Elections, Democracy, and "the Donald"

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Elections, Democracy, and “the Donald”

P. Schultz

September 16, 2015

            There are two, rather competing “stories” about the United States and its politics. By one of these stories, our political system is democratic and we the people are a democratic people. Periodically, as prescribed by our constitutions, elections are held, the people’s will is canvassed, and candidates run for offices in order to serve that will once they have been elected.

            By the other story, one most are less familiar with, those with power – political, economic, and/or social power – seek to maintain those powers and to do so, they find it necessary to manage or “massage” our election processes, thereby limiting or even “short-circuiting” those allegedly democratic processes. The “Ins” do not “rig elections” in the ordinary sense of buying votes, but they do try their best to control elections to preserve their power so they can continue to serve their own interests and those of their supporters.

            When there is widespread popular discontent, when the people are dissatisfied, even irate, when there is considerable “civil unrest,” such control or the “massaging” of our elections is of great importance to the “Ins.” At such times, “insurgents” arise, “Outs” trying to become “Ins,” and, if left unattended, just might succeed.

At such times, it makes sense for the “Ins” to adopt the mantle of “insurgency,” to appear as being against the very system that empowered and empowers them and that they control. Hence, these days, the phrase “Washington is broken” is a charge made repeatedly even by those in power, those who control the same “Washington.” Insiders try to run as if they were outsiders and, when they succeed, very little changes, as happened, for example after the 2006 congressional elections were won overwhelmingly by the Democrats. Of course, such a phenomenon often occurs, for example, in the 1968 presidential elections when Richard Nixon ran as an outsider, especially with regard to the Vietnam War, won a landslide victory, but then the war continued for another five years or so.

But what does this have to do “the Donald,” Donald Trump and his campaign for the presidency? On the one hand, Trump’s campaign may be seen as an interesting example of “massaging” our electoral process because while he looks and sounds like an insurgent, seeking to overthrow the established order, he is anything but. Trump is a billionaire businessman, just as Mitt Romney was a billionaire businessman. That he flaunts his wealth while saying allegedly outrageous things makes it seem as if he is “liberated;” that is, makes him seem to embrace “unauthorized” thoughts and would as president propose and implement policies outside the mainstream. In this way, he will “make America great again.”

Yet there is little indicate that Trump has thought much about, to say nothing of thinking in depth, what would help right our politics or, in the current lingo, “fix Washington.” In fact, it is more than plausible to argue that Trump is the perfect establishment candidate because, while he appears to challenge the establishment, he actually is its embodiment. He proudly boasts of his accomplishments, which of course occurred as he played the game within the established economic and social arrangements. Seemingly, Trump’s boasts amount to nothing more than a claim that he knows how to game the system, to have succeeded because he is more “competent,” “smarter,” and a better “deal-maker” that those currently holding power in Washington. The system, that is, the established order is quite capable of bringing America to greatness again, if only people will elect Trump and his cohorts. In brief, Trump is no insurgent; he is merely just another person who thinks that “competence” will be enough to remake or refurbish American society and politics.

How little this veiled argument for competence addresses the anger of many Americans is reflected by the fact that what makes Trump attractive are his allegedly outrageous statements, which illustrate that many Americans sense that the established order is anything but able to restore the United States to something like greatness. “Politics as usual” is not working and, hence, those who talk like Trump, those who claim they would embrace actions deemed beyond the pale by the presently authorized ideology, attract many of the dissatisfied and the disempowered.

Moreover, Trump’s alleged insurgency, while reinforcing the idea that our political system is democratic or open to significant challenges, actually undermines the possibility for such change. Those in positions of power, the politically pre-eminent, are quite willing to tolerate Trump and his antics because they know that, in the longer run, he will fail, that they will be able to defeat him. And when that happens or is made to happen, as it will, those in power will be able to reassert their indispensability, claiming that insurgency is a pipe dream and that the current system is the best that is available or even simply the best. Again, this has happened in the past, for example, when the establishment Republicans tolerated Goldwater for president in 1964, shortly after the Kennedy assassination, knowing he would go down to defeat against LBJ. Similarly, it is plausible that a similar phenomenon was arranged in 1972 when the Democrats tolerated George McGovern, knowing that Richard Nixon would beat him in that presidential election.

