Trump's Impeachment Fright

Definition of delusion 

a : something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated 

• delusion

• delusions

b psychology : a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary 

• delusion

; also : the abnormal state marked by such beliefs
: the act of tricking or deceiving someone : the state of being deluded

"Sic transit gloria mundi" was the inscription  at the top of the Caesar's victorious banners and in the crown wags of Popes' and monarchs. It s purpose was to remind absolute rulers that "all glory is transient", all power is passing.

It didn't help.

Even seeing how easy was to get his once powerful enemies stabbed, shot, hanged, beheaded or dismembered by an angry mob didn't prevent  Caesar, Saddam, Robespierre or Qaddafi from  falling into the delusion of thinking they would not end up like them.  Nor did the risk of public embarrassment and humiliation prevent Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton from creating a web of lies and deceit that destroyed their own careers, harmed their families and tarnished their legacies. 

The greatest danger for those with unchecked power is not corruption, but delusion. 

That's precisely why the Framers of US Constitution created checks and balances and instituted limited term, limited re-election presidencies. All that POTUS, COTUS and SCOTUS institutes, their successors can undo. That's what makes the United States the longest uninterrupted republican democracy in the world. Donald J, Trump is its 45th president. The one between Barak Obama and the 46th, who will take office either in 2 or 6 years from now.

Donald J. Trump seems to have a hard time thinking beyond his two-terms (if reelected). And yet, as a 72-year old man without a party, in a non-dynastic system, no matter how much he "wins" his political battles, how hard his hardcore believers hang to his zig-zagging definitions and decisions, Donald J Trump will be replaced by our 46th President in 2020 or 2024.

The 46th president might, like him, devote his (or her) presidency to unravel and erase each and every one of 45th's  decisions. The more Mr. Trump revels in his  conquests and in humiliating a growing number of foes, the more this is likely to happen.

Mr. Trump seems obsessed with getting rid of any charges of collusion and any opposition to his own, grandiose self-image. Paradoxically, in doing so, he's spreading insurrection among his own Republican party, his donors, staff, and even those serving in the country's Armed forces and Intelligence and Security communities. That's how deep the "deep State" actually is if we follow the delusional course charted during the almost two years of the 45th President.  

The last straw has been retired Admiral William H. MacRaven's public pronouncement against the President's behavior.

The same Admiral McRaven that gave this inspiring commencement speech and wrote a book on the moral code of Marine discipline and leadership titled "If you wanna change the world start of by making your bed" has now berated Donald Trump's handling of the POTUS office.

Admiral McRaven didn't mince words in his response to President Trump's treatment of CIA and FBI career officers that dared to testify in the ongoing probe about Mr. Trump's campaign possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign and perhaps after the election.

Dear Mr. President:

Former CIA director John Brennan, whose security clearance you revoked on Wednesday, is one of the finest public servants I have ever known. Few Americans have done more to protect this country than John. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don’t know him. 

Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency. 

Like most Americans, I had hoped that when you became president, you would rise to the occasion and become the leader this great nation needs. 

A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself. 

Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation. 

If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken. The criticism will continue until you become the leader we prayed you would be.

Even if President Trump is vindicated in his claims of "no collusion", his efforts -like Nixon's in the Watergate case- in obstructing the investigation are turning the entire process into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Even tough President Trump believes his base would absolve him even if he shot someone in New York's Fifth Avenue-

his behavior might cost him the majority in Congress , the last firewall protecting him from impeachment. Moreover, Trump's growing list of enemies might increase anti-Trump turnout into a "blue wave" in spite of the good economy over which Trump presides. 

President Trump tweets and personal insults about his own disgruntled Secretaries of State, WH staff, campaign and personal lawyers show growing evidence of delusion, a problem that sent previous presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton to face articles of impeachment and lasting shame.

These later episodes might be remembered as a turning point in the Trump presidency. 

Even if President Trump survives to become a two-term president -a goal that his own behavior is pushing farther and farther away with each passing news cycle- , there will be another President after him. And certainly, there will be a retaliatory push back against his initiatives.

Delusion is thinking otherwise.

