PEOTUS So Far.... the Sun Keeps Coming Up.

Visitors to this blog over the past year will know that I was no great fan of any of the presidential candidates put forward in 2016. Indeed, I was among the many Americans who was left shaking their heads at a system that produced a couple of duds. At the end of the day, I reluctantly cast my lot with Clinton because I had a clearer sense of what kind of dud she'd actually be. As for Trump, my risk averse side was leery of electing an unpredictable dud.

 In the days and weeks since November 8th's political earthquake, I have paid very close attention to nearly everything Trump and his staff have said, parsing every letter for signs of what is to come. Below are my two bits about Trump's transition, his major cabinet picks, and the early signs of what lies ahead.

 I'm still worried,.... quite worried actually. Yet, perhaps because my expectations are so low or that in my desperate search for silver-linings I am cherry picking, I see signs that the sun will continue to come up every morning.

True North Strong and.... liberal?

Much of the planet is still trying to sort out the meaning of President-elect Donald Trump. Indeed, if some viewed last June's Brexit vote was a nerve-wracking tremor symptomatic of Europe's slide into economic and political nationalism, Mr. Trump's election was a tectonic shift confirming it.

In late October (linked here), The Economist hailed Canada as a kind of lone outpost in defense of liberty and openness among liberal democracies; the country's young, energetic, and progressive Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau being the most obvious symbol. Indeed, Canada has a long multicultural tradition of tolerance, inclusiveness, and adherence to the rule of law. But of particular importance to a country of enormous geography (2nd largest land mass) and small population (just 35 million) has been the nation's openness to international trade.

Mr. Trudeau has doggedly pursued the completion of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Europe. It hasn't been smooth sailing. Indeed, the mere fact that Mr. Trudeau has pressed for CETA implementation-- an agreement initiated and largely negotiated by his predecessor-- is an implicit acknowledgement of the importance of open markets for Canadians.

However, Mr. Trudeau's DNA in defending openness is already being tested by Mr. Trump. It's a test that, in my view at least, Mr. Trudeau has already failed.

American Brexit

Like much of the planet, I have been struggling to wrap my mind around what transpired on November 8. In the dramatic finale to a profoundly dramatic and wild 2016 campaign, Donald Trump shocked everyone with a resounding Electoral College victory. A long period of recrimination has just begun.

I've devoted a lot of space in this blog to my anxieties about the 2016 campaign. In the days, weeks, months and (probably) years ahead, I'll be devoting a lot of time to more fully understanding the political earthquake that's just rocked the United States. Moreover, the important business of sorting through the implications has begun in earnest.

Yet, as I watched the returns well into Wednesday morning, the one recurring thought I had was that we were watching an American version of last summer's stunning referendum on British membership in the European Union (my post on that, here). In my mind, Tuesday's American Brexit is a blow to postwar liberalism equivalent to a warship being fatally torpedoed below the waterline. In some quarters, all of this will be celebrated as an appropriate
shake-up of the status quo. Uncertainty and chaos be damned, a changing of the guard was long over-due.

Perhaps. Fortunately liberalism is not a warship, but a set of ideas whose foundations and loudest purveyors were in need of a shake-up (something I've written about here). Buckle up, the shake-up has begun. The Economist, long a bastion of liberalism, made much the same argument in its reaction to Trump's election. I strongly recommend you read the whole piece (linked here). However, the last paragraph sums up our modern world perfectly. I've copied it below:

The election of Mr Trump is a rebuff to all liberals, including this newspaper. The open markets and classically liberal democracy that we defend, and which had seemed to be affirmed in 1989, have been rejected by the electorate first in Britain and now in America. France, Italy and other European countries may well follow. It is clear that popular support for the Western order depended more on rapid growth and the galvanising effect of the Soviet threat than on intellectual conviction. Recently Western democracies have done too little to spread the benefits of prosperity. Politicians and pundits took the acquiescence of the disillusioned for granted. As Mr Trump prepares to enter the White House, the long, hard job of winning the argument for liberal internationalism begins anew.

The Economist, Print Edition, November 12, 2016.

Peering into the November 9th Abyss...

One of the things I frequently ask my students to do on the first day of class every semester is to recall their moment of political consciousness; that point in their lives when they genuinely take note of the world around them. For me, it was 1979 and the Iranian Revolution and ensuing the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in early November of that year. On nearly every morning that followed for the balance of that crisis (444 days, in fact), I sat transfixed with my bowl of Wheaties in front of Good Morning America trying to sort out what was going on. 1979 turned into 1980 and the Presidential Election campaign that brought Ronald Reagan to the White House in January 1981. The American hostages were released the same day Reagan was sworn into office.

