Biden ou Trump?
Antes de abordar a questão é necessário dizer algo sobre as particularidades do sistema político e eleitoral norte-americano.
Primeiro, não é possível fazer uma transposição directa entre o que os norte-americanos e o que os europeus, no caso os portugueses, entendem por liberal. Os contextos culturais e históricos são distintos e, mesmo a nível académico, o sentido norte-americano da palavra “liberal” não tem nada que ver com o habitualmente entendido na Europa.
Segundo, se um português disser que votará sempre republicano ou democrata, independentemente do Estado e do candidato (quer seja para um senador, quer seja para um congressista) está, na minha opinião, a dar um sinal de desconhecimento dos condicionalismos inerentes ao sistema político norte-americano. Contudo, a polarização e até a cegueira ideológica não é um fenómeno exclusivo da política norte-americana. Curiosamente, tendo em mente os pressupostos atrás referidos, há uns tempos fiz um pequeno exercício e, na maioria dos casos, votaria republicano. Porém, as eleições presidenciais, até pelas suas características (um poder federal exercício por uma pessoa), são diferentes.
Terceiro, as escolhas não dependem apenas de motivos racionais. Aliás, na maioria das vezes, resultam de decisões emocionais, sendo a preferência e a simpatia – baseada na percepção que cada um tem relativamente às características e crenças dos candidatos – determinante para a escolha. E, não surpreendentemente, muitas decisões são tomadas no momento.
Expressos estes pontos, para responder a esta questão é necessário tentar estabelecer alguns paralelismos nas dimensões política, económica e social, assumindo, para além da democracia e do Estado de Direito, limites ao poder do Estado, economia de mercado e direitos individuais inalienáveis. Entre Biden e Trump existem pontos em comum. Nem um, nem o outro, defendem a abolição do regime democrático ou o fim do Estado de Direito, e ambos, embora em pontos distintos, defendem limitação ao poder do Estado. Assim, as diferenciações principais encontram-se nas restantes vertentes. Por exemplo, os republicanos defendem um Estado menor e menos impostos, mas também defendem a limitação da escolha individual em questões como o aborto. O proteccionismo e a guerra comercial com a China é um factor de diferenciação face a Biden. E os subsídios que Trump dá aos agricultores norte-americanos também é um factor a ter em mente.
Ora, não posso ignorar que no panorama político norte-americano, Trump é uma excepção. Foi eleito sem qualquer experiência política e militar. Não é difícil perceber o porquê? Representava alguém que, apesar do narcisismo e egocentrismo que o caracteriza, vinha de fora do sistema. Podem dizer que passados quatro anos, as características e crenças pessoais do Trump já são conhecidas e, como tal, estão validadas. Não concordo. Principalmente quando a falta de humildade continua a ser evidente. Porém, penso que é indiscutível que o Trump – que considero que nem sequer é um RINO (Republican In Name Only) – foi coerente com a políticas tradicionalmente conotadas com o partido republicano. Contudo, também demonstrou decisões com as quais não podia estar mais em desacordo. Privilegiou o poder executivo em detrimento do poder legislativo, como se aquele fosse suficiente por si só. Questionou as decisões dos tribunais que não lhe foram favoráveis, levantou suspeitas e insinuações sobre tudo o que não lhe agrada e promoveu o nepotismo.
Como liberal, defendo a meritocracia. Assim, reprovo a prática do nepotismo. Considerando que é inaceitável o que os socialistas fazem, posso aceitar que Trump faça o mesmo? Por outras palavras, é aceitável criticar o nepotismo da esquerda e apoiar o nepotismo da direita? Poderão dizer-me que o Trump quer pessoas à sua volta em quem possa confiar. É compreensível. Porém, é precisamente esse o argumento que os socialistas apresentam para justificar as nomeações que fazem. Ainda me recordo do Almeida Santos a utilizar o argumento da confiança.
Poderão dizer-me que os democratas têm a mesma prática. Aceito. Mas a prática que é questionável nos outros é justificável quando é praticada por nós? Para mim, não. Da mesma forma que condeno o nepotismo dos democratas, condeno o nepotismo dos republicanos. E da mesma forma que condeno o nepotismo dos socialistas portugueses, condenarei o nepotismo dos liberais portugueses. Não é possível que o Trump só confie na sua família. Para além disso, tantos membros da família na Casa Branca, ainda por cima em posições chave, alimentam suspeitas de procura de benefícios em negócios privados.
Para mim, o que está em causa é um princípio. E dentro dos limites da minha capacidade de análise e postura individual, não estou disponível para prescindir dos meus princípios. Não há liberdade sem responsabilidade. Não há responsabilidade sem coerência.
Assim, argumentar que um liberal deve votar Trump, ou Biden, é uma falácia. Não há razões objectivas para tal e a escolha está basicamente dependente da preferência individual. Eu, como liberal, não encontro razões para votar em nenhum dos dois. Claro que, no limite, existe sempre a possibilidade do voto por exclusão.
