Too late?
In many ways, the American political system represents one of the best ideas developed and put into practice to manage a country [i], but it is stumbling in the face of the challenges of change. Indeed, I would suggest the current President is the inevitable result of the system’s continuing slow but steady collapse: he’s hastening the process. It might even be too late to stop it failing.
As every schoolchild is taught, the federal government in the US (largely replicated in Australia) comprises three parts: executive, legislature and judiciary. Each is seen as a balance against the other two. As you know, the legislature comprise elected members in the Senate and in the House of Representatives (members of parliament in the Australian system). The Senate is a deliberative body, the House is the engine of legislation. In both countries, standing for election for the House is based on electorates that are (very roughly) comparable in voting population size; election to senate is based on the states, and this mean that those states with much lower populations have an advantage in representation. In both countries, there are complaints about the ‘undue influence’ of senators from smaller, often rural, states (e.g. 2 senators for California and 2 for Wyoming: California has 40m residents, and Wyoming just under 600,000 [ii]).
The second part of the system, the Executive, is the true ‘governing body’, comprising an elected President, and then heads of various departments and agencies, all of whom are nominated by the President, (and require the consent of the Senate). This makes an interesting comparison with Australia, where the Prime Minister is the leader of the party that wins a general election, and the Prime Minister and the parliamentary party then appoints the ministers (with differences between the political parties over the extent of the control the Prime Minister has in these appointments). Moreover, an Australian minister has to have been elected to Parliament to hold his or her office, but the appointment does not have to be confirmed by Parliament (although the automatic ‘consent’ of the Governor General is required). Ministers sit in parliament (either as MPs or Senators), and propose legislation sitting amidst the opposition and their own ‘backbenchers’.
Both countries have superior courts, and in both citizens have the right to challenge legislation and other administrative actions, with the possibility of their complaint reaching the Supreme Court (in the US), or the High Court (in Australia). Both provide for complaints to be made by arguing that legislation contradicts the Constitution. In the US, this includes the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution). In Australia, lacking a Bill of Rights (still under discussion, as it has been for decades), the alternative is to argue that actions contradict common law/precedent. Either way, this gives both countries a powerful way to check the government.
One last and very important common feature is that the national governments in both countries are ‘federal’ governments: the role of the national government was determined by the individual states agreeing to cede some (but only some) responsibilities to the centre. As a result, states hold considerable power, which the federal government works hard to take away from them.
So now we come to change, particularly in the US.
First, there has been a slow but steadily successful power grab by recent Presidents. Key in this has been the use of ‘executive orders’ (issuing rules and regulations): next, Trump intends to use ‘emergency powers’. Presidents, together with their departmental heads, use these unilateral techniques especially, though not exclusively, when the legislature is not willing to pass laws to meet what a President wants (like building a wall). These decisions may be curtailed or rejected by the legislature, but, over time, Presidential power has grown at the expense of Congress.
At the same time, the desire to win and partisanship is slowly destroying the processes and values of Congress itself. In writing to Senators and Representatives, I always remind them of the oath they swore: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”[iii] That obligation has turned into selective reading: Congress members (mainly the Republicans) try to sustain a second-rate status for African Americans, immigrants, women, and others; they emphasise some issues in the Constitution while ignoring others (e.g. reading the Second Amendment as licence to own and carry any kind of armament); and work hard to disenfranchise sectors of the electorate. At the same time, as the two side of Congress seem to move further apart, so bipartisan legislation is seldom put forward, except on the trivial or uncontroversial. Rules are rewritten to push controversial legislation through. It was Lincoln who said, “A house divided against itself, cannot stand”.[iv] Based on Matthew’s Gospel (12: 25), it was a pessimistic vision. Today, it sounds more like a prediction.
