A Worrisome Opinion

These words are by Neal Gabler, an author of at least five books, a frequent contributor to The Atlantic magazine and who is currently working on a biography of Sen. Edward Kennedy, were forwarded to me by a distinguished retired law school dean in Pennsylvania.  Written the morning after the recent presidential election in the United States and carried on the Bill Moyers' web site,  this article is deeply pessimistic. We hope Mr. Gabler words are an over statement but some Americans are fearful that his assessment is accurate.- Glenn N. Holliman


Neal Gabler Writes:

America died on Nov. 8, 2016, not with a bang or a whimper, but at its own hand via electoral suicide. We the people chose a man who has shredded our values, our morals, our compassion, our tolerance, our decency, our sense of common purpose, our very identity — all the things that, however tenuously, made a nation out of a country.

Whatever place we now live in is not the same place it was on Nov. 7. No matter how the rest of the world looked at us on Nov. 7, they will now look at us differently. We are likely to be a pariah country. And we are lost for it. As I surveyed the ruin of that country this gray Wednesday morning, I found weary consolation in W.H. Auden’s poem, September 1, 1939, which concludes:

“Defenseless under the night

Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.”

I hunt for that affirming flame.

This generally has been called the “hate election” because everyone professed to hate both candidates. It turned out to be the hate election because, and let’s not mince words, of the hatefulness of the electorate. In the years to come, we will brace for the violence, the anger, the racism, the misogyny, the xenophobia, the nativism, the white sense of grievance that will undoubtedly be unleashed now that we have destroyed the values that have bound us.

We all knew these hatreds lurked under the thinnest veneer of civility. That civility finally is gone.

 In its absence, we may realize just how imperative that politesse was. It is the way we managed to coexist.

If there is a single sentence that characterizes the election, it is this: “He says the things I’m thinking.” That may be what is so terrifying. Who knew that so many tens of millions of white Americans were thinking unconscionable things about their fellow Americans? Who knew that tens of millions of white men felt so emasculated by women and challenged by minorities? Who knew that after years of seeming progress on race and gender, tens of millions of white Americans lived in seething resentment, waiting for a demagogue to arrive who would legitimize their worst selves and channel them into political power? Perhaps we had been living in a fool’s paradise. Now we aren’t.

This country has survived a civil war, two world wars, and a great depression. There are many who say we will survive this, too. Maybe we will, but we won’t survive unscathed. We know too much about each other to heal. No more can we pretend that we are exceptional or good or progressive or united. We are none of those things. Nor can we pretend that democracy works and that elections have more or less happy endings. Democracy only functions when its participants abide by certain conventions, certain codes of conduct and a respect for the process.

The virus that kills democracy is extremism because extremism disables those codes. Republicans have disrespected the process for decades. They have regarded any Democratic president as illegitimate. They have proudly boasted of preventing popularly elected Democrats from effecting policy and have asserted that only Republicans have the right to determine the nation’s course. They have worked tirelessly to make sure that the government cannot govern and to redefine the purpose of government as prevention rather than effectuation. In short, they haven’t believed in democracy for a long time, and the media never called them out on it.

Democracy can’t cope with extremism. Only violence and time can defeat it. The first is unacceptable, the second takes too long. Though Trump is an extremist, I have a feeling that he will be a very popular president and one likely to be re-elected by a substantial margin, no matter what he does or fails to do. That’s because ever since the days of Ronald Reagan, rhetoric has obviated action, speechifying has superseded governing.

Trump was absolutely correct when he bragged that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and his supporters wouldn’t care. It was a dictator’s ugly vaunt, but one that recognized this election never was about policy or economics or the “right path/wrong path,” or even values. It was about venting. So long as Trump vented their grievances, his all-white supporters didn’t care about anything else. He is smart enough to know that won’t change in the presidency. In fact, it is only likely to intensify. White America, Trump’s America, just wants to hear its anger bellowed. This is one time when the Bully Pulpit will be literal.

The media can’t be let off the hook for enabling an authoritarian to get to the White House. Long before he considered a presidential run, he was a media creation — a regular in the gossip pages, a photo on magazine covers, the bankrupt (morally and otherwise) mogul who hired and fired on The Apprentice. When he ran, the media treated him not as a candidate, but as a celebrity, and so treated him differently from ordinary pols. The media gave him free publicity, trumpeted his shenanigans, blasted out his tweets, allowed him to phone in his interviews, fell into his traps and generally kowtowed until they suddenly discovered that this joke could actually become president.

Just as Trump has shredded our values, our nation and our democracy, he has shredded the media. In this, as in his politics, he is only the latest avatar of a process that began long before his candidacy. Just as the sainted Ronald Reagan created an unbridgeable chasm between rich and poor that the Republicans would later exploit against Democrats, conservatives delegitimized mainstream journalism so that they could fill the vacuum.

With Trump’s election, I think that the ideal of an objective, truthful journalism is dead, never to be revived.

Retiring conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes complained that after years of bashing from the right wing, the mainstream media no longer could perform their function as reporters, observers, fact dispensers, and even truth tellers, and he said we needed them. Like Goebbels before them, conservatives understood that they had to create their own facts, their own truths, their own reality. They have done so, and in so doing effectively destroyed the very idea of objectivity. Trump can lie constantly only because white America has accepted an Orwellian sense of truth — the truth pulled inside out.

With Trump’s election, I think that the ideal of an objective, truthful journalism is dead, never to be revived. Like Nixon and Sarah Palin before him, Trump ran against the media, boomeranging off the public’s contempt for the press. He ran against what he regarded as media elitism and bias, and he ran on the idea that the press disdained working-class white America. Among the many now-widening divides in the country, this is a big one, the divide between the media and working-class whites, because it creates a Wild West of information – a media ecology in which nothing can be believed except what you already believe.

With the mainstream media so delegitimized — a delegitimization for which they bear a good deal of blame, not having had the courage to take on lies and expose false equivalencies — they have very little role to play going forward in our politics. I suspect most of them will surrender to Trumpism — if they were able to normalize Trump as a candidate, they will no doubt normalize him as president. Cable news may even welcome him as a continuous entertainment and ratings booster. And in any case, like Reagan, he is bulletproof. The media cannot touch him, even if they wanted to. Presumably, there will be some courageous guerrillas in the mainstream press, a kind of Resistance, who will try to fact-check him. But there will be few of them, and they will be whistling in the wind. Trump, like all dictators, is his own truth.

What’s more, Trump already has promised to take his war on the press into courtrooms and the halls of Congress. He wants to loosen libel protections, and he has threatened Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos of Amazon with an antitrust suit. Individual journalists have reason to fear him as well. He has already singled out NBC’s Katy Tur, perhaps the best of the television reporters, so that she needed the Secret Service to escort her from one of his rallies. Jewish journalists who have criticized Trump have been subjected to vicious anti-Semitism and intimidation from the alt-right. For the press, this is likely to be the new normal in an America in which white supremacists, neo-Nazi militias, racists, sexists, homophobes and anti-Semites have been legitimized by a new president who “says what I’m thinking.” It will be open season.

