Trump, Totalitarianism and "the banality of evil"

The first course I ever taught, as a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University in 1973, was on “Totalitarian Political Systems.” I was asked to teach this course after my mentor and advisor, Vaclav Benes, who was to teach the course, had suddenly died. (I was, in fact, with him, when he collapsed of a heart attack).

Benes was the nephew of Eduard Benes, the President of Czechoslovakia, who was deposed by the communists in 1948. In that course, which Benes had designed, I used Hannah Arendt’s book “On the Origins of Totalitarianism” where she used the term “the banality of evil” and discussed how Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin had used “the big lie,” ethnic nationalism, and bombastic masculinity to win popular support. (Mussolini, in fact, called on the U.S. to “make American great.”)

At the time, I thought this mostly a lesson in history. But it is increasingly clear to me that Trump mimics the tactics, style and objectives of both Mussolini and Hitler, and poses the same threats to the United States that those two had on their countries.

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Positives from the Past Decade?

Steve Chapman, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, cited my book in a 12/27 column entitled "Remember the good things that happened in America in the past decade."  He used a quotation from The End of the American Century, published in 2009, to compare the end of the present decade to the end of the previous one.

He recognizes the many problems we still face, not least of them due to the "poisonous presidency" of Donald Trump, but points to the many good things that have happened in the ten years since my book was published.  Among these are the continued growth of the U.S. economy; the scaling back of US involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan; the expansion of LGBTQ rights; and the Obama accomplishments on childhood immigrants; health care; and torture.

What most resonates in Chapman's argument, though, is this:

Trump has done immeasurable harm on all sorts of matters. But he has also created a powerful backlash that has manifested itself in annual women’s marches, renewed awareness of the persistence of racism, and public support for modest gun regulations, climate change legislation, immigration reform, the Affordable Care Act — and his impeachment.

Ironically, then, the main contribution of the Trump presidency to this past decade is to generate resistance to the very awfulness of it. This upsurge in political involvement is indeed a positive development, especially if it can persist through the removal of this insidious president.

But this positive growth of political participation is offset by Trump's persistent efforts to undermine democratic institutions and procedures.  He has pushed to restrict the franchise in many states; manipulated and threatened our independent judiciary and legal processes; badgered and threatened his political opponents; eviscerated the governmental institutions that might provide a check on his abuse of power;  and has solicited foreign interference in the U.S. electoral process.  He expresses admiration for foreign dictators as brutal and ruthless as those we have fought against in the past.

 In chapter 5 of my book ("Ailing of American Democracy"), I document the increasing apathy, indifference and political ignorance of the American electorate, and the growing influence of money in politics.  I raise the possibility of the U.S. "becoming like our enemies."  Trump is leading us in that direction.

While I appreciate Chapman's efforts to see the bright side of the last ten years, I think it would be a mistake to underestimate just how much Trump has revived the downward spiral of the U.S. that I documented in The End of the American Century.  Middle class wages have barely budged since the 1970s.  Inequality, already high ten years ago, has rocketed upward since then.  We have not yet solved the problems of expensive health care and violent crime--both unique to the U.S. among developed countries.  Our educational system is among the worst among rich countries.  No president, even George W. Bush, has undermined science as much as the current one, even as the existential threat of climate change becomes more obvious by the day. Global opinion of the U.S. is even lower than it was under Bush, which then was at a postwar nadir.  And no president in history has so deliberately attempted to hollow out our governmental institutions and undermine our democratic principles and processes.

Letter to Trump Supporters, Reconsidered. Better to mobilize the non-voters

I composed the open letter (below) a few weeks ago, and sent it to my daughters--both smart, professional mothers and admirably part of the #MeToo Movement.  Both thought it would not have much impact on actual Trump supporters, and instead suggested reaching out to the far more numerous NON-voters.  One sent me this pie-chart, which is both funny and sad:

In my state of Indiana, only 28% of the eligible population voted in the 2014 midterm elections--the lowest turnout of any of the 50 states!  So I agree:  no use trying to win over the Trump supporters, who seem unmovable.  Rather, get out the vote among non-voters, and especially young people, women, and minorities.

Below is the unsent letter.

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Dear Fellow Americans, who support Donald Trump,

You and I probably have little in common, except for our love for country.  I expect you feel neglected, marginalized, fearsome.  I do not feel any of those sentiments, though I understand them.  I am a retired professor, and I am comfortable, secure, safe, and happy among my family and friends.  You probably worry about your future, your job, your retirement, your kid’s future.  I don’t worry about those things so much for my family, but I do about yours.

What we do not have in common is our support for Donald Trump.  I understand, to an extent, why you voted for him and support him still.  He railed against the political and economic elites, and you supported him in that.  I shared those sentiments too. The rich are too rich, and they have rigged the system for themselves.  Government is dominated by special interests, with unprecedented numbers of lobbies in Washington, and practically unlimited flow of funds from special interests to politicians.

But Trump is not the one to solve these problems.  Indeed, he is a manifestation of them:  a billionaire who has made his money by gaming the system, intimidating his lessers (as he sees them), and feathering his own nest.   Never in his life before the presidency did he promote the public good or support those less advantaged than he is.  His only charitable foundation was meant mostly as a tax dodge, and did almost nothing to support any deserving group or organization.

