Democracy needs better not fewer ‘populists’ (part 1)

As democracy in Western Europe and North America ages before our eyes, the hunt for youth, élan, and forceful government grows. Other countries allegedly are doing the brave, optimistic things we used to do: reforming taxes, restructuring economies, and asking for sacrifice. And they are making spectacular progress without governments like ours.

Increasingly, analysts blame the model of democracy we try to practice. "Government of the people, by the people, for the people" sounds, to many, as dangerous and as quaint as the divine right of kings. Now "popular" democracy is being relabeled "populist" democracy, a political culture in which mostly shallow opinions hold sway.

In Canada, even liberal nationalists will say good government is preferred to the common man’s heady "pursuit of happiness." After all, "limited authoritarianism" sounds robust and more adult. It’s driving Asia’s progress, isn’t it? 

In his review of The Fourth Revolution: The Global Race to Reinvent the State by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, National Post columnist Jonathan Kay brutally described Ontario as a near perfect example of how our proud democratic machinery is paralyzed by an incumbent’s obsessive need for peace and popular acceptance. Innumerable fixes and blue-ribbon missions to find "evidence-based" consensus have replaced choosing one side or one answer over another.

Kay accepts that we wouldn’t tolerate the arbitrary and corrupt features of the “Asian alternative,” yet he concludes:

“But as the example of Ontario shows, we have gone too far in the other direction: Populist democracy and its attendant addled economic policies are destroying our ability to create the basic building blocks of a functional society. A generation ago, the choice between Ontario and China as a model for developing countries would have been an obvious one. In 2014, like the Ontario election itself, it looks more like a dead heat.”

Justin Trudeau couldn’t put it any better.

Okay, Ontario is poorly led. However, it is Ontario’s elites, not its "childish" masses that need a shaking.

The only time I worked full time for an insurgent democratic politician — a "prairie populist" — was in 1967. Alvin Hamilton was running for national leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. He had too many ideas, talked too long to delegates, disliked Toronto’s "blue machine" and was called a red Tory well before the label learned to nestle alongside an Order of Canada pin.

"Populists" were on the outs then. And, after a career on the inside, I can attest that they’re not on the inside now. Most important, there is no serious evidence, in polls or in election results, that voters in this relatively jumpy civilization are any harder to lead now than they ever were.

It’s not the hoi polloi that thinks strictly in four-year bites, polls constantly, is up in arms about paying for needed services, hates pipelines, airplanes, iPhones, air conditioning, and power steering — or has decided that the '50s were the best.

Even for a pessimist, it feels silly to worry that Ontarians today are too spoiled, too embittered, too fearful, or too touchy to be governed responsibly. And it is.

Ontarians are well known across Canada for wanting to leave things pretty much the way they are. But they’re not less accommodating today than they ever were. They fear change and they fear falling behind; they hope their leaders will strike the right balance.

The blame for the potentially fatal mediocrity of our decision-making rests in government, not in the governed.

And the failure to fix its machinery — an enfeebling maze of lucrative little deals, obsequious consultations, and retractable choices — calls for more persuasive democratic leaders: competent populists, neither well-traveled snobs nor compulsive listeners.

Edward Snowden’s enlightening insolence

Edward Snowden will have his day in a criminal court—most likely in America. So calling him a self-indulgent traitor or law-abiding “whistle-blower” is unnecessary today.  Nevertheless, what we think about Snowden’s motives and follow-up actions does influence the larger debate about the reach of the modern security state.

Are we dealing with a celebrity-seeker whose fame will fade by fall? Or has he confirmed that something rotten is going on in our democracy and it must be attended to?

I’m not ready to cosign a mortgage with Snowden. However, so far, what he’s done and said demonstrate rare competence and courage. Indeed, it’s exhilarating to see a computer geek light up Washington.

Old hands say that national politics aren’t as human as they used to be. Men don’t sweat, drink, and carouse across party lines the way they once did, when they got more done. Snowden has exposed that lie too. When esteemed leaders in the 3 branches of government are embarrassed, when their competence and integrity are questioned, they still get very angry and, in air-conditioned hearing rooms and rallying together, they vilify the insolent outsider.

A smooth line of attack is to declare that this troublemaker is “no saint.” Certainly, I’m not—and I know at least 1 person who thinks their morals are superior to mine. Jonathan Kay addressed this leveling proposition in his column "Edward Snowden is no traitor. But he's no saint".

Kay led by quoting Snowden’s own explanation for what he’d done: “I don’t want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded.” Kay never suggested that Snowden was paranoid, only that his flight to numerous authoritarian havens was hypocritical.

If Snowden were a gentleman, he’d let his leaks speak for themselves. He’d be safe in solitary in an American prison and would not be adding to the debate he provoked.

It seems geeks don’t play by Queensbury rules. Political actors who make history, of course, don’t either.

Is Canada’s advantage its majority government?

America’s republican system of checks and balances is receiving an awful beating recently from health reformers, economists, and currency speculators. Now, it’s even looking passé in the eyes of fiscal conservatives and parliamentary democrats to the north. 

This was brutally confirmed by Jonathan Kay, the thoughtful editor of The National Post, in his column “Why Harper Can Trim a Budget and Obama Can’t.” 

