The Mass Customisation of Politics

Business in the social media age is all about mass customisation. Industries such as telecommunications, banking and transportation have figured out that the key to success is to have economies of scale while allowing individuals to have products and services that are tailored to their needs. The commercial behemoths of old that insisted on one-size-fits-all have fallen by the wayside as new businesses exploit flexible manufacturing and service delivery models to accomodate individual consumers' needs.

Politics in the 21st Century is the same. Voters are increasingly unwilling to be boxed into traditional political definitions - left, right, socialist, nationalist. etc. Ironically, this is happening at a time when political labels such as 'extreme', 'Fascist' and 'Nazi' are being bandied about with increasing abandon and usually without justification. 

Many people, myself included, have a political philosophy that does not sit comfortably with most established party manifestos. We are a little bit left, a little bit right, and a whole lot completely outside the spectrum. This is not the same as being purely pragmatic - we have a philosophy that is well thought-out and articulated and are prepared to vote to maximise its realisation. We have little in common with the David Camerons and John Keys of this world who don't believe in anything much and who are willing to do whatever it takes to stitch together a coalition to keep them in power. We may vote for the lesser of evils but it doesn't mean we will accept the bland and uncommitted.

So how do we achieve mass customisation in politics when many countries seem to be locked into a traditional left-of-centre/right-of-centre, two-party paradigm? Partly it is achieved through breaking down the paradigm, and we have seen this with the rise of third parties in many Western countries. The other way it can be achieved is through localisation of politics.

Politics in many countries in recent decades has been characterised by greater centralisation. The European Community is the most obvious example and in the United States we have seen the growth of the federal government at the expense of the state or local government. The problem with this is that it means greater homogenisation and less opportunity for people like me, whose views don't fall into the traditional political buckets, to have our views represented. Localisation of political decisions means we can enjoy, at least at a local level, a more flexible set of policy setttings, and if we are not happy with the decisions of our local government, we can seek out somewhere more compatible with our political views.

It was the intention of America's founding fathers. particularly Jefferson and Hamilton, that the US Republic would be a place where different communities could experiment with different political and social settings, subject only to the universal rights enshrined in the Constitution. America today has become a highly centralised bureaucracy with the Federal Government interfering in every area of Americans lives from health care to what children eat in their school lunches. The complete dominance of US politics by the two major parties means that people who don't fall into the traditional Democrat and Republican camps have no real alternative, except that last year they chose a rebel Republican in Donald Trump to be president. Trump's support came from the disaffected middle and working classes, who rejected the big statism and identity politics of the Democrats and the social conservatism and crony capitalism of the Republicans, and is therefore understandable in terms of the mass customisation paradigm. Brexit was similarly a rejection of the traditional political choices.

Those who insist on seeing today's politics in terms of past dichotomies will continue to be surprised and bewildered by voters' choices. I think that the rejection of tradition political boundaries it is a very positive development but it needs to be accompanied by a decentralisation of political power if voters are to have genuine choices.

Failure of health care bill proof American Republic is alive and well

Many have seen the failure of the American Health Care Act, which has just been withdrawn because of lack of support in the US House of Representatives, as the first major test of Donald Trump's presidency. The reality is that even though Trump promised in his election campaign to repeal and replace President Obama's Affordable Care Act, the new bill was Speaker Paul Ryan's baby much more than Trump's, so its defeat probably won't cause Trump any significant political harm.

I think the bill's defeat is a victory for America for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the bill itself was universally considered to be unworkable and it certainly did not meet Trump's promise of "affordable coverage for everyone, lower deductibles and health care costs [and] better care." More importantly, it demonstrated to all those who have been painting Trump's victory as the end of the American Republic, that nothing could be further from the truth. The separation of powers is alive and well and Congress just exercised its power to cast out a proposed new law that the president supported. 

One of the great characteristics of the American system of government is that its participants do not slavishly act according to their party affiliations. Republicans may control the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Presidency, but that doesn't mean a Republican bill has an easy ride to become law. Here in New Zealand, our MPs tend to toe the party line, as dictated by the prime minister and his cabinet, far more than they do in America.

The recent decisions by the federal courts to stay Trump's immigration orders is further evidence that reports of the death of the Republic are premature. America may have its problems, but a lack of democracy and checks on power are not among them.

If the answer is Trump, what is the question?

So Donald J Trump is now the nominated candidate of the Republican Party for this year's US presidential election. I seem to be a lot less surprised by this outcome than many other New Zealanders, probably because I have spent more time in the United States in recent years and have regular contact with a lot more people living in America than the average New Zealander. I don't think you need to be very politically astute to understand why Trump has secured the Republican Party's nomination.

Firstly, there is the fact that America continues to languish in the economic doldrums it has been in since 2008. Despite endless pump-priming by the Federal Reserve, and talking up of the anaemic recovery by President Obama and his bureaucrats, many Americans cannot find work (the unemployment rate for men between the ages of 25 and 54 is 16%) and many are still 'underwater' in terms of wealth, having not regained the equity they lost in property and pension funds during the global financial crisis.

