The Capricious Rule of Trump

The Capricious Rule of Trump: 

The Flynn case and the destruction of the rule of law

After the American Century


First, the Russians interfered in the 2016 election. This is not a debatable point, as it has been exhaustively established by a special prosecutor investigation.

Second, Michael Flynn had secret conversations with Russian diplomats before the Trump Administration took office. His phone conversations were recorded, because the FBI was tapping the Russian's phone. This also is a fact and not debatable.

Third, Flynn lied about these conversations, first to the Vice President and then to the FBI. This is also undeniably the fact.

Fourth, Flynn confessed that he lied.  He made a legally binding admission of guilt.

Fifth, after years of legal maneuvering, Flynn has just escaped any punishment because the Justice Department suddenly decided to drop the case. The Acting Attorney General, Mr. Barr appears to have interfered in the case in several ways. For details, see the lead story in the New York Times for May 8, 2020.

Sixth, the President of the United States declares that Flynn was innocent, and attacks the Justice Department lawyers who took him to court, calling them "scum." As reported by the Times, his words were “They’re scum — and I say it a lot, they’re scum, they’re human scum."  

The Trump Administration has politicized the Justice Department and turned it into his political tool. How it is possible that Flynn confesses his guilt, agrees to cooperate with the enquiry in exchange for leniency in punishment, but then manages to get the government to DROP the case?

There is no (American) precedent for such a thing. Confess guilt and then have the case dropped? What kind of legal system has Trump created? This resembles the way dictatorships operate.  Get your buddies off unpunished, and attack the Justice Department lawyers for trying to protect the United States from Russian interference.

Trump is not making American great, as he promised, but destroying the rule of law.  As for Mr. Flynn, he confessed that he was guilty of perjury, but that is not the main point. He was involved with the same foreign power that interfered with the 2016 elections, and the American people deserve to know the details of what Flynn's conversations were about. Note, too, that it is highly irregular to conduct foreign policy, if that was what one can call it, before one takes office - apparently in an effort to undermine the Obama Administration's foreign policy.  Some might call that treason.

But instead of getting to the bottom of Flynn's dealings with an enemy of the United States, he is walking away, unpunished.

Instead of the rule of law, we have the capricious rule of Trump.

First Female Prime Minister in Danish History

After the American Century

Denmark has elected its first female prime minister Helle Thorning Schmidt. Gender was not an issue in the election, which focused on domestic issues. Foreign affairs were scrarcely discussed in the  debates, which dealt with the economy, health care, and the like.

The new prime minister was educated in political science, graduating from Copenhagen University in 1994. She also studied at the University of Bruges, as an exchange student in 1993. Before being elected to the European Parliament in 1999, she worked for three years as leader of the Secretariat for the Danish Socialist Party in Brussels.  Compared to most Danish politicians, therefore, she has had an unusual career, since it began in Europe and only later brought her back to the Danish Folketing (Parliament), where she was first elected as recently as 2005.

Thorning Schmidt is married to the son of Neil Kinnock, once the leader of the British Labour Party and later an EU Commissioner. Her husband lives much of the time in Switzerland, where he works.  This fact, combined with her extensive EU experience, suggests rather strongly that the new government will not be as xenophobic as that which has been toppled by the voters.

The new coalition government does not have a large majority, and the four parties involved disagree on many issues, so it may not be easy to hold them together.

Denmark on the Brink: The 2011 Election

After the American Century

I do not have a vote in the Danish election, coming up in 36 hours, and as it happens I will not even be in the country when the result is clear late Thursday night. Danes who read this column will already know a great deal about the election, and Americans and other non-Danes will know very little, if anything. So what follows is written to the non-Danes.

Imagine a country which is self-sufficient when it comes to energy, with its own oil fields, and a world leader in wind power as well. So energy is not a drain on the economy, but a profit center. Imagine a country that has a small military whose budget is an extremely small part of the total budget. So this is not a drain on the economy either. Imagine further that the country seldom suffers any massive disasters, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, or tidal waves, so it does not have to spend large sums on rebuilding after natural disasters. Imagine, too, that this country is a net food exporter. It gets even better. Imagine that this country, Denmark, has a positive balance of trade, year after year.

Denmark has all this going for it, yet it still has the world's highest taxes to pay for one of the most extensive and comprehensive welfare states. In many ways. it is a model for the world to emulate. But the bureaucracy just keeps growing and the top down control becomes more and more pronounced. 

