WE’LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS....

Note on January 14th, 2021: this essay was written before the first impeachment of D. J. Trump.

There are exceptional occasions when a rare event occurs. Sometimes we are surprised, sometimes bewildered. The rarity of such an event can even make us doubt of its possibility, even when all evidence is there: A Black Swan, an Albino Tiger, an Aurora Borealis. In society we take for granted one of the rarest and marvelous of phenomena: Democracy. Modern democracy, as we know it and aspire it to be, is a Grand Experiment in governance that has been in use by a small fraction of humanity during a brief period of history and, as such, is a rare and fragile institution.

Within the institutional democracy of the U.S. rare events threatening it also occur but the Constitution allows remedies that have made it stronger. The Amendment process is conceived as a defense of democracy, allowing for changes that strengthen the Union. Only seventeen have been ratified since the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (The first ten, the Bill of Rights, were ratified simultaneously with the Constitution in 1789). Impeachment, another rare remedy, was conceived also by the framers as a defense of the Constitution and the democratic republic. The rarity of impeachment makes it uncharted every time it occurs and, in the 230 years from 1789, each time it has been part of a transformative cycle for the Union—especially in the case of a presidential impeachment.

There have been nineteen House of Representative impeachments that have reached the Senate floor for a trial. Of these, two were votes to impeach presidents: President Andrew Johnson (1868) and President Bill Clinton (1998). The rest of them were fourteen Federal Judges, one Senator, one Justice, and one Cabinet Officer. While articles of impeachment were drawn for President Nixon at the end of July 1974 by the Judiciary Committee these were never voted upon by the full House, as his resignation two weeks later on August 9^th effectively put an end to the process. Of all nineteen impeachments trials, eight have resulted in convictions, three ended with the resignation of the accused officer, one was dismissed after expelling the Senator from the Senate, and seven resulted in acquittal, including Presidents Johnson and Clinton.

Presidential Impeachments

The core of the charge against President Johnson was for violating the “Tenure of Office” Act [1]. Notwithstanding the actual charges detailed in the articles of impeachment [2], the animus to impeach President Johnson was largely driven by the President's Reconstruction policies. Johnson went against the reasons and results of the Civil War, pardoned and restored property to former slave owners and mostly gave the Southern states a free hand in governing as they saw fit, resulting in the so-called "Black Codes": separate laws for Blacks and Whites.

The ideological divide between pro-slavery supporters and abolitionists brought upon the country the Civil War, the deadliest American war in history [3]. To heal democracy after such a catastrophic event the spectacle of the blood spilt was not enough. After the war, President Johnson’s administration tried to once again impose inequality upon the freemen, making efforts to restore the superiority of the slave owner class to its former (narcissistic) glory. These policies and laws supported by Johnson led to his impeachment as part of the healing process to excise this political poison from the system. 

The House voted to impeach President Johnson on February 24^th 1868, the Senate started trial on March 5^th and on May 16^th the final vote was held acquitting the President, a three and a bit month process. President Johnson was acquitted by a single vote (35 votes for conviction, 19 for acquittal, one short of two thirds). In spite of the opposition party having more than enough seats in the majority to convict, seven of them voted to acquit in order to “protect the office of president and preserve the constitutional balance of powers.” As one of them said later: “I cannot agree to destroy the harmonious working of the Constitution for the sake of getting rid of an Unacceptable President.”  

The process against Johnson and the constitutional questions arising from it gave the final push needed to ratify the XIVth and XVth Amendments, that other rare remedy to salvage the ideals embedded in the Constitution. These amendments, along with the XIIIth, are the so-called "Reconstruction Amendments" abolishing slavery and establishing equal protection, citizenship and voting rights, regardless of race. The initial push for them was the infamous Scott v Sanford decision of 1857, by which the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution did not grant citizenship to black people, whether slaves, former slaves or never slaves [4]. The two latter amendments were ratified towards the end of Johnson's first term (1868 and 1870; the XIIIth was ratified in 1865). Andrew Johnson did not run for reelection and is generally considered to have been one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States.

During his second term, President Clinton was charged with lying under oath to a Grand Jury and with obstruction of Justice, both charges related to his attempt to deny, hide and minimize a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern at the time. The affair had been uncovered by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr who had a wide latitude and budget to investigate the president and all of his actions and behaviors prior to and during the presidency. The inquiry was started on October 8^th  and the vote to impeach was held on December 19^th, 1998. The Senate trial began January 25^th and the final Senate vote acquitting the President was held on February 9^th, 1999, approximately four months for the process. President Clinton was acquitted on both charges, on the first article by a 55 for acquittal to 45 for conviction vote (including 10 Republicans) and on the second article by a 50 to 50 vote.  At the time, the Republican Party held a majority in the Senate, 55 (R) to 45 (D) seats. President Clinton was subsequently disbarred and he and his wife, Hillary, have lived the political consequences of his impeachment and trial to this day.

Having impeachment as an extraordinary remedy option is a problem in and of itself. The existence of the threat of impeachment is a commonly brandished political tool [5]. It is significant that in both historical instances of presidential impeachment trials, the opposition party held the majority in the House and the Senate. If President Nixon had stood trial, the opposition also had a majority of the Senate at the time, but not enough to convict. Only after Senate Republican elders met with the president to let him know that a large fraction of their caucus would not support him did Nixon resign to avoid a public spectacle of his crimes, misdeeds and abuses—and disgrace by conviction.

Those three instances highlight the political nature of this remedy. Only when Congress had an opposition party majority did the process occur, and even then it resulted in acquittal or stopped short of a trial. The actual removal from office and disqualification to further hold high office of a sitting president may be as rare as a snowstorm in South Florida. Calls for impeachment, though, are routine and most presidents have heard them, perhaps sometimes influencing policy and political decisions.

Separation of Powers: Essential in Democracy

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is right on this: policy disagreements on immigration, gun-control, taxation, climate, health care, trade and judge selection, among others, are not impeachable offenses and should be taken up at the ballot box. Petty lying and bluster is not impeachable. But abuse of power is, as are obstruction of justice, corruption and subversion of national security [6]. Congress is almost constitutionally bound to bring articles of impeachment on these grounds, if found credible through the inquiry, to keep itself as a viable separate branch of government and not become a presidential partisan rubber stamp of this and future administrations. Given the facts and documentation at hand in the case of Donald Trump, the House of Representatives has been left with little choice: it must open an impeachment inquiry. It will also likely do its prescribed duty to defend the Constitution and vote to impeach. The impeachment threat as a political tool does not lead to better policy making, it leads to polarization; that is why the impeachment process as a constitutional remedy is such a grave matter. 

Defending the Constitution and its core principle of separation of powers is the only way to ensure the continuation of democracy and stop absolutism. Over the last three years, an increased pattern of behavior, actions and orders by the executive branch (and glossed over by an increasingly compliant Congress and Judiciary) has undermined the accountability achieved by the separation of powers and established dangerous precedent. Voters in 2018 did not take this lightly, passed judgment on such behavior, actions and orders, and voiced through the ballot box their opposition to administration policies which are trying to undo years of bipartisan progress.