Se tivesse de votar entre o Biden e o Trump, só tomaria a decisão no momento. Virgílio, o poeta latino, tinha razão: “(…) raramente sabemos do que somos capazes até nos depararmos com as situações”.
P.S. – Expressei apenas a minha opinião. Respeito opiniões diferentes. Discutir preferências e gostos é algo interminável. Não existem gostos melhores do que os outros. E foi precisamente o Supremo Tribunal de Justiça norte-americano que melhor se pronunciou sobre esse assunto.
The Coronavirus Could Reshape Global Order
China Is Maneuvering for International Leadership as the United States Falters
By Kurt M. Campbell and Rush Doshi, March 18, 2020
With hundreds of millions of people now isolating themselves around the world, the novel coronavirus pandemic has become a truly global event. And while its geopolitical implications should be considered secondary to matters of health and safety, those implications may, in the long term, prove just as consequential—especially when it comes to the United States’ global position. Global orders have a tendency to change gradually at first and then all at once. In 1956, a botched intervention in the Suez laid bare the decay in British power and marked the end of the United Kingdom’s reign as a global power. Today, U.S. policymakers should recognize that if the United States does not rise to meet the moment, the coronavirus pandemic could mark another “Suez moment.”
It is now clear to all but the most blinkered partisans that Washington has botched its initial response. Missteps by key institutions, from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have undermined confidence in the capacity and competence of U.S. governance. Public statements by President Donald Trump, whether Oval Office addresses or early-morning tweets, have largely served to sow confusion and spread uncertainty. Both public and private sectors have proved ill-prepared to produce and distribute the tools necessary for testing and response. And internationally, the pandemic has amplified Trump’s instincts to go it alone and exposed just how unprepared Washington is to lead a global response.
The status of the United States as a global leader over the past seven decades has been built not just on wealth and power but also, and just as important, on the legitimacy that flows from the United States’ domestic governance, provision of global public goods, and ability and willingness to muster and coordinate a global response to crises. The coronavirus pandemic is testing all three elements of U.S. leadership. So far, Washington is failing the test.
As Washington falters, Beijing is moving quickly and adeptly to take advantage of the opening created by U.S. mistakes, filling the vacuum to position itself as the global leader in pandemic response. It is working to tout its own system, provide material assistance to other countries, and even organize other governments. The sheer chutzpah of China’s move is hard to overstate. After all, it was Beijing’s own missteps—especially its efforts at first to cover up the severity and spread of the outbreak—that helped create the very crisis now afflicting much of the world. Yet Beijing understands that if it is seen as leading, and Washington is seen as unable or unwilling to do so, this perception could fundamentally alter the United States’ position in global politics and the contest for leadership in the twenty-first century.
MISTAKES WERE MADE
In the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease now referred to as COVID-19, the missteps of Chinese leaders cast a pall on their country’s global standing. The virus was first detected in November 2019 in the city of Wuhan, but officials didn’t disclose it for months and even punished the doctors who first reported it, squandering precious time and delaying by at least five weeks measures that would educate the public, halt travel, and enable widespread testing. Even as the full scale of the crisis emerged, Beijing tightly controlled information, shunned assistance from the CDC, limited World Health Organization travel to Wuhan, likely undercounted infections and deaths, and repeatedly altered the criteria for registering new COVID-19 cases—perhaps in a deliberate effort to manipulate the official number of cases.
As the crisis worsened through January and February, some observers speculated that the coronavirus might even undermine the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. It was called China’s “Chernobyl”; Dr. Li Wenliang—the young whistleblower silenced by the government who later succumbed to complications from the COVID-19—was likened to the Tiananmen Square “tank man.”
Yet by early March, China was claiming victory. Mass quarantines, a halt to travel, and a complete shutdown of most daily life nationwide were credited with having stemmed the tide; official statistics, such as they are, reported that daily new cases had fallen into the single digits in mid-March from the hundreds in early February. In a surprise to most observers, Chinese leader Xi Jinping—who had been uncharacteristically quiet in the first weeks—began to put himself squarely at the center of the response. This month, he personally visited Wuhan.
Even though life in China has yet to return to normal (and despite continuing questions over the accuracy of China’s statistics), Beijing is working to turn these early signs of success into a larger narrative to broadcast to the rest of the world—one that makes China the essential player in a coming global recovery while airbrushing away its earlier mismanagement of the crisis.
Beijing is working to turn early signs of success into a larger narrative to broadcast to the rest of the world.
A critical part of this narrative is Beijing’s supposed success in battling the virus. A steady stream of propaganda articles, tweets, and public messaging, in a wide variety of languages, touts China’s achievements and highlights the effectiveness of its model of domestic governance. “China’s signature strength, efficiency and speed in this fight has been widely acclaimed,” declared Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. China, he added, set “a new standard for the global efforts against the epidemic.” Central authorities have instituted tight informational control and discipline at state organs to snuff out contradictory narratives.