Most of our politicians and public officials have at least some measure of concern for the public good, and almost all of them exhibit some public virtues.   Trump has none.  It is hard to come up with a single human or American virtue that he exhibits.  He is vane, egocentric, rude, abusive, unfaithful.  He is a bully, an adulterer, an atheist.  He demeans women, minorities, the poor and the weak. He insults our friends and allies, and praises dictators and demagogues.  He belittles education, science, nature.  He even seems dismissive of democracy and the rule of law.

We need someone who will transform the system, both domestic and international, and make it more responsive to ordinary people.  But Trump is not the one to do this.  Indeed, he is a huge threat to the gains this country has already made on behalf of ordinary citizens, including especially working men and women.

Nothing much gets done in a society without power.  The great idea of democracy is that it vests power in the people.  But there are many competing sources of power in society.  For a long time, in human history, it was the church or monarchies that exercised such power.  Since the 18th century, the major sources of power have been governments and corporations.  Governments controlled by the people—democracies—are meant to be the main repository of power and the main counterbalance to corporate power.  If democratic governments are weakened, corporations become more powerful.  And corporations are subject to no democratic control apart from government.

So, when Donald Trump aims to eviscerate government, he is weakening democracy—the power of the people.  Weakening democratic government strengthens corporate power.  This is a tremendous advantage to people like Donald Trump.  It doesn’t much help people like you and me.

The answer is not to weaken government, but to make it more democratic, and more responsive.   It is true, and eminently demonstrable, that American society has recently become more unequal and less democratic.  The answer is not Donald Trump, but a reinvigoration of true American values—of freedom, equality, fairness, community, respect and genuine representative government.

Seven Reasons Not To Despair (too much) about a Trump Presidency

1.  The institution shapes the person.  The Presidency is, literally, an awesome institution, as is the White House.  It will shape and temper Trump, as we saw already with his deferential and respectful meeting with the President there.

2.  Governing, unlike running a business, requires compromise.  Truman famously said of Eisenhower winning the presidency: "he'll sit here, and He'll say, 'Do this! Do that!' And nothing will happen.  Poor Ike--it won't be a bit like the Army.  He'll find it very frustrating."  The same will be true for Trump, a business executive who, to say the least, is not experienced at compromise.

3.  Bureaucracies, made up mostly of career civil servants, are slow-moving things, and can often stymie chief executives.  Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK complained about how slowly things moved in the State and Defense Departments.  It will be difficult for Trump to do much of anything quickly.

4.  The Presidency is a tough job and a lot of work.  Presidents are presented with thick daily briefing binders every day.  Trump does not like to read.

5.  Besides all of these other annoyances, Trump is likely to be bedeviled by numerous legal issues, unlike any past President.  There are some 75 lawsuits pending against him right now, and he has been involved in some 3500 over the course of his career.

6.  Trump has already achieved his principal goal--which was simply to win.  He has never in his life ever exhibited any interest in helping other people:  indeed, he did not contribute any of his own money even to his own charitable foundation, which was used mostly as a tax dodge.  So what more does he have to prove, now that he has won the biggest prize in the world?

7.  Managing the Presidency will be frustrating for Trump, a man who is impetuous, temperamental, imperious, and self centered.  My guess is that he will not last four years in the White House.  Either he will resign in frustration, turn over the management of the Presidency to Mike Pence, or be impeached.

So take heart, Democrats!  Maybe all is not lost!

The Age of Uncertainty

These are unsettling times.  Lately we have been witness to a continuing carnival of a presidential election, a series of horrific terrorist attacks and massacres both here and abroad, plus the British Brexit vote.  People here, and in other countries, are unsettled and uncertain.  Indeed, the world is unsettled and uncertain.  In this country, the appeal of Donald Trump is baffling in many ways, but it is also understandable, given the wrenching changes underway in people's lives, and in the world, and the fear and uncertainty that this occasions. This kind of disruption, fear and uncertainty often leads people to seek simple solutions, scapegoats and demagogues.

The reasons behind all this uncertainty are the large-scale shifts in the world, and in the U.S. role in the world.  I call these "systemic changes" and I want to focus on the two most important ones:  first, the decline of the United States as the single dominant and determining global power; and second, the rise of transnational forces and threats that diminish the autonomy and power of ALL nation states, including the U.S.  We are no longer in control of events, either in our own back yard, or on the global stage, and this is discomfiting. 

First let me address the issue of the change of the U.S. role in the world.  Eight years ago, I wrote a book called "The End of the American Century" which addressed this phenomenon.  "The American Century," basically the second half of the 20th century was one of unprecedented global dominance by a single country, the United States.  This was evident in almost every sphere: politics, economics, the military, ideology, and culture.   The Soviet Union, our only real rival during that time, was strong militarily but not in any other respect.  Its standard of living by most measures was about a tenth of that in the U.S., something I can attest to from living in that country briefly in the 1970s

Even in the long course of history, it is rare to find countries or empires that so dominated the world: one thinks only of the Roman Empire or, maybe, the British Empire.  But all empires fade eventually.  Italy and Britain may be very pleasant places to live (and visit!) right now, but they are not the dominant powers they once were.  Something similar is happening to the United States.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it contributes to uncertainty.

For the U.S., it is not so much that we have suffered absolute decline, but rather have declined relative to other forces and countries.  The U.S still has the strongest military, the biggest economy, and the most durable and resilient political system.  But we no longer dominate the world as we did during the American Century.  China, for example, has experienced fabulous economic growth in recent decades, and is increasingly asserting itself on the global stage.  Europe, by combining, sort of, into the European Union has created an economic powerhouse, larger than the American one.  Neither China nor the EU is much of a military power just yet, but increasingly it seems that military power is not as useful and determinate as it once was.  Plus, as I will discuss below,  there are transnational forces that also cut into America's ability to shape the world.  So for Americans used to being #1, this relative decline can be unsettling, and speaks to the appeal of Trump's "America First" slogan.