What will happen in the Senate is anyone’s guess at this point. Of the incumbent Republican Senators running for office in 2020, several primary candidate filing deadlines come up in November and December, and many more in early March. The threat of a primary challenge is one used against many congressmen, but the timeline for a possible trial that goes past the filing deadlines will free many of the Senators from that threat. At that point their political survival may rest on whether they want to link themselves or not with an impeached president whose dirty laundry is aired on trial. As the impeachment processes of presidents Johnson, Nixon and Clinton demonstrated, the political damage to the impeached and his or her allies is substantial and will last for a long time, even if acquitted or never tried.

As political strategy, to use an impeachment timeline to their advantage, Democrats will (or should) carefully craft precise articles of impeachment and vote for them after the winter recess, possibly even late January. Conversely, for the Trump Republicans, the quicker the process unfolds the better, hoping for poorly drafted partisan articles of impeachment that will allow them to summarily dismiss the charges by a simple majority vote in December or earlier, threatening primary challenges to those on the fence who may not toe the (Trump) party line. As the two previous impeachment trials and Nixon’s case have shown, party allegiance is not necessarily an indicator of the final vote, but each situation has been different. As Trump is fond of saying (and could probably be the title of an autobiographical book he will not write a word of): We’ll See What Happens.

Urgent Need for a Structural Systemic Remedy

After 230 years of Constitutional rule and 150 years since the Johnson impeachment, there must be something wrong with a democracy that attempts to impeach its president twice in twenty years. There is a national divide that makes this political solution seem more available now that it had been in the previous 200 years. The impeachment remedy is a symptom of something deeper, which makes us turn our insights once again towards that core constitutional principle: representation.

A recent analysis (by M. Geruso et al at the National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER) on elections from 1836 to 2016 and reported by Stephen L. Carter in Bloomberg) demonstrates that the probability of an “inversion” – an election resulting in the winner of the popular vote losing in the Electoral College – is 65% in a close election, two out of three of those elections; and all polling shows us how closely divided is the general electorate. When we further observe that in the elections for the last 10 congresses, most of these have resulted in a disproportionate majority of representatives being elected by a minority of voters [7], it is no wonder that the Electoral College and Gerrymandering have resulted in increased political polarization and divisiveness within the political dialogue of the country.

The case of Andrew Johnson’s impeachment shows that the healing was not only in the exorcising of the demons which he manifested in speech, laws and policy to perpetuate the hateful rhetoric of slavery and racism. The other Constitutional remedy, amending, was also necessary. In order to obtain better results from the Grand Experiment, it is time for the political manipulation of “Swing States” and Gerrymandering to be put to an end. 

A Constitution that states in its preamble that we strive for a more Perfect Union is the instrument for such a goal. It is time to recognize our current crisis as a unique "Black Swan Event" bubbling since the 1990's and finally brewed in the negative energy and divisiveness personified by the current president. The nation must take steps to weed out the roots of the corrosive divide that ails it before it is too late and falls deeper into the populist trap leading to its destruction. As was the case with the "Reconstruction Amendments" true representation must be clarified and cemented into the nation's charter to rectify and set a new course. We must go beyond the juncture of a single bad administration or politician and amend, transform and strengthen the rare and fragile nature of our democracy.

[CJR Note: for those observant ones, the four period ellipsis in the title is intentional]

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[1] The Tenure of Office Act, a law restricting the firing of certain high level executive branch officers without consent by the Senate was repealed in 1887. In 1926 the Supreme Court referenced that law in another case, stating that it was probably invalid. This Act, if it had been challenged in court, most likely would have been struck down as unconstitutional, as it interfered with the separation of powers. It is possible that some of the Senators voting for the acquittal of Johnson took the long view on this, considered impeachment over a possibly unconstitutional law dangerous and voted against the party line because of that.

[2] During President Johnson's trial, the charges defined “An impeachable high crime or misdemeanor is one in its nature or consequences subversive of some fundamental or essential principle of government or highly prejudicial to the public interest, and this may consist of a violation of the Constitution, of law, of an official oath, or of duty, by an act committed or omitted, or, without violating a positive law, by the abuse of discretionary powers from improper motives or for an improper purpose.” 

[3] The estimated number of casualties of the Civil War is approx. 655,000, or 2.1% of the population at the time. By contrast, the total American casualties in WWII, the deadliest war in the history of mankind, was around 405,000, or 0.38% of the population.

[4] The language of the Scott v Sanford decision ruled that black people "are not included, and were not intended to be included under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and [blacks] can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States."

[5] It may be remembered by some that, as part of the 2016 campaign, the threat (and "trauma") of impeachment was levied against candidate Hillary Clinton. It was said that congressional Republicans were ready to draw articles of impeachment against her on the grounds of "her emails" if she was elected and introduce them right after she was sworn in.

[6] Conducting secret foreign (or even domestic) policy to advance personal interests can lead to potential leverage (blackmail) by foreign nations, leaders or businesses who may then threaten to expose such illegal actions. It is very likely, for example, that Russian intelligence officials knew the contents of the July 25^th phone call to Ukraine before the American public did.

[7] On average, Democrats to achieve House majorities have needed 53% of the vote, resulting in a 55% majority of Representatives three out of ten times, while Republicans only needed 49.5% of the vote to obtain a 54% majority of Representatives seven out of the same ten times.

All photo copyrights belong to their respective owners.

...A MORE PERFECT UNION

“I Don’t Want to Change the Constitution”

With those words, a woman recently argued to me her reason for not signing a petition to ban assault weapons. The amazing lack of historical context and perspective the gun manufacturing lobby has been able to insert into the collective psyche of a sector of our society is overwhelming. I must comment.

The Constitution’s preamble starts with “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more Perfect Union…” stating thus, from its beginning, that imperfection is a constant and the search for perfection eternal. That would mean that amendments and clarifications may be required—and currently there are twenty seven.

The structure of the U.S. Constitution is particular in that it is one of, if not the only one, that does not directly address the rights of citizens in its main body, only the way government should be structured or, well, constituted. Articles 1 to 3 establish the branches of government, the fourth the relationships between the states, the fifth is on amendment procedures, the sixth and seventh on transitional and ratification procedures—and that’s it.  Seven articles relating to how to establish a central federal government out of a federation of states; and then there is the Bill of Rights: a separate document discussed and approved at the same time as the body of the Constitution in September of 1787 and ratified by the States in 1789. It is not even until the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, that the question of who is a U.S. citizen was clarified.

By constructing the founding document this way, the framers allowed the structure of federal government and states to maintain stability while at the same time establishing separately the individual and collective rights that regulate civil interaction between the members of their society, rooted in past tradition and common law, and which may or may not change in the future; and this latter one is an important point. The Constitution as originally written, for example, includes the following:

“No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.” (Art. IV, Sec. 2)

Other provisions in the Constitution, listed in Article 1, establish the existence of “free Persons” and that those who are not count as three fifths or not at all: “Indians not taxed.” This implicit consent and ratification of slavery and race inequality within the body of the constitution was changed with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, seventy six years after the Constitution and the Bill of rights were written. As a supplement, the Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on race or previous servitude (slavery). Those two amendments “changed the constitution.”

