Freedom and liberal democracy must return to States
Trinity’s honouring of Hillary Clinton taps into desire to turn tide on Trump

By Ted Smyth

June 22, 2018

Hillary Clinton: won the popular vote in the American presidential election
by three million votes but failed to carry the electoral college. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty

   Liberal democracy and freedom are under assault in America to an extent not seen since the 1930s. Prof Timothy Snyder reminds us in his book, On Tyranny, that both fascism and communism “were responses to globalisation, to the real and perceived inequality it created, and the apparent helplessness of the democracies in addressing them”. Snyder believes “it could happen here” and that independent judges and journalists are our main defence against tyranny in America as President Donald Trump tramples on human rights and freedom supported by a Republican-controlled Congress.

    Many of us in America spent the past year saddened and outraged by the American president’s collusion and cruelty, compounded by his lies and attacks on our media, judges and allies. Now there is a growing determination to fight for liberal democracy and to defend its institutions and values. We are moving beyond protest to organising at local level, registering voters and selecting talented candidates for coming elections at municipal, state and federal levels.

Many of us in America spent the past year saddened
and outraged by the American president’s collusion and cruelty,
compounded by his lies and attacks on our media, judges and allies

    This is also a good time to honour the champions of liberal democracy which is why I applaud Trinity College for awarding an honorary degree to Hillary Clinton, a consistent champion of human rights around the world and of equal rights in Northern Ireland. Nearly two long years ago, Clinton won the popular vote in the American presidential election by three million votes but failed to carry the electoral college. Her loss was in part due to Russian manipulation of voters through social media and, as the recent inspector general’s report from the US department of justice confirms, to former FBI director James Comey twice breaking with protocols to disclose internal investigations of her emails. It is clear that Comey owes Clinton an apology for double standards in publicising her investigation but not that of Trump for potential Russian collusion.

New Deal
    Hillary’s policies in the 2016 presidential campaign enshrined the same values of liberal democracy as those espoused by Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal which helped keep America free from fascism. Speaking at the Democratic national convention in July 2016, she said, “If you believe that companies should share profits with their workers, not pad executive bonuses, join us. If you believe the minimum wage should be a living wage . . . and no one working full time should have to raise their children in poverty . . . join us. If you believe that every man, woman, and child in America has the right to affordable healthcare . . . join us.”

    She promised “to make college tuition-free for the middle class and debt-free for all” a crucial contribution to social fairness when 44 million American Millennials and Gen Z’s are suffering under $1.5 trillion (yes trillion) in student debt.

    I saw Hillary in Pittsburgh two days after that convention when she attracted large audiences with her message that something radical needed to be done for ordinary Americans. This was the same Hillary who had hung out with the Latina housekeepers in Las Vegas hotels at 1am during the primary against Bernie Sanders, the same Hillary who stood up for racial and sexual equality all her life.

    And Hillary’s warnings about Trump were prescient: “He wants to divide us – from the rest of the world, and from each other. He’s taken the Republican Party a long way . . . from Morning in America to Midnight in America.”

    America’s political and social woes stem largely from the productivity-pay gap. For 25 years from the late 1940s to the 1970s, the wages and benefits of workers rose in tandem with productivity. According to the Economic Policy Institute, this changed drastically in the 1970s; from 1973 to 2016 productivity rose by 73.7 per cent while hourly pay essentially stagnated, rising by 12 per cent. For example, when I was at the Heinz company in the late 1980s, low-skilled hourly workers earned $40 an hour in pay and benefits. Today such workers are lucky to earn $20 an hour, with direct-benefit pensions ended. The result is that the median savings account balance is $5,200, not enough to pay for a health emergency and totally inadequate in a society where the safety net has been ripped apart.

Rogue capitalism
    The system has become rigged in favour of capital at a time when workers have largely lost strike power due to labour competition from Asia and robotics.

    This is not democratic capitalism, it is rogue capitalism where, as Warren Buffett famously complained, his secretary pays a higher percentage of her income in taxes than he does. Jack Bogle, founder of the $5 trillion index fund Vanguard likens Wall Street to a casino where the croupiers during the past decade “have raked in something like $565 billion each year from you and your fellow investors.” That’s half a trillion dollars that should instead have gone to the pension funds of teachers, nurses and other hard-working Americans.