These messages are helped by the implicit contrast with efforts to battle the virus in the West, particularly in the United States—Washington’s failure to produce adequate numbers of testing kits, which means the United States has tested relatively few people per capita, or the Trump administration’s ongoing disassembly of the U.S. government’s pandemic-response infrastructure. Beijing has seized the narrative opportunity provided by American disarray, its state media and diplomats regularly reminding a global audience of the superiority of Chinese efforts and criticizing the “irresponsibility and incompetence” of the “so-called political elite in Washington,” as the state-run Xinhua news agency put it in an editorial.
Chinese officials and state media have even insisted that the coronavirus did not in fact emerge from China—despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary—in order to reduce China’s blame for the global pandemic. This effort has elements of a full-blown Russian-style disinformation campaign, with China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman and over a dozen diplomats sharing poorly sourced articles accusing the U.S. military of spreading the coronavirus in Wuhan. These actions, combined with China’s unprecedented mass expulsion of journalists from three leading American papers, damage China’s pretensions to leadership.
CHINA MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES
Xi understands that providing global goods can burnish a rising power’s leadership credentials. He has spent the last several years pushing China’s foreign policy apparatus to think harder about leading reforms to “global governance,” and the coronavirus offers an opportunity to put that theory into action. Consider China’s increasingly well-publicized displays of material assistance—including masks, respirators, ventilators, and medicine. At the outset of the crisis, China purchased and produced (and received as aid) vast quantities of these goods. Now it is in a position to hand them out to others.
When no European state answered Italy’s urgent appeal for medical equipment and protective gear, China publicly committed to sending 1,000 ventilators, two million masks, 100,000 respirators, 20,000 protective suits, and 50,000 test kits. China has also dispatched medical teams and 250,000 masks to Iran and sent supplies to Serbia, whose president dismissed European solidarity as “a fairy tale” and proclaimed that “the only country that can help us is China.” Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma has promised to send large quantities of testing kits and masks to the United States, as well as 20,000 test kits and 100,000 masks to each of Africa’s 54 countries.
Beijing’s edge in material assistance is enhanced by the simple fact that much of what the world depends on to fight the coronavirus is made in China. It was already the major producer of surgical masks; now, through wartime-like industrial mobilization, it has boosted production of masks more than tenfold, giving it the capacity to provide them to the world. China also produces roughly half of the N95 respirators critical for protecting health workers (it has forced foreign factories in China to make them and then sell them directly to the government), giving it another foreign policy tool in the form of medical equipment. Meanwhile, antibiotics are critical for addressing emerging secondary infections from COVID-19, and China produces the vast majority of active pharmaceutical ingredients necessary to make them.
Beijing’s edge in material assistance is enhanced by the fact that much of what the world depends on to fight the coronavirus is made in China.
The United States, by contrast, lacks the supply and capacity to meet many of its own demands, let alone to provide aid in crisis zones elsewhere. The picture is grim. The U.S. Strategic National Stockpile, the nation’s reserve of critical medical supplies, is believed to have only one percent of the masks and respirators and perhaps ten percent of the ventilators needed to deal with the pandemic. The rest will have to be made up with imports from China or rapidly increased domestic manufacturing. Similarly, China’s share of the U.S. antibiotics market is more than 95 percent, and most of the ingredients cannot be manufactured domestically. Although Washington offered assistance to China and others at the outset of the crisis, it is less able to do so now, as its own needs grow; Beijing, in contrast, is offering aid precisely when the global need is greatest.
Crisis response, however, is not only about material goods. During the 2014–15 Ebola crisis, the United States assembled and led a coalition of dozens of countries to counter the spread of the disease. The Trump administration has so far shunned a similar leadership effort to respond to the coronavirus. Even coordination with allies has been lacking. Washington appears, for example, not to have given its European allies any prior notice before instituting a ban on travel from Europe.
China, by contrast, has undertaken a robust diplomatic campaign to convene dozens of countries and hundreds of officials, generally by videoconference, to share information about the pandemic and lessons from China’s own experience battling the disease. Like much of China’s diplomacy, these convening efforts are largely conducted at the regional level or through regional bodies. They include calls with central and eastern European states through the “17 + 1” mechanism, with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s secretariat, with ten Pacific Island states, and with other groupings across Africa, Europe, and Asia. And China is working hard to publicize such initiatives. Virtually every story on the front page of its foreign-facing propaganda organs advertises China’s efforts to help different countries with goods and information while underscoring the superiority of Beijing’s approach.
HOW TO LEAD
China’s chief asset in its pursuit of global leadership—in the face of the coronavirus and more broadly—is the perceived inadequacy and inward focus of U.S. policy. The ultimate success of China’s pursuit, therefore, will depend as much on what happens in Washington as on what happens in Beijing. In the current crisis, Washington can still turn the tide if it proves capable of doing what is expected of a leader: managing the problem at home, supplying global public goods, and coordinating a global response.
The first of those tasks—stopping the spread of the disease and protecting vulnerable populations in the United States—is most urgent and largely a question of domestic governance rather than geopolitics. But how Washington goes about it will have geopolitical implications, and not just insofar as it does or does not reestablish confidence in the U.S. response. For example, if the federal government immediately supports and subsidizes expansion of domestic production of masks, respirators, and ventilators—a response befitting the wartime urgency of this pandemic—it would both save American lives and help others around the world by reducing the scarcity of global supplies.