Has the Constitution “changed” in any other ways? Article 1 establishes that Senators are to be chosen by the legislatures of each State. In 1912 the Seventeenth Amendment established that Senators would be directly elected. Some amendments should not have been a constitutional issue, such as Prohibition (Eighteenth Amendment), properly repealed in 1933 by the Twenty first Amendment. We are striving for “a more Perfect Union,” after all, so imperfections are allowed.

In 1919 it was determined that the word “Person” in the constitution included women, and the right for women to vote was proclaimed in the Nineteenth Amendment, technically a clarification, not a change –which means clarifications are allowed.

The Second Amendment

Having established that the Constitution can be changed or clarified, the third important caveat is the issue of interpretation. For this, we may look into the most significant Supreme Court ruling affecting the “right to bear arms” as expressed in the Second Amendment: DC v Heller. A selection of quotes from the majority opinion of the decision reads as follows:

“The term [Arms] was applied, then as now, to weapons that were not specifically designed for military use and were not used in a military capacity” (Opinion, p. 8)

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited (Opinion, p. 54)

“[Nothing about] our analysis suggests the invalidity of laws regulating the storage of firearms to prevent accidents” (Opinion, p. 60)

“Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home” (Opinion, p. 64)  [1]

On page 55, the opinion argues that discussion on the right to possess military style weaponry as part of a civil militia as pointless—at the same time that it ratifies (once again, as before in several parts of the text) the existence of such things as “lawful weapons,” whereby, it follows, “unlawful weapons” can exist.

On page 57, the opinion argues that handguns are more effective for self-defense than long guns.

On pages 58 and 59, a short discussion on licensing is made, letting the licensing requirements stand, but not addressing the licensing issue per se, as both the Respondent (Heller) and Petitioner (DC) agree that licensing of firearms is permissible. Justice Breyer’s dissent makes this last point forcefully.

The body of the decision relates to the meaning of the Second Amendment. One of the most contentious stipulations is that the text of the Amendment is divided between a “Prefatory” and an “Operative” clause, meaning that what it says before the second comma is essentially meaningless. That is the heart of the opinion of the majority and addressed by most of the dissent by Justice Stevens, centered on the importance and weight or not of the phrase “well-regulated militia” and each word therein. Long discussions, ink and bytes have been spent on that argument and we will not go into that in this writing. [2]

Justice Antonin Scalia, a self-described “originalist” wrote the majority opinion, so the words are his. It is understood then that making military-style weapons unlawful for civilian use [3], background checks, safe storage and licensing laws would be consistent with DC v Heller. However, Heller is an opinion and interpretation of the Second Amendment that has been (mis)used by the gun manufacturing lobby to extend its market unlimitedly and dangerously. Justice Scalia, outside the opinion, was vocal about extending gun ownership. He even said once, while being interviewed by Chris Wallace, that people could conceivably be allowed to purchase and legally have rocket propelled grenade launchers (a.k.a bazookas); but within the confines of the court and his most significant opinion on gun rights, reason mostly prevails.

Having common sense gun laws is not changing the Constitution. Making weapons of mass murder illegal falls within the framing of the Constitution. Licensing and registering is constitutional, and weapon use and ownership can and should be licensed and registered. The gun manufacturing lobby has hijacked the Second Amendment and used it as a marketing tool. It is they that undermine the Constitution.

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution makes clear that no federal armed forces have authorized funding except for a maximum of two years, suggesting the framers did not want a federal level permanent armed force. If claims of faithfulness to the intention of the framers were to be taken at face value and no interpretations or corrections allowed, as “originalists” claim, the United States would not have a standing army. The US Army would instead be the “well regulated” militias referred to in the Second Amendment and would look a lot more like Switzerland’s where, in fact, it is a well-regulated militia (follow the link to see what that looks like) in charge of its national defense [4]. This same section 8 calls for the establishment of a Navy, with no specified timeframe, so the actual intention of the framers can be described as murky at best, but it has been adapted to the realities of modern life and economic reasoning of large capital investment in defense related assets (which would have been the case of the Navy at the time, for example). Amendments, clarifications, interpretations and corrections are part of “the Grand Experiment” of democracy undertaken by the United States, in search of a More Perfect Union.

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Other essays on the issue of gun control:

ACCESS AND CONTROL, December 16^th, 2012 (first reaction to Sandy Hook).

GUNS AND US – A CALL FOR ACTION, February 21^st, 2018 (first reaction to Parkland)

MARCH 24th – March for Our Lives in Parkland, March 29^th 2018

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[1] - Justice Scalia writes: "Before this Court petitioners have stated that 'if the handgun ban is struck down and respondent registers a handgun, he could obtain a license, assuming he is not otherwise disqualified,' by which they apparently mean if he is not a felon and is not insane." (Opinion, p. 59). Implicitly he is consenting to background checks.

[2] -  Let us mention, however, that in the section dedicated to explain the so-called Prefatory Clause, "Militia" is argued in a page and a half, while “well-regulated" is dismissed as an adjective that "implies nothing more than the imposition of proper discipline and training". Even in this glossing over, Scalia cites a dictionary of the time (Rawle) that would reaffirm the intention of the word "('Regulate': 'To adjust by rule or method')". "Security of a free state" is analyzed over one page. The majority opinion itself is 64 pages long.

[3] - The use of “Assault Weapons” or “Military Style Weapons” are euphemistic terms that normalize a tool designed to be used efficiently for mass murder and maximum damage. It is preferable to call them what they are: “Weapons of Mass Murder.”

[4] - The debate on standing armies and militias as well as their adscription to either the federal government or the states was extensive and can be appreciated in the Federalist Papers, particularly 29, as well as in the DC v Heller opinion and Stevens’ dissent. Alexander Hamilton makes an extensive case explaining regulated militias, Justice Scalia seems to water down the interpretation of what “well-regulated” means, while Justice Stevens perhaps overreaches.

Photo copyright belongs to its owner: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images. Originally found here

FOR OTHER WRITINGS ON GUN CONTROL BY CJ RANGEL GO TO: BESEIGED BY GUN VIOLENCE

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE ECONOMY.

With Labor Day upon us a new election season gathers, threatening a new storm of accusations, fears, insults and lies hurled from the candidates upon the electorate to qualify or disqualify one another in the fight for the White House. In the tradition of generals fighting the last war, the notion of “it’s the economy, stupid” keeps in the core of campaigns, and murkiness and misconceptions drive them around this issue as it did in 2016, with the result we all know. That famous motto of Bill Clinton’s (and James Carville) probably should now be updated to “It’s NOT the economy, stupid”. That is because for most, of the beautiful economy of the last 9 years there has been little left to show. That is why we must talk about the economy.

It is unmistakable that there is a malaise in the economic life of most Americans. The gut of many wrenches every month as bills accumulate and money seems tighter. But media pundits and many in government say all economic indicators are better than they have been in many years: unemployment low, continued GDP growth no blips, inflation tamed, low interest rates, stock markets ar all time highs... all indicators shiny green—or are they? 