All the parties seem to go in for some kind of tight controls. Some want to control the borders and keep the bloody foreigners out. Others want to control the work force and make everyone work longer or retire later. Other parties want to force anyone who is not working to go to university, which is tuition free. There are politicians calling for high taxes on foods that have sugar and or fat, to force people to eat healthier foods. Whatever the problem, at least one party has a compulsory solution. 

The focus of the election is the economy. Even though it is one of the wealthiest per capita countries in the world, with a diversified economy and its own energy supplies, the Danes are telling each other that they are on the brink of disaster. The politicians are warning them that they could soon be like Greece, a miserable bankrupt land, unless certain reforms are immediately adopted. Some parties are saying the taxes must go up, others that they must come down. All say at one time or another that education is a good idea, as we all live in a knowledge economy now. But in fact the schools and universities have been cut back for the most part. 

Does any of this make sense? If you live here and get closer to the debates, it seems to. But the problems here are strictly from Lilliput compared to what Spain or Italy is facing. Likewise, the United States should be so lucky as to have the problems the Danes have.  There are no crazies running around Denmark denying the reality of global warming or Bible thumping idiots who seem to swarm through the Republican Party these days. Abortion is not a campaign issue. No one demands that "creationism" be taught in the schools.

I am caught up in the elections here and have begun to feel my fate hangs in the balance. I am convinced that unless the present government is voted out of office, Denmark's very existence as a functioning economy may be threatened. Let me go further: keep the present government much longer and this place will become a theme park, with locals playing parts for tourists, while all the real jobs are off-shore. 

I exaggerate. But the election does matter. If the current government stays in power, it will continue the reverse Robin Hood policies that take money from unemployed and poor people and give it to the wealthiest third of society. If they stay in power, the country will become more xenophobic, which means guys like me won't want to come any more. If the present government stays in power, there will be no new ideas. They have been in power for ten years now, and haven't had a new thought since about 2005.

The polls say that Denmark is on the brink of change. So I hope.
UPDATE for non-Danish readers. The parties on the left did win, and will need more than a week to work out how to share power among the four party coalition that together has a small majority. 

CRACPOT: Republican Party Needs a New Name

After the American Century

It is usually best to call things by their right names. There once was a political party in the United States called the Republican Party, which proudly nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. That party would never have considered nominating a bird-brain like Sarah Palin. It was called, affectionately, The Grand Old Party. It made mistakes, of course, but it was the essentially the party of the North, of development, of education, and of fairness, notably in the politics of Teddy Roosevelt. TR was far from perfect, but he did attack corporate monopolies, he often took the side of labor, and he believed passionately in conservation.

The so-called Republican Party of today is not at all the party of Lincoln or of Teddy Roosevelt. It is an angry party, a party of negative campaigning, a party that courts religious fundamentalism, a party that nominates candidates with extremist views. I strongly doubt that Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt would have voted for their candidates in the 2010 election. They were too modern in their thinking. 

The truth is that the Republican Party has become the Christian Capitalist Conservative Party, or CCCP . However, that abbreviation refers to the Communist Party in Russia. So we cannot use it. This new party has its power base is in the old confederacy. Get out a map showing where the slaves were most numerous, and it coincides perfectly with the states that are most staunchly Republican. I am not saying they are racists or that they are Bible beating yahoos, but they are strong in the areas where such people are to be found.

Indeed, if one looks at a map of the election results for the nation as a whole, broken down by county, it is immediately obvious that the Republicans are strongest in the countryside. The Democrats win Chicago, New York City, LA, Philadelphia, and so on, but they lose all those rural counties where people confuse socialism with any form of public services. 

So let me propose a new name for the Republicans, one that expresses their true nature:

Christian Rural American Conservative Party of Tea:   

CRACPOT

The name CRACPOT is accurate and descriptive. It is much needed in order to clarify who we are dealing with.

I therefore propose that CRACPOT be used from now on.

Obama After 18 Months

After the American Century

It has only been eighteen months since George Bush left the White House, but already the American public seems to be suffering from amnesia. The American economy is not recovering quickly from its near collapse under Bush, and this weakness is nevertheless laid at Obama’s door. His popularity has fallen below 50% for some time now. The great bank bailout has been reasonably successful, with much of the money being paid back, yet many Americans talk about the bailout as though it was not a loan but a permanent part of the national debt. The re-regulation of Wall Street has gone through Congress, yet Republicans proclaim that Obama has now hobbled the capitalist horse. (For a reality check, consider the Canadian banks which did not need a bailout because they were restrained by sensible legislation.)

