Diatribes of Jay

This blog has essays on public policy. It shuns ideology and applies facts, logic and math to social problems. It has a subject-matter index, a list of recent posts, and permalinks at the ends of posts. Comments are moderated and may take time to appear.

17 August 2019

Who’s Emperor Now?


For discussion of the Baby Boomers’ role in promoting selfishness as a nation norm, click here. For the national nightmare likely to ensue if we can’t dis-elect Trump, click here. For reasons why we should task Los Alamos with making nuclear energy safe, click here. For a review of Pete Buttigieg’s good qualities and his prospects for vice-president, click here. For a brief review of the second and anticlimactic Detroit debate, click here. For a morning-after view of the first Dem Detroit Debate, click here. For initial reaction to the first Detroit debate, including criticism of CNN, click here. For a discussion of how the US can arrest its decline by rebuilding its labor unions online, click here. For suggestions how to fix, not trash, America by adjusting corporate law, click here. For what we can learn from the strong third-party candidacy of Ross Perot, who died recently, click here. For brief analysis of the House’s censure of the President, click here. For reasons not to watch Trump’s empty shows, click here. For an analysis of reparations for the descendants of slaves, click here. For brief descriptions of and links to recent posts, click here. For an inverse-chronological list with links to all posts after January 23, 2017, click here. For a subject-matter index to posts before that date, click here.

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters . . .” Donald J. Trump, January 24, 2016

In our twenty-first century, what makes an emperor? Is it everyone around him acceding to his whims and executing his orders? Or is it his ability to violate virtually any accepted social, political or moral norm and get away with it?

Before you answer, think a bit. President Trump has fired virtually everyone in the White House or the federal government who disagreed with him seriously or often. Or they have left the White House knowing he is boss. Those in power now either got the message or accepted it when they signed on. So doesn’t Trump meet the first criterion easily?

Trump said his bit about shooting someone back in January 2016. In it, he set a marker for his campaign and his presidency: he would violate every social, political and moral norm at his whim, and no consequences would ensue.

So far, he’s done just that, repeatedly and often. The pundits cluck and sometimes chuckle. Members of his party express dismay in the weakest and softest words possible. His opponents go ballistic but are dismissed as “extreme” or “left wing.” And nothing really happens.

Lest you think I exaggerate, let’s review some basic facts of Trump’s presidency.

The Ten Commandments use fancy language about bearing false witness, but they tell us all not to lie. According to the Washington Post’s latest talley, Trump has made 10,796 lying or misleading statements during his presidency. Many, if not most, he made in the course of his work as president of the United States. Some of them appear in the Mueller Report in the context of investigation of crimes. But what are their consequences?

The Washington Post has duly tallied them. Pundits clucked and frowned. Mueller heard and scribed. And nothing has happened.

Trump eagerly accepted the help of an unfriendly foreign power in his election campaign. In fact, at one point he publicly begged for it, asking Russia, “if you’re listening,” to hack Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Pundits clucked. Republicans made excuses and defended him. Nothing happened.

Trump tried many times to stop his own investigation. He asked Comey to stop it. When Comey didn’t, he fired Comey. Later he asked several underlings, directly or indirectly, to fire Mueller. Early on, he had asked former Attorney General Sessions to stop the investigation, and then he had waxed furious when Sessions recused himself. After remaining judiciously neutral in his Report, Mueller finally admitted in testimony that, in his personal judgement, these and other facts would justify prosecuting Trump for obstruction of justice.

But Republicans stonewalled and made excuses, the pundits clucked, and nothing happened. Trump and his minions even stonewalled duly authorized subpoenas, from duly elected committees of Congress, seeking to investigate further. Nothing has happened.

For over two years, Trump justified his crude and ill-considered tariff war with the nonsense that foreign producers, not American buyers, pay US tariffs on foreign goods. He mildly recanted recently, after the Dow dropped 800 points. Yet he has maintained his trade war, not just against China, but against other trading partners and allies as well, apparently under this gross misunderstanding of the most basic economic facts.

