Tag Archives: Politics

Day 46: Hillary’s Views, In a Nutshell?

23 Sep 2016 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments

Florida aerial, © 2016 Susan Barsy
It’s an asymmetry that may determine the election: in contradistinction to the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump has hammered away at the electorate with a few controversial ideas.  These ideas have been castigated, ridiculed, and discussed so much that the main 3 or 4 of them are easy to reel off.  Trump has a gimme cap that says ‘Make America Great Again.’  He ‘wants to build a wall.’  He favors: 1) establishing inviolable national borders and radically altering US immigration policies; 2) ending ‘unfair’ trade deals; and 3) radically reducing US commitments overseas.

Trump has been careful never to disavow these ‘unpopular’ ideas.  He has articulated them with intense discipline for more than a year, through countless interviews, debates, speeches, and rallies.  No matter how odious, these are the main ideas he stands for.  To the mainstream of both parties, any one of these goals is anathema.  So, American politics has been furiously warring over Donald Trump’s ideas for almost two years.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has run a far more sophisticated and decorous campaign.  Suddenly, though, commentators and allies are noting that her campaign is singularly empty of goals and ideas.  The bland sameness she offers is meant to be reassuring, premised on the assumption that most of the country ‘feels okay.’  But what does Clinton stand for?   Where would she lead?  What, in a nutshell, is her vision of our future?

Public intellectuals friendly to Clinton are prodding her to zero in on something.  But the asymmetry already established may continue to weigh heavily on her campaign.

Image: Aerial of Florida,
© 2016 Susan Barsy


RELATED:
Albert R. Hunt, ‘Hillary Needs a Better Slogan’ (Bloomberg View)

Day 53: ‘Economic Patriotism’

16 Sep 2016 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Day 53 (aerial of riverside town), © 2016 Susan Barsy
I’m interested in the phrase ‘economic patriotism,’ which Zephyr Teachout of New York has made central to her congressional campaign.  Ideologically, its appearance is significant as a harbinger of the ‘thought revolution‘ destined to shake up both political parties.  As a phrase linking domestic and green production with political empowerment and civic responsibility, ‘economic patriotism’ is smart and historically resonant.  Without pointing fingers, it suggests that economic actors could be encouraged to behave in ways that will promote the good of the country, thus harkening back to a traditional concept of ‘political economy.’

Anti-globalism and a demand for policies that protect citizens’ prosperity have defined the 2016 election cycle.  The popularity of these ideas, which both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have variously articulated, signals Americans’ weariness with the pro-corporate globalism central to the political establishment (and much of the intellectual establishment, too).  Popular anxieties about immigration, out-sourcing, and unfair trade deals all spring from uncertainty as to what will prevent many forms of work from disappearing.  Experts tell Americans that globalism is good, but it’s hard to deny that it undermines national and personal autonomy.  Which lessens American power and independence, right?

Despite eliciting the scorn of experts who point to statistics suggesting otherwise, such ideas, mocked as parochial or alarmingly nationalistic, formerly propelled the US economy to might.  The ideal economy is one that promotes an egalitarian prosperity: this notion has been central to American political development, accounting for such diverse initiatives as protectionism, abolitionism, and the massive sale of public land into private hands, which gave millions of Americans a foothold in the nineteenth century.  A desire to ensure that Americans have the autonomy and cultivation needed to be active and informed citizens of the republic has accounted for many features of the US economy.  It bears considering what ‘economic patriotism’ should look like now.

Panicking in 1837

24 Jul 2016 By in History Tags: , , , , ,

black & white lithograph of a society in distress and disorder

Though a vestige of the distant past, Edward W Clay’s drawing of a demoralized and stricken society is as crisp and familiar as if it were drawn yesterday, because it encapsulates enduring American fears.  Created in 1837, soon after the end of Andrew Jackson’s presidency, the print depicts the social and psychological effects of an economic and political crisis then gripping the United States.  The print implicitly condemns Old Hickory’s rule, whose responsibility is invoked in a surreal fashion, his hat, spectacles, and pipe framing the word ‘Glory’ in the sky.

The individuals and crowds depicted personify both the causes of the economic collapse and its consequences, which included a souring of the national mood, blighted prospects, and various kinds of degradation and ugliness.

The unstable figures at left set the tone, a homeless woman lying with her child on the ground, composing a perverted “Holy Family” with the gentleman-turned-souse standing over her.  Tipsy and threatening to topple over entirely, he grasps a gin bottle, for which she reaches out eagerly.  Their homelessness and lack of propriety are shocking, even pitiful, yet they are not to be pitied, for, in the artist’s eyes, this class of people, shown gathered under the ‘Loco-Foco’ tent, had partly caused the economic catastrophe.

The Loco-Focos were extreme Democrats who demanded that the government have nothing to do with banking or the money supply.  They were the kind of angry down-and-outs who, just months earlier, had attacked landlords and the largest flour merchants in New York City, blaming them for the ruinously high prices that had driven them out-of-doors and left them hungry.  The Flour Riot, during which 6,000 protesters caused an estimated $60 million in damage, crystallized the class divisions and hatred that had intensified in tough times.

Also under the Loco-Foco tent is a black man dressed in some sort of military uniform.  Scowling and inscrutable, with a smoke dangling from his lips, he is armed and appears ready to do battle against property.  A flour barrel at right is still marked at $14, an astronomical price.  A scroll lying on the ground bears ‘Popular Sayings,’ among which is ‘Our sufferings is intolerable.’

The other principal figures in the print are more sympathetic.  They exude respectability (despite the fact that they have no shoes).  At right are two skilled craftsman, one of whom is begging, their useless tools emblems of stagnant industry.  Next to them is a barefoot seaman, possibly a mulatto, who, lacking other alternatives, is in danger of being re-enslaved, a white man with a whip standing over him.  A well-dressed mother with her son approach a fat bond broker, begging some change.