And then there is the endlessly repeated, and endlessly stupid, claim that the health care bill is socialistic. This would be silly if so many did not believe it. If Obama really had created a socialistic health care system then (1) he would have  given free medical care to all citizens and permanent residents, in exchange for higher taxes, (2) he would have put all doctors and nurses in public hospitals on the government payroll, and (3) prescription medicine would be free or heavily subsidized.  This is pretty much what the health care system looks like in Denmark, England, or Germany. But the Obama plan did not do any of these things. It made health care available to all, in exchange for payment to private insurers. It left hospitals under the same management as before, and so forth. The Obama plan is an improvement, but it is not much like a European plan.

My American readers might recall that they do have socialistic elements in their government, notably the fire departments which are paid for by everyone and put out all fires regardless of where they are or whose property it is. The theory seems to be that minimizing conflagrations is a good thing for the neighborhood. Free public libraries are also rather socialistic, though this did not stop that famous capitalist Andrew Carnegie from building quite a few of them. Then there are those terribly socialistic institutions, the free public schools, and so on.

Today’s column clearly has only that most general of subjects, the instability of American public opinion, which so often is based not on logic but pavlovian  responses to key words and silly phrases. The circus entrepreneur P. T. Barnum  once said that no one ever went broke because he underestimated the American public. By November all too many Americans will be convinced that not Bush but Obama undermined the economy by over-spending the budget, letting the banks get out of control, and imposing a “socialistic health” care system. But it was Bush who cut taxes, especially for the wealthy and then overspent the budget by billions in the unfinanced wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it was the Bush Administration that failed to keep a watchful eye on the banks and Wall Street, until the economy was near collapse before the 2008 election even took place.

In American political culture, eighteen months is a long time, and some seem to have trouble seeing cause and effect, or separating substance form allegation. It is not easy to be President in the best of times, and far harder than in the present. On the whole, Obama has done a good job. But Americans are an impatient people, and in the off year elections the party that lost the last time usually makes at least a partial comeback. We shall see. 

Iran Delegitimizes Its Election

After the American Century

Elections are the central events in democracies, giving voters the chance to reject some candidates and embrace others. A fair and free election strengthens the rule of the people, as both winners and losers learn to accept the will of the voters. But the farcical election in Iran does none of these things. No one can seriously believe that only two hours after the polls closed that the 46 million votes had been counted. No one thinks that all the opinion polls taken before the election were wrong. They showed a close race, with no one likely to get a majority. Yet shortly after the polls closed the government could announce that what had appeared to be a close contest actually was a lop-sided landslide, in which the incumbent received almost two-thirds of the vote.

Democratic elections also include extensive public discussion about what happened and reconciliation between the winning and losing candidates. But in Iran the government has used tear gas to break up rallies, shut down internet sites, intimidated opposition politicians, and cut off the use of text messaging. In doing so, the Iranian government throws further doubt on the legality of the election, enrages the opposition, and disqualifies itself. It is an insult to world opinion to pretend that this has been a free or fair process.

Once again, the educated, middle-class Iranians have been robbed of the opportunity to build a modern state that is part of an international world of states. Instead, critics who claim that Islam and democracy are fundamentally incompatible have another dismaying example for their arguments. But I remain hopeful that one day Iran will peacefully join the larger world as a democratic state. I say this because of the passion for justice, fairness, and democracy demonstrated in the election campaign. Sadly, however, it appears Iran will inflict much suffering on itself before reaching that goal.

Democracy in Iran?

After the American Century

I have followed Iranian politics, casually to be sure, for almost half a century. This is for the simple reason that I had an aunt who married an Iranian lawyer and remained in the country after originally going there to teach. She had a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Michigan, a somewhat unusual achievement for a woman in c. 1940. There were few university jobs available then (i.e. probably none), and so she took a series of interesting positions working for the US government in agencies that were precursors for the Peace Corps. First she taught in Bolivia and Peru. where she perfected her Spanish. Later she taught English in India briefly, before ending up in Tehran.