So the relative decline of the U.S. in the global arena is the first major dimension of systemic change.  The other is the rise of transnationalism.  By transnational, I mean problems, forces, movements or institutions that transcend national boundaries, making them difficult for national governments to deal with.   These are proliferating in the modern world, but I will highlight those that have contributed especially to this age of uncertainty:  globalization of the economy; terrorism; and climate change.

Perhaps none of these merit my attention, since they've been so much in the news, and in the current electoral campaign.  Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders complained about the maverick status of multinational corporations.  As transnational institutions, these can easily shift operations from one country to another in search of cheaper labor or supplies, while remaining relatively immune from the regulations or taxation of government in any particular country.  Of course, a globalized economy does have its benefits, in terms of more efficient production and cheaper and more abundant consumer goods.  But it also hurts those workers who get left behind.  This is particularly true in manufacturing, which has faced a double whammy of automation and globalization, causing jobs in manufacturing to plunge from 28% of all jobs in 1970 to less than 10% today.  The problem is not going to go away.  The shrinking of manufacturing employment is global--not just in the U.S.

Globalization, automation and the decline of manufacturing have contributed to a stagnation of real earnings in the U.S.  For the average American family, household income is $4,000 less than it was 15 years ago.  Meanwhile economic inequality has grown much worse, with the top 1 percent of American households taking in more than half of the recent gains in income growth. Income and wealth inequality in the United States is now the highest it has been since before the Great Depression of the 1930s, as Bernie Sanders kept reminding us during his own run for the presidency. 

This issue is particularly egregious at the very top of the income scale.  In the 1950s, big-company CEOs earned about fifty times the pay of an average worker.  Even then, that ratio was very high compared to other countries.  But since then, CEO pay in the U.S. has skyrocketed compared to average salaries.  By 1990, average CEO pay was 100 times the average worker's salary.  By 2000, it was more than 500 times.  In Germany, that ratio was only 11 to 1; and in the United Kingdom, 25 to 1.

So it is not surprising that so many people are fearful and angry.  Even though the economy is growing, they are being left behind.  The dislocations caused by globalization though, can only be addressed by collective action, and that requires action by government, and cooperation among national governments.  A weak and ineffective government is no match for the power of large multinational corporations.

Terrorism is another transnational force that has frightened and destabilized us.  It often seems that governments are helpless in the face of this enemy, which is not located in any one region, supported by any particular country, or subject to any conventional norms of morality.   Social media, another transnational force, facilitates the organization, recruitment and concealment of terrorist groups.  Against transnational terrorists, particularly the fundamentalist brand, deterrence and threats are useless, and even conventional military force is only haphazardly effective.  America's vaunted military, the most awesome in the history of the world, is not by itself able to eliminate transnational terrorism.  This too causes fear and uncertainty, and a sense of powerlessness.  But, like the forces of globalization, the solution requires global action and cooperation.

Climate change, another transnational phenomenon, is even more threatening and dangerous than globalization and terrorism, though more baffling because of its inherent invisibility.  Even though the evidence for climate change is overwhelming and irrefutable, most people don't actually see it or experience it.  So they are open to the blandishments of politicians and the fossil fuel industry who prey on their ignorance and fears in claiming it does not exist.  And this contributes to our national sense of unease and uncertainty, since we are not sure what to believe and whom to trust.  Climate change, however, is literally a life-and-death issue that requires strong government action, national sacrifice and global cooperation.  All of these are difficult to imagine in the current political climate in the United States.

These transnational phenomena--globalization, terrorism and climate change-- all threaten the American way of life, and they are devilishly resistant to resolution in the way we have solved problems in the past.  Throwing money at them won't work.  Military power is either irrelevant or ineffectual.  Things have changed since The American Century when our country was, it seemed, both dominant and in control of our fate.  In both the domestic sphere and the international one, things are not like they used to be.  Thus appear opportunistic politicians who promise to roll back the clock, or to "make America great again."

However, America's greatness was never achieved by going back to the past, but rather by finding solutions to new problems, while holding fast to the values that unite us.  These include industry, innovation and individualism, but also compassion, tolerance, and civility.  The U.S. has survived through civil war, world wars, depressions, civil unrest and terrorism.  And we remain the world's oldest and most successful democracy; even if we do not brandish the power and influence we had during the Cold War years.

But we have created a kind of paradox of political life: at a time when we are in desperate need of effective government to address important domestic and international issues, government is increasingly unable to act. Democratic government is not often consensual, but it does, by its very nature, require compromise.  But in American politics, we have one candidate calling for a "political revolution" and another, a billionaire cloaked as a populist, calling for a return to the past and playing on people's fears, angers, and prejudice.  The polarization of American politics has made compromise almost unattainable, and in the process has practically paralyzed the operations of government.

Of course, this simply adds to people's frustration with politics and government, which accounts for polls showing record low levels of trust in the federal government.  This is not a happy situation for a system of government that is supposed to be based on popular will.  And it contributes to the turmoil, alienation, and uncertainty.

Keeping this democracy alive is, in my mind, the single biggest challenge we face at the moment and the key to addressing the systemic transformations we are facing.   In the current political environment, the bedrock principles of democracy--compromise, tolerance, participation, inclusion--are under threat.  There is a disturbing growth of authoritarianism in American political culture, with 44% of non-college grads (in 2011) approving of "having a strong leader who doesn't have to bother with Congress or elections."