Trade Wars - Boarding the Ship of Fools

“For example, the supporters of tariffs treat it as self-evident that the creation of jobs is a desirable end, in and of itself, regardless of what the persons employed do. That is clearly wrong. If all we want are jobs, we can create any number--for example, have people dig holes and then fill them up again, or perform other useless tasks. Work is sometimes its own reward. Mostly, however, it is the price we pay to get the things we want. Our real objective is not just jobs but productive jobs--jobs that will mean more goods and services to consume.” 

Milton Friedman, Free to Choose

Back in 1929, at the onset of the Great Depression, Laurel and Hardy filmed "Big Business" ,a slapstick comedy that portrayed an escalation of hostilities, from small gestures to mutually assured destruction. (You may want to skip until 11 on the video to watch the climax that reflects what a tariff war looks like to a rational spectator and how it ends)

That was indeed what happened a few years later, when the US Congress passed the Smooth-Hawley Act and started the first global trade war.

Once upon a time Republicans listened to one of their eminent economists, Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman explain why trade wars and tariffs are self-punishment and bad economics:

That one brought Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Lenin and the Japanese fascists to power and with them, the logical next step that was World War II.

Sixty million deaths and seventy-five years later, a populist president toys with starting a tariff war with all US's major commercial partners at once: China, EU, Canada and Mexico.

The promise for the fools is the same than in 1932: jobs will come back, salaries will go up and the "unfair" competitors will surrender.

Economist Bryan Caplan explains why voters self-immolate for a second time in his educational book "The Myth of the Rational Voter"

Fool me twice...

John McCain: The Last of the Lincoln Republicans

"We don’t build walls to freedom and opportunity. We tear them down. To fear the world we have organized and led for three- quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half- baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is unpatriotic."    

Senator John McCain (R), 2017

John McCain was an American hero in many ways. 

He was a military POW how resisted 5 years of torture in the Hanoi Hilton, yet returned to Vietnam to make peace with his own captors and help reestablish diplomatic relations.

He followed Barry Goldwater as the senator for Arizona and championed just, unpopular and politically inconvenient causes such as campaign reform, immigration reform and lately, offended both Left and Right by supporting his rival George W. Bush's surge in Iraq and voting down President's Trump populist and popular repeal without replace of the ACA healthcare bill known as Obamacare -which he also opposed vehemently-.

His argument for opposing the latter was a call to a civility lost in the populist wave that brought Trump to the White House:

A populist wave that McCain lamented to have helped by selecting populist firebrand Sarah Palin over his democratic first choice, democratic senator Joe Lieberman.

He ran a uninspiring campaign against Barack Obama in 2008 and damaged his reputation with an uncharacteristic surrender to populist pandering. It was perhaps an example of his fighter jet pilot tendency to quick judgement that, like others on the USS Forrestal and over Hanoi, backfired badly. He somehow took distance by standing against deranged birthers that hated his rival more than any Republican principle.

McCain never hesitated in working and voting across the partisan divide, engaging in lively debates and lifelong friendships and collaboration with rival Democratic leaders such as Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden and Russ Feingold. He is and will certainly be admired and missed by the best  of both parties. And certainly reviled and insulted by the worst. 

Thanks to John McCain's dedication to fight partisanship, he will remain a healthily divisive figure between those who put country over party and those who don't. The former will remember him fondly, the others will hate him stronger as time goes by. He would probably relish keeping such friends and foes.

McCain made one notorious exception to his civility. His widow asked that the sitting president, Donald J. Trump, was not welcomed at his funeral. 

McCain's contempt for Trump was just the latest rejection of his populist views and unpresidential behavior by most of the moderate Republican leaders, a long list that included a similarly embarrassing absence at Barbara Bush's funeral -where his wife Melania sat and chat with president's Bush, Clinton and Obama- and public denunciations by all of the living former presidents (including Bush 41 and Carter), 2012  and presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

In any case, what caused Cindy McCain's request was not just Trump's disrespect and incivility towards him, but toward the very American values and principles McCain fought for as a soldier and as a senator.

