Author Archives: jsh54

On Our Rules Based World Order.

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            From 1940 to 1990, the United States led a global struggle against aggressive tyrannies.  Despite many heartbreaks and defeats, the United States and its allies emerged victorious.   Victory posed the question of how to create some “new world order.”  The political scientist Francis Fukuyama posited an “end of History,” by which he meant that capitalist democracy represented “the last man standing” after two centuries of ideological struggle.  The Clinton administration adopted a policy of “democratic enlargement.”  It was argued that liberal states rarely fought each other.[1]  It was argued that the use of raw power to achieve national ends could be reined-in by international agreements (amounting to law) and rule-writing.  National power could—and morally, should—be used only in self-defense or to advance democratization.[2] 

            Not everyone found this analysis compelling.  Outside the covers of the American Political Science Review, the world is a messy place.  Many countries of the world are “failed” or “failing” states.[3]  There is a large overlap between “failed states” and kleptocracies in which elites plunder their countries (and the international donors trying to promote democracy and economic development).  For many rulers, “the good old rule /Sufficeth them, the simple plan/That they should take who have the power/And they should keep who can.”[4]  (Which is good for the arms industries of advanced countries.)  Moreover, the universalism of the West’s political, economic, and cultural ideals doesn’t sit well with many people in the developing world.  Democracy and Western notions of proper labor laws certainly don’t sit well with the elites ruling many developing countries.  Western environmentalism gets in the way of people trying to solve the problem of finding work for hundreds of millions of their people, along with big pay-days for themselves.  Western cultural progressivism doesn’t sit well with many ordinary people in such societies.  Trying to shove these things up their noses just breeds resistance.[5] 

            During the Cold War, the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington[6] believed in symmetrical opposition to the Communist powers: “we’ve got to go wherever they go.”  Those days are over.  There are no existential threats.  There is a world where economic interdependence and new technologies are ripping apart any sense of world order.  A better strategy today may lie in using air and sea power to guard the trade routes of the world, while practicing more restrained advocacy abroad.[7]  This will appeal to some natures, but not to all. 

[1] The flaw in the argument is that there have been few liberal or democratic states in history.  Most European states only granted the mass of their citizens the right to vote in the second half of the 19th Century.  Merely having a constitution and an increasingly broad electorate didn’t make a country “liberal.”  The German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and the Soviet Union, were all false-front constitutional states.  Liberal states got along well enough with illiberal states when it suited their purposes.  But Britain, France, Belgium, and the United States all made war on illiberal states—then called empires or tribes or declining powers—when it suited them.  Which if often did.  It’s like the “Great Illusion” malarkey from before 1914 that the world’s economies had become so deeply integrated that war had become impossible.  Here endeth the sermon. 

[2] Arguably, this view of things got us the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  Knock over some tyrant, declare “Democracy is Here,” put up some big box stores, and leave the newly-contented people to manage their own affairs.  WTWTCH?

[3] Or, in the words of Jeff Spicoli, “What Jefferson was saying was, Hey! You know, we left this England place ’cause it was bogus; so if we don’t get some cool rules ourselves—pronto—we’ll just be bogus, too!”

[4] William Wordsworth, “Rob Roy’s Grave,” Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803). 

[5] Walter Russell Mead, “Wokeness is Putin’s Weapon,” WSJ, 12 July 2022. 

[6] Someone who actually was “the sharpest tool in the shed.”

[7] Robert D. Kaplan, The Return of Marco Polo’s World (2018). 

“You can’t always get what you want.”

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            You shouldn’t believe something is true just because it’s better than the alternative.[1] 

            First of all, “he’ll be fine.”—Mike Ermentraut in “Better Call Saul” after he whacked some smart-alec in the throat and left him gagging on the floor of a parking garage.  The Federal Reserve Bank is going to raise interest rates until demand clearly falls.  If the underlying economic fundamentals—household spending for example—remain strong, then the Fed will go on tightening. 