    Bogle believes that free market capitalism has failed, that “Adam Smith’s invisible hand in which pursuing our own self-interests leads to the good of society no longer works in an age of giant global corporations”.

Bogle believes free market capitalism has failed, that 'Adam Smith’s
invisible hand...no longer works in an age of giant global corporations'

    Who will fight for liberal democracy in America in 2018 and beyond? The good news is that this year thousands of young people have become active in Democratic party politics and labour unions at local and national level. One of them is Conor Lamb who was elected to the House of Representatives last March in a special election in a Pittsburgh district that Trump had won by 19 points. Lamb, a former marine whose uncle is honorary consul for Ireland, won by focusing the voters on his opponent’s record of undermining pensions and unions, not becoming distracted by wedge issues like race, abortion and gun laws.

    The immediate goal of those who would protect liberal democracy in America is to win the House for Democrats in November, a tough task given Trump’s gift for promoting racist fears and divisions and the millions of dollars in dark money pumped into negative advertising and social media. A Democratic House would hold hearings on White House corruption and provide a platform for advocating progressive reforms.

    As for the presidential election in 2020, in light of the fact that, nearly two years after the election, Trump’s tax legislation and failure to introduce an infrastructure plan or address low wages has made millions of Americans even poorer and angrier, a successful Democratic candidate for president in 2020 better look like he/she is going to restore the American dream of fair wages, security in retirement and affordable education and healthcare. And defend the institutions of freedom and liberal democracy.

Ted Smyth is a former Irish diplomat, business executive and a public affairs consultant based in New York City

© 2018 irishtimes.com

 

Time to tackle the emerging crisis in Irish American identity
The effective absence of a new generation of Irish immigrants
has raised important new questions

by Ted Smyth
July 4,, 2017

© 2017 irishtimes.com

 

    The death of Ronan Fanning, a member of the Royal Irish Academy, professor emeritus of Modern History at University College Dublin and former president of Irish Historical Sciences, is a serious blow to Irish historiography, to Irish political analysis and a tragic loss to his many friends. The son of an Irish doctor and English Montessori teacher, Prof Fanning received his undergraduate degree from UCD and his doctoral thesis on “Balfour and Unionism” from Cambridge University. He was not only a brilliant scholar, but also a stylish writer who brought to his research a critical and independent judgment and an understanding of the intrigue and power struggles that characterize politics.

    Possessed of a quick wit and a low tolerance for mediocrity, he took a special pleasure in understanding the personalities of politicians, generals and civil servants as they managed profound and unexpected challenges. Those who were lucky to be his friends or colleagues will remember his lively curiosity, his relish for good political gossip, his vivacious energy and love for being in the thick of things.

    These qualities enabled Prof Fanning to provide invaluable context when he wrote on current or historical affairs. Last June, for example, he wrote in the Irish Times, “Brexit is Ireland’s biggest policy test since the second World War . . . the only global crisis since the establishment of the Republic in 1937-38 that has seriously threatened our pursuit of an independent foreign policy.”

Seminal work

    In 1978, he wrote the outstanding book, The Irish Department of Finance, (1922-1958), hailed as a pioneering work on the transfer of power from the British government to the Irish administration of William Cosgrave and later to that of Éamon de Valera. The book describes the perennial struggle by politicians and civil servants to balance the budgets while also trying to fulfil the developmental promises of the Irish revolution. Sadly, it would not be until the 1960s that Ireland would escape the economic disadvantages of being a small, agricultural economy subject to the cheap food policy of Britain and beset by the Great Depression, the second World War and the recession of the 1950s.

    Perhaps Prof Fanning’s most arresting book was Fatal Path, British Government and Irish Revolution, 1910-1922, published in 2013. The book illustrates how Ireland was a pawn in the efforts by Asquith and Lloyd George to preserve their prime ministerial careers.

    As Prof Joe Lee wrote in the Irish Times’ review of the book, “Both (Prime Ministers) had to spend more time calculating the consequences of their policies for internal British politics, and their own positions, than for Anglo-Irish relations.” Prof Lee continues: “All this Fanning delineates with superb command of his material, not least in decoding the significance of what is not said as well as what is said in the innumerable documents he fillets, making it a joy to savour the brushwork of a master of his craft at the top of his form.”

