Tom Nichols' book "The Death of Expertise" is a good and stimulating read along the same lines I try to follow in this Blog. We live in interesting and trying times. Never so much knowledge has been available so freely to so many. Unfortunately, the same channels that make that precious knowledge available are clogged with toxic speech, conspiracy theories and ignorance.
How can people tell the difference between facts and "alternative facts" when they listen to "alternative facts" campaigns like this?
Or these ?
his Blog's main task is -like "Politics and Prose" and C-SPAN- contributing to disseminate good and deep thinking and research. Nichols explains much better why it's so vital.
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more
accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. "[...]
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of
the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse
to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community." [...]
The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the
government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number
of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. "
The wisdom and foresight of the framers cannot be understated. Federalist 10 could have been written this morning. Save for the lack of people of such caliber and character. But we still have Federalist 10 and the Constitution to continue working towards a more perfect Union.
During his famous debates with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln had to defend an impopular cause: abolishing slavery in the South.
His rival in the debates called for "popular vote" to solve the issue, knowing that slavery will win in the South.
Lincoln -as scholar Franklin Jaffa explained in his book "A New Birth of Freedom"- chose a different path: he insisted that the Declaration of Independence considered Liberty as a God-given birth right of every human being. Therefore, Liberty couldn't be voted against or submitted to a circumstantial majority -which is what populists try to do by "governing by referendum" -from Hitler's Sudetenland annexation to Brexit and Catalonia's secession-.
In his film "Lincoln", Steven Spielberg -assisted by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin- showed in one memorable scene how Lincoln used reason as the basis for emancipation and abolishing slavery.
The US Constitution, explained Jaffa, is preceded historically and philosophically by the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution is in fact, an instrument that defines the means to achieve and support the Rights enumerated in the Declaration.
Therefore, argued Lincoln, the Constitution itself cannot be modified against its Bill of Rights.
In this small kernel lies the entire difference between rule of law and rule by mob, between a republic of laws and a democracy.
For Americans and Europeans, populism is a new experience. Trump, Putin and the populist - nationalist third parties in France, Spain, Austria and Eastern Europe are a new phenomenon, linked to the classical combination of unemployment and mass immigration that follows global meltdowns.
But for Latin Americans populism is the norm, not the exception. Peronism in Argentina, Lulism in Brazil and Chavism in Venezuela and the so-called "bolivarian socialism" arch have all the populist imprint. Most of them have also a Left-wing tilt (although in Peru Fujimori tilted to the Right and his daughter Keiko seems to be close to become president)
Harvard Chilean economist Jorge Edwards explains the populist phenomenon and its stages in his 2011 book "Left Behind: The False Promises of Populism in Latin America".
The book follows on the steps of a previous one co-written with late economist Rudiger Dornbusch titled "Macroeconomy of populism in Latin America".
Populists have more in common than what distinguishes them. They reject the "Left" or "Right" classifications and more often than not, make a mix of both. Juan Peron embraced Left-wing terrorists like the Montoneros in his "movement" together with Fascist-leaning unions and Far Right terrorists like the AAA (Anticommunist Argentine Alliance) that mingled with center-left and center-right groups and led the country to economic and social decadence between 1945 and 2015.
The country per capita GDP fell from almost par with the US in 1930 to less than 40 percent by 2004. Seventy years of populism (1945-2015) explain the decadence.
Anti-free trade and anti-"elites" sentiments (being "elites" usually ill-defined as a moniker for opposition) are common as well as the tendency to reject "liberal" institutions such as term limits, division of powers and rule of law (insofar it includes the Leader). Another common trait in populism is its association not with ideas but with a strongman's personality -from Peron to Chavez to Putin to usual suspects such as Donald J. Trump-.
Another component of populism -especially on the Left- is identity politics and trading votes for "security" -either from immigrants or benefits from the welfare state- and patronage -from Huey Long ("every man a king") to FDR to teachers and public employees unions.
Is Trump a populist?
He has all the makings of one, but the American Constitution was designed by Madison and the Founders with populism ("the tyranny of the majority") in mind. So term limits -after FDR- and court packing -same- in mind. Franklin, Madison, Jefferson and Washington saw the descent of the French Revolution from "democracy" to rule of the mob (Robespierre's Terror reign) to dictatorship and emperor Napoleon I. So they designed a perfect cage to limit absolute power. The last populist challenge was President Jackson -who ended in impeachment and oblivion-. Now many thing comes the next try. If someone has the Houdini-like abilities to skirt the rules and laws, it is certainly in Donald Trump's career path. But he might opt out of trying too hard: there is no dynastic option in US and dynastic power (Peron-Peron, Kirchner-Kirchner, Castro-Castro, Putin-Mevdevev-Putin, Chavez-Maduro) is a requisite for populism to survive.
Both EU and US liberal order and institutions are now under siege and under test. The future of liberal democracy -as Fareed Zakaria calls it- its at stake.