While the United States isn’t currently able to meet the urgent material demands of the pandemic, its continuing global edge in the life sciences and biotechnology can be instrumental in finding a real solution to the crisis: a vaccine. The U.S. government can help by providing incentives to U.S. labs and companies to undertake a medical “Manhattan Project” to devise, rapidly test in clinical trials, and mass-produce a vaccine. Because these efforts are costly and require dauntingly high upfront investments, generous government financing and bonuses for successful vaccine production could make a difference. And it is worth noting that despite Washington’s mismanagement, state and local governments, nonprofit and religious organizations, universities, and companies are not waiting for the federal government to get its act together before taking action. U.S.-funded companies and researchers are already making progress toward a vaccine—though even in the best-case scenario, it will be some time before one is ready for widespread use.
Yet even as it focuses on efforts at home, Washington cannot simply ignore the need for a coordinated global response. Only strong leadership can solve global coordination problems related to travel restrictions, information sharing, and the flow of critical goods. The United States has successfully provided such leadership for decades, and it must do so again.
That leadership will also require effectively cooperating with China, rather than getting consumed by a war of narratives about who responded better. Little is gained by repeatedly emphasizing the origins of the coronavirus—which are already widely known despite China’s propaganda—or engaging in petty tit-for-tat rhetorical exchanges with Beijing. As Chinese officials accuse the U.S. military of spreading the virus and lambaste U.S. efforts, Washington should respond when necessary but generally resist the temptation to put China at the center of its coronavirus messaging. Most countries coping with the challenge would rather see a public message that stresses the seriousness of a shared global challenge and possible paths forward (including successful examples of coronavirus response in democratic societies such as Taiwan and South Korea). And there is much Washington and Beijing could do together for the world’s benefit: coordinating vaccine research and clinical trials as well as fiscal stimulus; sharing information; cooperating on industrial mobilization (on machines for producing critical respirator components or ventilator parts, for instance); and offering joint assistance to others.
Ultimately, the coronavirus might even serve as a wake-up call, spurring progress on other global challenges requiring U.S.-Chinese cooperation, such as climate change. Such a step should not be seen—and would not be seen by the rest of the world—as a concession to Chinese power. Rather, it would go some way toward restoring faith in the future of U.S. leadership. In the current crisis, as in geopolitics today more generally, the United States can do well by doing good.
Trump goes to Davos
Photo: https://www.letemps.ch/images/chappatte
Get out of the way.
America first!
At the end of the line
?
The President of a country, whatever it may be, must, first and foremost, always keep in mind the fundamental text that regulates the society to which it belongs. If this condition already is essential for a citizen, as holder of a public office the observance of constitutional precepts acquires an increased responsibility. Furthermore, the Constitution must not only be known but must also be respected regarding political action and the conduct of the executive branch.
Secondly, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Americans chose as President a citizen who is unaware of the Constitution’s contente.
Donald Trump not only disrespects the US Constitution, but also attacks the values that have always characterized the United States.
One must ask: Is this the new America?
Freedom requires plurality and divergence of opinion.
Decidedly, Trump has a distorted notion of what freedom is and what should be the behavior of a President
And, unfortunately, in the United States, the spirit of democracy is getting darker and darker.
The costs of making America great again!
Trump campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again”. His inauguration speech was all about “America first, America first”. Evidently, these are catchy words that echo in peoples minds. And there’s nothing that prohibits Trump of expressing such kind of ideas. But, how exactly does Trump plan to do it? How will America be great again? And what are the costs inherent to such endevour? The future!
President Trump advocates that only a wall will enable American grandeur. And in order to finance the wall construction, Trump is cutting nearly $18B in medical research, infrastructure and community development grants. If this is his understanding on how to make America great again, I pity the american people. They got more than they bargained for and their future looks sad.
Even after discovering that unlike Trump’s campaign promise, Mexicans aren’t going to pay the wall I’m sure that americans prefer pay the building of a border wall instead of benefit from medical advances or scientific discoveries that will improve its lives. Why shouldn’t they?
But, hey, like Trump’s usually says “I’m the President and you’re are not!”. This phrase alone is enough to silence anyone and to solve any discussion or question. It’s magic! It’s “yugly” magic. All that Trump has to do is say it and immediately all problems will vanish. Just like that!
The main problem is that Trump deeply believes that this is true. Pure and simply, he isn’t aware of his own ignorance. As such, President Trump acts as if he knew everything and could do everything. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the courts, the law, the american people happiness and future are nothing but obstacles that he must remove from his path. Why? Because America has to be great again. And an America with medical and scientific progress, with several infrastructures rather than solely a border wall, with community development grants, and with social development can’t be great.
Finally, America will once again be first, mainly because it will lose its natural environment. Forests, flowers, bears and wolves, who needs that? Climate change is just a hoax! Just ask President Trump. He will tell you!
“Dear Mr. Putin, Let’s Play Chess”
There have not been a series of attacks on America and Europe by Vladimir Putin. There has been one single operation; it is the same operation.
