Can Trump Save American Politics

No, not by winning but by losing.

If Trump and the MAGA nation suffer a massive defeat dragging the Republican party down with them perhaps it will lead to a reckoning among life long Republicans that something massive will be needed to save the party.

What about a search inward and a complete re-branding as a “progressive conservative” party, a party with conservative economic policies and progressive social policies that take from the individualism part of conservatism, a party that does not try to make everyone conform to their vision of the perfect American but accepts people as they see themselves with personal autonomy over their being and their bodies and one that welcomes newcomers.

Such a movement could encroach on economically conservative minded Democrats and rebuild the party.

And while perhaps a threat to the Democratic Party it could be the catalyst the Democrats need to move towards being a real social democratic party, a party that is no longer fighting to stop America from moving backwards but one that fights to move America forward.

Woke is Right.

So what does woke mean anyway ?

Accepting people for who they are.

Allowing people to love who they love and marry who they love.

Allowing women (and men) control over their own bodies.

Judging people by their deeds, not the colour of their skin or their religion.

Allowing people to practice their culture or religion as long as it does not harm others.

Not fearing or hating people because they are different than you.

Welcoming newcomers.

Giving everyone an equal opportunity by providing education and health care to everyone.

Practising conservation of the habitat we depend on to live.

Living within one’s means and as a society within the means of the planet’s resources.

Prioritizing people over property.

And sharing.

When you strip away the political ideology and look at these principles philosophically they are basic principles of conservatism.

Woke is Right.

Thoughts on American Politics

First of all what is a non-American doing commenting on American politics in the middle of an American election. Do I hear people screaming foreign interference. Well so be it. As long as the United States is the world’s most militarily powerful nation and not reluctant to use that power overseas if it believes it’s interests are at stake, and as long as it calls itself the leader of the free world, the rest of the world, particularly it’s northern neighbour, has a legitimate interest and stake in it’s politics.

Elections are usually about political parties and candidates vying for power. This one is different, even with the most recent announcement. This election is more about what type of country America is or wants to be. Does it want to continue as a Democracy (albeit it a Neo-liberal one), no matter which party is in power, or does it want to go full on Fascist led by Christian Nationalists and White Supremacists.

How dangerous is this. When one of the candidates for President is spouting rhetoric that sounds like it was taken straight out of Mein Kampf we have to be concerned.

“All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning,”

Adolf Hitler- Mein Kampf

“That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”

“illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They’re coming from prisons, from mental institutions — from all over the world.”

Donald Trump – 2024 campaign

Source: NBC News

 

 

They tell us who they are and the people controlling and promoting Trump chose someone who expresses clearly the type of America they want. Trump may have created MAGA but it has been taken over by people much smarter, more sinister and dangerous than him. One of America’s major parties is now clearly under their control no matter what happens to Trump.

And who benefits from this most – the wealthy corporations and billionaire class who benefit from the current mainstream Neo-liberalism of American politics. They have created a situation where they have moved the perceived political centre artificially right so moderate centrists appear as radical leftists and Fascism appears as mainstream. The political struggle is no longer about the left fighting for a better society but instead fighting against moving backwards, and further to the right than America has ever been. And the left is being told if they want to save their country they have to fight to preserve the Neo-liberal status quo.

The corporate billionaire class is sitting pretty. If they win they get a Fascist regime that will fulfill their wildest dreams. If they lose they still win and get to keep the Neo-liberal status quo that has created historical levels of inequality and given them excessive wealth, as hopes for real progressive change is put on the back burner.

What remains to be seen is what the Democratic Party will do with the opportunity that is presented to them. Will they take the path of least resistance and defend the status quo or fight for real change and social democracy.

What America really needs, if there is hope for any real political change and social progress, is major changes to their political system starting with the end of the two party system. This would require some form of proportional representation to ensure all political viewpoints are represented in the nations legislatures proportional to their support among the population. It would require single person positions like the President and Governors be elected by some form of ranked ballot system so voters are not duped into believing they only have two choices. And it should require positions such as judges and prosecutors, which should be non-political, be taken out of the partisan political arena and made career public service positions.

