The US Political System: A View from the Confused UK>

I currently reside in the UK, but lived in the US for much of my life. Many Brits I know or have overheard in pubs find the US political system extremely confusing. Trump's attack on Iran has prompted new questions about it; notably his ability to start a war without the approval of the so-called representatives of the people: Congress. OK, I know Brits find other things American confusing, like baseball and American football, just as most Americans find cricket, rugby, and FIFA football confusing. As George Bernard Shaw put it, "The English and the Americans are two great peoples separated by a common language." 

Brits are expressing their confusion about US politics more often in the Trumpian Era, because Trump is in the UK news 24/7. Many of the Brits' comments since November 2024 relate to the question, How did the US "elect" such a despicable charlatan twice? What about learning from experience? Why can't they get rid of him? An American could reply, "Hey, UK voters made another charlatan, Boris Johnson, prime minister." That's true, but there is this difference: when enough people in the UK realized what a bloviating, bullshitting, devious narcissist Johnson was, they sent him packing. His own party did, in fact, responding to angry public opinion. In fact, the Tories got rid of four PMs in 14 years. The voters turned out a fifth in 2024. That's one advantage the parliamentary system has over the presidential system. Prime ministers serve at the pleasure of the party in power. The party in power can jettison their leader at any time, if they become sufficiently toxic to the voters. Presidents serve fixed terms. It is extremely difficult if not impossible to get rid of one before the next election, no matter how incompetent or vile.

The Conservatives (Tories) allowed their members to pick Johnson's successor. The members tend to be extreme in their views, and opt for candidates with extreme views -- and limited ability. That made Liz Truss the perfect choice. She managed to nearly destroy the UK economy in just a few weeks. Tory MPs could not get her out the door fast enough. 

Back to the UK view of US politics. The most common question after the 2016 election was, Why didn't Hilary Clinton get elected? She got 3 million more votes than Trump did. In order to answer that question, I had to try to explain role of the Electoral College in presidential elections. Despite its name, it has no connection with education, much less wisdom. Have you ever tried to explain the English Wars of the Roses to glassy-eyed, hungover undergraduates? I have. I don't recommend it. 

I have explained to astonished British listeners how the Founding Fathers created the Electoral College to prevent the US from becoming a democracy. I must add many Americans are also astonished to learn that the Founders were opposed to democracy. The Founders feared that the "people" would elect some nut who would threaten "property," including human property. The EC, you see, does not represent the "people." It represents the states, each of which has a certain number of "electoral" votes, based on their population.  

Three times in US history presidential candidates who lost the popular vote have become president, because they got a majority of electoral votes. The most recent time was in 2016, when the Electoral College assured the "election" of a nut who wants to restore slavery and admires Hitler. Trump still claims he won the popular vote in 2016, just as he continues to claim he won the 2020 election, not Biden.

Yes, the Founding Fathers wanted a republic but not a democracy. And they are not the same thing. A country can be a democratic republic. It can be an undemocratic republic. It can also be a democratic monarchy, like the UK and quite a few European countries. The monarchs in these countries have no real power. They are titular heads of state. 

Of course, all this was not enough to explain what enabled Trump's rise to power, or why he remains there despite his incompetent and criminal behavior. There were many more questions to answer.

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The End of Communism and the Decline of Democracy

Remember back in 1989 and early 1990s when the Soviet Union fell apart? The USSR lost control over its "satellite" countries in Eastern Europe, then itself dissolved into the Russian Federation. Ukraine and Georgia, among others, soon became independent nations. The truncated Russian state was still the largest country in the world in terms of land mass. 

Western pundits cheered what they called the end of the Cold War and of the triumph of liberal democracy and capitalism over authoritarianism communism (many of them threw in democratic socialism for good measure). Of course, there was much good in the end of the Soviet Union. My history students were generally ecstatic about it, and like many in America, viewed it as the triumph of the USA, now the only Superpower and "Number One "

Liberal democracies would now sprout throughout the world, ushering in freedom, universal peace, and "the end of history" -- or so Francis Fukuyama told us. Free market capitalism promised a golden age of prosperity for all, the neoliberal economists insisted.