This converts the media from reporters to targets, and they have little recourse. Still, if anyone points the way forward, it may be New York Times columnist David Brooks. Brooks is no paragon. He always had seemed to willfully neglect modern Republicanism’s incipient fascism (now no longer incipient), and he was an apologist for conservative self-enrichment and bigotry. But this campaign season, Brooks pretty much dispensed with politics. He seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that no good could possibly come of any of this and retreated into spirituality. 

What Brooks promoted were values of mutual respect, a bolder sense of civic engagement, an emphasis on community and neighborhood, and overall a belief in trickle-up decency rather than trickle-down economics. He is not hopeful, but he hasn’t lost all hope.

For those of us now languishing in despair, this may be a prescription for rejuvenation. We have lost the country, but by refocusing, we may have gained our own little patch of the world and, more granularity, our own family. For journalists, Brooks may show how political reporting, which, as I said, is likely to be irrelevant in the Trump age, might yield to a broader moral context in which one considers the effect that policy, strategy and governance have not only on our physical and economic well-being but also on our spiritual well-being. In a society that is likely to be fractious and odious, we need a national conversation on values. The media could help start it.

But the disempowered media may have one more role to fill: They must bear witness. Many years from now, future generations will need to know what happened to us and how it happened. They will need to know how disgruntled white Americans, full of self-righteous indignation, found a way to take back a country they felt they were entitled to and which they believed had been lost. They will need to know about the ugliness and evil that destroyed us as a nation after great men like Lincoln and Roosevelt guided us through previous crises and kept our values intact. They will need to know, and they will need a vigorous, engaged, moral media to tell them. They will also need us.

We are not living for ourselves anymore in this country. Now we are living for history.

 Comments?

From our Richmond, Virginia librarian - 

"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

--H. L. Mencken 

From a Former Pennsylvania Motorcycle Rider -

Thank you Glenn, This is actually the second time I've read Mr. Gablers' article. I am as much agog (sp?) as I was the first time I read it. In fact I have become so un-nerved by this election that I have considered relocating. Thanks, KJH 

An Englishman's Concern

Our regular correspondent, David Lott, an Englishman living in France, laments some recent reporting in the British media.  A retired commercial and Royal Air Force pilot, and former United Kingdom Independent Party candidate for the House of Commons, David now tends his garden in Normandy with his lovely wife.  He shares his worries and concerns about on-going migration challenges to European culture and political values. 

His words and those of an anti-immigration political leader in the Netherlands capture some of the rising populist angst in Europe and the USA. Whatever one's stance on these issues or the recent presidential election in America, there is the question of freedom of speech in Western nations.-Glenn N. Holliman

David Lott writes:

I am normally cheerful and optimistic about the future but I have to say I am becoming fearful and almost feel as though people such as myself are becoming prey in the eyes of the establishment. It seems as I am white, old and critical of those who look down upon us from their great establishment heights that I am fair game for abuse, lies and the source of all that is evil. My crimes: helping to win Brexit and supporting President-elect Trump.

The other evening I watched with incredulity a major TV News programme conducted by the anchor, Jon Snow, who asserted that President-elect Trump's victory was entirely due to the support of white supremacists! This man is a household name and respected by many (but not I). In addition he had as a backdrop the Stars and Strips flag of the USA, on it was printed SUPREMACY in large letters and the flag now appears behind him every evening when the US presidential issue arises. The subliminal message is clear.

After his rant on white supremacy he mocked Trump's criticism of journalists who had opposed his campaign and then addressed an African American Trump supporting journalist invited by TV link whom he commenced to bully cruelly on the grounds of her race and credentials by saying she must also support white supremacists and was a disgrace to her race and her profession. She replied that there were only 3400 white supremacists in the US so it would have been difficult for them to have swung the election. He cut her off commenting that the interview had not been revealing.

His behaviour exhibits the normal state of hysteria here in the UK broadcast media. They behave like jackals trying to bring down the peoples vote here on Brexit and that of the victory of Donald Trump in the USA. Even I, of lowly status, have had my phone hacked and been subject to a journalistic 'fishing' exercise. 

So I present to you below Geert Wilder's defence speech to a Dutch court where he is on trial in the Netherlands to the following crime: in that 'He incited racism by asking a group of his supporters if they would indicate if they want more or less Moroccans allowed to enter the country'. Geert is the leader of the Freedom Party in Holland and is making great strides in the polls. His predecessor was murdered. I hope you find it revealing. 

"Mr. President, Members of the Court:

When I decided to address you here today, by making a final statement in this trial against freedom of speech, many people reacted by telling me it is useless. That you, the court, have already written the sentencing verdict a while ago. That everything indicates that you have already convicted me. And perhaps that is true. Nevertheless, here I am. Because I never give up. And I have a message for you and the Netherlands.

For centuries, the Netherlands are a symbol of freedom.

When one says Netherlands, one says freedom. And that is also true, perhaps especially, for those who have a different opinion than the establishment, the opposition. And our most important freedom is freedom of speech.

We, Dutch, say whatever is close to our hearts. And that is precisely what makes our country great. Freedom of speech is our pride.

And that, precisely that, is at stake here, today.

I refuse to believe that we are simply giving this freedom up. Because we are Dutch. That is why we never mince our words. And I, too, will never do that. And I am proud of that. No-one will be able to silence me.

Moreover, members of the court, for me personally, freedom of speech is the only freedom I still have. Every day, I am reminded of that. This morning, for example. I woke up in a safe-house. I got into an armoured car and was driven in a convoy to this high security courtroom at Schiphol. The bodyguards, the blue flashing lights, the sirens. Every day again. It is hell. But I am also intensely grateful for it.

Because they protect me, they literally keep me alive, they guarantee the last bit of freedom left to me: my freedom of speech. The freedom to go somewhere and speak about my ideals, my ideas to make the Netherlands — our country — stronger and safer. After twelve years without freedom, after having lived for safety reasons, together with my wife, in barracks, prisons and safe-houses, I know what lack of freedom means.

I sincerely hope that this will never happen to you, members of the court. That, unlike me, you will never have to be protected because Islamic terror organizations, such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS, and who knows how many individual Muslims, want to murder you. That you will no longer be allowed to empty your own mailbox, need to carry a bulletproof vest at meetings, and that there are police officers guarding the door whenever you use the bathroom. I hope you will be spared this.

However, if you would have experienced it — no matter how much you disagree with my views — you might perhaps understand that I cannot remain silent. That I should not remain silent. That I must speak. Not just for myself, but for the Netherlands, our country. That I need to use the only freedom that I still have to protect our country. Against Islam and against terrorism. Against immigration from Islamic countries. Against the huge problem with Moroccans in the Netherlands. I cannot remain silent about it; I have to speak out. That is my duty, I have to address it, I must warn for it, I have to propose solutions for it.

I had to give up my freedom to do this and I will continue. Always. People who want to stop me will have to murder me first.

