Trump's Problem: The Presidency

Trump’s Problem: The Presidency

P. Schultz

            Donald Trump has a problem. And it’s the presidency.

            A president has no personal authority or power; s/he has or should have only official power, i.e., whatever powers are granted by her or his “office.” Trump, like many others, seems to think his power is personal, that it adheres in him, his person, not in his office. He is not a monarch or a pope; he is merely a president and this for only a designated amount of time.

            This distinction is difficult to keep straight because of, among other things, the White House, which was originally known as “the president’s palace.” The White House blurs the distinction between personal and official power because it is both a personal residence and an office, much as is Buckingham Palace or the Vatican. Hence, the presidency has – as both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists knew – monarchical characteristics, leading presidents to see themselves as something like monarchs, i.e., as those whose power is personal and exists whether performing official duties or not. As president, that Nixon had this idea is illustrated by his willingness to “crash a wedding” and, more importantly, by his assertion that “if the president does it, it is not illegal.” Officials can be held accountable whenever they “break the law,” but monarchs cannot.

            Being an egomaniac, Trump just assumes that his power is personal, not official. In his mind, he was elected but not to execute an office, but to, personally, “make America great again.” This is not, of course, an official duty. Hence, his office does not define or limit his power, does not confer authority upon him. It is, of course, not clear what the source of his power and authority are, but whatever their source, in his mind, Trump is not merely an official, an officer obligated to perform certain duties for the sake of the well-being of others. This is what Trump’s egotistical blustering is all about and its intensity reflects his awareness, however unconscious this might be, that he is a “public servant” and merely one of a number of executives, chief though he may be.

            This confusion is what makes Trump dangerous, just as it made Richard Nixon and others dangerous. But it is also what makes it fairly certain that the Trump presidency, like the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson, LBJ, and Richard Nixon, will self-destruct. For although the presidency is something like a monarchy, it is best described as a disguised monarchy, because it makes those occupying that office, unlike real monarchs, accountable for their actions, both private and public. And after the presidencies LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II, all of whom were held accountable for their misfeasances, malfeasances, and abuses of power, I think we can rest assured that “judgment day” is coming for Trump. He can run but he cannot hide – thanks to the Constitution.

War and the United States

War and the United States

P. Schultz

            Rosa Brooks, a sometime employee of the Department of Defense, sometime lawyer, and full time mother, has written a book entitled: How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon. It is an interesting book, whose argument may be summed up as follows: Due to advancing technology, the boundary or boundaries between war and peace have been or are being erased. This is, Brooks argues, both an advance – now we can wage “humanitarian wars” and pinpoint those enemies we wish to assassinate – and a threat – overuse of the military promises to render it incapable of protecting us. So we had better come to grips with our new situation and make things right.

            A couple of thoughts struck me as I read Brooks’ monograph. First, there is no or little mention of politics throughout her book. That is, according to Brooks, we are in the midst of situation that has undermined the boundaries between war and peace but this has nothing to do with politics or, put differently, politics has nothing to do with the situation we are in. So, it’s as if all our politicians can do is to react to forces that they have had nothing to with unleashing. Which isn’t all that persuasive insofar as it is our politicians who have built, willingly and even eagerly at times, the military-industrial complex or the warfare state in which we are living. For example, the Department of Defense was created after World War II, despite the opposition, often intense and thoughtful, of conservatives. Meaning that it wasn’t necessary to create that department or to build “the Pentagon,” from which Brooks’ tales come. And if we as a nation hadn’t decided to create the Department of Defense – replacing what was called “the Department of War” – would the boundaries between war and peace be as blurry, as amorphous as they are today? In other words, we just didn’t “fall into” our current situation; we and our politicians chose it.

            Secondly, it seems to me that Brooks’ argument that our situation is new or significantly different today than in times past is questionable. As Brooks knows, Thomas Hobbes, whose political philosophy is connected to, underlines our political order, viewed the world as characterized by “a war of all against all,” that is, a “state of nature” in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” or something like that. So, governments are created to render life more livable, to make human beings relatively free, prosperous, and secure. But Brooks does not recognize that this just means that “the state” doesn’t eradicate war; it merely manages war, tries to contain it, as best it can. Hence, at a very deep level, the boundaries between war and peace have always been unclear, with the phenomenon of “peace” being less real, more ephemeral than the phenomenon of “war.” It is not for nothing that our highest political office is occupied by one labeled the “commander in chief,” and not the “caretaker in chief.”

