Bread and circuses
Apparently it was Juvenal, a Roman poet around the turn of the first century, who first used the cynical term “bread and circuses”. It is a rather evocative way to describe the desire of politicians to get public approval, not by the value or the quality of services or policies they pursue, but by buying support, diverting attention through offering panaceas addressed to immediate and usually rather superficial needs. When Juvenal used the term, it was his opinion that the approach worked because most people were selfish, and ignorant of civic issues and concerns. Today, here in the US, this is a time of bread and circuses.
For those of you unfamiliar with the US electoral system, some background. At this time of the year, we are heading towards the ‘midterm elections’. The American system has fixed four yearly general elections, when presidential nominees tout their qualifications, together with those seeking to win one of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Representatives are elected for two year terms. The midterm elections are half way through a President’s term: as a result, all the House of Representatives’ seats are up again. That is the easy part to understand.
During each general election and in the mid-terms, one third of the Senate positions are also up for election (since there are 100 seats in total, it is 33 elections on two occasions, and 34 one one). Senators hold their positions for six years. Finally, most State Governors are elected in the midterms: all but two States appoint their governors for four years (just New Hampshire and Vermont only allow two-year terms). 36 of these seats come up in the midterms and a further 11 in the general elections. We won’t go into any more details, but there are a few Governorships that appear in the so-called ‘off-years’: don’t ask!! Much more is going on at the State level.
With that woefully complex system in mind, we can now look at what is about to happen on Tuesday 6 November this year. We can begin with the Senate (sadly, we still have another two years of Trump!). This time around there are 33 seats being contested in scheduled regular elections and two other seats up for grabs in special elections (these result from a Senator retiring prior to their normal incumbency period coming to an end). Of this total, the Democrats have 26 seats up for election, including the seats of two independents who vote with them (most of the time), while the Republicans have nine seats up for election.
Commentators keep observing that the Republicans can only afford to have a net loss of one Senate seat in order to still have a working majority of 50 Senators (the Vice President has a tie-breaker vote). Three of the Republican seats are open as a result of retirements. Democrats are defending ten seats in states won by Trump in 2016, while Republicans are only defending one seat in a state won by Clinton that year. According to psephologists and journalists, Democrats face the most unfavorable Senate map in 2018 that any party has ever faced in any election.
Given this, you can understand that the chances of the Democrats winning control of the Senate are close to zero. If the Republicans control the Senate for another two years, the Democrats have to contemplate the awful possibility that one of the more liberal members of the Supreme Court might die or resign. This would give Trump the opportunity to nominate another Republican leaning justice, a nomination certain to be approved by the Senate. Such a nomination would condemn the Court to years, if not decades, of right-wing preferences.
That was the bad news. As regards the House of Representatives, the picture is somewhat less depressing. The number of Republican congresspeople announcing their impending retirements or resigning their seats is much higher than in any year since 2006. Most of these faced tough reelection bids in 2018 (in primaries, earlier contests to select the candidate for the midterms). The total retirements by Democrats is in line with previous Congresses. The disproportionate number of Republican impending retirements might harm Republican prospects in the 2018 mid-term elections, with fewer districts where Republicans have the incumbency advantage. Does this mean the Democrats will win control of the House? Possibly, but this is politics, and nothing is certain. If anything, earlier confidence has been waning over the last few weeks, and there is a distinct possibility that the Republicans will retain control of both houses of Congress.
When it comes to Governorships, elections will be held in 36 states and three territories. These will include 26 of the 33 states with Republican Governors, 9 of the 16 states with Democratic Governors, 1 state (Alaska) with an independent governor, both territories with Republican governors, and one territory (U.S. Virgin Islands) with an independent governor. Latest polls suggest that there might be a few states that switch from a Republican to a Democrat.
From the outside, you might assume the usual swing away from the President’s party will occur in the midterms. Many people have suggested the #MeToo movement, and the recent appointment of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court will have galvanised many women to vote this time, and vote against the Republicans. Maybe. It is unlikely to be the case in the Senate, but the House and the State Governors might see the balance moving towards the Democrats. As I write, it all seems to be on a knife-edge, the outcome unpromising.
However, there is more to consider. Trump has never stopped campaigning, and he is a master of the bread and circuses approach. In fact, a cynical observer might suggest that his only role has been diverting attention from government actions through offering panaceas addressing immediate or basic needs. Policy free himself, and motivated by receiving popular acclaim in barnstorming talks, he leaves the business of government to the Republican Party, or possibly Fox News, since we are never quite sure which is the more important.
It’s easy to make fun of Donald Trump, basking in the love and support of the people at his rallies, but to do so is to ignore the importance of a large (and possibly not yet shrinking) core of supporters who are enamoured of his call to ‘Make America Great Again’. They will come out to vote, especially if he tells them their future is at risk. These are the same people who still chant “lock her up”, Trump’s continuing theme when attacking Clinton two years ago.
Where’s the bread? The bread was delivered just before Christmas. On December 22, 2017, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. With all the usual hoopla, it was sold as a benefit for every American, as well as establishing the basis for companies to invest and grow. Another Trump promise met. Bread delivered too early means we have time to examine it; bread delivered too early often goes stale. In hindsight, we can see that the tax change result was a huge improvement, but only for those who were already rich. Corporate profits increased with less tax to pay, and shares continued to spiral upwards (yes, there is a share market correction on right now). The wealth of the wealthy has grown, and few companies have done more than make some marginal investments and paid a small bonus to their workers. Just in time for Christmas, the time to be out buying things for the new school year.