Trump then is useful to the politically preeminent, those who hold power in the currently established order insofar as he makes insurgency look inane, if not downright insane. As a result, no significant changes will be forthcoming in the aftermath of this presidential election and this will be regarded by the established powers as proof of their indispensability, even of their excellence. It is or will be a strange situation.

The Populist Moment

My Latest “Gold Mine:” The Populist Moment

P. Schultz

September 12, 2015

            Just a few days short of my birthday, I have “discovered” a wonderfully insightful book on the Populists, entitled “The Populist Moment,” by Lawrence Goodwyn. I am going to quote two paragraphs from the introduction, offered as an incentive to get you to read this book.

            “For a number of reasons, all of them rather fundamental to historical analysis, the Populist movement has proved very difficult to Americans to understand….

            “There are three principal areas of interpretive confusion that bear directly on the Populist experience. First, very little understanding exists as to just what mass democratic movements are, and how they happen. Second, there are serious problems embedded in the very language of description modern Americans routinely employ to characterize political events. These problems particularly affect commonly held presumptions about how certain ‘classes’ of people are supposed to ‘act’ on the stage of history. Third, and by all odds most importantly, our greatest problem in understanding protest is grounded in contemporary American culture. In addition to being central, this cultural difficulty is also the most resistant to clear explanation: we are not only culturally confused, our confusion makes it difficult for us even to imagine our confusion.” [p. ix, added]

            Goodwyn goes on to point out that “the reigning American presumption about the American experience is grounded in the idea of progress.” Hence, in the face of “sundry movements of protest,” explanations are needed that are consistent with the idea of progress. Commonly, it is said that people protest when there is “a temporary malfunction of the economic order,” when “times are hard.” When things return to normal, people no longer protest, and, of course, “progress is resumed.” [pp. ix-x]

            It is then the idea of progress, that is, the presumption of progress as a fact, which makes protests appear as responses to intermittent economic “malfunctions.” However, to understand the Populists in this way is to make them and their movement disappear. Moreover, this understanding of American history also makes the arrangements against which the Populists were protesting disappear as well. As Goodwyn puts it: The Populist revolt “points to a deeper reality of the modern world itself: industrial societies have not only become centralized, they have devised rules of conduct that are intimidating to their populations as a whole.” Hence, because the Populists came to understand this, or at least some of them did, they were not interested in a return to “normality,” but were looking forward to “a wholesale overhauling of their society.” [p. xii]

Trump: Ally of the Republican Establishment

 

Trump: Ally of the Republican Establishment

P. Schultz

September 6, 2015

            The link below is to an article in Salon entitled “5 ways Donald Trump is blatantly sabotaging his own party.” Not so much. Rather, Trump is helping, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the Republican Party’s establishment types by making the “insurgents” in that party look like losers. And this is fine with these establishment types, even if it means that the Republicans will lose the 2016 election because that will solidify their power at the head of that party.

            This has happened before. Precisely, it happened in 1964 when the Republicans let Barry Goldwater be nominated, who went on to be crushed by LBJ in one of the biggest landslides in American political history. So much for the appeal in the Republican Party of the Goldwaterites, as they were consigned to the dustbin of history. And this prepared the way for Nixon's nomination and election in 1968. Most have never known or forgotten that Nixon probably outpolled Kennedy for popular votes in 1960 but you can bet Nixon and the establishment Republicans did not forget.

            Moreover, this “loss” had another upside: It allowed the debacle in Vietnam, which the Republicans and others as well knew was coming [if it hadn’t already arrived], to fall on the shoulders of a Democrat president, viz., LBJ, which was and still is a boon to the Republican Party. It is to this day the Democrats who look “weak” on national security and this is in part a reflection of what happened in Nam between 1964 and 1968.

            More generally, it is always useful to remember that it is a myth, a widely endorsed myth but still a myth, that political parties are committed to winning each and every election, even each and every presidential election. “Say it ain’t so, Joe?” Well, it ain’t so. Parties will lose elections if necessary to preserve the power of those in control, e.g., 1964, 1996, and perhaps 2016.

http://www.salon.com/2015/08/11/5_ways_donald_trump_is_blatantly_sabotaging_his_own_party_partner/

"Unmanned" Technology, Killing, and War

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Blinded by the Light: “Unmanned” Technology and War

P. Schultz

September 3, 2015

            Unmanned: Drones, Data, and the Illusion of Perfect Warfare, by William M. Arkin, is a book about the increasingly “perfect” vision that has been and is being acquired by our military thanks to drones and other such technology. And without going into detail, I was amazed at the capacity of our technology to see, it would seem, everywhere as that technology proliferates, seemingly without end.

