Posts Tagged ‘jingoism’
Will the USA ever reform its federal system? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
the USA is flagging
So I’m writing this on the last day of the Trump ‘administration’, and I don’t know if I’ll finish it today, and currently I don’t know if Trump will come out with the hundred or so pardons that some reporters are predicting, or if there will be one final attempt at insurrection, or if any more lives will be lost etc etc.
Whenever I write about Trump I feel as if I’m repeating myself for the nth time, and of course I know that virtually nobody reads my blog and I basically get no feedback on it. Still I feel compelled…
Robert Sapolsky begins his book Behave (and he presents this orally on a video available on Youtube) with a fantasy about what he would do with Hitler if he could’ve gotten hold of him at the end of the war. It isn’t nice. As he points out, he’s a liberal fellow, and opposed to capital punishment, but – humans are complex and contradictory. I’ve had similar fantasies about Trump, among others – in fact I might blame Sapolsky for giving me permission. But seriously, I’ve had fantasies about doing horrible things to horrible people long before I read Behave. I’ve long had a kind of visceral loathing of bullies and thugs, whether they’re world leaders or in the local neighbourhood, possibly because I was bullied quite a bit at school, being the smallest kid in my class for about ten years. When in the morning I read or listen to the latest horror story about Trump, or Putin, or some other apparently unpunishable tyrant, I get so mad that my dog, who regularly sleeps on my bed, starts shaking and looking at me with either fear or, I like to think, reproach.
I think I’ve been following the Trump debacle, or what I’ve called the slo-mo train wreck, because I’ve been wanting it to end like the movies, with the villain crashing and burning. And again to emphasise our complex and contradictory impulses, I’ve been hoping, and am still hoping, that Trump ends in gaol, but I’ve also been convinced, since before he decided to claim that he was a politician, that he wasn’t a ‘normal’ person, that there was something fundamentally wrong with him, and that he’s been this way for his entire adult life, and more. And I’ve become convinced, over the years, that free will is a myth, and that this has major implications for our systems of punishment, incarceration and the like. So what should be done with Trump? My feeling is that anyone with an average degree of intelligence and psychological insight should be able to see that this man should be kept away from any position of public responsibility. He’s an extremely, narcissistic, tantrumming pre-adolescent, and has been for 60 years. This is someone who couldn’t manage a public toilet, let alone the government of an uninhabited island. And yet he was put in charge of the most militarily and economically powerful nation on the planet. I don’t blame Trump for this, I blame the USA, and its federal political system.
The USA is, as I’ve written before, exceptional in two things, its religiosity and its jingoism. As a non-believing non-American, a dual citizen of the UK and Australia, where I’ve lived since the age of five, I struggle with my lack of sympathy for these American features. I’ve never waved a national flag or sung a national anthem in my life, and I never will. I feel a kind of emotional aversion to nationalism, and I suspect any explanation will simply be post-hoc rationalisation. So Trump’s patriotism, which is as fake as his religion, his complexion and his business acumen, naturally gets my goat, but it isn’t Trump I want to write about here.
Since realising that Trump was being taken seriously as a contender for US President, I’ve been following US politics like never before, and what I’ve learned has frankly horrified me, and continues to do so. Their federal system and their presidential system are real shockers, and frankly seem to be a disaster waiting to happen. There are plenty of pundits happy to dump on Trump of course, but hardly any are willing to dump on a system that allowed Trump to manipulate it so effectively (though it was more like bull-in-a-china-shop behaviour than calculated manipulation). I would cite Fareed Zakaria as an honourable exception, but his obvious Indian accent suggests that he hasn’t been fully infected by the native jingoism that his colleagues appear to suffer from.
So here – again, but with additions – are some of the glaring problems of a political system, and some political beliefs, that no nation in its right collective mind would want to emulate.
1. The ‘constitutional president’ becomes so as a result of a popularity contest between one superhero and another, in keeping, apparently, with ‘American individualism’. The ultimate recipe for demagoguery. These superheroes are either worshipped or reviled, and remembered by their numbers!