And so, I stand here before you. Alone. But I am not alone. My voice is the voice of many. In 2012, nearly 1 million Dutch have voted for me. And there will be many more on March 15^th.

According to the latest poll, soon, we are going to have two million voters. Members of the court, you know these people. You meet them every day. As many as one in five Dutch citizens would vote the Party for Freedom, today. Perhaps your own driver, your gardener, your doctor or your domestic aid, the girlfriend of a registrar, your physiotherapist, the nurse at the nursing home of your parents, or the baker in your neighbourhood. They are ordinary people, ordinary Dutch. The people I am so proud of.

They have elected me to speak on their behalf. I am their spokesman. I am their representative. I say what they think. I speak on their behalf. And I do so determinedly and passionately. Every day again, including here, today.

So, do not forget that, when you judge me, you are not just passing judgement on a single man, but on millions of men and women in the Netherlands. You are judging millions of people. People who agree with me. People who will not understand a conviction. People who want their country back, who are sick and tired of not being listened to, who cherish freedom of expression.

Members of the court, you are passing judgement on the future of the Netherlands. And I tell you: if you convict me, you will convict half of the Netherlands. And many Dutch will lose their last bit of trust in the rule of law."

 Comments welcome

Climate Change

Our French/English/Florida writer, Terry Field, passes along an article on climate change, a very worrisome reality to him. - GNH

Read this article. NOTHING else is of the slightest consequence compared to this matter. Nothing.  The article comes from the UK paper The Independent, always correct and in depth on climate change. The author of the piece is Charlotte England. I see Sarkosy (past and perhaps future president of France) has said he will hit the US with a carbon tax on all its transactions with France if Trump rips up the Paris accord.  This reality is too appalling to contemplate without a good slug of Bourbon or Scotch. - Terry Field

It is a vision of a future so apocalyptic that it is hard to even imagine.

But, if leading scientists writing in one of the most respected academic journals are right, planet Earth could be on course for global warming of more than seven degrees Celsius within a lifetime.

And that, according to one of the world’s most renowned climatologists, could be “game over” – particularly given the imminent presence of climate change denier Donald Trump in the White House.

Scientists have long tried to work out how the climate will react over the coming decades to the greenhouse gases humans are pumping into the atmosphere.

According to the current best estimate, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if humans carry on with a “business as usual” approach using large amounts of fossil fuels, the Earth’s average temperature will rise by between 2.6 and 4.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

However new research by an international team of experts who looked into how the Earth’s climate has reacted over nearly 800,000 years warns this could be a major under-estimate.

Because, they believe, the climate is more sensitive to greenhouse gases when it is warmer.

In a paper in the journal Science Advances, they said the actual range could be between 4.78C to 7.36C by 2100, based on one set of calculations.

Some have dismissed the idea that the world would continue to burn fossil fuels despite obvious global warming, but emissions are still increasing despite a 1C rise in average thermometer readings since the 1880s.

And US President-elect Donald Trump has said he will rip up America’s commitments to the fight against climate change.

Professor Michael Mann, of Penn State University in the US, who led research that produced the famous “hockey stick” graph showing how humans were dramatically increasing the Earth’s temperature, told The Independent the new paper appeared "sound and the conclusions quite defensible".

Below from Adelaide, South Australia, Steph sends pictures of her horses caught in a rare rain storm last week!

“And it does indeed provide support for the notion that a Donald Trump presidency could be game over for the climate,” he wrote in an email.

“By ‘game over for the climate’, I mean game over for stabilizing warming below dangerous (ie greater than 2C) levels.

“If Trump makes good on his promises, and the US pulls out of the Paris [climate] treaty, it is difficult to see a path forward to keeping warming below those levels.”

Greenpeace UK said the new research was further evidence that urgent action was needed.

Dr Doug Parr, the environmental campaign group’s chief scientist, said: “The worrying thing is the suggestion climate sensitivity is higher [than thought] is not incompatible with higher temperatures we have been seeing this year.

“If there is science backing that up, that there’s a higher sensitivity of the climate to greenhouse gases, that puts at risk the prospect of keeping the globe at the Paris target of well below 2C.

“Anybody who understands the situation we find ourselves in would have already have realised we are in an emergency situation.”

Comments?

The View from Normandy via Florida

Regular correspondent, Terry Field of England and France unleashes his key board from his sojourn in Florida. I have carefully read Terry's analysis of the why of economic and political confusion of today, and his answers.  He is a London School of Economics graduate and successful English businessman.  

The rigor of his thinking reflects not only his scholarly training and career, but a keen mind that steps back and looks not only where we are as a global economy, but also where we can go.  Terry offers some answers to his questions.  This is a long but good read.  Find some time in your busy life to slowly read and reflect, especially as our learned correspondent moves toward his prescriptions for the future.  

Thanks Terry for your perceptive observations. Now I am going to slowly reread your tome especially the last paragraphs. - Glenn N. Holliman

Brexit and Trump

Are they the same thing? Do they arise from the same pressures, and if so what are those pressures? Can there be a success by radically changing the course the world has undertaken over the past half-century and more? Why have these events come to pass? What are the implications for the future not just of economic success, but climate resources and environment?

In all of this, has there been a retreat from the respect for science for analysis, for the truth that decision-making is always confronting complex pressures and choices, from which there can be only partial solutions.

In the West, it has long been policy to employ the technologies of communication and control to facilitate the transfer of manufacture to low cost regions of the world. This process has accelerated, and produced massive concentrations of capital in the nation states where the new industrial activity has been located. To facilitate this, China changed policy from autarky to ‘letting a thousand flowers bloom’ under Deng, whereby rapid industrial development would be achieved. China and America had developed a mutually beneficial agenda – capital would flow east, goods at low prices would flow West.

Surplus funds would cycle from China to the West via the US banking system. A new ‘oil cycle’, beneficial to both economies. Britain joined in, and Germany dragged Europe in as well.

For decades, the sun shone, the beach went on forever, the sea shimmered. Relatively few people lost their jobs, and those that did were socially marginalized – they were process and manufacturing workers, middling in intellect, not to be seen, expected to be disposable.

This is not a harshly unreasonable characterization of societal attitudes. Blue collar, ‘red neck’ people were a price worth paying for the spectacular gains being experienced by most others.

SO what changed?

In 2008 the roof fell in on those who held stocks and real estate, with mortgages and debt burdens attached. The owners were not in fact owners at all. They just thought they were. The real owners were  - via the banking system  - the bond-holders of the Middle East sovereign wealth funds and China itself.

Suddenly the ‘middle class’ family in Arkansas or Detroit found they were out of their home, out of their car, in a trailer-park, or bunked up with family somewhere else. Their part-owned assets had gone. They had joined the ranks of the industrially dispossessed.

Obama said he would fix it.

They lived in hope and elected him. SO what did he ( and Gordon Brown in Britain) do???

The made the nation state buy the debt burden of the valueless assets from the banks and put them on the national debt. They engaged in vast deficit finance to support the living standards of the hordes of un-working and un-productive people. They did the very opposite of the actions of the economic managers of the 1929 Great Depression.