In November we will see what America gets, at least in the short term. Only one result will provide hope, even if it is just hope for future change.

For a more comprehensive analysis of American politics see Is American Democracy Fucked.

Doug Ford: Should we be thankful for small mercies ?

So is there anything good to say about Doug Ford.

Well he is not Pierre Poilievre or Danielle Smith. At least Ford does not seek votes by appealing to people’s fears and hatred. He is more of an old fashioned corporations know best, privatization will solve all our problems, capitalist conservative.

He doesn’t attack people for who they are or go after women’s right to bodily autonomy.

Yes, he wants to give the province to his business cronies, destroy the environment and dismantle our public health care and education systems, but no one is perfect.

How Did We Get Here

Let me tell you a story about my early days working for the House of Commons in a non-partisan position serving all Members of Parliament and all Canadians. While we all had our own political opinions, that ranged from right to left, we all worked professionally and in a non- partisan manner to serve the House. And we all got along.

On one particular day we were on what could best be called a self-improvement course. I suppose there was money left in the professional development budget and somebody knew somebody, but that is a different discussion. This course veered into a particular direction that was critical of social programs and public health care suggesting they enabled the lazy. Many of us expressed our opposition to these seemingly American inspired ideas during the seminar. During our first break I was discussing this with a colleague, who happened to be the most right wing member of our staff from conservative Alberta, and I, from NDP stronghold Sudbury, was the most left wing staff member, and we both agreed the seminar was a waste of time and we both decided to go back to our desks and do real work for the rest of the seminar.

The point being that while we had different political outlooks we shared the same Canadian values that all our colleagues did.

There was a time, not really that long ago in the political history of our country, when people on the left respected, and even admired, right wing politicians like John Diefenbaker, Bill Davis, Flora MacDonald and Joe Clark and people on the right felt the same way about politicians like Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and Ed Broadbent. There was a time when we held two Quebec referendums and national debates on Quebec separation in a respectful manner without the level of hatred that is expressed today. This was a time when Canadians had their party preferences but did not fear for their country if their favoured party lost.

I can think of a particular American multi-millionaire and another American billionaire that can share some of the blame for what is happening in Canada today. But the blame also lies with too many of us who have decided to use our ability to control the information we receive to only see what we have already chosen to believe and only listen to those we have chosen to listen to. Unfortunately this leaves too many people in a position to easily fall prey to disinformation and manipulation. But that still does not explain the level of real hatred we see expressed in our political discourse today, particularly against the current Prime Minister for everything from policy decisions to the colour of socks he might choose to wear.

How did we get here.

Postscript

It is blatantly obvious that the vast majority of the political hate (and bigotry) we are seeing today is coming from one end of the political spectrum. It is time for the centre right decide who their values better align with, the far right or the centre, and a time for them to decide who and what they want to be aligned with.

Translating the Negativity of Today’s Right Wing into the Reality of Their Beliefs

Today’s right wing loves to express itself in terms of what they hate, seeming to lack any positive messages. When you turn their negativity into positive statements it expresses what they really believe in.

Anti woke:  Celebrating a lack of awareness and caring for others

Anti Political Correctness:  Never do the right thing

Anti science, intellectualism:  Pro ignorance

Anti BLM:  Believe only white lives matter, support white supremacists

Anti “community activists”:  Celebrating apathy and lack of community involvement

Against Antifa:  Pro Fascism

Anti vaccines, public health measures:  Pro death

Fuck Trudeau:  Nothing worthwhile to say

Left, Right or Centre – Explainer

In today’s age of populism, with ideology apparently dead, how do you now if you are on the left or right or in the centre. There are indeed some basic philosophical positions that determine if you are on the right, left or in the centre.

If you are on the right you believe in individualism and the free market. Individualism rules supreme and there is no such thing as collective rights. You believe in the mantras that “acting in your own self interest is in the best interests of society” and “what is good for General Motors is good for America”.