2. The Presidential candidate gets to choose his own running mate, plucked from the general population.
3. The President gets to choose a whole suite of personnel, or courtiers, to effectively run the country for the next four years, with only limited vetting, and has minimal contact with the parliament – living, during incumbency, in a White Palace.
4. Major elections occur every two years, last far too long, and involve obscene amounts of money, inevitably leading to corruption.
5. The political system is based on a much-worshipped, brief, vague and out-dated constitution, written for a small semi-democratic former British colony, and hopelessly inadequate for the needs of the third most populous country in the world. This urgently needs to be supported or replaced by laws, and lots of them.
6. The American people’s attitude to government, from the outset, has been disturbingly negative, so that interventionist government of any kind, to improve healthcare, education, race relations and so forth, is branded as socialism – the dirtiest word in the American language. And that’s something, considering the country’s religiosity, where the most lively and fun ‘curse-words’ aren’t even allowed on TV!
7. The popularity contest for the nation’s presidency is interfered with by an ‘electoral college’, which is state-based and regularly prevents the winner, based on popularity, from actually winning!
8. The President has exceptional pardoning powers, veto powers, government shut-down powers, power to select members of the judiciary and heads of innumerable government departments, as well as, apparently, total immunity from committing offences, however grave, while in office.
9. It follows from the above that the political process known as impeachment would be surplus to requirements, and all politicians’ wrong-doing, up to and including the President, would be dealt with by the judiciary on the basis of law.
The USA should look to the government of its neighbour, Canada, which has a far better political system, but it is of course prevented from doing so by its pathological jingoism. My hope is that the USA might be pressured by the international community to be more reformist in its approach to its national government. It’s a faint hope, of course, but the wreckery of the Trump period has, at least, exposed many glaring deficiencies. Gentlemen’s agreements aren’t anywhere near sufficient to keep ‘commanders-in-chief’, in a nation bristling with nuclear weaponry, with an at times disturbing superiority complex, in check.
yank jingoism – why is it so?
Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it
George Bernard Shaw
I believe in American exceptionalism.
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC presenter (born in the USA)
I’ve had a gutful. I was listening to an American cable news program, which I do too often these days, and the interviewer was discussing the distinct possibility, much mooted currently, of Trump not giving up power peacefully later this year. Before asking his question, the interviewer spoke of America’s ‘unique and historic tradition of peaceful transition of power’. The word ‘unique’ jumped out of the screen and smacked me in the face like a wet kipper, and of course this piece of bullshit went unchallenged by others, either because they considered it irrelevant, or not worth correcting, or because they actually believed it, or, most likely, because it was so much a part of the ‘American exceptionalist’ blather that forms the background of political discussion there that they didn’t even notice it. Yet all they have to do is drive a little north and cross the border to find another of many such ‘unique’ nations.
I was born in the UK and have lived most of my life in Australia. I’m a humanist with no strong nationalist allegiances or convictions. Australia has a federal, Westminster-based system, and is a relatively new nation which has experienced peaceful transitions of power since it became fully independent a mere 120 years ago. The UK has experienced peaceful transitions of power since its constitutional monarchy was established after the Glorious Revolution of the 1680s, a full century before the USA achieved nationhood. I’ve already written here about the lies so many Americans tell themselves about the USA being the birthplace of modern democracy. And this is not to say that the ‘American experiment’ wasn’t one of the many important little steps taken since Magna Carta towards effective democracy, along with the aforementioned Glorious Revolution and the early parliaments under Simon de Montfort and Oliver Cromwell.
Of course there are good, balanced American historians, and the troubles now occurring there are a reminder to everyone about those excluded from political and economic power both in the USA and elsewhere, but my concern here is to get to the bottom of why so many Americans have this un-self-critical view of themselves. Is it a problem in their educational system? Is American exceptionalism drummed into their heads from the kindergarten years, as I suspect? Is this sense of American ‘specialness’ more prevalent among those who’ve never actually stepped outside of the country, as I also suspect?
