It Matters Who Is Opposing Trump

Sacha

25 de outubro de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

Senator Jeff Flake’s recent announcement not to run for reelection is getting a lot of attention for the starkly anti-Trump message he’s paired with it. His approach pleases the Republican establishment that is uneasy with the president but unwilling to speak out about him. His opposition to the president also allows for those on the left to claim the president’s support is fracturing even among his party base. These takes are premature, for a few reasons.

Who is criticizing the president matters

Senator Flake is one of only a handful of Republican congressmen to openly oppose Trump and question his suitability for office. However opposed Republican politicians appeared to be to Trump during the primary, since the campaign, they have coalesced around him. Trump’s objectionable positions and tirades have done nothing to dampen the silence that has characterized the Republican method of dealing with him.

That silence is the determining factor for the continuity of the Trump administration. Republicans converge on the prospect of getting their agenda enacted by virtue of the president belonging to the same party. They believe, rightfully, that should they manage to pass legislation, he will sign it. Because the Democrats are expected to oppose Republican legislation, in the annals of power, their resistance matters little for the survival of the White House.

Republicans are strongly united

Republican support for, or lack of opposition to, Trump has been remarkably strong since the start of the legislative term. Any vocal opposition to the extremist theatrics Trump puts on has been met with a resounding, unified vote on all issues put forward. From government appointments to legislation itself, Republican dissent has been largely absent from this term. With such a qualitatively unified party, any critical opposition stands out.

We can point to moments where handfuls of Republicans have voted down crucial legislation, such as with the ACA repeal attempts. In each instance, Republicans’ desire to repeal the Affordable Care Act has been derailed by a trio of senators consistently critical of the legislation, its effects, or even the process. These senators are seen as being more generally willing to contradict Trump and hold firm against his less popular proposals. Yet there are for any issue, at most, six senators standing in the way of smooth passage.

Critical majority voices need to hold office to count

Senator Flake has not, per his voting record, been one of the strongest Republican deniers of the Trump agenda. Yet in announcing that he will not seek reelection, he has struck a sharper tone toward the president. Although votes matter most as a qualitative measure of how the majority party decides what issues are most important, the political agenda is still largely set by the president. That is why, even without many opposing votes, criticism and dissent from within the majority party is so important.

However, for critical Republican voices to be heard and to shape the Trump administration’s agenda, they must be represented among their ranks. Evidently, not seeking reelection frees the binds of running campaigns that could see words be twisted around. Flake appeared to have been a weak candidate against primary and general campaign challengers. Other retiring senators have similar motives, if not their health.

Yet the freedom to speak up and express discontent in a place where that cuts against the legislative agenda ought not to be relegated only to those who have nothing left to lose politically. In the face of extremity, the primary check on influence are the dissenting voices among the ranks of those in power. Those sorts of voices are needed now, and they will be needed after 2018, when the next legislature will be constituted.

Without their voices, the Republican party runs the risk of turning itself over fully to the most extreme elements within it. If no Republican voices end up left to criticize and critique him, Trump will have gained full legitimation of his political agenda. That is an unacceptable prospect.

Image: Amanda Nelson

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Coal’s Not Coming Back Any Time Soon

Sacha

11 de outubro de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

Brazil is fortunate in having abundant sources of renewable energy, making its grid one of the cleanest among large countries in the world. The United States is less fortunate in this regard. Coal served as the primary energy resource in power plants across the country until 2016, when it was overtaken by natural gas. The decline of coal is due, in sum, to market forces. The price of fossil fuels has dropped dramatically in recent years. Along with that, technological advances have contributed to an even greater drop in the price of renewables.