            There are, however, some implications of this technology, as Arkin points out, that are or should be troubling. First, as Arkin puts it quite directly, our military has become “assassins.” The goal of this allegedly “unmanned” technology – which of course is anything but “unmanned” if account is taken of the thousands of human beings who fly these devices, those who interpret the data produced, and those who determine whether or not to kill a target – is to kill or “eliminate” a particular “target,” which is quite different than the goal of winning a battle. The goal is, to put it most simply, to kill targets.

            On the other hand, the goal of a military, any military, is to win wars. How much killing is to be done in order to win a war is or should be a secondary concern. Soldiers kill only in order to and only as much as it is necessary to win wars. Killing is not the essence of what soldiers do or, at the very least, it shouldn’t be. What Arkin labels “the Data Machine” changes this: “When something is found, when something is heard and geolocated, is it a clue to follow and understand, or is it a target to kill? In immediate self-defense, the answer is always ‘kill’….” [p. 239] And this despite the fact that it is not at all clear that anything much is being accomplished: “Given the efforts expended to reach this level of seeming perfection and equality, the numbers still don’t support the image of a terrorist and insurgent class being eliminated.” [p. 248]

            And this forces us to wonder how what we are doing is changing us. “Drones and their puppeteer, the Data Machine, may have developed from some sense of need and good, but no matter what, this Machine is going to kill, and its going to make godlike decisions. In the end, having the Machine between us and the killing makes us less human. The illusion of perfect warfare is little more than a blaring video game endlessly played to higher and higher levels and higher scores, but one being played in a crumbling crack house.” [p. 283]

Secondly, as our “vision” becomes more and more “proficient,” to the point now where individuals can be targeted and killed with great efficiency, our eyesight becomes weaker and weaker or, as some might say, we “miss the forest for the trees.” That is, while we can pinpoint the position of an individual we want dead, target him, and then kill him, we are no better and are probably worse at seeing “the big picture.” So, as weird as it may seem, as we can more clearly “the dots,” as it were, we see less clearly the context in which these dots exist. And it should come as no surprise that “connecting the dots” is a task we are unable to do well. In fact, it shouldn’t be surprising that given the “soda straw” view provided by our allegedly “all-seeing” technology, even those who need to know the bigger picture do not. “By June 2008, [Robert] Gates let loose in a videoconference: ‘I don’t have a feel for how the fight is going!’ he said. ‘I don’t think the president has a clear idea either….’” [p. 239]

            So, while it would seem that our technology allows us to make “god-like decisions,” the truth is that this technology and our reliance on it is actually making us blind, both metaphorically and literally. We cannot see who we are fighting and  even forget why. As Arkin puts it so well:

‘”Understand the village and its mood, find the anomalies, not just a hot spot or a patched roadway that wasn’t there before, but also the qualities of people’s stares, the level of nervousness of bystanders, the behavior of young boys, the identities and presence and attitude of key leaders. Learn the signs, smell the threats, pick up on the signals, know what to look for and what to see. Most important, do the right thing when you are the foreign organism introduced into the scenario  . . . This is not just the laws of warfare or politics or the stuff of commendation medals; it is also intrinsic to orderly existence and self-preservation, a chain of understood behaviors . . . that goes back as far as these stories of mankind and persists even in war, where even though the enemy does not honor any creed, the honorable fighters do. And they do so not just to live with themselves and maintain their humanity in the face of sanctioned killing, but also to forge a peace, to create a space for peace to return, for the sake of every good.” [p. 243]

GOP Giving Away 2016 Election?

GOP Giving Away 2016?

P. Schultz

August 19, 2015

            Below is an article entitled, “Did the Republicans just give away the 2016 election by raising birthright citizenship?” This opinion piece was in the NY Times, dated August 18, 2015. The author proceeds to analyze how much of the Hispanic vote would be necessary for the Republicans to win the presidency in 2016 and concludes that this will be nearly impossible to achieve and that by arguing that part of the 14^th amendment to the US Constitution should be repealed, the Republicans have not helped themselves.

