Posts Tagged ‘crisis’
situation USA 2 – very likely, the worst is yet to come
The USA, over the past two and a half years, has been the object of a global ridicule and opprobrium never experienced before in its history, and it’s largely deserved. And the reason lies in a flaw in democracy pointed out by Greek philosophers, unabashed anti-democratic elitists, some 2500 years ago. Their concern was that the people could be too easily swayed by populist demagogues, individuals who, either through self-delusion or basic deceit, promised everything and delivered nothing, or worse.
There’s a famous quote, attributed to Churchill, that democracy ‘is the worst system of government, apart from all the others’. That description should be taken seriously. There’s no perfect system of government, in fact far from it. And democracy, in its purest form, is never practised anywhere. I’ve heard it said that a free press and an independent judiciary are two of the ‘pillars of democracy’. This is false. They’re in fact bulwarks against democracy. Both of these institutions are elite meritocracies. Another essential bulwark against democracy is an independent science and technology sector. If we based our acceptance of science on popular vote, we’d almost certainly still be living in caves, subsisting on the most basic requirements for survival. So let’s not worship democracy, but nor should we throw it out with the bathwater.
Democracy’s biggest saving grace is that it is inclusive. Everybody gets to have a say. One possible vote for each adult – assuming there’s no corruption of the process. In this respect, if nothing else, everybody is equal. Yet we know that no two people reflect in an ‘equal’ way, whatever that means, before casting their vote. Some are massively invested in voting, others barely at all, and their investments go in innumerable directions. Some of those directions never change, others zig-zag all over the place. And history shows, as the Greek philosophers knew well, that a licence to vote doesn’t turn anyone into a discerning voter.
The USA, it seems to me, suffers from two problems – too much democracy on the one hand, and too great a concentration of power on the other. They say that in the USA, anyone can become President. This is something Americans like to brag about. It’s not true of course, but even if it were, it wouldn’t be a positive. There appears to be no screening for such candidature. Some Americans are calling for extreme vetting of immigrants, but nobody appears to be calling for the same for Presidential candidates. You might argue that the same goes under the Westminster system of democracy, but in fact there is such a system, albeit informal, for attaining the position of Prime Minister. She must first gain the approval of her party, her team (and she can be dumped by that team at any time). In the 2016 US election, the candidate Trump by-passed the party he claimed to be a member of, and appealed entirely to the people, with a wide range of vague promises and claims about his own brilliance and effectiveness. The business cognoscenti knew well enough that Trump was a buffoon, a blowhard and a flim-flam man, but they also knew that his presidency, in being good for his own business, would be good for other businesses too, especially in the field of taxation. The Republican Party as a whole – with a number of notable exceptions – fell in line. Those who believed in minimal government recognised that Trump’s noisy incompetence would actually bring about minimal government by default, and give the governmental process a bad name, which was all fine by them. The question of ethics rarely entered into it.
As a distant watcher of what I’ve called the slow-motion train wreck of the Trump presidency, I’ve learned more than I ever thought I would know about the US presidential system, and more than I ever wanted to know about Trump himself.
For some time, Trump was nothing more than a funny name to me. My first full-on experience of him must have come from an early showing of ‘The Apprentice’, probably accidentally stumbled on through channel-hopping. I’ve never taken much interest in the business world, mea culpa. Within literally seconds, I was thinking ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d assume this was a black comedy. The host talks total gobshite, and the contestants, all actors, treat him like a deity. His very name is meant as a joke – he trumps everyone else in spite of being tasteless, boorish and pig-ignorant – and the contestants, who are put up in a monument to vulgarity called ‘Trump Tower’, swoon at all the gimcrack opulence. No better caricature of the Ugly American has ever been created’. Yet I knew that this was no caricature. Or rather, Trump was a caricature, but also a real human being.
What I didn’t know then, and what I’ve learned since his accession to the presidency, was the extent of Trump’s criminality. This has been fully revealed through a couple of New York Times stories, but I first learned about it through Sam Harris podcasts and other outlets, as well as through the words and behaviour of Trump himself, and his thuggish cronies. His use of standover men, fixers and the like has all the markings of organised crime – or somewhat disorganised crime in Trump’s case. The fact that he has gotten away with this behaviour for decades is a testament to the problems of the US justice system.