You believe that almost everything, except perhaps policing and the military, is done best by the private sector and that the profit motive is the best motivator of people. Competition is the best way to provide progress and create wealth.

You believe in inequality because that is the best way to reward intelligence, talent and hard work. The poor are poor because they do not work hard enough.

You believe in small government whose role is essentially to protect private property rights. You think of taxes as something an outside entity (the government) takes from you, you may even refer to it as stealing. You may also believe in unfettered free speech.

If you are on the left you believe in community. You believe that individuals are not completely fulfilled unless they are part of a community. You believe in co-operation and working together for the common good. You care for others and believe everyone deserves respect and human dignity.

You believe everyone deserves a decent life and all work should receive a living wage with employment benefits, especially decent pensions. You believe the level of inequality in our society is immoral and billionaires should not exist.

You believe government exists to serve the common good by providing public services efficiently and reducing economic inequality in society. You believe taxes are how we collectively spend our money for the common good.

You may even believe that we have a responsibility to contribute to society according to our ability and society has a responsibility to provide for our basic needs, including food, clothing, housing, education and health care.

Those of you who claim to be in the centre are probably actually on the right but you believe government has a role in reducing the worst aspects of capitalism and providing a social safety net for the victims of capitalist excesses.

Ban Campaign Promises and other Electoral Rants

Campaign promises. What are they good for. Absolutely nothing.

I wish we could get rid of campaign promises. If you are in government then a campaign promise is just something you think you should have done that you did not do. Maybe it is best not to remind the voters of that, especially if you have made the same promise election after election without delivering. Governing parties should run on their records.

If you are in opposition then campaign promises are wishful thinking. Once elected into government you might discover just how difficult implementing them might be, or worse yet that they really are a bad idea. Nothing politically good can come from breaking promises even when it is the right thing to do.

But the main thing about campaign promises is that they have become part of what has become elections as marketing and voting as shopping where the best candidate doesn’t win but the best marketing campaign does.

Sometimes I think would be better of without election campaigns. Just have all the candidates write essays (no ghost writing allowed) about the type of Canada they want and what they believe to be the best way to achieve that.

After all is not the idea of representative government to elect representatives we trust to take the time to study the issues and develop the best solutions to make the country a better place.

How well are we served by a process where all Members of Parliament do is vote the party line and implement predetermined polices rather than working together to develop the best policies for the country.

I actually remember a time when local all candidates debates mattered. How well served are we by election campaigns where the only people that count are the party leaders, and constitutional niceties aside, voters act is if they are voting for a President, not Members of Parliament.

Is American Democracy Fucked ?

So is the American political system completely dysfunctional.

I suppose the easy answer is to say they elected Trump so case closed, but of course it is much more complicated than that.

What advanced developed democracy cannot manage to keep it's government functioning.

The obvious answer should be “none” but of course we know that is incorrect.

Even countries that require months of negotiations after elections to form a coalition government do not let their governments shut down. They understand that government is more than just politics, that government is a good thing that provides vital services to the people. They have processes to allow the everyday work of government to continue while the politics is sorted out.

Take Canada for example. If a government cannot get its spending plan (in the form of an Appropriation Act) approved it is considered a loss of confidence in the government by the legislature and an election is called. However the Prime Minister and Cabinet (whom are all Members of the legislature) retain their positions and what are referred to as Governor Generals' Warrants are issued to fund the day to day operations of government. Government continues in a caretaker mode with no new policy initiatives undertaken until a new government is formed.

However the American system seems designed for deadlock with no confidence mechanism to break deadlocks by electing a new government. They have an executive with a Cabinet appointed and led by a President that is not responsible to the legislature and a bicameral legislative process, requiring the two legislative bodies and the President to agree for legislation, including government funding bills, to become law.