To fixate on the Dow Jones Industrial Average index as an indicator of the economy skews the perception of the most mundane of everyday concerns: money in the pocket (let’s call it “disposable income”). Using the DJIA as a sign of success or failure of any given decision, policy, or even tweet, affecting the economy is attention grabbing, but does not address that malaise, which makes for most folk such glee over the markets mostly irrelevant to their daily lives. It is true that the DJIA or S&P 500 indices can serve as boosters to consumer confidence, an important component of the economy at large and, obviously, if all corporations went out of business all of the sudden (not necessarily predictable by the DJIA) it would be a bad thing but, at some point, well… you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Underlying resentment over the perceived indifference of politicians and pundits rises, and populism with it. And populism, yes, is bad; but that is not what this essay is about.[1]

Where Opportunity Hits the Road

Let’s do some numbers: In the US, in real terms since 1979, the GDP has increased 290%, while the S&P and the DJIA increased 832% and 893%, respectively. At the same time and over the same period, for women in the 90^th percentile (the top 10 percent) wage growth was 67%—and that was the best performing demographic. For men in the 50^th percentile it actually declined, with wage growth being MINUS 5% since 1979. For men in the 10^th percentile (the bottom 10 percent) it declined even more, by 13%.[2]

The disparity between GDP, the DJIA and the S&P with the wage growth numbers is one of the critical reasons for the increase in that gut feeling that there is something fundamentally wrong with the economy, regardless of the rosy and highly publicized indicators. This would suggest that the common trope that what is good for “the markets”, meaning stock indices, is good for the economy must be questioned.

What drives a stock price and the indices the most? That is a simple answer: profits. Profits in turn, can be created by a few factors. The most direct one is by selling more at a lower cost. The selling more part is what GDP measures: the sum of transactions in the consumption of goods and services, plus exports minus imports. So GDP growth is good for profits; interestingly, a decrease in imports is too, but not necessarily for everyone. If imports become more expensive, besides impacting that formula with a bigger negative number, businesses relying on imports in order to create the same number of domestic transactions will see their costs rise. This may be reflected in a price increase to protect their profits, which in turn may reduce demand—the number of transactions (the GDP). So a rise in the cost of imports, whether by currency weakening, tariffs or scarcity, will impact the stock price of companies dependent on imports, of which retailers in general and many consumer good companies make a significant number. Walmart and Apple, for example, fall under those categories.  But the Trade War’s recent impact on the stock indices does not explain the long running economic dissatisfaction that sweeps the nation, a dissatisfaction that elected Donald Trump with his line that struck a chord directly addressing it: “what have you got to lose?”[3]

That a “left behind” part of the electorate saw in Trump a change from the past economic success of America is understandable. That such an electorate may turn to populism is understandable; and the failure to address that populist sentiment is a danger to democracy – not only in the US, but worldwide. The 2016 Fall of Discontents that made Trump the 45^th President had its long planted seeds in the entrenchment of economic power in direct conflict with one of the main tenets of capitalism: renewal. Entrenchment is the sand in the gears that slows down renewal. Renewal is what creates new industries, what transforms economies. Entrenchment will try to buy itself tax breaks, subsidies and favorable policy. Opportunity, the path towards success, is fed be renewal; entrenchment stifles opportunity, generating inequality.

Labor's Toil and Troubles

Entrenched economic power has a survival stake – it does not want to leave that trench, it does not want to get “renewed”. To survive, its stakeholders will make sure that their economic power is strengthened using every tool at their disposal. These include lobbying for tax breaks, “corporate welfare”, and policies that weaken any potential replacement – i.e. making sure government policies choose them as the “winners.” As a corollary, they need to reduce opportunity for newcomers, those outside their circle and bubble. This means education, health care and social safety nets that allow for personal growth and capital accumulation beyond mere water treading must be limited or curtailed, because all represent a long term threat to their entrenchment.

The survival instinct of those stakeholders, the economic elite known as “the 1%”, dictates that strengthening of their economic power is fundamental. Returning to that profit factor leading to higher stock prices, the cost element has been a long time driver. The clear way to reduce costs is to focus on one of its largest components that can be most easily controlled, wages. The underlying explanation to the rise in inequality is a simple one: the growth in productivity and GDP has been faster than the growth in real wages. This has resulted in gainfully employed people in major corporations needing public assistance (at the same time that these corporations get tax breaks, making such public assistance a burden on the national debt) and needing to find “gigs” to help them make ends meet.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that many people are working more than one “job,” but the official number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that such cases represent less than 5% of the labor force. The caveat is that this number is a self-reported one. Clearly if someone who is working at a retail giant as a greeter or similar and also drives car owners to-and-from the service dealer they have two jobs and will say so when surveyed by the BLS—maybe. But, how about a person driving for Uber and Lyft, Door Dash and Grubhub? Does that person report they have four jobs or one: self-employed contract driver? Or the teacher that also babysits or tutors, the latter jobs sometimes associated to “homemaker activities” and not counted in the GDP? Or the professor that occasionally consults or writes a book? Or the waiter that writes a screenplay? Do they all say they have more than one job? Even if for some it may be a critical part of their income or careers and could be exclusive of each other?[4]

Not to mention the increasing need of families for multiple incomes. When “America was Great!” the need for more than one family member to supplement income was much less than it is now. The need, not option, to have more than one income from multiple household members has increased over the last thirty years, within the memory of many. It is not so common now for most to enter their house saying “Honey, I’m home!” anymore. An unintended consequence of incorporating women to the labor force, a clear trend from the mid ‘60s to the mid 90’s, has been a downward pressure on wages as the gender pay gap was successfully used by corporations and employers to boost their bottom line. The labor participation rate (people of working age employed or looking for employment) peaked in April of 2000 at 67.3%, climbing from 58.10 % in 1954, and now stands at 62.9%.

One more economic wool on the eyes that needs to be pulled off is the issue of 401 (k) plans. Recently the president asked a crowd after an upward swing of the DJIA “so, how is your 401(k) doing”? The suggestion that the 401(k) plans compensate loss of wages for most is absurd and perpetuates the myth that the stock market gyrations actually reflect everyone’s pocket. The average person with 401(k) in the US has a nest egg of less than $93,000, those approaching retirement age average $200K and, according to the US Census Bureau, less than 32% of Americans actually have one. This is not an economic safety net, and it shifts the burden of future wellbeing responsibilities from employer to employee. The surge of IRAs and 401 (k) plans coincides with the demise of the unionized labor force and private pensions, all elements giving major corporations a way of reducing costs associated with their labor force.[5]

To reverse this inequality trend in the country is nearly impossible, given the structure of our economy, but some lessons from other countries may be helpful on how to address the growth in inequality in a free market economy: building a strong social safety net.

What Ever Happened to Socialism?

With the campaign threatening to have a chapter dedicated to candidates accusing each other --"They are all socialists!", "No, you are the socialist", "I am the true socialist!" -- a certain insight into that portion of the debate should be discussed, as distorted hyperbole will surely come from all sides.

Let us talk about Denmark, which has been in the news lately for its refusal to accept the disregard of sovereignty as part of modern international policy. Denmark has a free market economy. It is part of the Scandinavian countries which have grouped their largest companies in the Nordic Nasdaq, which includes Danish companies such as ABB, AstraZeneca, Ericsson, and Maersk. The growth of this market index since 2008 has been 32.79%. In contrast, average wage growth in the same period has been 15.75% or remained virtually flat, depending on the calculation. While a gap exists between these two numbers, it is not as abysmal as the ones we see in the US. The gap, however has given rise to populist “right wing nationalist” movements in various Scandinavian countries and other traditionally considered capitalist economies (the UK, France, Italy, etc.). Is this a failure of capitalism? No. It is when intervention on the fundamental driver of capitalism, renewal, is left to entrenched interests that such failure occurs.