My Aunt Gertrude was a powerful personality. Think of the strong women in American cinema from the same era, like Kathrine Hepburn. She was adventurous, eloquent, forceful, and a wonderful role model for a kid growing up. Th exotic aunt who not only had a professional job, but a series of positions in many parts of the world.

She gave most of her professional life to improving the teaching of English in Iran, putting in more than 25 years before the Shah's government fell. By then she was over sixty years old, and because she was perceived to be an old woman, she was left alone by the Revolution. This is not the place for more about her, but she remained in the country for several more years, until it became clear that she would never be allowed to teach or take an active part in the cultural life of the nation again. Then she returned to the US, with her Iranian daughter, who still lives there today. Aunt Gertrude herself lived to be over 90.

Now let me read this little story as a minature version of what has happened to Iran. Until 1979 the nation was modernizing rapidly, using its oil money to develop a middle-class. This middle class embraced foreigners like my Aunt, who had married one of their own, who spoke the language, and who had only the country's betterment at heart. But the growth of this middle-class also brought discontent with a monarchical form of government. The urban middle class wanted a democracy and more western form of government. But the rural people and the poor disliked the Shah for quite a different reason, because he was secularizing the society. Religious fundamentalism swept through the country, and the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini became the idealized leader who would return Iran to its religious roots.

The problem in late 1970s was that not enough people like my Aunt Gertrude had been there, nor had they been there long enough, to nurture the transition to a secular, democratic state. The forces against the Shaw were strong enough to topple him, but there was no unity amongst the university students, peasants, and religious leaders who together brought him down. In the ensuing power struggle, obviously won by the fundamentalists, many of the talented young (like my cousin, Aunt Gertrude's daughter) left the country for ever.

In the election yesterday, the struggle appears once again to be between city and country, between middle class and rural peasants, and between modern Muslims and fundamentalists. The basic inconsistency, the core problem that came to light in the late 1970s, has not yet been resolved. But the terms of struggle have changed someone. For no truly secular figure had a chance in this election. Rather, the two leading candidates were each to the right of where their counterparts might have been thirty years ago. The current President Ahmadinejad is a right-wing demagogue who revels in confrontation with the West. His strongest opponent , Mir Hossein Mousavi, is a former prime minister of the country, and generally defined as a "right-wing reformer." This I translate to mean that his policies are at least informed by economic theory and pragmatic evaluations of consequences. A liberal he is not.

Both men have claimed victory. The government began playing games with the telephone system during the election, controls the media which all too-quickly announced a decisive victory for the incumbent, and has already used police to break up peaceful demonstrations in favor of Mousavi. Ideally this crisis will end well, with a run-off election between the two main candidates, as prescribed by law if no one receives more than half the votes. But it may be too soon for such a disciplined and secular outcome, and Iran could be falling into an intractable crisis.

Obama Breaks Through, Again

After the American Century

Today Barack Obama won a stunning victory in South Carolina, crushing the Clintons with more than double the vote that Bill and Hillary could scrape together. With 55% of the vote, this was the first time any candidate from either party won an absolute majority. Clinton, with only 27%, lost by far more than Obama did in Nevada or New Hampshire, where he trailed by only a few percentage points. As Obama pointed out to a delirious crowd in his victory speech, taking all four primaries together, he has won the most votes and the most delegates. Poor John Edwards was unable even to come in second in the state of his birth, and one might assume he will give up now. But his concession speech said nothing of the kind. He will go on campaigning at least through February 5.

Interestingly, the only group that Edwards won over were white men. If they had been the only ones allowed to vote, then he would have won. But since 1920 women have been voting, of course. And if only white women had been voting, then Hillary would have won. Logically, then it might seem that Obama won because of the Black vote. He did - more than 80%. But one cannot get 56% of the vote with only African-American support. Many Whites had to vote for him too, and this is in South Carolina, where they still fly the Confederate Flag.

Obama gave a powerful victory speech that showed far more than his great rhetorical skills. He presented his victory and his campaign as the expression of the desire for change, and not as a triumph of any single group or faction. He only referred obliquely to the way the Clinton's had campaigned, no doubt content that yesterday the New York Times already criticized them in an editorial. However, the same editorial contained that newspaper's endorsement of Hillary, on the grounds that she has the most experience.

