There was a blue wave, of sorts. As I write the Democrats have taken the House. That puts a spanner in some of the works of Trump. But the Senate has a Republican majority, despite the supposed blue wave. And some profoundly nasty Republicans were elected.
I welcome the shift to the left that is implied by the policies of some of the candidates who were elected for the Democrats. There is also welcome diversity amongst them. But let's not get overwhelmed with excitement: Trump has not released a wave of revulsion. It's more like a trickle of opposition. And that's very worrying.
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I read that Democrat chances in winning enough Senate seats were all but nonexistent, given the way those particular states voted in the 2016 presidential election. They might have hoped to get closer to winning some of them, however.
Outright gerrymandering and vote suppression probably played some part as well, of course.
Agree totally. In spite of taking the House it was a disappointing result – at least viewed by progressives on our side of the Pond. However having read this piece by Ezra Klein in ‘Vox’ there might be some better news in the longer term – https://www.vox.com/midterm-elections/2018/11/7/18070802/midterm-elections-results-2018-republicans-losses-trump-house-democrats-majority. Unfortunately winning the popular vote doesn’t translate directly into representation.
Whatever spin one puts on the results, one thing is evident: the American democratic process is deeply flawed, both in its process, i.e. the Electoral College, and its loosely regulated private funding (super-PACs etc.). Apparently these midterms were the most expensive in history, with the total expected to reach $5.2 billion. Interestingly the Dems will have outspent the GOP.
“The abuse of buying and selling votes crept in and money began to play an important part in determining elections. Later on, this process of corruption spread to the law courts. And then to the army, and finally the Republic was subjected to the rule of emperors” (Plutarch).
The modern emperors are the billionaire financiers behind both parties. Democracy is a sham in the USA; it is a plutocracy.
@John D
I found this article on the democratic deficit in the US interesting/horrifying:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/america-minority-rule-voter-suppression-gerrymandering-supreme-court
There are obvious problems with FPTP voting in the UK but at least it does have some very small justifications (not enough to save it in my opinion). However the electoral colllege system that decides who the US president will be is absolutely crazy.
Fifty years ago, when we lived in America, we commented to our friends that the electoral system seemed crazy. Their response was that they did not want to be outvoted by the graveyards of Cook County (Chicago, noted for its corrupt politics). I pass no comment, but the system is there because no state trusts another state. Perhaps we need to be careful. The Conservative party already receives more funds from dead people than living people. Perhaps one day we will emulate my beloved Ulster and the Government will be elected by more dead people than living.
I think most of the problem in Northern Ireland has been addressed
@John D
Thanks for sharing the Vox article, very interesting.
“Nothing predicts presidential popularity like a strong economy. And yet in November 2018, Trump is less popular at 3.7 percent unemployment than Obama was in November 2010, when unemployment was 9.8 percent. That’s a tremendous political failure, and it should be seen as such.”
As Trump appears to be still riding on some of Obama’s legacy, despite his excellent (partly successful) attempts at repealing selected aspects of it, who knows what will happen when his own trade war results come through, before 2020, as they will, inevitably.
Who knows whether Mueller will be allowed to continue in his task; if he is stopped…then big doo doo indeed!
According to voter analysis the fascist lout Trump was hoist by his own petard! A large number of American female voters grabbed him by the balls and squeezed hard! This morning Donald will have tears in his eyes, despite his media bravado, as it gradually sinks in he is not only a lame-duck president, neutered you might say, but has fallen off the stage as a result of his own stupidity and will not be encouraged to return for a second performance!
The democrats will stymie Trumps domestic programme leaving him to focus on foreign policy. What could possibly go wrong?
The weirdest paradox of all is that Trump’s lack of concern for deficits is closer to MMT awareness than the Democrats who are using deficit spending to attack Trump and the Republicans! This is really weird, ‘non-linear’ stuff, to say the least. Trump used ‘money printing’ to bail out the tariff hit farming communities (admittedly because they were his natural constituents) which some Republicans considered ‘socialism.’
here’s what the Mises Institute said:
‘TRUMP’S ROAD TO SOCIALISM
Today the Trump administration is announcing a $12 billion bailout plan for farmers impacted by the response from the Trump administration’s tariffs. ‘ (mises.org/power-market/trumps-road-socialism)
Get’s weirder doesn’t it?
Yet people like Nancy Pelosi keep banging on about the deficit making elements of Trump closer to being progressive than her! Of course Trump is largely about Corporate fascism but I think we should be aware of this dangerous irony. The deficit spending is largely on military which has a high multiplier in the U.S. The Democratic Party needs to shift its economic ideology fast, get some new people in and ditch neo-liberalism 100% if they want to stop feeding the problem.