Still, in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, all Scandinavian countries far outrank the US. Iceland, on the top of the list, by over 10% and Denmark, the lowest of Scandinavian countries in the Index, by almost 8%. These gaps are greater than the US has over countries such as Kazakhstan, Russia or Bulgaria, for example. By the way, Canada tops the US by 7% in this Index. The significant difference in these countries is that opportunity is not hindered by the extremely high cost (and with personal debt risk) of quality education, or by the risk of financial ruin by a chronic illness or emergency (or simply necessary) operation. Renewal, the driver of progress, has a more fertile ground in a society assisting such basic human development needs than in those who don’t, and is reflected in numbers such as CEO to Average worker salary ratio. In the US that ratio is 354 times the average worker salary. In Denmark, for example, it is 48 times.

Much ink and bytes have been spent arguing about capitalism and socialism. So much so that the terms have become almost meaningless. It is preferable to talk about free market economies and command economies, and these are defined by the outcomes. The Scandinavian countries clearly have by all measures free market economies, and successful ones at that. They also have social safety nets, which some call socialism and perhaps could be qualified as such if that word were not so emotionally charged. The free market nature of the economy in the US is increasingly under question, as the government’s increased use of subsidies, tariffs and directives designed to protect the economic interests of the few is becoming too common. The pattern of a command economy, protecting entrenched oligarchies by choosing winners and losers by executive decree, lurks in such policies.

The best way for an economy to grow is for all members of said economy to develop their maximum potential, because nobody knows where the next great idea will truly come from. A forward looking society wants to have social structures that maximize the opportunities for its individuals. The best way for an entrenched economic entity to stay entrenched is to curtail competition, to ensure no new ideas come out of nowhere to displace it and keep its future as predictable as its past. These are the outcomes that need to be debated when talking about the economy: maximizing opportunity for all or protecting entrenched interests. What will it be? The 2020 election will likely come short of a definitive answer.

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Other essays on the economy, inequality and interpreting metrics and policies: 
"THE GREAT AMERICAN CON"
"THE ECONOMICS OF INEQUALITY - A HEALTHY ECONOMY IS HEALTHY FOR EVERYONE"
Topic area: Inequality, Trade, Economy, Immigration...

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[1] This link is for one of my essays on Populism.

[2]  “Real Wage Trends, 1979 to 2018” Congressional Research Service, July 2019. The numbers are (Avg. Hourly Wage, 2018 dollars):

Women in the bottom 10% $10.07 in 1979 to $10.55 in 2018; Men: $13.84 to $12.00.

Women in the 50th percentile: $15.92 in 1979 to $20.00 in 2018; Men: $25.33 to $24.04.

Women in the top 10%: $27.68 in 1979 to $46.15 in 2018; Men in the top 10%: $43.25 to $59.00.

[3] The underlying message of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign also was directed towards this malaise, promising “Hope and Change”, and exacerbated by the 2007 financial crisis.  

[4] This, by the way, does not affect the unemployment rate. The employment rate is calculated by determining how many people are working from the total labor force (working or looking for work, as determined by the labor participation rate). It does not matter if that person has more than one job, that person is not unemployed. The unemployment rate is the percentage of the total labor force that is not employed.

[5] The health care debate is often framed in terms of employer benefits. The core to resolve this issue lies somewhere around there.

MARCH 24th - March for Our Lives in Parkland

As I stood under the beautiful South Florida skies of Parkland, listening to the speeches from the stage, a thought crossed my mind. I cannot call these young people children. That was taken away from them. These are young women and young men whose childhood was ripped away in the aftermath of a little more than six minutes on February 14^th that would change their life forever; and they now have the will to change the world.

Our community is large and small at the same time. It is large enough to accommodate a certain quasi-urban transactional anonymity in our daily interaction. It is small enough that we are neighbors to each other. We are not a six-degrees kind of place, more like a one or two-degree community. As the owner of a small shop that struggles to earn its keep in the new world of e-commerce, I was deeply impacted by the tragedy in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, two miles and a bit away from where I spend most of my waking hours. The moment I knew of it I feared the worst, which was soon realized. Four of the young fatal victims had been customers in our store, some with more frequency than others. The child of one of the staff members murdered had purchased her ballet slippers here some time ago, a little size 9.5 child shoe. Another fatal victim held a teenage job in the same plaza where we are located and he, as well as one of the critically injured, is from another sub-community close to me, the Venezuelan community.

The survivors have poured their hearts out to us over the last few weeks with harrowing tales of cowering in dark corners and stepping out through pools of blood. Parents told us of their anguish as they dropped everything and headed to meet their children. Our small community had gotten a lot smaller; and our community would now join the growing list of communities across the nation that have to live with the indelible scar of common tragedy. A list that should grow never again.

At the march on Saturday I met my UPS driver, whose daughter was in Washington, DC, as part of the student delegation of Parkland students. She saw one of her best friends die in her classroom; she now sings for her and for so many others. I met a long ago customer who said she could never forgive herself if she did not add her number to the thousands marching that day; her son is an alum from MSD; in her daughter’s middle school yearbook, chills went down their spine as they spotted the killer as a classmate. I met part of the dance team marching for one of their own, a beautiful young soul who had been coming to our store since age six and for whom my eyes swell up every time I see her name handwritten in happy letters in her many fun entries in our collection of guest books.  I heard voices in many accents, Spanish, English, Portuguese, others. I saw diversity, a black man next to me in refrain with the speakers, a woman in a hijab with her children, many Latinos, many, many, many so-called tattooed rednecks that you would cast type in a country western saloon. We were all marching as community. A community in grief, a community in force.

One of the speakers at the rally talked about unity and compromise. His daughter was one of the victims, one of those that walked the same floor I walk on every day; she would be looking for earrings, for tights in the right color. He wants a better world, but recognizes that it is a long path that must be shared by all. As I saw the crowd, there were attempts for political co-opting and divisiveness. If we are to succeed in the goal of making our schools, our movie theaters, our churches, our office parties, our restaurants, our concerts, our crowded streets, our country safe we must first acknowledge that we all bleed the same. Children of Republicans and children of Democrats and children of those who could care less, die often at the end of the barrel of a gun. More young people die yearly from gun violence than from car accidents. People of all ages, backgrounds, and affiliations succumb every day to gun violence; if we know tragedy can happen we must not stand still and do nothing if there is something we can do. We must at least speak out and be part of the conversation; we must surely vote.

When a combination of factors align in the worst of ways these tragedies occur. One of the best deterrents to a bad guy with a gun is making sure that the bad guy does not get a gun in the first place; if he gets a gun, it should not be a weapon of mass murder; and if he uses it, it should be difficult for him to wreak mayhem with it. Three factors that can be addressed in a bipartisan way without compromising our civil rights. The first two of these factors are opposed by those whose interest is ever increasing sales of their deadly wares. In the third, their answer is a greater amount of more powerful arms for everyone. Again, selling more deadly wares.

