Ian Welsh

(This piece is by Stirling Newberry)

This is a constitutional crisis. However, instead of the crisis arising all at once, for all tiers of society, some tiers have gotten what they need–without the others getting what they need.

The banking system collapsed in 2008, but is doing fine now. This is because the banking sector, along with those who depend on it, figured out what banking’s basic problem was in 1929-1932, but they have no concern with the other parts of the system. If your wealth depends on not having a gold standard, all well and good. But there were other problems in 1929-1932 that they didn’t bother solving. This is one of them.

In 1932, there were other problems besides the banking system imploding. For example, child labor was an issue. What happened in that time is that one man understood there were solutions and a check upon the system which had to be enacted together. He also knew that certain solutions would not be made palatable until their maw wrapped around the country.

This man’s name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He knew, for example, that the United States would have to go to war, but he also knew that such a step would not be palatable until much later. On the other hand, there were problems that had to be moved against immediately, and there were also problems–however extreme they might have been–which had to wait for the public to view them.

So many things were done at the last minute, many other things were put off for a generation. A few things were done which were abominable even by the standards of the time, such as the imprisonment of people who were of Japanese descent during World War II. In other words, there was no guarantee that everything would be done correctly, only that enough things were done in time. The check was that when it counted, enough people would do the right thing.

In 2012, we were again in a crisis, but the well-off thought that they had a solution, which did not involve handing so much power over to the public. Their solution was inadequate, but they did not see it in their equations. Instead they waited for the chance to assume power with almost no limit. The result is a Trump Presidency. In this presidency, certain, small things can be done for a class that has been ignored, but in the larger sense it is ultra conservative: Money will rule everything.

The problem they didn’t factor into their equation was with healthcare, and what will happen to people who do not have it. States can do things, but enough states rely upon the federal government–because, in fact, those state are poor. The old system understood this, so the rich states formed a bargain with the poor states: If the poor would put up some money, the federal government would put up the rest. While this was a burden to the rich states, they were making enough money that they could afford it. This distribution from rich to poor had advantages for both; the rich states would be caught in a series of inflationary cycles, while the poor states were trapped in disinflation.

Now in 2016, the rich want more. This is because the rich are not really the creative class, though they assume they are, and they need more money to enrich themselves. Health care is something that everyone needs eventually, the only question is when. Since they have looted the federal government tax system, the rich are in a quandary: They another system to bankrupt. Presently, there are only a few. One is healthcare. The other is the environment. Both of these will not last, but that is not the problem of the wealthy–they are fixed on the now and the short term.

So the real problem is that the liberal party (the Democrats) has taken their eyes off the ball. Obama was too concerned about being rich to think about the consequences, and the Clintons were very much in the same mold. They reversed the old system’s bargain: Instead of giving a great mass of the people a chance to make them selves rich, and then pocketing the difference for themselves (and remember, the great heroes of liberalism were also very rich by the end of their terms–they enriched themselves and gave just enough, or what they assumed was just enough, to be poor).

The problem is that they have not been dealing with a lumpen electorate. If one scans a large wall of books, one will find Leo Strauss, Ayn Rand, and other popularizers and intellectuals of the right. The problem is that they have been dealing with a conservative movement which has objectives, and is small enough to figure out ways of achieving them.

But now, our constitutional crisis begins with the fact that the popular movement knows that things are wrong. Because they do not have, in and of themselves, political power, they can only do things individually. When a state becomes conservative, people can only do one thing: Move. So, they move to the states that are more liberal. This has been documented by The Big Sort, by Bill Bishop. In fact, this problem should have been a priority for the federal government, and the Democratic party was, itself, part of the problem. Instead of making the country rich and making money, it reversed itself and made money, giving only the bare minimum. Some would make them selves rich, but many more became poor. This was fine for the Wall Street types who paid the Democratic party elites (including Bill and Hillary), but it created a wave of people who could not move from their state, and thus found few opportunities to make money.

The Republican party thought they had an answer: Real estate. And so for six years, from 2002-2007, there was a binge. Banking’s infrastructure managed, sagged, and then exploded. The Republican party thought that they would be fine, as they had learned that easing of money in a time of crisis was essential. Not for the poor, but for the rich. The rich would eventually pay it back, if not it could be forwarded indefinitely.

So the populace moved to the coasts, and the rich could make money on them doing so.

Now for the crisis: We could, by means of a treaty, create a popular mechanism for electing a president. But–and this is a very large but–that does not do any good for the populace who cannot, or will not, move. The draining away, the big sort, needs to be fixed. So even if we created the is a popular election mechanism, it wouldn’t change the fact that a large majority of states are retrograde. In terms of healthcare, climate change, and other problems–including the reborn banking crisis.

This is what we are up against, not a minor crisis, nor even a major one, but a constitutional crisis. Because a Trump presidency will eventually have to make unreal news real. It cannot help itself: The “facts” upon which it was collected are unreal, and, in no small number of cases, ugly unreal. There are people who do not look like “people” to the Trump voter, and they will do something about this. We may have one more chance, though I do say “may.” It is a return to a thought process, not just a mode of governing. A thought process which looks ahead, and sees problems long before they become a problem.

The alternative is destruction of the environment, and of people who are different, disabled, or locked in to a place. The new Democratic Party is still very much real, and though those who control it cannot govern the country, they can squash people who are disenchanted with them. Remember, a great deal of the country will have to get behind what could be called “The New New Deal.” They will have two have this problem explained, not in one long lesson but in short bursts. The need to have it explained why Kennedy was able to wedge himself in, but our new president cannot. There are a host of reasons, and they need to be drilled into the minds of those people who will do the explaining.

We need to do this now, because there is no then. This is our last chance.