Read here: Dear Mr. Putin, Let’s Play Chess
One must also consider field operations such as Russia’s annexation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (Georgia, 2008) and of Crimea (Ukraine, 2014). It’s not a espionage move, but it’s also a chess move on a board of another level within the same operation.
If it is proven that the US presidential election were rigged by the Russians, can Mike Pence take office as President?
After all, he also was elected with such sabotage.
“Alternative facts” strikes back (again)!
Sean Spicer just said President Trump wasn’t referring to wiretapping when he tweeted about “wires tapped”. According to the White House Press Secretary, “wire tapped” doesn’t have anything to do with wiretapping.
It’s just a mere “alternative fact”, one with the potential to become a fake news.
Furthermore, despite having used the following expression “Bad (or sick) Guy!”, he (Trump) also wasn’t referring Obama personally. No, Trump meant to say the Obama administration. In both cases!
Two observations must be made:
First, if Trump doesn’t know how to correctly write what he wants or desires, I wonder why he still uses twitter? If he isn’t capable of doing it in 140 characters …
Secondly, what is the extent of Sean Spicer’s linguistic knowledge? And why does he persists in pushing “alternative facts”?
Fake news! And the source is … ?
Yesterday, at Florida rally, the US President mentioned that Sweden was shaken by a terrifying terrorist attack which was carried out by immigrants and refugees.
No terrorist attack happened in Sweden.
Most likely, Trump mistaken Sweden with Sehwan, in Pakistan. But, be that as it may, as no correction was made, Trump was the real source of fake news. Is it irony or plain stupidity?
Within the US administration, “alternative facts” are really kicking in.
All the way to the top!
Democracy Requirement(s)
To President Trump, as it was to his predecessors, all that is, or should be, obligatory are decisions in accordance with his own conscience and within the limits of the law. Nothing more is required. He is entitled to decide as he sees fit and not as we would prefer.
I do accept his democratic victory. However, such acceptance does not mean that I must endorse his decisions. In fact, regardless of my political affiliations, I consider my foremost duty not to blindly accept every political decision.
Question our elected leaders, either the President, Senators, or Congressmen, is a fundamental prerequisite of democracy. And especially the leaders of our own political party and/or affiliation should and have to be questioned.
So, when facing a decision with which I disagree, I will always express my viewpoint without ever trying to impose it.
∞
Ao Presidente Trump, tal como com os seus predecessores, tudo o que é, ou deve ser, exigido são decisões de acordo com a sua consciência em conformidade com os limites da lei. Nada mais é exigível, pois ele pode decidir como entender e não como nós preferiríamos.
Eu aceito a sua vitória eleitoral. Contudo, a minha aceitação não implica um apoio às suas decisões. Na verdade, independentemente das minhas posições políticas, considero ser o meu maior dever não aceitar cegamente toda e qualquer decisão política.
Questionar os nossos representantes eleitos, seja o Presidente, o Primeiro-Ministro ou os Deputados, é um pré-requisito essencial da democracia. E devem particularmente ser questionados os líderes do nosso próprio partido ou afiliação política.
Assim, perante uma decisão com a qual discordo, expressarei sempre a minha opinião sem nunca a impor.
Trumpism. “Alternative fact”?
I know what are alternate realities or parallel universes. But, “alternative facts”? What the hell are “alternative facts” supposed to be?
Should we prepare ourselves for a new order? “The” Real New Order! Where reality is fiction and “alternative facts” constitute the only valid way to understand the world or to be part of it?
Or are we just reliving the past? Does anyone remember the Second Red Scare, the troubled period better known as McCarthyism, that plagued the United States of America from 1950 to 1957? McCarthyism, defined as “the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism”, and which still represents today an undeniable regression in terms of civil liberties and individual rights, began to wither away due to the courage and posture of several persons, including journalist Edward R. Murrow, who, at the time, stated: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.”
Trump is in open war with the press. But not only. Trump confronts and discards all those who disagree with him. Trump is not available to the plurality of opinions. Hence, he prefers twitter, where there is no dialogue, but rather a monologue. Although this behavior is not new to Trump, the truth is that it became more pronounced since the announcement of his candidacy for the presidency of the United States and that, after his election, it seems that it will be established as a norm of conduct.
Will Trumpism have the same consequences of McCarthyism? The question is pertinent. Unquestionably, both practices of unfounded accusations and demagogic offenses against the character of opponents, whether political or not, are visible. In addition, we have to remember that times are different and that the breadth of individual freedoms and of the civic rights was considerably limited with the Patriot Act. Finally, as we are not seeing the execution of a planned strategy but rather the application of a distorted way of understanding democracy, and considering the fractured posture of “either with me or against me” or “leave, or you will be expelled”, trumpism, and its rules, does not augur a good future to the American democracy.
Negative circumstances which represented significant social setbacks and that were overcome in the past now seem to be rising from the grave. Compared with the populism that is now being asserted, the communism of the 1950s appears as a lesser threat. Finally, as if populism were no longer dangerous, elite populism, practiced and endorsed by Trump, contains in itself the seeds of even more harmful political and societal effects.