Secondly, there is disillusionment with the existing political institutions to deal with America's problems. Many Americans bought Obama's message of 'hope and change' but after eight years there has been no real change except for a much more expensive compulsory health insurance system, and no hope left. The Republicans are seen as equally hopeless, having been in control of both houses of Congress for the last two years with seemingly nothing to show for it.

Thirdly, there was the uninspiring line-up of alternative candidates in the presidential primaries. As National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg puts it, "the prospect of watching a Bush-Clinton race was so disgusting" that many people decided they would rather have a billionaire buffoon or a dyed-in-the-wool Socialist than either of the candidates from the two dynasties that account for three of the last four presidents.

Trump is a consummate populist, even more so than that other populist, Barack Obama. He doesn't have any discernible political philosophy - his position on any issue, whether it is immigration, trade or terrorism, is whatever will make him popular. Perhaps the only political label you could justifiably put on him is that he is a nationalist. He certainly does not have any credible solutions to America's problems. The Republican Party has decided he is the answer, but no one seems to know what is the question.

How will Trump perform as president? No one knows that either, but I expect that we are going to find out because (as I have written before) I believe he will beat Hillary Clinton to become the next President of the United States.

Conservatism is the cancer, Trump is merely the symptom

Texas governor Rick Perry once said that Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism. The fact that Perry has since changed his mind and jumped on the Trump wagon doesn't detract from the quotability of his comment. However, it misses the really salient point about Trump's candidacy, which is that it is a popular response to a bankrupt conservative movement. In other words, conservatism is the cancer and Trump merely the symptom.

What is conservatism really? Literally, conservatism means wanting to preserve or return to old traditions, but what are the traditions that conservatives want to conserve? For American conservatives, the traditions include religious adherence, duty to country, trust in government, historical gender roles and the like. Unfortunately for conservatives, these things do not resonate today with many Americans who value the social freedoms they have gained since the conservative political ascendancy of the 1950s.

On the other hand, conservatism usually means support for a market economy, but even this is not quite what it seems. The market economy most conservatives envisage is a cronyist realm where large corporations are protected and subsidized and small businesses are kept from competing with the big guys by a heavy blanket of government rules and regulations. American conservatives don't really want a truly free market because that means having to compete with the rest of the world and letting people make their own decisions about what they buy and from whom. Donald Trump is about as conservative as you get on this point.

The problem with conservatives is that they have never been honest with themselves. They have deluded themselves that the traditions they hanker for are about freedom, when in reality they are about conformity and control. At least the left-wing values social freedom, even if they don't understand that economics is a social science and social freedom without economic freedom is a nonsense.

It is unsurprising that Trump, a former Democratic supporter who is anti-free trade, anti-property rights, internationally isolationist and jingoistic, and pro-higher-taxes, is now the presumptive presidential nominee for the Republican Party. It is ironic that his candidacy is being opposed by prominent Republicans such as the Georges Bush and Mitt Romney, who claim he has sold out conservatism. Conservatism has always been only too prepared to sell out any principles of freedom it may have had in the pursuit of wealth and power for its supporters. In that respect Trump is right on form.

A megalomaniacal motormouth or an inveterate liar

Well, it looks like it's going to be a Trump-Clinton race. It is a pity Ted Cruz has dropped out - he was becoming almost likeable in a hang-dog sort of way. The Donald is becoming even less appealing as he tries to bring his tourette's-like tongue under control and appear as a candidate who is less than completely deranged - now, he's not even entertaining, let alone credible. And as for Hillary - am I the only one who thinks she looks like a con artist who knows she is about to be sprung?

I predicted that Trump would become the Republican candidate and also that Trump will beat Clinton in a head-to-head presidential contest. It gives me no pleasure to see that the first part of that prediction is now almost certainly right. I don't claim any great prescience when it comes to US politics but I do understand the immense frustration of many Americans over the direction of their country. 

The incumbent president and the previous one have been incredibly damaging for America but the next one is going to be worse, irrespective of whether it is a Republican or Democrat. But I believe that the United States has the presidential candidates it deserves. That's what you get when you are intent on throwing away the greatest constitutional republic the world has ever known. Perhaps having a megalomaniacal motormouth or an inveterate liar as president will bring Americans to their senses. 

If God is a Republican, then it is time for Him to intervene

There has been a lot of speculation about what happens if Donald Trump wins a plurality, but not a majority, of the nominating delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio in July. If that happens there will be a contested convention that is likely to go to multiple voting rounds. Delegates from many states are only bound to vote according to the primary outcome in the first ballot and after that all bets are off.

Some claim that the party could nominate someone who hasn't even contested the primaries, like House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, while others think John Kasich, who has won only one state in the primary race, could be the compromise candidate. Current rules prevent anyone who has not won at least eight states from contesting the nomination at the convention (rules that were brought in to prevent libertarian candidate Ron Paul from contesting the nomination in 2012) but the rules could be changed by a party committee immediately prior to the convention. The most likely outcome, as Jonah Goldberg writes in National Review, is that delegates will switch from Trump to second-placed Ted Cruz. It might take several ballots but in this way Cruz could end up with the nomination.

