Turbulent Seas

There's never a shortage of contemporary Cassandras who forecast America's doom based on a collection of trends and statistical indicators.  I'm sure every powerful nation-state going back to ancient Babylon has had its share of them.  But sooner or later, one of them ends up getting something right.  Like this one.  Here's an excerpt from Ed Luce's 2012 book, Time to Start Thinking:

Fast-forward six years, and Luce's analysis turned out to be dead-on.  It's not difficult to understand why voters feel disconnected from the two major parties. Consider the major events and trends of the past ten to fifteen years.  The 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent Wall Street bailout. Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.  The outsourcing/automation of manufacturing jobs and stagnant wages.  Government shut-downs and political brinkmanship.  The "Retail Apocalypse." Two quagmire wars.  It doesn't take an expert social scientist to understand that a whole lot of people are increasingly uncertain about their futures, and that they view Washington and Wall Street elites as unhelpful and indifferent.  It's a simple equation: economic distress + frustration with current system = openness to demagoguery.  Just to make things interesting, add a healthy amount of simmering racial resentment.

And so, enter Donald Trump.  If you wonder why I rail against him so vocally, it's because he ascended to the presidency at a really bad time.  And I'm not just talking about the portion of the population worried about their futures. The day he took office, the NSA was engaging in bulk data collection of Americans' communications, dozens of police forces across the country were utilizing military-grade equipment, the precedent of launching drone strikes against American citizens without due process had been established, and our civil liberties were being eroded in the name of fighting terrorism.   It was a farfetched, extreme worst-case scenario, but taken together those things would provide an aspiring autocrat all the tools they needed.  So when Trump said things like he'd only acknowledge the election results "if he won," I got a bit nervous. 

I'm sure there are many, many servicemembers, police officers, intelligence analysts, and other government workers who refuse to carry out unconstitutional, and potentially, authoritarian-type orders - like spying on citizens because of their political views or anti-Trump activism.  There are many public servants who understand the Constitution, who know their history, and who recognize the potential of these programs being used toward undemocratic ends.  However, there would still be a significant number who would carry out those orders, and one only needs to look at the past fifty or so years of US history to find examples.  Look at Abu Ghraib, COINTELPRO, Operation Northwoods, the Chicago PD "black sites," and several other incidents, to see how easy it is for things to go off the rails.

Meanwhile, nothing is being done to fix any of this.  Now maybe there's no easy solution for the economic anxiety stuff, but I'm sure there are ways to alleviate the distress: job retraining programs, government investment in developing industries like nanotechnology and solar energy, etc. But the government could be doing a much better job of cleaning its own house: terminating the bulk collection program, making police forces get rid of the military hardware, strengthening Constitutional protections and curbing Executive power.  Yet to nobody's surprise, it's not. 

I'm a natural pessimist, but I don't see this ending well unless the political and business classes start acting to make Americans' lives better.  The path is wide open for a genuine autocrat to show up, and that person probably won't be as incompetent as Trump has been.

Frogs and Boiling Water: Trump's Incremental Swing toward Authoritarianism

Feel great yet, America?

We've all heard that folksy wisdom about the frog and the boiling water, or about glaciers moving slowly.  Each piece of wisdom has essentially the same take-away: that we can overlook incremental shifts if they occur slowly, until enough increments have accumulated, and we're in an entirely different situation.

It's been almost a full year into the Trump presidency, and if you look at the long-term view, there's been a noticeable shift toward authoritarianism.  It's not a major shift, but it is a noteworthy one, because any movement toward authoritarianism is noteworthy.  So what has this administration done so far that has nudged us toward authoritarianism? Here's a list of the most significant things it's done:

• Floating the idea of privatizing intelligence collection
• Publicly disparaging the judicial system, the FBI, and the media - all key democratic institutions, in their own way
• Moving to centralize decision-making among his inner circle (AKA family members)
• Establishing an commission to investigate the overhyped voter fraud problem, likely intended to disenfranchise millions of voters
• Expressing admiration for brutal despots and heavy-handed law enforcement officers and harsh tactics
• Hinting that thousands of Americans are under surveillance (while his administration's lawyers have argued they can continue a controversial surveillance program even if Congressional authorization expires)

Feel great yet, America?

There are two ways to look at this.  On one hand, a lot of this is just posturing - a mix of blustery rants, fueled by Trump's anger and frustration in reaction to policy defeats, and him being a masterful showman and playing to the crowd.  Trump hasn't taken many concrete actions to translate his words into policies.  On the other hand, it's probably not a coincidence that authoritarianism is a recurring theme in Trump's words and opinions.  Any tendency that surfaces so many times is a sign of a belief a person holds.  When Trump remarked that he'd only acknowledge the election results if he won, maybe he was joking - but there was a grain of honesty in it.  On some level, Trump was giving us a glimpse behind the curtain. 

There are also many parallels between Trump's words (and deeds) and things both past and present authoritarian regimes have done.  Sarah Kendzior (among other journalists) has made a career researching authoritarian regimes, and she has been sounding the alarm about the Trump administration for months.  She has written some truly amazing articles.  When I first discovered her writing, I thought she was being too alarmist; but she has been well ahead of the curve in predicting Trump's next moves. And even if it's just talk, the president's words send a message of what's acceptable to all the subordinate Executive Branch agencies.  It's not a coincidence that ICE methods have gotten harsher since Trump took office.  Things like these are more like small steps than giant leap, but even small steps deserve pushback.