Then, they paid down debt, now we expanded debt beyond anything previously imaginable.

Then they engaged in gigantic public works programs to ‘soak up’ the immense spike in unemployment, now no such public works programs have been undertaken

Then, the banks were allowed to fail – vast numbers of US ‘corresponding ‘ banks failed – many thousands of them – and the bond and equity holders were wiped out. Now, the corporate bondholders (mostly foreign sovereign wealth funds) were fully protected, the equity holders took the strain, and the depositors were sacrificed only to a very limited degree.

Why?

In part because Bernanke was a student of the Great Depression, and wished to avoid its social effects this time round.

The outcome of the two approaches, however, radically different, and explains much of what is being experienced, economically, socially, and now politically.

In contrast to the 1930s, where a sharp, indeed vicious V-shaped depression was seen, with a massive rise in unemployment, and an equally sharp and rapid recovery, now we see a sharp but limited fall in employment followed by a shift in employment practice to massive numbers employed on call-off remote terms, and a radical shift from secure employment to insecure part-time and constrained employment. At the same time, the growth available to the economy now is highly restricted for decades to come – because the interest rates chargeable on the gigantic debt burden must perforce be extremely low. This restricts bank activity – already inappropriately controlled ‘after the horse has bolted’ and the result is the ‘reserve army of the unemployed’ can not be helped. Socialism offered balm in the form of social welfare payments, but the hopelessness of poverty on welfare is no substitute for work.

Now Trump suggests stimulatory economic activity in the form of immense public works – utterly lunatic in a world that has already had gigantic stimulus form quantitative easing. He will stoke inflation, cause a cost-of capital crisis, and destroy the budget as interests rates explode. As for the currency. A further retreat from reserve currency status is guaranteed. Buy the present with the future, Mk 2.

Across America, and across Britain, those people spoke over Brexit and the Trump experience.

Prior to their desperation being expressed, the journalists and the ‘political class’ considered them not at all. In Britain the socialists used them as vote-fodder.

The progress of global integration was engaged in at all levels, most pleasurably and productively at the highest intellectual levels. Cultural, linguistic, economic, philosophical ties and fruitful comparisons yielded wonderful new fruits.

All of this meant nothing to those abandoned.

Add to this mix, a social phenomenon predicted by economists a century go, but only now able to be realized. The whole of the world would morph into a condition where a controlling class of super-billionaires would appear – dissociated from any particular ‘nation’, with local, insecure technical ‘middle classes appearing to do its bidding, whilst everywhere the poor and part-excluded would mushroom. There would be no more ‘first world’.

Only a world of serf and masters.

That this has happened is obvious to all, but what is not so obvious is the developing capacity of technology to remove the human Brain from all and every commercial, industrial, healthcare and other direct-service function. We are only starting to see the removal of lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, the list is endless, from the pursuit of their established worlds. That process will accelerate as silicone based systems rapidly remove carbon based systems from more and more activities we consider our own to perform.

What does this mean for our lives, and our thinking? For our politics? For the shape of our human societies.

We have already arrived at the point where productive output- in volume, quality, variety and location, is, to all intents and purposes, unlimited. As a trivial example, BMW some years ago said they could produce their superb products in unlimited numbers, but constrain output to maintain brand exclusivity and thus pricing power.

If output is unlimited, from factories and systems that no longer require other than trivial human employed input, how is the product of those factories to be ‘allocated’ to global society?? Will other, compensating new activities replace the old ones no longer needed? Experience to date suggests that has happened only slightly – and the immense wealth of the factory owners and the banks who process their ‘surplus’ as Mr Marx may have described it, is more and more concentrated.

Certainly economic inequality is more pronounced than it was at the time of both the Russian and French revolutions. But unlike then, it is based on a global economic scene, and thus not susceptible to corrective radical action. Does this mean, therefore, that the situation is hopeless, that serfdom, repression, poverty and misery will increase, and persist.

To answer that question it is necessary to look at two things. The first is an old idea, of modest name,  but much more powerful than anything Mr. Marx came up with in its implications. That simple idea says that the profits will be maximised when output is increased in volume to the point when the last and latest unit of output yields no marginal profit to the enterprise. Thus two things are made imperative – to seek to maximize output, and to do so by searching for willing customers. No customers, no sales, no sales no profits, no maximized output, no maximized total cumulative profit. That is the essence of unconstrained capitalism.

The United States has most perfectly epitomized this form of life. Other societies put restrictions in the way of this particular economic behaviour, for lack of understanding and/ or acceptance of its collateral social consequences.

What has changed in recent years?

The capital deployed has in part migrated to China and India to do the same thing but with greater profitability per unit of output. Equally importantly, process and control improvements allow for vastly greater output with a tiny fraction of the people previously employed.

Therefore, from a strictly national viewpoint, the system exports consumption and prosperity. Or it appears to do so. In reality globalization has a number of phases, the one most commented upon by politicians – particularly Mr. Trump and left-wing local protectionists – is the one that involves the loss of long held jobs, but in reality, that process is at an end in China as concerns the United States and Britain, not because there are not many millions of peasants available for work in Chinese factories, but because the Chinese currency rises to a level that both chokes off its exports, thus excluding those potential workers in the short term, but also causes imports to become affordable – our exports – before local Chinese brands and products are developed to service domestic demand. We should expect our goods to be rebranded as Chinese brands for local Chinese consumption before long.

In other words, these old and new economies behave like cells of the body – the cell walls harden and activity becomes internalized and largely self-contained.

That is where the United States and China are moving to now. A symptom is the return of some industrial activity from China to the United States.

What does this mean for the promises of Mr. Trump? What for the hopes and beliefs of his ‘movement’??? 

As with all politics, the mass of the people respond to events and ideas that have long passed and become irrelevant. The idea that a control over site location for factories by tariff controls between the US and China is laughable. The threshold for working in most plants is high in terms of intellect, education and skill set. Grunt work is not done anywhere apart from assembly work. The highest technology plants are not location dependent.

Of those who were desperate and voted for Trump, of those who were desperate and voted for Poles to be expelled from Britain – I would place a safe bet that very many lack the personal resources to be able to be employed in modern high tech manufacturing facilities. Even if those facilities need large numbers of people, which they do not.

Thirty years ago Boeing described an aluminum fuselage as a commodity product. Now composite and compound frames are made, by way of highly integrated capital equipment and only highly skilled technicians and engineers needed. Similarly with auto production – a final assembly operation combines subcomponents made in similar fashion to a composite airframe in terms of the intellect and skill levels needed.

In other words, Trump asks the wrong question, his acolytes also ask the wrong question, and Trump’s resultant absurd ideas that are bound to fail pour forth. The sort of stuff a child would have suggested.

Had this been 1960, an argument against globalization and protectionism could have been made – a flawed one, granted, but at least then a chance at stopping or slowing the leeching of capital abroad could have been tried. Then all capital of consequence was in the USA. Now it is everywhere.

