To those who have watched politics over the last decade in the West, it is becoming increasingly clear that a new political animal is becoming increasingly visible. Of course, this animal has existed for decades under the surface of Western political culture. However, it tried, largely successfully, to mask its true essence. Today, Western political culture is changing. And feeling increasingly emboldened, this animal is emerging from the shadows to reveal itself. Although at earlier times, claims of this animal’s existence were largely confined to the raving, lunatic fringe of the radical right.  Today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. This animal is the autocratic totalitarian.

What we are seeing is the rise, or rather the lack of pretense, of a totalitarian culture. I’m not referring to Donald Trump or any of the other populists that have emerged as political forces in some other countries. In many ways, the political success of these actors are reactions against the totalitarians trying to impose a culture and way of looking at the world; a culture whose costs are borne by others and whose cultural diktats are contrary to traditions and other ways that people have traditionally ordered their lives in the West.

For these totalitarians, the ends increasingly justify the means. So, putting someone out of business and destroying what they have spent years building is justified, if they have the ‘wrong’ ideas or the ‘wrong’ political opinions or attitudes. Denying someone employment or firing them from a position for such attitudes is acceptable, even if such beliefs have nothing to do with their job or job performance. In this world, It is okay if members of the Electoral College are abused, due process trampled upon, the IRS used to intimidate political opponents, judges ruling against actions taken by someone that they don’t like even if they would approve the same action if taken by someone who they do like, and a labeling of political opponents as Nazis, fascists etc., if it gets the desired result.

For these totalitarians, a democratic result is only legitimate if it produces the outcome desired by the totalitarians. So, the ‘wrong’ Brexit vote should either be ignored, treated as an ‘advisory, non-legally binding’ vote, redone so that ‘the people’ can reconsider and make the ‘right’ decision, overturned by Parliament, or by a judiciary, etc. etc. A ‘wrong’ U.S. presidential vote can be nullified by endless investigations and activist judges.

And lest we think that these totalitarian, anti-democratic attitudes have simply arisen suddenly in a moral panic over Brexit or Donald Trump’s election, holding a ‘do-over’ vote has been done several times over the years during the EU’s history where a popular vote that went the ‘wrong’ way was re-done a couple of years later to get the ‘right’ result. Governments not palatable to the totalitarians have been sanctioned, denigrated, or accused of being totalitarian/autocratic, anti-democratic, even when these governments have come to power in free elections. These accusations seem to be hurled only at election results that are disapproved of by the totalitarians themselves. So an electoral outcome in Hungary in which an elite disfavored party obtains 49% of the vote and 2/3’s of the seats is considered a travesty and anti-democratic, but a result in 1997 in Britain in which an elite favored political party (Labour) gets 43% of the vote and 64% of the seats is considered democratically legitimate.

This culture of totalitarianism has infused what is being called ‘elite opinion’ and is leading to political instability and possibly the break-up of certain countries in the West. The danger isn’t emanating from one political actor (say a Donald Trump or a Hillary Clinton). It is emanating from a cultural segment that sees an inherent right to rule by themselves and those who think like them; a right that doesn’t extend to those that disagree with them. Not only does this segment (which includes many/most academics, government bureaucrats, and media members) believe that others don’t deserve equal political rights, but that others disagreement make them horrible people for whom abuse, and even legal harassment, are justly deserved. The disfavored are said to engage in something called ‘hate speech’, a term defined by the totalitarians to justify attempts to suppress speech rights of those with whom they disagree. To the extent that the disfavored succeed in using historical, still active rights, to win elections, these elections are said to be tainted and the result need not be respected.

In short, what we have here is a cultural civil war, cold for the time being, between those who think that they deserve to be treated with respect and have their rights respected, and those who don’t. Increasingly, “those who don’t” seem committed to removing some rights from between 1/3 to 1/2 of the population (depending on which country we are talking about). The fact that they think that they can do this while maintaining the historical stability & prosperity of their respective societies is a delusion, likely brought on by a lack of imagination. Just as the 9/11 attacks weren’t even imaginable until they happened, a United States, or a Germany, or a France  or one of any number of Western countries, breaking apart in a spasm of violence like some Third World country isn’t something that these totalitarians really believe is going to happen, or could even ever happen. If they keep pushing far enough and remove any space for disfavored opinions to find expression and occasionally win political victories, while at the same time pushing to destroy the lives of those holding those opinions, they will find out how wrong they are.

While the elite are denouncing Donald Trump’s tariffs and his movements towards renegotiating NAFTA, they are equally uncomprehending as to why anybody would these moves are a good idea.

And according to economic theory, elite opinion is correct. As an undergrad, I was even asked to teach the basic theory of free trade to the class (the professor was trying an experiment). The basic theory is that if two nations concentrate their labor forces to do what each country does best relative to the other one, they can trade and become better off. In theory, they will be able to obtain products at a lower cost, making their population better off. And indeed, practical experience seems to back the free trade argument as countries that are open to the international marketplace invariably seem to do better than those that aren’t.

The problem with the theory, however, is that it assumes the free mobility of labor. It assumes that when two countries open for trade, the labor that has been displaced can easily move into other industries at a similar wage.

But what if it can’t?