Ideas about the American ‘experiment’ as something special of course abounded in the early years of the colony. Founded mostly by puritan radicals in the 17th century, it was certainly exceptionally religious, and could also be described as exceptional in other ways – in having to deal with an established and proud indigenous population, in having to bring under white, Europeanised control and cultivation an enormous area of land, and in having to devise a new polity from British and European sources. But of course I’m not talking about the ‘exceptionalism’ of the colonial experience, more or less shared by Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the South and Central American nations, I’m talking about ‘exceptional’ as in ‘better’.
It’s quite amusing to note Alexis de Tocqueville’s usage here, which seems to amount to damning with faint praise:
The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1840
I have no great objection to American capitalism which, properly regulated, is a benefit, or should be, but many of the new nation’s apostles of liberty, such as Jefferson, were slave-owners, and the contribution of slavery to the development of the nation’s economy still receives scant recognition. And the point here is not to condemn the USA for its misdeeds – Australia doesn’t have a proud record in this regard – but to point out that the USA is no more or less liberty-loving, racist, exploitative, generous and selfish as any other Europeanised, or indeed human, nation.
But of course every nation is different, if only in degree rather than kind. Some scholars have argued that the USA is more ‘classless’ than Western European countries. That may be true, depending on your definition of class, but the country is old enough to discuss the difference between old and new money – the old Vanderbilts and Rockefellers versus modern real estate crooks and tech billionaires – and more importantly, this idea of classlessness is hard to sustain in the light of a massive rich-poor divide that makes a mockery of the American Dream. The African-American population, somewhere between 12% and 14% of the total, are statistically worse-off by every measure and by substantial margins. Again this is a problem for many other countries with ‘first-nation’ or minority cultures, but the US hasn’t found better solutions to these issues than any one else.
Freedom is of course often trumpeted as the force that propels US superiority. No country is as free as the US, so the story goes. This freedom, and distrust of government oversight and over-reach, appears to be one of the factors driving that nation’s tragic covid-19 response. I note that the New York Times has an article showing that many of the nations with female leaders (e.g. Taiwan, Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland and Norway) are handling the pandemic far better than others, especially those with buffoonish and/or overly macho ‘I know best’ leaders (e.g. the USA, the UK, Brazil, Russia and Iran). We often mock male bluster, but the fact is that it can come at a great cost – and so can myths about individual freedom. I read somewhere that there were even protests in the USA against wearing masks during the ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic which killed over 50 million – ‘my freedom trumps your fear’.
As I’ve often written, we’re the most socially constructed mammals on the planet, and we owe to that social construction, first in tribes and villages, then in larger states and civilisations, our domination of that planet, for better or worse. It’s true that for most of our history, government has been too pyramidal, heavy-handed and ruthless, with most of the population consisting of landless ‘peasants’, despised and exploited by a fortunate hereditary minority of nobles, lords, daimyos, boyars, nan, seigneurs etc, and the USA, with its ‘we, the people’, played an important role in further flattening that gradually flattening pyramid of power. But there’s a real problem with the anti-government ‘freedom’ that so many Americans seem to espouse. It’s seen in the lack of a national healthcare system, the lack of a decent minimum wage, the weakness of environmental protection, the apparent lack of anything like truth in advertising, the gun craziness, and so much else. While I’ve met many a likeable American sojourning in my world, I don’t think I’ve ever met one who doesn’t ultimately complain or make mention of the ‘nanny state’ here in Australia. My guess is that they would make the same complaint in any non-American democratic country. The idea that a state would go out of its way to provide affordable housing, healthcare, education and other benefits to its citizens, and enforce particular norms, such as the driving of roadworthy vehicles, the wearing of bicycle helmets, the banning of smoking in particular areas and the like, all this seems to outrage the American sensibility. But what can you expect of a people who actually seem to believe that the right to own guns makes everybody more safe?