Trump became President with a minority of votes – this time revealing a problem with the federal electoral system. Claims by pundits such as Niall Ferguson that Putin’s interference in that election had a minimal effect were either naive or politically motivated. The Putin dictatorship’s actions were sophisticated and brilliantly targeted, and the subsequent response of Trump to the clear evidence of that interference should have been enough to have him thrown out of office. Another massive problem with the US federal system.
Sensible Americans are now faced with the problem of getting rid of Trump, and engaging in the root and branch reform of the disastrous system that allowed Trump’s rise to and maintenance of power. It seems, from other pundits I’ve read, that the US Presidency has experienced a kind of ‘dictatorship creep’ over the years, and this now needs to be confronted directly. The judiciary, for example needs to be fully independent, with the highest positions decided upon by judicial peers. Presidential emoluments need to be eliminated through clear, solid law. Presidential pardoning powers need to be sharply restricted, or preferably removed from the President altogether and placed in the hands of senior law officials. The presentation of all available taxation documents must be a sine qua non of presidential candidacy. If Presidents are to be directly elected – not a great idea IMHO – it should be through a first-past-the-post, one-vote-one-value system. Presidential immunity must be jettisoned, and if this interferes with the President’s role, this should scream to the American people that the President’s role is too burdensome, and that governmental power needs to be less concentrated and more distributed.
All of the preceding, and more, seems obvious to an outsider, but among Americans, brought up since infancy to believe they have the best government in the multiverse, self-criticism in this area is hard to come by. Possibly more abuse of the system by Trump and his enablers will wake Americans up to what’s needed, but I remain skeptical.
Which brings us back to the immediate situation. I have to admit, what has surprised me more than anything about this presidency is that Trump’s following hasn’t been reduced substantially since falling to around the 40% mark very early in his term. Clearly, his base, much-despised by Trump himself, has gained nothing from his incumbency, as opposed to the super-rich (small in number but gargantuan in power), who see through Trump but cynically support his lazy, neglectful attitude to government administration. The fact that this base is solid and easily aroused reveals a long-standing problem in America’s individualistic, mistrustful, and massively divided society. Trump is wily enough to try to take advantage of this discontent, especially as the law appears to be closing in on him. He may not have the numbers to win another election, but he is very likely to use those numbers to do as much damage to America’s much-vaunted but clearly very fragile separation of powers as he possibly can. I’m unfortunately quite convinced that the worst of the Trump presidency is yet to come.
the USA’s presidential crisis – what will they learn from it?
The USA has a tragic problem on its hands, of its own making. It now has, as its President, a career criminal, a narcissistic demagogue, a flim flam man who’ll stop at nothing to remain in power. Within a few days, though, his power will be curtailed and, I strongly suspect, and certainly hope, US law enforcement authorities will be rounding up some of his accomplices and generally turning up the heat. Everything about Trump tells me he would be prepared to destroy as much of the country’s political edifice as he possibly can, rather than go quietly.
But it’s the political edifice itself that’s allowed Trump, who isn’t a Republican, or a Democrat, or a politician or a businessman, to take over the ship of state and steer it on a bumpy ride to nowhere. This could never have happened under the Westminster system, which pertains in Britain and Australia, two countries of which I happen to be a citizen.
The flaws in the US Presidential system have been unwittingly exposed by Trump, and this may be the one true gift he will have bestowed on his people, just as the horrors of the great European wars of last century left the one bright legacy of over seventy years of peace in Western Europe.
So what are these problems? Well there’s one general problem of democracy, which is shared by all democratic countries, and that’s the fact that not everyone eligible to vote is sufficiently informed or detached to use their vote to the best advantage of themselves or the nation as a whole. Many are massively influenced by what is called ‘identity politics’, because they identify with a particular sub-culture, be it ethnic, religious, job-related, or special-interest-related in a host of ways. Many simply don’t understand much about politics and are easily swayed by political promises or the promises made by those around them on behalf of politicians. The intellectual elites, the cognoscenti, have no more weight to their vote than the more or less completely clueless.