All of this is relevant because of the Trump administration’s recent reversal of the Clean Power Plan instated under Obama

What the Trump administration intends to set in motion by reversing the Clean Power Plan is revitalize the coal industry, which has seen dramatic declines in production and revenue. This can be seen as an appeal to two of Trump’s most important tenets: loyalty and denial of climate change. First, because coal miners and industry bigwigs were among the first unwavering supporters of the Trump campaign. Second, simply because coal is highly polluting. It is the highest-emitting of all energy sources. The thought behind this is simple: remove the regulations on the industry to appease it and hit back against climate science and Obama’s policies simultaneously.

The problem here is that the coal industry’s deterioration is spurred by lowering demand as a result of cleaner, more efficient technologies becoming more readily available. Natural gas has developed in the wake of fluctuating oil prices to become a much more affordable and flexible option, with the benefit of polluting less than both coal and oil. Solar and wind energy have seen dramatic declines in their costs of production and operation. This is the fruit of technological advances, especially with silicone. Because of this, 2016 saw natural gas overtake coal as the main source of energy production in the United State for the first time ever.

Coal has been kicked out of the top spot by the same market that put it there

Indeed, solar power alone employs over twice the amount of workers than the entire coal industry. It, along with other renewable energy sources, has the advantage of being able to employ workers anywhere in the country, instead of relying on region-specific extraction. As prices continue to drop, incentives to install more renewables will continue to rise, with or without subsidies. On the contrary, the coal industry will require subsidies in order to extend its practical lifespan somewhat longer as the industry implodes.

Coal is also being eliminated by an electric industry in ever-increasing diversification. Not relying on one source for the majority of production puts the market at lower risk for sudden price fluctuations. Sustainability, simply put, is more economically sound. Don’t expect it to come roaring back, however much Trump and his voters would like it to.

Image: Patrick Moore

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White People Are Responsible, Really

Sacha

16 de agosto de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

The president of the United States of America can not manage to renounce, with a shred of conviction, white supremacy

Is it shocking to read a sentence like that? Yes, it is. But it’s nonetheless true. The president’s response to the extreme-right and neo-nazi’s marches in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend, went just as such. First he denounced what had happened in uproar over “multiple bad sides”. Then, he backtracked, renouncing more fully the neo-nazi groups presents in the acts and the violence that occurred. But it didn’t last more than a couple of days, since he then backtracked again in an incoherent and bizarre press conference, where he had some Freudian slips of support for the “alt-right”. In sum, the president can not cover up his sympathies for the movements most bound to the ideas of white supremacy. We already knew about this from his electoral campaign.

It’s unacceptable to have a president of a democratic country who supports these ideas, much less in such a flagrant manner.

So that it’s not ambiguous for anyone: the march that was held in Charlottesville was in protest of the removal of a Confederate monument. The Confederate States of America were a vain attempt to maintain the system of slavery, in full rebellion against the Union and growing public opinion of the time, by way of the succession of declared slave states in the American South. Nothing less. Accordingly, white supremacist groups (and yes, neo-nazis themselves) have adopted the symbols of the Confederacy.

These same groups threatened for weeks to invade the city of Charlottesville in response to the removal of the Confederate statue. Last weekend, they invaded it, marching with all sorts of chants against non-white minorities. It wasn’t, alas, a march of two side, nor however many others, against each other. It was the reunion of extremist groups, united for the preservation of the white race. They invaded a city that dared to go against their beliefs.

Without the coexistence of minorities with the majority,

there is no democracy

The inconvenient truth of having a president that demonstrates any kind of level of sympathy with these ideas is that racial questions will be, during his entire term, a central issue of public debate. That is, even white people accustomed to ignoring racial problems can no longer ignore them. Not taking a stand against racism—truly structural, even from within the annals of power—is choosing to be passively on the side of the oppressor. It is vital and a unique responsibility for white people to renounce white supremacy. Not doing anything in the face of growing clamor of white supremacist groups is being complicit with their desires: to maintain the power of being indifferent to the condition of other races in the country. Minorities don’t have that luxury. That’s exactly what the extremists were marching for.

It’s time to demand that all sympathizers of intolerance leave the government. If the president was already embroiled in governability problems, now it will be all the more so. Without the coexistence of minorities with the majority, there is no democracy.