So they have fallen for this rather bogus argument. Bogus because the President does not sit there by himself but with a team of advisors. The question is not "Which candidate locked in solitary confinement could the best decisions?" It is rather, "Which candidate is likely to put together a fine team, and have the values and the character needed to listen to and adjudicate and do what is best for the country?" I am not going to listen to the New York Times. It is my view that Obama is the best leader and that he would make the best president. Clinton has much the same policies, but she does not have the intensity and the vision that Obama has. He has charisma, she does not. Ultimately, I fear she does not have a unifying impulse, but a divisive one. I doubt that she can transcend the bitter partisanship of the past that marked the eight Clinton years. Even if she wants to have a unifying administration, many Republicans hate her, and to elect her is to begin with partisanship and doubt that it can be overcome. With her and Bill Clinton in the White House again, the United States could easily sink back into the divisions and gridlock that have made legislation difficult. I think Obama has a better chance to bring new ideas into practice.

Carolyn Kennedy, daughter of President Jack Kennedy, has written an article that will appear in the New York Times tomorrow. She is endorsing Obama, saying that he is the first politician who inspires her the way her father inspired Americans in 1960. Think about what that endorsement suggests.

What Does Iowa Mean?

The caucuses in Iowa this week will be the subject of every political reporter in the US, and each of them wants to convince us that the Iowa results are very important. But what exactly do these caucuses mean? To a considerable degree, the result reflects the depth and organization of a politician's local staff. That is why Hilary Clinton has been flying around the state in a helicopter, trying to inspire and energize her people, as well as the more obvious goal of meeting with the public.  Four years ago Kerry did well in Iowa because he inspired a strong local organization. This is one important thing for a candidate, but we found out that Kerry did not run a very good campaign once he got the nomination.  

One of the curious things this year is that Kerry's VP candidate, John Edwards, is running so well. Consider that he failed to deliver a single Southern state to the Democrats, and therefore cost them the election. In 2004, Edwards could not carry his home state, and yet he is considered one of the top three candidates at the moment. 

As of this writing the polls put Edwards in a statistical dead heat with Clinton and Obama, with each getting slightly less than one quarter of the vote.  The problem in Iowa is that knowing who is tied for first is only part of the equation. In the actual caucuses the room is full of people who can, and indeed often must, change their vote, based on the passions and arguments on that night. Iowans are not fickle. Rather, they must assemble at least 15% of the vote in any given hall for a candidate's supporters to be counted at all. So the roughly 30% of the voters who do not want Clinton, Obama, or Edwards all have to switch their votes as the evening progresses. And given the fact that no one has more than 24% of the vote right now, quite possibly in any given meeting one of the leaders will fall short of the 15%.  In other words, Iowa culls out the weaker candidates, and suggests who is acceptable, but it seldom discovers the winner all by itself. The results can surprise, but one should wait to see how voters respond in New Hampshire, where for the first time they use a secret ballot and they have only one chance.

As for the Republicans, things are even more volatile, and my sense is that many voters could change their minds in the next four days or on the night itself. Giuliani, Huckabee, and Romney all have such obvious flaws for some Republicans and most Democrats, that one cannot write off Fred Thompson, even if he has run a rather lackluster campaign until now. Overall, based on my extensive conversations with ordinary Americans last week, all of the Republican front runners generate considerable bad vibes among many voters. Giuliani is by no means everyone's hero, and has even been attacked by some members of the New York Fire Department. He has skeletons aplenty that are not well hidden in the closet, both personal and political. For the Southern wing of the GOP, he is too liberal, too soft on abortion, and too divorced. For Northern Republicans, Huckabee is almost a joke, a caricature of the poorly educated Bible-thumping snake oil salesman, who has no international experience at all. Hardly the sort to put in charge as the US faces such a volatile world.  Romney seems to lack principles, flip-flopping on issues. Many people in Massachusetts, where he was governor, really hate the guy. In any case, polls indicate that more than a third of Americans, perhaps as many as 40%, are not ready to vote for a Mormon. In short, the Republicans have a flawed field, and the average voter is not very excited by anyone in the group, nor the group as a whole.  

All these observations aside, my personal preference as of the moment is Obama, who seems to me the brightest of all the candidates. He is a wonderful breath of fresh air. Besides, we have had Yale in the White House continuously since 1988! Twenty years of Yale, and Hilary would just be more Yale. This being a democracy, it is time to give the former editor of the Harvard Law Review a chance.  However, this particular argument will likely have little weight with the Iowa voter. Which is as it should be.