Currently the two legislative bodies are controlled by two opposing parties and the President who, while nominally the leader of one of the two main parties, is in reality a rogue actor with no political allegiance except to himself and no discernible political philosophy except for his own incoherent version of populism. This is a recipe for the chaos that is the current American political situation.

I can only suppose that when the founding fathers drafted the American Constitution they put a great deal of faith in the good will of the political participants to put the good of the American people ahead of petty politics.

Now let us look at the American electoral system.

We will start with Election Day when most (but not all as there are variations between states) Americans vote for federal, state and local officials. They could not design a better way to overwhelm voters leading them to take the path of least resistance and vote a “straight party ticket”. Just the mechanics of voting for that many officials (including many positions that should be public servants), without even considering the time and effort to consider local, state and federal issues and make meaningful voting decisions, must be completely overwhelming to voters.

Americans also elect prosecutors and judges. This raises the whole other issue of the politicization of the justice and judicial systems all the way up to a very politicized Supreme Court. This could be the subject of a treatise all by itself.

Looking at elections for federal office we have the absurd situation where the states set the rules and procedures for federal elections and these vary from state to state. So a federal election is not a consistent process with consistent rules for all Americans.

But the most egregious fact is that it is state politicians from the state's governing party that control the federal election process in that state, including the drawing of the electoral map with that infamous American institution of gerrymandering (to manipulate the boundaries of an electoral constituency so as to favour one party). This also includes the use of various voter suppression methods to reduce voting, usually of black and other minority voters.

Then we have the electoral college system which routinely elects Presidents that are not the choice of the majority of American voters. The system is somewhat designed to do that by giving smaller states relatively more electoral college votes but is made worse by the fact that in most states all of a state's electoral college votes go to the candidate with the most votes in that state. So if a presidential candidate gets 60% of a states votes he gets 100% of the states electoral college votes further skewing the results away from the popular vote.

Another concern is the primary system used to select the individual parties candidates, including the presidential candidates. Again we have an inconsistent system of primaries and caucuses that are different for each state. But perhaps the biggest problem is the timing of these primaries at different dates for each state. It makes for great drama and entertainment but the results of earlier primaries cannot help but affect the results of later primaries. There is a reason election results are not released before all the polls are closed – so that earlier voters do not influence later voters. The primary system seems designed to do just that.

A consistent federal election process overseen by an independent non-partisan agency (similar to Elections Canada) would go a long way to solving the structural problems with the American electoral system. The cultural problems of political corruption are another matter.

And we have not even looked at the role money plays in American elections which is a huge subject all by itself, especially the role of wealthy donors, PACs (Political Action Committees) and SuperPACs. No one in American government can possibly govern without constantly thinking about where the money is coming from for their next campaign. It is very hard to argue that that will not affect their decision making.

And it is almost impossible to do anything in the form of political financing reform as the Supreme Court has ruled that money equals free speech, effectively ruling that the wealthy have a greater right to free speech than ordinary citizens and a greater ability to promote their preferred candidates for election.

So with all of these fundamental problems how can American elections be fair. If American elections are not fair, they are not democratic, and if the electoral process is not democratic then the whole governing structure is not democratic.

American democracy is fucked.

Best American Political Poster Ever

Realigning Canada's Political Spectrum

Canadians have traditionally held social democratic values while supporting centrist political parties. Canadians support universal single payer public health insurance, public pensions and a social safety net, all of which, at the federal level, have been proposed by leftist political parties but legislated by centrists political parties. These parties traditionally were the Liberal Party, slightly to the left of centre, and the Progressive Conservative Party, slightly to the right of centre.

The new extreme right wing federal Conservative Party of Stephen Harper (and Ontario PC Party of Harris and Hudak) are historical anomalies.

But the rise of the New Democratic Party in the recent election, and the rapid decline of the Liberal Party are signs that a change may be underway.

Some are suggesting a move to a two party left/right alignment with a merger of the Liberal and New Democratic Parties, but I do not see that happening.

What I see happening is a realignment closer to the traditional Canadian model.