This problem is exacerbated in the USA by the fact that, every four years, they’re asked to cast a vote essentially for one person over another. In the run-up to that vote there’s massive fund-raising and lobbying, hype (short for hyperbole), overblown promising, and circus-like razzmatazz and bells and whistles.
The one-against-one competition is, it seems, typically American, where the ‘great man’ who saves the world by single-handedly defeating all enemies is a staple of Hollywood blockbusters. In contrast, elections in the Westminster system are more like a blend of the American mid-term and presidential elections, but with much more of the mid-term than the presidential. People essentially vote for parties – a major party of the left and of the right, together with smaller independent parties and independent members. The two major parties and the smaller parties all have leaders, of course, and they’re elected by the rest of the elected MPs of their parties. They’re the ‘captains of the team’, and they work with them in parliament. The Prime Minister, the leader of the party elected to power in general elections, is thus in a very different position from the US President, who resides in and works from the White House, surrounded by staff and officials who are appointed by himself (though more or less vetted by others) without necessarily having been elected by the public to any office of any kind in the past. These include some very influential positions indeed – the 15 members of the Presidential Cabinet including Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Attorney-General and Chief of Staff. The President thus heads the ‘executive branch’ of government, which is entirely separate from parliament, or congress.
Under the Westminster system there’s no such separation. The Prime Minister does get to select his cabinet, but they’re all appointed from within parliament, and all of them work within the House, or the Senate. So the PM is literally ‘primus inter pares’, first among equals, and often has to defend his or her ministers and policies in the teeth of opposition sitting across the aisle. This creates much more of a team spirit, and if the PM ‘goes rogue’, as Trump clearly has, his party can organise a no-confidence motion to oust him. Such an event obviously has major repurcussions for the nation, but they are clearly nowhere near as disastrous as the ousting of an American President. Though, arguably, the difficulties involved in ousting the President are even more disastrous.
In watching and learning about the US political system over the past year or so, I’ve been totally astonished at the power granted to the President, and with that power comes a sense of Presidential immunity, due to his ‘indispensability’. This is virtually a recipe for demagoguery and dictatorship. The current President has clearly utilised powers that previous Presidents quite probably didn’t know they had, because they grew up within the usual ethical guidelines of the vast majority of people, regardless of background. Trump has no such guidelines, and so has sacked appointed officials without replacing them, has used pardoning powers – and will continue to do so unless ousted – without restraint, and has issued executive orders in a manipulative and detrimental fashion. He has monetised the Presidency, obstructed justice by declaring war on the FBI and justice department officials, viciously and relentlessly attacked the fourth estate, and spread myriad falsehoods with impunity.
All of this has created a kind of internal paralysis in the US, while making the country and its President both a laughing stock and a cause for grave concern worldwide. Meanwhile the success of demagoguery and ‘power’ over ethics has had its echoes in elections in Austria, Sweden and Brazil. But the USA’s political problems are unique. The two principal problems are – How do you rid yourself of a rogue president? and, How do you present this from ever happening again?
Many concerned Americans are looking to the process of impeachment as the solution. I’m writing this on the day (in Australia) of the mid-term elections, November 6, though the USA is some 11-12 hours behind us in central Australia. It seems likely that the Democrats will take control of the House and possibly the Senate, though I wouldn’t bet on it – I usually get these things wrong. But impeachment is a political process and therefore highly partisan in a nation that has become partisan perhaps to the point of extreme violence. Impeachment doesn’t exist in the Westminster system, because there is clearly no need for it.
For a Prime Minister, under the Westminster system, to ‘successfully’ go rogue, as the US President has, he would have to carry the whole of his party with him, or a substantial majority, as the party system and party loyalty are deeply entrenched in the polity. A no-confidence motion in the Prime Minister can be put up at any time during parliamentary sessions, either from within the PM’s party or from the opposition benches. It’s easier for the President to become a ‘one-man band’ because he’s entirely cut off from congress. I don’t know if Trump has ever entered congress. There seems no reason for him to do so. This complete disconnection from what is is supposedly his own party and government is, I think, disastrous.
