’s gynecological team to order an abortion at any time during her pregnancy, unless the mother has unambiguously expressed different wishes.

3.)    Melting pot.

The theory of America’s exceptional power and viability is based on the belief that the United States of America is this huge melting pot of people from all different origins, native and imported from all corners of the world. It is true that the US population consists of all these different elements, but a melting pot it is not. It is more like a layer cake. Just like oil and water don’t really mix: you can infuse one in the other, but they will layer out, if not immediately then over time. Together with American Exceptionalism we can move the construct of the melting pot to the land of fantasies. If America was a veritable melting pot, there would not be a ‘Black Caucus’ in Congress, there would be no Native American Reservations, there would be no Slavic Village in Cleveland, no Little Kabul in Fremont nor a concentration of Somalians in Minnesota, and there would be no China Town in any of the major cities. Maybe it just takes time and a hundred years from now we see a lot more assimilation, much like what happened in the 19^th and 20^th century with immigrant waves from Ireland, Italy, Germany, Scandinavia, Armenia, and Russia.

Does it matter? There is definite value in maintaining one’s ethnic identity, as long as it does not result into pitting one group of Americans against another. We already do too much of that between Democrats and Republicans. However, the layer cake model suggests that there is a ranking of inhabitants by ethnicity, which is exactly how the many white supremacists amongst us like to see it. Therein lies the danger. We are barely a United States of America, much less a United Peoples of America. What do we need to do to get to the point that being American supersedes all other identities we harbor?

WAKE UP AMERICA

My very good friend Jerry, who was born in Philadelphia, graduated from Haverford College, and worked with me in Philadelphia, just gave up his American passport and citizenship. He made a career in international trading and now lives in Geneva Switzerland, after stints in Hong Kong and Singapore. After pursuing dual citizenship and receiving his Swiss passport, he decided he had lost his affinity with what America has become and therewith his pride in being an American citizen. And he brought his belief to its ultimate conclusion. It was not for fiscal reasons that he severed ties with his country of origin, it was because he is repulsed by what he sees happening in America. He did not act on impulse, but after carefully assessing where he saw America heading. Wake up America!

America’s two-party system that has long provided the operational framework for public governance is at risk of morphing into a one-party system, not because voters want it to go that way, but because the Republican Party has patiently and inexorably rigged the system in its favor. It has been able to do so by taking advantage of the people’s reverence for the Constitution, even where it no longer serves the exigencies of the modern society or where it has been misinterpreted by the Supreme Court. By taking advantage of archaic provisions in Senate rules like the filibuster and in voting laws and the laws governing the composition of Congress like the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. By packing the courts with members of the Federalist Society. And by the process of gerrymandering Congressional Districts, to the effect that in many Congressional Districts the Republican primary, not the general election, decides who occupies the seat in the House of Representatives.

There are sensible, well written and well publicized, solutions to the imperfections in America’s public governance system, but today’s Republican Party has no interest in pursuing any of them, since they all would limit its inherent grip on power resulting from the fact that representation in Congress is adjudicated not on the basis of the national popular vote but on the basis of States (for the Senate) and Districts (for the House of Representatives). Don’t you see the threat to our democracy? Wake up America!

The American people have every right to be disenchanted with the way they are governed, or not governed. It is simply too hard to produce any significant legislation that deals with improving the lives of ordinary citizens. But do you throw the baby out with the bathwater? It is not democracy’s fault that no significant results come out of the Beltway. The fault lies with the two-party system that fails when one of the parties is hell bent on rigging the game and does not care about democracy. Under Trump, and even after losing the 2020 Presidential election, the Republican party has decided to do to democracy what Trump has done with programs, initiatives, and institutions he did not like: kill them rather than try to rework and improve on them. Cases in point: Transpacific Partnership, Paris Accord, Iran Nuclear Deal, World Health Organization, Obamacare (only saved because of one vote by John McCain).

The Republican Party (I deliberately stopped referring to them as the Grand Old Party, which it is no more) is running without a policy platform, only intent on blocking the Democratic agenda as a way of taking control of Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024, by hook or by crook. The Republican Party is putting the great American experiment, democracy itself, in jeopardy and not by chance, but intentionally. The Atlantic Magazine is spelling it out in detail in Barton Gellman’s article ‘Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun’ in the January/February issue https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/

The Atlantic Magazine is one of several media voices that are raising the alarm bell. At issue is no longer the difference in expectations of what government should deliver, which is a legitimate policy debate; it is about the functioning or dismantling of our democracy. In this struggle, the Republican Party does not want America to be leading the world in championing for democracy; rather, it is following the example of what authoritarians in Russia, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey have managed to bring about, a one-party rule in what is only a nominally democratic system. What irony would it be if democracy were to be smothered in the cradle where it came to life in the modern era! And yet, that’s exactly what we are facing. Wake up America!

My friend Jerry had seen enough. He threw in the towel and gave back his US passport. But he was already living away from the States and had found a home and citizenship in Switzerland. What about us, who are horrified by what we witness but have no choice but to stay Stateside? First, we should resist the impulse to fight fire with fire. The leftist rhetoric is as ugly and damaging as the torrent of lies, hate, and conspiracy emanating from the populist right. We can only protect democracy by exercising our democratic rights. Second, we need the remaining champions of democracy to stop fighting internally and seek common ground between the moderates on both sides of the center. It does not make sense to argue about a ‘Build Back Better’ plan, when democracy is under the gun. We need to sort out who is a (small cap) democrat and who is authoritarian and then use our votes to place or keep the true democrats in office. Democracy’s path goes through the voting booth. Wake up America!