            Second, neither cops nor the Fed are actually your friend.  Doesn’t matter what your parents told you when you were little.  They both have jobs to do.  They’re going to do those jobs.  In the case of the cops, that can mean grabbing up a bunch of teenagers having a house party while the parents are away.[2]  Yes, the recent historical pattern has been for the Fed to rush in stimulate the economy.  That pattern developed long after Paul Volker had to—and did—break a serious inflation in the l980s.  Since then, there haven’t been any serious inflationary periods.  Just the opposite: slumps and crises have repeatedly required the Fed to pump up the economy.  That is what people are used to.  They have a hard time imagining somebody being a real jerk.  But Ben Bernanke rose to the occasion during the financial crisis of 2008 and the “Great Recession.”  There’s no reason yet to think that Jerome Powell will not do what has to be done.[3]  Now, we’re not in Volker territory, but we’re close enough. 

Fourth, inflation sentiment or expectations are not the same thing as inflation itself.  Many of the signs that inflation has peaked are actually small contributors to rising prices.[4]  Energy and food prices have long been recognized as volatile, so the “core” inflation indexes exclude them from their calculations.  Same goes for raw material prices, which factor in as only minor contributors to personal consumption.  One measure of personal consumption inflation has it at 4 percent.  That isn’t the 2 percent target set by the Fed.  How long will it take to get there? 

Currently, the economy, jobs, and inflation have crowded out all the other political concerns that once excited many Americans.  As is the case with guns and abortion, people just expect President Joe Biden to “do something.”  Biden has not done a good job of explaining either the problem or the remedy.  He has not said that the Trump and Biden administrations responded to the Covid economic crisis by expanding the money supply dramatically.  He hasn’t acknowledged that his administration, in particular, overshot the mark.  Instead, he has blamed the supply-chain problems, the war in Ukraine, and price gouging by corporations.  He hasn’t told people that beating inflation is very important on many scores, not least because it hits hardest at people who can’t adjust their incomes.  He hasn’t said that it will likely be a time consuming and painful process.  He hasn’t said that it is beyond the control of “the most powerful man in the world.” 

Would anyone thank him if he did?   

[1] Greg Ip, “Beware Wishful Thinking on the Economy,” WSJ, 14 July 2022. 

[2] The party may involve finding some nominal adult to buy them a case of beer.

[3] It is only fair to point out that the off-term elections are coming in November 2022.  The Democrats have a tenuous grip on Congress.  There is likely to be a lot of caterwauling if the Fed does trigger a recession between now and November.  President Richard Nixon urged Fed chairman Arthur Burns to “give us some money.”  Burns complied. 

[4] For example, lumber prices have fallen by better than 50 percent from their peak.  Housing prices are still high and rising in many parts of the country. 

American Opinion in July 2022.

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            In general, Americans think that the country is headed in the wrong direction.[1]  “In general” means north of 75 percent.  Only about 13 percent think that it is headed in the right direction.[2]  Democrats are reading the tea leaves in hopes of staving off a landslide in November 2022.  On a Congressional level, they are not without hope in mid-July 2022.  A recent poll shows respondents favoring Democrats over Republicans by 41 to 40 percent.  Likely voters favored Republics over Democrats by 44 to 43 percent.  So, pump up the turnout. 

            Beneath that headline, things still look grim.  Black support remains strong, with 78 percent favoring Democrats.  After that, it falls off steeply: 57 percent of white college graduates, 52 percent of those aged 30 to 44 years, 46 percent of those aged 18 to 29, 44 percent of women, 41 percent of Hispanics, and 34 percent of Asians lean Democratic. 

The issues that pre-occupy voters are economic and personal.  Three quarters rated the economy as “extremely important” to them.  Virtually all (93 percent) of working-age people rated the economy as poor or, at best, fair shape.  In particular, “jobs and the economy” ranked first among the issues for 20 percent of those polled; with inflation ranking first with another 15 percent.  Among this group, voters prefer Republican control of Congress over Democratic control by 62 to 25 percent. 