The growing authoritarianism in the U.S. may be disturbing, but it is not terribly surprising.  Times of systemic change, fear and uncertainty, especially combined with economic downturn, often foster the emergence of demagogic politicians, and even dictators.  It is also understandable why so many Americans are lashing out at the whole system, given the vast gulf between rich and poor, the continuing pernicious impact of money in politics, and the seeming paralysis of government.

The solution is not to reject the system, but to improve it.  As Winston Churchill famously quipped: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."  And democracy is uniquely suited to dealing with problems that are so complex and disruptive, because it demands participation, inclusion, compromise, respect for minorities, and due process.  The problems we are facing are unprecedented, in my view, and signal a systemic shift in U.S. politics and international relations.  The U.S. will not be "great" in the way we were before, but it remains the most important and admired country in the world, and it's involvement in global politics is indispensible.

(Based on a talk I gave at a Kiwanis Club 8/30/16)

Der Spiegel on "A Superpower in Decline"

Sometimes the most clear-eyed analysis of the United States comes from outside the country, and this may be especially true in these times when so many Americans are frightened and angry about the way things are going. Germany's weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel has published a long and thoughtful piece about the United States, entitled "A Superpower in Decline: Is the American Dream Over?" which reflects and updates many of the themes I raised in The End of the American Century.

For those who would dismiss Spiegel's analysis as biased, left-wing, or "socialist," I should point out that the magazine is generally considered to have a conservative (and capitalist!) slant. It is enlightening, and a little sobering, to read an intelligent analysis of our problems from outside the cauldron of contemporary U.S. politics.

Below are a few excerpts from the Spiegel article, though I would encourage everyone to read the whole thing.

• America has long been a country of limitless possibility. But the dream has now become a nightmare for many. The US is now realizing just how fragile its success has become -- and how bitter its reality. Should the superpower not find a way out of crisis, it could spell trouble ahead for the global economy.

• Americans have lived beyond their means for decades. It was a culture long defined by a mantra of entitlement, one that promised opportunities for all while ignoring the risks.

• The country is reacting strangely irrationally to the loss of its importance -- it is a reaction characterized primarily by rage. Significant portions of America simply want to return to a supposedly idyllic past.

• The rich keep getting richer, with the top 0.1 percent of income earners making more money than the 120 million people at the bottom of the income scale.

• Since the beginning of the millennium, no new jobs are being created on balance, because the US economy has undergone structural change. Companies are dominated by investors interested only in the kinds of quick and large profits that can be achieved by reducing the workforce.

• In 1978, the average income for men in the United States was $45,879. In 2007, it was $45,113, adjusted for inflation.

• How strong is the cement holding together a society that manically declares any social thinking to be socialist?

• The United States of 2010 is a country that has become paralyzed and inhibited by allowing itself to be distracted by things that are, in reality, not a threat: homosexuality, Mexicans, Democratic Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, health care reform and Obama.

Has the Supreme Court Legitimized Armed Insurrection?

The scary idea of insurrectionism may have been given a boost by the Supreme Court, according to a new and disturbing book by Joshua Horwitz and Casey Anderson, entitled Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea, published by the University of Michigan Press. They argue that in the landmark Heller v. D.C. case of 2008, the majority ruling went far beyond the individual gun rights argument and opened the door to the (previously radical fringe) “insurrectionist” argument that citizens have a right to arm themselves to counter government tyranny. The authors make a strong case that this has potential to undermine Constitutional government, the rule of law, and democracy itself.

I raised similar concerns in chapter 3 of The End of the American Century, on the “Torn Social Fabric,” one important component of which was the huge number of violent crimes in the U.S., and the concomitant prevalence of some 200 million privately owned firearms. There, I raised particular concern about the minority of gun owners who believe that gun ownership provides an extra check on the government itself. As I wrote there ( p. 58):

“They see the Second Amendment to the Constitution as an implicit right of armed Americans to forcibly overthrow the federal government if they view it as tyrannical. It is hard to imagine any constitutional document, especially one with so many democratic checks and balances built into it, providing for its own violent overthrow. But many Americans seem to believe this—yet another reason why the United States is increasingly seen around the world as swimming against the tide of modern civilization.”

Horwitz and Anderson note that when they began writing their book several years ago, this insurrectionist idea was considered marginal, radical, and probably even treasonous. (Article III of the Constitution, in fact, considers levying war against the United States to be treason.) But the Supreme Court’s ruling in the D.C. case has given the insurrectionist idea more stature and respectability, and brought it into the mainstream. Horwitz and Anderson believe that this is a very dangerous precedent, potentially giving cover to those who would forcefully overthrow the U.S. government.

I share their concerns, and believe these concerns have become even more germane in the polarized and radicalized atmosphere of the last few years. Fox News stirs up hatred of the government, and calls into question its very legitimacy. The election of Barack Obama, ironically, has emboldened racists and bigots of all stripes, and led to a huge spike in the number of threats of violence against the President and the government itself.

In their conclusion, Horwitz and Anderson urge that “the Insurrectionist idea should be vigorously challenged by citizens in the court of public opinion and now, after Heller, in courts of law as well.” Among their recommendations for action is “occupying the common ground” with the majority of gun owners who are not Insurrectionists. In my mind, this solution is part of a broader need in the United States—for Americans to find the middle ground, and to isolate and marginalize those who preach hate, violence and intolerance.

