Sound Bites

I thought I’d start the year with a personal, political bete noir: Sound Bites. A sound bite is used by a politician to sum up policy or strategy in ten words or less. Sound bites are not new. Teddy Roosevelt used them in the late 19^th century. Sound bites are one of the pillars of political dumbing down. Make the people believe politics is simple. Then watch them vote for you.

But western society is complex. Politics and the variables of any given situation make it complicated. Professionals like lawyers, accountants, doctors, architects and chemists have to go through several years of training before they are allowed to inflict themselves on the public. But there are “professions” which require no training. On this side of the pond, how much training is needed by law for an MP or local authority counsellor? None. Help is at hand but only after an individual is elected. I am unaware of any formal training requirement in America for a budding politician.

A UK sound bite came from Prime Minister Theresa May in the run up to the 2016 general election. “Strong and stable government” was the promise heard loud and often from her and her colleagues. What did we get? A hung parliament that made her government weak and wobbly! Another phrase, “Brexit means Brexit” is laughable but oft repeated. It’s meaningless. But this column is not the place to deal at length with Brexit.

Mr Trump loves slogan sound bites. “Make America Great Again” can’t be right. The great country is Great Britain, not Great America. When since the end of the Second World War was America not great? You could argue that by the end of the Carter administration, there was a feel bad factor in America but since then America has been strong, although on occasion wrong. Now, that’s a sound bite!

How about “Build The Wall.” There seems to be no political will either in Congress or among a majority of voters to support the Trump proposal building programme. The total expenditure would be phenomenal. In the current budget, Trump asked for a mere $5billion for the Wall but the overall cost has been estimated in the hundreds of billions.

The refusal by the Senate to approve the expenditure has led to a US government shut-down which shows no sign of ending. It’s like the Wild West. Who will blink first? But what purpose would the Wall serve? Trump says it will keep rapists and murderers in Mexico. How fatuous and insulting. I can see a deal but it would require by-passing the President. Congress could approve the $5bn spend in exchange for security for the Dreamers, people born in America to illegal immigrant parents. If this happened, would Trump have the guts, not to say stupidity, to use his veto to keep the government shut?

The sound bite, “Clear the Swamp,” infuriates me but Trump does not use it much these days. Instead, the Trump administration has quietly failed to fill thousands of civil service places left vacant after the end of the Obama administration. Many senior civil servants resigned, as they are obliged to do when power passes. Their jobs are Senate confirmable and become vacant automatically at the end of an administration.

Trump’s transition was a total disaster. Little planning and slow decision making was patent. Michael Lewis’s new book, “The Fifth Risk” gives examples of inappropriate appointments where dubious qualifications do not fit the job requirement. One example is Trump appointing former Texas governor Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy. His blurb on the DOE website states:

“Secretary Perry is a veteran of the United States Air Force, a former farmer and rancher, and the longest-serving governor In Texas history, having led the world’s 12th-largest economy from 2000 to 2015. He has devoted his adult life to creating prosperity and opportunity for families.”

That’s it. The DOE looks after America’s energy requirements. Its personnel supervise oil, gas and electricity supply but the department has other important responsibilities. It is responsible for dealing with America’s nuclear programme including clearing up nuclear waste. There is a town in Washington State, Hanford, which had tunnels with a nuclear waste half-life of four billion years or more for its waste. The funding to maintain nuclear waste depots has been cut by Trump. What disasters may follow such short-sightedness?

Obama’s Secretary of the DOE was Ernie Monitz, a highly respected nuclear scientist. He ensured numerous anti-spill nuclear programmes were in place. What sort of a job will Perry do? He didn’t even appear at his DOE office until two months after the election. He is a career politician who gives every impression of being a member of The Swamp.

Trump appointed Sonny Perdue as head of the US Department of Agriculture. He has no agricultural experience. He was a member of the Georgia State Assembly, elected three times to the State senate. He was Governor of Georgia for eight years, leading reforms to cut government waste. In 2007, Georgia suffered its worst drought for decades. The Perdue solution was to lead large groups in prayer, saying: "We’ve come together here simply for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm" and "God, we need you; we need rain".

Weather forecasting comes within the remit of USDA. Perdue is cutting funds for the projects operated by NOAA. He believes Americans should pay for their weather forecasting by using the private sector. He does not see they already pay through their taxes.

Compare this appointment with that of Tom Vilsack, Obama’s USDA secretary of state, who was also a professional politician. In his early career, he was involved in the local Chamber of Commerce and United Way. He was elected to the Iowa Senate in 1992. He worked on legislation requiring companies who received state tax incentives to provide better pay and benefits. He helped pass a law for workers to receive health coverage when changing jobs, and helped re-design Iowa's Workforce Development Department. He also wrote a bill to have the State of Iowa assume a 50% share of local county mental health costs. Iowa is a state which relies on agriculture. He took time to learn about the state’s reliance on agriculture, which proved helpful when he moved to D.C. 

The USDA does a lot more than ‘give farmers money to grow stuff.’ Pre-Trump, the Department had seven section: National Resources and Environment; Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service; Food Safety; Rural Development; Food Nutrition Service; Marketing and Regulatory Programmes; Research, Education and Economics. USDA is a big department of state, now run by a politician with no agricultural experience. I do not know if the structure of USDA remains. If so, I doubt there are sufficient civil servants to staff them.

I ask, who are the occupiers of the Swamp? Is it the career civil servants who make America’s government work? Or is it lobbyists who cajole legislators to pass laws beneficial to their private sector clients. Surely, they are the major Swampers. Trump has done nothing to limit lobbyists’ powers.

Another group of major Swampers are those in the high echelons of Wall Street whose wings have not been clipped and who continue to make unlimited campaign contributions and donations to members of Congress. Trump screams about the unfairness of government but surely Wall Street skewers the democratic process more than anything else. Trump attacks the civil servants who do great work but leaves his wealthy Wall Street friends alone. How does all this equate to “Clear the Swamp?”

When I look at the current British and American governments, I despair. In UK, members of the House of Commons are voicing personal prejudices rather than uniting and seeing the nation through its Brexit crisis. The May government is paralysed, failing to focus on the really important government issues: health, education and welfare in an era of declining tax revenues.

In the past months, North Korea is still no safer a place. America has effectively given the Middle East to Putin and granted China widespread trading advantages, despite the ludicrous tariff policy. Instead it has turned on its allies and NATO, leaving the distinct impression of a boat that has cast off its lines without a skipper or crew. Here the skipper is Trump; the crew is the missing civil servants.

There is nothing as worrying as a man who believes himself to be the cleverest of all while running a country with infinite stupidity. If you think this is a rant, may I direct you to yesterday’s Washington Post where former Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, excoriated Trump for many failures including the lack of character to lead a divided nation.

I am sorely tempted to apply for Australian or New Zealand citizenship. I’d get a game of cricket, have BBQs most nights and the roads are uncluttered. Sadly, I just woke up! But it was a nice dream.

 

Happy New Year, people!