Things didn't turn out quite that well, did they? Right wing, fascist regimes are spreading around the globe. Democracies are on the defensive everywhere. World peace is a joke as authoritarian leaders like Putin and Netanyahu invade, slaughter, and interfere in other countries' affairs with all the arrogant brutishness of the old imperialists. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the president of the US -- is it Musk or Trump? -- is immune from prosecution for "official acts." Don't expect the law to protect you. 

The rules of international behavior and diplomacy are flouted regularly. Indeed, it is not a huge exaggeration to say there are no rules anymore. Countries pledge to fight global warming but do nothing of substance. Like an alcoholic or Pete Hesgeth -- but I repeat myself -- their promises to reform are meaningless. The profits of the fossil fuel giants are sacrosanct. Ordinary consumers are complicit, demanding cheap gas for their guzzlers.

And what about prosperity for all? A lot of people have seen some benefits, but most of the world remains mired in a world of poverty, disease, and strife. The mega-millions of migrants knocking on the doors of the more prosperous and peaceful countries are testament to the fundamental chaos of the world. 

In a major way, the end of communism contributed to the mess we are in. It freed capitalists from the need to treat workers with a modicum of decency. The western economic response to communism was to try to provide a decent life for ordinary workers, to prove that capitalism was best. Once the communist threat was removed, capitalists could treat their employees with greater disdain, breaking up unions, reducing wages, offshoring jobs. 

The ultimate symbol of vulture capitalism is the US minimum wage, which long ago ceased to be even close to a living wage. At $7.25/hr it has not increased in decades, while Musk, Jeff Bezos, and their ilk rack up millions of dollars a day in profits. Money stolen from the producers. 

At the same time, these oligarchs, thanks to the venal Supreme Court (SCOTUS) have developed the means and techniques of buying governments who will do their bidding. Elon Musk's recent purchase of the American government is just the most glaring example of the trend. The fact that Musk, Trump, and others display strong fascistic tendencies bodes ill for the future of democracy in the USA. If it has a future.

Don't Just Dump Trump & His Gang: Reform the System that Made This Obscenity Possible

We must remove Trump from power. That is obvious. But that will not be enough to preserve America's Democracy. Unless the USA carries out major reforms of its political system, the danger from anti-democratic forces will remain high. 

WHY? Democracy in the US is not firmly rooted, and never has been. Trump has built on anti-democratic policies and machinations dating back decades or more, some to the very beginnings of the USA. Many of them exist at the state rather than federal level. A root and branch strategy is needed to eliminate these dangers. 

Many people will say the changes I suggest are impossible. And it will be a huge struggle to achieve any of them. But many people said that all men, and later all women, could never get the vote. Many people said slavery could never be eliminated. 

Britain was the greatest slave trading nation in history, but after grass roots campaigns, Parliament abolished slavery in the British colonies in 1833. The US required a bloody civil war in the 1860s to accomplish emancipation. The dust has never settled on that conflict or the racism that continues to motivate a large part of the population.  

I would like to see the people of the US engage in something like the Chartist Movement which emerged in Britain in the 1830s and 1840s. It took its name from "The People's Charter." 

Its aim was to establish a working democracy. Of its six demands, five became law by the early 20th century. The sixth, for annual elections to Parliament, is unlikely to ever be achieved because of its impracticality. Politics is constant enough.  

The Chartists did not include women in their vision of democracy but that demand surfaced almost immediately, and women got the vote in two stages, in 1918 and 1928. 