And therein lies the root of the failure. The theory promised, essentially, that free trade would make everyone better off and that whatever pain was caused by labor displacement would be temporary. But we don’t live in a pure free market or a pure free trade world. Domestic economic regulations and various trade restrictions, even if not overt, skew the market. This is the real world; not one of theory. And in the real world, the generation-long experiment has produced real job losses and stagnant, or declining, standards of living for a not insignificant swath of the U.S. population. The fact that a slogan “Make America Great Again” caught on (whatever that slogan actually means), implies that the American experience, for many, has been a disappointing one of late.

NAFTA

When NAFTA was debated back in 1993, the arguments for the free trade agreement was that it would provide products at lower cost to American consumers, lead to economic growth, and help Mexico develop into a first world economy, thereby lowering pressure for illegal immigration. The argument against NAFTA was that there would be a “giant sucking sound” as American jobs were “sucked” into Mexico, thereby throwing Americans out of work. Although offshoring of American jobs has continued all over the world and is not primarily the fault of Mexico, the overall impact on American industrial jobs in certain industries was likely negative.

Although there are arguments regarding the magnitude on American industrial jobs, it is undeniable  that if NAFTA was intended to turn Mexico into a first-world economy, it clearly has failed. Although different studies may come to varying conclusions regarding how much NAFTA has helped or hurt Mexico, what is obvious is that the promise of a country with a first-world (or near first-world) economy has not been realized in the nearly-quarter century since NAFTA was put in place. In fact, in many ways Mexico looks increasingly like a failed state, rather than country soon to join the major economic powers.

Free Trade Ideology

The result of these and other factors are causing people to question the free-trade ideology that has been part of the governing consensus over the last 25 years. When a system of thought becomes an ideology, it often means that its assumptions are accepted without question. While the theory of free trade is functional, and countries that engage in the international trading system ARE unquestionably better off than those that don’t. However, the idea that free trade is a win-win for all has not been realized, in part because there is no trading system that is truly free. In addition, the economic models on which the ideology is based tend to oversimplify reality when coming to the conclusions that often flow logically given the assumptions.

In order for an ideology to be sustained, it must be seen to work by the vast majority of people. Part of the failure of this ideology is due to the fact that the costs to many people have simply been ignored or downplayed by the governing structure. These forgotten people have been the losers in the freer trade world, as it has been their jobs and their economic security that has been sacrificed. If these folks were few in number, then they could maybe be safely ignored. But they aren’t few in number, and they are now starting to assert themselves and demanding that their needs be met and that their government stand up for them. We can see it in the election of Donald Trump, but also in the improved prospects of populist parties in Europe as well as the Brexit vote.

Free-trade ideology has failed to deliver on its promise. Some people are losing faith and are starting to look for other solutions.

With the Western world facing political and cultural upheaval of a type not seen in our lifetimes, the word “treason” seems to be experiencing a renaissance of usage. As with many words in the age of social media, this word is in danger of having its potency degraded through overuse. But with some Western societies appearing to be tearing themselves apart over certain issues, it is worth reexamining whether some political opposition is crossing the line into “treason territory”.

The first difficulty in defining what treason is occurs when one asks “treason against what”? Those who would assert that Donald Trump is treasonous for his as yet unproven collusion with the Russians, would not likely have the same feeling had Hillary Clinton done the same thing. Al Gore had some potential trouble on his hands when it was revealed that he might have been involved in taking campaign contributions from the Chinese during the 1996 campaign for President, but yet nobody seriously accused him of treason. In a globalized world, other countries have a vested interest in the results of their neighbor’s (and rivals) elections. In addition, if you think that your policies are best for your country as a whole, are you a traitor for turning to foreign sources for helping you win an election or implement your program?

What about if your policies will disadvantage large swaths of your population for the benefit of a foreign population? For example, some of the arguments going regarding immigration, both here and in Europe, seem to pit those who think that the nation state actually means something vs. those who view national borders as arbitrary lines, similar to those that delineate American states. Those holding this latter view often appear to be asserting that national governments should be responsive to the needs & desires of the world population as a whole (to the extent that it is in their power to do so), and not just those of their actual citizens. To the extent that native citizens are put off by these efforts, their views are no more legitimate in these questions (and often appear to be given less legitimacy) than the views of random people in say, Bangladesh.

It would appear, based on public pronouncements and various initiatives, that some might have lost perspective on why governments exist in the first place. From the time that the first cavemen from various local caves came together to form a political organization, it was with the idea that they would collectively be stronger than they would be alone. One of the primary motivations was to provide collective resources to defend the group from outside threats, be it from human or animal. In exchange for giving up some personal autonomy and committing loyalty to the group, the group would commit itself to defending the individual from threats emanating from outside the group. At the heart of any political organization is the idea that there are some inside the organization and some outside the organization, and that those outside the organization have no claims on the organizations resources.

This appears to be something that some in the American and European political class have forgotten. When Angela Merkel invited over a million ‘refugees’ from Syria and other locations to come to Germany, and then tried to shift many of them to other EU members who did not consent to these refugees and had no part in Merkel’s decision, she was taking a decision that prioritized the refugees needs and desires over native German (and European) citizens. Whatever moral arguments might be made regarding helping those in need, she took a decision without consulting her citizens and by prioritizing the needs of refugees over them, she violated the implicit social contract that underpins any government. Today, many Germans face more crime and less physical security in some places thanks to her action.