Image: fabrizio turco

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Don’t Hold Your Breath Waiting for the White House to Fall

Sacha

13 de julho de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

This week, the Trump campaign’s collusion seems to have been confirmed. No one less than the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., divulged a series of emails in which he appeared willing to receive illicit inside information on Hillary Clinton coming from Russian agents. Without so much as considering what might be behind such an offer, Trump Jr. simply responded “I love it.” He loved it so much that the ethical violation it represents didn’t matter. He loved it so much that he didn’t even try to hide the exchange. Amid all of the noise after the revealing tweet, some qualify it as high treason. Now all that remains is to see what legal repercussions await.

Let’s take a step back. Despite the revelation of the emails being clear evidence of collusion, the case still does not have a judicial case pending. Until the complete publication of the emails, the information was being leaked bit by bit. It was thus that Trump Jr. found himself obliged to stymie possible fallout from the case, publishing the damning information all at once. For a campaign centered on Hillary’s private email server scandal, this scandal is all the more surreal.

In a Congress as ineffectual as this one has been, there is no margin for contemplating the total abandon of its project

Many Republican representatives negated the ties between Trump and Russia before the email case. They reserved their comments on it for new and concrete information to come out. Now, having it in hand, many still refuse to acknowledge possible Trump-Russia ties. Therein lies the problem.

If confirmed, this scandal would be a political and ethics violation on an unprecedented scale in the United States. Not even Watergate managed to be so flagrant as what we’re seeing now. Yet the Republican establishment is still hesitant. Their motive? They don’t want to slow down the already crawling pace of legislation.

Given that the political cycle is pointing to a probable loss of absolute control in the 2018 midterm elections, Republicans are not willing to interfere in the unique opportunity they have to pass their most important legislative projects. The impeachment process would not only halt the executive branch, it would halt the entire legislative agenda. In a Congress as ineffectual as this one has been, there is no margin for contemplating the total abandon of the project. Not even when evidence piles up.

Image: John evans

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No, They Really Don’t Want You to Have Medical Coverage

Sacha

25 de maio de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

It seemed like the last note in March when, to the surprise of no one, the Republican Party wasn’t able to pass its draft legislation on the medical system in the United States. It was written in haste without the party so much as having a clear idea about what it wanted to do in order to repeal and replace the so-called Obamacare, already several years in place. It was a complete failure. However, two months later, a new, no better articulated version of the same legislation was presented and passed. The Senate will have the final word on amendments and changes to the proposal.

What’s left is a cynical desire to strip the medical coverage that the masses now enjoy

Suffice it to say that the proposed legislation would be a disaster for the millions who acquired health insurance under Obamacare. To appease the most conservative faction of the party, all sorts of pre-existing conditions would either no longer be included in coverage plans, or would see their premiums skyrocket. This legislation is a direct attack on the health and well-being of the country’s population. And it’s not a coincidence.

Part of the explanation is that healthcare is not seen as a fundamental right by conservatives in the United States. Instead, it’s considered a privilege for those who have the means to sustain it. By this logic, the interest isn’t in the patient or insured person, but in fact in the corporation that profits off of them. They believe that mass coverage of the American population creates problems for insurance and medical providers. However, neither is the public at large predisposed to such a dramatic reform, nor are insurance and medical providers happy with the proposed changes. What’s left, then, is a cynical desire to strip the medical coverage that the masses now enjoy.

The new version of the legislation appeased enough of the conservatives to pass the House. It’s not at all well thought out, nor supported at large. We’ll see yet if the Senate recognizes that, or if healthcare will be the issue that forces Republicans out of power in the Congress in 2018.

Image: Maria Kaloudi

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Marches for Common Sense

Sacha

26 de abril de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

It isn’t normal that scientists and aficionados take to the streets in defense of their work. But here we are.