Click on:http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/03/29/jonathan-kay-on-canadas-parliamentary-advantage-why-harper-can-trim-a-budget-while-obama-cant/

Kay claims that Canada’s secret weapon is its Parliamentary system: Prime Minister Harper has a majority in the House of Commons and can get tough, necessary things done; President Obama doesn’t have a majority in Congress and, so, he can’t cut spending or raise taxes. 

Kay believes that—in the economic sphere—the broader powers conferred on Canada’s executive by Parliamentary majorities have been a blessing and have allowed Canada to enjoy stability and greater prosperity, at least over the last couple of decades.

A fresh Parliamentary majority—that’s doing what you want—can be a beautiful sight. I love roses, sunsets, and happy children too, but don’t be fooled. Life north of the 49th can be dangerous and frustrating as well.

The Canadian and United States federations do not hold their collective breaths between electoral majorities in the House of Commons or between those occasions the President easily assembles majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both countries carry on satisfactorily—or neither country would be intact today. 

Furthermore, majorities don’t just free up new executives to put their respective country’s right—to fix the errors of previous minority and majority governments—they also give them the same license to make their own mistakes. 

During the financial crisis of 2008-09, neither Bush, nor Obama, nor Harper enjoyed secure legislative majorities when they implemented massive stimulus programs and unprecedented bailouts. Nevertheless, they acted successful—well before the European governments of various designs.

Sure. Obama couldn’t possibly get a significant package of tax increases and spending cuts through Congress this year, or in 2010 or in 2011. The moderate conservative measures Kay welcomes in Canada now, however, would still be economically premature in the United States. Sometimes, marking time is common sense, not “gridlock.” 

Most important, let’s recall how the US budget got into a chronic $trillion-plus deficit in the first place.

Most of the deficit today that was actually created in Washington, rather than by the recession, was approved by massive majorities in Congress—majorities that happily did the bidding of President George W. Bush.

The War in Iraq, the Prescription Drug Plan for Senior Citizens, and the massive Income Tax cuts were not the grudging excretions of divided government.

Majorities, of course, are an essential part of the survival of the checks-and-balance systems of both democracies. If big issues can’t finally be resolved, countries decline, fall apart—or turn to brutes. Furthermore, the knowledge that the electorate will get fed up with excessive partisanship and will eventually want someone to decide often forces compromise—even “grand bargains.”

Nevertheless, let’s not romance majority government as an end state. At first, planners and reformers love working for them, but after awhile, majority governments stop listening carefully. They find it increasingly easy to talk big and, then, they start making big mistakes.

Friday wrap-up: Republican policy inertia

It has been an unnerving week for the faint of heart.

The political class in Washington—the richest in the city’s history—has been laughed at, scolded by a rating agency, called incompetent by English politicians, the Chinese government and Wall St. bankers, and damned by American opinion polls and capital markets everywhere.

Liberals who can’t act are being shouted at to “seize the wheel.”  Conservatives who won’t act are being told that the status quo is collapsing.

One institution—the Republican presidential primary—carries on as if nothing important happened, nothing confusing enough to abandon a cliché or even invent a new one. The candidates for the Republican nomination held their second debate last night. The only news that seemed to quicken their thoughts is the prospect that the prayerful Governor of Texas will enter the race—and that Sarah Palin is coming to town.

The front runners and the follow-ups exclaim “jobs, jobs, jobs” like every good Democrat since Jimmy Carter. And then they recite a policy prescription—“Cut, Cap, and Balance”—that would kill jobs and economic recovery.

They don’t believe in quick fixes. They think long-term and propose handcuffing the federal government in dealing with long-term problems.

The moderates call Barack Obama a “weak” president. The extremes call him “un-American.” While they look for photo-ops to look stronger by comparison, they promise to make the Presidency and the federal government weaker institutions.

They want to sing “It’s morning in America” whatever the season.

Despite, the war cries of the Tea Party and official party rhetoric about America “losing its way,” they seem to believe that America is so strong, so-unchanged, that the prescriptions to fight the stagflation of the late Seventies are all they have to mouth for the next fifteen months. Their fidelity to the past and their obsessive focus on their personal chances to be President in January 2013 is startling.

Trends in the economy, in America’s demographics, in the finances and obligations of the federal government all insist: big changes, for better or worse, are approaching.

The oath “no new taxes” was, for a time, a credible, albeit conservative, formula for the American federal government. When the population was much younger and employment was booming, and wages were rising, automatic massive increases in federal revenues emboldened spenders in domestic and defense bureaucracies. But, the times are very different now.

Johathan Kay in the National Post decisively captured the problem:  

“According to Boston University economic professor Laurence Kotlikoff, formerly of Ronald Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers, the net present value of America's spending obligations, in excess of expected tax revenues, is $211-trillion—15 times the already-staggering $14-trillion sum that represents the country's nominal federal debt load.

"We've got 78 million baby boomers who are poised to collect, in about 15 to 20 years, about $40,000 per person," Kotlikoff told NPR. "Multiply 78 million by $40,000 - you're talking about more than $3-trillion a year just to give to a portion of the population."

Click on: www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/great+dogmatic+derangement/5238443/story.html

How will these Republicans leaders cap the baby boom once they’ve capped the federal budget?

After ruling out death panels and new taxes, they’re left with slashing benefits, depreciating the currency or flooding the country with immigrant workers.

When they get ahead of Obama in the polls, they’ll be taken seriously and then they’ll be in real trouble.