Will this happen, Probably not, or it will take too long. We can see what the failure of the Left is doing in Germany, Hungary, Israel, Phillipines and in a dizzyingly ghastly form in Brazil. It doesn’t look good.
You are right: Trump is cloer to dodproate fascism
This is why he is not a neoliberal and it is a mistake to think he is
Too many Democrats still are
They need to be come what I now thin should be called ‘open social democrats’ – people who believe that social democracy can be and must be run in a world of open trade
A trickle maybe but that’s how damns eventually burst remember? Let’s hope so.
Radio 4 had an interesting interview with someone and Jonathon Freedland this evening talking about Trump’s identity politics and how that sets him apart from the your usual run of the mill US politician. The fact that such strident politics can also breed opposition as well as support was mentioned and discussed rather well.
It was felt that what pushed the Democrats over the line was bringing concerns like health care to the fore. It seems that there is a thirst in the USA for something more left wing that is not being satiated. As far healthcare is concerned Trump looks very neo-lib to me.
I still think that Trump has elements of neo-liberalism in him. He has created a market of voters and knows that to keep them on his side he must make sure that they are protected from some of the outcomes of his policies (especially in rural areas where his voters tend to reside). So he buys them. That is neo-liberalism in my book. Or I if you like – American style politics. Which is pre-dominantly neo-liberal after all. And folks – this is not socialism – right? It’s self interest.
It is going to be really interesting watching what goes on in the HoR given how the Republicans previously stymied Obama there.
@PSR
I remember reading somewhere (can’t remember the source) that on many issues the American public support more progressive policies than you would imagine. I think there were clear majorities in favour of better gun control and a fairer health system for instance. This is why some Republican politicians ran into such trouble when people realized what scrapping “Obamacare” really meant.
The problem in the US is that the voting system and the extent of capture of the political class by powerful special interest groups are at an even worse point than they are here in the UK.
Neil
True
The USA is deeply gerrymandered by the Republicans
Neil
Yes – you are right to point that out – I have seen this too as my journey into political economy has progressed from the early 1990’s.
I too once thought that the US was pre-dominantly a neo-liberal country through and through but what I have discovered via people like Chris Hedges, Bernie Sanders, Michael Moore, Robert Reich, Michael Hudson etc., is that this is not the truth of the situation at all and the US has a rich complex political economy that is not reflected in its media.
Ayn Rand is not liked by everyone in the US – thank God.
The documentary I posted a link to here recently (Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy) reveals the other side of the coin as do the works of those above.
The other commentator on Radio 4 was Finkelstein and, for once, I agreed with much he said.
As for Trump, he’s not really interested in neoliberalism as a concept (and probably doesn’t understand it in any case). It’s naked self-interest and greed in his case.
The Republicans have been doing all they can to enrich those poor, struggling right-wing billionaires for some years now (whilst being handsomely rewarded, of course). Trump is just enacting the same policies but with more gusto because he’s cutting out the middle man.
The fact that he’s also an appalling narcissist with not one jot of self awareness is by the by.
When he’s eventually done with politics some years into the future, just follow the money as it will be interesting to see just how well he’s done on his own watch.
Mariner
Most Neo-libs are not interested in the ‘concept’ of what they are.
They are just interested in the benefits they derive from it, meaning they are not likely to question it at all since it works well for them.
Trump is horrible. Without money and the dead cat kept captive on his scalp he might be an ordinary, fat, baldy-oldie like me. I have him framed as a paranoid narcissist. This is the trivial side of any analysis. Trump has raised issues about the Establishment and simply by “succeeding” much we have ignored on democracy. I have to say we would never have got the ‘Trump Experiment’ past the ethics committee! South Park had the race as between a Douche and Shit Sandwich. These episodes were somehow less abusive than the actual campaign, which we might have termed as between fascism and neo-liberalism.
In all of this foreground much is being concealed. The world needs a very different system and current politics cannot deliver it. This can’t be a socialism that delivers the Maos, Stalins, Mugabes and various tinpots even worse than the enemy Trump (though potentially not much worse). Libertarianism really aimed at removing government as a protection of some kind for all of us had no traction either. Even the term democracy is a myth in linguistic analysis – its origins are much more ignoble than most seem to know and most seem to think it has caught on around the world far more than it has. Even the Economist only accepts true democracy in 20ish countries, with the USA and UK either off the cliff or clinging on like a vehicle in the Italian job. “It’s time for change”, I’d say, if this hadn’t been ripped-off as the crass slogan of Establishment players.
