a bonobo humanity?

Watching one of the cable news networks, either CNN or MSNBC – I’ve become interested in the USA’s parlous political situation as a diversion from my own probs – I listened not so attentively to two opposing views on a recent speech given by Barak Obama in which he warned against complacency with regard to creeping dictatorship. This speech has apparently inflamed Republicans, or members of the alt-right, whatever, I’m not too keen on knowing all the distinctions within that country’s disturbing polity. I got a sample of this ‘indignation’ when a right-wing pundit on the show launched into Obama for his example of Germany in the thirties – all those millions of Jews and Enemies of the State gassed, all that racist ideology and disgusting craziness, how incredibly offensive to make such a comparison, right? Obama really showed himself to be the most shameful opportunist, who’d stoop to anything, and how can you possibly compare this Trump administration with such a maniacal mass-murderer and his henchmen, etc etc.

Then the leftist speaker got to respond and it quickly degenerated into a shoutfest. Of course I felt like shouting too, but then I thought of a more dignified response.

Obama spoke calmly and thoughtfully, and yes certainly he was referring to the Trump administration without naming it. And his comparison with the rise of Hitler might have been controversial but what other choice did he have, seriously? What other dictator would’ve meant anything to most Americans? Obama had a choice of dictatorships subverting democracy. In other words, recent dictatorships. He also would’ve known, consciously or unconsciously, that your average American knows less than zero about the history of any country other than their own. So is he going to talk about Franco’s Spain, or Tito’s Yugoslavia, or Suharto’s Indonesia? Not bloody likely, that would be like talking Swahili to an American audience. Hitler was the obvious, really the only choice. And I have to say, I’ve long been pissed off by the ‘never mention Hitler’ taboo in political discourse. He should be mentioned regularly and often, and then again.

Trump has clear and obvious dictatorial tendencies. He rarely if ever has anything positive to say about democratically elected leaders, but he’s passionately in love with Putin, a petty dictator who’s turned his country into an economic basket case, with a GDP almost exactly the same as Australia’s in spite of a population six or seven times the size. Putin tortures and murders his opponents, or steals their money and sends them into exile, where they live in constant fear for their lives. He has likely destroyed any possibility of democracy in Russia for decades, though I try to still be optimistic about that. I have no doubt that Trump is only curbed by the institutions he lashes out at – the media, the courts, the FBI, the Department of Justice, etc, and would love nothing more than to be monarch of all he surveys, with statues and banners devoted to him everywhere. Then he wouldn’t be reduced to empty threats of suing the many women he’s abused, he could simply eliminate them – a much more permanent, and cheap, solution. He wouldn’t have to humiliate himself by begging support for the Roy Moores of the world, he could simply appoint them, as does his great love Putin.

So the point is that today’s joke can become tomorrow’s reality. Recently, Trump has expressed his ‘disappointment’ about not being able to control the Department of Justice, clearly referring to the Mueller investigation. Privately, we hear, he’s apoplectic with rage about it. We hear also about his ‘administration’ trying to set up an alternative CIA, and his lawyers suggesting he can’t obstruct justice by virtue of his position. You want to laugh, but how many of us were laughing at the very idea of Trump’s candidacy?

All of this, it seems to me, results from a political system in which way too much power is invested in one man (hopefully there will be a female Prez some time soon). In this respect, the USA appears to have far less checks and balances than other western political systems. For example, it appears that the US Prez has veto rights over decisions made by the US congress or senate. This would be unthinkable in any other western nation that I know of. There’s also the apparent fact that the Prez is seen as the representative of justice in the country, which is why past Presidents such as Nixon have seemed confused about their relationship to the law – whether they’re above, below or adjacent to it. It’s a farcical but disturbing situation which just doesn’t occur in other western democracies, in which roles and power are more diversified and the leader is very much first among equals. The fact that legal experts are actually debating whether the American President can be accused of obstructing justice is a perfect example of the craziness at the summit of US politics. If the Prime Minister of Australia, or Great Britain, or the Chancellor of Germany tried to argue that they were above the law, they wouldn’t be just thrown out of office, they’d be laughed out of office. They say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely; the US President’s power isn’t absolute, but it’s certainly too far on that side of the spectrum.

So Trump is currently pushing an envelope that’s already too large – the envelope of Presidential power. But there are positive signs. Certainly there’s no chance of him being re-elected, with his popularity waning and no real chance of it rising again, with a profoundly serious criminal investigation moving inexorably closer to Trump and his family, and with local elections moving against the Republicans. The tragedy is – and this is yet another problem for the US political system – that when Trump is pushed out of office, which I predict will happen next year, his administration won’t be dumped at the same time, as would happen in just every other democratic country, with fresh elections held. Instead you’d have an entirely discredited administration, led by the super-imbecilic bible-basher Mike Pence or the generally supine Paul Ryan, limping along for another two or three desolate years.

I may have made some mistakes about how the political system works in the USA, as I don’t like to get too close to it (I don’t find the odour appealing), but I do find it tiresome if not laughable when I hear American pundits talking about theirs as the greatest democracy, or their country as the cradle of democracy, etc. I am finding it entertaining at the moment though, with due deference to the poor and the struggling who are truly being done over by their absurd President and his horrendous policies.