The massive power of the President – veto powers, pardoning powers, executive orders, and apparent, if limited, immunity from prosecution – is no small problem for a country that is the most economically and militarily powerful in the world. Rachel Maddow of NBC has highlighted the problem of prosecuting the President. If he is charged and placed in custody or let out on bail, does he still have presidential authority? If not, who does? This would not be a problem under the Westminster system – the Deputy PM would step up, as s/he does when the PM is overseas. And if the matter were serious enough, that deputy, or another senior cabinet minister, would take over the PM’s role permanently. And there would be no hesitancy, under that system, to arrest and detain. Why should there be? The law should treat all offenders in precisely the same way.
In the US there seems to be a lot of confusion on these matters. Many consider the President ‘too important’ to be charged with a crime while in office. This is truly ridiculous. If you have allowed one person to be so important within your political system as to be above the law, for even a second, then your political system sucks, to put it mildly.
Another bizarre anomaly of the US system is this ‘hanging back’ by the federal authorities, in terms of subpoenas and indictments, during pre-election periods. This, it seems to me, is an interference, by a kind of stealth, of the judiciary by the political sphere. Where did this ridiculous idea come from? It seems abundantly clear to me that when investigating potential felonies of any kind, the political background should play no part whatsoever. Once investigators have ‘all their ducks in a row’, as Americans like to say, that’s when prosecutions should begin. I’ve no idea right now what will happen to Trump after these elections, but he has already been clearly implicated in campaign finance violations via his criminal fixer, so prosecutions should have occurred already. To not institute criminal proceedings when everything is set to do so, because of some election or other – that constitutes political interference. Am I missing something here?
Assuming that Trump is indicted after these elections (though what I’ve heard is that the Mueller will only issue a report to congress, even if it includes indictable offences, which makes my head spin with its unutterable stupidity and dereliction of duty), is it likely that Trump will give himself up to authorities? Trump is a career criminal who has never spent any time in jail, though his tax crimes and various scams should have seen him incarcerated for much of his adult life. It’s hard to know what he’ll do when cornered, but I can’t imagine him giving himself up to authorities. The real crisis is about to hit the fan, so to speak. It will get very very bumpy over the next few months, no matter what the election result.
The other major question is – what will Americans learn from the Trump disaster? Will they reform their political system? With their jingoistic pride, I don’t hold out too much hope. My guess is that there will be some reform around the edges – the emoluments clause might be ‘promoted’ to something more than a mere clause, for example – but their beloved but outdated Constitution will remain largely untouched, and they’ll still keep their POTUS in splendid isolation, a law unto himself and a potential threat to their nation and the outside world. But then, as some dipshit has often said, we’ll have to wait and see.
on the US political and social system in crisis: 2 – the head of state and the constitution
Canto: So, as we’ve said, the most substantial difference between the US political system and the Westminster system adopted with slight variations by other English-speaking democracies is the position of Head of State. Here in Australia, as in Canada, New Zealand and Britain, Queen Elizabeth II holds that position, and she’s represented locally, outside Britain, by Governors-General. There are differences in each country, with their state and provincial governments and legislatures, but essentially all of these countries are constitutional monarchies in which the head of state and her representatives have extremely limited powers. The USA by contrast has a Republican government in which power and authority is supposed to rest in the people through their elected representatives.
Jacinta: But as you’ve said, the monarch’s power within the Westminster system has been eroded over time by legislation, and essentially given over to the people through their elected reps.
Canto: Yes, as discussed in a previous post, the liberal political philosophy of John Locke was utilised both in the draughting of legislation limiting the monarch’s power in 1689 (and subsequently), and in the draughting of the US Constitution in 1787. That constitution instituted three separate arms of power, legislative, executive and judicial.
Jacinta: It’s said to be the oldest continually operating constitution in the world, which may be an object of pride, but it may also be an obstacle to reform. Just saying.
Canto: What we’re most interested in here is the executive power, defined largely in Article II of the Constitution. The US President has Constitutional powers regarding the vetoing of Congressional bills and the pardoning of convicted persons. These powers are clearly controversial, never more than in the present situation.