    Prof Fanning had a keen understanding of the importance of Irish American nationalism on Irish politics in the 20th century. This is well illustrated in chapter seven of Fatal Path, “Blood in their Eyes: The American Dimension”, a reference by the British ambassador to the US regarding Irish American attitudes to Britain.

Fulbright Professor

    On a personal level I had the privilege of getting to know Professor Fanning and his late wife Virginia (and young toddler, Timothy) when he was Fulbright Professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC in 1976-1977, researching the triangular relationship between Britain, Ireland and the US.

    Prof Fanning’s timing was particularly good as he received a unique insight into the diplomatic manoeuvring that led to the August 1977 groundbreaking statement by then US president Carter (strongly resisted by the British government and state department), which recognised an official role for Ireland in a solution to the Northern Ireland conflict. Prof Fanning later documented the enormously positive role that then US presidents Reagan and Clinton made to the peace process as it developed following the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985.

    In a review in the Guardian, Diarmaid Ferriter described Professor Fanning’s most recent book, Éamon de Valera: A Will to Power, as “stylishly written, accessible, full of clarity and mature assessments”.

    Roy Foster in a review in the London Spectator described it as a “crisp, economical but deeply thought-provoking biography”. In an earlier entry on “Dev” in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, Fanning gives De Valera credit for protecting the security of the State.

    However, he does not shrink from describing how De Valera inflamed the Civil War: “De Valera, in other words, was largely responsible for the dimensions, if not for the fact, of the civil war. By allowing those who took up arms against the treaty to draw on his authority, he conferred respectability on their cause it could never have otherwise attained. His behaviour in the immediate aftermath of the Treaty, in sum, was petulant, inflammatory, ill judged, and profoundly undemocratic.”

Journalism

    Anyone who wants to read a short but brilliant account of Ireland since 1922 should obtain Prof Fanning’s Independent Ireland published in 1983 in the Hellicon series of Irish History. The book cover depicts a cartoon in Dublin Opinion from July 1948 showing the removal of the statue of Queen Victoria from the front of the Irish parliament building. She is looking down at an enigmatic De Valera saying, “Begob, Eamon, there’s great changes around here.”

    For many years Prof Fanning wrote on current affairs in the Sunday Independent and in 2009 co-wrote with former diplomat, Michael Lillis, a biography of Eliza Lynch. The book uses primary sources to rescue the Cork-born “Queen of Paraguay” from her notorious reputation invented by Paraguay’s enemies in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

    As the relationship between Ireland and Britain changes post Brexit, and as US president-elect Donald Trump takes office in the United States, it remains to be seen what international role Ireland can play as the sole English-speaking member of the EU.

    It is our loss that Ronan Fanning will not be writing authoritatively and incisively on these challenging times.

Ted Smyth is a former Irish diplomat and chairman of the Advisory Board of UCD Clinton Institute

 

by John Bowman

December 31, 2016,

British Cabinet secretary Sir Robert Armstrong in 1986.

In September 1986, Armstrong confided to Irish ambassador to London Noel Dorr that the agreement had resulted in “a fundamental change”, adding that “nothing will ever be the same again in Northern Ireland”. Although it was taking a long time for the Unionists “to adjust to that and accept it”, he thought it right that this process “be allowed to work itself through fully”, counselling patience until this happened. But within days , Armstrong was telling Dorr that a cornerstone of Dublin’s policy, the proposal for three-judge courts in Northern Ireland, had been denounced at the special Cabinet sub-committee by Viscount Hailsham, who as lord chancellor, had responsibility for the judiciary.

It was, said Armstrong, “a case of all the guns and the battleship blazing”. Richard Ryan of the London embassy staff had already been given a more detailed account “in strictest confidence” by John Houston, political adviser to foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe. Hailsham had made an “extraordinary, impassioned and emotional” appeal, arguing that the Northern Ireland judiciary, “these brave men”, were “owed something”, Houston reported.