The Wall Street Journal clucked and chuckled with benign economic condescension. Real economists said and wrote their pieces. And nothing has happened but a Trump plan for a Christmas holiday on the tariffs. Evidently, it’ll be like the Germans, French and English singing carols at Christmas in their trenches during World War I, and then resuming slaughtering each other on the very next day.

Like the uber-macho that he is, Trump has no use for small-d democrats, let alone females. He derided British Prime Minister Teresa May and German Chancellor Merkel, making both their jobs harder.

But Trump loves male despots and dictators. He’s let Putin get away with influencing our election (in his favor) and Kim Jong Un get away with perfecting his nuclear weapons and missiles so they can reach our Mainland quickly and reliably. He’s let China get away with incarcerating over a million Muslim Uighurs, and Mohammed bin Salman literally get away with murder. To celebrate their special rapport with our President, Putin and MBS gave each other a “high five” at an international economic conference. There have been no visible consequences.

Like any good emperor, Trump gives other emperors their due, even when their actions violate every norm of human conduct developed since the Renaissance. But he does have a healthy sense of hierarchy. When Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu presumed to let dissenting members of Congress enter tiny Israel, Trump told Bibi what to do in strong terms. Like any good satrap, Bibi acknowledged his emperor and knuckled under.

What happened? The pundits clucked but did not chuckle. AIPAC wrung its hands. But nothing happened except that Congress’ power to control anything took another big hit.

In the very same week, the Dow dropped 800 points, Trump disavowed (partially and ambiguously) his nonsense that foreign producers pay American tariffs, and Trump put Bibi in his place, violating every traditional protocol of diplomacy and foreign policy and humiliating Bibi even more than Bibi regularly humiliates his own country.

So what did Trump do to cover his three unforced errors? He made public his overtures to buy Greenland.

And what did our media report at week’s end? Was it the Dow’s plunge, partial recovery and unprecedented volatility? Was it Trump’s about-face on who pays tariffs—a point as important as, but perhaps less politically consequential than, his belated about-face on Obama’s citizenship? Was it the further humiliation of Congress, which had already lost its power over war, the Wall and trade policy? No, no, and no. It was Greenland.

Julius Caesar was born in 100 B.C., over two millennia ago. There was no radio, no TV, and certainly no Internet. There weren’t even any newspapers. The only means of communicating other than face to face were relayed word of mouth and handwritten messages. For the general populace, that meant town criers, posted edicts, and words painstakingly scribed on stone monuments.

You would think that today we have so many more means to catch lies, correct errors and detect and squelch evil. But you would be wrong. The same human dynamic that turned Rome’s brilliant democracy into empire some two millennia ago is operating right here in America, right now.

Self-interested and not-too-bright senators and business people, some mired in debt, care more about their own affairs than the state of the nation. They’ll let the emperor do whatever he pleases as long as he seems to be doing things that help them. And they’re not especially smart about understanding their own interests: witness the tepid resistance to, and often tepid support for, Trump’s ill-considered and off-the-cuff trade wars.

Trump understands this dynamic instinctively. He’s made us impotent in opposing him, even those who who see through him. He’s out-Caesared Caesar. He’s brought our much-vaunted Constitution, with all its presumed checks and balances, to naught. Here in America, right now, today, it’s as if the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the American Revolution had never happened.

We cast our hopes on our “institutions,” but we won’t use the thin tool of impeachment that our Founders left us. At every step along the road we bow to the would-be emperor and let his craziness, vileness and nonsense pass as “normal” government, no matter what he says or does.

He’s thrown down the gauntlet in the middle of Fifth Avenue, over and over again. No one but Dems has picked it up. We, the people, the media, our Congress and, most of all, the Republicans have let Trump do what he pleases and made excuses for him. Then we all wonder where his delusions of invincibility and grandeur come from. It’s not hard for a madman to believe himself a “very stable genius” if everyone around him kowtows.

Our last hope is the coming election. We expect Trump to step down, even if he loses by only a small margin.