I see the demise of the Liberal Party with it's right wing moving to the Conservatives and it's left wing moving to the New Democrats. I see the right wing Liberals joining with the former progressive wing of the Conservatives to move that party closer to it's former position slightly right of centre, while the New Democratic Party fills the position formerly held by the Liberals but somewhat further left of centre.

This would mean that the centre of Canadian politics would move to the left leading to more progressive future governments.

But I also see a further possibility of a New Democratic Party government bringing in proportional representation so that a true left wing party could emerge, with political representation equivalent to it's public support, along with a similar right wing party. The Greens would also get representation equivalent to their public support.

Their would be the potential for a more democratic system that made majority governments unlikely and co-operative (rather than confrontational) politics not only possible, but a necessity.

United Kingdom Politics Can Be Nasty

I was reviewing the Fifth Column and I decided to click on the Next Blog link in the blogspot top bar and this is where it took me:

Martin Horwood MP Cheltenham

There are some serious allegations buried in the nastiness on this page, if you look that far. However their credibility is extremely tainted by the nastiness they are buried in. This might have been fun to create but how effective it is is really questionable.

Googling the subheadings under the title (google11a2c7d5774bd97e.html) can lead you to some even nastier stuff such as this:

Norwich North Liberal Democrat

If you keep googling the subheadings you discover that someone has a serious hate on for the Liberal Democrats.

Bill Clinton’s Priorities - Life Beyond Politics

In the midst of the most critical stages of his wife’s political campaign Bill Clinton has shown that there is life beyond politics. The Toronto Star reported that on March 2, 2008 he was in Toronto to speak at a fund-raising event for the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative which will assist local leaders in Latin America and the developing world in addressing issues of social, economic and environmental impact through employment and economy.

"The world is bedevilled by three great crises: the persistent and growing inequality in economic opportunity, education and health care; the insecurity caused by our interdependence making us vulnerable to terror, to weapons of mass destruction, to the spread of dangerous materials, to global epidemics; and the unsustainability of our current developmental course because of the threats of global warming," Clinton told more than 1,000 people at the Westin Harbour Castle Convention Centre.

We give credit to the former president for his international humanitarian role and his work with the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.

On Blogging

It seems like I have always wanted to have a blog even before there were blogs.

When I attended Laurentian University I was active on the student newspaper, Lambda, and had a regular column, the Fifth Column, for which my blog is named.

My first personal computer was an Osborne 1 and I remember watching the dots go by as I downloaded files from computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) . My first Internet experience was with the Freeport based National Capital Freenet and I was one of the NCFs first information providers and one of the first NCF information providers to go to HTML web format with the Bridlewood Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs) Information Service.

My political perspective was formed, as with many people, during my university years where I studied Political Science and was involved in student politics as well as the New Democratic Party. When I moved to Ottawa to work for the House of Commons (indexing the House of Commons Debates and Committee Proceedings), I continued my involvement with the NDP. After moving to Kanata, I became involved in municipal politics as well, in particular the Bridlewood Residents Hydro Line Committee. Since then I have stepped back from active political involvement but remain an interested observer.

Upon retirement it seemed natural to bring my interest in the Internet, politics and journalism together in a blog. My blog is still young and struggling to find it’s place. I do not think I have reached my goal of providing the type of writing that I think I am capable of - original and thought provoking. Finding a distinctive style, beyond avoiding using question marks (as my daughter informs me I do), is another challenge.

I think my blog is going to find it’s place somewhere between a personal blog and a political blog. As an avid outdoors person, hiker, mountain biker, kayaker and cross county skier, I am more than just a “political animal”

I have recently disciplined myself into writing something every weekday. I wonder if this is hampering my writing of longer more thoughtful blog entries, but then if I cannot think of at least one interesting thing to say each day should I really be doing this. Blogging daily has certainly increased the readership of my blog which encourages me to spend more time researching and writing this blog..

Let me know what you think of the Fifth Column. I look forward to seeing how it evolves