Let’s bring forward a comment by Geof from the post two below, to give PT readers a chance to vent on the issue of the day – Trump and his consequences – in a post of its own:
I don’t think I’m saying anything new here, but it needs to be said again. In my view, the bigger problem isn’t the next four years: it’s what happens after that. Those of us who despise the man need to keep our eyes on the prize.
Trump didn’t win: the Democrats lost, convincingly, and not just at the presidential level. Though Trump certainly didn’t deserve to win, the Democrats did deserve to lose. The people voted for change in 2008. They didn’t get it, so they voted for change again in 2016. Throughout 2016, my response to friends who dismissed Trump was consistent: “I think he has a good chance.”
The rise of a xenophobic populist in response was entirely predictable. If not Trump, someone else would have appeared soon enough. I see him as like a wild animal: danger to be avoided, not some prodigy with the force of will to change history. He’s a buffoon. The real fault lies elsewhere. Yes, with ignorance and hatred, rampant in a country that has shredded its social institutions. More importantly with the people in charge when this was allowed to happen.
The Democrats need to develop a genuine popular alternative. They resoundingly rejected any such thing during the campaign. Since then, they have only doubled down on their mistakes. Embedded in a toxic neoliberal ideological brew of rationality and meritocracy from which they have benefited handsomely, their self-satisfied sermon to those who have been left behind boils down to “be more like us.” They believe the fault lies with anyone but themselves. Losing, they see the problem as too much democracy, not to little. They are unable to hide their desire to put Brecht into practice by dismissing the people and electing a new one.
Of course the Democrats and Republicans have long conspired to exclude any third parties, so the Democrats, with all their faults, are all there is. If they can’t offer change in four years, if they can’t learn to listen, if they can’t develop some humility, then I believe that we well see another Trump inauguration. At this rate, we may even see a constitutional convention of the states. The next four years will not be pretty. I’m far more concerned with what follows.
My own observation: I still do not know what people, Americans in particular, mean by “change”. I don’t think it is about the constitutional structure of the country; the American Constitution is a sacred document to them, and, like ours, almost impossible to change in any event.
If it’s only about a particular class of politicians, I don’t buy it. The strategy of the Right has been to discredit government generally, but only so they get to run it to the dictates of their ideology and for the advantage of their supporters. As the Republicans will find out, even their most avid supporters don’t want change that would erode the programs they depend on or are privileged by. If anything, they want a restoration of those advantages they believe they have lost. That’s not really ‘change’ as used by most commentators.
If it’s about ideology, I haven’t heard a coherent alternative that would address the issue underlying the last campaign, and will only become more critical as the next wave of automation impacts more of us: wealth and social inequity.
What, then, addresses this desire for ‘change’ that remains so undefined? What, in short, does it mean?
“What does it mean”: I think this is the right question. I suspect that this is not mainly about policy or the actions of government. Policy doesn’t win elections. I agree that wealth and inequality are key problems, but though I think it’s critical to address them, I’m not even sure that they are the root what has happened.
My personal inclination is that of the many factors involved, meaning is key. Once essentials are taken care of, we seek meaning, e.g. through the status on which we spend so much of our wealth. Socially, we crave recognition and identity, which I believe are genuine human needs. They are powerful enough that we honour people who sacrifice their lives for them.
One of the great benefits of democracy is that it gives us recognition through representation. We accept things we disagree with because our views are recognized as part of the decision-making process. Technocrats make a tragic error when they value democracy for its policies, putting the cart before the horse. They often hand-wave this away with claims that the market aggregates desires and interests. Only the views of elites, chosen meritocratically, are recognized. (That meritocracy doesn’t work is somewhat irrelevant, for if it did it would be a horror.) The rest of us are zeroes.