There is indeed a tendency for the repetition of certain historical cycles. I hope that advocates of plurality and difference of opinion will not fade away, that the press can persist, and that the truth will not vanish.
Only in this way can the definitive establishment of the corpocracy be averted. Not the one considered by Derber, Sachs, or Winters, among others, but rather a distorted oligarchy who would be nothing more than the capitalist version of Trotsky’s vision.
One thing is for sure. Trumpism is not an “alternative fact.” It’s both real and dangerous.
P.S. – Make no mistake. Trump is anything but a Republican. Trump is an egocentric narcissist devoid of moral principles.
Trumpismo. Facto alternativo?
Eu sei o que são realidades alternativas ou universos paralelos. Mas, “factos alternativos”? Que diabo são “factos alternativos”?
Devemos prepararmo-nos para uma nova ordem? A Verdadeira Nova Ordem! Onde a realidade é ficção e os “factos alternativos”, definidos propositadamente, constituem a única maneira de entender o mundo ou de a ele pertencer?
Ou estaremos apenas a reviver o passado? Alguém se recorda da segunda ameaça vermelha, o conturbado período, mais conhecido por macartismo, que assolou os Estados Unidos da América nos anos de 1950 a 1957? O macartismo, que foi definido como a “prática de fazer alegações injustas ou utilizar técnicas investigativas injustas, especialmente para restringir o dissenso ou a crítica política” e que ainda hoje representa um indubitável retrocesso no que respeita às liberdades civis e aos direitos individuais, começou a definhar devido à coragem e postura do jornalista Edward R. Murrow, que, à época, afirmou: “Não devemos confundir dissidência com deslealdade. Devemos lembrar-nos sempre que a acusação não é prova e que a convicção depende de provas e do devido processo legal”.
Trump está, como bem observou a Helena Coelho, em guerra aberta com a imprensa. Mas não só. Trump agride e descarta todos aqueles que não concordam com ele. Trump não está disponível para a pluralidade de opiniões. Daí que prefira o twitter, onde não há diálogo, mas monólogo. Ora, apesar de este comportamento não ser uma novidade em Trump, a verdade é que se acentuou a partir do anúncio da sua candidatura à Presidência dos EUA e que, após a sua eleição, parece que se irá estabelecer como a norma vigente.
Terá o trumpismo as mesmas consequências do macartismo? A pergunta é pertinente. Inquestionavelmente, verificam-se não apenas as mesmas práticas de acusações parcamente fundamentadas, como também as ofensas demagógicas ao caráter dos adversários, sejam estes políticos ou não. Para além disso, convém não esquecer que os tempos são outros e que a amplitude das liberdades individuais e dos direitos cívicos foi consideravelmente limitada nos EUA com a entrada em vigor do Patriot Act. Finalmente, não se verificando aqui a execução de uma estratégia pensada, mas somente a aplicação de uma maneira distorcida de entender a democracia e considerando a atitude fracturante do «ou estás comigo ou contra mim», «se não estás bem, muda-te» (ou serás expulso), o trumpismo, e as suas regras, não auguram um bom futuro para a democracia norte-americana.
Circunstâncias anteriormente erradicadas, que representaram retrocessos sociais significativos, parecem estar a reerguer-se do túmulo. Ao lado do populismo que hoje se afirma, o comunismo dos anos 50 do século passado não passa duma ténue ameaça. E como se o populismo já não fosse perigoso, o populismo-elite, praticado por Trump, contém em si efeitos ainda mais nefastos.
Existe, efectivamente, uma tendência para a mimética que reproduz determinados ciclos. Oxalá os defensores da pluralidade e da diferença de opinião não desvaneçam. Oxalá a imprensa persista. Oxalá a verdade não desapareça.
Só assim poderá ser evitada a instituição definitiva da corporacia. Não a considerada por Derber, Sachs ou Winters, entre outros, mas antes uma oligarquia travestida que mais não seria do que a versão capitalista da visão de Trotsky.
Uma coisa é certa. O Trumpismo não é um “facto alternativo”. É real e perigoso.
Trump’s Decalogue
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Judging by Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway reactions
as well as Steve Bannon´s attitude,
nowadays these are the ruling commandments!
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Trump inauguration – The same as it ever was!
Trump inauguration address was no surprise to me. Unlike many of my friends, I always paid close attention to non-verbal language and to psychologic profiles. As such, and as expected, President Trump will be just plain old Trump. Nothing more, nothing less.
In its core, Trump’s speech is not new. Every President’s primary concerns are internal and not external. Should we strange a patriotic speech? Of course not. Similarly, an isolationist speech is not a novelty. Although being rarer among republicans discourses today, there are many historical moments where patriotism and isolationism were the main republican topics. However, what is really innovative is Trump’s willingness to a closer relation with Russia. To the best of my knowledge, none of the past republican Presidents expressed such will or desire.
Donald Trump is not a Republican. He never was. And he is not a Rino either. Like most things throughout his life, the Republican party is simply an instrument, a tool to achieve a goal or to close a deal. Trump is a “Trumplican”. In fact, as he himself would say: “I’m the real trumplican, the only real trumplican. Which is yuge and bigly!”