I have drawn up a badly needed People's Charter for the USA. Instead of six points it has twelve: 

• 1.       Abolish the Electoral College, an anti-democratic institution that has empowered American reactionaries since 1789. Replace it with the National Popular Vote. People in other countries find the Electoral College bewildering and idiotic, because it is.
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• 2.       Prohibit gerrymandering. Create an independent, non-partisan commission to draw up boundaries of congressional constituencies. This is done in other countries.
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• 3.       Overturn the obscene Citizens United decision of SCOTUS. It is responsible for hugely increasing the influence of big money in elections. Nothing like this exists in other democracies.
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• 4.       Prohibit political ads. They are virtually useless as information, misleading, insulting, and damned annoying. Prohibited in most democratic countries.
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• 5.       Introduce proportional representation or ranked voting to end the stranglehold of the corrupt two-party system. Some people will argue that this would make efficient government impossible. Ask yourself, is what have now efficient? 
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• 6.     Make the Senate representative of the country. It gives the less populated states collectively far more power than the most populated. California with 40 million people and Wyoming with only half a million have the same number of senators. This is both absurd and grossly undemocratic.
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• 7.       Make voting simple, safe, and convenient. Voting is an obligation. It should not be a survival test, torture, or a danger. Eliminate voter suppression of all kinds. Other countries do not do things this perverse way.
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• 8.      Fund public education adequately and fairly. Public college and university education should be free or cheap, as it was when I went to state universities in the late 60s and early 70s. Why are we short-changing our children and dumbing down our voters? You know why.
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• 9.      Establish a national, affordable health care plan that covers everyone. The present for profit system is a disgrace and an international laughingstock. The system costs the US twice as much as in other developed nations, and the results are worse in terms of mortality and morbidity. Scores of millions are uncovered or inadequately covered. Health insurance must be universal and separated from employment, which turns workers into virtual serfs.
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• 10.       Require the payment of a living (not minimum) wage for all adult workers. This should vary according to local living costs. It costs a lot more to live in California than in North Dakota. Why should workers have to have two or even three jobs to make ends meet?
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• 11.     Reduce the period between the election of the president and the inauguration to two or three weeks, preferably less. This would have minimized Trump's ability to create havoc after the "stolen election" of 2020. In the UK and many countries, a new government generally takes over immediately after the election. This can be done because the parties have already selected the members of the cabinet and other ministers. In the US the cabinet is not selected until after the election, and often contains unpleasant surprises. 
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• 12.     Reform the judiciary. Judges should be selected by professional bodies, not by presidents and Congress. This includes the Supreme Court, whose bias towards Trump is flagrant and dangerous. Justices of the SCOTUS and all judges should serve fixed terms, not for life. Ten years max. They should operate according to a code of ethics established by an independent board of legal and political scholars. The number of justices, currently nine, should be fixed in law at nine, or another number. They should not be the president's lapdogs.

Effective, fair gun control is imperative. Click on link to read what I have written on that. I did not include it under these reforms but it would follow if these other policies are implemented. 

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Gladstone v. Disraeli: The Great Victorian Rivalry

[Above: Punch cartoon of Disraeli on left, and Gladstone as two characters from an operetta by Burnand and Sullivan]

William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli ("Dizzy") both served as Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom in the late Victorian era. Gladstone held the premiership on four separate occasions, more than other PM in British history. Disraeli held the highest office twice. 

Both were men of great ability. They were also bitter rivals, who hated one another. Gladstone considered Disraeli to be devoid of any political principle beyond personal ambition. "The Tory Party," Gladstone claimed, "had principles by which it would and did stand for good and for bad, but all this Dizzy has destroyed." Disraeli, he more than implied, was a mere opportunist. To some extent, that was true. On one occasion he told a fellow Tory, "Damn your principles! Stick to your party."

Disraeli returned Gladstone's criticism with interest. Gladstone, he once said "has not a single redeeming defect." Asked to define the difference between a misfortune and a calamity, Disraeli replied, " If Mr. Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. If someone fished him out again, that would be a calamity." Gladstone, he said was an "unprincipled maniac ... [an] extraordinary mixture of envy, vindictiveness, hypocrisy, and superstition."

Personality wise, they were very different. Gladstone was moralistic and serious. He was an excellent speaker who coined many lofty and oft repeated phrases, such as 

"Justice delayed is justice denied."

"Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right."

"National injustice is the surest road to national downfall."

"Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race."

"We look forward to the time when the Power of Love replaces the Love of Power."

"Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear."

He was also long-winded. Some of Gladstone's contemporaries decried his long detailed speeches and apparent lack of humor  His wife once wrote him, "If you weren't such a great man, you'd be a terrible bore." Queen Victoria came to despise the cold way he addressed her: "Mr. Gladstone speaks to me as if were a lamppost," she wrote. [Below: Gladstone in 1879, portrait by John Everett Millais]

Disraeli, by contrast was witty and fun loving. On one occasion, having been reproved by the Speaker of the House of Commons for saying that half of the cabinet were asses, he replied, "Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my claim that half of the cabinet are asses -- half of the cabinet are not asses." On first becoming Prime Minister in 1867, he announced jokingly, "I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole."

Disraeli mastered something Gladstone never could: flattery. Victoria came to love Dizzy because he fawned on her, treated her as a woman and a great woman at that. He delighted her by arranging her to receive the title "Empress of India." Of their relationship, he wrote, "Everyone likes flattery; and when it comes to royals, you should lay it on with a trowel." [Below: photo of Disraeli, 1873]

The two men differed considerably on many key issues of the day. Gladstone was a reluctant imperialist, Disraeli an enthusiastic one. Gladstone was a devout Anglican but championed freedom of religion. 

Dizzy, who was of Jewish heritage but raised as an Anglican, defended stoutly the privileges of the state Church of England. It may have been out of conviction, but more likely it was for political reasons. It was an essential stance for a Victorian Tory leader. 

Gladstone championed the political rights of the masses but often turned a blind eye to their social needs. He was a fiscal conservative and an economic liberal who condemned anything he considered socialistic. Freedom, for Gladstone, meant freedom from political oppression and economic restraints. People should be provided with opportunities to compete, but not aided by government. In Victorian terms, he favored laissez-faire economics. But he also campaigned fervently for the extension of political rights to the working class. 

Once he became convinced of an injustice, Gladstone could devote himself to removing it. A case in point is Ireland. In the 1840s, at the time of the Irish Famine, he wrote,  "Ireland! That cloud in the west! That coming storm." He crafted numerous acts designed to remove glaring injustices, believing it was the only way to make the Irish loyal to the UK. 

In the end, it was not enough. In the 1880s, he declared "We are bound to lose Ireland in consequence of years of cruelty, stupidity, and misgovernment, and I would rather lose her as a friend than as a foe." He attempted. and failed, to pass a Home Rule Bill that would have given Ireland a large degree of autonomy. The effort cost him his political leadership. A large part of his own party deserted him. 

Parliament enacted Home Rule in 1914, but the outbreak of WWI delayed its implementation. When the war ended four years later, Home Rule became irrelevant. Most of Ireland opted for and fought for, independence. 

Disraeli was more pragmatic about such issues. He championed selective government intervention to improve working class housing and working conditions, to regulate the sale of food and drugs, and to enact uniform sanitary codes. He introduced the first Workmen's Compensation Act in 1875.

In his first term as PM Disraeli tried to outflank Gladstone by introducing legislation to expand the suffrage to some of the working class. The move shocked many in his own party, who had long opposed any move toward democracy. Disraeli understood that the world was changing and that the Tories had to change with it. 

The Reform Act of 1867 turned out to be more radical than his original proposal, partly because Gladstone and the Liberals proposed a number of democratic amendments. To the consternation of many Conservative MPs, Disraeli accepted most of them. He knew he would need Liberal votes to get the bill passed.

Disraeli hoped and expected to benefit from the Reform Act. He called an election, but Gladstone won a large majority. The new voters gave credit for the Act to the Liberals. In time, Disraeli was credited as the father of "Tory Democracy" who had dragged the party some way into the modern world. Gladstone later introduced a bill that gave the vote to all adult male heads of households. Despite their rivalry and their failings, they both contributed to the democratization and modernization of the UK in different ways.