On top of all that, we have the politicization of the courts, especially the Supreme Court. One of my heroes is Hugo Black, the fifth longest serving justice of the Supreme Court. As an aside, I have to add if Clarence Thomas keeps going, he has only seven more year to pass him: what an irony it would be if Black was passed by Thomas, one of the most influential judges of the 20th Century being surpassed in longevity by a man who never bothers to ask a question! Back to Hugo Black. The reason I admire him is because of the contrast between his background and his actions as a judge: with little experience as a judge before his appointment, and said to have been a member of the Klu Klux Klan, he went on to write some of the most consequential decisions on such matters as freedom of speech, voting rights, and limiting the powers of both government and the court to those set out in the Constitution. [v] Cautious, an advocate of judicial restraint, Black would be horrified at the actions of the Supreme Court today. Now it steps into issues to determine what should properly have been decided by the legislature. It, too, is a house divided.
How does Donald Trump fit in to this? Most Presidents come from a political background, although for many that experience can be in state rather than federal government. They have a good understanding of the rules of the game. However, behaviour is very different in the world of business. Businesses are run by dictators: some are benevolent, many are not. They employ staff: but for all practical purposes, staff have no role in the appointment of the people above them. If democracy exists in many areas of life, it has still failed to gain even the tiniest toehold in companies (with one or two extraordinary exceptions, like Ricardo Semler [vi]). The employees of companies, the workers, are the modern-day equivalent of the slaves of yesterday. Of course, they are paid, and some are very well paid. They are not indentured, and can leave to seek a role elsewhere. But as long as they choose to take a position in a company, the manager is the boss, who will determine the scope of what they must do, who controls their working conditions, and who can (with various inconvenient bits of legislation to avoid) get rid of them at will.
It might be helpful to look at the situation from the top of the company. The CEO, the executive directors, general managers and the like control the work of those beneath them, some in charge of thousands of people. More to the point, employees are expected follow their orders. In many ways, the corporation is run like a nation was many years ago, where the ruler had absolute authority over the citizens, who had no role in their governance, conditions or rewards. To repeat, no democracy in governments in the past, and none in companies today.
When a new CEO joins a company from the outside, he or she has two key challenges, people and strategy. These are pressing challenges, too: companies often speak of the ‘honeymoon period’, that relatively short period of time when it is easier for a new leader to make radical changes. A ‘thinking’ new CEO concentrates on assessing the key senior people as quickly as possible, and make any changes that are needed. Then he or she spends time to understand the organisation, assessing what appear to be the critical imperatives and, better informed, reviews the approach they’d first proposed, develops a strategic plan and starts implementation.
There is another kind of new CEO, however, who sees his or her appointment as an opportunity to give positions to cronies, and then set about implementing the plan they had already sold to the selection committee. A simple proposal, with two or three important targets, it remains in place even when it is evidently failing. These CEOs are quick to broadcast achievements, and equally quick to explain away areas where results fall short, for reasons ‘outside their control’.
With that background, we can return to Donald Trump. Donald Trump was a businessman (and appears to still be one today). We don’t need to debate his success in business (plenty of writers have laid bare his failures and foibles), but rather reflect that, without government experience, he came into the position of president and took it on as if it were another CEO position. You won’t be surprised that I see him as an example of the second, poor performing business boss.
When the Republicans held the majority in the House and Senate, life was easier. Since the overall system had been giving Presidents more CEO-like powers, Trump behaved as if he could appoint his people, dictate the agenda, and the legislators would follow. Loyal and craven yes-men and women happily praised the commander-in-chief at cabinet meetings. Congress agreed to half-baked proposals and ill-thought through initiatives, although even the supine Republicans did manage to slow down some areas in the first two years. Swamp people smiled as he enacted another executive order (just a minute, wasn’t he going to drain the swamp?).