Now it is FAR too late for such a question.

The hard reality for the West- and for the United States today – is not how to recover what once was – that cannot be done – the conditions that allowed for it are gone for good – but what shape society must take on in order to reflect infinite output with no human input- where ‘constrained demand’, as the economists now say, is the major problem.

Trumps schoolboy world involves command and control – tariffs, barriers, 19^th century stuff. Big man In Charge stuff.

All utterly irrelevant.

Trump, his advisers, all know this. As does Farage in Britian. Hence they offer the puffed up militarized national glory and nostalgia, together with utterly bogus ‘self-determination of the people’ wind as a smoke-screen for the economic failure they are already planning to deliver even before they have started their enterprise.

The United States is built on the testosterone of swaggering and immense success – the ‘taming’ of an entire continent, competition and winners. Losers fail because of inadequacy. The great success goes to the admirable person.

The very definition of Yankee freedom. Free to succeed; free to fail.

That worked well until people became less needed in the economy. It will not work at all when people, in general become utterly irrelevant to the functioning of the economy.

The search for mechanisms that heal the isolation and fear of the individual need to be found. They will go hand in hand with the search for the values that make for human happiness. Those values were known before industrialiation, became perverted by it, and now are submerged and further distorted by the experience of the militarized, super-violent nation-state which grinds people to dust or enriches them simply as need and circumstance arises. The state puts a gentle child behind a rifle in a trench in 1914, or decides to honour him and protect him as a citizen in Detroit in the boom years of the 1950s. Chance. Either way, the individual has had no real control- only the pretence of control.

The socialist would say he (or she) wishes the State to protect all individuals, but the reality of socialism is that it needs a super-powerful State apparatus to interpret need, and organize delivery. Again the individual has no say. Just like those in the US who voted against welfare and hoped in Trump.

No. Other solutions must be searched for if there is genuine motivation to help the poor, the lost, the isolated, the excluded. Part of the mix should include some of the following, none of which did I hear in Britain or the United States.

- Focus on the human being should be designed to re-establish fair access to resources. 

- Asset owners should have less, workers more. 

- The individual should be encouraged to be surrounded by family, not strangers as he moves across the landscape as ‘economic need’ arises. 

- Personal financial stability should be developed, and to do this, the power of the corporation should be curbed.

- Pension structures should no longer be personal in design, performance and out-turn. That can not work, and we see it does not work.

- Asset ownership should be priced to reinforce safety of ownership as long as an the individual wishes, and priced to not offer windfalls to one generation, and excluded poverty to another. This is a matter of economic structure constraining corporate distortion prices at will.

- Healthcare should enjoy some of the following characteristics, as a minimum. Capacity should be sufficient, available to all in need, but able to impose reasonable disciplines on individual responsibility on all concerned.

- Insurance companies should be unable to offer cover at prices reflecting mortality and morbidity statistics, whilst the rigging their profits by loading part of the demand side should ‘pre-existing conditions’ be experienced.  

In America, none of this is in place. To put it in place, the distorted and super-profit-inducing rigged mini-markets of the kaleidoscope of healthcare ‘providers’ and ‘consumers’ should be removed by rational actions by legislators. This would not be a removal of the free market. That does not exist in healthcare at present; it is a rigged system. A fully functioning market should be designed and legislated for.

No sign of any of that from the juvenile Mr Trump.

And in all of this, and so much more, the expectations of the individual should change. For the better. An economy growing at a couple of percent a year will- if it permits billionaires and multimillionaires – and that IS a social choice -  as night follows day, result in hordes of the dirt poor.

Therefore, we must revisit, in this new world of infinite output but armies of serfs unable to share in the abundance – the question Mr Marx asked, how do we offer what is needed for a good life for the many, from the gigantic resources of the few, who hold the assets, but do not ‘need’ them?

‘From each according to his means, to each according to his needs’. The success of the Theory of the Firm makes it imperative to ask that question.

It did not work with communism, for reasons we all understand.

That does not mean the question has gone away. It has returned with immense force.

But the election in the United States, and lunacy of Brexit, means it HAS to be addressed. And that requires high sophistication. Elites, the super-educated, philosopher kings, if you like.

Flowers from Terry and Fina's Normandy garden

But HUMBLE ones who LOVE their less well intellectually endowed fellow creatures.

This used to have a name.

We called it Chritianity.

We need to find it again, but in a form that does not support privilege. There is no Caeser to have anything rendered unto now.

And this time really make it work. For people. Not for concepts.

And in case you ask, yes, Hillary is closer to the real questions to be asked than Trump. Not much closer, but closer. - Terry Field

Comments?

The Day After....

by Glenn N. Holliman

The day after the American Presidential election has brought forth a slew of comments from friends and thoughtful leaders.  Thanks for sending these reflections. We have a new-normal and some of us must pause to collect our thoughts.  Many of us during the campaign decried the toxic words of the new President-Elect.  I note many of you have compared this election to the Brexit vote last June in the United Kingdom.

And it is disconcerting that for the second time in 16 years, the winner of the popular vote in a Presidential election is defeated by the peculiar American Electoral College system.   

Now for the sake of children and grandchildren, we all must wish the new President wisdom and the grace to govern this nation and to keep the world safe. - Glenn N. Holliman

November 10th - The Comments keep coming, so I list them below in which they come.  Thank you all.  

Dick from Central Pennsylvania emailed this autumn scene from his home.  The changing of the colors on a country road reminds us that seasons come and go. And that there is a season for everything under heaven. - GNH

Again from our Educator who spent his childhood and career in Alabama....

Alas, Glenn, my heart is heavy, as I cannot think of anyone but you, that I could send Terry's blog to that would understand or much less, believe it. For such is the life of life in medieval Alabama, which has actually taken a step BACK form the Age of Enlightenment!  I am truly a Poor, Wayfaring Stranger, traveling through a barren land.  Barren of reason, thought, and pursuit of knowledge for such a long time. 

From a Pennsylvania Art Teacher....

Hi, Glenn.  We are wasting way too much time wringing our hands over what the Europeans think of our election.  We have sustained them with our blood and treasure for a hundred years. They have made their choices and we have made ours.  The whining is becoming a bore.

From a Tennessee Clinical Psychologist....

Conservatives seek freedom, liberals justice, goals that are incompatible in their absolute forms. We liberals sought absolute justice in the early 70s and produced a terrorism aimed at power and privilege (now we would settle for a decent minimum wage).  

The right now seeks absolute freedom.  Since freedom is built on personal power, its excesses aim at license, and license leads to cynicism and nihilism, which is where we are.  Nihilism means there are no values but power, and words no longer engage and reveal what is real. Instead, language is a means to excite (usually toward anger) and need not have the first thing to do with whatever is real. 

The politics of nihilism has won a big victory and is not yet done. 

From a Pennsylvania Businessman....

Glenn, Thank you for sharing the comments of your many friends.  What now?  George Lyter
Again from Ontario, Canada....

The worst day in American history was 9/11.
The second was 11/9.

From Another Learned Correspondent in Australia....

