Tag Archives: America in Crisis

Donald Trump and the Current Political Moment

Donald Trump is running for President. He is a significant and influential figure in the United States of America. He is not merely a rich man but a man with an association with the ideas and conceptions of wealth across America.   His show The Apprentice and his casinos all represent the glamour and and appeal of money in an unapologetic way.

I have begun drafting this post just before the first debate of the Republican primaries of the Presidential electoral campaigns. This will give him a chance to go up against other people, in fact only nine other men who also want to be President of the United States of America. It might be that the least successful approach to this subject in terms of timing would be to write a post just before the debate that will allow us all to see what is going on in the life, mind and politics of Mr. Donald Trump.  So far we know little except that  he is a wealthy celebrity businessman who questioned whether or not President Barack Hussein Obama was born in the United States.

Americans are concerned about  the shrinking economic prospects in the country. Americans are concerned about a sense of diminished hopes for the kind of future that can lead to outcomes they believe in and a better future than the current state of things. Many find in Donald Trump a chance to believe in someone who is eager to proclaim that he can lead America back to greatness. His slogan is, “Make America Great Again”.

Familiar Greenbacks

America is used to paper money as a great symbol of National unity as well as the tangible form of our unifying preoccupation.

Donald Trump has been saying a lot of things that a lot of Americans  can understand and which represent feelings many Americans share.  He shows a confidence in America and its power to win and to lead which many people find very attractive. I am not sure of all the context of his remarks about immigrants from Mexico. I am sure that Mexican and other migrants arriving with all sorts of levels of documentation do contribute greatly to our economy. They also inflict and exact a cost. I agree with anyone who believes that one of the primary tasks of governance is to control borders and sovereign territory and to manage the census, records and planning related to demographics and population groups. It is also true that all sorts of crime, smuggling risk is associated with our borders. Unlike Mr. Trump I really want to let anyone who thinks about me in political terms know that I really want to see America double down and double down again in its commitment to NAFTA, the Organization of American States, the Pan American Games, the creative and sensitive reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine and many other institutions. I want to see the United States become a country where a man like Jorge Bergoglio could be well known even before his address changed to the Vatican and he became the Bishop of Rome.

I just read Mike Huckabee’s book God, Guns, Grits and Gravy. I wonder to what degree Donald Trump intends to be an antidote to Huckabee. Trump is the other kind of populist than Huckabee’s populism based in the NASCAR, Southern Baptist and  Duck Dynasty hubs of the South. Huckabee contrasts Bubba-ville and Bubbleville and there is no doubt that Trump is from what Huckabee calls Bubbleville. Is Trump rooted  enough in the other conservative elements of American society given how far he is from Bubba-ville?

Gettysburg settled upon our country many parts of a new consensus . . .

Gettysburg settled upon our country many parts of a new consensus . . .

We face many challenges as a society, a federal union and as the United States of America. Donald Trump is like many other running for President of the United States in that he is an accomplished person who has shown he can get things done. He is like them in his capacity to express himself in a way many people find compelling and in that he cares about this country.

I am not a Republican. But I am interested in watching the Republican Primary debates. In Louisiana we have an open primary, majoritarian outcome system. Although this is modified for the Presidential and only truly national (although it is a Federal and not unitary election in structure) US election it still affects the way we approach politics. Here anyone can vote in a primary and if one person gets more than half of all votes cast he wins as Jindal did in his first election as governor. If not the two top vote-getters run again and one is assure to have more than half the vote cast and is elected.

So since I left the Democrats in 1993 and have voted as a Louisiana citizen not being in a party has not affected me as much as in most other states. However, a few elections have had closed primaries for complex constitutional reasons. But the Presidential elections are under a different set of rules. Louisiana is also one of a few states that has its statewide elections in the year before the Presidential elections when the national party primary elections are being contested.

I expect Donald Trump to make headlines tonight. But what kinds of headlines where?

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

We all have images of what leadership should look like which are not simple portrayals of reality.