The best farewell to John McCain is following his advice and his example of civility and honor.

Republicans will have a lot to do and a lot to change to meet John McCain's standards.

Can US Republic survive populism? - Joseph Ellis and the pessimistic wisdom of John Adams

A new populist wave is sweeping the Western world. It's fueled by the same combustible than others before: global economic crises and their discontents.

Historian Joseph Ellis has dedicated part of his notable career to explaining why our Founding Fathers didn't want a democracy in the mold of the French Revolution. Moreover, they saw the 20,000 killed on the name of the "people" under the Terror period as a stern warning for us, the stillborn Brittish colonies trying to become the United States.

Adams warned presciently against putting much hope on democracy per se:

“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”

Adams saw executive power and human condition as a menace for freedom and the nascent Republic:

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

– John Adams, Notes for an oration at Braintree, Spring 1772.

He believed on giving full power to the people, but thought people as individual citizens with individual rights, no majorities or mobs getting beyond the law nor governments and presidents reigning beyond it:

“The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people’s hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.”– John Adams

Adams stood against the majority almost all his political life and particularly eloquently when he defended British soldiers charged with the Boston massacre in 1770:

“The law no passion can disturb. ‘Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. ‘Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.” 

– John Adams, Argument in Defense of the British Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, Dec. 4, 1770. 

Against the prevalent fashion of idolizing Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, Ellis leans towards the more clear judgement of his rival John Adams, our second president.

Adams never thought much of democracy, the "people" or the American people for that matter. He saw the country as a motley crew instead of an Ethnic nation as Europeans' republics were.

There was a revolutionary summer when all the rather practical ideas of the framers came together, in a lasting collision as our 1787 Constitution is. 

Unlike Madison -who thought the division of powers and states rigths would prevent the tyranny of any eventual majority-, Adams dreaded that the US Constitution and its institutions would not be enough to control people's lowest passions if excited by demagogues.

"Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

These days are putting Madison's controls and Adams' fears against each other. 

A recent article on the very Republican National Review argues from its title that "Our government was designed to protect us from the Trumps of the world". 

Demagogues and populists always test the limits of existing institutional restraints looking for ways to circumvent them. From Mussolini to Hugo Chavez, that has been a constant trait. 

Democracies, however, elect populists and demagogues now and then and set the stage for erosion of the rule of law and the republican checks and balances. 

Hopefully, Adams will be proven wrong once more. But that will not happen without a return to civility.

Lets leave the last word on this subject to Adams himself:

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation.”

    (Quoted from page 406 of The Political Writings of John Adams, Regnery Publishing, 2000.)

Defacing the First Amendment: Uncivil White House Correspondents Dinner roast

Immediately after criticizing the sitting president's lack of respect for not attending the 2018 White House Correspondents Dinner, the amateurish comedian tasked to deliver the roast -as well as the organizers of the dinner- demonstrated an equivalent lack of civility and respect that allowed the entire show to derail into insults.

The treatment of Secretary of Press Sarah Huckabee Sanders -who had the civility to show up and sit at the dais in front of the cameras- was an exhibition of vulgarity, personal aggression and disrespect for her office and even her family. 

The comedian -a woman- made fun of Sarah Sanders physical appearance mocking her looks and family in the kind of bullying and sexual harassment that plague Facebook teenage pages and provoke immediate legal action from parents and schools.

Secretary Sanders exhibited a degree of grace and composure under public aggression that demonstrate her qualifications for the position she holds and her upbringing and values.

Michelle Wolf's performance,  with her lack of self-control- did in fact remind us another "wolf": the one played by Leonardo Di Caprio in "The Wolf of Walls Street". Ms. Wolf -who also comes from Wall Street- with the help of a podium and a microphone in prime time TV looked like a too long impersonation of Tavis Kalanick abusing an Uber driver.

This is yet another step in the wrong direction. It's even more unfortunate because it precisely reinforces the image of "enemies of the people" that our current POTUS has been promoting onn the campaign trail.

The big loser of this unfortunate and forgettable White House Correspondents Dinner is precisely our First Amendment.

Time for a visit to The Presidents Club?