In contrast, the stories that lead the daily news reports are either fading away for the moment or have failed to get traction with most voters.  Only 10 percent ranked “the state of American democracy and political division” as the most important problem.  Only 10 percent ranked gun policies as the most important issue.  Only 5 percent ranked abortion rights as the most important problem.[3]  Even among women, only a tiny share—9 percent—ranked abortion as the most important issue.  About 5 percent of voters ranked either education, or crime, or immigration, or the coronavirus first among issues.  In a perhaps unintentionally brutal aside, one New York Times reporter said that “Democrats are maintaining the loyalty of a crucial sliver of [financially secure,] predominantly liberal and highly educated voters [who]… care more about debates over guns, democracy and the shrinking of abortion rights than the state of the economy.” 

Well, not many people are single-issue voters and political parties are big containers for people with different issues.  Thus it has always been.  Perhaps the Democrats can cobble together a winning coalition out of women, Blacks, young people, and nerds.  They’ve done it before.  Perhaps the Republicans will make one or more unforced errors.  They’ve done it before. 

There doesn’t seem to be much that the Democrats can do about the state of the economy.  Between them, the Trump and Biden administrations ran up the basic money supply from $15 trillion to $22 trillion between 2020 and 2022.  That’s what is causing the inflation, although the supply chain issues and the Ukraine war and the Biden administration’s energy polices have all aggravated matters.  It’s just going to take too much time for the Federal Reserve to fix things. 

[1] Nate Cohn, “Midterm Race Appears Tight, Polling Shows,” NYT, 14 July 2022; Shane Goldmacher, “Democrats Sour on Biden, Citing Age and Economy,” NYT, 11 July 2022. 

[2] One in eight Americans think that high inflation, supply chain problems, bitter partisan politics leading to Congressional gridlock, and an arms-length engagement in a war of attrition with another nuclear power is “moving in the right direction”?  I had no idea that there were so many Satanists. 

[3] At the same time, 65 percent said that abortion should be legal under most or all circumstances.  It just isn’t the most important issue for most of its supporters. 

Half the Story.

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            Mass shootings grab the headlines and alarm Americans.  So they should, we can all agree.  However, events like the massacres at Buffalo and Uvalde form the tip of the iceberg of American gun violence.  Virtually all (95 percent) of gun homicides involve 1-3 victims; are highly concentrated both geographically and socially, and do not involve “assault-style” weapons.[1]  All this has been well known, if not much discussed in public, for a long time. 

            Homicide rates were alarmingly high from the 1960s through the 1990s.  Then they fell from the 1990s until about 2020.  Since then, they have been rising sharply in some areas. 

One common explanation is to point to the particular stressors of recent times: “the Covid pandemic, George Floyd’s murder and its aftermath, and the polarized political atmosphere.”  None of this is very persuasive.  Covid hit every part of the country; the attendant lock-downs hit much of the country; George Floyd’s murder led to the swift conviction of the perpetrator and an intense debate on policing; and—for all the loose talk of a looming civil war–political polarization hasn’t led to much shooting of political opponents.[2]  The stressors are common, but the violence is localized. 

            “There are several factors behind the concentration of violence.  A major one is poverty.” 

            It has been argued that concentrated poverty reduces “social trust” in the affected community.  Eroded social trust, in turn, “hurts communities’ ability to enforce norms against violent behavior.”  However, enforcing norms against violence usually falls to the police, not community members.[3]  Moreover, the poverty rate for all racial groups hit historic lows in 2019.[4] 

Furthermore, “It is difficult to talk about gun violence without talking about race, because Black Americans are most likely to be the victims of shootings.”  Agreed, but what goes unsaid here is that Black Americans also are most likely to be the perpetrators of shootings. 

Homicide type, by race, 1980–2008.[5]

Victims                                      Offenders

All homicides

Total                White    Black    Other           Total    White    Black      Other

100%               50.3%    47.4%    2.3%           100%   45.3%     52.5%      2.2%

Gun homicide

100%               46.5%    51.4%    2.0%           100%   41.2%     56.9%     1.9%

Drug related

100%               36.9       62.1        1.0              100%   33.2        65.6          1.2

            So, do ALL Black Lives Matter or just some?  Because what we’re doing isn’t working. 