It was a ray of hope for a country that seemed to be on a losing streak; the economy best with "stagflation" (stagnant GDP growth coupled with high inflation), the ever-present threat of oil price shocks, uncertainty about America's place in the world, and the lingering effects of Watergate and the Nixon years.

The 2016 Presidential Election Campaign has been a different ball of wax. There have been tense, consequential, contests in the past, at least one of which (2008) actually generated a bit of euphoria. There year, there's no "Morning Again in America," no "It's the Economy, Stupid," no "Change We Can Believe In," nothing. Sadly, Trump's signature "Make America Great Again" has been underwritten almost entirely by a message of fear and loathing rather than hope and change.

No matter who wins, I am worried about what comes next. The next four years are going to be rough.

Brexit, CETA and the beginning of the...

Update: Prime Minister Trudeau went to Brussels this past Sunday (October 3) for the public signing of the CETA. He did so after EU officials reached a compromise (Joint Interpretive Declaration) with the refusenik Walloons that sought to calm anxieties about how CETA would be interpreted and implemented. An important concession made outside the JID means Belgium will be able to seek an "opinion" from the European Court of Justice on the legality of parts of the CETA. Although such an "opinion" has been said by EU officials to be non-binding, the political impact on the ratification of CETA by all 28 member governments could be significant. Stay tuned.....

For much of the past two weeks, I have been taking in the sights, sounds, and tastes of the area around Frankfurt, Germany. It's been awesome. This is my second trip to Germany in the last few years, the previous trip being to Berlin. In fact, the photo of the Brandenburg Gate that forms the masthead of my Twitter page is from that trip. Germany regularly captures my attention because of its role in the postwar European Project, but has done so in recent years because of the prominent position it now awkwardly occupies in that Project.

On a light standard in Mainz, Germany

It is a Project that has been fraying around the edges and is, in my mind, a grim warning shot across the bow about where the politics of the global economy are headed.

The television in my hotel room has a surprising number of 24-hour news channels, including the English-language BBC and SkyNews. Yet, the language in which one watches doesn't matter, the news is all about the European Summit and the CETA-- the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU.

Regardless of the language in which I watch, it's easy to tell the news is bad.

A week ago, the tiny Belgian enclave of Wallonia (2.5 million people) spiked seven years worth of negotiations between the European Union (500 million people) and Canada by rejecting the terms of the CETA.

There's been a lot of this sort of rejection lately; the Greek debt crisis (which I've written about here a fair bit), to the near-miss of the 2014 Scottish Referendum, the economic nationalism of the U.S. presidential campaign, and, of course Brexit. There are days on which the drum-beat of bad news seems like the beginning of the end....

I'm for Hillary,.... but it wasn't easy.

I'm voting for Hillary Clinton on November 8....

A lot of readers of this humble blog may be he horrified it's taken me this long to make the obvious choice. Just to reiterate; both the major party candidates suck (to use non-scholarly assessment terminology). One sucks more than the other, but they both suck. Each sucks in different ways, but they both still suck.

And, because they do, I'm also worried about what comes after November 8. Let me explain....

Debating the Debate Among Your "Friends"

If you are a political junkie, I know exactly where you were last night! The Super Bowl of politics just had it's first playoff game, and it was great. There is no stage quite like a Presidential Debate.

Pesky pre-rumble formalities

Say what you like about Trump or Clinton as candidates (which I have done on this blog), I have enormous respect for anyone with the guts to get up there and put it on the line. Indeed, I am reminded of President Theodore Roosevelt's famous lines about simply being in the arena:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who point out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic." Delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, France, April 23, 1910.

That said, respect doesn't make me a fan. I still wish I had another option. What's bugging me today however, is the debate over the debate.

9/11 Plus 15

Fifteen years ago today, I was sitting in my D.C. studio apartment reading the Washington Post and sipping my morning coffee. The day's headlines were about a big budget fight on Capitol Hill. For most, a big bag of snores and business as usual in Washington.

Lower Manhattan Pre-9/11

Around 9:45am, the phone rang. It was my sister in Salt Lake City. It was a strange time of day to be calling, but she wanted to know if I was okay? I said "sure, why?" She proceeded to scold me and said: "don't you know what's going on?"

The fact was, I didn't know what was going on. I was a graduate student-- which by default meant I sometimes didn't know what was going on. In a bid to save money (and short-circuit distractions) I didn't have a T.V. and my Internet service was bare-bones. I did have a radio, though, and flicked it on to discover that two planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center. My family had just seen television reports of a plane crashing near downtown, D.C. It looked to them as though it might be pretty close to where I worked.

