I feel for the USA with Trump as president. Who wouldn't? With a man so incompetent in charge so much is at threat.
There are signs of hope in the US model though. The Senate has just voted to oppose a third attempt to get Obamacare repealed, with the Democrats voting down, with slim Republican support, a bill supposedly intended to achieve that goal but so devoid of content that Senators of sound mind, including John McCain despite his brain cancer, could not bring themselves to vote for it.
This matters for the US. It certainly matters for millions of US citizens who would be denied healthcare. It matters for the writers of House of Cards, who could not make this stuff up. But maybe it also matters here.
I am, of course, very aware of the differences between the US and UK political systems. The whip counts for more here, but maybe not as much as it did. And the fact is that this autumn parliament is to be asked to vote for a vacuous bill that is unclear as to meaning and which affords a clearly divided executive that is quite unable to agree what its own policy is far too much power to determine the detail on a major issue. I refer, of course, to the Great Repral Bill that no longer has that name because in a rare moment of insight someone decided it did not justify it.
Is it possible that this will fail as Obamacare is, precisely because some of good conscience will have to vote with that conscience and say that this is asking for unspecified powers that it is simply not reasonable to grant when those with the power to use them appear quite unable to determine between themselves what might be best done with them? I think that plausible in the Commons and likely in the Lords.
Will this matter? Of course it will. What it will mean is that as Article 50 approaches the UK may be in potential deadlock with itself as well as the EU and a desperate appeal for time and compromise will have to be made. That will not be a negotiating position of strength, but the UK hasn't got one of those in any case. The issue may tear our parties apart. My feared national unity government may come to pass. What the EU might do will be unknown.
What I think likely is that the UK's status will be irreparably changed. But maybe, just maybe, the best possible outcome based on both common sense and even consensus might come out of it all, as it looks as if it might in the face of a ghastly political threat in the USA .
Or to put it another way, batten down the hatches fir the roughest political ride imaginable (and then imagine some more). That, I think, is what is coming our way.
PS: it looks like others think broadly the same way this morning.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Trump and more important the Trump team are NOT stupid! To say that understates the problem!
They are SMART! Trump got elected, They have totally changes the political narrative, they have made massive achievements in regard to their agenda in just a few months. By all means find another adjective, but do not underestimate your enemy!
OK!
It`s always tempting to label someone who successfully achieves an aim as `smart` – and it feels right in a liberal, anti-hubristic sort of way to give the devil his due.
However I think success (in most fields) is more commonly achieved by strength of purpose rather than smarts.
One of the most common traits of the successful right wing is the ability to ignore logic: free enterprise on a level playing field alongside strong support for private education/low inheritance tax.
Being smart just gets in the way of a comfortable hypocrisy.
I have to half agree with Peter Dawe the Trump team – chaotic though they are – are indeed not stupid, but are proving frighteningly effective at achieving their Right-Wing Leninist objective of deconstructing the State (read Lenin’s “The State and Revolution”, with its clear aim of creating a Year and Ground Zero from which to start the total reconstruction of society on new premises)
Steve Bannon, a definite Right Wing Leninist, has admitted that Trump’s bizarre Cabinet choices were chosen to achieve exactly that – and incidentally, Trump still hasn’t filled his Cabinet, I believe, which, if true, is another indication of the Trump team’s aim to produce a dysfunctional State, from which position they will be free to construct the “non-State” state of a government that has been shrunk so much it has been able to be drowned in the bath, as on Republican ideologue – I forget who – proclaimed.
So Betsy de Vos is well on the way to achieving the total privatisation of public education in the USA, while climate denier Steve Pruitt is equally far advanced on his objective of rendering the Environmental Protection Agency the equivalent of Hitler’s Ministry of Justice, as operating in complete contradiction to its implied aims.
Where I disagree with Peter Dawe is over his willingness to see Trump as smart. Alas, no – cunning, yes; ruthless, yes. But not smart: he’s actually a pretty poor businessman, not very bright, and (on the assurance of a Child Development Psychologist I met), actually effectively little more than a disturbed 4-year old, who still hasn’t learned there’s a world out there beyond his narcissistic take on things – any Primary School teacher would be able to recognise his behaviour from examples in their kindergarten Reception Class.
But he’s a useful figurehead, because no one else would have been able to attract the voters in such numbers – Rubio, Cruz, Huckabee, Jeb Bush? Nah! Trump was the one who was able to tap into the raw emotions of the electorate, as he had done so on his “reality show” TV programme.
And also never forget, he only “won” because of the ludicrously flawed Electoral College nonsense, which allowed him to sneak in by the back door, helped by the woefully inept Hillary Clinton campaign, who didn’t even campaign in the “rust belt” states, such as Wisconsin, thinking she could walk it on the back of the big States – as indeed she did, as well as winning the popular vote by over 3 million votes, a fact that would have earned her the Presidency in any sane, democratic system.
Final point, Trump’s “win” is all of a piece with most Republican “wins”, almost all of which are the fruit of the most shameless decades-long campaign of gerrymandering and voter suppression laws ever carried out anywhere, such that the Republican Party actually garnered fewer votes than the Democrats in the 2014 midterms, yet ended up with more seats.
And the latest “fix” the Republicans are trying to engineer is a return to the appointment of Senators by State Legislatures, as was the case up to 1919!
As Republicans are in office in up to 70% of Federal, State and Local legislatures and Governorships, this is calculated to gift then another 17+ Senators, and a likely permanent lock on leadership of the Senate.
The Republicans are no longer a democratic Party, but a revolutionary sect or cult, with the expected “Supreme Leader”, every bit as risible as the successive Kim’s of North Korea, but also every bit as effective at seizing, and exercising, power.