In the U.S., the Democrats seems determined to push the idea that America is a place that everyone who wants to has a right to come. Furthermore, according to this view, the citizens and their government have no moral right to place restrictions on immigration. What makes this view potentially treasonous is that the argument is not that we should admit more immigrants for reason A.) B.) and C.). It is rather that U.S. citizens, through their elected government, have no moral right to even decide what level of immigration is appropriate and to take action to limit migration to this level. In this worldview, whether or not a certain level of migration harms a substantial fraction of American citizens (politically, economically, or physically) is an irrelevant and illegitimate consideration.

In both of these cases, the party in question has prioritized the needs/desires of a foreign population over the objections of citizens. In the case of one party, they have declared that their citizens have no moral right to object to this and that the government has no moral right to act on those objections. In so doing, they have effectively stated that their country, as the term has been understood since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, has no moral right to enforce sovereignty on its territory. Stated another way, they are stating that their country has no moral right to exist.

The word ‘treason’ can mean different things to different people. Some people view Donald Trump as a traitor, even if he didn’t actually collude with the Russians. Other people felt the same way about Obama. Unfortunately, declaring political differences to be treasonous cheapens the word and is often simply inaccurate. As much as a one may passionately believe that policy X is the best policy for the country, someone else may just as passionately believe that the opposite of X is the best choice. Neither of these folks is necessarily a traitor to the country. They just disagree. But under the international system that we have had for the last 350 years, prioritizing the needs of a foreign population over your own citizens without a commensurate benefit accruing to the majority (or significant minority) of your citizens and thereby stating that your country has no moral right to exist, IS an act of betrayal.

There really is no other word for it. It is an act of treason against one’s own country. And it seems to be a position held by a not insignificant fraction of the Western political class, to the detriment of their societies.

As the year 2017 comes to a close, it is worth looking back at what we have seen and what we have learned:

• United States is a country with an unserious population.

Despite Trump’s  un-presidential antics, the apocalypse that many feared has not arrived. Despite supposedly serious people screaming that Trump and his supporters are Nazi’s, that “our democracy is at risk”, and that those who aid Trump are “complicit”, concentration camps a have not been set up (some were already in place a year after Hitler took power). In addition, anti-Trump journalists are not being beaten up, jailed, or made to mysteriously disappear. What we have is that the type of fear and hysteria that was promoted in obscure places on the right during the Obama years (especially at the beginning), is now playing out from a left-wing perspective on the pages and airwaves of mainstream news organizations. If you strip away the Trump Twitter-account, the Trump agenda is largely a mainstream Republican agenda; most of which would likely be pursued by a Republican President of any stripe. The fact that the Republican Party controls, in full or in part, more than 40 states means that a Republican Party that was “threat to democracy” would have reshaped large swaths of the country in ways that would make the country physically unsafe for certain groups of people in same way that the West Bank and Gaza are not safe for Jews or Americans. And this fact would be well-known and out in the open (no so-called “dog-whistles”). The fact that one side of the political spectrum has an image such as this about the other sides means that the U.S. is not guided by seriousness.

• At least part (if not most) of the permanent U.S. government has been politicized.

From massive government leaks to apparent hiding (or outright destruction) of evidence, parts of the U.S. government appear to be above the law and above congressional oversight. And unfortunately, as of right now, it appears that the politics all runs in the same direction. It seems that the permanent bureaucracy has decided that Trump cannot be allowed to govern, and is doing everything it can to undermine and/or destroy him. While one can certainly argue with wisdom of various policies, the fact that he won an election in prescribed manner means that he should be allowed to govern within the bounds set by the Constitution. The fact that unelected bureaucrats are taking it upon themselves to frustrate that means that a large part of the country has no hope of ever seeing policies that they want enacted, even if they win elections. Fortunately, it does not yet appear that this has been widely realized yet. When it eventually is, the permanent U.S. government can expect to find that it has lost legitimacy and the support of a large part (perhaps half) of the U.S. population.

• Brexit, that thing that couldn’t be allowed to happen, appears to be going ahead.

In the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote in 2016, there were dreams that the referendum results could be overturned. Some ideas floated were to just ignore the results and declare that the referendum was an advisory one and not legally binding after the fact, to overturn it in parliament, overturn it in the courts, or to have another referendum to overturn the first one. None of these things have been successful and the divorce negotiations with the E.U. seem to be moving forward (albeit with stumbles). The catastrophic economic collapse that was predicted would happen if Brexit was approved has not happened.

The Lesson?

That things that are unthinkable can actually happen.

• That a chaotic Washington is not necessarily an impediment to stock market growth.

As it became clear on election night that Donald Trump was going to be the next President of the United States, stock market future completely tanked. New York Times columnist (and Nobel Prize-winning economist) Paul Krugman predicted that the stock market would not recover for the duration of the Trump Presidency. While the Trump tenure has been chaotic as many feared it would be, the stock market is up more than 20% during that period. While there are legitimate concerns that the market is currently overvalued and overdue for a substantial correction, the fact remains that the market has done what it has done with seeming chaos swirling around it. Furthermore, the Trump Administration does in fact seem to be more business-friendly in that bad news for the Trump economic agenda seems to result in a down day for the market, while good news for the agenda seems to translate to a good day for the market. While the President isn’t the guider of the market and a recession or a market correction (both likely to occur within the next 3 years no matter who was/is in the Oval Office) will be pinned on Trump, the fact is that either Washington doesn’t matter as much to the market as it thinks it does, or Trump’s agenda is perceived to be good for business both by those economic desperate people who voted for Trump and those Wall Street titans who may or may not have done so.