We must not confuse civil rights organizations with manufacturing associations. Civil rights organizations defend our constitution from abuses of power by the government or others. Civil rights organizations derive most of their funding from membership fees. Manufacturing associations have as their purpose to further the commercial interests of their members and derive most of their funding from fees and/or donations from the manufacturers whose interests are furthered by the association. The behavior and funding of the NRA parallels that of a manufacturing association while it claims to be a civil rights organization, purposefully distorting the meaning and intention of the second amendment and thus debasing the power of our constitution. The young men and women leading the gun regulation movement know this and are doing something about it. They know the straightforward, clear and unencumbered meaning of “well regulated.” They are the ones defending our constitution.

Photo: Carlos J. Rangel

FOR OTHER WRITINGS ON GUN CONTROL BY CJ RANGEL GO TO: BESEIGED BY GUN VIOLENCE

Frankenstein's Monster Redux - Wrecking Havoc from Day One.

Nearly eight years ago, on the evening of Inauguration Day 2009, a group of leading Republicans gathered for dinner and vowed to make the president inaugurated that same day a one term president. President Obama had nominated to the Cabinet two Republicans (including the Secretary of Defense) and reached across the aisle in his Inauguration Speech to champion a government for all Americans. But his presidency was to be undermined from day one by the dogged pursuit of the political goal of restoring a Republican to the White House above all. This in spite of the U.S. being involved in two ground wars and in the depth of an economic recession the likes of which had not been seen since the Great Depression. A situation that would seem to clamor for bipartisanship.

The conspiracy begat that evening eventually led to, among other things, the scuttling of the budget deal and the demonization of immigration reform, as well as to a few government shutdowns. The Republican opposition to President Obama relished, encouraged, grew and supported factions and groups that distorted his origins, mocked his race in the most disturbing ways and generally were visceral and toxic to government institutions in general and the president in particular.

The environment emanating from such confrontational partisanship is at the root of destructive interactions between and within our political parties. It is an environment that, fueled by the contrived hyperbole of fringe media (radio and on-line), desensitizes a basic sense of civility that allows social co-existence. Incendiary talk radio and web sites that are just a notch below in their rhetoric of the ones used by Hutus in Rwanda or Serbs in Bosnia to inspire genocidal rampages have become increasingly pervasive in the partisan dialogue and in social media. And with no doubt within this environment we can find the origin of that political Frankenstein monster: Mr. Donald Trump. A creature nurtured by an unfettered sense of entitlement, a sublimated inferiority complex and a craving for attention at any price. A creature pieced together and supported by a coalition of people exactly like him showcasing in social media and any other vehicle they may find their blinder constrained narcissism. These are not Bush or Romney Republicans, not Reagan or Clinton Democrats, confrontational and antagonistic, but they are politically alienated, for lack of a better word, anarchists.  Après nous, le déluge!

Trump’s claim to fame and biggest selling point is that he is a successful businessman, that he knows how to run a business, knows about money and that it is time someone with his credentials ran the country.  Setting aside the fact that he has not demonstrated that he has had the acumen to use his inherited fortune to grow it over market returns (without bilking thousands of customers, contractors and even state and federal government), the notion that a nation can be run like a business is spurious. The last time that was attempted here was by Calvin Coolidge and it led to the Great Depression.

A successful business is a closed system with a clear goal: survive market competition and the innovation forces of creative destruction to maximize the profits to its limited number of shareholders.  A successful nation is an open system that by regulating market failures, externalities and common goods seeks to maximize the well-being of all its citizens. The set of skills and knowledge that lead to success in one endeavor are not the same for the other.

If it were granted that Trump has been a successful CEO, to transfer his skill set to running the government could lead to the worst cases of influence peddling and conflicts of interest since Spiro Agnew (when America was great?). In a perfectly logical pursuit of benefitting his present and future investments, decisions impacting markets and regulations would be taken in “best for the business” mode, disregarding the overarching economic and political reasons for national government.

Of course, that is what some in the Republican leadership are counting on. Not that Trump will use the government to benefit himself personally (like any businessman would naturally tend to do), but that his lack of skills for governing will force Trump to call on them for assistance in running the country--at which point they will just tell him what to do. This party leadership tries to convince itself and a diminishing group of their followers that Trump is “politically manageable.” However that, a risky proposition at best, does not account for the obvious personality traits embodied in Trump.

Because power limits through checks and balances do exist, a temperament recognizing such limits and acquiescing to this most basic tenet of our government is one of the fundamental reasons to choose a candidate over another. Trump has made clear he does not believe in limits to his use and manipulation of power. The latest evidence of his sense of entitled power and his willingness to abuse it is the “Access Hollywood” video where he says: “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.” 

President Trump as a risky proposition does not even begin to describe the possible scenarios of uncontrolled abuse of power that could occur with a White House occupied by an unapologetic reckless bully. A bully directly descended and nurtured by the blind partisan interest wrought upon the nation that cold January evening in 2009. This is a risk that America should not allow itself to take. It has a lot to lose.

All images copyright their respective owners,

Populism, or the Collective Blindness that Leads Nations to the Abyss.

This is an English language version of an essay previously published in Spanish.
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Abdicating Governance: The Failure of Institutions

Winston Churchill’s description of democracy as the worst of all systems of government except for all the others is famous. Democracy, it has been argued, carries within itself the seeds of its eventual destruction by allowing within it by definition voices and factions that oppose it. In democracy it happens that the universal right to vote is considered the desideratum-and yes it is; but, doubtless, universal suffrage is occasionally captured by leaders who hear voices from a dissatisfied populace within the system. Voices echoed by those who will use the liberties of the democratic system to exploit emotions arising from heterogeneous, and sometimes contradictory, dissatisfactions and coalesce a political movement against the cold pragmatic reasoning offered by traditional leaders. A popular movement with the intention of rewriting existing political and social institutions outside the trite formulas and solutions spread by the elite and the intelligentsia of the status quo. A movement that is usually described as populism.

The average citizen has many things top of mind: family, job, garden... The common citizen has many occupations and prefers to devote more time to them than to government. The ordinary citizen wants to have the confidence and satisfaction that his or her government is led by capable people who protect the common interest to the best possible extent. Those are the terms of the political contract that the citizen, the people demand from their government and institutions. When public officials break that contract, that confidence, dissatisfaction arises and the populist seed is sown.

As a further condition, populism flourishes not only when dissatisfaction is widespread, but when existing-political, economic, social and the media institutions ignore this dissatisfaction or do not offer a clear message about how to respond to it—that is, fail in their role. Symptoms of institutional failure include:

• Media with credibility gaps,
• Partisan and ideological polarization driven by self-interest or perceived as such and,
• Low voter engagement with an institutional discourse seen as sterile and irrelevant.

Under these conditions a growing group of people becomes a diminishing group of voters so, and as a result of such low participation, traditional representatives are perceived with scant legitimacy. “Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for…” is the bumper sticker capturing that sense of illegitimacy.

The citizen body has many needs and demands. When political representatives address these needs before letting them escalate into a general grievance, democracy works. By ignoring these needs and allowing them to become widespread anger against what is then perceived as a detached elite, fertile ground for a populist movement is created.