Now Trump finds himself CEO of a country that is divided at the top. How will he respond? Trump can see he has a challenge with getting his own way in Congress (he had seen a little of that for the previous two years), but he continues his usual approach. He sells his ideas (they are often not much more than that) to the electorate. He prefers to speak to voters, often face to face, concentrating on states and areas where he has strong support, or where he believes he can turn people around. Speaking to his supporters is his favourite tactic. There is nothing he likes more than the cheers and repeated chants of his loyal followers. Some are still shouting “lock her up”, as if Hillary Clinton is back in the race (heaven forbid!). He revels in adulation. At the same time, he can turn to the local Republican on stage, as if to say, “look at the votes I have delivered you”. It also reassures him that he can win a second term. As far as I can tell, he has been out seeking support for a further four years as President from the moment he was elected in 2016.
It is more than that. He doesn’t respect or understand the symbols and boundaries of the political world. He doesn’t see himself as the temporary occupant of an honourable office, but rather he’s the new big cheese. You can see it is small ways: his huge signature scrawled across the latest executive order, his use of helicopters and jets like a corporate fleet at his whim, and, unwilling (unable) to read briefings, his preference to be down playing golf and chatting to his friends at Mar-a-Lago. In this and more important ways, he sees the role of President of the United States as like a CEO, and in so doing is taking the next step in the decline of democracy and the tripartite system. He doesn’t want to have press briefings, because the press drives the agenda. He wants rallies. He doesn’t want to affirm the importance and the rituals of the office. He wants to hear applause. Trump isn’t a grown-up, and his naïve teenager outlook is concerned only with what he wants, an immature petulant grabber who ‘put a babe in the White House’.
How will Congress respond? Mitch McConnell has made it clear that quietly, behind the scenes, he is pursuing the Republican agenda, not Trump’s, ensuring conservative judges are being appointed throughout the system, changing the face of the Supreme Court. One more departure there, and he could fix that court for the next twenty years. Dislike him and his agenda as much as I do, I have to admire his political skills. McConnell will be the person who did most to ensure the Republican goals were achieved, almost unnoticed as Trump blusters and tweets on.
So, what do we have? Analysis, a system in trouble; diagnosis, every indication suggests this will worsen in the next two years; treatment, rein back some of the changes? Living in a plutocracy, I am not sure anything effective can be introduced to stop the rot when those at the top spurn democracy. As I said at the start, maybe it’s too late.
One of my occasional and silly fantasies is a benevolent dictatorship. Lee Kwan Yew ruled Singapore like a family patriarch. Ensuring there was no real opposition, he was able to create a wealthy country. I can imagine it here. First elect a ‘nice’ Democrat President, with a majority in Congress. While the President is being nice, have a fixer behind the scenes, a modern Lyndon Baines Johnson, who forces key changes. To do what? Take your choice: have senators allocated to states by population; add two more justices to the Supreme Court; universal health care; radical changes to the tax laws (income, wealth); impose salary restrictions on companies; introduce wide-ranging laws to arrest climate change and bolster sustainability; rebuild public education at all levels; introduce comprehensive, tough gun laws. I know: dangerous and crazy dreaming. All that strange smelling smoke drifting over from Colorado is scrambling my brain.
Let’s try again. There are some changes that might/could be introduced. Bolster progressive taxation so at the higher end tax rates are over 80% on income and wealth. Introduce a basic universal health care system, with additional private coverage options. Strengthen the EPA. Invest in a massive physical infrastructure overhaul, creating millions of jobs, and giving the US the opportunity to be more competitive. Re-establish high quality, accessible public education.
Yes, there are things that could be done. But, better be quick, it’s nearly too late.
[i] Churchill’s view of democracy: “worst form of government except for all the other forms that have been tried”
[ii] The two senators from Wyoming are generally unknown, whereas the two from California are key players
[iii] Intriguingly, the oath for a president is shorter: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”. However, both do refer to the centrality of the Constitution.
[iv] The “House Divided Speech” June 16, 1858, in Springfield, Illinois, a key step in his campaign against slavery.
[v] Will Brett Kavanaugh show the same ability to move beyond his past, I wonder? Initial evidence is discouraging.
[vi] His very democratic approach is described in his book Maverick, Grand Central Publications, 1993