Jacinta: And how do they compare with Prime Ministerial powers under the Westminster system?
Canto: Well you never really hear of them, much. The pardoning power, though, isn’t invested in the Prime Minister, it’s delegated to the member of government most responsible for legal matters, in Australia’s case the Attorney-General, and in England the Lord Chancellor. It’s signed off by the monarch or her representative. It’s rarely used, and never controversially as far as I can tell.
Jacinta: But that seems a definite improvement on the US system, spreading the power load, so to speak. And they don’t trade in politically charged pardons, as that would be political suicide.
Canto: As you might think it would be in the US, but often their President pardons people just as he’s about to leave office, when he can’t be re-elected anyway. And that’s another difference. There’s no time limit on the Prime Minister’s tenure, and his length of time in office is just as often dependent on his party’s shifting allegiance as it is on the electorate. So pardoning, when it happens, would tend to be a more consultative process than in the US. And of course there’s no Westminster equivalent to the US President’s veto powers – another limit to placing power in the hands of one person.
Jacinta: So now to the principal difference between the US system and the Westminster system, the fact that the US President is directly elected, albeit through the Electoral College.
Canto: Yes, and he selects his running mate, the potential Vice President, who goes through no electoral process at all. And then appoints a whole host of executive officers – Secretary of State, Secretary of Defence and so on, and on. This is disastrous when you have a populist but obviously politically naive and ignorant candidate, who unsurprisingly selects an equally moronic running mate. Again, compare the Westminster system, where elections are about parties, so that voters, if they’re informed, consider a number of factors which militate against pure populism. These include the policy of the party, the local member in their electorate, and the leader of their party of choice – a leader who is chosen by her peers on the basis of ability, style, popularity, party loyalty and other factors. You’re much less likely to get a witless outsider as your Prime Minister in such circumstances.
Jacinta: And what about an incompetent or criminal head of state? How do you get rid of him in the USA?
Canto: Well of course under the Westminster system the PM is essentially the captain of the party team, but there’s no problem with the team dumping their captain if they feel he’s letting the side down. This doesn’t have to mean an election, though of course it may lead to popular disaffection with the ruling party – but then again it could lead to a swing in the other direction. But the situation of a dud head of state in the US system is far less clear. The whole nation can apparently be held hostage by a President who refuses to recognise any curb on a power that’s already far greater than that of any other leader of a modern democracy.
Jacinta: Well, the serious problem the US finds itself in is highlighted by the confusion about Presidential power, with many pundits claiming in all seriousness that their President can’t be charged with a crime while in office. The absurdity of such putative immunity should be obvious to any sensible person.
Canto: And the President can’t be removed from office it seems, for example through losing the support of his party.
Jacinta: No, because the structure of government is so different there, with the President surrounding himself with his own personal appointees, who will naturally support him. Of course our PM personally selects his cabinet, but these are all elected representatives, members of the party elected to government. Their allegiance is above all to the team, not just to the captain. So what does the US Constitution actually say about removing a dud Prez?
Canto: Well not surprisingly, Article II also describes the conditions for removal of the President:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. The Constitution also allows for involuntary removal from office…
Jacinta: Wow, so it might be constitutionally possible to get rid of the whole gang in one fell swoop? Conspiracy with Russian (enemy) agents to win an election, doesn’t that sound like treason? But then there’s this shabby-sounding, very un-Westminster process called impeachment, an inherently doubtful political instrument, surely. Isn’t conviction enough?
Canto: Well, of course impeachment and the rules around it have become hot topics in recent times. We know for example that impeachment doesn’t necessarily mean removal from office, so again the ability of the US Head of State to worm his way out of almost every attempt to remove him remains a serious problem, and a pretty egregious failure of the system. But yes, impeachment is a chimeric blend of legal and political judgement/justice. In most democracies, or at least many, being charged with a crime would be sufficient for removal from office. But the reason, it seems, that this is such a problem in the US is that the head of the state’s ‘executive’ staff are appointed by him, unelected, and therefore none of them really have a mandate from the people to govern.