This past Saturday, millions of people took to the streets across the world in defense of science. That is, science in general. The practice of doing empirical research to come to conclusions based on duplicable results. The base of all of the knowledge in the modern world. There were so many people just in the United States that, once again, they exceeded the attendance of the presidential inauguration.

The history of anti-intellectualism in the United States is nothing new

To understand all of this, it’s necessary to recognize the fundaments of the scientists’ appeal: science is under an existential attack to its resources and means with the arrival of a notoriously anti-intellectual executive. The political caste around the president also takes this position. Whether for corporate or religious interests, there is a notable current of anti-intellectualism in the US. The country factors among those which believe the least in evolution and climate change in the West, among other basic topics in science. Sectors of the country are so skeptical of science that they have developed movements against the very modern medicine that has given them the possibility of living longer, better quality lives. And so on.

The history of anti-intellectualism in the United States, however, is nothing new. It’s existed since the founding of the first colonies on North American soil, before there were even states, much less united ones. In the US, Great Britain did not succeed in exporting its class system, because the vast majority of those who settled the colonies came from the lowest rungs of Old World society. Ever since, education has suffered variously from perceptions of uselessness, elitism, unproductiveness, and much more. It is a constant for larger or smaller parts of society through even now.

So many people marched in the street because of this skepticism. Not because it exists, but because it just took control of the highest powers of the country. The tonic of belief in self-reliance and the idea that only ambiguous effort is necessary for success is no longer just the elixir of the Average Joe. Nowadays, one of the main parties has taken its own hearty dose. Scientists found themselves forced onto the streets to march for the common sense that understands the benefits of their work. It remains to be seen whether the result is duplicable.

Image: Thomas Jaggi

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The Extraordinary Politics of Ever

Sacha

19 de abril de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

We live in unique times, in a political environment without precedents, the definition of an extraordinary era. Am I describing nowadays? No, you’ve just misunderstood. The politics of ever are extraordinary politics. Even with one certain President of the United States Donald Trump.

What happens in the world doesn’t cease to surprise, politics too

A lot is said about the increased risk of conflict with Donald Trump leading the richest and militarily strongest country in the world. This doesn’t cease to be the truth, but, what’s more pressing is the idea that it represents a profound divergence from the status quo. To a greater or lesser degree, the risk of world conflict has been a constant since the end of World War II, lest we forget the Cold War and the many conflicts of the 20th century. Even the fear of nuclear war due to some regime’s instability, thus, is nothing new. In our world, we have lived through the same tensions that today are brought up with such force.

Politics can be resumed in the action and reaction to events in history. The Cuban Missile Crisis was, in its moment, the moment of greatest political tention in the world, with the highest risk of nuclear war, in a climate of many points of potential conflict at a similar scale. Politics surprises us as much as the summary of the events it provokes.

The political climate transforms itself according to these events, making each moment the most uncertain and risky ever

One of the fundaments of politics is that the actors—politicians, regimes, countries as monolithic entities—respond according to their own interests. That is, they act based on what they consider to promote their own well-being. Simple. Right? It’s complicated.

The balance of power in the world depends on continually smaller balances of power. Two countries maintain peace or enter into conflict depending on the overlap or not of their internal interests. A country maintains a stable regime if it achieves a balance between the interests of civil society and the military and political classes. And so on. At every scale, a different balance. Politics responds, at its core, to all of these balances, making decisions on how to resolve them.

That is why each moment, especially with advances in technology, is and always will be the riskiest moment in history. Yesterday seems stable when tomorrow is not guaranteed, setting aside that which may have negated yesterday’s guarantees.

We live in an evolution of ideas that are not at all new

Trump was not a genie in a bottle that came out of nowhere. He is, in truth, just the evolution of thoughts and ideology that already existed for decades in the United States. Bill O’Reilly was cancelled now in 2017 after 21 long years spitting the words of the ideology that now dominates in the White House. The Republican Party tried out shutting the government down in 1995, 18 years before the same act would cause an unthinkable scandal of instability. And so on.