[1] German Lopez and Ashley Wu, “What Everyday Shootings Tell Us About Gun Violence,” NYT, 9 July 2022. 

[2] Although see https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charlottesville-rally-turns-deadly-one-killed-after-car-strikes-crowd-n792116 and https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/portland-trump-rally-shooting.html

[3] Unless we’re referring to “Don’t Snitch” T-shirts. 

[4] See: https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/poverty-rates-for-blacks-and-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019.html#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20the%20share%20of,23.8%25%20of%20the%20poverty%20population. 

[5] Alexia Cooper and Erica L. Smith, Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2011). http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf 

Democracy in the Rear View Mirror.

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            Sometimes foreigners have a clearer view of the strengths and weaknesses of a country than do the natives.[1]  Hence it is interesting that some foreign observers fear for the future of the United States, but for reasons different from those which now preoccupy many Americans.  For six years, Americans have been focused on conjectural threats to democracy.[2]  Some foreign observers, however, perceive a real threat from democracy, at least as it now operates in the United States.  Lee Hsien Loong, prime minister of Singapore, told an American journalist that there exists a widespread perception that “you do not have a bright future because the world is changing too fast for a system like the United States, a democracy with checks and balances.”[3] 

            The checks and balances created by the Constitution divided powers between three co-equal branches of government.  That system seems to have served the United States well for more than two hundred years.  What’s different now? 

            Extreme political polarization lies at the heart of the matter.  The problem is social and human, rather than institutional.  Broadly, the country is split into deeply and unthinkingly distrustful factions that turn any policy issue into a battleground.[4]  The current Congress exemplifies the resulting institutional dead-lock.  Congress has a slight Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and a 50-50 division in the Senate.  The Democrats can pass a small amount of legislation through the process called “reconciliation” because such bills can be passed with the Vice President breaking the tie.  All other bills in the Senate require a 60 vote majority to overcome a “filibuster.”  Use of the filibuster to block legislation has tripled over the last thirty years, with the result that Congress now passes about half as many laws.  Neither party wants to get rid of the filibuster just to pass its wish-list.  The other party will soon be back in power with a narrow majority will then ram through its own wish-list. 

            One solution attempted has been to expand the power of the Executive branch into the vacuum created by the Legislative branch.  After getting shellacked in the 2010 elections, Barack Obama developed a mania for executive agreements in place of treaties and regulations and rules written by bureaucrats in place of legislation.  Donald Trump used the same approach to block illegal immigration from Central America and to plaster China with tariffs.  Now the third branch of government, the Judiciary, has clapped a stopper on such tricks by invalidating the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to impose the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. 

            One example of short-sighted partisanship can be found in a bill intended to enhance competitiveness with China in hi-tech areas.  Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell threatened to block passage of the bill unless the Democrats drop a much-reduced version of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill.  The Democrats want to pass the latter bill to shore up their chances in the 2022 mid-term elections.  They may find common ground with the Republicans in putting short-term party advantage over long-term national interest. 

[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1848-1850) is the classic example. 

[2] For the Democrats, this means Donald Trump and the Deplorables.  For the Republicans, it means the Russia collusion hoax launched by the Clinton campaign and then taken up by an element within the FBI. 

[3] Greg Ip, “Gridlock Hamstrings U.S. on China,” WSJ, 7 July 2022. 

[4] On the futility of trying to craft an institutional solution to such social and human divisions, see Philip Williams, Crisis and Compromise: Politics in the [French] Fourth Republic (1966). 

Debt and the Devil.