Well Andrew,
I’ll give you credit for explaining your case but some of us are well and truly over this “liberal anti-hubristic” thing as Brian describes it. It often looks more like a kind of woe-is-us, progressive, hand-wringing mindset that always manages to put a negative spin on anything.
Your two points about “successes” via Pruitt and De Vos are both executive measures, notorious and entirely reversible. There is actually little that Trump has acheived through the executive because the executive can’t retain members. Pruitt and De Vos must be the only ones left and they’ll probably be gone by the time that I post this.
Trump has relied (or tried to rely) on executive measures because he can’t get anything much through Congress despite the fact that his own party has a majority in both houses. That in itself is unique in living memory and as great a measure of failure as one could imagine.
In terms of lasting legacy the only thing that Trump has acheived is a re-positioning of American global status. The period of US hegemony that began with Roosevelt toward the end of WWII has been abruptly and prematurely brought to a certain end by one idiot.
It would be fair to say that US dominance has been in slow decline anyway but this guy has killed it once and for all. And in doing so he has literally handed the initiative to the old foe in Russia. In strategic terms he’s like some kind of reverse-Yeltsin, except that Yeltsin wasn’t in the corrupt grip of foreign agents, at least not when he started.
I’ve stressed this global-strategic point not because it is the most important thing but because it will probably be Trump’s only lasting legacy.
In a way I could say that reversibility is s as much of a problem as it is a consolation in Trump’s case. He came in as the populist, ‘anti-establishment’ candidate. Through pure farce, and rapid unpopularity he has discredited populism, discredited the Office of President and made the old neo-liberal establishment look good by comparison.
You can forget the “Leninism”. I’m sure the pillars (and pillocks) of that establishment couldn’t be happier – Hilary included.
If all that you say was true the Deomcrats would be riding high
They aren’t
So there is another line still to find
“SMART” – C’mon really?
What “agenda”? And what “team”. There are virtually none of the original “team” left at this stage and even their replacements have been replaced several times over.
Underestimating your enemy may not be smart but overestimating them is even dumber.
It is a shame that neither country has parties that the populace can believe in anymore, sad.
Well maybe things are going to get shaken up and who knows – there might be change.
But also, this is a good time for sticking together!
Labour party and all progressives – please note!
I am not claiming to be an obamacare expert, but I have seen occasional reports about it here, stating health care premiums have gone up massively in the u.s. And in some areas thanks to obama care there is only one insurer (a recipe for fees to go up). Is there any truth to those who claim obamacare is not good?
Obamacare is a plaster on a hopeless health care system when what is needed is an NHS
But it’s vastly better than no Obamacare
Sam
The US spend roughly twice what the UK does on healthcare & yet 20% of Americans have no healthcare at all.
Obama attempted to address that but it wasn’t an ideal solution, it was what he thought he could get through congress.
Every time you look at the US the effects of privatised healthcare just look worse & worse. It isn’t just the wealth & inequality. In the US they have a massive drug problem. I don’t mean in the rough ‘hoods but in white, rural areas there is wholesale addiction. They aren’t buying it from street guys but from doctors. “I got back trouble” A-have some more opioids.
“My kids struggling at school” A-have some Ritalin (aka speed).
I’m not sure there is anything you can be prescribed Cocaine for, but shit, daresay you can try
I voted for Brexit even though i strongly believe in the EU project,the EU needs reforming i’d like to see in/out referendums on constitutional matters freedom of movement ,army etc every 7 years to stop powerful people taking the EU in a direction it people do not want!i had hope Britain might use Brexit to renegotiate change within the EU,that is a failure.
But my main reason was Britain for far to long we have travelled in the wrong direction and it was too easy to blame the EU when it was the British government policies,they had to be isolated i so the people could see the truth of how our government actions ii to see the reality of Britain position in the world iii some of Britain’s politicians have been corrupted and needed to be shown up and outed for the British people to see.
I see movement on all these fronts which is a improvement on what was happening just a few years ago and because of where we are the integrity of many of those in hock have been damaged greatly.
But the real test like you say is to come,our institutions will all be tested to there full and Britain if it is to regain its greatness must do the right things for the country not for vested interest and if vested interest are damaged in the media,politics,think tanks etc and are weakened then that will be good for Britain.
Also if the institution come through and does the right thing it will automatically raise our standing all over the world once more,so i hope the EU will change,Britain changes and hopefully both will be in a better position to face the world and effect change for the good all over the world!
Yes its a tall ask,but better this way than meekly excepting what was happening!at least some of what i say may pass,where it wouldn’t otherwise.
ps if the EU project can be put back more in the hands of the people of the EU then i would like Britain to be part of it!
With politics in such flux, now is the time to create a radically new agenda. Turning around old institutions is near impossible. Look at the success of Bernie, Donald and Macron, they ignored the institutions and defining a new agenda (Well maybe not Macron)
I’m all for revolution (of institutions) but only if evolution fails! when something needs to change!and therefore since Donald,Bernie & Corbyn haven’t achieved very much(lack of power in Bernie’s & Corbyn’s case) it brings closer the need for revolution of the institutions and how governments are run!
Paul,
Your observations re. Bernie and Corbyn are a bit premature. In the early months of 2015 most of us didn’t even know who they were.
They have come a long way. Politics doesn’t shift instantly. Twitter does. Meaningful change takes time.
Vince Cable calling on progressives to join him is like a fox calling on chickens to come into its den.
I’m not a fan of John McCain – but that vote was good to see.
Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold!
And he only has his conscience to deal with now
It’s going to be quite a summer – MPs (on holiday at important times as usual) out, the next financial crash about to happen and goodness knows what brewing, WW3?, with North Korea and USA, both spearheaded by un predictable hotheads.
What could possibly go wrong?