Yet the introduction of three-judge courts would be to “impugn their integrity and to insult them”. Were they to be “given the back of the hand by the Government just to give a sop to Dublin?” Attorney general Sir Michael Havers “unexpectedly” agreed. Although it was felt he “had no good reason to go crusading on this issue”, Houston felt Havers, “who wants Hailsham’s job more than anything on earth, was doing Hailsham’s work for him.” And Whitelaw, who had been “vacillating back and forth on this issue”, also came down against. Northern Ireland secretary Tom King, “to the surprise of everyone”, had submitted a paper supporting three-judge courts. Howe had agreed, as had Hurd, “very strongly”. Thatcher, in Houston’s judgement, was “very affected by the wily Hailsham’s argument”; and this meant taoiseach Garret FitzGerald’s prospects of carrying his argument on this question were “grim”.

‘Friendly tip-off’

Dorr gleaned further detail from Tom King when he met him at the Conservative Party conference some days later. King professed to be giving Dorr “a friendly tip-off about some measure of resentment aroused in certain quarters on the British side, by the remarkable extent [his words] to which we have now penetrated the British decision-making system.”

Dorr reminded Iveagh House of the accepted convention in Britain that the mere existence of Cabinet sub-committees, still less their subject matter or conclusions, should not be publicly referred to.

The question for Dorr was whether King was “giving vent to his own suspicious disgruntlement” or whether he was “echoing to me” the resentment of other committee members.

Dorr’s interpretation was that King was “suspicious of our easy access and slightly resentful of it”. Dorr was inclined to put this down “largely to King’s own character”.

And Dorr reported that Havers was also “a bit taken aback” about how much the Irish knew of the British decision-making process.

But Dorr did not think his embassy staff should be “frightened off” from their endeavours as there was “nothing in the manner of our lobbying” which should cause any resentment.

The 1986 files are replete with reassurances from Thatcher that the Anglo-Irish Agreement would be implemented.

This was as much her insistence that she would not be intimidated by Unionist or Loyalist blackmail as by any indication on her part she thought it was delivering what she had been promised.

But after a year of the agreement, Ted Smyth of the London embassy offered his personal observations of the prospects for the agreement for the short-term future.

He believed Thatcher could not be taken for granted.

“For even with Mrs Thatcher none of the old certainties prevail: the lady who was ‘not for turning’ now shows distinct rudder problems on sacrosanct public expenditure policies because of growing public criticism.”

Smyth added that if the British public saw no major improvement in security “that too will affect her commitment”.

And this was another reason why the Irish government would have to demonstrate “again and again to either a sceptical or indifferent British audience that it is able to deliver handsomely on its side of the bargain”.

In a paper The Political Situation in Northern Ireland – one year on to mark the anniversary of the Hillsborough signing, the Anglo-Irish Section of the DFA stated that the majority of Unionists were still opposed to the agreement and believed it could be destroyed.

That it amounted to joint authority had initially taken hold amongst them and had “not yet been dispelled”. as delivering what she had been promised.

Shock to ordinary Unionists

The agreement had come as a shock to most ordinary Unionists “for whom political beliefs and expectations had frozen in 1920”.

And because they had always seen politics as a zero-sum game, they could not appreciate how, if both sides operated from the basis of equality, they could all move forward together.

When Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald met in London on December 6th for their final meeting of the year, the taoiseach expressed concern as to whether he could deliver the revised extradition legislation shortly to come before the Dáil. “If we do not get this, it would be disastrous.”

FitzGerald told Thatcher that Charles Haughey, if elected taoiseach, would not “disturb the agreement”; nor would he disturb any extradition legislation if it was already on the statute book, “though he himself could not, politically, introduce it”.

If passed, the new legislation would come into force in June, without Haughey being required “to take any positive action”, that is, added FitzGerald, “if he is in my position then”.

They later went on to discuss cross-border security, with FitzGerald at one point claiming that forces, north and south, had “a next to impossible border to watch”. To which Thatcher responded: “Yes, we got it wrong in 1921.”

They concluded by reviewing the agreement. Thatcher was relieved the first anniversary had passed “without more trouble”. But it was now “like an open wound”.

When she had first signed it, she believed the Unionists would take reassurance from its guarantees. But now they would “have to settle down with it”.