Dick Armey: Fostering Hate with Deliberate Lies

I was absolutely stunned to read this quotation from Dick Armey, the former House Republican leader, in a speech he gave recently in North Carolina:

"Nearly every important office in Washington, D.C., today is occupied by someone with an aggressive dislike for our heritage, our freedom, our history and our Constitution."

It is inconceivable that Armey, who worked so long in Washington, actually believes this. Could he actually come up with some names of people that fit in that category? Probably not. So one can only conclude that Armey deliberately lied when he said this to a crowd of supporters in Hickory, N.C.

Since retiring from the House in 2003 has worked as a lobbyist for a big law firm, while also serving as chairman of a conservative nonprofit called FreedomWorks, which is opposed to "big government." A story on him, and how he "has taken his politics and ideas to the right-wing protest movement," appeared in the November 8 issue of the New York Times Magazine.

Later, in discussing the health care reform with a reporter, he admitted that he did not believe some of the extreme charges--for example, about "death panels"--but said that "if people want to believe that, it's O.K. with me."

This is demagoguery, fear- and hate-mongering that has no place in the U.S. political arena, though it is increasingly dominating and poisoning the political process, and American democracy. Armey should be ashamed of himself; instead, he seems to revel in the way his provocative lies stirs up the political pot.

President Obama called attention to this phenomenon in his Afghanistan speech on Wednesday night, where he called for a return to the spirit and values that unite us as Americans:

"we, as a country, cannot sustain our leadership, nor navigate the momentous challenges of our time, if we allow ourselves to be split asunder by the same rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse."

"I refuse to accept," the President continued, "the notion that we cannot summon that unity again. I believe with every fiber of my being that we -- as Americans -- can still come together behind a common purpose. For our values are not simply words written into parchment -- they are a creed that calls us together, and that has carried us through the darkest of storms as one nation, as one people."

We can disagree about policies, and the role of government, and the rights of the individual vs. the needs of the community. That is all part of the political process. But we need to speak out against, and call to account, people like Dick Armey and Glenn Beck who deliberately lie and deliberately foster hate and division.

Entering A Systemic Revolution

The collapse of the United States as the global hegemon constitutes a “systemic revolution” that will transform both the U.S. and the rest of the globe. Such a revolution is different from “normal” political revolutions, which entail an overthrow of the government. A systemic revolution ushers in even broader and more enduring changes in economy, society and culture, and it also transcends national boundaries, affecting other countries and the global system itself. It is a global paradigm shift, and we are right smack in the middle of it.

This is the opening paragraph of my article "Entering a Systemic Revolution" which appears in the online journal Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture (volume 8, issue 2). The article can be accessed here through my Selected Works page.

The article is a revised version of a lecture I gave in March at a conference on "The Past and Future of Revolutions" at Northeastern Illinois University.

In the article, I compare the current global situation to previous "systemic revolutions", among them the French Revolution of 1789, the Industrial Revolution, the Darwinian Revolution, and the anti-communist revolutions of 1989. Like those epochal changes, the domestic and international decline of the U.S. will affect both the United States and the rest of the world, and will bring fundamental and global changes in politics, economics, culture, and ideology.

Bartels Finds Declining Equality and Influence

Caleb Hamman

chamman@butler.edu

Economic and political inequality are among the most significant aspects of U.S. decline. Both topics are the focus of the most recent work of Princeton Political Scientist Larry Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. In his book, Bartels sets out to analyze the political causes and consequences of economic inequality, arguing that these are both substantial and urgently relevant to alleviating injustice.

Naturally, Bartels begins by assessing the extent to which economic inequality exists in the United States. After detailed review of current literature and government data, Bartels offers findings very much in line with those of The End of the American Century, essentially that “current levels of inequality rival those of the Roaring Twenties,” making it fitting to speak of a “New Gilded Age” or a “retrogression of historic scope.” As Mason points out, this sort of inequality can lead to monstrous disparities, such as CEOs making more than 500 times their average employee, and has effectively caused the United States to become more unequal than “any advanced industrialized country.”

Like The End of the American Century, Bartels finds that current inequality is not a recent phenomenon, but has been growing sharply since the 1970s. Although this observation is generally accepted, Bartels then goes on to make a less mainstream claim—that increasing economic inequality is a largely a result of public policy. While Bartels readily concedes that economic factors like globalization and technology have contributed to inequality, he staunchly refuses to attribute the entire dynamic to arcane “market forces” or inculpable “economic realities.” Rather, a significant role is played by political intervention, an idea Mason also highlights by discussing issues like the “elimination of the federal welfare system” and the “stagnation of the minimum wage.”

Bartels goes one step further. He argues that U.S. economic inequality is “profoundly shaped by partisan politics”—specifically that “middleclass and poor families” have “fared much worse under Republican presidents than they have under Democratic presidents.” This is not necessarily a novel notion, but rarely has it been supported by such detailed analysis. Using exclusively Census Bureau data and controlling for non-partisan variables such as international crisis, Bartels conclusively demonstrates that the incomes of most have grown at substantially higher rates under Democratic presidents than under their Republican counterparts.

After illustrating his findings with three chapter-length case studies, Bartels turns to his second major point—the political consequences of inequality. Here, his research is particularly disturbing. In calculating the recent responsiveness of U.S. Senators to their constituents, Bartels finds that:

Senators’ roll call votes were quite responsive to the ideological views of their middle- and  high-income constituents. In contrast, the views of low-income constituents had no discernible impact on the voting behavior of the senators…the statistical results are quite consistent in suggesting that the opinions of constituents in the bottom third of the income distribution were utterly irrelevant.