The recent funeral of former First Lady and First Mother Barbara Bush was a good opportunity to watch civility in action among the families and clans of all political persuasions in Washington -from former Presidents to their grandchildren-.

One after another, the speeches given by Bush's family  members, friends and political foes rivaled each other in respect, grace and self-deprecating humor. They turned the majestic cathedral and the pain of the circumstance into a celebration of American political traditions at their best.

Those who dress down their own appointees in public and double down on personal attacks  seem not to understand that Americans like candor and kindness and are turned off by bluster and arrogance. For Americans, courage is showing grace under pressure. And the Bush family showed what courage looks like in parting with their beloved matriarch.

Those who don't appreciate our Constitution and its institutions call them instead the "deep state".

If there is a "deep state" in our United States , Fareed Zakaria remarked in an insightful article, that "deep state" is the state of the rule of law. 

That "deep state" also has a long-standing tradition: a "Presidents Club", that was informally instituted by Jefferson and Adams when they asked their predecessors for advice. 

Harry Truman established it formally at Eisenhower's inaugural and Herbert Hoover was its first manager. Richard Nixon presented the Presidents Club with a brownstone building as a permanent lodging for its members, who have been using it regularly for the last 60 years.

There is also a tradition of the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner. Every year,  presidents are "roasted"  in public and forced to show they can take and make jokes about themselves.

A tradition that First Ladies also enjoy publicly lambasting their powerful husbands:

Last year, for the first time in almost 60 years, the sitting president declined to attend the dinner.

Mr. Trump's absence at Mrs. Bush's funeral went beyond a lack of humor.

Declining to show up to Mrs. Bush funeral is a further step downhill -from the shining city of civility on top of it we look up for leadership to the swamps and moats that surround it and Mr. Trump promised to drain-. It is so because it demonstrates Mr Trump fears the embarrassment of facing Mrs. Bush's family without apologizing for his past insults than the embarrassment of sending his wife to do his job.

Harsh words are normal currency during political campaigns, even during the arguments and political fray that come before and after.

Even boxers shake hands after butchering each other 12 rounds on the ring. And show respect once the match is over apologizing for the insults and vulgarities they threw at each other to sell tickets for the show.

The word "President" means among other things, to "preside", to lead by example and set the tone of public discourse and public behavior. This is way below the office that George Washington left warning against extreme partisanship. 

The Trump administration will pass.  

Mr. Trump will then also become a former president. 

He can chose to be a former president like Richard Nixon and fade in disgrace or to adopt the civility of the other four former presidents who showed up at Ms Bush funeral and who sat near his solitary wife.

There's still time to join the Presidents' club, Mr. President.

It would be good not just for you, but for the institution you currently represent and your successors. You might find some experienced friends as well. 

An un-regulated militia ?: Looking back at NRA's 100-year history in favor of gun control

Let's start with some historical facts about NRA and gun control in the United States:

In the 1920s, the National Revolver Association, the arm of the NRA responsible for handgun training, proposed regulations later adopted by nine states, requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon, five years additional prison time if the gun was used in a crime, a ban on gun sales to non-citizens, a one day waiting period between the purchase and receipt of a gun, and that records of gun sales be made available to police

Coleman, A. (2016) "When NRA Supported Gun Control" , TIME Magazine 

A decade later,  NRA led the enactment of further gun control legislation:

In 1929, Al Capone’s St. Valentine’s Day massacre saw men disguised as Chicago police kill 7 rivals with machine guns. Bonnie and Clyde’s crime-and-gun spree from 1932-34 was a national sensation. John Dillinger robbed 10 banks in 1933 and fired a machine gun as he sped away. 

A new president in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made fighting crime and gun control part of his ‘New Deal.’ The NRA helped him draft the first federal gun controls: 1934’s National Firearms Act and 1938’s Gun Control Act.

The NRA President at the time, Karl T. Frederick, a 1920 Olympic gold-medal winner for marksmanship who became a lawyer, praised the new state gun controls in Congress. “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons,” he testified before the 1938 law was passed. “I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.”