            Now, this is an interesting article and argument and the author has done an impressive amount of work regarding Hispanics and their participation rates in previous presidential elections. However, what I would like to focus on, briefly, is the implied message that giving away a presidential election is something quite unusual and would only be done by any political party mistakenly.

            This is one of most cherished pieces of the conventional wisdom surrounding the American political arena, viz., that political parties are committed to winning each and every election. But while it is cherished, it is also untrue. There are several elections, even presidential elections, that may be said to have been deliberately lost, beginning with the 1996 election in which Bob Dole ran against Bill Clinton and during which the Republicans or at least many of them did little to help Dole win. I would also argue that the Republican Party also deliberately conceded the election of 1964, following JFK’s assassination, when it nominated Barry Goldwater for the presidency. And I would also argue that LBJ was quite content that Richard Nixon bested Hubert Humphrey in the election of 1968.

            What lies behind such arguments that makes them seem less weird than they otherwise would is the fact that any political party, like any political organization, has an “establishment” within it and that, at times, this “establishment” looks to protect itself from those who may be called “insurgents” seeking to overthrow them. Further, at times the best way to do this is to lose an election because winning it would result in a new “establishment” taking control of the party.

            So why would the Republican Party, i.e., the current “establishment” within the Republican Party, think it wise to lose in 2016? Perhaps because the “insurgents” in that party, represented by the likes of Scott Walker, Rand Paul, and now Donald Trump, if successful in gaining the presidency, would displace Republicans like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner in positions of leadership and, thereby, take over the Republican Party. From this viewpoint, the best result for the current Republican “establishment” would be to allow one of these “insurgents” to be nominated, lose to Hillary Clinton or another Democrat, and thereby preserve their control of the Republican Party. And after the loss, these “establishment” types could then argue: “See, Americans don’t like extreme politicians or extreme policy positions like those advocated by Trump, Walker, or Rand.”

            And in this way, that is, by throwing the election to the Democrats, the Republicans help to preserve the status quo in terms of both domestic and foreign policy, as well as their own power and status. Sure, they are the ”minority party” but they still have their power and perks within the Republican Party and they can comfort themselves with the knowledge that they have helped preserve the status quo in the nation. They remain empowered patriots.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/08/18/did-republicans-just-give-away-the-2016-election-by-raising-birthright-citizenship/?hpid=z2

The Real Campaign of 2015-2016

The Real Campaign of 2015-2016

P. Schultz

August 6, 2015

            What’s with all these Republicans – and an increasing number of Democrats – seeking the nomination for president? What’s with Donald Trump and is “craziness”? It all might seem kind of weird, or like “the train has gone off the tracks” accidently. But it is anything but an accident.

            That it is not an accident so long as one recognizes that politicians and political parties view elections as potentially “dangerous” events, i.e., events that could “realign” the prevailing power arrangements [the “regime”] and displace the prevailing politicians. From this vantage point, the current “circus,” involving multiple candidates, saying really strange stuff, is merely another phase in the current campaign of voter suppression.

            This phase supplements the more formal phase of this campaign – and this is the real campaign right now – in which some states have passed laws whose effects will be voter suppression. And the method of the current phase is pretty simple: Make the political process look like a “joke” or a “circus,” thereby turning people off and making them less likely to vote. The “Trump phenomenon” helps accomplish this, as does such campaign ads as Ted Cruz’s “machine gun bacon” ad! And, of course, as our comedians play up these things, their effects are fortified. And some of those who see themselves as challenging the status quo are actually fortifying it.

            An additional plus to this “circus” is that it makes it seem that those who are angry or irate about our current situation can be dismissed as they gravitate toward those allegedly “loose cannons” running for president. This serves the established political class well because it not only dismisses these people but it disses their anger as well, making it seem unwarranted or a product of some personal “quirk.” It is as if the message is: “Obviously, things aren’t so bad as these people claim they are. So ‘Stay Calm and Carry On,’ as the saying has it.”

            Overall, then, what we are witnessing is part of the 2015-2016 campaign. But that campaign is not only – not even primarily – about electing a new, unblack president. It is also about preserving the established social and political order in the face of a clear case that the established governing class has failed over and over during the last twenty or thirty years. There is, as many like to say, “A method to their madness.”

