US politics from a European perspective.
Dear Don,
I suppose that whatever I write these days about US politics is from a European perspective, but I think it might be time to crystallise that a little so that you can judge for yourself whether my viewpoint resonates on your side of the Atlantic.
I taught politics in high school for 36 years, and US politics and society was a major part of the examination syllabus – perhaps my favourite part of it, in fact. At the start of each course, I began with a potted history lesson that broke the development of your nation into a series of phases:
- The early settlers crammed into the Atlantic seaboard and deep south states, until eventually the poorest settlers were left with the rubbish land on the Appalachians;
- Meanwhile, as ocean-going ships made it easier to sale round Cape Horn, a handful of settlers made a good living on the Pacific Coast;
- The discovery of gold in California (and later Alaska) drove desperate poor folk in the east to uproot and make the dangerous journey by wagon to the west, across land that was largely unknown to white settlers apart from a few traders down the Mississippi;
- One third died; one third got stuck when the wheels literally came off; one third made it of whom 10% actually found gold. But the critical group are the third who got stuck, who had to fend for themselves, dependent on their guns and living by their Bible, so self-reliance is built into mid-west and Prairie culture and psyche.
So what we have in the USA is a “flyover states sandwich”, where the bread is the Atlantic Seaboard & Deep South on one side, and the Pacific states on the other; the “filling” is the vast area in between. These two groups have very different outlooks. Of course it’s more complicated than that: the proximity of railroads and major highways is one factor; so, too, is the poor Democrat inner city versus wealthy Republican leafy suburb friction. It’s a bit of a patchwork.
But when I started teaching US politics, there was one clear difference between US and British politics. Whereas here in Britain we’ve traditionally had a two-party system, or something akin to it, in America the two political parties have always simply been electoral machines, a means to organise the support necessary to get elected. So the differences between ‘Republicans’ and ‘Democrats’ were always rather nebulous: centrist candidates might potentially run on either ticket – and sometimes did. By contrast, there’s no chance whatsoever that I’d ever vote Conservative. (Incidentally, I think most US voters would vote Conservative over here; the things we hold most dear in our society – such as the Welfare State and the National Health Service, an unarmed police and mainly gun-free society – would be a bit radical for most American tastes.)
Most of all, though, the USA prided itself on a consensus that the country was a melting pot for migrants, a land of opportunity, and it rallied round the Stars and Stripes and government: for unity is strength, as trade unions insist. In return, the government of the day, at whatever level – town, city, state or federal – represented every citizen, whoever they voted for. That’s the essential contract of representative government.
Half a century after I started teaching, Donald Trump, and those who voted for him, have essentially given all that the middle finger. What Trump has done is to speak to the disaffected voters of the United States, those who are finding life tough and who feel ignored by traditional politicians – the Establishment. Perhaps they’re poor. Perhaps they feel they’re working hard for insufficient reward while others appear to be more fortunate. Perhaps they feel threatened when they go out. Stir in the support of significant numbers of business and financial folk and you have a toxic blend of humanity just strong enough to win elections. And this body of voters and politicians feels no responsibility to care for anyone except themselves – after all, they only need to pander to those who vote for them.
So the consensus is broken, and the United States is a divided nation. Gone are the Reagan/Eisenhower Republican Presidents, the Roosevelt/Truman Democratic Presidents who could reach across the party divide. I can’t see any way the wound can be healed, either, short of becoming engaged in a war which threatens the country’s very existence. That’s an even more awful thought. I did wonder if the covid pandemic might do the trick, but sadly you had exactly the wrong President at the wrong time.
To an extent, these chasms are opening up in societies everywhere, including here in the United Kingdom. That’s what’s behind the rise of far-right leaders and political parties such as Marine LePen in France, AfD in Germany, Georgia Meloni in Italy and of course Nigel Farage and Reform here in Britain. But at least our eyes are open here. Europe experienced Hitler and Mussolini first-hand. Although I said I’d never vote Conservative, I’d certainly do so to stop Farage and his henchmen.
I think that’s where the problem lies in the United States. There hasn’t been an existential threat to your country in over 200 years. Without downplaying the events in any way, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 are just pinpricks in history; no foreign power has dropped rockets or bombs on Tennessee in a while. Trump voters are insulated from the real world, the world where people are dying in wars, dying of disease, dying of hunger.
“Responsibility is for losers.” That could be lifted from a Donald Trump speech, couldn’t it?
Till the next time,
Gordon
