As I mentioned in a prior article, the 2020 elections have
tested American democracy and it came out victorious. However, the recent coup
in Myanmar, as well as the collapse of Hong Kong’s democratic institutions
under Carrie Lam’s management are unfortunate reminders that having free
elections is not sufficient to ensure continued viability of a democracy.
Although it is critical to understand the reasons why U.S
democracy prevailed is not the subject of this article as I feel there exists a
much more pressing matter; why did we get into this predicament in the first
place and what president Biden will have to do to get out of it, at least for a
next generation or two.
There have been extensive analyses by various pundits as to the
causes of the events that ultimately culminated in the Capitol insurrection: the
rise of social media, financial inequalities, systemic racism, etc. While these
played a part in the story that led to January 6th, none of them is sufficient
on its own to explain what seems so unjustifiable. For, I believe, that the
root cause is also that which is the base of America’s value system and exceptionalism;
faith-based Manicheism. Basically, there
is only right or wrong, black or white, good or evil, truth or lies, us or
them, me or the collective, heroes or villains. And the belief that god above
is the only legitimate arbitrator of these absolutes.
Right from the beginning, the American Declaration of
Independence speaks of inalienable right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness”, these being “endowed by their Creator”. It then goes on to state
ways in which the American people (“us”) need to unite against and separate
from the King (“Them”) while making sure that the government being formed will
never trespass on the basic tenets of life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
In the mind of a believer, that sets the inceptive absolutes
which is coded into the U.S Constitution, which then becomes a text perceived
by many (most?) Americans as near biblical in nature.
We can readily observe how this has molded American politics
and external affairs throughout its history; be it the civil war, the cold war,
the series of wars it got involved in, the war on drugs and crime, the story is
always the same: the outcome seems secondary to the framing of the conflict.
Americans are always presented with a choice between absolute good and absolute
evil.
And America needs to be the heroic nation with the
god-inspired goodness and greatness.
The corollary is that heroism calls for heroic figures, and for
this narrative to function is a requirement for an ultimate villain or a
monster, even.
When Communism was the enemy in the 70’s and 80’s, with USSR
the ultimate villain, Reagan came along as the hero president. Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida,
fighting against “everything that America stands for”, with Bush leveraging
this into marching orders for a war in Iraq which was provably unrelated.
The heroic nation’s narrative serves a very specific
purpose; it galvanizes calls to action and removes all sense of doubt that
would inhibit them.
Meanwhile, America is changing; it entered a post-industrial
revolution since the 60s where its economic growth can no-longer be sustained by
a factory working middle class. An exceptionally large proportion of the
industrial production has been outsourced to lower cost countries, when not altogether
automated. Long-gone also are the days of the gentleman farmer; agriculture is now
the business of large industries.
Wealth is generated digitally, in the services industry,
which requires a pool of knowledge which only exists in dense urban areas. Modern
means of transportation and communication have increasingly made globalization
of trade not only possible, but also more efficient at competing with proximity
transactions. Globalized Capitalism has yielded immense benefits for the world,
lifting hundred of millions out of extreme poverty.
As Fascism, Communism, then Islamism were defeated, America
entered the 2010 with residual foreign terrorism as its only foe. The 2008 financial depression caused it to
focus its attention inward; “Why can’t I afford to retire from my blue-collar
job while my parents were living the American dream in the same situation?”. The
urban-rural, educated/non-educated divide created by the new structure of the
economy further amplified the sense that there is a new monster that is lurking
around, and it is within our borders! The kindling was there, missing only was a
name for it; the evil at the source of the plights of a large portion of the
population in disappearing fields of work, dealing with an ever faster changing
social landscape, and feeling powerless to slow down, never mind reverse the
situation. With the economy in limbo, the fat-cats getting bailed-out, whistleblowers
showing evidence of intrusions into potentially anyone’s private life post 911’s
changes in the legal landscape, and the lack of a widely recognized external
enemy, the U.S government was quickly identified as the monster, in the eyes of
many.
America was ready for change when Obama was elected in 2004.
He implemented drastic changes which required political and social compromises,
as all impactful changes require. While extremely popular, Obama did polarize
the electorate, leaving millions of Americans to be disillusioned when this
message of hope was not about what they wanted. What they wanted is someone
that would recognize that the malaise they felt was in fact due to the
government plotting against them, that would give them the life their parents
had, the America they idealized in their mind, instead of a continuation of
changes that they do not like nor understand. They needed that hero, who would
make America great again.