"I'm okay. Gotta go."

Fear and Loathing in POTUS 2016

Labor Day is traditionally the kickoff of the home stretch of the campaign, a period when those running for office switch their campaigns into overdrive in an effort to "get out the vote" and persuade those Americans who may not have been paying close attention all summer.

My job affords me the opportunity to pay close attention to what is going on in U.S. presidential politics all the time. I get to write about it, talk about it, and express the odd opinion. Moreover, I do my best to approach things from as neutral a perspective as possible-- although I acknowledge that my training predisposes me to certain positions some would never call neutral.

Yet, there's a difference between the analysis and opinion I might offer as a scholar and the way I think about it all as a voter. My eligibility to vote in U.S. elections is a responsibility I take quite seriously. When I was a junior (3rd year) in university, a roommate gave me a book into which he jotted a phrase from Pericles that I've never forgotten:

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all-- Preicles' Funeral Oration, Thucydides's, History of the Peloponnesian Wars.

As a voter, I am fed up and worried about the choices presented to me by both parties. The more I see, the less I like Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

Winston Churchill was spot on about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the others. In this presidential election cycle, the Democrats and Republicans have served up lemons. Like many Americans, I feel as though I'm being asked to choose between the lesser of two evils. Some will undoubtedly choose to sit this election out. I think that would be a mistake.

I've seen enough already. I'm giving the Libertarians, Gary Johnson and William Weld a look. 

A New Agreement on Internal Trade?

Last week, Canada's premiers wrapped up the summer meeting of the Council of the Federation in Whitehorse, Yukon. Item number one on the agenda, the elimination of internal trade barriers. While

The Source of Jaw Jaw Over Trade Trade

the press release referred to the "agreement" as a "...ground-breaking agreement that will support..." the premiers' "...vision for promoting trade, investment and labor mobility across provincial and territorial boundaries,"






the reality was something far less than "ground-breaking" and really amounts to an agreement continue talking (press release linked here). I have written at some length in this blog about the neoclassical stages of integration, including their application to domestic settings (see link). Ideally, last week's meetings in Whitehorse would have aimed to build upon the Agreement on Internal Trade and the New West Partnership.  To most observers of international trade, the kinds of things being talked about in Whitehorse are the domain of world trade negotiations. And that's definitely true.

However, what's fascinating about the talks in Whitehorse is how pervasive the very same kinds of issues can be in a domestic setting-- particularly a federal setting like Canada's in which power is divided and shared over different jurisdictions.

A Curmudgeonly Grump or Two About the North American Leaders' Summit

I really wish I could get excited about North American Leaders' Summits, but they've become a big, disappointing bag of snores.

I've complained on this blog about the lack of ambition for North America before. In fact, my second post to this blog in 2014 was a bit of an obituary to Robert Pastor, a long time proponent of closer North American cooperation. Sadly, there are several other posts, here, here and here, wherein I complain about this.

Slate magazine described the Three Amigos Summit as "North America's hottest leaders getting together for a steamy three-way." Indeed, photo ops were about as substantive as it got. Trudeau jogging with Nieto? Obama and Trudeau snapping selfies from the PM's Office? Phuleeeze.... Is the best we can do here?

Is Cultural Insecurity "Trumping" Economics?

Over the past few months, I have started one Brexit post after another only to scrap it after it really didn't go anywhere. I scrapped things because I thought it had too much in common with a lot of my other posts; the 2014 Scottish Referendum, the prospect of Grexit in the summer of 2015, or commentary on monetary relations, or even Canadian institutions like the New West Partnership.

My take on Brexit seemed always to revolve around the same sets of tensions embedded in the neoclassical stages of integration. It may be that I need a fresh new analytical frame through which to look at every thing, but I have to admit the stages of integration are a great jump-off point for a lot of things.

Nevertheless, I scrapped every Brexit draft I wrote. Something was missing. Cultural insecurity. It hit me yesterday in a column by Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post who argued hat what is happening transcends the standard economic arguments put forward by politicians over the last 20 or 30 years to win votes. Indeed, dating at least to the 1992 campaign of Bill Clinton, maximizing the benefits of the post-Cold War shift toward liberal capitalism and liberal democracy has been pivotal to many election platforms. In 1992, the Clinton slogan was "It's the economy, stupid."