Many of us are concerned about divisions in the country. Does Donald Trump have what it takes to reach people who would identify more with Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Carla Fiorino and Mike Huckabee. People one might possibly notice were Latino, African-American, women or Southern?

He certainly cannot win by getting the votes of only rich celebrities. I think that the debate tonight is his to lose. This is a long way from the White House. But this is Trump’s moment.  Can the Miss USA promoter stand out in his own line up of candidates?

There is a song interpreted by Julianne Hough which says in part,

Hard to find, took some time
But I think that I might be hittin’
On what’s been missing all along
Singing my hallelujah song

Trump has been honest in his concern for Christians being tortured and killed and it has caused him to search his faith I think. It has not been something he has done very gracefully. I think he may well live to regret this whole campaign. But I think now he is on a moral and spiritual quest carrying a lot of Americans with him. Can a worldly, rich, good-timing man who loves the spotlight  emerge as a great leader? Many are eager to say “no!’ I am not one of those people. I believe the Donald really is digging in and I am not sure whether what he finds will be enough to produce greatness or not…

Diplomacy in the Modern Era:Reflections from My life

How much anger and fear creep into life and argument is always an issue of concern in any field of endeavor. I have reached a new point in my journey toward whatever may function as a grave in the case of my particular life.  I will, sooner or later, be able to ignore the issues of geopolitics. For now however, I still have an opinion.

In my own life I have gotten to a place of careful recognition of how entirely wearied and bleak the rest of my life will likely be and how ill that sits with me in many ways. However, I am perhaps in some ways made more courageous and reckless by this selfsame sense of misery and futility. Today, I heard two people speaking with Fox News (which I do watch but which is not my primary television news) on different subjects but in a way which their rhetoric made related. One was Donald Trump discussing the possibility of running for President and  his desire to see America respected in the world again. The other was Richard Dreyfuss discussing educational reform through his Dreyfuss Initiative. Both of these men seemed to be aware that while things are oddly comfortable to speak of a nation in crisis we are nonetheless in crisis. Later on today, I watched the whole of a show I had seen in part earlier. This was the Diane Sawyer episode of  the new  series Master Class on the new OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network). Sawyer was also speaking about things as they are and can be and appear in American foreign policy, in Appalachia’s foothills and in other stories which suggest that we may be in crisis. She however, was less in the mode of proclaiming crisis than the two men on Fox News. 

That crisis is entirely apparent to most of the rest of the world. It is becoming more imperative than can be easily suggested or explained that we have the right kind of social and constitutional transformation in this country. My proposal is spread across this not very widely read blog. It is a proposal which will seem odd to the vast majority of potential readers. Here are some of the highlights in a single blog post without really checking them for inconsistent details as regards previous posts. These are by no means exhaustive:

1. I recommend we evolve into the Federal  American Empire of the United States. While doing this we  retain our heritage by keeping two legal names the one just given and the United States of America.

2. That we establish a royal monarch as Emperor and Supreme President to reign as Head of State and also to rule with very specific powers  while most of the current role of the President of the United States would be carried out by an analogous First Executive Vice President.

3.I propose that we establish the USA based Maison de le Roi of the Basileus Arkadios as the American Imperial House. 

4. That we redraw the map , creating a whole new class of lands known as Territories and a whole new class of Lands known as Possessions and that we also create lands in the Direct Imperial Government jurisdiction which would consist of a few border zones, special fiefdoms, Compact Districts, the District of Columbia, offshore artificial islands and other cessions making up a tiny portion of all this Union’s lands. Explaining all this at all requires looking at posts elsewhere.

5. That we admit part of Puerto Rico as the last State to be admitted without a constitutional amendment and constitute besides this State of Puerto Rico (which would possibly be exactly the size of Rhode Island or a few square miles bigger) we would also create  two other constitutional jurisdictions a Puerto Rico Creole of Color Territory, and a Puerto Rico Negro and African-American Possession. These non-states would  form part of a large new section of the regime.