David Simon, creator The Wire, described the U.S. as a society in which people matter less and less. Institutions become like Olympian gods, uncaring and aloof; survival means not attracting their attention. Maybe that didn’t matter when we were getting richer, and when we believed that we were part of universal human progress, but those are fading, leaving a void. Faced with what geographer Manuel Castells twenty years ago called the global space of flows, those not part of the elite network retrench into individual identities tied to particular places.
I don’t know what the right policies are. Many argue that discarding neoliberal deregulation for social democracy, which sounds good, though with the looming threat of climate change I’m not sure it’s enough. Regardless, I am convinced of one thing: people need to be recognized. They need to feel that they have a place and an identity: even if that means suboptimal choices and policies. But that would cost a lot of powerful people their own sense of status and recognition. Right now, they don’t even see the need: because all their rationality, all their education, all their expertise says that their policies and choices are the right ones; they cannot see that human rationality, above all, theirs included, is a justification for what we already feel.
While people who feel they have been disenfranchised do have a need for official recognition, it seems possible that the anti-elite (possibly anti-everything) over-reaction down south will solidify that recognition with incoherence, incompetence and ultimately chaos.
Of course that needs to be played out until at least the Congressional mid-terms to confirm, but if the Democrats offer any alternative candidate to Trump, s/he would not only benefit from populism but, as Thomas Homer Dixon espoused in an early January editorial in the Globe and Mail, a discourse of reason. That discourse needs to be spoken in plain Plebeianese.
“That discourse needs to be spoken in plain Plebeianese.”
Yes! Judging by what I have read in the media, many educated people think Trump is a terrible speaker. I’ve only heard him a handful of times: the first 30 minutes of the first debate (at which point I said “he’s going to win,” and switched off), a 3 minute YouTube video outlining his agenda, the last 5-10 minutes of his inaugural address.
He surprised me. I don’t particularly dislike politicians, but they are usually such awful speakers with nothing to say. Like some police officers, they use ten-dollar words for ten-cent thoughts (“the officer who attended the scene exited the vehicle, at which point the officer observed the suspect engaged in an altercation with another individual”). Trump makes clear statements in simple words: “This is a problem. So we will do this. And it will be great.” In my view, that’s respecting the audience. It’s a more honest way of speaking. (Of course that’s misleading in his case, and some of the content is horrifying.) I agree with you – though I would be inclined to simply call it English.
I just encountered a counter-example.
A Translink ad on the Guardian site said they were bringing more Skytrain service. Translink actually buys advertising, I thought: Good! I clicked on it, keen to see what they had to say.
“Phase One of the 10-Year Vision: A plan for everyone. New investments in transportation are being made in communities across Metro Vancouver in 2017. Phase One of the 10-Year Vision is the critical first step in reducing overcrowding on our transit system and easing congestion on our roads. It’s a region-wide plan that will bring real improvements to the way Metro Vancouver residents travel, every day.”
The ad is about Skytrain frequency, but the landing page is a wall of text that starts off by reinforcing the idea that transit is crowded. Trains are finally mentioned half-way down:
“On the Expo and Millennium Lines, weekday peak-hour service has been extended and mid-day and early evening service on weekends has been increased, meaning shorter wait times and more options for passengers travelling at some of the busiest times of day. On weekends, improvements to service during mid-day and early evenings means trains will run every 3-6 minutes.”
I thought it already was 3-6 minutes. What’s the improvement?
I don’t mean to dump on Translink; I think they do a pretty good job. But they have a real perception problem, and stuff like this does little to help.
Imagine Trump. “Vancouver has Great transit. But we can make it better. Today I added 20% more Skytrain service. And my administration has ordered 28 more train cars. There will be more trains, and they will come sooner. That means shorter waits for you and your family. That means more ways for people to get to work. That means more space on the roads for cars and trucks. That will grow our economy and improve our quality of life. I did this with the help – you know, I was in San Diego last week; they have a nice little tram, great for tourist, but you have to wait 15 minutes – I did this with the help of the Province, the cities, and the Government of Canada, and you. Together, our investment will build terrific transit in one of the greatest cities in the world.”