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Dan Thornton,[1] a former research economist at and vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “the issue isn’t whether the U.S. will repay its debt, but whether it can service the debt.”[2]

What does it mean to “service the debt”?  According to “Investopedia,” “Debt service is the cash that is required to cover the repayment of interest and principal on a debt for a particular period[3]..… [Individuals and] companies must meet debt service requirements for loans and bonds issued to the public. The ability to service debt is a factor when a company needs to raise additional capital to operate the business.”[4]    

This leads us to the Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR): “the debt-service coverage ratio (DSCR) is a measurement of a firm’s available cash flow to pay current debt obligations. The DSCR shows investors whether a company has enough income to pay its debts.”[5]   

The DSCR is, of a course, an equation.  Debt Service Coverage Ratio = Net Operating Income divided by Total Debt Service. 

“Net operating income is a company’s revenue minus certain operating expenses.” 

“Total debt service refers to current debt obligations, meaning any interest, principal, sinking fund, and lease payments that are due in the coming year. On a balance sheet, this will include short-term debt and the current portion of long-term debt.” 

“Typically, a DSCR greater than 1 means the entity—whether an individual, company, or government—has sufficient income to pay its current debt obligations.” 

So, can the U.S. service its debt, regardless of trying to pay it all back?  Thornton says that the current interest cost of the debt is 1.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  This, he says, is only half of the peak of 3 percent in the post-1945 period.  The Federal Reserve Bank is now raising interest rates to break the current surge of inflation.  We’ve got quite a bit of space before hitting the previous peak of 3 percent.  Thornton says that “I doubt that investors or the public will lose faith in the government’s ability to service the debt at least until debt service exceeds 3 percent of GDP.” 

The United States Government is not quite the same thing as an individual or a private business.  In a pinch, it can take various actions.  It could cut spending.  The Big Three spending categories are Defense, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid.  Together, they amount to about 60 percent of federal outlays in a normal year.[6]  In a pinch, it can increase revenue by raising taxes on all or some Americans.  This would run against a well-established political trend in recent decades.  To raise taxes not in pursuit of new spending, but in favor of improving the credit-worthiness of the country seems chancy.  In a pinch, it could reduce the interest rate and perhaps extend the repayment period to cut payments to creditors by fiat.  IDK. 

[1] On Thornton, see: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-thornton-9922a06a/ 

[2] Letters to the Editor, WSJ, 6 July 2022.

[3] Basically what I do when I make my mortgage payment. 

[4] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/debtservice.asp 

[5] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp 

[6] See: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57170  However, 2020 was not a “normal” year.  There was something like $1.2 trillion in emergency spending on PPL, Recovery Rebates, and suddenly expanded Unemployment compensation. 

Zion Island 34.

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Ringelblum Archive; in private hands. 

                                                                                                DRAFT[1] 

Finding a Home for Zion.

Emanuel Ringelblum.

Memorandum submitted at the request of General Bach-Zelewski. 

            One theme of our modern age is that all the problems of the world could be solved if the Jews would just go away to live in some tropical hell-hole. 

            First it was the German Paul de Lagarde (1827-1891), a great Biblical scholar[2] and anti-Semite.  He wanted to ship the Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe off to Madagascar.  Then it was the Zionists, who wanted to “ascend” to Palestine.  Heat, rocks, dust.  We could all become melon-farmers.  Then it was the British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, who offered Herzl the Highlands of Kenya.[3]  In 1928, the Russians came up with the idea of a “Jewish Autonomous Republic” in their—anyone’s–Far East.  Forests, swamps, and an extreme climate on the frontier with China.  Delightful!  Jung[4] tells me that he heard from a colleague in the Foreign Ministry that Mussolini proposed to resettle Europe’s Jews in Ethiopia. 

Beginning in 1933, the Nazis began to harry Germany’s Jews into leaving.  It didn’t matter where, but Palestine would be fine.  The same spirit took hold in Poland.  I remember it well.  It started with that bastard Dmowski.[5]  His National Democrats (NDs) were foaming anti-Semites.  Cultural “Polonization,” economic boycotts, riots.  What to do?  If you want them to go, there has to be somewhere to go.  So, the Poles provided weapons to the Jews in Palestine and ran a training camp for Jewish soldiers in Poland.  Maybe they could fight for a place to go?  In 1937, the NDs passed a resolution that “its main aim and duty must be to remove the Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland.”  So the Polish government began talking with the French about forced emigration.  Not to France you understand, but to somewhere in the Empire.  The talks focused on Madagascar and a Polish group went for a look. 