Of course, not all Americans are that silly, but the shifting balance between individual freedom and community responsibility (embodied in taxation, minority protections and developing provision of opportunity, inter alia) is never easy for nations to get right, and always in need of adjustment. The USA, it seems to me, is more in need of such adjustment than most advanced nations at present.
The aftermath of the Trump horrorshow, surely arriving in a few months, must be used for thoroughgoing troubleshooting and reform of a broken system. The current administration has revealed massive problems with the USA’s beloved, antiquated Constitution, and the lack of effective law around emoluments, the legal status of the President, vetting for high office, long overdue reform of the electoral college system and a host of other checks and balances, but these are essentially administrative matters. The more pressing but intractable problem is with the country’s culture. Internationally, I suspect there will have to be a lot of fence-mending and rather less breast-beating – the world really doesn’t need the ‘American leadership’ that David Frum and others seek to restore. There aren’t too many western nations seeking to emulate the American system. What they’ll be expecting is partnership, respect and forthright, humane dealing. All nations need to understand that economic and military might has nothing whatever to do with moral stature. As to how the USA deals with its many internal problems over the next few years, we’ll be watching with interest. Recycling jingoism and American exceptionalism won’t be solutions, they’re clearly tied up with the problems. The next couple of decades will be vital for the USA’s internal and international future. It might well be a bumpy ride.
the wanker in the white palace 1: my position
I hear comments around me and read reports in the media about how and how not to deal with the wanker in the white palace. My position is straightforward, in its apparent foolishness. Responsible people shouldn’t be dealing with him, they should get rid of him.
By this I don’t mean putting an end to his life, much as I’m in favour of euthanasia. The wanker can’t stop himself from wanking night and day – there is no free will, but that’s another story. The point is that he’s clearly incapable of holding any position of responsibility, in which he’s expected to work for the good of others. No sensible person, I would argue, disagrees with this, and a number of the USA’s top psychologists have spoken out about the wanker’s mental unfitness for the job he holds. They would also agree with one of their rank, speaking on MSNBC, that the damage which makes it impossible for him to behave like a common and garden adult occurred very early in life and is irreversible. The damage he has done to the role of US President won’t be able to be fully assessed until he’s dumped from office – which may, I believe, involve bloodshed. This wanker won’t go quietly.
So why has the wanker managed to inveigle himself into this extraordinary position, and why is he so hard to get rid of? I’ll be exploring this under two ‘headings’, the ‘American psyche’, and the current Presidential system. The two are very obviously linked.
Why ‘wanker’? Well, I’m essentially Australian (though British-born and a dual citizen), and my first reaction to this bloke after witnessing him briefly on TV years ago was the classic ‘what a wanker’ refrain. If I hadn’t heard his name before I would’ve considered this a badly done black comedy, with the lead actor spouting buffoonish imbecilities, and the other performers pretending to fawn over his oafishness, and appearing dazzled by the kitsch furnishings in ‘Trump’ tower – he trumps over everyone, getit, and yet it’s all trumpery, right?
But it’s no joke, even though it is. Even after all this time, it’s hard to take seriously – but then, I’m not a Kurd, or a Central American refugee.
The USA is an object of mockery and opprobrium worldwide for its production and promotion of the wanker, and it thoroughly deserves to be. The wanker has trumpeted his wankerdom for the whole of his ‘adult’ life – it’s the USA’s fault that he’s been so successful, and yet even his most vociferous critics trumpet the USA as the leader of the free world, the light on the hill, Guard’s own country, the Greatest Nation on Earth, and other enlightened epithets. There is surely no nation more jingoistic, and unself-critical, than the USA, even allowing for the fallacy that all powerful states have fallen for – Egyptian, Roman, British, Soviet, Chinese and so on, – that economic and military power entail moral superiority.
In future posts I’ll explore the flaw in the American psyche that has allowed the wanker to swank his way into and perhaps permanently corrupt the most powerful position on the planet (currently) and the many related flaws in a presidential system that fortunately has no equivalent in the so-called free world.