I’ve been thinking about the election of
Trump for the past 48 hours. Its hard to judge, but its clear that after
today’s meeting between Obama and Trump that most of Obama’s achievements will
be canned by Trump. He may even have an agenda; although its hard to
figure out what it is from his comments over the past 12 months — has it really
been that long.
My fear is that with the assistance of
Congress, Trump may make some major changes to the “America of our forefathers”
I suspect that any issues that were on the GOP agenda (EPA clean energy
etc etc) is on the block. There is no doubt that he is pro- “clean coal”
and fracking and against alternative energy. Although the latter probably
requires less help than the first two (its not only federal regulations here).
I think that within the next four years we will see some major shift in
the American legal framework — this is the GOP’s chance to full the numerous
vacancies on the bench, starting with the top (Supreme Court) all the way down.
He has an anti-democratic streak, that the US system seems ready to adopt
(or at least is willing to give up in the name of greater
"security"). Too many of our friends take the attitude “I don’t
care about the invasion of privacy, I’ve not done anything wrong” As the
French revolution (and the Russian) have showed today’s friends may be
tomorrow’s enemy.
On race I don’t think he cares that much,
sure he’s happy to let the alt-right do its thing, but I don’t think he cares
that much. He’s a 70 year old real estate guy who thinks that white
people pay their rent on time and that black people smoke crack and are on
welfare (sure its racist), but he probably doesn’t see it that way. This could
be a problem (especially if the Police get additional powers).
The fourth estate is in real trouble, they
don’t like him and he’s probably looking for some payback — Trump is a guy who
likes to have his revenge! He’s said so on many many occasions.
He’s always hated the first amendment and would love to be able to sue
newspapers for real and perceived wrongs. He’s already said that he’s got
a long list of targets.
On making America great again his plan to
bring back coal (the economics are simply not there) and the get more
manufacturing in the country — is a clear indication that he doesn’t know what
he’s talking about. Manufacturing in the US is higher today than it was
30 years ago, but productivity (and robots) have changed the narrative. I
wish him luck with NATO, OECD, IMF, World Bank and NAFTA. There are a lot
of players that have many different interests.
There is no doubt that Trump admires “strong
leaders” such as Putin and Kim Jung Un, his instincts seem to be
anti-democratic and the US pump is primed for such a shift. Snowden and
Wikileaks showed how much data the American government has on its own people.
In fact, its not really a mystery; if Wal-Mart can figure out that you
are pregnant from your shipping habits (at Wal-Mart) what do you think the US
government can figure out when it has access to ALL your information.
They don’t need to know the details; they can have an educated guess.
The militarisation of the National Guards and of the Police across the
country over the past 16 years has been dramatic — if you think that even
Stanford University’s police department was offered anti-riot trucks… The
implication for civil rights being “high jacked for the greater good” is
ominous.
Now Trump’s way ahead is not all a bed of
roses, granted he probably wants to get the ACA out of the way, and reverse
most of Obama’s executive orders. However, the question that Trump (and
Congress) will have will be what to do about healthcare in America. Right
now the Freedom Caucus is gunning for repeal and do nothing, it is a very
expensive solution that will increase the deficit — prevention is much cheaper
than curing! Trump’s relationship with the GOP and Congress will be
difficult. Very few in Congress supported Trump, and some opposed him!
In the last few weeks of the election the GOP stopped supporting Trump
entirely — damage limitation. That is a big problem for Trump and for
Congress — Paul Ryan has the worse of both worlds. Also Trump is very
keen on re-building America’s infrastructure (from roads, viaducts, power
distribution etc ) but Republican congress are not there for him. It
brings all kinds of conflicts between the executive and the legislative (we
assume that Trump’s judicial appointments will “work his way”).
If we take the wider view of the election of
Trump and the Brexit vote are something very serious could be afoot. One
way to look at the Trump’s win could be a serious lack of enthusiasm for
Democrats only 48 million voted for Clinton, whereas in 2008 almost 58 million
voted for Obama. In truth, Clinton lost
Michigan that has been Democrat for a long time. Therefore the other way of looking at the two
votes would be to take the view that the middle class doesn’t trust the elite.
The people don’t believe the elite, and possibly with good reasons, they were
lied to as they saw no benefits from the trade liberalization – instead they
saw wage stagnation and job insecurity.
For the majority of the working class
“proles” the past 40 years have been a disaster. Trade was supposed
to bring wealth — it did, but only to the elite. The changes to the
financial systems was suppose to bring benefits to the people — it didn’t,
instead it was costly bailout and the financial deregulation has been a great
way for players to tilt the field in their advantage (virtually every market in
existence has been rigged by its participants). The opening of the market
to all investors has reduced (dramatically) the number of public companies —
now only rich people have access to these opportunities (via the private
markets). THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN, and they are ready to punt down the
field — they believe that the status quo
was against them (not entirely incorrect) that by electing Trump and Brexit
they opened a new door (could be worse, but the current system is not working
for them). Sure the economy may get fried
and relationship between races in America could be inflamed, but its worth a
try, because what they have now is not working for them!
I don’t know Trump and have no real opinion
on the man; my only interaction with him has been via his TV show, and his habit
to name every building he owns after himself. Stories during the election
of his intellectual laziness were too numerous to entirely discount; his
obvious lack of understanding of the START treaty, of the invasion of the
Ukraine by the Russian and his complete lack of understanding of the reasons
for alliances is breathtaking, but not unusual among American businessmen
(surprisingly). This is probably the most important aspect of his
failures as a leader. You have to go a long way back to find a candidate
to the presidency displaying such level of ignorance about world affaires.
Finally, this election like many election
has shown that if you are not promoting a positive message (Clinton) and only
have the “at least I am not him” as a mantra, then “your people” will not be
excited and will not take the trouble to vote. Clinton got nearly 10
million votes less than Obama did in 2008, and about 8 million less than he did
in 2012. Finally, I guess that the
pollsters missed a significant ingredient in the polls they conducted. Its
not clear what it was, maybe people said they would vote for Clinton and in
fact voted for Trump, but the more believable outcome seems to be that people
(read Democrats) were not excited by Clinton, and on the day decided that they
had better things to do.
The future is unknown, but I suspect that it’s
not good for the Republic as a bastion of democracy
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