Glenn, pardon me if this has already been said and I missed it. 

I wonder if this whole thing is a dreadful accident. It’s by no means unknown for voters to ‘send a message’ - in this case to The Establishment - to let them know they’re running out of patience, but without actually voting them out. But tinkering with the Collective Unconscious is a most imprecise instrument. Perhaps in this case resulting in an unintended consequence of Homeric proportions.

From Steph in Australia, Biographer and Playwright....

Hi Glenn

The photo of earth is uplifting, which we needed!

I read the blogs with interest, and it disturbs me to hear so many contributors lump all Trump voters with Brexiters (and I’m sure they would include Pauline Hanson here in Oz). The Brexiters, Trumpers and Hansonites are stereotyped as ‘racist’, ‘haters’, ‘red-necks’ etc, yet I know many people who voted for Britain to leave the EU, and have seen many Trump supporters interviewed, and spoken to many Hanson followers, and none of these people deserve any of those labels. 

They voted for radical change rather than the person. They want action. They are fed up with politically correct spin re. controversial problems such as border control, immigration of people who are perceived as either taking jobs or further burdening their welfare system, foreign ownership of land and industries, lack of protection of locally produced steel, immigration of a culture which is seen as threatening because it has values so opposed to modern western ones, the fighting of wars on foreign soils, etc etc. They wanted someone with the guts to say what many of them have thought for many years now and have been too afraid to say.  

So while I felt as sick as most of us when Trump trumped Hillary, and am terrified of the damage he might do to the international climate treaties and aims, and his encouragement of the gun lobbies, and of his unpredictable, reactive and erratic character, and his admiration of Putin, it really is very non-constructive and simplistic to lump ALL of these people as ‘deplorables’ or ‘morons’ or the names listed above. 

As you said Glenn,  now Trump must go to work, and he may find many of his own simplistic ‘slogans’ come back to bite him. If he doesn’t deliver, his former fans will eventually turn on him. If he does deliver on issues such as encouraging all Americans to bear arms, I fear greatly for America. If he delivers on some Democratic-type policy such as a workable and fair Health system,  I’ll be as thrilled as I’ll be surprised. 

Let’s obey Hillary’s magnanimous directive, and for now at least, keep an open mind. 

Steph Mc

From an Anglican Priest in Northeast Pennsylvania....

 I’m no poet and, as you might expect, Fran and I were literally astounded by the news that Trump had been selected via the Electoral College as America’s next President; regardless, here are some words that came to my mind in a feeble “poetic” manner:

    Trump, the master of con,

        felt the pulse of downtrodden others,

        thus gaining the majority votes of male and female whites.

    So now, those who supported the one who received a popular vote advantage

        fear the loss of their human and constitutional rights.

Peace to you and Barbara

From a Nurse and Election Volunteer in Texas....

I couldn't read paper or watch news. My son and his wife did not want to go to work. They have lots of gay friends. i keep hopingw ill wake up from nightmare. I never want to work election polls again, too many rude people. sad day.

My blood pressure was high at the foot doctor and she asked if I was stressed. I said after last night and she agreed without being to vocal. Guess they had been told to not comment. She said noticed your Hillary sticker on your iPad. She said the whole staff was sad.

Facebook groups recommend a boycott on January 20, 2917 (Inauguration day) economically and to not watch the ceremony. Knee jerk reaction but gives us something to control. Most of the women at my women's club tonight were trumpeters. They approached me and said they never thought he would win. Well, why did you vote for him? I They replied with let's see if he can live up to all us promises, oh he has the first 100 days planned and he is surrounded by good people. I walked away.

From a Distinguished Pennsylvania Judge....

I've observed the decision process play out in jury trials--hundreds of them. Whether I agreed with them was not important; only that I saw to the correctness of the process. The result was stated through our system of law, accepted, acted on in accordance with the decision and the body politic embodied in our constitutional legal system moved on and survived.

Such is our republic and it will continue to survive.

Take a break, look out the window and be thankful we live in a beautiful world.

From a Chemist in Buckinghamshire, England....

We are stunned and horrified too.

I got up at 5.30am expecting to see President Hillary announced and could not believe my eyes and ears.

As many of your other UK correspondents have said it feels like Brexit all over again and we simply cannot understand how it happened.

So we send you our sympathy but suggest that after a stiff drink or three it's time to shake ourselves down and plan for the future because in four short years America can elect someone far better from a huge wealth of talented people.

From an Ambassador of a European Nation in Europe....

What a surprise this result! I woke up at 4 am, checked the news in my cellphone and saw that the election results were heading towards something else than was predicted in the latest polls last night. By the way, I was last night at the election night event the American Embassy organized ...TV. The event was mainly for all the (local) politicians. The (American) Ambassador described in his opening speech that the event was mainly to celebrate the US election system and to celebrate that in the US that “a man in power gives up his post every four years”. And of course, I only stayed for the first couple of hours, so the results started coming in much later.

We don’t yet know what this new era will be. I’ll gladly continue reading your commentaries!

From a Physician in California....

Glen:

Comments below from my youngest daughter who is a vice principal of an elementary school in north Los Angeles area.

I'm still in shock but I have to believe that our America will unite out of this. It's how we come together and treat one another on a daily basis. Working in schools, I see my role now  more important than ever. 

Kindness trumps hate. Character trumps hate. Knowledge trumps hate. Culture trumps hate. 

I'm going to continue spending each day focusing on developing kind students who display character and who will use their knowledge to positively impact our world. I will continue to develop a culture of unity, and acceptance. A culture where we value diversity. 

It's what we do on a daily basis that will lift our country out of this sadness and continue to move us forward. 

From Business Tech in South Africa....

What implications does a Trump presidency hold for South Africa?

According to Professor André Heymans from the School of Economic and Business Sciences at the North-West University, the consequences may be dire.

“When the news broke, the rand lost approximately 3.7% of its worth, but since then it has stabilised a bit. Although Trump has mentioned speech that the USA want to do business with other countries, his focus will be on his country’s fledgling middle class by bringing jobs back to the US and keeping them there,” said Heymans.

“That means that the US will want to be more self-sustaining, resulting in less manufactured goods being imported to the US from other countries – including South Africa.  The main concern is that Trump will want to accomplish this by raising import costs as to make it cheaper for Americans to buy locally produced goods in comparisons to imported ones. The USA is one of South Africa’s single biggest export destinations and to implement such a hike in import costs will severely hurt South Africa’s economy,” he said.

here is, however, a flip-side to the coin should government decide to exploit it, said Professor Melville Saayman, director of the research unit TREES (Tourism Research in Economic Environs and Society). He said that the former reality television star’s abrasive attitude may hold a benefit for South Africa’s tourism sector.

“When one looks at what Trump has proposed during his campaign, then it seems that traveling to the United States will become a lot more difficult now that he is president. He is a proponent of stricter measures of control and in the past South Africa has been able to exploit such situations. I think with some creative marketing we will be able to do so again because we are still one of the best value for money destinations.