The idea appealed to the French.  The indigenous population of Madagascar had become increasingly restive under French rule during the Twenties.  Settling a lot of European colonists who were overjoyed to be out of the reach of the Nazis might change the situation. 

Nothing came of this Franco-Polish idea at the time.  However, there was a certain amount of public discussion.  So, maybe that’s where the Nazis got the idea?  Kleptomania. 

[1] Hand-written note says “NOT to be shown to B-Z!”

[2] Of the OLD Testament, not the New. 

[3] Maybe it says something that Chamberlain sent his un-loved younger son off to the Bahamas for six years to be a sisal planter? 

[4] Possibly Guido Jung (1876-1949), Italian Fascist Minister of Finance, 1932-1935. 

[5] Roman Dmowski, b: 1864, near Warsaw, Russian Poland, 1864; d: 1939, Drozdowo, Poland.  If you don’t believe me, see: Joel Cang, “The Opposition Parties in Poland and Their Attitude towards the Jews and the Jewish Question,” Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 1, #2, 1939, pp. 241–256. 

Zion Island 33.

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Reichsarchiv.  Sipo-SD, Madagascar/Administration/Transport/Controls/Miscellaneous. 

1 July 1950. 

AUSWEIS. 

            The bearer, GANCWAJCH, Abraham, is permitted to operate an ambulance service within the Central Administrative District and also between Theresienstadt and Toamasina.  Vehicles and employees of the service many travel freely at all hours until further notice. 

                                                                        Signed:  Lange, Sipo-SD.

Patterns of American Foreign Policy.

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Has American foreign policy been driven by a pragmatic approach to solving problems of national interest and security?  Has American foreign policy been driven by a series of ideas?[1]  The popular answer is the ideas one because there’s so much evidence that is easily found.[2] 

            For one thing, until very recent times, Americans were a religious people.  Many still are.  So, many discussions of public affairs—foreign and domestic–were couched in religious terms.  Often, they presented the United States as an agent of the Divine, or discussed conflicts in terms of Good and Evil.  President McKinley talked about America’s duty to “uplift and Christianize” the Filipinos.  Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is explicitly religious.[3] 

For another thing, historians often take a published rationalization for doing something as the actual inspiration for doing that thing.  In the case of the Westward movement, Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the desire to create an “Empire of Liberty” and John O’Sullivan announced America’s “Manifest Destiny.”  In the case of engaging with the larger world, Alfred Thayer Mahan emphasized the “Influence of Sea Power Upon History,” and Woodrow Wilson justified American entry into the First World War as an effort to “make the world safe for democracy.” 

            Despite this eye-catching froth, most American policy has been driven by attempts to find pragmatic solutions to real problems.  The truth is that Americans had been moving Westward in ever-growing numbers since they landed on the Eastern seaboard.  High-flown talk didn’t make them go.  The practical problems were how to fend off foreign competitors (France, Spain, Mexico, Britain) and how to dispossess the Native Americans.  Similarly, by the dawn of the 20th Century, America’s economic development and population growth gave the United States an interest in world trade and made it a country to be reckoned with in international affairs. 

            The United States entered the First World War because Germany, more than Britain, threatened the principle of freedom of the seas and the idea of a world governed by law.  The idealistic war aims came later.  American isolationism in the Thirties ended with the unexpected fall of France in 1940, and the near-collapse of Britain.  The real German danger to American security shifted military, diplomatic, and domestic political positions in a hurry.  The United States adopted the policy of “containment” against the Soviet Union to secure America’s essential trading partners and military allies.  Eisenhower adopted the strategy of “more bang for the buck” to keep down the size of the military budget.  This prefigured his farewell address warning of a “military-industrial complex” that is with us yet.[4]    

            This pragmatism didn’t always have a happy outcome.  The George W. Bush administration made a correct analysis of the sources of terrorism in the Middle East: centuries of Ottoman and Arab bad government, not Western imperialism.  Then it came up with a disastrously wrong solution: knock over a dictator, declare “democracy,” put up some big-box stores, and leave.  You can’t make anything fool-proof.  Fools are too inventive. 