Examining the potential causes of this mass political exclusion, Bartels finds that “biases” in “senators’ responsiveness to rich and poor constituents are not primarily due to differences between rich and poor constituents in turnout, political knowledge, or contacting.” Rather, “the data are consistent with the hypothesis that senators represented their campaign contributors to the exclusion of other constituents.” As Mason puts it, “When people do not…contribute to political campaigns, they are less likely to be listened to by legislators or policymakers, and their interests are less likely to be taken into account in the political process.”

In analyzing the totality of his findings, Bartels delivers a particularly sobering assessment:

In Aristotle’s terms, our political system seems to be functioning not as a 'democracy,' but as an 'oligarchy.' If we insist on flattering ourselves by referring to is as a democracy, we should be clear that is a starkly unequal democracy.

Despite such foreboding, Bartels attempts to end with a more hopeful thought: Since inequality has been largely been brought about by conscious political action, there seems to be potential for prescriptive change. As Bartels puts it, “We can make these choices.” But as Mason points out, we are quickly running out of time.

Andrew Bacevich on The Limits of U.S. Power

Andrew Bacevich’s book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, has much in common with my own book The End of the American Century but is, if anything, even more pessimistic about the outlook for the United States. Bacevich, a retired military officer and currently professor of history and international relations at Boston University, recently visited Butler as part of the Drew Brahos lecture series.

The Limits of Power sees three interrelated crises afflicting the U.S.: the crisis of profligacy; the political crisis; and the military crisis. The guiding ideological light in his book is the early 20th century American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr (who I also quote in my book). During the Cold War, Niebuhr complained about U.S. tendency to hubris and sanctimony, which Bacevich views as even more prevalent now, becoming “the paramount expressions of American statecraft.”

As Bacevich sees it, our failures abroad (including especially the Iraq War) are a function of our unending consumer appetites at home. “The collective capacity of our domestic political economy to satisfy those appetites has not kept pace with demand. As a result, sustaining our pursuit of life, liberty and happiness at home requires increasingly that Americans look beyond our borders. Whether the issue at hand is oil, credit, or the availability of cheap consumer goods, we expect the world to accommodate the American way of life.”

“Centered on consumption and individual autonomy, the exercise of freedom is contributing to the gradual erosion of our national power.”

The Iraq War is just the latest step in the gradual erosion of U.S. power, weakening us both externally and internally as we refuse to face up to our own problems. He includes a wonderfully revealing quote from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from October 2001:

“We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we change the way they live. We choose the latter.”

Bacevich is scathingly critical of the American political system, which he sees broken and corrupted by an imperial presidency, a “feckless” Congress, and an incompetent national security structure. Our democracy has been hijacked, he says, by a political elite who “have a vested interest in perpetuating the crises that provide the source of their power.”

These are powerful charges and surprisingly radical, coming from someone who has been part of the establishment and who considers himself a conservative. When Butler faculty and students met with him over breakfast, we raised the question of whether the capitalist system itself was broken, given the arguments he made in his book and his lecture. However, even though he sees little hope for any kind of economic or political recovery in the U.S., Bacevich maintains a firm commitment to capitalism and democracy. Many of us found this to be paradoxical. If the system is broken and can’t be fixed, shouldn’t we be searching for some alternative?

The Limits of Power is a powerful and sobering analysis and critique of the American prospect. The message is similar to that of my book, though there are differences. Bacevich focuses more on the U.S. itself, whereas I link what is happening in the U.S. with broader international and global trends. While both of us decry American consumerism, he focuses more on the cultural (and even spiritual) aspects of this, while I spend more time on the economic and social consequences of it. Neither one of us is terribly optimistic about the outcome, but the last pages of my book offer some inklings of hope, whereas the last paragraph of The Limits of Power is thoroughly downbeat. He quotes, once again, Niebuhr to the effect that social orders inevitably destroy themselves in an effort to prove they are indestructible. “Clinging doggedly to the conviction that the rules to which other nations must submit don’t apply,” concludes Bacevich,

“Americans appear determined to affirm Niebuhr’s axiom of willful self destruction.”

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (American Empire Project)

Obama Defends Domestic Surveillance

Caleb Hamman
chamman@butler.edu

As described in chapter five of The End of the American Century, undemocratic trends in the U.S. political system are having immense effect in furthering American decline.

The Bush II administration deserves substantial culpability. Decider & Co. scissored the democratic fabric as they exacerbated economic inequality, infringed upon the rights of American citizens, and ruled by fiat decrees issued from a hierarchical decision-making structure.

Conversely, the Obama administration has brought about some welcome developments. A grassroots presidential campaign, an end to torture, and a more transparent governing style are some recent democratizing measures that bode well for the U.S. political system.

Still, other actions have been less than reassuring. Among the most ominous has been Obama’s refusal to depart from the Bush status quo on the issue of domestic surveillance.

Since January, the Obama Justice Department (DOJ) has taken action to ensure the legality of Bush’s domestic spying policies will go unquestioned, the details of the program will remain unknown, and surveillance practices will remain institutionalized for possible use by future administrations.

Supporting evidence is provided in abundance by the DOJ’s record in the ongoing Al-Haramain court case.

Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, former lawyers for the now defunct Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, sued the Bush administration after they accidentally received documentation from the Treasury Department revealing that they had been subject to warrantless surveillance in 2004.

To review, Bush’s domestic surveillance program, operating without the use of warrants, was in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) which permitted domestic surveillance only in the case of a court order. Bush’s spying policies were unquestionably illegal. His own DOJ refused to certify them and his attorney general, John Ashcroft, threatened to resign if they were continued (1).

To date, Bush’s spying program has withstood attacks against its legality by employing a clever bit of sophistry. The defenders of surveillance essentially argue:

1. No one can bring suit against the program who does not have standing.
2. No one can claim they have standing (because no one knows they have been spied on).
3. No one can be told they were spied on because the information is a “state secret.”

Because of its unlooked for gift from the Treasury Department, the Al-Haramain case appeared to be the first with substantial promise to penetrate this circular reasoning—at least until the Bush administration declared the document a “state secret” and Al-Haramain was forced to return it to the Treasury Department by court order (2).

For three years, the Bush administration continued to assert the state secrets privilege and thus prevent Al-Haramain from proving the standing necessary to question the legality of the surveillance program.

Recently things began to take a different turn. Last July, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the state secrets privilege didn’t apply to the Al-Haramain case. Then, on Jan. 5, Walker ruled that, with some minor qualifications, Al-Haramain’s lawyers should be given access to the controversial document in order to establish standing.

Enter the Obama administration. Writing last week in Salon, Al-Haramain’s lawyer Jon Eisenberg described how Obama’s election had given the plaintiffs “hope” that they would see some “change we can believe in” in “the Justice Department’s handling of the case under Attorney General Eric Holder” (3).

Perhaps Al-Haramain’s lawyers had taken heart from Obama’s campaign Web site. Herein, “The Plan to Change Washington” describes one aspect of “The Problem” as being “Secrecy Dominates Government Actions” (4).

Specifically, “The Bush administration has ignored public disclosure rules and has invoked a tool known as the "state secrets" privilege more than any other previous administration to get cases thrown out of civil court.”

Despite its rhetoric, Eisenberg testifies that Obama’s Justice Department “has continued to assert the state secrets privilege in the Al-Haramain case, even though Judge Walker ruled last July that the privilege does not apply.”

Also writing in Salon, constitutional and civil rights lawyer Glen Greenwald describes how “the Obama DOJ” is “not merely trying desperately to keep the Bush administration’s spying activities secret, and not merely devoting itself with full force to preventing disclosure of relevant documents concerning this illegal program, but far worse, doing everything in its power to prevent any judicial adjudication as to whether the Bush administration broke the law by spying on Americans without warrants” (5).

Greenwald details how “Obama lawyers have been running around for weeks attempting one desperate, extreme measure after the next to prevent this case from proceeding—emergency appeals, requests for stays, and every time they lose, threats of still further appeals.”

The process reached a climax late last month. On Feb. 27th, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an emergency request by Obama’s DOJ to halt further proceedings before Judge Walker. This ruling effectively ensured that Al-Haramain’s lawyers would have access to the top-secret document necessary to prove standing.

At this point, Obama’s lawyers took unprecedented action. According to Eisenberg, “they informed Judge Walker in a public court filing that if he intends to give us access to the secret filings in the case, the government will ‘withdraw that information from submission to the court’.”

As Eisenberg describes, this statement implies that “executive branch authorities (who? the FBI? the army?) will attempt to seize the documents from Judge Walker”—something that would be “a violation of the constitutional separation of powers, unprecedented in this nation’s history.”

From its actions in the Al-Haramain case, it seems quite clear that the Obama administration has chosen to defend the Bush status quo on domestic surveillance. Legal arguments aside, it’s a rather disturbing decision—one preventing the achievement of justice for past crimes and effectively guaranteeing that domestic surveillance practices will be available to future administrations.

It’s less than clear why the Obama administration has elected this position. It’s not as if they’ve merely invoked "state secrets" in order to protect a few pieces of sensitive information; rather, in exactly the same fashion as Bush, they’ve employed the privilege to have undesirable cases thrown out in their entirety, ensuring that the legality of domestic surveillance will never meet serious challenge.

At best, Obama’s surveillance policy is simply representative of a hesitancy to investigate past crimes. At worst, it’s an attempt to retain expanded, illegal powers for the executive branch and a tacit approval of establishing an above-the-law presidency effectively immune from judicial restraint.

Unfortunately, the context of past actions seems to rule out the least of all evils. Obama voted for the 2008 FISA amendments—bestowing legitimacy on surveillance practices and described by Yale Law School Professor Jack Balkin as “byzantine” and giving “new powers” to the presidency that are “either sketchy or opaque” and “will have to be worked out” by “the executive branch” (6).

Galllup Poll Widget

I added a Gallup Poll widget to the sidebar of this page (scroll down on the right), which shows the latest favorability ratings for President Obama, and has links back to the Gallup home page for results of some of Gallup's recent surveys. Interesting and nifty!

The End of America's Disgrace

I only admitted this to my friends, but I was embarrassed about my country, and embarrassed to be an American during most of the past four years. For me, the President of the United States was particularly embarrassing and humiliating, but his cabinet and advisors were not much better. Even Congress acquiesced in Bush’s humiliation of America, and his undermining of the Constitution, and of our most fundamental values. The President authorized and advocated torture. Without apparent remorse, he violated international law and universal moral standards. He sent thousands of young Americans to their death in a useless, illegal and immoral war. He barely mentioned the tens (or hundreds?) of thousands of innocent Iraqis who lost their lives as a result of his personal crusade. The President approved the violation of habeas corpus, one of the most ancient and fundamental principles of law and human rights. He stifled freedom of speech and the press, and ridiculed his opponents, both at home and abroad. And even in seemingly trivial matters, he was an embarrassment; denying President-elect Obama and his family the use of Blair House during the transition was a final, departing, glaring example of his lack of even elementary decency and civility.