The Softwood Lumber Soap Opera

The softwood lumber dispute is back!!!! In October 2015, the latest Softwood Lumber Agreement expired after essentially buying a little less than a decade of Canada-U.S. trade peace. Late last week, the two sides met in Ottawa to see if they could head off expensive trade litigation over the issue. They failed.

A new round of litigation will undoubtedly be coined Lumber V, meaning this is the fifth round of this long-running dispute. For those of you that haven't been following, the longevity of the softwood lumber dispute is shocking. Regardless of when you mark the start of each phase -- expiration of Agreements, negotiations, or initiation of litigation-- the intractability of this dispute can hardly fail to impress.

Lumber I, October 1982–April 1986
Lumber II, May 1986–December 1986
Lumber III, October 1991–April 1996
Lumber IV, April 2001–October 2006
Lumber V, October 2015-- Present


The outcome of last week's meeting should have been predictable to anyone that has followed this issue. It follows a depressingly familiar pattern. Much as a chef would draft a recipe for cookies, one can draft a recipe for this dispute. It goes something like this:

POTUS 2016 and The American Dream, Part II

In Part I of this post, I suggested Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump had more in common than many have acknowledged. Here, I'd like to offer a bit of a diagnosis of those commonalities anchored in the contemporary challenges to the powerful national ethos and mythology swirling around the idea of the American Dream. 

De Tocqueville in America

ISBN 10: 1857151798

 Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835) remains one of the most important starting points for understanding the unique power behind the idea of the American Dream. Indeed, he begins his introduction to Volume 1 with an oft-quoted observation about equality:

Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people. I readily discovered the prodigious influence that this primary fact exerci3ese on the whole course of society; it gives particular direction to public opinion and a peculiar tenor to the laws; it imparts new maxims to the governing authorities and peculiar habits to the governed.

I soon perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character of the laws of the country, and that it has no less effect on civil society than on the government; it creates opinions, gives birth to new sentiments, founds novel customs, and modifies whatever it does not produce. (Volume I, Introduction, 3). 

POTUS 2016 and the American Dream, Part I

The American economy has been front-and-center in the 2016 campaign. In many ways, the rhetoric over economic policy fits a familiar mold I have written about repeatedly in these pages. Although foreign policy has featured prominently in this campaign, foreign policy seldom wins American elections. This contest is turning out to be no different. As former House Speaker Tip O'Neil famously quipped, "All Politics is Local."

Steve Benson, Arizona Republic, February 28, 2016

Yet, I sense something different in this cycle where economic policy is concerned. Popular angst about the institutions, leadership, and decision-making that have underwritten America's postwar prosperity is fueling insurgent candidacies that have spread like wildfire through both political parties—yes both political parties. For much of the past year, “expert” commentary has struggled to understand the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Everyone needs to eat some humble pie. It’s no exaggeration to say we all missed it. 


In recent months, there has been a lot of discussion of voter “anger,” “frustration,” or “disillusionment” as the fuel behind Trump’s support. Sure. However, I think both the diagnosis of what is happening and the prescriptions for solving the problems behind them are far more complex than most have been willing to acknowledge. With this post, I’d like to explore the ways in which the perceived unravelling of the American Dream is playing out on the campaign trail. For generations of Americans, the mythology of the American dream acted as a mollifying, stabilizing concept in American life. The 2016 presidential campaign is hardly the first cycle in which the American Dream has been declared dead or on the ropes. I think it’s too early to tell exactly where much of what I outline below is headed. Yet, it’s noxious and potent enough that it could have profound effects on America’s political economy (and the world’s) well into the future.

Rachel Notley Goes To Washington

In May of last year, I wrote a little piece for newly-elected Premier Rachel Notley offering my two bits on what a sub-federal government like Alberta ought to know about managing its interests in the United States (linked here).  Since Ms. Notley is in Washington this week, I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a bit of stock-taking.

In the spirit of the pile of seminar essays I just finished assessing, I'd offer a "B+" or "A-" to Premier Notley's early management of the U.S. file.

Malcolm Mayes, Edmonton Journal, April 28, 2016

I'd like to say I knew the Premier is a regular reader of my blog, or that I had a hotline to the Premier's office since a lot of what I recommended seems to have happened. I don't have a hotline and I doubt the premier is a fan. Moreover, pats on the back are hard to come by in academia, so I am going to shamelessly accept one for myself here.....

Some April Fools Election Levity....

I've started several posts on the 2016 campaign only to abandon them the next day because of some twist that makes saying anything conclusive about what's going on nearly impossible. Front and center is the soap opera (or tragic comedy) unfolding in the GOP. Every day brings a new twist in what increasingly looks like a huge train wreck headed for the GOP Convention floor in Cleveland later this summer. The Democrats continue to be more civil, but Bernie Sanders' victories continue to cast an important shadow over Hillary Clinton's mathematical inevitability as their convention in Philadelphia draws near.