[1] Inspired by reading David Sanger, “Nation-Building’s Siren Song,” NYT Book Review, 1 January 2017. 

[2] The tendency of writers and politicians to say things in print got a lot of these people shot in France after the Second World War.  Meanwhile, bureaucrats and businessmen who had collaborated with the Germans went free.  See: Peter Novick, The Resistance versus Vichy: The purge of collaborators in liberated France (1968). 

[3] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_second_inaugural_address 

[4] See: Ernest May The World War and American Isolation, 1914-1917 (1959); Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division (1951); John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (1982).   

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy 2.

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Since his election in November 2016, Democrats have been talking about Donald Trump and the Republican Party in terms of a fascist danger.  Trump broke with established policies, especially in foreign affairs.  He continually violated behavioral norms, the “guard-rails of democracy.”  He treated the bogus collusion-with-Russia investigation as if it were bogus.  He cavalierly broke with many of President Obama’s executive agreements and executive orders as if he had the authority to do so.  He escaped prosecution for his corrupt business dealings when intense investigation by Democrat prosecutors in the city and state of New York failed to turn up significant evidence.  He dodged removal from office over his efforts to use government resources to turn Hunter Biden’s business dealings into a black eye for his likely opponent in 2020, Joe Biden.  He failed to adequately condemn radical right groups, while also condemning both radical left groups and the criminals who buzzed around the edges of some of the BLM demonstrations.  The hearings on the 6 January 2020 riot are intended to get Democrats thinking about the danger posed to democracy by Donald Trump and his followers. 

            Now the views of political scientists on feeble democracy in other countries are being cited as warnings for the United States.[1]  In particular, “some scholars argue that Americans hoping to understand their country’s trajectory should look not to Europe but to Latin America.”  Peru (1992, 2000), Venezuela (1999—the present), Ecuador (2018), and Bolivia (2019) all offer examples of constitutional crises over the transfer or retention of power in politically fragmented nations.  Europe, in contrast, has few political similarities to the United States. 

            The parallels that make the comparison so appropriate in the eyes of some are two-fold.  First, the United States shares with Latin American countries a presidential system of government.   Most European countries have a parliamentary system.  In this system, the party or coalition of parties that wins the majority of votes in a free and fair election gets to form the government.  There are not alternative centers of power.  In contrast, the American constitution divides power between three theoretically co-equal branches of government.  Each seeks to maximize its power, holding the power of the other branches in check.  Extreme social and political polarization can interact with a divided government to create a deadlock over who should rule. 

            Second, in such a crisis, it is often up to “elites” to decide the fate of democracy.  These “elites” include “lawmakers, judges, bureaucrats, police and military officers, local officials, business chiefs, and cultural figures.”[2]  They need to reach some consensus on what should be done, who should keep or yield power.  They act from , unpredictable motives. 

            “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.”[3]  Still, this analysis could suggest that people are formulating a rationale that de-legitimizes the existing constitution of the United States.  Nobody wants a government like the ones in which Latin Americans are trapped; while even Boris Johnson hasn’t (yet) discredited parliamentary government.   They are doing it before the 2024 election.  It also could suggest that it casts doubt on the reliability of elites.  It could look like preparing emergency measures to over-turn an election in defense of democracy. 

[1] Max Fisher, “During Constitutional Crises, Democracies Aren’t Always Democratic,” NYT, 19 June 2022. 

[2][2] What, in the Middle East, would be called the “deep state.”  Although what if “cultural figures” included RuPaul? 

[3] “Suspicious Minds” (written by Mark James, 1968).