No fools in the administration. Just in the last week, there are promises of a “massive” tax cut aimed at the middle class. Employment figures for the traditional Republican electorates are being beamed out through all the media: “he’s turned the economy around, jobs are coming back”. There is an industry of ‘fact-checkers’ over here, which quickly points out the lies and omissions in promoting figures like these, but who reads anymore? There are more promises. Jobs returning from overseas to (white) Americans. Coal still to be dug out of the ground. No more reliance on Chinese goods, but “Made in America”. Nice bread for some, but there’s no delivery date. Bread today and bread tomorrow. In case anyone notices it is only bread, so now it is time to move on to the circuses.
One circus is ‘the wall’. This is the wall that President Trump is going to build to stop illegal migrants coming over the border. It was a crowd pleaser, but having declared the wall would be built and funded by the Mexican Government, it is a promise yet to be fulfilled. No matter, we can make a circus out of anything. How about a demonstration of different types of wall, for good old Americans to come and inspect, even attempt to climb. Good clean fun?
While looking at the wall, we might not even notice another circus. This is the result of ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement), who officers round up actually illegal and possibly illegal immigrants (wall climbers, obviously!), and then separate them. Children this way, adults that. How about getting the children into court, and trick them into agreeing to sign away their rights, as was recently done to a five-year-old:
“According to a long-standing legal precedent known as the Flores settlement, which established guidelines for keeping children in immigration detention, Helen had a right to a bond hearing before a judge; that hearing would have likely hastened her release from government custody and her return to her family. At the time of her apprehension, in fact, Helen checked a box on a line that read, “I do request an immigration judge,” asserting her legal right to have her custody reviewed. But, in early August, an unknown official handed Helen a legal document, a “Request for a Flores Bond Hearing,” which described a set of legal proceedings and rights that would have been difficult for Helen to comprehend. (“In a Flores bond hearing, an immigration judge reviews your case to determine whether you pose a danger to the community,” the document began.) On Helen’s form, which was filled out with assistance from officials, there is a checked box next to a line that says, “I withdraw my previous request for a Flores bond hearing.” Beneath that line, the five-year-old signed her name in wobbly letters”. [i]
Now that was a circus: a situation encouraging media excitement and ‘fake news’. All of which had the intended consequence of further reinforcing the fears of many legal Hispanics in the country about voting, in case they are picked up and shunted over the border (illegally, sure, but who’s checking? ICE?). At the same time, it contributed the fears of many Trump supporters that floods of young people are coming over the border, about to be a drain on taxpayer funds for decades. Now Trump on the ‘Honduras caravan’ has added to their fears.
Perhaps another kind of circus is a ‘commentator’ circus. This is where you get several wise heads (talking heads) analysing the latest weird and wacky things Donald Trump has been saying, carefully parsing every word to conclude what secret outcomes are being planned. The president is very good at creating that kind of circus, and he enjoys tweeting further incendiary remarks to heighten the drama. He must smile every time as the commentators fall for the next trick, while failing to look behind the curtain. What’s going on behind the curtain? It isn’t just continuing ICE raids. You want another example? Quietly, in the background, scores more conservative judges are being moved on to courts all over the country. The White House is delivering on that promise, changing the judicial environment for years to come.
He never stops. Last week it was contemplating a new ruling saying that gender identity is fixed at birth. That will play well with his conservative religious followers. Let’s define ‘transgender’ out of existence.[ii] Will the White House really do that? Your guess is as good as mine, but it will certainly draw attention as early voting begins. All those older white voters feeling left out can take comfort that Trump will stop the world going mad: better keep his people in power.
Policy on the Democrat side is offering another kind of circus. This is a circus where the performers don’t seem to know what they are doing. Riding on horseback, up on a high wire or taming lions? You never know what is happening: in a real circus, these performers get in a mess, reveal themselves to be clowns, bow for the applause and the show goes on.
The list of stuttering Democrat acts keeps growing. Universal health care or not. Gun control or not. Okay, let’s make it easier: restrictions on access to guns and military style firearms or not. Criticise someone for an indiscretion thirty years earlier or not. The party seems rudderless, veering one way then another. Sadly, this isn’t entertaining, nothing like watching the clowns in the circus. This is depressing, a sense that half the acts aren’t going to appear, and maybe fights between the performers are preventing anything worth watching getting into the sawdust ring. Trump creates circus attractions to distract. Democrats perform like a badly run circus, all the while without any sense of who might be the ringmaster. Surely not Clinton?
If you can stand back from all the details, at least one thing is clear. Commentators are carefully making it clear that nothing is clear! The Democrats could win the House, but some polls suggest not. Republicans will increase their Senate seats, although some contests are close run. Astute commentators will be able to point back after November 6 and show you they were right all along (and they were wrong all along, too!). Predicting the midterms is – a circus!
Juvenal was cynical about politicians offering bread and circuses, pointing to the desire of politicians to get public approval, not by the value of what they did or will do, but by diverting attention through offering little trinkets and gifts, all of no real consequence. However, the midterms are serious. They should be a time to appraise what has been done in the last two years, and to make a choice to support achievements, or push for change. If Trump hasn’t achieved anything else, he has made if unlikely that thoughtful analysis will be guiding choices at the polls. Is it just that people in general are, and always have been, credulous and gullible?
[i] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-five-year-old-who-was-detained-at-the-border-and-convinced-to-sign-away-her-rights
[ii] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgender-trump-administration-sex-definition.html
