Redefining the Floor....Down

I was scrolling through some YouTube clips the other day and came across the great Seinfeld episode in which Frank Costanza invites Seinfeld and Co. to a celebration of Festivus; a made-up, emblematically dysfunctional, substitute for Christmas. 

  

An important part of the Festivus tradition is the "airing of grievances" over dinner. Depending on where you were in the world, the state made such an airing rather difficult for the second straight year. I've already seen Queen Elizabeth, the Pope Francis, and a bunch of world leaders offer year-end messages of hope, renewal, world peace, and good health for 2022. I suppose it's part of the job. 

2021 undercut my optimism about a lot of things. Indeed, as I ponder the past two years, my cynicism and despair about our collective trajectory has only grown. A different "Pope," the English poet Alexander Pope originated the phrase "Hope Springs Eternal," as a way of saying that humans have a way of looking forward to brighter days despite any current gloom. Sure. But as we close in on the second full year of what strikes me as an increasingly futile effort to manage a pandemic, I've decided that most of what I have is actually a list of grievances. There's a good chance you won't agree with me on many of these. I long ago concluded I was on an island by myself; neither MAGA-hat wearing, anti-vaxx conspirator, nor member of the cowering herd.

It's Not Okay, None of This is Okay...

Over the last several months, governments everywhere have been rolling out their various passport schemes to drive up (coerce) vaccine uptake. I've been flamed, mostly on Twitter, for suggesting that passports were not the "get-out-of-jail" cards many people think they are. 

The evidence everywhere passports have been introduced is that they juice vaccination rates. Those who

Surrender

were lazy about it, sitting on the fence, or just unsure are strongly incentivized to get the jab. Fine. I'm all for more jabs in more arms. However, once that surge in vaccination is complete, what then for the passports? My strong suspicion is that these passports are never going away. Even where passport schemes have begun with paper cards/certificates, nearly everyone expects them to become electronic and increasingly harmonized (standards, format, etc). Moreover, I doubt these schemes will remain limited to combatting Covid-19. Technologies like this, once introduced, will be repurposed for all kinds of new "emergencies."

There are two big things that trouble me about the apparent public support for these schemes; first, the implicit acknowledgement that freedoms have been restricted and that passports are a way to get them back, and second, blaming the unvaccinated for the necessity of needing the passports at all.

We can live a life of sorts in spite or normalizing the abnormal. But doing so isn't really living. 

FAIL!... With a Side of Segregation?

FAIL!

Last night, Alberta's Premier declared a healthcare state of emergency, sent everyone back home again, and also announced the introduction of a vaccine passport scheme. I can't say I was surprised by any of this. The writing was on the wall toward the end of August as, little-by-little, ICU admissions to Alberta's fragile healthcare system began pushing it toward the breaking point. 

I've already written here about why I don't like passports as a solution. Have read nothing that changes my mind about them, but I knew that debate was essentially over by the time I penned the piece. Passports were already in operation in lots of places, so the collective acquiescence to them was bound to come here too. It's all dispiriting, but not, in my view, for the reasons I see expressed in the popular press or on platforms like Twitter. Instead, I view the resort to coercive measures like passports as an admission of complete failure on the part of our public officials to make its case to a significant portion of the population; roughly 20%-30% it seems. Importantly, this is not some sort of Alberta phenomenon. There might be greater skepticism and resistance in Alberta relative to the rest of Canada, but there are plenty of jurisdictions around the world in which the persuasive case in favour of vaccines appears to have stalled, or even failed. 

I am worried about what the inability to persuade significant numbers of people as to the virtues of vaccination says about our public institutions and where our politics are headed.

Twenty Years On...

The run-up to the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has given me plenty of cause for reflection, a lot of which was made more painful by the calamitous withdraw from Afghanistan. There are an endless number of commentaries, podcasts, editorials, to be read marking the 20th anniversary. It's a period of time that will garner analysis and (bitter) debate for decades to come. There's plenty I could offer in terms of misgivings, lessons learned, failures, turning points, and what it all means for the future. It would be a very long post and, unfortunately, repeat a lot of the conflicting views being expressed already. 

Well Worth A Visit

Instead, I thought I'd try a short post that was a bit more personal, albeit probably still full of conflicting sentiment. Indeed, it's hard not to reflect on the last two decades and not be conflicted. It's a source of conflict that began on a morning in September that was exactly as beautiful as everyone says it was.