Rosenfeldt, A. (2013) The NRA Once Supported Gun Control. Salon

The current position of the National Rifle Association (NRA) against any kind of gun control is historically speaking a red herring and, arguably, an infringement of the Second Amendment -the one that states that:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." .

 Consistent with that first sentence of the Second Amendment -usually invoked to protect the individual right to bear arms- states and federal government are charged with keeping "well regulated" militias. That is a clear mandate for strictly controlling with regulations the purchase, carrying and use of arms of any kind.

In fact, creating and keeping "a well-regulated militia" could (and perhaps should) include charging states and communities (the levels of independent government Second Amendment was meant to preserve to prevent federal tyranny) with organizing armed citizens to protect their schools, churches and neighborhoods helping and complementing the police. That would channel their enthusiasm for and expertise in guns towards positive, measurable social impact. Such as lowering mass-shootings at schools and churches near zero.

Rampant crime waves like those in the days of Capone and Luciano were addressed by the NRA by promoting successful gun control laws, such as the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, that imposed licensing and controls to sell and buy arms and was replaced by the Gun Control Act of 1968, .    In both cases, NRA supported the gun control laws. At the time of its passage in 1968, NRA executive vice president Franklin Orth wrote in American Rifleman that "the measure as a whole appears to be one that the sportsmen of America can live with".

It was only in 1977 when a group with extreme anti-regulation positions seized control of NRA
and turned into political lobbying by targeting lawmakers "scoring" their votes and targeting
those who didn't agree with the new NRA positions pouring billions against them in campaigns.

Along the entire US history, Black Americans found themselves often as targets of guns and racist violence.

Then they also turned frequently pro-gun and created their own armed militias -the Black Panthers- during the same period the NRA adopted its anti-gun control and White-supremacy extremist stance. During the violent and riotous 1970s, pro-gun Black Panthers claimed the Second Amendment and gun-control Republican Party Ronald Reagan passed the Mulford Act banning public arm carrying (open or concealed).

The latest attempt to "regulate the militia" was the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, that banned precisely the AR-15 and other war weaponry for a limited period (1994-1996) . The law passed Congress under the proviso of verifying its impact in a short 3-year period. The National Institute of Justice was charged with conducting the research in states that previously had and those that hadn't gun control.

The report, published in 1996, was inconclusive, even for the short period covered,.  stating that:

It appears that the assault weapons ban had clear short-term effects on the gun market, some of which were unintended consequences: production of the banned weapons increased before the law took effect and prices fell afterward. These effects suggest that the weapons became more available generally, but they must have become less accessible to criminals because there was at least a short-term decrease in criminal use of the banned weapons. Evidently, the excess stock of grandfathered assault weapons manufactured prior to the ban is, at least for now, largely in the hands of dealers and collectors. The ban’s short-term impact on gun violence has been uncertain, due perhaps to the continuing availability of grandfathered assault weapons, close substitute guns and large capacity magazines, and the relative rarity with which the banned weapons were used in gun violence even before the ban.

Based on those tentative early findings, COTUS didn't renew the ban, which to this day makes AR-15 and other assault weapons available to private citizens.

The continuing wave of mass killings in schools and universities might force immediate measures such as protecting schools with armed guards and check up points as airports and banks currently are. 

These kind of measures, long overdue, might not suffice to protect adequately students and teachers without an equally intensive reinforcement of background checks and banning online sales of arms that make now particularly easy for the mentally deranged and terrorists (domestic or otherwise) to have access to them.

In any case, it is paradoxical that the NRA, originally chartered to prepare a "well-regulated" militia of armed citizens and promote civil and lawful use of guns have degenerated into a major obstacle to the full application of the Second Amendment.

A careful inspection of how NRA officers get "elected" for such long terms -decades- and why individuals that would hardly get elected for a school district gained control of it shows that only 7 percent of NRA membership currently votes :

To their perpetual shame, the vast majority of NRA members eligible to vote simply don’t bother.  While the NRA has the reputation of being able to deliver huge numbers of votes for, or against, politicians in state and federal elections, the members take little interest in the internal political matters of their own organization.  While every NRA member eligible to vote receives a ballot in their regular NRA magazine, fewer than 7% bother to return them.  That’s a pretty poor showing for the oldest and most powerful civil rights organization in the country.