6.Possessions and Territories would have government of their domestic regimes and municipal affairs and some share in sovereignty. They would have seats in the House of Representatives but not in the Senate. They would have some constitutional set aside of perpetual development funds. Territories would  have more rank and privilege than Posessions. There would be a federal Territory for all the Aboriginal American peoples of Alaska, four federal Territories for all the Aboriginal American Peoples  of the contiguous states, two Territories for Mestizos in the Eastern and Western Spanish Borderlands, three Creole of Color Territories separately established in Louisiana, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as well as Territories for Guam, Samoa, the Restored Kingdom of Hawaii., and a single real enough but largely symbolic Territory for citizens descended from Old Holdings (Philippines, Cuba, Micronesia). who are not white or North East Asian  All fifty States would continue to exist and would hold most of their current lands.   Possession will be made one in every former Confederate State , in Puerto Rico and in the Virgin Islands. There will then be one federalized Possession for Maryland, Oklahoma, Kentucky  and West Virginia. Then two single large possessions will be made up of small districts across all other states.  

7.That we reform the Congress in large and small ways. All fifty-one states would elect two Senators as the currently do as well as one elected by the Legislature of each state. That legislative electee would serve for twelve years at a time and if not enrolled as an ordinary Noble or Aristocrat under the rules of one of the Compacts to which the Sate belongs could only serve one term and regardless that Senator must be from the rolls of some part of the Fivefold nobility before the election. These 153 Senators would be the only regular Senators capable of voting for most things but there would be others who had limited functions. The Second Executive Vice President would be President of the Senate. There would be no Tribunes with absolute veto like Rome but their would be Two Senior and Four Junior Tribunes elected by the Territories and One Senior and Two Junior   Tribunes elected by the possessions. Then there would be a class of seats in the Greater Senatorial Council of those with just a bit less power than the Tribunes. These would include the wives of the First and Second Executive Vice Presidents and the Empress’s Minister for the Bureau of Women’s Affairs as well as others and so the though there would be only 154 regular Senatorial votes (with the Senate President voting last when it will create or break a tie under fair procedure) the Grand Senatorial Council will number 200 and will have some key but very limited roles.  Congressional reforms would also   include increasing the House 800 members and creating seats for somewhere two at large seats from each Territory and one at large seat from Possession.  Beyond that the general rule would be that all seats would be apportioned with X people per seat in each State.The amount for districts charted afterwards  might be negotiated but roughly come to 1.25X people per district in the Territories once they have passed almost that amount in fixed two seats and 1.5X people in the districts in the Possessions once they have passed fully that allotment for one fixed seat. Each State with a significant North East Asian heritage population shall have one or two but no more fully or majority Northeast Asian Constituted seats that will probably be  more than twenty but less than forty districts. All military bases in the Empire and abroad will be allotted seats but military  voters will also belong to another home district. These federalized or single districts will be given seats at the rate of 2x people per district.  Their will be four sets reserved to represent the Colored Districts in the States.Each state will have these districts with some municipal governance and seats in the State Legislature for those who are not White or North East Asian and are not related closely to the peoples of bordering Territories or legislatures. These four seats in the House will be represented by those elected by a convention of the colored State Legislators every four years.   There would also be between three and five seats fro those living in Direct Imperial Government jurisdiction. These DIG reps alone would be of limited powers because of some restrictions in the areas of law that have no application in the DIG areas. In basic terms, the House of Representatives will be between 791 and 793 seats apportioned by population.  800 = S+T+P+M+4+(3to5), is the structure but the representation is of the total population plus the eligible military population on bases.  There are more sophisticated ways to do the math but the actual decsions of alottment and districting would be a complex cooperative effort by the Censors and the Jurisdictions. The Censors would be a board of retired very senior officials of several kinds who would run the Census Bureau and actually work with the dsitrictingand would form a magistracy for ethics and public morals.    

8. All Americans would belong to between one and three family associations. These associations would have primary responsibility for defining race. These would also be gathered into Kindreds which would form one of the main bases of DIG representation and government. In addition, the businesses and individuals of America would be encouraged to participate in a guild system, forming another base of DIG representation.

America could grow back into a healthy society if it undertook changes such as this. However, it is not likely to do so and the crisis will become more pronounced.