Jacinta: Well, despite all the problems, the US is headed for almost certain impeachment in this case…
Canto: Well, hopefully the Mueller charges will be comprehensive and wide-ranging, leaving little room for doubt among the majority. Currently, just about everything hangs on the Mueller findings, and we haven’t heard too much from the enquiry recently.
Jacinta: One problem seems to be that that new avenues for enquiry keep opening up almost on a daily basis. It’s like they’re sitting at a table covered in dishes of rich food, and the waiters keep coming out with new dishes before they’ve properly digested what they’ve got. At some point they might just shut the doors and say ‘stop, we’re full up and we’re hurting!’
Canto: But another problem is that the Head of State may choose not to resign after being impeached, claiming that everybody’s being treasonous except himself. What then?
Jacinta: Well we seem to be constantly entering new territory – because nobody has sufficiently considered the prospect of a demagogic but completely lawless head of state. What the USA needs to face, once this crisis is over – and it’s surely set to worsen over the next year or so – is that their system needs a drastic overhaul, with power being more distributed, less concentrated in one individual. That’s the screamingly obvious lesson that virtually no American pundits seem to have learned – so prevalent is the jingoistic disease over there. And currently it’s almost impossible to change their beloved constitution.
Canto: Yes I think we need to look more closely at their constitution and their future. Changing the constitution requires passing an amendment through both houses of Congress with a two thirds majority. But so many changes are needed, regarding Presidential powers (for example the appointment of White House officials and their staff), regarding the financial affairs of the head of state, regarding prosecution of the head of state, regarding the conducting of elections for the head of state. It’s really hard to know where to start, but they have to make their system more flexible, so that the adults can take over when absolutely necessary. I’m happy to stick with my prediction that the present incumbent will be out of office by year’s end, but I’m far less sanguine about it being a non-violent transition. And who will be the replacement? For the rest of the world it’s an embarrassment (and for some, merely a joke), but for the USA it’s a tragedy. Hopefully, though, some vital, if humiliating, lessons will be learned.
solving the world’s problems, one bastard at a time..
Canto: Let’s talk about something more gripping for a while. Like, for example, the global political situation.
Jacinta: Mmmm, could you narrow that down a bit?
Canto: No, not really… Okay, let’s take the most politically gripping issue of the moment, the possibility of nuclear annihilation for thousands of South Koreans or Japanese – and then North Koreans – due to the somewhat irresponsible launchings and detonations of massively destructive weaponry by a guy who we can reasonably assume to be intoxicated with his own power – and I do believe power to be the most toxic and dangerous drug ever conceived. And then we can talk about all the other issues.
Jacinta: Well as for the Kim jong-un issue, I suspect I can speak for a lot of people when I say I oscillate between dwelling on it and dismissing it as something I can do nothing about. What else do you want me to say. To say I’m glad we’re not in the way of it all would seem inhumane…
Canto: Do you have any solutions? What should we do from here?
Jacinta: We? You mean ‘the west’? Okay, from here on in, I’d cease all direct communications with Kim – all threats, all comments, everything. That only seems to make him worse.
Canto: But it can hardly get worse. Don’t we need to act to remove his threats, which are a bit more than threats?
Jacinta: Well of course the best solution, out of a bad lot, would be to have him disappear, like magic. Just deleted. It’s impossible, but then I’ve heard some people do six impossible things before breakfast.
Canto: He’s only 33 apparently, and according to Wikipedia he’s married but childless…
Jacinta: I’m not saying deleting him would be a good option, it’d presumably cause chaos, a big power struggle, a probable military takeover, unpredictable action from China, and all the weaponry, such as it is, would still be there. And we have no idea how to do it anyway.
Canto: I’m sure they have some plan of that type. The CIA’s not dead yet.
Jacinta: Yeah I’m sure they have some back-drawer plan somewhere too, but I wouldn’t misunderestimate the incompetence of the CIA.