My own embarrassment even extended to my countrymen. We elected this jovial demagogue not once, but twice and even after all of this should have been clear to all. Eventually, I realized that I could not distance myself from my country—I am too much part of it. I also realized that Americans were only partly at fault for Bush. He exploited and played on our fears, and encouraged our baser instincts. This is the age-old strategy of demagogues and dictators everywhere, and it worked here too.

For me, all of this changed on January 20. Once again, I am proud to be an American, and—perhaps for the first time in my life—proud of the person we have elected as President. The November election itself was a revelation and an inspiration, but somehow it did not fully hit home until the inauguration. The two million people on the mall, many of them (like my daughter and her husband) arriving in the frigid pre-dawn hours. The poem, the music, the speech, and the benediction—all weaving together the same themes of unity, community, charity, justice, equality, freedom and faith. And especially Obama himself—a smart, hard-working, family man; an African-American; and a person who wants to help other people, especially the less fortunate.

What is perhaps most remarkable about this presidential transition is the absolutely huge difference from one man to the other. In past elections, I have been pleased with the election of some leaders (mostly Democrats, I have to admit), but I always felt that the change was incremental and marginal at best. The new guy was better than the old, but the difference was not earth shaking. This time, we have left behind the worst president in modern American history—a playboy millionaire who could barely compose a sentence—for a young man who braved amazing obstacles to rise to the top by hard work and intelligence, who has written books (on his own!), and who has dedicated much time to helping others.

Furthermore, his election has restored my faith in America, and in my fellow citizens. I actually did not believe that the U.S. could elect an African-American as President at this point in its history. But we did! Even Indiana voted for Obama (maybe because he can shoot 3-pointers!). The rest of the world, which understandably viewed Bush as a lightweight and a cowboy, is already reassessing the United States and its people. (As I document in my book, foreign publics increasingly blamed the disfunctionalism of the U.S. on its people, rather than on Bush alone). This is the first time in world history that a majority White country has elected a Black chief executive. The world has taken notice.

Obama’s election does not mean that we will soon solve all of America’s many problems. One man—no matter how talented and promising—can not do this, nor can one or two presidential terms. Over the past 20 years we have dug ourselves into a huge hole, and have squandered resources and reputation aplenty. We have lost our way and compromised our values. We have become a nation of individuals and consumers, rather than a community of citizens.

But in his inaugural address, President Obama called on us to begin rebuilding our shattered country. And he provides what any great leader does—an example for the rest of us.

Fukuyama: From "The End of History" to "The Fall of America"

Francis Fukuyama, Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (my own alma mater), had a high profile essay in Newsweek in October, boldly titled “The Fall of America, Inc.” Professor Fukuyama addresses the declining global appeal of America’s “brand.” Two “fundamentally American ideas have dominated global thinking since the early 1980s,” he contends. The first of these was “a certain vision of capitalism” accompanied by “pared-back government.” The second idea was “America as a promoter of liberal democracy around the world.”

Fukuyama sees both of these ideas now tarnished and discredited. The U.S. economy “has gone off the rails and threatens to drag the rest of the world down with it. Even worse,

“the culprit is the American model itself: under the mantra of less government, Washington failed to adequately regulate the financial sector, and allowed it to do tremendous harm to the rest of society.”

The idea of American democracy was “tarnished even earlier,” with the freedom agenda of the Iraq War widely perceived around the world as “an excuse for furthering U.S. hegemony.”

In my book The End of the American Century, I make similar arguments about the decline of brand U.S, but I show that this decline started long before the recent financial collapse, and even before the Iraq War. Global public opinion surveys in recent years have shown little enthusiasm for “American-style democracy” and even less support for the American ways of doing business. And while Fukuyama uses the term “brand” as a metaphor, there actually have been marketing surveys of the popularity of “nation brands” among consumers around the world. In one such study, the United States ranked eleventh out of twenty-five countries.

Fukuyama’s Newsweek essay is interesting both for its perceptive insights, but also because of who he is and what he has written and argued in the past. He gained national prominence in 1989 with the publication of an influential and controversial article titled “The End of History?” In that essay, and a following book, he argued that the collapse of European communism and the end of the Cold War marked “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” Later he became a key figure in the neoconservative movement and its Project for the New American Century which, among other initiatives, strongly encouraged the removal from power of Saddam Hussein, even before September 11. By 2002, though, he had turned away from the neoconservatives, and became critical of the Bush administration and the Iraq War.

Much has changed in the world since the Western triumphalism following the collapse of communism. It has become painfully clear, for one, that many people around the world—perhaps even most people—are not so convinced that Western liberal democracy is—or should be—“the final form of human government.” Even so, it is quite startling to see one of the intellectual fathers of the neoconservative movement so frankly recognizing the failure of the American model to take hold in the rest of the world. As Fukuyama concludes his essay,

“the ultimate test for the American model will be its capacity to reinvent itself once again. Good branding is not, to quote a presidential candidate, a matter of putting lipstick on a pig. It’s about having the right product to sell in the first place. American democracy has its work cut out for it.”