Knox, J. ( 2011) NRA Board Elections continued. The Firearms Coalition

Perhaps it's due time to take back the NRA replacing their current leadership with other more interested in upholding the Second Amendment in full.

NRA board elections should get at least the same public and press coverage than any district with 5 million+ electors.

Meanwhile, un-regulated militias (and loonies making "armies of one") will continue to grow with the uncivil discourse on both sides of the issue and all sides of an increasingly fragmented society.

Un-regulated white supremacists or anti-government militias that operate in fact as "boot camps" for potential mass shooters:

Un-regulated gun-carrying black Americans citizens and communities caught in the middle of drug wars and living in arms-infested drug ghettos, exposed to "black on black" violence (90 % + of black victims of homicide):

Un-civil militians might eventually force governments to enact gun protection and control and gun owners to take back the NRA (and out of extremist politics) and enact the gun control  and other measures at state and community level-.

The best hope for our schools and students is that states and communities can do it sooner rather than later to cut the spread of copycat mass killings in schools and unprotected public places.

Un-regulated militias armed and kept un-regulated by the current co-opted NRA show the wisdom of the Second Amendment -if we care for read it from the beginngs.

Geopolitics of Emotions - Dominique Moisi

Emotions are not just individual feelings , but also collective  spirits  that define the ways different cultures and countries respond to the future based on its past experiences, explains Dominique Moisi, professor of Harvard and Sorbonne in his thought-provoking book "Geopolitics of Emotions: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation and Hope are Reshaping the World".

Analyzing the pushback against globalization after the Great Recession of 2008 in different countries, Moisi made a significant observation:

"If democracies are losing faith in democratic models, and if autocratic regimes are supported in their antidemocratic practices by their combination of high economic growth and political stability, it is the Western world that suffers most from this evolution. the primary reason that today’s globalizing world is the ideal fertile ground for the blossoming or even the explosion of emotions is that globalization causes insecurity and raises the question of identity. Identity is strongly linked with confidence, and in turn confidence, or the lack thereof, is expressed in emotions—in particular, those of fear, hope, and humiliation."

Social emotions  condition the ways different cultures and regions react to events, see the future and interpret their past. Cunning populist politicians ride on social emotions to advance their own careers by responding to the swings of social moods.

Moisi describes three main kinds of social emotions: fear, hope and humiliation : 

•  Fear is the absence of confidence. If your life is dominated by fear, you are apprehensive about the present and expect the future to become ever more dangerous.

•  Hope, by contrast, is an expression of confidence; it is based on the conviction that today is better than yesterday and that tomorrow will be better than today.

• Humiliation is the injured confidence of those who have lost hope in the future; your lack of hope is the fault of others, who have treated you badly in the past. When the contrast between your idealized and glorious "

If we draw a map of the world, we can easily see how emerging Asia -China, India, Southeast- have a hopeful view and attitude towards the future. All the energy of their societies are focused in moving ahead and they are confident that they can improve their lot with effort and using their talent. They view globalization as an opportunity.

Developed countries such as those in Western Europe and the United States' politics are dominated by fear. They want to part ways (Brexit, Cataxit) , build walls (US) or cut immigration. They see globalization as a menace to their standard of living, wages and culture.

The Middle East is dominated by humiliation, a feeling that they have lost their cultural dignity and independence, that their better days are in the remote past of the times of the Prophet and the Califate. Humiliation breeds hatred as people see foreigners and even those embracing change and moving upwards as exploiters and feel victims excluded from the benefits. Latin Americans felt humiliated by the debt crash of the 1990s and turned similarly to angry rhetoric and populist solutions -from Chavez "bolivarian socialism" to Argentina's "kirchnerism".

Social emotions, explains Moisi, can also mix and coexist, creating conflicts inside each society: prosperous and military powerful Israel sits in the middle of poorly governed, low income, backward-moving neighbors. Arabs' anger and humiliation after their successive military defeats and their poor economic performance is corresponded with reactions of understandable fear by prosperous and otherwise hopeful Israelis.