Overall, what we have learned in 2017 is that the world is changing and that things are not likely to turn out well for the United States as it currently exists. A country with an unserious population and a politicized civil service is not a politically or socially stable combination over the long-run. In addition, a country that discovers that it can thrive without Washington is one that will not long cease to question why we should bother paying taxes to it or be governed by it. Furthermore, in both the U.S. and Britain, there are those in high places that don’t really believe in respecting a democratic result unless it is a result that they personally approve of. While the system in the U.K. seems to be respecting (at least grudgingly) the will of the voters and moving towards the result approved, the jury is still out on the United States. One thing is for sure. Disrespecting half of your population (largely the tax paying half) and making it difficult/to impossible for them to govern when they win elections is not going to result in a happy society that rolls on being the most powerful country in the world, generation after generation.

2017 was an eye-opener. 2018 is likely to bring even more surprises.

With the price of Bitcoin sky-rocketing over the last few months (making millionaires out of some very young people), the world’s attention is suddenly focused on Bitcoin (and other crypto-currencies). Economists and financial ‘experts’ are talking about how Bitcoin really isn’t a currency and is a bubble, and boosters are talking about how Bitcoin will change everything and drain power away from governments allowing transactions to take place beyond the regulatory reach of the state.

So, what is the truth? It would be tough to claim that anyone currently really understands what Bitcoin is. Saying that Bitcoin isn’t really a currency is ludicrous. Anything that anyone will take in exchange for something else is a currency, whether that be dollars, Swiss francs, or a stack of baseball cards. The criticism that Bitcoin isn’t backed by anything really runs into a similar problem that afflicts other conventional currencies; namely that they aren’t really backed by anything either beyond faith that someone else will take them (dollars, euros, etc.) in exchange for something else. True, the faith in these currencies is underpinned by fact that certain governments will accept their own currencies to satisfy tax obligations, as well as the widely shared experience that many establishments will accept the local currency as payment for goods or services rendered. However, if the government issuing the currency is overthrown, the faith in the currency (and its value as a medium of exchange) tends to disappear too (see German Reichsmarks, East German Marks, etc.). So, what is really meant by the assertion that Bitcoin is not a real currency is that its ability to be exchanged for tangible goods and services has not yet been adequately established. Admittedly, at this time Bitcoin does seem to be the Esparanto of currencies: some people use it, but the use of it has not been adopted widely enough to make it a truly useful currency.

One of the more apparent criticisms of Bitcoin is that it is currently in a bubble phase. Any item that increases its price in dollars by 5 or 10 times over during a few months is a legitimate target for a bubble accusation. This is especially true when there is no obvious reason for such a move. The rapid increase in the value of Bitcoin bears a lot of the hallmarks of a bubble move. Specifically, you have a new, potentially transformative, technology that nobody really understands. It moves from the fringes into the popular consciousness. People get excited and the price skyrockets beyond all rational expectations. We have seen this historically in the legendary tulip craze a few centuries ago, and more recently in the “tronics boom” of the 1960’s and the tech bubble of the late 90’s. The rise in price was due largely to sentiment and expectations. If (when) these fail to be met and people lose faith in the idea that they will ever be met, the price of the asset crashes hard, leaving financial (and possibly economic) wreckage in its wake. Having said this, if Bitcoin suddenly entered popular use (and with the internet, something can enter popular use rather suddenly from out of nowhere), see the price of the coins increase rapidly would not be something unexpected. For now, as I haven’t seen signs sprouting up touting that my local grocery store now accepts Bitcoin in payment, count me in the bubble category (although as Bitcoin is a global currency, its possible that the price increase could be justified just from online use).

Finally, the question about the use of Bitcoin also must include questions regarding how one can obtain Bitcoin (it’s essentially inaccessible for most people) as well as the alleged limit on its supply. While this limit is viewed as a limit against Bitcoin losing its value through inflation (a VERY important concern when one is dealing with a medium of exchange that has no governing structure), its limited supply could result in it limiting economic growth and prosperity if it were ever widely adopted in the way that gold (another faith-based medium of exchange) does. As for being inaccessible for most people, this is going to make it less likely that your average person will have experience with it, less likely that he/she will be comfortable with it, and this will hinder its overall adoption by the general public.

What we could end up seeing, however, is the emergence of a global economic segment (a sort of sub-economy, if you will) where people/firms who do business with each other but are also weakly linked with the greater global economy use Bitcoin in transactions. There are many potential ways this could come about, but illustrating them would be an exercise in pure speculation. Perhaps over time, Bitcoin will be gradually adopted as more and more people begin to have experience with it and the faith in the currency grows and allows it to achieve critical mass. However, at this time, it is too new, and the value too unstable, for this to be considered a candidate for mass adoption any time soon.

So now that coalition talks to form a German government appear to have broken down and the way forward is not as clear as it once was, one should stop and take stock of where the West and where it is heading. Those who try to explain Donald Trump looking at strictly American causes seem to be missing the bigger picture. While the political earthquake that was Donald Trump’s election is still getting the most press attention (not least of which is his Twitter account), the fact is that the assumptions and governing structure of the post-war era in the West are being called into question in country after country as never before. Even in France where President Macron was dubbed the establishment candidate, this was only due to the fact that his opponent was from a party traditionally associated with right-wing extremists. People forget that Macron’s party didn’t exist 3 years ago. Imagine the next U.S. President in 2020 being from a political party that doesn’t exist right now, and you get the idea how big a deal that is.