It is at that moment that the disenchanted, cynical, disenfranchised, marginalized, poor—the forgotten—are easily seduced by a snake charmer who gets from the fervor awakened in the popular mind an adrenaline rush feeding his/her own narcissism while inflaming the masses. The populist dynamic thus enters into a cycle of increasingly toxic feedback between the leader and the mass—as in any overdose of any drug.

Deceit: The Anti-democratic Nature of Populism 

The populist discourse is sectarian by nature. The populist seeks to establish a simple reason why people are dissatisfied with their status and targets the blame on an easily identifiable group and the institutions, politicians and intellectuals affiliated to that group. Common base emotions exploited in sectarian speech are resentment, envy, xenophobia, racism and revenge.

For these reasons (sectarian, anti-institutional and emotional discourse) populism is one of those bad words in politics that few allow as a valid alternative. Recent political movements such as Podemos, in Spain or Kirchnerismo in Argentina, have sought to redefine the term positively, repackaged as "popular democracy." However, as with every populist, they label themselves anti-institutional or protectors of the oppressed. That so called Popular, Participatory or Democracy for the Masses preaches a sectarian credo without respecting the rights or even the legitimate participation of opposition minorities [i]. Also it begets concentration of power, destroying or nullifying institutional checks and balances and separation of powers. It is the tyranny of the majority in full-fledged form.

Populism’s true nature, sometimes in the past and certainly nowadays, hides within the very rules of the democratic game. But make no mistake, populism is fundamentally undemocratic despite looking as if it seeks to legitimize its power from the people, as the name suggests. Even when populist leaders fail to reach power they will change the political dialogue, planting in their followers deep skepticism about the validity of the institutions; and when democrats use populism’s seductive tools to gain power, they equally undermine democratic institutions by the skepticism sown (drunk uncle's "inconvenient truths" -mercantilism, favoritism and corruption- suggested by B. Arditi, as cited by Frei and Rovira, 2008).

Democracy can only be sustained when people trust their institutions. When trust declines a leader can take advantage of that lack of trust by calling the institutional system incompetent, corrupt or rigged. The expectations created by the leader’s promises feed a craving for radical change and breeds hope in the movement’s followers. When achieving power by institutional means, i.e. popular vote, the only way for the leader to fulfill the promised change is by eventually destroying the institutional system that brought him or her to power; otherwise followers in the future will seek a more radical populist. When the populist leader achieves power through non-institutional means, ferocious purges are unleashed against the institutional representatives of the previous system. Undoubtedly the populist and authoritarian go hand in hand. Unbridled populism always and eventually will become totalitarianism.

Institutionalists left behind by the wave leading the populists to power in the best of cases retire, and in the worst end up in exile, prison or executed. Survivors write and ponder from their political paleolithic cave, sometimes not even realizing how they failed the constituents and institutions or media they led.

Thomas Jefferson argued that institutions should be renewed radically every so often—periodic elections originate from that reasoning. Institutional stagnation undoubtedly can decelerate, prevent or reverse the political, and therefore economic, development of nations. For industrial cycles in business theory Schumpeter referred to a similar concept calling it Creative Destruction, caused by technological development and its consequent effect on both production and distribution systems as well as lifestyle preferences. Populism is inserted into the political world as an alarm, like the canary in the mine, indicating the need for a fresh renewal in a nation’s institutions as social needs evolve—or else be forced to face a destructive transformation.

When populism appears democrats need to read the signs and take a stance against it, even if it seems contradictory that a democrat is apparently against popular will. The leader in a liberal democracy must recognize the grievances behind the populist movement and rectify the institutional elites' rule. A populist leader is not fooling people, he is channeling dissatisfaction, collecting and making a powerful emotional echo that appropriates the voice of those alienated by socially bankrupt institutions. [ii] True democrats need to expand horizons outside their political bubble and recognize that the alienation the populist harvests exists. True democrats have to address and rectify the social and economic conditions that cause dissatisfaction, because allowing populism to take over political and media institutions causes serious damage to democracy. And democracy must be protected even though it is the worst system of government, except for all the rest.

Populism has its role in democracy, that of the canary. It is attractive and sings a song, but is toxic and dangerous, as botox can be. The utopian idealism offered by populism is seductive when it groups heterogeneous complaints under the large cover of general dissatisfaction and promises to satisfy these complaints with simple symbols and slogans instead of specific and complex proposals. Liberal Democracy is in danger under those conditions but must hold its political ground to balance the attacks of populists with the need for social redress. 

The fundamental promises of Liberal Democracy are: defending the dignity of the individual, equal protection under the law, ensuring equal opportunity, and protecting private property. Those also are seductive promises. Those are the conditions under which individuals can take charge of their life freely in their pursuit of happiness and thrive, a pursuit that brings benefits to the collective of society—as postulated by Adam Smith almost 250 years ago and proven in practice.

It is only under a system of Liberal Democracy that nations have been able to improve the economic and social condition of their population. There are flaws of course but, we must reiterate, it is only in an alternating democratic system committed to solving these flaws that they can be rectified, as history has demonstrated. Human, civil and social rights have flourished and developed under democratic governments with constructive dialogue. Herein lies the largest and most damaging failure of populism: its purposeful ignorance of history. And that ignorance has led prosperous societies to the abyss of economic suffering, social disintegration and destruction of civic values under regimes using the state’s monopoly of legal (and para-legal) violence to remain in power.

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NOTES

[i] Qualifying democracy with adjectives is an unfortunate necessity to distinguish ideological systems. Just as "populism" often has implicit negative connotations in its terminology, "democracy" is considered a positive descriptor for any system of government, as was the case for the German Democratic Republic (DDR – East Germany, a fiercely totalitarian regime) or is that of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). Because the usage of the word democracy has been distorted so much it needs the qualifying adjective “liberal” to describe a government system based on free periodic elections, rule of law, and free market principles.

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[ii] Regarding the link emotion / reason Frey and Rovira (2008) make this interesting observation: "The fact that the establishment of populism is based more on passion than reason points out one of its greatest political weaknesses: the problem of duration. Rational criteria are much easier to stabilize than emotional factors. Thus, the permanence of a populist movement depends on its continued ability to activate and sustain collective passion. To do this it exploits emotional attention niches, such as speech and images arousing emotions like anger, fear and hatred that keep alive the distinction between friend and foe in society. "

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REFERENCES

Whatdo we mean when we speak of Populism?; Ezequiel Adamovsky. AMPHIBIOUS, National University of San Martin, Buenos Aires Argentina - Accessed August 11, 2016

Populismas Political Experiment: History and Political Theory of Ambivalence; Frei, Raymundo and Rovira Kaltwasser, Cristóbal. Journal of Sociology 22, 2008; Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Chile - Accessed August 11, 2016

Populismwith a Brain; Lynn, Barry C. and Longman, Phillip. Washington Monthly, June / July / August 2016 - Accessed August 11, 2016

It'snot just Trump. Authoritarian populism is rising across the West. Here's why; Norris, Pippa. The Washington Post, March November 2016 - Accessed August 14, 2015

Sorry,Obama: Donald Trump Is a Populist, and You're Not; Chait, Jonathan. New York Magazine June 30, 2016 - Accessed August 14, 2016

All images copyright of their respective owners.

The Immigrant.