We can spot the “answer” easily enough and it’s Green and a proactive Peace. This Utopianism garners about as many votes as Monster Raving Loony. Across the world, even women’s and gay rights are not established and we know how most wealth is plundered under governments red and blue – and not used to make most lives tolerable. Boco Haram look particularly vile and ignorant to us, but we can’t even justify this condemnation in the lunatic shade of cultural relativism and political correctness of main media and what’s left of the academy. Blue and red waves only show us the fickle nature of mobs and possibly the targeting of small percentages needed to swing for “majority”. We have ended up with a system in which good sense cannot be uttered for fear of the wrong wave. The Greeks were not convinced not to nip off for a bit of genocide because genocide is wrong, but in terms of their own interests. And here’s the rub – we are voting for the lesser evil or Trump (May is worse imo) and concealing how immoral that is all round in our fear of being impolite or breaching etiquette – a politesse acted in the foreground to distract us from planetary concerns and tell us that putting number one first is a good and ethical position. We can barely see that the groaf-oafs of all sides are feeding us slavery and planet burning. Needs another kind of wave to put all this out. We don’t even know how to talk to people other than as another sinecured suit who is all right Jack to people struggling to eke a living. Trump the pyramid salesman does “better” than us. Plato got at some of this, though again I only point out that our current problems are ancient. Noting that philosophy kept asking the same questions for millennia without solutions, Wittgenstein latched on to the idea language was largely to blame. We have a similar problem in politics. There is good news, as philosophy has made some language breakthroughs that apply in artificial intelligence. Who would sensibly devise a politics based on swaying portions of ignorant masses and prevent even this being said for fear of disaffecting the voters who may be clued up enough to know they are being insulted?
Speaking as an ex-American (I’m now a UK citizen) I have to say that I’m not surprised at the way this turned out. I’m glad the progressives netted some significant victories, including many in my home state of Michigan, but it’s still not the ‘wave’ we were hoping for. I haven’t seen the voter turnout figures yet, though. If the voter turnout was high, then we are indeed in deep doo-doo. If there are still lots of eligible voters who didn’t (or couldn’t) vote, then there may be more hope. But there is no doubt about it. The country is deeply divided. I don’t know what it will take to effect real change in the minds of people whose views seem to have taken such a regressive turn.
Trumpies are still all pumped up and raring to go. Trump isn’t as stupid as he appears. Constant campaigning, even when elections aren’t happening, is what keeps the Great Man in the minds of his ‘base’–which he plays to constantly. Spouting nonsense seems to be what they want to hear. They think it’s funny that ‘liberals’ are upset. It’s like vandalism, really. Destroy good stuff, then stand back and laugh because people are getting hurt.
I don’t know exactly what has happened since I left the USA 32 years ago, but there seems to have been a collective nosedive into the kind of social and racial attitude and politics that would have been nearly unthinkable to display when I lived there. And it’s IS widespread. I have this horrible feeling this kind of attitude has always been there, but has only just broken through the veneer of sanity and respect for others that I always assumed was real.
As my brother-in-law said, when out campaigning on doorsteps for Clinton in the 2016 election, “I used to think we lived in a nice neighborhood. We don’t.”
Scary. No doubt about it.
The turnout was high
The US is deep in the doo-doo
i also ‘ welcome the shift to the left that is implied by the policies of some of the candidates who were elected for the Democrats’
The failure of the midterms should allow the grassroots democrats (of whichever current persuasion) to finally throw off the top down imposed candidates and policies – it is the only way to achieve a real change in western politics.
I agree 100% with your sentiments Richard, yours is the politics of hope and fairness all humans deserve. I suppose many of the comments here and in your previous article are more about disappointment in feeling we ended up buying a pig in a poke, with the Democrat dream merchants, who sold us personality politics, which Trump then leveraged into pantomime politics.
A politics which can offer justice and protection for our environment, is what almost all humans need. It’s checks and balances need to be incorruptible by being transparent and accessible – without ANY exceptionalism, no matter whatever the occasional downsides of that may be.
We have lived and suffered under martial society for ever in the western world, it has brought us here.
If there is a path less travelled to be chosen, thinkers like you sir, are vital to point us in the right direction, fearlessly.
Please, please carry on educating us and thankyou for your work here.
Just thought I’d also share some of Chomsky’s thoughts and analysis on what America is doing to itself and to the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wDh3G7sWp0
He has been, and still is, one of the greatest intellects in America of the last and of this century. His analysis, although dark, is always incisive.
2018 Senate (latest)
Votes cast
Republican c.35m
Democrats c.45m
Nothing beats a bit suppression and gerrymandering. Also people apparently standing in one room watching as Democrat votes were instantly changed into Republican votes by the ‘machine’. It was rectified…allegedly.
Wow! Instructive.
Thanks for sharing! What a truly fucked up system that is.
Clement Attlee got more of the popular vote in the UK in the general election after Labour got in that denied him a second term.
People just love manipulating rules.
There should only be one rule really for proper democracy: PR.