When you have political dissatisfaction such as what we are witnessing today across the West, it usually isn’t a case of horrible (aka racist) people finally finding their voice and overwhelming a stable political system that is functioning reasonably well. The fact that folks in country after country with many different economic and political cultures are sending the same message should tell us something. Specifically it should tell us that something big is happening. The fact that the U.S. would elect a political novice, that France would elect someone from a new political party, and that Italy would have a political party led by a comedian leading in some polls in the run up to the 2018 elections is a sign that the political system has failed. While some roll their eyes at people who even after a year still can’t accept that Donald Trump won the election, this lack of acceptance indicates (I think) an intuitive understanding that something deep has shifted, likely irreversibly.

So, what is happening? I think that it can be summed up that the population has finally lost faith in a governing system (and I include the established political media in this) to which they must pay taxes, listen to people who don’t know what they are doing presume to talk down to them, and that has delivered very little tangible for them over the last quarter century. This is not an indictment of one political party; this inept governing is truly bi-partisan. The last large victory of the political system in the West was that of the Cold War. Since then, much of the visible improvement (cell phones, internet, expanded entertainment options) have been largely driven outside of government. To the extent that government was involved in any of these, its role was either minimal or not really visible.

However, what is visible is that many countries are seeing waves of immigrants being let in to either A.) consume social services paid for by citizen taxpayers or B.) to compete with citizens for scarce jobs. In some countries, citizens face regulatory burdens from supranational bodies that they have no control over or any clearly visible way to influence. Or, they simply see that their money is taxed and nothing improves. Schools deteriorate, roads have potholes, traffic gets bad, jails are overcrowded, etc. etc. They vote for one party, and then the other. But nothing changes.

Furthermore, some governments seem to not understand that protecting their citizens from outside threats to their well-being (including economic ones) includes securing the border. When citizens protest and demand that something be done to control immigration, they are derided as horrible people. The political system does what it wants. In Europe, the E.U. pushes forward with integration favored by the elites. When citizens push back, they are vilified and punished. Then they are “invited” to vote again until they get the “right” answer. Social media has made it obvious what many in the political class truly think of the average voter, and it isn’t pretty. In has become apparent that the political class sees itself as a permanent ruling class and voters as mere supplicants, registering their votes at the polls for the ruling class to grant or ignore at its pleasure.

What is worse, is that despite producing failure, nobody in the political class seems to be truly held to account. Sure, a political party might lose an election, but the individual members don'”t really suffer personally. If someone in the private sector screws up, they lose their job. In losing their job, often everything that they have is at risk (Home, marriage, retirement, etc). The failures in the political class, if they result in sanction at all, usually result in a politician being in the minority instead of the majority, a bureaucrat gets transferred to another department, a resignation into another profitable and lucrative niche, etc. In short, failure in the private-sector risks a ruined life. Failure in the public sector risks a demotion; painful perhaps, but not personally disastrous.

Even in the media, the talking heads never seem to lose their talking head position, no matter how stupid or wrong that they end up being. Many of these so-called “experts” talk and talk and talk and talk, and then end up being wrong, and yet they are still pronouncing like infallible sages. Virtually the entire political/economic media assured us that a Brexit vote was going to result in practically a Soviet-style economic collapse. Immediately after Trump won the election, Noble Prize winning economist and New York Time’s columnist Paul Krugman assured us that the stock market would never recover while Trump was President. Since those events/predictions, the stock market in the UK is up by about 17% and the stock market in the U.S. is up more than 20%.

The point is that people have lost faith in the governing class as a whole. And this isn’t due to people being stupid, blind, or misled. That might happen in one election in one country. But not in country after country and election after election. The faith of the governing class in a multicultural country in an open, globalized world that delivers, freedom, happiness and prosperity to all (or almost all) citizens and managed by that same governing class has broken down. It has failed. And like religious adherents across the ages whose religions have failed and/or been called into question by facts that can’t really be denied any longer, devotees of this faith are lashing out (sometimes literally and violently) at those who question and/or oppose their faith. The Western world is changing. It is far, far too early to say what will emerge. I wouldn’t even hazard a guess. The process will take years, perhaps decades. But the post-war era is ending. The failure of governance of the last 25 years is at the embryonic stages of being changed.

So the GOP is at the apex of its political power in almost a century. In the states, the GOP has the trifecta (control of the legislature and the governor’s mansion) in 25 states and partial control in at least 19 others (as opposed to 6 trifectas for the Democrats). They have control of Congress and the White House, AND they have 4 solid Supreme Court justices (along with a 5^th that sides with them more often than not). So apart from appointing some federal judges and keeping the Supreme Court in nominally Republican hands, why do they seem to struggle to move their agenda along and disappoint their supporters? I believe that there are several reasons.