The only thing there is is an evolution, on all parts, of old ideas and thoughts. It’s true that we’ve never had a person of such inexperience, with such a temperament, with such conflicts of interest in the White House. What follows, however, has a history from which we ought to learn better.

Image: Miral Akbulut

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3 Things the United Scandal Teaches Us About Our Culture

Sacha

12 de abril de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

It’s inevitable that we talk about what happened to that passenger on that United flight if we’re talking about the United States right now. The thing is, it shows us something about where we’ve come as a culture that definitely won’t sit easy.

1. We can’t control our outrage

We’re at a point where it’s practically possible to track the sequence of events each time this kind of news emerges. The United case wasn’t any different. Our world is one where video cameras are available on any portable device, with new rules allowing them to be used even in the air. Of course the images of the middle-aged man being dragged off the plane didn’t take their time to appear. Nor did the collective outrage toward United over what happened.

What happened was horrible and the company’s reaction only made it worse, unquestionably. But the tragic sequence has already become predictable—every attack on humanity, on our dignity, follows the same line. It’s become a formula for sensationalism, without being the Onion. We get outraged over headlines and short videos and lose both context and a more complete understanding of what happens in these situations. It’s not difficult to understand why this doesn’t help solve the underlying problem.

2. Companies have already learned to commercialize our outrage—but aren’t free from it, not even United

After what happened in Chicago, United lost around 900 million dollars. It’s an impressive sum, but it’s not a one-off. Just before them, Pepsi launched an ad campaign commercializing the images of popular struggle and was excoriated across social media for it. Companies already see our outrage as a source of profit and apply it in their campaigns to varying degrees of success. Except that, sometimes, the huge profits they hope for end up being just the opposite. The power of outrage isn’t controlled by companies, much as they try to.

3. We have a police brutality problem

At the root of it all, the real problem wasn’t what United did so much as the police unit that handled the removal of the passenger who refused to leave the plane. Once United was forced to call the police to handle the belligerent passenger, the responsibility for what happened passed to the police. In the tradition of the Chicago police, it wasn’t all calm and polite, as we saw from the many videos. That’s the problem.

Since the death in 2014 of the black teen Michael Brown at the hands of a cop who would be later exonerated, police brutality and injustice have surged in American politics. There are innumerable cases, and each week we have some other, yet another example of this disservice to our population. And in these three years since, little or nothing have been done to confront police aggression, police militarization, or clearly-documented injustices committed by the police. We have a police brutality problem that is aggravated by advances in technology and increases in police budgets. Without confronting this problem, there will be more United-style controversies.

Image: Juha Martikainen

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No, Trump wasn’t Brexit

Sacha

22 de fevereiro de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português aqui)

There is a whole sea of comparisons between Brexit and Trump. They’re considered sister phenomenons, a wave spreading throughout the West. Except, despite appearances, they’re not quite as similar as they seem.

Similarities

It’s true that Western populism, in the current state of things, has taken on a conservative tendency. It’s also true that xenophobia is running high just as much in the United States as in Europe. It’s a fact that the demographics of Europe and the US are shifting toward ever less white, Christian pastures. It appears to be the case, for now, that the Conservative Party of the UK and the Republican Party of the US don’t have as well-defined of plans for what should come after their electoral victories as they made it seem. The media helped to construct and participate in a spectacle, abusing false premises and falsified facts to induce a more lucrative, dramatic result. Up to here, everything appears basically the same.

Where the paths split

The splitting point between Brexit and Trump resides, in part, in the fundamental difference in their respective political scenarios. The convocation of a referendum to determine the continuation within the European Union by a British government with a wide majority in Parliament does not, in fact, correspond with the regular occurrence of elections for the leader of another country. Cameron called the referendum looking for political consolidation at home and legitimation in Brussels, where he saw his bargaining position reduced because of strategic political errors in dealing with Europe.