In my lifetime, I've never doubted that a president would step down once his term was over - until now.  This is why Trump's statements can't be written off as harmless jokes.  When he made the remark about honoring the election results, it was like saying "bomb" in an airport.  It may be said in jest, but it's not something to joke about.  And Trump has said a lot of things that could be interpreted as signs he might not step down.  Additionally, Trump enjoys a lot of legal advantages and protections he didn't get as a private citizen - which will become more important to him and his inner circle as the Mueller investigation closes in.

And even if Trump does leave voluntarily, what about where we are as a country?

Because the truth is, Trump's campaign rhetoric had a grain of truth to it: DC is a swamp that needs draining.  The politicians and wealthy donors take care of each other, while they put on a show of holding those who step out of line accountable.  Remember General Petraeus? He would be in jail for the rest of his life if he'd been a junior enlisted without the right political connections.  How about GWB and the Iraq War architects? That got swept under the rug, and nobody was held accountable.  Same thing with the Wall Street banking CEOs who crashed the economy in 2008 - nobody went to jail for that.  People see all of that, and it feeds a narrative that the government is neglecting average Joes and Janes - and perception creates reality.  Right now, that perception/reality is feeding a lot of frustration with the status quo.

Feel great yet, America? You should; because as bad as things have gotten, there's a glimmer of hope on the horizon.  People are getting more politically active.  A record number of women have filed to run for office, Paul Ryan is facing a credible challenger to his House seat, the Virginia election was a kind-of referendum on Trump's performance, and the Women's March drew one of the biggest crowds in US history.  For the most part, our institutions are holding, too.  Trump is stocking federal judge positions with ideologically similar candidates, and that goes in the "loss" column; but the victories outweigh that. 

The battle to undo Trump's damage and set things right will not be easy, but the end result will be worth it. 

Feel great, America.

Batman, Captain America, and the War on Terror

Art and life mirror each other all the time.  Fictional "technology" has inspired a number of scientists, entrepreneurs, and inventors; and countless works of fiction have been based on actual historical events.  This blog entry will focus on one ongoing event that has exerted significant influence on American policies since 2001.  That event, obviously, is the War on Terror; and two movies which incorporated aspects of the War on Terror in their plots are The Dark Knight and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

First, let's look at The Dark Knight.  There are two parts of the movie that resemble American war-fighting methods.  Toward the middle of the movie, Batman abducts Lau, a criminal organization's accountant, from Hong Kong.  (Side note: Batman escapes using a CIA-designed personnel recovery system.)  Batman's escape strategy is bolder and more dramatic, but it is virtually identical to a controversial (and in many countries, illegal) counter-terrorism tactic called extraordinary rendition.  The big difference is that instead of being dragged back to Gotham, the prisoner gets delivered to a secret prison in a country where cruel treatment is acceptable. 

The next incident in The Dark Knight that parallels the War on Terror occurs toward the film's end.  Batman uses his corporation's resources to access every cell phone in Gotham, in order to find the Joker.  This also resembled an American government tactic for fighting the War on Terror, although the general public wouldn't learn about the government's mass surveillance programs until about five years after The Dark Knight premiered.

Now, let's look at Captain America.  The central conflict is that Hydra (doesn't that just sound like an evil organization?) has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D and plans to use its helicarriers (which make AC-130s look like BB guns) to eliminate Hydra's adversaries.  A Hydra scientist invented a mathematical equation that could identify which people might oppose Hydra; while the helicarriers acted as a high-altitude sniper rifle, and had the advantage of being out of range of antiaircraft weapons.  In many ways, Hydra's master plan is like America's criteria for deciding who ends up on the receiving end of a drone strike.  It's called a "signature strike", and here's a good definition courtesy of Foreign Policy magazine's Dan DeLuce and Paul McLeary:

"Signature strikes were first used during George W. Bush’s administration, and the name refers to the fact that the targets — by virtue of their ages, actions, and locations inside countries known to house terrorist operatives — bear the “signature” of militant activity. U.S. intelligence and defense officials believe the strikes have inflicted heavy damage on al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. But critics say the rules for the drone strikes against large numbers of military-age men are too vague and carry an unacceptably high risk of killing innocent civilians who have no connection to any terrorist plot."

I want to bring up one other point to tie this back to political theory.  Both movies hint at the moral and philosophical conflict of freedom vs security.  That dilemma is something else that comes up a lot in real life.  The Founding Fathers leaned heavily toward the "freedom" side of the scale, especially when it came to restricting government power, and it's pretty noticeable in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as writings many of them left behind.  The back-and-forth debate between security and liberty still goes on, and probably will continue for many decades.  And the secretive organization that promotes iron-fisted control is usually the villain in both works of fiction (SPECTRE, The Galactic Empire, Cobra, Hydra) and in the history books (the Gestapo, the KGB, just about any secret police force).