• The first reason I believe is psychological. The Republican Party is the conservative party of the American political spectrum, which implies that often they are trying to ‘conserve’ and keep things as they are (or were) in a changing world. The result is a defensive mindset that tries to fend off challenges to the status quo or at least limit the changes to tinkering around the edges. Generations of Republican lawmakers have come to Washington to either hinder change or to roll some recent change back to the prior status. The reason that the charge “Republicans want to turn back the clock” sticks is because that has been the default Republican position on many issues for a long time. To actually legislate and produce solutions to problems means changing the status quo and requires an offensive rather than a defensive mindset. This is not something that comes naturally to Republicans.
• The second reason is geographical. Washington D.C. is a town which is more than 90% Democrat. This means that Republican lawmakers (and their staffs) are effectively under siege in their personal lives when they go to Washington. Going into any cocktail party, social event, or even grabbing a bite down the local diner, the Republican in D.C. is looked down upon, and likely has to apologize for being who he/she is and not be too much of a believer in Republicanism (whatever that is) in order to be accepted. So, instead of standing up for their constituents and the people who voted for them, too often they cave (and are likely given some acceptance for being “reasonable”). I’m not saying that this IS what happens, but the results are consistent with this. I suspect that if the capital was moved to Salt Lake City where Republicans aren’t an endangered species, they would be much less likely to cave repeatedly on their principles.
• The third reason is that there isn’t really a unified Republican Party. If this last election revealed anything, it’s that the Republican Establishment is divorced from the concerns of the average Republican voter. When one thinks about it, the Republican Party nationally has delivered very little to its voters over the last 25 years. At a practical level, the Presidency of Bush II brought a small amount of tax relief. The rest of what it delivered was a war in Iraq (Afghanistan can be forgiven because no government on earth could allow 9/11 to go unanswered), a real estate bubble, a financial collapse. The rest of the time (the Clinton and Obama Administrations) Republican voters were electing Republicans to prevent something worse; a hope that Republicans often betrayed by caving in the face of pressure. So what Republican voters feel that they have gotten over the last 25 years is either ‘disappointed expectations’, or in the case of Democrat control, ‘a catastrophe’. At the end of the day, people want something ‘good’ occasionally. Although ‘disappointed expectations’ may be less worse than ‘catastrophe’, people eventually get tired of being played time and again. Eventually, they rebel against an organization that promises ‘good’ and delivers disappointment. The fact that the Republican Party is now in a civil war of sorts, means that it will have difficulty governing.

Taken together, these reasons form (I think) a plausible hypothesis as to why, despite having nominal control of the federal government, the Republicans are producing such limited results. Their mindset and much of their experience mitigates against their being able to put forth a coherent set of legislative principles that can get majority support. Furthermore, Republicans need to adopt the mindset of using their power to reward their voters, just like Democrats do. In addition, they need to stop trying to ‘conserve’ a system that no longer exists by turning back the clock. And, they need to start using their power to shape the system to the benefit of their voters. This is not to argue for specific policies, but rather to argue that the GOP needs a change of mindset if it wants to be able to actually govern.

Right now, both parties have lost the trust (and deservedly so) of a large fraction of their voters. The party that figures out how to regain that trust by actually producing positive results (from the perspective of their respective voters) is the one that will be able to govern the future.

Over the last couple of weeks, there have been secession movements in Spain & Iraq that have arranged secession referendums the resulted in a “yes” vote for independence. In June of 2016, the U.K. voted to exit the E.U. In 2014, Scotland narrowly voted to stay within the U.K., and is now talking about another referendum. And there is even a movement in California that aims to break off California from the United States. Although the heart might swell with pride to think of one’s region becoming its own country, and even though there might be legitimate grievances that can only be resolved by breaking away and forming your own country, there are some practical challenges that need to be addressed before one can even begin to think of making a go of it as an independent country.

• Do you REALLY have popular support for such a move?

When talking about changing a fundamental political arrangement that really underpins everything else, you really need to make sure that you have overwhelming support. Most secessions don’t go as well and as peacefully as the break-up of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia did in 1993. The way to an independent country is likely to be difficult, with sacrifices from the population required. Winning an independence referendum with 50.1% of the vote isn’t going to be enough to sustain support for independence when the going gets tough. Catalonia had sort of a “half-referendum” with 42% turnout that voted 90% for independence. The result would have been excellent with 80% turnout. The Kurdish independence turnout was 72% with 92% voting for independence (which implies a 66% overall support). The Kurdish vote would be enough to change most constitutions and so this independence movement is likely to have sustained support through difficult times.

• Do you have a national identity?

In other words, does your population feel that it is part of an extended family. In the case of Catalonia and Kurdistan, this is clearly the case. Each of these peoples have a distinct language and culture that distinguishes them from the country of which they are ostensibly a part. Even in a country like Canada, the French-speaking people of Quebec have a distinct culture that threatens to split Canada. In the independence struggle that is to come, the sacrifices that the population will likely be called upon to endure requires that they have an “all for one, my family is being threatened” sort of unity. Without this, your independence movement is likely to falter. Consider the case of the current effort to get California to secede. There is no California national identity, and it would take decades to develop one. At this time, Californians still “fee” like Americans. No matter how divorced their politics might be from the rest of America, that and simply hating Donald Trump is not going to be enough to sustain an independence effort that might require real sacrifice.

• Do you have an economic base for your country?

After independence, your country is going to have to make its way in the world. How will it do that? Unless your population has been ghastly tortured and suffered near genocide (or was about to suffer genocide) at that hands of its former countrymen (meaning that just being away from those other folks is its own reward), you are going to have to have an economic base. In the case of Scotland, its economic base was going to be oil. In the case of Catalonia, its major city of Barcelona is an international business hub. Kurdistan has some oil, but also to some extent falls into the “just being on our own is its own reward” category. An independent country of California would have the tech industry. But there are folks in Northern California who want to secede from California and form the 51^st state of the U.S. It really isn’t clear what this state would have as an economic base. It isn’t going to do you any good to succeed in your independence bid, only to find out that everyone is impoverished because your country has no real economic base from which to generate wealth.