Passport to My Own Island

As the global pandemic has dragged on, momentum to introduce vaccine passports has picked up. I'm horrified. Proof of vaccination for international travel has been common for many years. But I am particularly distressed by the cavalier manner in which passport schemes have been rolled out in domestic settings. I have yet to see a thoughtful, and convincing case in support domestic passports, particularly as SARS-CoV-2 has evolved to where asymptomatic spread among the vaccinated is now commonly acknowledged and emerging research on "natural immunity" is changing how we think about the dichotomy of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated.

Me in Intellectual and Political
 No-Man's Land

Advocates have yet to think clearly about the implications of these schemes. Instead, they have become wedge issues for politicians, demarcating lines of virtue rather than those between safe and unsafe, infected and uninfected.  Passport schemes are fraught with civil liberties issues and run the risk of repeating past mistakes in which the diseased, the different, or undesirable were cast to the margins of our society. A shockingly large number of people seem perfectly fine with this.

Yet, I don't see a public health case for these things. Until I do, it's hard for me to see them as anything other than the forms of coercion and exclusion I feared back in the spring of 2020. If we are going to enter a period of coercion and health segregation, let's call it that. Let's just stop the charade and make vaccination mandatory. Then we avoid starting down a path toward mobile health monitoring that will inevitably metastasize into additional intrusions that facilitate the expansion of state power more than they address the public health issues ostensibly at their core. 

Been Away for a While

Whoa!!! It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. This past summer, the so-called Brood X cicadas emerged from 17 years underground and menaced the East Coast of North America with the force of their numbers and collective sound. 

Locked Down for More than 18 Months

I haven't been away from this space quite that long, but it sure feels like it. There are lots of reasons for that, most of which I can blame on Twitter. It's not as if I've had nothing to say. It's just that I've always wanted this space to be about things that would stand up well over time. Indeed, part of the reason I started this blog in the first place was to flesh out some think
ing in a space that wasn't limited to a short newspaper op-ed (readership there is declining there anyway), but was less formalized than academic publishing (with a different set of narrow readership problems). 

Fear and Loathing,.. But Mostly Fear

Fear? Who, Me?

I began talking about the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with my students this past January as news of what was unfolding in Wuhan, China emerged in newspapers. I noted the many table-top exercises I had read about in which very knowledgable people in those simulations made poor decisions or confronted major gaps in preparedness. I also noted the macabre decisions that were made, for example, in aftermath of an attack from a bioweapon, and how ill-prepared our health systems were for the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 event which killed less than a thousand people around the world.

However, I also told students that one of the things I personally worried most about in the context of pandemic or bioweapon responses was them; not their personal health and safety, but their collective responses to what was going on.

I shouldn't be surprised at the level of fear this has all generated, but I am.

The Return of Big Brother

There's An App for That

The past week of coronavirus news has more than once left me staring, mouth-open at the television or re-reading something in news multiple times just to make sure I read it correctly. It's not the mounting casualty numbers. It's not Trump's daily efforts to one-up the previous day's buffoonery.

A Message from The Ministry of Truth:
Stay Home and Get the App

Instead it's the speed with which technology is being heralded as the solution to all of our SARS-CoV-2 problems. It seems there will an app for this too!!! There's just one catch... that app may soon be sharing information directly with authorities.

We've known for a long time that our phones have been "spying" on us. Indeed, our phones are doing things most of us would rather not know about. As we live more and more of our personal and professional lives through our smart phones, we've become complacent about the data we willingly share. Sure, there are these ubiquitous "terms of use" certificates we instinctively click without reading. If we actually read them, the proper reaction ought to be to throw the phone in the river. But, since a lot of the data being mined about our habits is designed to sell us more stuff we don't need, we just roll with it.

David, Goliath and SARS-CoV-2

The fight to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 around the globe has been an evolving struggle, too frequently pitting governments against each other as they fight to secure resources or impose measures to limit the spread.

Not Quite as it Appears

This is not so say there's no coordination or information sharing going; indeed, the WHO is collecting and disseminating lots of data, central bankers have been communicating with each other about interventions in their respective domestic economies, and ideas for fiscal stimulus are being mimicked by numerous national legislatures. Yet, disappointingly, there have also been too many instances of  "every-man-for-himself" in the response to what is an inherently transnational phenomenon.