            So, if the lines between war and peace have always been less than clear, as we view our world, and if politics has something or should have something to do with clarifying these lines, then it would seem to me that without a consideration of the political choices that have been made in the name of the United States, e.g., the choice to create a Department of Defense and a Pentagon, any attempt to ameliorate our current situation for the sake of securing more peace and less war, as Brooks claims to want to do, is bound to fail. If, as I suspect, we as a people have embraced war as the means to improving the human condition, the cascade of war and, worse, of militarism will continue, destroying in its course those attempts, such as the laws of war, to limit or even humanize war.

            As an addendum, consider the following analysis by Jonathan Schell, as it seems appropriate here:

The Military Half by Jonathan Schell

            “Like most of the American military in Vietnam, the Army men who evacuated the villagers from Tuyet Diem and then destroyed the village saw what they were doing as only the first stage of a long-range benevolent plan for all of South Vietnam, in which the country would be rebuilt and then would develop a free and democratic government. The first stage of the plan – the destruction of the villages – usually went smoothly and gave rise to considerable optimism….But the second stage – the stage in which the Vietnamese and their American civil affairs advisers were to rebuild and reorganize….and were to stitch the whole society back together again – was infinitely more difficult… [A]nd the people who were to carry it out could not even begin to match the scale of destruction with their construction….Many optimistic Americans, including reporters as well as military men and civilians…, tended to set off the destruction caused by the military effort against the construction resulting from the civil affairs effort, seeing the two results as separate but balanced ‘sides’ of the war; and, looking at our commitment of men and materials, they were often favorably impressed by the size of the constructive effort, almost as though it was being carried out in one country while the military effort was being carried out in another. But, of course, the two programs were being carried out in the same provinces and villages, and the people who received the allotments of rice were the same people whose villages had been destroyed by bombs. The Vietnamese…felt the effects of the two programs, not as two abstract ‘sides’…but as a continuing experience… and, from their point of view, the aid given them … amounted to only a tiny measure of compensation … for enormous losses and suffering. Civil affairs officials … were puzzled when these hungry, tired people showed little gratitude for the help that the Americans and the GVN were giving them….” [196-98]

“Because along with the destruction of villages, American military operations brought death to many civilians, American civil affairs workers, no matter how well intentioned, no matter how well supplied they might someday become, could never, from the point of view of the villagers, ‘balance’ the sufferings caused by the military, or undo what they had done, which was often absolute and irreversible …. American civil affairs officials and workers faced a situation in which the cumulative effect of many abortive programs – all of them accompanied from 1965 on by the full force of the Americans’ overwhelming fire power – had been to bring disruption, destruction, and death to the country side on an immense scale and to leave among the people an indelible bitterness that no new program – unless it was a program to raise the dead – could hope to overcome.” [205-206]

Absent the power to resurrect the dead, as Schell puts it, the use of military power for humanitarian purposes is bound to fail, is bound to become inhuman.

Dark Money: A Review

Dark Money

P. Schultz

            Jane Mayer’s latest book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, is of course an exposé. And while I love such books, it must be said that its usefulness is limited and it is, ultimately, unable to do what Mayer would like it to do – disempower or defeat the billionaires whom she says have funded what she calls “the radical right.”

            Exposes work with such phenomena as, say, child slavery, impure food and drugs, or environmental pollution. To expose such phenomena is to defeat or to pave the way for the defeat of them. Why? Because there is no justification for such practices.

            Exposes don’t work, are insufficient with regard to the phenomena Mayer is addressing in Dark Money because those she is exposing are convinced – and have convinced others – of the justice of their politics. As Aristotle pointed out, a very long time ago, oligarchs appeal to justice to legitimate their claim to rule. And their appeals are not simply baseless or merely a cover for their self-interest, although they serve in that capacity. The claims of the wealthy few that they deserve to rule are, of course, controversial, that is to say, partial or incomplete. But so too are the claims of the democrats to rule. Ala’ Aristotle, all claims to rule, either by the one, the few, or the many, are and remain controversial precisely because they are all partial or incomplete.

            So, to expose some people as oligarchs who are seeking to rule will not accomplish much, will not lead to their defeat in the political arena, as should be clear by now in the U.S. And showing, as Mayer does extensively, that they use deceit, deception, or secrecy to achieve their goals does not delegitimize their activities. To undermine our oligarchs, our billionaires of the radical right, as Mayer has it, requires showing how oligarchy is unjust, how oligarchs practice injustice rather than justice.