• What about the people who will lose out when your country secedes?

The fact is that your region is currently part of another country. That means that some people in your region are benefitting from the current arrangement. No matter what your vision of independence looks like, change for these people represents a potential threat. They are doing well under the current arrangements. They may or may not do as well under the new arrangements post-independence. If these folks represent in any way at least a significant minority of your population, you are likely going to have to get support for at least some of them. This means that secession is going to have to be an overwhelmingly obviously better deal. Otherwise, you will have a group of counter-revolutionaries that will look to undermine your project. While you might believe that you have the political muscle to deal with them, if these folks are the economic movers and shakers in your region, you might find yourself (post-independence) with a country that has few people who know how to operate a modern economy. Hence your economy and your people’s standard of living will suffer, and undermine general support for your project.

• Are you powerful enough to get political recognition from other countries (trade relations will be needed)?

One of the key things that you will need is recognition from other countries. Being integrated to some extent into the world economy will be key if your people are to prosper and support your new fledgling country. You will need to establish bi-lateral trade relations with other countries to facilitate this integration. Furthermore, you will need diplomatic support for your new country, possibly to prevent the old country from undermining it or trying reabsorb you through some combination soft and/or hard power. By having countries that recognize your new country, you can raise the cost to the old country of acting against you, thereby making such destabilizing actions less likely.

• What military capability will you have?

No matter how you became a new country, you are going to need at least some military capability. A country with no real military capability is likely to be taken over by its neighbors. Catalonia, with no independent military, has been effectively occupied by Spain. Kurdistan, on the other hand, has some existing military capability, which is why Iraqi forces have not yet tried to simply occupy the whole of Kurdistan. Whether or not they try in the future, the fact that Kurdish military units exist makes this undertaking a more difficult proposition for the Iraqi state than it otherwise would be. Even if you secede peacefully from your old country, military capability can make you a more valuable ally to have, which can open the door to mutually beneficial relations with other countries that will help to improve the economy and quality of life in your new country.

This is not a comprehensive list of issues that might arise. Your bid for independence will also be unique to the specific history, geographical location, and political history of your country. However, these are a few of the issues that you will likely need to confront if you hope to be successful in your bid to change the history of your country and your people.

Good luck!!

Over the last 50 or 60 years, the general intellectual trend has been away from economic protectionism and towards free trade. In fact, free trade is one of those things that can be said to be essentially unquestioned in intellectual circles. Economic models show that free trade improves the economic numbers and, theoretically, the standard of living of those countries that engage in it.

However, what the economic models often assume is that those workers who are displaced can find jobs that are as good as or better than those that were lost. In other words, they assume that the labor markets in the various countries are functioning as efficiently as the foreign trade market. Free trade is supposed to make everyone (or almost everyone) in the societies better off.

But what happens if it doesn’t? What happens if the jobs that replace those that disappear are not nearly as good as the ones that are lost? What happens if the people can’t move from places where the jobs disappear to places where the jobs are because of family responsibilities, lack of suitable skills, or any number of reasons. The fact is that if this happens, communities can economically and socially disintegrate. People eventually lose faith a political system that has traded away their livelihood and has left them with very little in return.

Although one can point to rising standards of living in societies that embrace freer trade relative to those that don’t, what has not been accounted for are the benefits that can arise from some economic protectionism. Without a doubt, trade protections can impose costs on society in the form of higher prices for products that might be produced elsewhere, or even lower product quality from industries that are not sufficiently competitive or innovative. However, the jobs that are created/saved through protectionist can provide income and stability to people/families that would otherwise not be there.

The second benefit of protectionist policies can provide is a sense among certain segments of the population that their government is looking out for them. One problem that the free trade dogma has produced in Western societies in general, and in the U.S. in particular, is the sense that the government is siding with foreign interests (and their domestic beneficiaries) against other groups of citizens. This has led to feeling in certain communities that they have lost control of their country, that their government doesn’t care about them (at best), or is actively hostile to them (at worst).

What is interesting in the anger of the elites in the Brexit vote and Trump vote is that there seems to be a belief that certain groups of citizens who have felt marginalized should simply sit there and take it, forever. In other words, they should keep voting for mainstream candidates and political parties (i.e. vote the way the elite and those who have benefited from globalization tell them to vote); parties and politicians who have promised much, but delivered very little. In certain circles, a vote for Trump or Brexit is seen as an act of treason. But to those whose livelihoods have been bargained away in trade deals, it is those politicians who are the real traitors.

In short, while free trade has perhaps helped lead to higher standards of living, the costs of these policies have been ignored for too long. While people who live in certain metro areas might feel like citizens of the world and might not feel any particular loyalty to a specific country (especially if their friends and workmates come from all over the world) people who live in outside of these areas still feel a kinship with their national community. Nations still matter, as election after election across the Western world is making clear. While economic protectionism might reduce some economic growth numbers, it can increase national solidarity and likely give more people a stake in the current political system. A governing system in which all citizens feel that their government is looking out for them is one that doesn’t have to worry that the people will choose a bizarre candidate to the highest office in the land. A bit of economic protectionism that stabilizes a political system might just be worth the economic cost.