More broadly, the instances of "coordination" or "every-man-for-himself" are revealing of aspects of the asymmetrical distribution of power in the international system and, for the purposes of this post, Canada-U.S. relations in particular.

SARS-CoV-2 Isolation Diaries

Like just about everyone else on the planet, I've been at home with my thoughts a lot lately. I've had a lot of them. The problem is that so has everyone else. Indeed, there's been an outbreak of written opinion nearly as large as the outbreak of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, itself. And, also similar to the SARS-CoV-2, I don't care for a lot of it. 

Dusting Off the Old Plans?

This blog post is going to be mostly a litany of complaints, things that have more than once caused me to get my dander up as I've watched them unfold. I'll refrain from straying into domains properly dominated by my natural science colleagues. However, my most basic observation of what's transpired reaffirms the need for the natural and social sciences to at least get together for coffee now and then.

The litany that follows here eventually leads me to a more serious set of points I think I have something to say about as we contemplate life during and after this pandemic. 

Black Swans and Presidential Campaigns

Whoa! Where do I begin? The coronavirus has upended everything. Just a month ago, I predicted Donald Trump would ride a booming U.S. economy to reelection. I suppose that is something of a caveat that I can now take to argue for exactly the opposite.

Dealing with an Imperial Colossus

I think Donald Trump is going to be re-elected in November. It was a conclusion I reached as I sat on my couch last Monday night, fruitlessly waiting for returns from the Iowa Democratic Caucuses. As I write this more than a week later, we still don't know what the final tally was. The stakes were enormous, and Iowa Democrats managed to screw it up, handing Trump, and all those who suck up to him, a series of talking points to challenge the validity of the entire electoral process-- anyone remember "system is rigged against us"? Expect to hear that a lot this fall.

Iowa was an epic, inexcusable debacle.

The Incumbency Economy

As many others have noted, Iowa was not the only political victory for Donald Trump. The U.S. economy added 225,000 jobs in January. The country's unemployment rate is at a ridiculously low 3.6%. Moreover, Trump's abject ignorance around policy-making, including ill-advised unilateralism on trade, are not having the catastrophic impact on economic growth many predicted. Trump understandably took at victory lap on the economy in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday night.

Dispute Settlement and the USMCA

Some of you are undoubtedly basking in warm fuzzy feelings from holiday time spent with friends and family. Others of you are probably just glad to be home, happy to have survived a week or two with family, perhaps wishing you'd had better dispute resolution tools at your disposal.

via GIPHY

USMCA: Curb Your Enthusiasm

The drumbeat of bizarre political juxtapositions just keeps rolling over us. Yesterday was no exception. First, the House Democrats released its two Article of Impeachment against President Trump focused on "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress." An hour later, many of those same Democrats were before the podium announcing they had worked out a deal with the White House to move forward on one of President Trump's signature trade initiatives, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA, or to some, NAFTA2.0).

I suppose the fact that many of us remain flabbergasted (alarmed?) by the daily barrage of these juxtapositions could be read as a source of comfort, cold comfort? Although the impeachment saga routinely sucks most of the oxygen out of the headlines, the USMCA briefly held center-stage. I was struck the generally positive headlines about the bargain struck between House Democrats and the White House were. A rare instance of cooperation between Trump and House Democrats? A sign of some sort of return to a bipartisan consensus on the merits of trade? A template for 21st Century trade agreements?

Hardly. The best I can muster about the USMCA is that it could have been worse.

Authoritarianism

Madison, Hamilton, and Good Sleep

Another semester of teaching around here is winding down and yesterday afternoon was the last seminar. My department happens to have a number of senior seminars that are "variable topics" courses; the precise content may differ semester to semester depending on the instructor.  The course was Political Science 484, Topics in U.S. Politics and Policy. I've taught this particular section in the past, but decided last winter that I would try something different.

Ackowledgement I Wish I'd Written

It's been nearly a year since I made any sort of contribution to this space. The main culprit was a book project on the re-negotiated NAFTA. About this time last year, the negotiations came to a rapid conclusion. I had to step on the gas. I'm rather pleased with the outcome. I'm happy to have some of my musings about he NAFTA in a single location. It should be on the shelf sometime later in October. I quite like the cover.

A Trump-Inspired Holiday Reading List... Humbug!!!!