Enters Donald J. Trump.
Hilary Clinton never stood a chance, not because she was a
woman, but rather because she was not the hero with a divine mandate. A hero
never fails, comes when times are most dire, is never wrong, always shows strength,
is wise, and is just. Most importantly, a hero has very identifiable enemies.
Clinton was the embodiment of reality’s shades of gray, while Trump was all
absolutes. A 100% heroic figure, and willing to play the part.
In insight, the next 4 years shoud have been highly predictable
when 30% of a people are willing to listen to any lie that makes them feel
good, and someone who understands that he will get unwavering support if he
obliges in the lies (“I could kill someone and they would cheer for me”).
Let summarily go over Trump’s narrative:
- The U.S is in a bad place economically (that was objectively false)
- Society is going nowhere
- Crime is high
- Our military is going down the drain
- Your jobs are going overseas, I will bring them
back
- That is because the government only works for
the big guys and they make money from China, due to globalization
- Previous administrations have made us losers
- I am accountable to no one but to you the
people, I will bring back the jobs, I am a winner
After 4 years of Trump, little has been done objectively to
address these “issues”. However, it did not prevent Trump using all sorts of
superlatives to self-congratulate on a job well-done.
Trump would lie more in a month than most presidents in
their mandates. The fact that his core support base was left unfazed by that,
should have been a red flag that something was amiss.
It has taken a pandemic for Americans to understand that Trump
was all show and no leadership. His patronizing absolutes clashed with reality,
creating cognitive dissonance for COVID-19 impacted people which would
otherwise have kept basking in his comforting web of lies.
But the January 6th insurrection has proven that even
if 80 million Americans voted for change, it was not enough; the disenfranchised
forever Trump need to be given a new hero… and a more appropriate monster.
What to do now?
1.
Need to show that the hero was a false
idol.
To a large extent, a lot of the Trump-narrative debunking has been done by Americans voting Trump
out of office when they realized that he lied to them that Covid-19 would go away
soon, ‘as if by magic’, ‘could be cured with bleach’, ‘was under control’. When
lies came clashing to the wall of facts of hundreds of thousands of deaths and
sick, Trump’s greater hero narrative was severely weakened.
Nevertheless, there are still too many Americans who still believed that
Trump did what is best for America. Only when everyone but the unshakable (and
irrelevant) conspiracy theorists see him as the snake-oil salesman he always
was will America be able to move on. To that extent. The following must be
sought and achieved:
a.
Exposing Trump’s tax evasion will show that
Trump knows only one way of working and it is cheating. The same way he tried
to cheat his way back into a second mandate by lying about the election conduct
and results. Hopefully, exposing this pattern of cheating will also expose the
underbelly of the con artist.
b.
Trying Trump’s businesses until his companies
are convicted and found guilty of the crimes they committed. This will dispel
Trump’s myth of the self-made wizard entrepreneur’s narrative.
c.
Civil lawsuit of Trump and his associates for
incitement to sedition. It needs to be clear that the rule-of-law means that
everyone is equal in front of the law and that behaviors have consequences.
American history must remember that it came close to fascism but institutions
prevailed. This needs to be taught in schools!
2.
Need to support people that will have
trouble dealing with the idea that they gave tacit support for the insurrection
and QAnon.
It is tempting to deride opponents when they have been proven so
overwhelmingly wrong to believe such obvious lies and deceits. But for America
to unite, help must be offered to pull anyone that has been slighted by the
great deceit and make them understand that they people are there to help them
rebuilt their self-worth, and, often, their lives. Part of this task will demand
to democrats (the ideology) to recognize that some of Trump’s rhetoric had
merit (the dangers of cancel culture, of over-regulation, of a government too
involved in people’s every action), and therefore, that it was understandable
that some were fooled by the discourse and lost track of the end goal.
1-800 numbers where people can find help would seem like a decent start.
3.
Need to show that the monster is not
within and that America’s government is perfectible. And that Trumpsters are
invited to be part of that change.
First order of business for President Biden is to break the
inward-looking culprit-finding. Biden needs to show that the political class
corruption’s is not endemic and break its equation with government.
The first step is to make bold moves that go against the politically
distrusting and disenfranchised:
Biden needs to pardon the whistleblowers; pardon Julian Assange and
Edward Snowden!
Even if Americans did not and maybe still do not support a pardon for
Assange nor Snowden, it would not be held against Biden’s administration.