Now that Iraqi Kurdistan and Catalonia have voted for independence, one can be forgiven for being confused as to what it all means. While there are unique reasons specific to these two entities that is pushing their drive for autonomy/independence, the fact is that world (and this is extremely noticeable in the Western world) is experiencing devolutionary pressures in general. Over recent years, there has either talk or active efforts to have Scotland break-away from Britain, Britain from the EU, splitting up Belgium, Catalonia from Spain, and even California & Texas from the U.S. In addition to this, recent years have seen Trump in the U.S. and Macron in France become President, two things that would have seemed impossible just 2 years ago, and now Catalonia. So what is causing the rough political consensus of the last 70 years to begin to fray? I believe that there are several contributing factors.

• Governments (and institutions) have lost legitimacy because they don’t seem to be delivering the goods.

Several decades ago in the U.S, trust in government and institutions was relatively high. While political pundits might argue about why, the simple fact is that while there might have been strong disagreements, the fact in the U.S. was that government, for all of its waste and inefficiency, was seen to have produced a higher standard of living. From 1930 to 1970, the Depression had been conquered, a World War had been won, roads were better, electricity, indoor plumbing were standard for everyone (they hadn’t been in 1930), air travel was better, schools were better, and we had just gone to the moon. In short, life was indisputably easier and government had visibly played a leading role in that. In addition, a strong defense posture (government again) was keeping Soviet tanks out of Western Europe.

Today, government doesn’t seem to be delivering the goods. Roads are worse, schools are worse, and we don’t send spacecraft into space anymore. We pay taxes, but there doesn’t seem to be an improvement in a standard of living, despite the fact that the national debt keeps going up and up. We spend massively on security, but attacks still get through. And we have a couple of 15 year-long failed wars. To use the example of a 40 year span, a person transported directly from 1930 to 1970 would immediately know he was in a different world. Apart from personal electronics, a person transported from 1977 to 2017 would not as there hasn’t been as much physical, visible evidence of improvement. In short, taxes are being paid, government is getting bigger, debt is increasing, but living standards aren’t visibly improving.

• Governments have lost legitimacy because global changes/ and policies are permanently disadvantaging certain groups/regions.

According to economics statistics, globalization has brought many benefits and raised living standards across the globe. Unfortunately in the West, those changes have come at the expense of certain segments of society. The lower-middle, and working classes have seen many of their jobs shipped overseas or automated, and nothing else comparable has replaced it. Meanwhile, new jobs created are in urban areas where political power resides. This has created a long observed trend in the West in which society is splitting into an upper class and everyone else. Because the political power resides in urbane areas that are doing well, those who actually make up government and economic elite (including the civil servants who have good salaries, great benefits, a cushy work schedule (in many cases), and an excellent retirement package; paid for by taxpayers who will never see those things), assume that everything is going well. Meanwhile, they continue to push trade policies and regulations (including environmental regulations) that lead directly to lack of opportunity in places that the elite don’t visit. If a country is to remain a country, there has to be a sense among the population that we are a family and all in this together. Instead, some governments have been essentially ignoring the pain and complaints of large parts of the population.

• Governments have lost legitimacy because the governing structures seem incapable of changing.

Although there are elections and people clamor for reform by electing the other guy, nothing has really changed. In the U.S., people were turned off by one party’s ineffectual war and fiscal irresponsibility turned to the other party, which produced more ineffectual war and fiscal irresponsibility. The fact that an attempt to reform healthcare in the U.S. revealed a government that couldn’t even produce a website without major effort, shows that an ineffectual government continues to be ineffectual no matter who is running it. Several attempts to change the President/Congress political party mix resulted in no discernable change in how things are done. Consequently, the country elected an outsider with political experience in an attempt to shake things up and reform things, the true sign of a political class/government that has lost legitimacy.

• Governments have lost legitimacy because they seem unwilling to protect their populations against foreign threats.

This can be most often seen in the area of immigration. The elites, in the U.S. and in Europe, seem to have a consensus that immigration is a good thing (morally and economically) full stop. While this can be the case, it is not a fact that all immigration is morally and economically a good thing. Massive immigration imposes costs on communities as well as benefits. There is increased competition for jobs. In some cases, crime might increase. There is an impact on the countries social welfare system, not to mention that citizens might have to be competing with immigrants for those resources as well. In addition, massive immigration from Islamic countries has heightened the risk of terrorism. In short, elite opinion views people who point this out and complain about it (i.e. those citizens who feel the impact most acutely) as being horrible, racist people whose struggles and views are illegitimate. In short, the central governments have essentially abandoned swaths (and in some cases geographically concentrated swaths) of their populations. More concern about foreigners than citizens dissolves the social contract.

In summary, the political upheaval being faced in the West today has deep roots and grievances that go beyond a single policy or a single election. The causes, in some cases, can go back decades or centuries, and frankly may not be resolvable under the current political constructs.

While modern communications technology makes it easier to organize and splinter groups can attain a level of visibility that they would not have in earlier times, it takes real, legitimate grievances to start a serious political movement. What have seen recently are massive signs that many segments in these societies have lost faith in their governmental institutions. Successful secession votes in Kurdistan and Catalonia are the ultimate signal of failing government legitimacy. Without massive reform, expect more secession movements in the future.