The background shows chaos gripping a prosperous city.  Rapid economic expansion had preceded the Panic of 1837, when a radical changes in the nation’s monetary policy caused a dreadful collapse.  Jackson’s destruction of the Bank of the United States (a forerunner of today’s Federal Reserve) had increased local banks’ issuance of paper currency not backed by specie (gold), a situation that was a nightmare to regulate.  Jackson responded with an executive order (the infamous Specie Circular) requiring that specie be used for certain transactions.  This further devalued paper money and set off a demand for gold coin that banks couldn’t meet.  Many collapsed.

The dislocation and hardship the Panic brought on caused a ground-swell of anti-government feeling and resentment toward bankers and the wealthy.  The political ‘establishment’ shown here isn’t suffering: the military is marching down the street, the sheriff’s office is buzzing.  On the far shore stand a busy alms-house and spanking-new prison.  Though the customs house is idle, the flow of imports at a standstill, plenty of patronage workers remain on its payroll.  These loungers look down from its safe confines.  Meanwhile, a crowd frantically forces its way into a bank, despite a sign announcing ‘No Specie Payments Made Here.’  Anti-semitism infuses the prominence given ‘Shylock Graspall,’ whose pawn-shop is busy.

All this when the nation was just 61 years of age!  From the perspective of the 2016 presidential election, Americans may conclude that little has changed.

Image from this source.
Click the image to enlarge.

Inside the Wigwam

17 Jun 2016 By in History Tags: , , , , , ,

The Wigwam, GOP convention 1860 Chicago(Courtesy of Library of Congress)
Nominating conventions came into being in the 1830s, after Andrew Jackson and his ilk turned party politics into a more egalitarian affair.  The elite caucuses that had once chosen presidential candidates gave way to more inclusive mass gatherings where delegates styled themselves as representatives of the people.  By the time the Republican Party formed in the 1850s, nominating conventions had become significant political events in the life of the country.  Journalists, artists, and photographers documented the appearance and actions of the delegates and the spirit and style of the gatherings.

This particular artist’s drawing shows the meeting of the Republican Party in Chicago in 1860, when the young anti-slavery party nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.  The Republicans went to the trouble to build a special hall for the convention, a vast domed wooden structure that they called the Wigwam.  (It stood at the corner of Lake and Wacker and was reportedly destroyed by fire in the late 1860s.)   Notably, the illustration shows a mainly female audience crowding the galleries to follow the proceedings.  (Women would not gain the right to vote until 1920.)

Faced with the likelihood that the federal government would sanction the spread of slavery into the West and strengthen its legal underpinnings everywhere in the US, those participating in the Republican convention believed it to be an event ‘on which the most momentous results are depending.’  ‘No body of men of equal number,’ the convention chair proclaimed, ‘was ever clothed with greater responsibility than those now within the hearing of my voice.’

The Republicans, though only a northern regional party, were intent on dislodging the dominant Democratic Party, which they did that November, against all odds.

Image from this source.

 

Bernie Sanders: Not Leading But Misleading

8 Jun 2016 By in Candidates and Campaigns Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

A dwarfed candidate slinks off as the world smirks at a campaign poster declaring him 'the people's choice.'

Yesterday, some two million Americans cast their votes for Bernie Sanders, in addition to the 10.5 million who had voted for him in earlier Democratic primaries.  But Hillary Clinton has simply out-polled him, garnering an estimated 13.5 million votes even prior to yesterday’s final set of state contests, the most populous of which (CA, NJ, and NM) she easily won.  In terms of  pledged delegates awarded on the basis of the primaries, Clinton won a total of 2,203 delegates, while Sanders racked up just 1,828.  Yet Sanders cannot bring himself to concede defeat: to acknowledge that she, rather than he, is ‘the people’s choice.’

All along, Hilary has had an advantage stemming from the fact that she enjoys the favor of many Democratic super-delegates, who do indeed wield an out-sized influence when it comes to determining the party’s presidential nominee.  The super-delegate system is a holdover from the days when party officials were entirely free to select at the convention any candidate on whom a majority of them could manage to agree.  Senator Sanders claims that this is undemocratic and unfair; but he would not make this claim if more of the party officials were inclined to favor him.

He is, in fact, exactly the kind of interloper whose self-interest is at odds with the communitarian nature of a political party, which requires internal discipline, compromise, and self-sacrifice, to remain ideologically coherent and unified.  Whereas Hillary Clinton has spent her entire career working within the network of the Democracy, Senator Sanders joined it only when he declared his candidacy, no doubt realizing that it would benefit him structurally.  But, having never given anything of himself to the party per se, he can hardly be surprised that its most influential members don’t feel they owe much consideration to him.

Sanders has little in common with his arch-rival, Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee.  Yet the two men are the same in failing to grasp the huge role that manners play in the presidency.  The president is the face of the nation, and sometimes that face is obliged to wear a gracious smile despite inward longings to sport a frown.  When, many months ago, I asked a friend her impressions of Sanders, she replied that he behaved as though he were still in college.  He does indeed resemble those intense young disciples we knew back then, with their no-frills backpacks and doctrinaire ideals.  Now in his 70s, Sanders has gained a fervent following, by feeding voters a vision that, without the support of a party, he would have no means of realizing, even if he were to rise to the presidency.

Ultimately, Sanders has deceived his followers, both by professing an imagined injury at the hands of Democracy and by perpetuating a fantastically exaggerated conception of presidential power.

Image:
 ‘The Day After: Licked, and the World Laughs at You’
(Puck Magazine), from this source.