I am an American born abroad: born from an American parent in a foreign land. I have dual citizenship and lived a large portion of my formative years outside the U.S. in a country close to my heart, Venezuela. I have relatives, friends, dear memories and continued interest and involvement with the country where I was born. Its current situation and of those I have left behind pains me greatly. This is a common affliction shared, with different details, stories and backgrounds, by many in the U.S. born in other countries and living here now; and while I am not technically an immigrant I understand, literally, where they are coming from and have an ear attuned to anti-immigrant rhetoric.

That anti-immigrant rhetoric ignores a basic question: why did 42 million people, a number greater than the whole population of Canada or half the population of Germany, decide to migrate to the U.S.? Contrary to the current Republican candidate’s messaging, no country actually “sends” people to the U.S.

Migrants make the individual hard choice of leaving their home country because they see no other way out of their situation, be it political, economic or personal. They believe that in the U.S. they will have a new opportunity to improve and/or protect themselves and their families. They believe such opportunity is lacking in their country of origin. Many make the trip thinking they will go back once they’ve made it (“if you can make it there, you can make it everywhere”) or conditions “back home” have changed. A great majority eventually remains in the U.S. once they have constructed a new life, under new rules and with a reliable social contract. They sometimes try to return and realize, as Thomas Wolfe wrote, “you can’t go home again” as the home they once knew exists no more.

A portion of U.S. born Americans always says before any election that if the candidate they oppose wins, they will move out of the country. Canada has often been the supposed destination, New Zealand seems to be a popular choice this season. No mass migration has in fact occurred after any U.S. elections, but immigrants in many cases have not only chosen but been forced to leave their own country of birth for political, war strife, hardship or safety reasons. The quipped motivation in the “if he/she wins I’ll move to Canada” retort, is augmented hundreds of times over for many incoming migrants. They have truly voted or been forced to vote with their feet. Most have probably not read or know but would empathize with the lines by Emma Lazarus:

“Give me your tired, your poor, 
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

By definition immigrants believe in the promise of America. Their economic contribution is significant and their social contribution incalculable. Many have mixed marriages and there are 36 million U.S. born children of immigrants. Immigrants by the most part do not want to reject their origins and naturally seek fellow expatriates to socialize and live with, maintain their country of origin customs and enjoy the cuisine they miss. That is not a rejection of U.S. values and customs, it is an addition. When their origin values and customs are anathema to those in the U.S. in most cases they and their children adapt, particularly when they feel socially welcomed by their new country. Conversely, the U.S. adapts elements of immigrant culture and makes it our own. Salsa, pizza slices and Chop Suey come to mind as adaptations now natural to the U.S. culture.

The hard numbers of size, scale and factual contribution are clear:

• The Migration Policy Institute calculates, derived from Census Bureau statistics, that the immigrant population (defined as “people residing in the United States who were not citizens at birth”) totals 42.4 million people. That is a little over 13% of the country’s population. For perspective, the African American population is 12.2% of the population and the Hispanic American population is 16.3% (2010 Census). The estimated population of undocumented migrants is around 11.2 million which would make approximately 3.5% of people residing in the country “illegals,” a small minority bearing a disproportionate amount of vindictive political venom and upon which countless ills are laid on. The number of undocumented immigrants has decreased from a little above 12MM in 2008 to its present level and counting.

U.S. Foreign Born Population by Region of Origin. 

Europe Region: 4.8MM

Asia Region: 12MM (East Asia: 3.77MM / So. Central Asia, including India: 3.2MM / West Asia, including Israel: .96MM)

Africa Region: 1.75MM

America Region: 22.3MM (Central America, including Mexico: 14.8MM / Caribbean: 3.88MM / So. America: 2.8MM)

Migration Policy Institute, U.S. Immigrant Population by State and County (accessed Sept 1, 2016)

• The Pew Research Center calculates there are 36 million second generation Americans, of which 20MM are adults, i.e. can vote. Added to the approximately 19MM immigrants that are naturalized citizens it makes for a powerful voting bloc. Even with a 50% abstention rate it would mean almost 20 million votes, enough to swing many an election.  Politicians demonize immigrants at their own peril when driving wedges between long timers and newcomers.

Much ink and bytes have been used to counter arguments laid out by the anti-immigrant rhetoric. In a fact-free reality immigrants (coded as “illegal” to slander a population much greater than the actual 3.5%) are accused of stealing jobs at best and being harbingers of terrorists and criminals at worst.

• Fact is, as has been pointed out, the low end jobs “stolen” usually do not involve language skills (typically crops, dishwashing, abattoirs, gardening, clean up, etc.) and higher end jobs are filled by companies skirting laws and ethics in pursuit of self-interest through legal corporate sponsorships. In 2012, there were nearly 420,000 “removals” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), of which 228,000 were by border capture (they never made it in) and 190,000 where “interior apprehensions.” During 2012 there were 1.8 million jobs created by the private sector, that is, nearly the same number of jobs were created every month than all “interior apprehensions” for the whole year. Of the total removals, 55% were of convicted criminals--not everyday workers.

• Facts are, as has been repeatedly demonstrated, neighborhoods and cities with increasing immigrant populations have seen decreasing crime over the years. While absorbing a portion of immigrants, members of the Muslim community aid in uncovering terrorist plots, and members of Hispanic communities work with police to better control gangs. This does not mean that there are no bad apples, but the rhetoric paints broad strokes with a wide brush, smearing minorities to reinforce stereotypes.

• The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy has calculated that undocumented alien residents (“illegals”) currently living in the United States collectively paid $11.64 billion in state, local taxes, sales taxes and government fees in 2015. These do not include their tax withholds which will not be returned.

• GDP is the sum of all transactions in products and services. The contribution of 78 million immigrants and children of immigrants to the market of transactions make for a sizable chunk of America’s GDP.

There comes a morning when the immigrant looks in the mirror and realizes that an American is staring back; an American accepting of differences, striving in the pursuit of happiness, created equal; and troubled by the whipping up of anti-immigrant sentiment. Many have seen and lived such persecution of minorities for electoral purposes in their country of origin and know what it has led to. Thus, when asked, “Is America headed in the wrong direction?” their answer is “yes” because of the celebration of obstructionism, racism, extremism and sheer stupidity in political discourse, its lackadaisical treatment by the so-called mainstream media and the rising influence of fringestream media feeding populist frenzy. The wrong direction. Something I have lived, outside of the American Democracy bubble. I personally know that democracy is not the end of history: we can regress.

There will always be a special place in the immigrant heart for his or her roots. This is human, understandable and not a reason to marginalize. I know of the pain they feel when there is pain in the country they grew up in. Immigrants will support in humanitarian ways and with patriotic fervor the causes they believe in and, in so doing, defend and spread true American values throughout the world. They are the newest Americans. Welcome.

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Links and References

Migration Policy Institute: Where do Immigrants Come From? (Interactive Chart)

Migration Police Institute: FAQ and Statistics

U.S. Population by Race and Hispanic/Latino Origin (Census 2001 and 2010)

World Population by Country

Foreign Born Population in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau Presentation)

U.S. Deports Families

Deported in 2013

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Deportation Statistics 2015

Pew Research Center: Second Generation Americans (PDF)