“I think that until he does some positive things over an extended period of time the country’s reputation and image will suffer. He will need to foster a sense of trust and confidence and that will be hard to do seeing that a lot of the mainstream media will focus on the more negative aspects of his speeches and his actions,” Saayman said.

From a United Methodist Minister in Tennessee....

Beautiful autumn pix!  Thanks.

Yes, we must listen to one another ... right now, I need a grief counselor!!

From a High School English Teacher in Tennessee....

I can not think about what happened....as you well know, this is how I deal with unpleasant things...I don't think about them!  I have not turned on the television at all today...usually it is on MSNBC all day, but I can not bear to look at that man's face, his family, his people, etc.  George and Abraham and William Henry and Thomas and Teddy and Franklin must all be turning over in their graves...how does he even rate the name "President"?  It is unbelievable to me that in 2016 someone of his intellect and moral depravity could be chosen...just shows you the stupidity of millions of people....I'm scared for our country and the world...

How could so many people...pundits, media, etc. get it so wrong....

From Engishman Terry Field who watched the campaign from Florida....

Hello Glen, Hello Barb.

This is a dreadful result.

I hope so much that the election does not badly affect your children, their healthcare, their place in society in any way. Let us remain hopeful.

As you are aware, for me, there is an overwhelming matter, one that dwarfs all others.

Climate catastrophe now looks likely to be unstoppable. All else pales to significance compared to that.

Universal suffrage is the real cause of this.

Think about it.Glenn,

I see Hillary gained 2 million more votes that him.

Clearly it is not only a universal suffrage matter, but also a matter of your constitutional structure.

God is not mocked.

Gore gained more votes, and we experienced war and failure in the Middle East

Now, the disaster will be environmental and climate, as well a social and medical.

God is not mocked.

Hillary was the answer. He is the problem. God help us now.

From a Legal Scholar in Pennsylvania....

Glenn, I was up this morning and noticed that the sun came up...Great new....and, as I predicted,  it was in the east.

I am not as pessimistic as many of my friends although last night's results were depressing, but remember...... in a republic all political victories are temporary as are all political defeats.  What I find depressing is that the public has no idea of what the winner's policies will be and those who voted for the winner were willing to ignore some personality traits of a very despicable individual.....Trump is certainly a long way from Honest Abe Lincoln or Dwight Eisenhower or Ronald Reagan or George H. W. Bush or John McCain or Mitt Romney.  Oh, well.

Dan S.  

From Scotland, a successful Business Family....

Glenn, Barb,

Awakened to this news, similar feelings to when we awoke to our departure from Europe news.

This of course is on a much bigger scale, so unexpected.

Will keep watching all forthcoming events intently, the world will be a very different place.

Margaret and Bill

From the Midlands of England, retired Educators....

The same dark, populist, anti-representative democracy movement which led to Brexit has triumphed again. On the bright side, the voters of the US will have a chance to think again in four years time; we in the UK, however are totally, irrevocably, stuffed.

We must hope that, during these four years, we avoid the Third World War and survive the world recession.

Keep drinking the vodka.

D&M

From a Banker in Toronto....

Glenn, I love the vodka line!

In trying to understand what happened yesterday, I found this story in the Guardian of interest. Its headline is: Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there. It was written by Thomas Frank. In particular, this line struck me:

"The American white-collar class just spent the year rallying around a super-competent professional (who really wasn’t all that competent) and either insulting or silencing everyone who didn’t accept their assessment. And then they lost. Maybe it’s time to consider whether there’s something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/donald-trump-white-house-hillary-clinton-liberals?CMP=share_btn_tw

It reminds me of the Brexit situation.. Elites out of touch with the common person. People fed up with being ignored by elites in media and politics. Perhaps it is time for politicians everywhere to climb down from their high horses and pay more attention to the average working stiff.

- David

From a Gay Business Woman in Florida....

She (Hillary) was talking to the baby boomers who are already living a very settled comfortable life. She's lost touch as well and that is a shame for ALL of us! Trump tapped into the fear of the uneducated and won the vote based on fear and ignorance! Hillary is so smart she missed that totally! Bad move on her part!

So Trump just scammed the working class uneducated sector as they are looking for any tiny ray of hope! Hillary missed the boat on this topic TOTALLY!

We can only hope there's enough people in GOP with different agendas than taking rights away!! Neither Hillary or Trump are even remotely able to understand the life of the average folks like us. People living check to check. Folks like you are NOT the norm! Then gen X and millennials work to pay bills... we do not have the extra income for retirements, and pensions are a thing of the past! So NEITHER of them are qualified to help the average American's plight of daily financial struggles. Because they have no clue what it's like to have to "put things back" at a grocery store just to be able to pay!!

From a Concerned Citizen in Greater London....

Hi Glenn

Deepest sympathy from us here.  I guess you will be needing to fortify yourself with something a bit stronger than coffee today.  So, you will have a President who is a misogynist, racist, ignorant, with no proper joined up policies – deep joy.   But it could only be for 4 years, if you are lucky.  His protectionist stance will not help the U K, which is stupidly about to commit an act of national suicide by cutting itself off from its largest market.    One of the things I heard on U K radio was that the gun lobby was a factor (surprise!)

I just hope that the depression that has gripped me since 24 June will not happen to you.  But it has lifted a lot with the High Court ruling.

Best wishes, Sue

From a Cat-Loving Woman in Pennsylvania....

My hope is that his narcissism will keep him under control.  It seems Kelly Anne (his campaign manager) was able to do it and helped him win.  I hope his statement on making health care better is true. But the GOP Senate and House will destroy women's rights health care and rights for gays. It is like 1930 again.

From Educators in Ontario, Canada....

Dear Barb and Glenn,

I am numb. This is beyond belief. It's as if we have entered an alternate universe, in which reason does not exist. I just want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over my head.
It was a terrifying victory of fear and hatred.
God bless America, indeed.

From a Business Woman in High Wycombe, England....

I stayed up till 01.45 our time but couldn’t stay awake longer.  At that point Florida was still going back and forth with most pundits predicting a Democrat win.  How things can change in a few hours!  I can send details of properties for sale in the Cotswolds if you like!  

From Helen Philpott's Texas Blog....

Dear Hillary - Dear Hillary,

We are so proud of you. Take some time off, dear. We’ll take it from here. 

Dear Readers of Margaret & Helen,

Our greatest work starts now. If you have a neighbor who has been targeted this election, hug them and remind them that this is still their America too. If you have a neighbor who voted for Trump, congratulate them on their win and then move on.

In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers prepared us for this. Call your local Democratic office today and ask them how you can get involved. Washington moves mercifully slow. We have two years to take Congress away from this man and four years to restore our dignity.

Our Democracy is stronger than one man and one election. This grand experiment we call the United States has not failed. It has just begun. 

Today we heal.

Tomorrow we act.

2018 we correct.

2020 we redeem.

We broke it and now we must fix it. The world is counting on us.  I mean it. Really.

From a Concert Organist in Florida....