           

Elections, Political Parties, and Politicians

Elections, Political Parties, and Politicians

P. Schultz

August 1, 2015

            There is an unspoken assumption that popular elections and political parties go together like a horse and carriage or like love and marriage. That is, it is assumed that they belong together.

            But, for a few moments, entertain another presumption, viz., that political parties and their leading politicians view elections as sailors view shoals and reefs, i.e., as dangerous and potentially destructive phenomena. Hence, elections must be navigated so “the ship of state,” with its political parties and politicians on board, will not run aground or even sink.

            We have, we are told, two major political parties, both of which are embedded in our political system, but which might be more accurately seen as shipmates on a “ship of state,” navigating an often unpredictable political sea, a sea which is unsettled every few years by popular elections. As a result, both parties have a mutual interest in steadying the ship of state in order to ensure that it does not run aground or sink.

            From this viewpoint, elections are always events that must be controlled, must be managed, must be navigated, and this is especially so in time of widespread popular discontent and anger. It might even be said, in fact it has been said, that the two parties collude in order to navigate such seas in the face of popular elections.

            Recently, I have been reading about the presidential election of 1896, in which William McKinley, the Republican, defeated William Jennings Bryan, the Democrat, a result which many say ushered in a period of “national unity,” a period which left behind decades of “depression, divisiveness, and flashing movement.” In sum, it was a time when, “if all went well . . . would carry McKinley and the nation triumphantly into the twentieth century.” [p. 156, Realigning America: McKinley, Bryan, and the Remarkable Election of 1896, by R. Hal Williams]

            Usually, this election and its alleged results are seen as the result of two party competition, a competition which pitted the “gold coated” Republicans against the “silver tongued” Democrats, a competition which is presented as offering the American people a stark choice between two radically different political and economic alternatives. However, one interesting aspect of this view is that it was not the view of many who were involved in politics at that time. In fact, for many, the election of 1896 had been “constructed” in such a way that any radically different alternative politics would not and could not win.

            In the years preceding 1896, due to depression and other phenomena, a third party arose called either the “People’s Party” or the “Populists.” The adherents to this party sought wholesale changes in the U.S. such as free silver, an income tax, public ownership of the railroads and telegraph companies, and protections for laborers, a category that was understood to include farmers. Obviously, such an agenda threatened, to say the least, the status quo and, therewith, both of the major parties. Hence, ways needed to be devised to ensure the demise of this party and its agenda. Interestingly, in light of this need, the political debate in the nation came to focus on the issue of silver, i.e., whether silver should be used along with gold as the basis of money, thereby increasing the money that could be in circulation and making life bearable for the common people. How this came about is not as important as that it did come about, with the result that silver became the focal point of political debates and political distinctions.

            As a result, the Populist party was split between those who rejected this focus on silver – they thought and said that the silver question was of minor importance to the well being of the nation and its producers, the laborers - and those who embraced it, the latter for the sake of joining the Democrats – a process called “fusion” – in order to make possible a victory in 1896. The issue was whether to maintain what some call “party purity” or to compromise, “fuse,” and thereby win the presidency with the Democrat Bryan. So the choice was presented but it was a false choice.

            “On the eve of their own convention, the Populists were in trouble, and they knew it. At the beginning of 1896, they had staked everything on the assumption that neither party would endorse silver. The Republicans seemed safe for gold . . . and surely Grover Cleveland . . . could keep a silver plank out of the Democratic platform. As it turned out, the Populists guessed right about the Republicans, wrong about the Democrats . . . . After Chicago [the Democratic national convention] the Populists faced a painful choice: nominate and independent ticket and risk splitting the silver reform forces or nominate Bryan and give up a good deal of their identity as a party. Either way, they were certain to lose. ‘If we fuse,’ as one of them said plaintively, ‘we are sunk; if we don’t fuse, all the silver men we have will leave us for the more powerful Democrats.” [pp. 110 & 113]

            Now, it should be noted that the radical agenda of the Populists had, by the time the election of 1896 occurred, been shut out of the process. “Either way, they were certain to lose.” Which is to say that their agenda was bound to lose either way, i.e., whether McKinley won or whether Bryan won! It can even be said that they had already lost by the time the election occurred. This is what is called managing or navigating an allegedly popular election.