Does Trump embody what we understand as a bully, a nationalist, a populist, a xenophobe? Yes, he does. However, the question must be: Is he aware of that? You see, sometimes is not just about perception. And if by any small probability Donald Trump is mindful of his own behavior, he simply does not consider such characteristics as negative and/or reprehensible.
As a political science and international relations researcher, in a certain way and to some extent, I’m looking forward to see what Trump’s presidency will bring. Both internally as externally.
Despite we can safely affirm that Trump will not fulfil most of his campaign promises, avoiding, to a certain degree, clashes with the Senate and the House of Representatives, we also can assert that unpredictability will be the rule. As such, the relation between the executive and legislative branches will be very interesting to follow. Furthermore, the same can be expected about Trump’s international stances.
Lastly, but certainly not least, in a significant reversal, Wall Street took over the White House. What’s next? What will happen to the balance between the political and economic spheres? What will happen to democracy?
For better or for worse, a new spectrum of possibilities emerges.
[If, in a sense, Trump is the same as he ever was, should we let the days go by?]
We Are the Last Defense Against Trump by Daron Acemoglu
In the second half of the 20th century, the main threat to democracy came from the men in uniform. Fledgling democracies such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Thailand, and Turkey were set back by dozens of military coups. For emerging democracies hoping to ward off such military interventions into domestic politics, Western European and American institutions, which vested all political authority in the hands of elected civilian governments, were offered as the model to follow. They were the best way to ensure that democracy, as Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan famously put it, became “the only game in town.”
Far from most thinkers’ minds was whether Western institutions might be inviting a different threat to democracy — personal rule, in which civilian state institutions such as the bureaucracy and courts come under the direct control of the executive, and the lines between the state’s interests and those of the ruler begin to blur. Most believed personal rule was something that applied only to the worst of the tin-pot dictatorships, such as that of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Daniel arap Moi in Kenya, or Sani Abacha in Nigeria. The checks and balances built in the fabric of Western institutions, the thinking went, would withstand any such usurpation.
Yet today we are coming to discover that contemporary democracy has its own soft underbelly — not so much a weakness against a cabal of colonels conspiring a violent takeover of government, but the gutting of state institutions and the incipient establishment of a variant of personal rule. Examples of personal rule include Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, Russia under Vladimir Putin, and Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan. These differ from the Mobutus, arap Mois and the Abachas of the world, because they are engineered by democratically elected leaders and maintain a much higher degree of legitimacy among some segments of the population But they still showcase how this process can irreparably damage institutions and hollow out democracy. Now, these examples are poised to include America under Donald Trump.
Trump appears to share several political goals and strategies with Chavez, Putin, and Erdogan. Like them, he seems to have little respect for the rule of law or the independence of state institutions, which he has tended to treat as impediments to his ability to exercise power. Like them, he has a blurred vision of national and personal interests. Like them, he has little patience with criticism and a long-established strategy of rewarding loyalty, which can be seen in his high-level appointments to date. This is all topped by an unwavering belief in his abilities.
What makes America vulnerable to being blindsided by such a threat is our unwavering — and outdated — belief in the famed strength of our institutions. Of course, the United States has much better institutional foundations and a unique brand of checks and balances, which were entirely absent in Venezuela, Russia, and Turkey. But many of these still won’t be much help against the present threat. Not only are America’s institutions particularly ill-equipped, in this moment, to stand up against Trump; in some cases they may actually enable him.
The first bulwark against any sort of personalizing threat to U.S. institutions is the country’s vaunted separation of powers. The legislature, elected separately from the executive, is supposed to stop in its tracks any president attempting to exceed his authority; it has indeed acted in this fashion during frequent periods of divided government, and when lawmakers on the Hill could follow their own constituencies’ wishes and their own principles.
Their capacity to do this, however, is much less true today, thanks to a historic rise in polarization between Republicans and Democrats and a pronounced shift toward party discipline. Consequently, as political scientists Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal document in their book Polarized America, House members and senators are now very unlikely to deviate from their party line. Such a rise in partisanship comes at the worst possible time, just as these protections are needed most. But given how quickly the Republican Party has regrouped around Trump on most issues, it would be optimistic to imagine a principled resistance to his appointments and most policy initiatives from a Republican-dominated Congress.
And so it follows, in turn, that the check on presidential power from an independent judiciary, the second leg of the separation of powers stool, is also unlikely to hold up. In truth, judicial independence in the United States has always been somewhat precarious, dependent on norms much more than rules. The president not only appoints justices to the Supreme Court and top federal judges (a prerogative Trump appears set to fully utilize), but also controls the Department of Justice through his attorney general. Any institutional resistance to inappropriate nominees would only be offered up by Congress, which, as discussed, seems poised to take Trump’s machinations lying down. And so the judicial institutions, too, are headed toward pliancy.
America’s weakest point when it comes to resisting personal rule may lie in the executive’s unique relationship with the institution that makes up the very heart of government: the bureaucracy itself.