But what if he doesn’t? Then won’t our democracy’s fate rest on our Joint Chiefs? There are several good modern precedents. In the last few years, Turkey’s Erdogan, Russia’s Putin, and China’s Xi have all made themselves “presidents for life” of their respective countries, without any apparent consequences.

If our fate depends on our top soldiers upholding our Constitution, not our elected representatives, tell me how Trump’s current situation differs from that of Maduro in Venezuela. The Constitution means nothing unless powerful people uphold it in their words, their deeds and their hearts. Far too few who matter are doing that now. What we are all doing is watching Trump’s entertaining reality show while he turns us toward empire.

So who’s emperor now?

Endnote: The Hollywood-spawned notion that empire requires instantaneous, absolute, life-and-death power in the dictator’s hands is greatly exaggerated. You don’t have to pull out a pistol in a cabinet meeting and murder your brother-in-law, like Saddam Hussein, in order to qualify as an emperor.

China’s old empire was seldom like that. In any large, complex society, power dilutes as it moves toward the periphery, whether geographically or socially. The ancient Chinese had a clever proverb for that effect: “Heaven is very high, and the Emperor is far away.”

In the modern world, two things distinguish empire from democracy. First, democracy binds a leader to written and customary norms and procedures, and those bounds are effective. That is, they work in practice. We call this the “rule of law.”

Second, in democracy a leader consults freely with wise and powerful people, in both formal and informal positions of power. Those people have a real and enduring influence on the leader’s decisions, and they restrain the leader’s excesses.

Today Trump has broken written and customary norms of law and procedure both in the US and internationally, and he appears to have done so with impunity. As for consultation, Trump’s is so random, erratic and unpredictable as often to approach caprice. Furthermore, the people he chooses to consult with have no formal or customary governmental power, as when he takes his cue from Fox and Friends or foreign dictators.

The sad thing is that our democracy is really slipping away, bit by bit every day. In the hurly-burly of daily life and the twenty-four-hour news cycle, no one seems to notice.