I think many of us will be in a state of shock for quite a while!

Question for the day - "Why does God hate the United States?"

M

From Suffolk, England....

I hardly know what to say.

Without trying to sound too dramatic the world as we know it is coming to an end. With Brexit and Trump I simply do not understand what is happening any more. All I can say is  'be careful what you wish for'. 

From an Educator in Georgia, USA....

Evidently there are more Americans who HATE than I thought. On another note, I have closed the book with the organized Protestant religions of my upbringing. They are hardly what their founders wanted them to be, nor are they in line with who are what I am anymore. In my 72, and close to 73 years on this planet, I have never worried about the future of our country until today, November 9, 2016.
" 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." (John Adams)

From an Englishman who Lives in Wales....

That's that then Glenn, therefore you Democrats must now endeavour to smoke the pipe of peace and unite with the Republicans and Independents, no matter how unpalatable that will be, in a common just cause for the future benefit and prosperity of your great nation both at home and abroad and put aside petty squabbles.

The pendulum has swung to the right, and Trump's proto-dynastic role as the next Commander-in-Chief has now superseded the inherited dynasties of the Bushes' and Clintons'.

Who next? For some of his children will now be groomed for later presidential office.

It's certainly been "The Greatest Crazy Show on Earth."

When David Cameron monotonously bombarded us almost every day with pompous rhetoric against Brexit, he got on people's nerves whom he took for granted; then he was shocked when we basically told him to get stuffed.

He just couldn't understand the common people as he lived in his fantasy world of an "untouchable" glass bubble of an ivory tower.

After the euphoria and dejection has dissipated, Glenn, things will hopefully settle down.

From our Writer in Australia....

Just finished watching HIS speech. Mmmm, how magnanimous he is in victory, how low would he have stooped in defeat. Makes us shudder to think. But we no longer have to watch Hillary being crucified, and he will try to curb foreign ownership and might put at least a filter on Muslim immigration, and also we won't have to witness him calling the election rigged and putting his people on the streets armed to the teeth. We'll see. He'll find out that words are easy. Action is difficult and needs care.

I'm off to get out the vomit bowl.  Love and condolences.

From David Lott in Normandy, France....

Dear Glenn and Barbara,

I woke this morning for the second time in 2016 to find that, the' underclass' as we are called here or the 'deplorables' as Trump voters are looked upon by the establishment in the USA, that we have won. For Kathy and I the predominant feeling is one of immense relief ,despite having felt he would win all along in the face of poor polling to the contrary and I remember I said so in one of my posts on your blog.

The parallels with Brexit are now obvious to one and all. One side had the broadcast media in its pocket and the other side did not. One side had enthusiastic passionate new voters and the other did not, along with doubtful polling loaded against the eventual winners. Each of the winners had a controversial charismatic person leading the charge.

Both results followed constitutional democratic process and both results are valid and reflect the will of the people. Both results must be accepted if peace is to reign. Here in the UK judges are trying to pick our success apart, I do hope the courts in the US do NOT follow suit as the potential for dreadful civil unrest will be very serious indeed.

In order to draw the electorate together in both countries you must give Trump and the Brexiteers led by Nigel Farage and his followers in the Tory Party a chance. Only by doing so can one preserve our democracies. After four years you can judge Trump upon his record which is exactly how it should be.

All those on the losing side really must make a real effort to understand the motives of the winning side electors. They are not evil in any way and you all should disabuse yourselves of such prejudice. They have not voted in this manner without good reason and I outlined in two earlier articles entitled Truth and Trust what is behind this successful movement. Please do not fight the result but endeavour to understand why it has come about even though you may not agree with the policies.

For your interest here is a take on the objectionable intervention of the High Court in frustrating the will of the people concerning the activation of Article 50 of the EU Lisbon Treaty. This Treaty Article merely starts the process of leaving the EU. At the end of the process Parliament will vote upon the Great Reform Act that will put all EU legislation into UK law in order for Parliament to deal with it at its leisure.

UKIP London MEP Gerard Batten who sits on the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the European Parliament said, “This judgement is a political decision by part of the establishment that wants to thwart the will of the British people in the Referendum.

“Part of the reasoning of the Court is that triggering Article 50 “will inevitably effect the changing of domestic law”. However, this is precisely the argument for why they cannot make this ruling.  Treaties are merely agreements between governments.  The courts cannot rule on them until they become part of domestic law by means of Acts of Parliament.

“All previous treaties have been entered into and signed by British governments using the Royal Prerogative without a vote in Parliament first. Only when parts are incorporated into law by Act of Parliament does Parliament become involved, and the courts have jurisdiction over their application.

“This argument is clearly set out in a judgement of the House of Lords in the case of Rayner v Department of Trade and Industry (1990) 2 AC 418.  This judgement.”clearly states that the Government may repudiate or terminate a Treaty". Triggering Article 50 may indeed inevitably affect domestic law but until it does the courts have no jurisdiction.

“The Supreme Court meets on 7th December to confirm or set aside this decision.  If they confirm it they will be setting themselves against the democratic will of the electorate and will precipitate a constitutional crisis.  The outcome of which cannot be foreseen

We also have worries concerning the inclinations of the Judges involved. A number have been involved in an EU funded examination of the compatibility of EU law (Corpus Juris, largely the Napoleonic code) with English Common Law. The latter is largely used in the USA and many Commonwealth countries and was developed over 1000 years. The EU has stated that Corpus Juris should apply throughout the EU. For this reason we do not trust the impartiality of many of the judges.

I am sure you will not mind if Kathy and I have a glass of champagne tonight.

Best wishes

From a Pennsylvanian who Describes Himself being from the Backwoods....

Thought you might get some "interesting" comments from your email.

Touchy subject.

And much to learn from the outcome of the election.

You, as an historian, might well reflect on the Great Depression and

how two themes emerged: creation of jobs via the New Deal

and the fantastic growth of isolationism.  Globalization was

certainly not part of the mind set.

Never mind that some historians feel that our isolationist posture

of the 1930s helped to lay the foundation for the emergence of WW II.

We just went through a Great Recession.  Some folk lost

over 40%  of their retirement income.  Yes, we have recovered

those loses but many are still looking for jobs, feeling left behind,

and wondering why the borders are so open to people who are "taking

their jobs away" from hard working American citizens.  That may be

perception rather than fact.

But isn't it amazing how we experience such similar cycles in our

corporate history!  We do seem to be back to where we were in

the mid to late 1930s; the need to create jobs and the growth of

isolationism!  Let's hope that we are not setting the stage for a major war?

Yes, I am not giving you a statement of my own political belief but my perception

of how others are viewing the situation and why they voted as they

did. 

A professor from F & M commented about what he was hearing

from his own polling.  He said, "Many feel that this is no longer their country.

Indeed, they feel as if they are strangers in their own country even

though they were born here, have been citizens all their life,

and have lived and worked here for fifty, sixty or seventy so years."

Pro or Con, my thanks to all for this civilized discussion. May we continue to listen and ponder the human condition together.   GNH

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