There's no other way to put it, 2018 sucked. I still put a lot of faith in what James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers about "ambition being made to counteract ambition" as an antidote to the "mischiefs of faction." Even if Trump's election in 2016 signalled the status quo was no longer acceptable (a judgement of voters I understood), I slept well at night knowing the the famous "checks and balances" and the "separation of powers" would limit any of the worst impulses of an inexperienced, incompetent narcissist such as we have.

Some Election Day Non-predictions

Today is U.S. midterm election day. I've been doing a lot more thinking about U.S. politics of late than writing about it, in part because it's become such a depressing, rapidly changing dumpster fire. Rather than a bunch of predictions about the outcome, or an effort at scenario forecasting, I simply wanted to get a few things on paper that I'll be focusing on starting Wednesday November 7

Time to Vote

1) The States, in particular, who controls governors' mansions and the state legislatures. If the Democrats can show some signs of life in places they've neglected while the GOP has placed a strangle-hold, the makings of significant change could be on the horizon.

2) The 2020 Presidential Campaign begins Wednesday morning. The Democratic bench still seems worryingly thin, although there will likely be no shortage of entrants. Who, if anyone, will challenge Trump in the GOP primaries?
2a) Primary season may kick off with the first debates among candidates as early as the spring of 2019 (good grief).

NAFTA2.0,... Ahem, USMCA?

So, we have a deal. But what's in it? Is the North American sky about to fall as I argued in my last post? Has the North American Idea been thrown overboard by Donald Trump, once and for all? Is the new NAFTA2.0 a retrograde descent into economic nationalism?

Name will take getting used to

Here are a few quick (possibly inaccurate) thoughts on some of the provisions of what's officially being called the United States Mexico Canada Agreement.

What's in a Name?

The first thing to change is the name of the Agreement. Trump thinks the NAFTA label came with too many negative associations. Indeed, NAFTA1.0 has been a political football from the start. The irony of Trump's complaints about the NAFTA name is that he contributed mightily in a very short time to creating those negative associations; worst agreement ever negotiated, our negotiators were really stupid, the world is ripping us off...

I don't think USMCA is going to stick, except among public officials who are compelled to use the name. Moreover, I am a little worried that if things go sideways at any point, this particular acronym will be framed as "United States Made Canada do it."

Requiem for the North American Idea

There are many things about the Trump Presidency that keep me awake at night. After Trump was elected, I was among those who turned to James Madison and the Federalist Nos. 10 and 51 for solace. I was certain the same institutional design that intentionally put so many barriers in the way of "getting things done" would constrain Trump's worst (but then not fully appreciated) excesses. My alarm at the damage being done grows by the day. In fact, as great as Madison's design is, I'm not sure it was designed to constrain this kind of aberrational president, nor the sustained assault on the core institutions of American democracy.

I openly wonder who is going to put the toothpaste back in the tube? Can it be put back? Trump didn't create this mess so much as he's a manifestation of a host of problems that have been simmering for a long time. Indeed, one of the most insightful comments I read during all of the memorials around Sen. John McCain's death is that in selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008, he played a significant role in laying the foundation of today's populist assault on the truth in the GOP

Rock Paper Scissors for Trade

To Trade or Not to Trade?

Of course, one of my interests is the global trading system and my alarm at the damage being done here is also acute. The amount of damage Trump has done to America's leadership credibility in global trade is going to take a very long time to repair. It's unclear to me that it can be repaired since, in my view, Trump has arrived at the most inopportune moment for resolving important problems within. Smarter, more thoughtful voices were already calling for significant changes to how the global trading system's rules were written. Of note here, the basis for the long-stalled Doha Round of the WTO launched in late 2001 was development; hence the name Doha Development Round. Indeed, issues important to the developing world were to be the center-piece of the Round, starting with agriculture. We know what has happened there.

Much as I turned to Madison to ease my concerns about the erosion of American political institutions during Trump's reign, I similarly sought solace in the rules of the global trading regime. "We'll be able to ride this out," I thought. Moreover, "we've seen this movie before." Indeed, xenophobia in the hands of anti-trade populists has been the weapon of choice for centuries. Yet, I reasoned that rules largely designed and underwritten by U.S. leadership would, even in the face of nonsense from Trump, not quickly be tossed aside.  It was in America's interests to stick to the rules. Not only had the United States been a financial beneficiary of open, rules-based trade, the political prestige and leadership benefits of being the "indispensable" country for that system would surely appeal to Trump's better senses (or at least his ego).

Nope.