Clinton’s big error was underestimating the importance of the electoral map

Cameron’s big error was to underestimate the apathy and friction to the EU that older Englishmen have. These are the same people who tend to vote in greater numbers and who lived through the complete trajectory of the difficult fit of the UK in the EU. Compare that to the loss of nearly 3 million votes that Trump had against Hillary Clinton, which has left doubts about the legitimacy of his presidential mandate, if not about the electoral system that allowed for him to win despite that discrepancy. Clinton’s big error was underestimating the importance of the electoral map.

The friction between the UK and the EU has always been well known, and led the EU to concede many special statuses for the country with regard to its contribution to the EU budget, belonging to the single currency, and more. Trump represents the culmination of years of extreme rhetoric normalized by factions of the Republican Party and the conservative media in the US, especially in their game of obstinance against everything that had anything to do with president Obama.

The main motive for voting to leave the EU was a nostalgia for times of greater individual relevance on the global stage for the ex-Empire, settled by a wide margin. The main motive for voting for Trump was a belief in his aggrandized rhetoric of xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and nationalism as an easy solution to local problems that have little to do with it—an elixir that worked by the slightest of margins in just the right places.

The similarities between the two cases are many, but it’s best that we avoid treating them as if they were exactly the same phenomenon.

Image: Michal Zacharzewski

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We’ve Debuted the Decadence

Sacha

8 de fevereiro de 2017

(pode ler este artigo em português a qui)

We’ve already said goodbye to 2016 and arrived at the dawn of the inauguration of our unloved circus peanut as President of the United States of America. If there were an original joke to write about this appearing to be a scene out of a movie, I would write one, but there isn’t. We already know who the next “leader of the free world” (for as much controversy as that phrase involves) is and what he stands for.

Setting the scene of the beginning of 2017 is the triumph of the rejection of “technocracy” in favor of simplistic and nationalistic responses to the changes that the progression of globalization has brought to the fore. It no longer matters what experts say with regard to the worldwide consequences of this phenomenon, since they are the easiest scapegoat for all of the problems in our economies and their inability to reallocate and reinvent workers faced against forces that know no national boundaries. This is the point from which we arrived at Trump and Brexit. The pre-existing order of the West has been profoundly altered.

The most accurate word for this phenomenon would be decadence.

Not just in the sense of decline, but also the confrontation with the failures of the system. How are we going to tell the factory worker—whether from Lincolnshire or Michigan—that their life’s work not only is never coming back, but that it was in fact substituted entirely by gains in productivity thanks to new technology and machines? By appealing to vainglory, ignoring the facts and complications of real life, because that’s what they want to hear. Decadence resides in their reaction to the false promises and the snake oil they’ve bought.

But why, then, decadence? Let’s call it that for the decline of public service, which is the point of any political position. The current discourse, arising as much in Trump as in Europe’s simmering populism, is, at heart, an appeal to a simplistic image of government functioning. Governing is not a simple task. Appealing to a fantasy of a government-turned-machine in the service of enriching those of the majority left behind is simple. Governance is not capable of pleasing everyone at once. Populism’s purpose is to say the words that it hopes will please everyone in that majority. It’s decadent because it defrauds the proper principles of politics and governance.

A lot is said about “us” in populist discourse, in appeals to patrimonial vainglory of the nation, in nostalgia for times that never existed. This “us” is most convenient when the attraction to dividing the public is strongest. We are good people, versus those who don’t have morals. We are honest workers, versus those who already have everything and wouldn’t know a proper day’s work if it slapped them in the face. We have common sense, we understand the world around us like it is, versus those who spend all day in a laboratory researching things. We are civilized, versus those buffoons on the other side. There’s a whole universe of generic examples of this “us” that simultaneously represents everyone and no one. This “us” is simplistic by default. The real us is complex, includes even the least estimable parts of our society, has defects, and always needs corrections in its system.

We’ve debuted the decadence.

Now we’re debuting Us.