US' Appalachia and rust belt regions voted for Trump -a successful millionaire with a populist platform and angry rhetorics- on the promise of bringing back the jobs and "make America great again". Those living in out-of-London Britain voted for a populist Brexit to stop immigration that they feel as a double menace to their jobs and their security.

Populist politicians pander to humiliation with a promise to "bring back" a glorious past (Califate, coal mining jobs, a more homogeneous community) and pointing to "enemies of the people": elites, "cosmopolitans", "bureaucrats" , promising to "drain the swamp" and kill the evil hydra of the "deep state". Or destroy Israel. Or re-establish El-Andaluz and the 7th century Caliphate. 

Emotions can be created by economic crises and also provoke them, by adopting self-defeating policies such as rising tariffs or leaving the EU. Or a multi-cultural country -as in the case of Spain or Iraq-

Self-fulfilling prophecies are particularly hard to avoid, especially for those living inside strong swings of social emotions. For those dominated by fear or humiliation, wars and decay might be also the path of least resistance. For those cultures dominated by hope, success is more likely and failure easier to overcome. 

Steering societies away from self-damaging populist "temper tantrums" in times of social fear of humiliation requires not just leadership, but statesmanship.

It took an FDR or a Churchill to instill hope in countries humiliated by economic Depression and fearing the military machine of Fascist and Communist invaders. Or a Nelson Mandela or a Mahatma Gandhi to overpower humiliation and bring together deeply divided societies.

The current leadership clearly doesn't make that cut.

US Debt Bomb III: "Is this time different" ?

As it is  often the case with populism -and Sebastian Edwards explains in his conference about the long and dramatic experience of Latin American countries with it - , US might be entering a debt-default crisis stage. That might be what is behind the sustained hike in the 10-year bonds and interest rates on US debt.

Unlike what happens with populism in the developing world, in US there are not one but two populist parties: the Democrats practice "Left" wing populism inflating entitlements to get minorities' votes and Republicans do the "Right" wing version subsidizing Wall Street and the military-industrial complex with tax cuts. Both policies -deeply ingrained in the parties' platforms- are predicated in increasing spending.

The arguments -or excuses- for either side are that public spending creates jobs and fuels demand (a distorted version of Keynes' -who warned  against debt and justified public spending only for short periods of time-) (the Left wing argument) or that low taxes attract investment and create jobs. Notice that "jobs" is the key populist word here.

The invariable result of the swings between tax cuts and spending is the growth of the national debt, now reaching 20 trillion dollars, a level that goes over the 100 % of US GDP  (104 % to be precise)

and would put any other country in imminent risk of default, as economist Kenneth Roggoff and  Carmen Reinhardt explain in their study of 500 years of debt, "This Time is Different"

Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles produced a detailed and uncontested diagnostic of the debt problem created with these two-sided seesaw that both parties are using to chop down our shared economic tree. They recommended both spending cuts (in defense and social entitlements) and tax hikes to return the runaway deficit to sustainable levels. 

Simpson used his gift for the vernacular to describe the reception they got as"the one that you get when you fart at a garden wedding". Both Obama and the Republicans promise to act on it and they did. They both stop talking about Simpson-Bowles.

Populists politicians might brag when the stock market goes up -much as a rooster bragging about bringing sunrise- only to fall silent when the inevitable "correction" comes back and erases paper gains.

Now, the "correction" menaces to erase more than previous gains with record falls that bring stock values below what they were 2 years ago, making all Americans feel the pinch in their savings -which in turn can aggravate the crisis by depressing consumption-.

The real bad news is that the cause of this continued fall and two serious symptoms: higher 10-year rates (which baloon the existing 20 trillion debt) and inflation (which hits cost of living for millions). That combination costed Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford their presidencies, and took a disciplined Fed years of high rates and dreaded "austerity".

If the current trend continues to unfold, the first openly populist president since Jackson will face the challenge of managing an era of austerity. Looking at how other populist leaders did it in Latin America - Maduro, Kirchner, Rousseff- it might not be easy