Because it does not have much to gain in doing so. There is a much stronger
unification gain to be made by giving the politically skeptical people who passionately
believe that the pair should be pardoned, and little risk of losing support
from people that oppose such pardon.
Pardoning Assange would certainly be an especially surprising act coming
from Biden, in view of the former having attacked Hillary Clinton so vehemently
during the 2016 presidential election. But that is also why his pardon would be
so efficient; it would resonate with a part of the republican electorate which
needs most to gain back some modicum of faith in the U.S government. That it
would upset friends of Biden and go against the past 2 administrations’ position
should not be a consideration if the greater goal is to bring people together.
These pardons would also have the effect of showing a side of Biden that
is anti-establishment, something that Trump supporters valued and left many
disappointed when the latter did not pardon Snowden.
As to sending "a dangerous message to others who are contemplating
espionage and the adversaries who would support them"; well, that is the
very nature of pardons, isn't it? Every time a criminal is pardoned, that
message is sent. I would argue that whistleblowing is the least self-serving
crime there is and therefore most pardonable.
Messaging will be important with the key word being forgiveness and
intent; they have been on the run for long and their intent was not to destroy
the U.S.
Coming-up with clear and structural policies focusing on government
transparency would also go a long way in striking the right tone of change and
would also contrast with Trump’s so-called ‘drainage of the swamp’ which was
nothing more than empty talks.
4.
Because America’s heroic culture is not
going to change, give Americans true, demonstrable monsters
In a perfect world, Americans would part with the naïve view that the one
nation under god will never fail for no other reason than because it is
America. This thinking is associated to a requirement for there to be mandatory
heroes and their enemies.
But we do not live in a perfect world and if the need for a monster is
unavoidable, then let Americans pick an actual one, Xi’s China. A single-party
dictatorship which has nothing but contempt for freedom, has routinely stolen
America’s intellectual property, torture its own population, arbitrarily imprison
and eliminates political dissent, has disregarded international treaties and
borders. China, under the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership since Xi Jinping
took over, has been the single greatest threat to “Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness” not only to its population, but also to the world.
It is no time for appeasement as Xi’s regime has shown that they only
have respect for strength and see the willingness to negotiate equal-to-equal
as opportunities to lie their way through agreements they have no intent of
abiding by.
Where Biden can perform better than Trump is in building a coalition against
one-sided authoritarian pseudo-capitalism.
The coalition would come up with a list of demands centered on
human-rights, IP protection, fairer trade policies. All of these with penalties
for non-compliance.
As a first step, the collation should recognize Taiwan as a country, thereby
putting a permanent end to the One China policy. Continue arming Taiwan with
the latest military technology to act as a deterrent to any Chinese plan for an
invasion.
Finally, the U.S should have its own version of the ‘belt and roads’,
targeting democratic but developing countries for major infrastructure funding
in exchange of which inexpensive manufacturing could be leveraged at scale.
India certainly comes to mind.
5.
Go back to the original intent; “Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, and see how this translates in our age.
While it is quite clear for the U.S’ right leaning/libertarian part of
the population that they want the government out of their way, progressive
America on the other hand, does need to perform some introspection. The last 10
years have certainly seen the pendulum shift to the other extreme of “social
justice” which went from making sure that everyone can start from an equal
footing, to a state where the expectation that everyone is ‘owed’ the same
outcome.
Biden should therefore stay away from identity politics and bring the left to
think about what “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” means to
them and as a social construct in a divided society. And in a world where
authoritarian regime are claiming that the state must control what the individual is allowed to say, America needs to make sure it does not send the message that progress means increased limits to democratic and constitutional rights.
Should
Biden exit his first 100 days with clear actions and policies along these
lines, as well as having reached his target of 150 million Americans vaccinated,
I believe that the country would be a long towards re-unification and Trump a
bad memory that everyone would rather soon forget…
A
few interesting reads:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3119663/taiwan-independence-means-war-chinas-defence-ministry-warns
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/01/28/china-foreign-policy-long-telegram-anonymous-463120
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/atlantic-council-strategy-paper-series/the-longer-telegram/
<< "China often uses a series of 'tests' to
determine a competitor's intentions or willingness to respond to China's
actions," said Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US
Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center.”
Beijing will be trying to
determine where the Biden administration's "red lines" are, added
Schuster.
The Defense Department
would focus on convincing China, or any adversary, that taking on the US
military would be "a very bad idea," Austin said.>>
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/28/asia/us-china-military-tensions-key-areas-intl-hnk-ml/index.html