But America’s weakest point when it comes to resisting personal rule may lie in the executive’s unique relationship with the institution that makes up the very heart of government: the bureaucracy itself. In many other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, where most of the bureaucracy and high-level positions in the judiciary are non-partisan civil servants, state institutions can go about the business of governing while remaining mostly immune to executive attempts to establish personal rule. Not so much in the United States, where Trump is appointing his people to oversee 4,000 high-level posts in the civil service and the judiciary, essentially shaping a bureaucracy ready to do his personal bidding. This is the sort of power that the likes Chavez, Putin, and Erdogan had to acquire more slowly. (Erdogan, for example, is still locked in an epic struggle to change the Turkish Constitution to officially assume the powers of an executive presidency, even if he has already acquired many of those powers in practice.)
Why is the United States so defenseless in the face of the Trump threat? Because, to a large extent, the Founding Fathers wanted it this way. As Woody Holton recounts in Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, despite the emphasis on the separation of power in the Federalist Papers, the main struggle that Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and George Washington were engaged in was to build a strong federal government and reduce the excessive powers granted to the states in the Articles of Confederation, which had left the country in close to complete chaos. The separation of powers was meant only as a counterbalance to this strong presidency.
In this, they succeeded, but only partially. The U.S. president is indeed hugely powerful in the extent to which he can shape not only foreign but also domestic policy, especially if he can get Congress behind him. However, his hands are tied when it comes to the states’ rights, a concession that the framers had to give to powerful state representatives to garner enough support for the Constitution. This is the reason why some of the strongest resistance shaping up to Trump’s policies is already coming from states like New York and California, where governors have pledged to stand against his immigration policies.
But over time, the federal government has grown, as it has accrued, by necessity and choice, ever more responsibility in domestic and international politics. States, by contrast, have far less power than they did at the end of the 18th century. Massachusetts and Vermont can resist federal policies, creating, perhaps, little liberal policy bubbles. They can have very little impact, however, on the personalization of the country’s most powerful levers of government, including the federal judiciary, dozens of major agencies, trade and fiscal policy, and foreign affairs. Nor can they do much to influence the perception of the new direction of U.S. politics in the minds of Americans and the world.
This leaves us with the one true defense we have, which Hamilton, Madison, and Washington neither designed nor much approved of: civil society’s vigilance and protest. In fact, this is not unique to the United States. What is written in a constitution can take a nation only so far unless society is willing to act to protect it. Every constitutional design has its loopholes, and every age brings its new challenges, which even farsighted constitutional designers cannot anticipate.
The lack – and in fact active discouragement — of direct social participation in politics is the Achilles’ heel of most nascent democracies. Many leaders of newly emerging nations in the 20th century, who professed as their goal the foundation of a democratic regime, all but prevented the formation of civil society, free media, and bottom-up participation in politics; their only use for it was mobilizing core supporters as a defense against other leaders seeking to usurp or contest power. This strategy effectively condemned their democracies to permanent weakness.
We saw this at work in Venezuela, Russia, and Turkey, where decades, if not centuries, of unfree media and prostrate civil society ensured there was no effective defense against the rise of personal rule. The U.S. tradition of free, rambunctious journalism, exemplified by the muckrakers and vibrant protest movements going back to Populists and Progressives should help us.
Yet there are reasons to be concerned that this last brake on executive power may, too, fail. Trump is in the process of being accepted and legitimized by American elites and the wider public. Just the knowledge that he will be the country’s next president confers upon him a huge amount of authority and respect. We avidly follow his appointments, his interviews, and his stream of consciousness on Twitter. Many pundits and public intellectuals are trying to see the silver lining, hoping against hope that he will govern as a moderate Republican. Many of my fellow economists are eager to give him advice so that he does not follow through on his disastrous pre-election economic plans.
When the previously unthinkable becomes normalized, it is easy for many to lose, or at the very least ignore, their moral compass. How quickly Trump’s brand of anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric, off-the-cuff foreign policymaking, and systematic mixing of family and state are becoming accepted is more than a cause for passing concern.
We have to keep reminding ourselves that we do not live in normal times, that the future of our much cherished institutions depends not on others but on ourselves, and that we are all individually responsible for our institutions. If we lose them to a would-be strongman, we have only ourselves to blame. We are the last defense.
The day after the day after
Trump’s election, which must be respected as it is a democratic manifestation, does not offer a sense of security.
However, my main worries are related with the day after the day after.
This may just be the beginning of a even more profound change. Much worse will be Trump’s impeachment. And the hypothesis is not implausible.
Mike Pence is a committed creationist and an tea party element. Can you imagine his type of presidency?
45th US President
I was not a Trump supporter. Actually, I also wasn’t a Hillary supporter. But I will always be a supporter of democracy.
The US will change. Particularly, internally. That seems clear. I only hope that US foreign policy will not change much.
With this election, the Republicans control the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Trump has the possibility of making Tea Party affiliates and the like irrelevant. Let’s see if this possibility materializes.
Trump will win!
Michael Moore predicts Trump’s presidential victory and advances five reasons for that outcome.
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