            This is where Mayer comes up short, which is why her expose’ becomes repetitive rather than enlightening. Again and again, Mayer exposes the doings of the her billionaires of the radical right, as if people did not know that our political order today was screwing them over. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing and we don’t actually need an expose’ to know that we, the many, are being screwed over by our government. What we need is a politics that revolves around questions of justice, not around questions of increasing the nation’s wealth and power. For the pursuit of wealth and power, as the most important political goals, legitimates oligarchy and the rule of oligarchs, while marginalizing the pursuit of justice, especially where the many are concerned.  A politics of justice, not a politics of wealth and power or a politics of greatness, is what is most needed now.

Elections and Voting

Elections and Voting

P. Schultz

            There is a strange kind of logic going around reflected by the question: Did those who voted for third parties cost Clinton the election? That this is strange logic can be seen by asking instead: How or why did Clinton cost the Democratic Party the election?

            The second question, which is from a party standpoint the appropriate one, is underlined by the fact that many, in fact, very many Democratic voters chose to stay home, chose not to vote for Clinton. And this represents many more voters than those who chose to vote for third parties. Clinton, quite obviously, did not appeal to a great number of Democratic voters, and especially did not appeal to Democratic voters in states where the election was close and Trump won by a relatively slim margin, e.g., Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

            The onus, given these numbers on non-voters, does or should fall on Clinton and the Democrats to understand why they failed and why they lost the election. To say that it was those who chose to vote for third party candidates is to imply that they bear the burden of Clinton’s and Democratic Party’s loss, which is, to put it bluntly, absurd. Clinton and the Democratic Party lost the election and, hence, they should bear the burden of their loss, not those who either chose to vote for third party candidates or chose not to vote at all.

            It is all pretty simple. Political parties are, or allegedly are, in the business of winning elections. When they lose, when they don’t win elections, that failure, that loss is on the party, not on those who chose not to vote for its ticket. The Democratic ticket in 2016 ended up a losing ticket, plain and simple. It was the Democratic Party that created that ticket. Ergo, the Democratic Party and its ticket are responsible for losing the election. It really is that simple.

Dick Cheney: A Bust?

Dick Cheney: A Bust?

P. Schultz

            “Mr. Bush joined Republican congressional leaders, veterans of his administration and hundreds of others on Thursday to pay tribute to Mr. Cheney as his official bust was unveiled at the Capitol.”

            As reported in the NY Times and elsewhere, a marble bust of Dick Cheney was unveiled on December 8^th  in the U.S. Senate, as is the customary practice with those who have served as vice president. The Times also noted that “No mention was made of Mr. Cheney’s controversial positions on waterboarding and the Iraq war.” He was praised by former President George W. Bush and by the current vice president, Joe Biden.

            And what if this honoring is correct? That is, what if we have created a political order and practice a kind of politics that requires that our nation and its officials torture other human beings, even those who are innocent and even to the point of death? I mean, many people not only oppose torturing other human beings but also find it despicable. And while it is true that torture is despicable, what if the success of our kind of politics requires that we do it and, more generally, do despicable things? If that were the case, then our officials ought to be despicable people, ought they not? After all, despicable people have few or no qualms about doing despicable deeds, “dastardly deeds” they might be called.

            If this makes any sense, then it helps us understand the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, not to mention other presidents like Nixon, LBJ, or Bill Clinton. A politics that requires for its success the commission of despicable acts should be controlled by, governed by despicable people. And, of course, because most human beings have been unable to “learn not to be good,” as Machiavelli put it, or of approving those who have “learned not to be good,” it is best to honor the despicable by labeling them, as George W. Bush did Dick Cheney, “good [men] who love [their] country and really love [their] famil[ies].” It is in this way that success becomes the measure by which we judge public measures and persons and, perhaps, private measures and persons as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/us/politics/tribute-and-a-reunion-for-dick-cheney-in-capital.html?_r=0

The Bipartisan Darkness

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The Bipartisan Darkness

P. Schultz

            “Bipartisan darkness descends on the public realm [in 1980], preparation for the rule of the Right.” [Liberty Under Siege, Walter Karp, 139]

            Or in preparation for the rule of Trump.

            It is quite amazing how quickly in the face of a threat like the one Trump was alleged to be that bipartisanship emerges. Obama saying, in essence, to give Trump a chance and Joe Biden saying he will work with Vice President elect Pence. The signs are there for those who care to see them. And it is important to understand why this happens. So what was the threat? What is it?