Canto: So what if we follow your do-and-say-nothing policy? Don’t aggravate the wounded bear. But maybe the bear isn’t wounded at all. NK just detonated something mighty powerful, though there’s some controversy over whether it was actually thermonuclear. Anyway it’s unlikely the country just developed this powerful weapon in the few months that Trump has been acting all faux-macho. Who knows, this may have taken place if Clinton or someone else was in power in the US.
Jacinta: Interesting point, but then why are so many people talking about tit-for-tat and brinkmanship? They may have had the weapon, and maybe a lot more, but Kim’s decision to detonate it now, to show it, seems to have been provoked. It’s classic male display before a rival. Think of the little mutt snapping at the mastiff’s heels. Fuck you, big boy, I’ve got teeth too.
Canto: Yeah, but this little mutt has teeth that can wipe out cities. In any case, now he’s been provoked, and it’s unlikely that Trump and his cronies are going to damp down the belligerent rhetoric, the rest of us seem to be just sitting tight and waiting for this mutt to do some damage inadvertently/on purpose, and then what will happen? Say a missile goes astray and lands on or near a Japanese city? Untold casualties…
Jacinta: I think China will be key here. Not that I have any faith in the Chinese thugocracy to act in any interest other than its own.
Canto: Or the Trumpocracy for that matter.
Jacinta: I suspect China might step in and do something if it came to the kind of disaster you’ve mentioned. Though whether they have a plan I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised, actually if they’re having urgent closed-door talks right now on how best to take advantage of the crisis.
Canto: Well don’t worry, Trump and our illustrious leader are have a phone call today to sort it all out.
Jacinta: I’m really not sure what there is to talk about. An American first strike would have horrific cascading effects, and upping the tempo of military exercises in the neighbouring regions will just make Kim more reckless, to go by past experience. So if we don’t have any communication directed at him, he might continue with building bombs, but he would’ve done that anyway. So, though we’re not making matters any better, neither are we making them worse, which we are doing by goading him. Meanwhile we should be talking around NK. It’s like the elephant in the room. No sense talking to the elephant, he doesn’t speak our language (actually that’s a bad example, as intelligent mammals elephants have a lot in common with us…). Anyway we should be talking to significant others to try to build a team that can deal with the elephant.
Canto: Teamwork, that seems highly likely.
Jacinta: Yeah, I know everyone has a different agenda with regard to the elephant, but surely nobody wants to see anyone nuked. And the US shouldn’t be wasting its time talking to Australia, though I suspect Trump will be talking to Turnbull re troop commitments rather than any serious solution.
Canto: And by the way, we’re talking about Trump here, he’s never going to quit with the macho bluster. That’s a given.
Jacinta: All right so all we can do is hope – it’s out of our hands. But it seems to me that all his advisers are telling him a first strike isn’t an option, so maybe he will listen.
Canto: Maybe he’ll listen about the first strike, but he won’t stop the bluster and the goading. So Kim will continue to react by testing missiles and such, until something goes horribly wrong, and Trump will feel justified in delivering a second strike, and things’ll get very bloody and messy.
Jacinta: Okay, you’re getting me depressed, but if I can return to teamwork, the thing to do is get the team on board – the UN as well as the key players, China, Russia and of course South Korea and Japan. That means putting aside all the bad blood and really working as a team.
Canto: To do what? Get NK to stop producing nukes? Putin has already said that would be a no-goer, given their position.
Jacinta: Right, so that would be a starting point for discussion. Why does Putin think that, and what would be his solution, or his advice? And China’s? I’m assuming everybody’s uncomfortable about NK, though some are clearly more uncomfortable than others. So get a discussion going. What does Russia think the US should do about NK? What does China think Russia should do? Does anyone have good advice for South Korea?
Canto: You’re being hopelessly naive. I suspect Russia and China would approach this issue with complete cynicism.
Jacinta: Well let’s be well-meaning rather than naive. I think we’re inclined to be a co-operative species. I think cynicism can dissipate when confronted with a genuine desire to listen and co-operate. You know I’ve described all of the main actors here – Trump, Putin, Li Keqiang and his henchmen, and of course Kim Jong-un, as macho scumbags and the like, but maybe its time to appeal to the better angels of their natures, and ours, to find a peaceful resolution to this mess.