There is a reasonably good chance that the anti-democratic, authoritarian, drift of the Republican Party will self-destruct. That the fire will burn itself out by intensity. That may happen when, with typical tyrannical abandon and hubris, the Republican Party will continue it’s ideological cleansing in the primary process. My bet is that they may go too far in putting up candidates for elective office, Statewide and National, who are unpalatable to the voters in general elections. The conventional wisdom is that the party of the incumbent President will lose the mid-term elections and the betting is that this will happen again in 2022. In a normal democracy that would not be a disaster. In America, in 2022, it would be the death knell of democracy. And yet, it will happen unless the election produces an unequivocal repudiation of authoritarianism. Wake up America and throw the insurgents out.

PIPEDREAM

How much more dysfunctional can America get? Congress finally passed a long overdue, bi-partisan, infrastructure upgrade bill and now the 13 Republican legislators who voted in favor of the bill are being crucified by their own party for lending their support to this rare act of Congressional governance. Never mind that they voted for a bill that had passed the Senate with support of 19 Republicans, including the minority leader.

There is so much wrong with the current American system of public governance, that it is exasperating.          

The biggest issue is that it has become virtually impossible to right the ship and make the systematic changes that could put the ship of state back on course. It is not for a dearth of available improvements that the current stasis exists. The only reason that America can’t get out of its own way is that in the two-party system, with the parties more or less equally balanced, it is easy to calculate if a particular systematic improvement favors one party or the other. In today’s constellation, almost every possible move to unshackle the political process and democratize the system seems to favor the Democrats and is therefore blocked by the Republicans.

At first glance, abandoning the filibuster rule of the Senate offers itself as a prime example of this reality. But think again: While dropping the filibuster rule would allow the current Democratic administration to push through its agenda during this Congressional term, it would negate and reverse that advantage the moment the Republicans regain the majority in the Senate, which is a good possibility for 2022. Worse for them, if, in 2024, the Republicans were to win the White House as well as the Congress, the Democrats would find themselves deprived of any defense of their minority control and would have to helplessly watch the Republicans undo their legislative achievements. On the other hand, abandoning the filibuster rule is one of very few things the Democrats can do on their own without Republican support, while they have the majority in the Senate. And they will undoubtedly realize that if they don’t make this move while they are in charge, the Republicans can drop the filibuster rule at any time of their choosing once they regain control of the Senate.

But what about other possible improvements to the public governance system?

The good thing is, that much can be done without requiring an amendment to the Constitution. The bad thing, that in Congress nothing can get done without 60 votes in the Senate, unless the filibuster rule is dumped, but in that case any improvement orchestrated by the party in power can be undone once the balance of power shifts again.

We must also recognize that not all systematic improvements can be made at the federal level. Democracy in the USA is in large part a matter of State control. Two State prerogatives have a particularly large bearing on the functioning of the democratic process:

·        The mapping of Congressional Districts

·        The apportionment of Electoral votes

But, at the national level, there would still be plenty of room for improvement by e.g.

·        Expansion of the House of Representatives

·        Automatic voter registration

·        Making Election Day a Federal Holiday

The Democratically controlled House of Representatives has recognized the need for improvement of access to the polls and safeguarding against disenfranchising minority groups within the voting population by passing two Voting Rights Protection bills that are now stalled because of Republican resistance in the Senate enabled by the filibuster rule.

Expansion of the House of Representatives based upon the results of the 2020 Census is not part of either Voting Rights Protection bill but would also most certainly be blocked in the Senate, as it would presumably favor the Democrats since most of the population growth since 1929 (when the current limit of 435 seats in the House of Representatives was established) has taken place in the dense urban population areas where the Democratic Party enjoys the most support. By adding to the number of Congressional Districts in the areas of the highest population growth, it would make Congress more representative of the population and make it harder for States to gerrymander their Congressional Districts. The American population has nearly tripled from the Census of 1920 on which the current count of 435 seats was based, but Congress has neglected to acknowledge that growth in its representation of the voting public.

If nothing else, two legislative initiatives could go a long way to making the US election system more representative of the population demographics and fairer to minority representation:

1.       Creating a new Permanent Apportionment Act that requires that the number of House Seats is based on the Census population divided by 500,000; and

2.       Abandoning the ‘winner takes all’ rule for the apportionment of Electoral Votes currently in place in 48 of the 50 States and replacing it with a proportional apportionment based on the popular vote for President in each State.

With the current number of 435 House seats, each House seat represented an average of 242,000 citizens under the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. According to the 2020 Census it represented an average of 762,000 citizens. To bring that number back to 500,000 would increase the number of House seats from 435 to 663.

The increase in the number of House seats would also result in an increase in the number of seats in the Electoral College (which is equal to the sum of the seats in the House and the Senate plus 3 seats for the District of Columbia). It would take an act of Congress to make this change.

Abandoning the ‘winner takes all rule’ would require the legislative action by the 48 States (all but Maine and Nebraska). It would eliminate the disenfranchisement of minority votes cast in a Presidential Election.

Unfortunately, even these relatively minor amendments of the democratic process in the US remain a pipedream, as long as the People are represented by two similarly sized parties that are at unbreakable loggerheads with each other. This makes the outlook for a better functioning political system in the USA so exasperating.