2018 will be an interesting year for US and EU to watch.
The largest scale protectionist experiment was theSmooth-Hawley's Tariffs Act of 1930 which precipitated the US recession into a Global Great Depression, when all countries set tariffs to "protect" their economies, paralyzing global trade and creating a wave of over 50 percent unemployment that ushered Hitler, Mussolini and Mao Tse Tung into power.
Smooth-Hawley is a regular subject on basic economy 101 courses:
And its legacy has been profusely analyzed
It was a Republican president elected during hard times who made the decision.
There are two flavors of protectionism coming back after Trump's election and UK's Brexit. On the Far Right, Peter Navarro -current Trump's administration secretary of trade- focuses on trade deficits with China in his book "Death by China" In UK, Nigel Farage -the UKIP pro-Brexit leader- makes a similar argument:
Experts at the Peterson Institute debated the impact of Brexit -the most recent example of protectionism- on UK's and EU's economy, with opposite conclusions:
On the "Left", economist Ha-Joong Chan argues that protectionism is good for emerging countries and that all developed countries did grow into development by protecting their "baby industries"
And Johan Norberg adds that "free trade is for the rich and big corporations"
Classic was defined by Oscar Wilde as an author everybody quotes and nobody actually reads. So much for Marx and Freud, and also for Milton Friedman -who used to be the standard bearer for Republicans in economics-..
Or so it was all the way from Reagan to Romney up until Trump.
Protectionism is now a bipartisan cause. In these days when the Tea Partiers joins Greenpeace to protest against the evils of Globalization and the "Davos elites" and pitchforks join sickles and hammers in matching class warfare rhetoric, trade agreements are bad again. "Globalist" is a new derogatory term for the Right that -up until 2016- was for it and against Brexits.
While the public opinion judges are out to test once more whether trade deficits matter and trade barriers help or hinder growth, we might benefit from listening and reading again Milton Friedman on the subject. Here, debating a protectionist from the Left (then the only kind)
And here a more recent book comparing voters and economists views on economics, aptly titled "The Myth of the Rational Voter" by George Mason University professor Brian Caplan:
Finally, let's add Friedman's take on globalization from his classic "I, the pencil" article that he explained this way:
This is the way the "Right" or the Republican party in US used to think and classical liberals (as they are called) elsewhere still do.
Perhaps one of the greatest disadvantages of the anti-Trump views about Trumpism is that they start from the underestimating his followers as "deplorables" and irredeemable racists and ignoramuses. For those who still wonder why Trump won and why pollsters missed the wave that put him in the White House, Christopher Bedford wrote The Art of the Donald.
Bedford makes no apologies for being a Trump supporter. He just explains why in a way that anti-Trumpers may chose to ignore at their own peril.
On the other side of the spectrum Joshua Green's "Devil's Bargain" goes deeper into the "jacksonian" populism that Steve Bannon and Trump have successfully channeled to get to the White House.
Another must-read for those who don't want to trip twice on the same assumptions. Midterm elections are closer than they seem on the rear mirror.
Investigative journalist Wyl S. Hilton, wroteDown the Breitbart Hole, an excellent piece on Breitbart News, the Far Rigth website controlled by Steven Bannon and its impact.
On top of the insights on what is inside and behind Breitbart -and its current decline- the piece includes a valuable reference to a very interesting study by Yochai Benkler from Columbia and Harvardmapping the political spectrum of the blogosphere and its impact -measured in hits and reciprocal links that reveal the connections behind supposedly independent sites.
After Bannon's thunderous debacle in Alabama, Breitbart looks more a raft loaded with survivors than a powerhouse as it used to be. But it has a faithful followership that will not let reality get in the way of their wishes.
"Open to debate" seems an odd title for a book published in 2016, the year of the tweeted insult-campaigns and the clashing mobs in streets and campuses.
Yet, it is the title of a book about what political debate used to be and arguably, can be again. Heather Hendershot remembers how William F. Buckley single-handedly took the Right-wing debate from the racist slur to Thomas Paine and Christopher Hitchens.
Here's a sample of what Buckley's debate used to be:
The left field suffered some casualties with the demise of Charlie Rose, but still has some examples like the Munk debates
Or those organized by the BBC:
Just select your sources look beyond cable talking heads parroting party lines and "alternative facts".
Good debates educate and train your intellect, but mostly, your civility.
Benjamin Franklin was famously asked about the nature of the country that the 1787 Constitutional Convention had created. He responded "A Republic," and added wisely "if you can keep it".
These are not only trying times for that proposition, but times for trying. This Blog will be dedicated to:
Serious sources and fact-based debate.
Show "for" and "against" opinions for each topic
Expose results and impact of policies
Debate fringe, anti-constitutional views and their sources and sponsors
Non-partisan take on news
We will cover US and international policies and cases. Why bother?
Because "Freedom is one generation away from extinction", as Ronald Reagan put it.