If you are in a state of despair about the choices-- as I am--you could consider any number of write-in candidates, or hold out hope that a third party might enter the race.

One already has: Captain Obvious.

He's got the Commander in Chief uniform and political hand gestures down:

Beware of Populists Bearing Jobs....

The 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign has been one for the ages-- although not for the best of reasons. Particularly among Republicans, the debate of the 2016 campaign has put on display some of the ugliest facets of American political campaigns (see last post).

However, you'll be happy to know that a far more acceptable form of populist deceit in elections remains alive and well in both parties; the politics of opposition to trade liberalization. There's no comfort in that for those who see the merits of trade liberalization (myself included), but it could be construed as comforting for those who seek some refuge in something that makes sense to them in this campaign. The latest candidate skirmish on trade policy took place in the Democratic Debate in Flint, Michigan the other night; a rust-belt state, and ground zero for this kind of rhetorical mush.

Yet, in my view, there's good news ahead. The populist protectionism of the campaign has, in the postwar period, nearly always returned to default liberalism. Unfortunately for those that really buy into the rhetoric of protectionism, I have bad news for you; you're being lied to.

Let me explain.

In (slight) Defense of Incivility

There's been a lot of hand-wringing over the nastiness of this year's presidential primary season, especially on the Republican side of things. If you aren't up to speed, look no further than the most recent GOP debate held in South Carolina on February 13.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the downward spiral some believe we are on. I think the demolition derby we are watching has often been devoid of substance and hasn't always showed Americans at their best. Yet, to those who dismiss it all as just another sign of American decline, I'd like to suggest that they are missing something pretty important about how a lengthy, even nasty, process like this is pivotal in establishing a critical personal connection to candidates.

Energy Ministers Meeting: Reinforcing the Low Bar for Trilateralism....

This past Friday (February 12), North America's Energy Ministers got together in Winnipeg to announce a new trilateral effort on energy cooperation. The idealist in me reacted like this:

Hey, great. Perfect timing. The North American energy sector could use a boost. Moreover, the whole notion of 'trilateral' anything in North America seemed to have died. Was the Winnipeg announcement as sign of things to come? Was trilateralism being put back on life-support? Was it an early example of Prime Minister Trudeau's commitment to renew Canada's relationship with Mexico? 

Then, reality sinks in once again.....

Open Note to Trudeau 2.0 on North America

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

It seems you are headed to Washington March 10 for a little soiree with President Obama. The President likes you and is getting his staff to throw a big party. A State Dinner; the first for a Canadian Prime Minister in nearly two decades. Good on you. But before you get too carried away with "reset buttons" with Washington, I'd like to make a simple plea.

Canada's most important interests can be found right here in North America. Washington is top of the list. However, if, as you claimed during your campaign, you are serious about revitalising "North America," I'd like to see you get on your plane March 11 and go to Mexico City.

The Obama Years.... My Two Cents

There's something about great political theater that makes it impossible to ignore. Debates, campaign speeches, congressional hearings,.... all of it great theater. State of the Union Addresses (SOTU) are no different, but Tuesday night's SOTU was special because it was President Obama's last. Obama's presidency will be debated and re-hashed by historians for years to come. But since I've been asked about the President's speech, and his legacy, in the days since, I thought I'd throw out a few early observations about his presidency as he heads for the exit.

The laundry list that follows is both incomplete and, in most cases, deserving of book-length treatment. Moreover, it's just my two cents.

Expectations
In 2008-2009, Barack Obama was electrifying. Full stop. A war-weary country looking over the cliff into a financial abyss, was hungry for change. Most didn't get what they were hoping for, including among many of the President's most ardent supporters. In many ways, it's not Obama's fault. It's ours. We expect too much of presidents. We imbue in them the capacity to do things that are extraordinarily difficult to achieve. A lot of that difficulty is intentionally built into the U.S. political system. For that, we have James Madison to thank. Yet, in my view, the expectations we heaped on President Obama went far beyond those we normally assign. I was among them. Like many, I am also disappointed in the last 7 years. But in many ways, our hyperinflated expectations set a standard of judgement that set us all up for disappointment.

Obama is a transformational figure because of who he is and what he represented as the nation's first African-American president. It was a presidency the country needed. But sadly, and undoubtedly because of some of my own inflated expectations, I'm not sure his presidency will be seen as especially transformative.