Ted Cruz wouldn't be a bad candidate in my opinion. He is liberal on economic and civil liberties issues, non-interventionist on foreign policy and a sceptic on climate change. He believes in trade liberalisation, a low flat tax, and balanced budgets. On the other hand, he is conservative on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. So he's about half-right, but that makes him better than most Republican candidates by half.

The thing most against Cruz in winning the nomination is that the Republican Party establishment hates him even more than Trump. This is because Cruz has been willing to defy the Republican leadership to vote against his party in the Senate, even going so far as to call Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar in a debate last year. But while it may stick in the craw of the Republican establishment to support Cruz, they may fall into line if he is the only alternative to Trump.

The outcome of a Cruz switcheroo is anyone's guess. Trump himself has talked about possible riots if he is unfairly denied the nomination. At the very least it is likely to cause infighting in the Republican Party that would damage its candidate's chances in the November election.

There is still a small chance that Cruz could get enough votes in the remaining primaries to overtake Trump as he is less than 200 delegates behind and there are more than 850 delegates still to be decided, but Trump is ahead in the polls in the remaining big states of New York and California, so that outcome seems pretty unlikely.

However, miracles do happen and if God is a Republican (as so many of the GOP's supporters seem to believe), then it is time for Him to intervene.

Why Trump May Become President

The United States' political scene is so much more interesting than New Zealand's at the moment and that's why I write a lot about the former. New Zealand is mid-term in its election cycle with a middle-of-the-road, middling conservative government that is about as interesting as appointment with the podiatrist. The United States, on the other hand, is nearing a presidential election that will see the end of its divisive, two-term, polemical President and the two main parties appear to be intent on tearing themselves apart in trying to select his successor.

The presidential primary races are fascinating. On the Republican Party side you have the neophyte and ultimate political outsider, Donald Trump, leading in most of the polls with the only other candidate coming close being another relative outsider, Ted Cruz, who was elected to the US Senate on a wave of Tea Party activism in 2012. All the Republican establishment candidates from Jeb Bush to Chris Christie are trailing in their wake. On the Democratic Party side you have the ultimate Washington insider, Hillary Clinton, against an avowed Socialist in Bernie Sanders.

The mainstream media are doing their best to undermine Trump with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, but the New York billionaire is a very different candidate than they are used to and they find themselves in a sort of Nietzschean nightmare where the more they try to hurt him, the stronger he becomes. The more outrageous Trump is, the more the US public appear to support him. The media and the political establishment thought he was a flash-in-the-pan who wouldn't last the summer but it is starting to look like his poll results are built from anti-gravity matter.

Trump might appear to be a buffoon but so far he has shown himself to be more politically astute and more in tune with the American electorate than any of the more experienced candidates. He has a sense of the issues that are important to Americans, issues that the political establishment and mainstream media consider to be too toxic to tackle. He has found fertile ground in immigration. This is unsurprising given that the underemployment rate (which includes those working part-time who are looking for full-time employment as well as the officially unemployed) is running at 14%. Rightly or wrongly (and I happen to think wrongly), many Americans see the large number of illegal immigrants in the United States as responsible for their current stagnant economic fortunes. Trump has combined this concern about immigration with the fear of Muslim terrorism, so his plan to put a moratorium on all Muslim immigration is the quinella in terms of political appeal.

Republicans believe their party has sold out. In 2012 Americans elected a Republican majority in both houses of Congress and supporters of the GOP thought this would mean a reversal of four years of President Obama's policies. Four years later they have nothing to show for it. In 2012 they were given a virtually unelectable presidential candidate by their party - a Wall Street banker Mormon - and yet Mitt Romney nearly beat the media's darling, Obama. A candidate that Republicans actually liked and supported would have romped in, given the broad electoral swing to the GOP at that election. The Republican rank and file are not going to make the same mistake and have a safe, establishment candidate foisted on them this time around.

If it comes down to a head-to-head contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I think the former will win. Hillary Clinton is very vulnerable because she has a track record of business, personal and political scandals that will be dredged up and re-examined again and again during a presidential campaign. Trump does not have this vulnerability because his life is a celebrity's open book. Consider Trump's response to Hillary Clinton's recent attack on him regarding his (frankly disgusting) treatment of Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly. Trump counterattacked with Hillary's complicity in her husband's cover-up of his many sexual harassment accusations (including, it now appears, one alleged rape). Trump has sent a clear message - if Hillary wants to take him on, she had better be prepared for a bloody fight in which Clinton has everything to lose and Trump has everything to win.

In conclusion, I think if it comes to a fight between Trump and Clinton, The Donald will wipe the floor with Hillary. Of course, there is still a long time to go before the Republican National Convention in July and I wouldn't put it past the Republican Party establishment to stitch up an anything-but-Trump result, but at this stage he is looking like the strong horse in a weak field. I am no Trump supporter, but his rise is nothing if not fascinating entertainment for those of us who follow US politics.