            The threat previously was Trump, that is, before he won. But now the danger is that the forces that brought Trump to the presidency will not be stilled or pacified, thereby threatening the status quo and it protectors who reign in Washington. For there are “forces” abroad in the land that threaten the status quo, e.g., the growing popularity of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. That this is a significant threat to the status quo is not appreciated by most people because they do not appreciate the importance of “the war on drugs” for maintaining the prevailing establishment. That war, which is usually presented as a somewhat marginal policy that needs some tweaking to be made more rational, is actually as important as “the war on terror” for maintaining “the rule of the Right.” So, to allow the war on drugs to be undermined, especially to be undermined for the sake of individual liberty, is dangerous, even as dangerous as legitimizing “sexual preferences” – as if one’s sexual practices were “preferences” like one’s taste in ice cream – for the sake of personal liberty.  Such “allowances” create cracks in what is called “civilization,” cracks that imply that “civilization” – or as Huck Finn put it, “sivilization” – is more about repressing than elevating or liberating human kind.

            This is dangerous stuff in a regime that embraces or is built on the idea that without a powerfully pervasive national government anarchy will prevail and human kind will descend into darkness. So, such cracks must be sealed up as best they can be, e.g., by legitimating “same sex marriage” so unwed gays and lesbians, those who espouse “the gay life style,” can be viewed with suspicion. Respecting marijuana, then, expect the emergence of “scientific” claims about the dangers of marijuana, followed by attempts by “the Feds” to reassert control over the use of this “drug.”

            And expect too, more broadly, that “the rule of the Right” under Trump will reinforce those aspects of our allegedly capitalistic society that discipline “the many,” that is, we ordinary people. For example, by elevating the very wealthy to positions of power while emphasizing their wealth, Trump reminds the many of their unfitness, that they are “the many” because they do not have the innate or inbred discipline to be among “the few,” and, therefore, need to disciplined by our pervasively powerful government and its controllers. Such people, the many, should not be allowed to use marijuana or other drugs recreationally because they lack the inbred discipline of “the few,” discipline in this case to be provided by the nation’s policy of mass incarceration. These are among the means to still or pacify a people, especially a people grown restless with deference to its “superiors.”

            So “the bipartisan darkness” that is descending – once again – “on the public realm” is the darkness of a “civilization” – actually a regime – that is constantly threatened by the conviction that human beings were “created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And as Lincoln put it, these words are ”a stumbling block to those who . . . might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism,” a barrier to any potential tyrant or tyrants who would, in the name of “civilization,” make human kind unfree and rule them without their consent.

Trump, the Democrats, and the Republicans

Trump, the Democrats and the Republicans

P. Schultz

            “The grass-roots political activity of the citizenry and its inseparable adjunct, the entry into political life of nonorganizational politicians, is a constant threat to party organizations. It sparks political ambitions outside their control. It opens new avenues to public renown. It encourages outsiders to enter primaries and gives them a chance to win. It opens to officeholders themselves the opportunity it win public support on their own and thus render themselves independent of the organization. It is therefore the perpetual endeavor of party organizations to discourage and even squash grass-roots movements.” [Walter Karp, Indispensable Enemies, 26]

            Make no mistake: The Republican and the Democratic parties have the same agenda when it comes to Donald Trump, viz., controlling him or rendering him as powerless as they can. That is, they will try to either “mainstream” him or they will sabotage his administration. And this agenda is not the product of malevolence. It is merely the result of self-interest.

            Have you not wondered by Obama and the Democrats have not said that they will take the tact taken by the Republicans vis-à-vis Obama, i.e., rigid, unbending opposition? It’s because such a strategy would inflame, aggravate those who are actively protesting Trump’s presidency, thereby strengthening those groups and their grass-roots political activity, activity that the party might not be able to control. Such grass-roots activity must be “discouraged” or “squashed” in order for the Democratic Party establishment to maintain its control of the party, control that is, as Bernie Sanders’ candidacy indicated, is tenuous at best.

            And for similar reasons the mainstream Republicans are doing their best to “play ball with Trump,” and they will do so as long as the ball game is being played on their field according to their rules. Should Trump try to change the game, as it were, then mainstream Republicans will, by means both fair and foul, place obstacles in Trump’s way. As we all know by now, congressional inactivity, legislative stalemate, is anything but uncommon. Trump will learn that the political arena is not like the business arena at all. As Harry Truman said of Eisenhower: “Ike will say ‘do this’ or ‘do that,’ expecting it to be done, but nothing will happen.” So too Trump will discover that our politicians are most interested in preserving the status quo and, therewith, their own power.

            “A party organization is not like a building which, once erected, requires no further human effort. Keeping a party organization intact requires constant and unremitting effort in the face of perpetual and unremitting peril…. From the point of view of a party organization, every elected official is a potential menace.” [Karp, 22-23]

            This is especially true with the likes of Donald Trump, i.e., an elected official whose debt to a party organization is miniscule. Trump won the election, but that is all he won so far. And given our party organizations, that does not amount to very much.