Links to Popular Recent Posts

For discussion of the Baby Boomers’ role in promoting selfishness as a nation norm, click here. For the national nightmare likely to ensue if we can’t dis-elect Trump, click here.
For reasons to task Los Alamos with making nuclear energy safe, click here.
For a review of Pete Buttigieg’s qualities and prospects for vice-president, click here.
For a critique of the Dems’ anticlimactic second debate in Detroit, click here.
For a morning-after view of the Dems’ first Detroit debate, click here.
For an analysis CNN’s role in privatizing the news and history of the first Detroit Dem debate, click here.
For an intital reaction to the first Dem Detroit debate, click here.
For a discussion of the importance of labor unions and how to rebuild them online, click here.
For a recipe for fixing America by adjustment, without revolution or extremism, click here.
For what we can learn from the strong third-party candidacy of Ross Perot, who died recently, click here.
For brief analysis of the House’s resolution censuring the President, click here.
For good reasons not to watch Trump’s empty shows, click here.
For a discussion about reparations for the descendants of slaves and how to make the reparations work, click here.
For three things the Dems must do to win the White House, click here.
For an assessment of how the second debate propels the Dems toward losing, click here.
For suggestions on how to improve multi-candidate debates, click here.
For a more general discussion of how to improve debates, click here.
For a review of the first Democratic Debate, click here.
For a third, simpler look at why Trump won in 2016, click here.
For seven reasons not to make war on Iran, click here.
For discussion of Warren’s ability to defend science, and why it matters, click here.
For comment on the quality of Elizabeth Warren’s mind and its relevance to our current circumstances, click here.
For analysis of the disastrous effect of our leaders’ failure to take personal responsibility, click here.
For brief comment on China’s Tiananmen Square Massacre and its significance for our species, click here.
For reasons why the Democratic House should pass a big infrastructure bill ASAP, click here.
For an analysis why Nancy Pelosi is right on impeachment, click here.
For an explanation how demagoguing the issue of abortion has ruined our national politics and brought us our two worst presidents, and how we could recover, click here.
For analysis of the Huawei Tech Block and its necessity for maintaining our innovative infrastructure, click here.
For ten reasons, besides global warming, to dump oil as a fuel for ground transportation, click here.
For discussion why we must cooperate with China and how we can compete successfully with China, click here.
For reasons why Trump’s haphazard trade war will not win the competition with China, click here.
For a deeper discussion of how badly we Americans have failed to plan our future, click here.
For an essay on Elizabeth Warren’s qualifications for the presidency, click here.
For comment on how not doing our jobs has brought us Americans low, click here.
To see how modern politics has come to resemble the Game of Thrones, click here.
For a discussion of the waste of energy and fossil fuels caused by unneeded long-range batteries in electric cars, click here.
For a discussion why Democrats should embrace the long campaign season and make no premature moves, click here.
For a discussion how Trump and Brexit have put the tree world into free fall, click here.
For a review of how our own American acts help create our president’s claimed “invasion” of Central American migrants, click here.
For a review of basic facts that must inform any type of universal health insurance, click here.
For a discussion of how the West’s fall and China’s rise affect the chances of our species’ survival, click here.
For a discussion of what the Mueller Report is and how its release could affect American politics, click here.
For a note on the Mueller Report as the beginning of a process, click here.
For comment on the special candidacies of Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg, click here.
For reasons why the twin 737 Max 8 disasters should inspire skepticism and caution with regard to potentially lethal uses of software and AI, click here.
For my message to Southwest Airlines on grounding the 737 Maxes, click here.
For an example of even the New York Times spewing propaganda, click here.
For means by which high-school teachers could help save American democracy, click here.
For a modern team of rivals that might comprise a dream Cabinet in 2021, click here.
For an analysis of the global decline of rules-based civilization, click here. For a brief note on avoiding health lobbying Armageddon, click here.
For analysis of how to save real news and America’s ability to see straight, click here.
For an update on how Zuckerberg scams advertisers, click here.
For analysis of how Facebook scams voters and society, click here.
For the consequences of Trump’s manufactured border emergency, click here.
For a brief note on Colin Kaepernick’s good work and settlement with the NFL, click here.
For an outline of universal health insurance without coercion, disruption of satisfactory private insurance, or a trace of “socialism,” click here.
For analysis of the Virginia blackface debacle, click here. For an update on how Twitter subverts politics, click here.
For analysis of women’s chances to take the presidency in 2020, click here.
For brief comment on Trump’s State of the Union Speech and Stacey Abrams’ response for the Dems, click here.
For reasons why the Huawei affair requires diplomacy, not criminal prosecution, click here. For how Speaker Pelosi has become a new sheriff in town, click here.
For how Trump’s misrule could kill your kids, click here.
For comment on MLK Day 2019 and the structural legacies of slavery, click here.
For reasons why the partial government shutdown helps Dems the longer it lasts, click here.
For a discussion of how our national openness hurts us and what we really need from China, click here.
For a brief explanation of how badly both Trump and his opposition are failing at “the art of the deal,” click here.
For a deep dive into how Apple tries to thwart Google’s capture of the web-browser market, click here.
For a review of Speaker Pelosi’s superb qualifications to lead the Democratic Party, click here.
For reasons why natural-gas and electric cars are essential to national security, click here.
For additional reasons, click here.
For the source of Facebook’s discontents and how to save democracy from it, click here.
For Democrats’ core values, click here.
The Last Adult is Leaving the White House. Who will Shut Off the Lights?
For how our two parties lost their souls, click here.
For the dire portent of Putin’s high-fiving the Saudi Crown Prince, click here.
For updated advice on how to drive on the Sun’s power alone, or without fossil fuels, click here.
For a 2018 Thanksgiving Message, click here.

Links to Posts since January 23, 2017

permalink to this post

posted by Jay Dratler, Jr., Ph.D., J.D. @ 8/17/2019 02:39:00 PM  

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home