Nally’s note of the meeting added the observation that Thatcher concluded the exchanges with “rather a wistful reference to whether she could continue, in all seriousness, to send young men to their death in Northern Ireland”.

Dr John Bowman is a broadcaster and historian. His most recent book is Ireland: the Autobiography, published by Penguin any extradition legislation if it was already on the statute book, “though he himself could not, politically, introduce it”.

© 2016 irishtimes.com

 

“Many working people voted for the guy who said he would change the rigged system.” Photograph: Getty Images

    As Democrats in the US plan a new campaign to win back the White House and Congress, a few lessons can be learned from the recent election. First, Donald Trump’s win was not a decisive victory for Republicans, given that the billionaire TV star, a one-time Democrat, ran as an outsider, shunned by nearly every official in the Republican party. Hillary Clinton would have triumphed if she had not lost by a tiny margin in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. She actually won the popular poll by 2.8 million votes, a bigger margin than any other presidential election. Ironically, the electoral college, designed by the founding fathers to limit the “mischiefs of faction”, officially elected the candidate who stoked the fears of a once-dominant racial majority. Most important, Clinton lost because she allowed Trump to run to her left with working people, those who are facing a growing crisis of low wages and suffocating debt. A more nimble campaign would have said: “Obama deserves the credit for rescuing us from the Republican recession, but working men and women are still getting stiffed. We’ve got to fix the system, which is rigged against ordinary people.” Instead, the campaign seemed to think it could win by building a targeted coalition of women, Hispanics and blacks. This alienated many whites who still represent 70 per cent of the electorate. Many blacks and Hispanics did not vote, and more than half of white women voted for Trump.

Economy, stupid

    It’s still the economy, stupid. Twenty-four years after James Carville coined the term, Clinton and her staff forgot this wisdom. Manufacturing wages and benefits have been in decline since the 1980s; in Michigan, hourly pay has fallen from $28 (€26.8) in 2003 to $20 in 2016. Most low-skilled workers in banks and retail stores across the country earn about $10 per hour. The challenge for Democrats is to restore growth and equality to a system that has left more than two-thirds of Americans with flat and declining incomes for the past decade. Since the 1990s, presidential candidates from both parties have promised various fixes to low wages and unemployment, including worker retraining. While business has benefited enormously from trade agreements and technology, the wealth has not been shared. Training programmes have been underfunded and jobs and wages continue to be cut. According to one study, if trends continue, a quarter of American men aged 25-54 will be out of work by mid-century. When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 and 2012, he represented enough novelty and hope for change that many white working people voted for him. But by the time Clinton ran in 2016, she represented more of the same (even hesitant to support a $15 minimum wage) and many voted for the guy who said he would change the rigged system.

Political theatrics

    Trump is quite prepared to say anything it takes to smooth a deal, whether you are a low-wage white guy or the government of Taiwan. You will be literally advised by the Trump people not to believe everything. As we know from his television hit The Apprentice, Trump does have a gift for popular theatre. His “saving” of 800 jobs in Indiana in return for tax rebates was a political win, all the more so when it was criticised by the free market zealots of the Republican Party. Neither Obama, who has saved/created millions of jobs, nor Clinton, who had excellent economic policies, have that sense of theatre. For example, where were the Boss Springsteen concerts in working class Youngstown, Ohio and, Flint, Michigan? Democratic party volunteers wanted them last August, but that was the month Clinton devoted to fundraising among the very rich. Jeb Bush’s defeat in the Republican primary, despite spending $100 million, had already shown that you needed more than money to beat Trump. Trump and Bernie Sanders connected with voters by criticising the corporate system of global elites, which have created rules that benefit capital at the expense of labour. In absence of collective bargaining and strikes, American companies fulfil their fiduciary duty to maximise returns to shareholders at the expense of workers. Many of these shareholders are short-term corporate raiders, who attack corporations possessing strong balance sheets and intimidate management and directors into being more “shareholder-friendly”. This usually results in companies leveraging their balance sheet and going into debt to pay out millions in special dividends to these shareholders.

Disgruntled workers

     In return for this munificence, the raiders move on to the next prospect, leaving the company in debt and management forced to cut labour and other costs. The limited power left to disgruntled workers is to stick it to someone every four years in a presidential election. Against this background, here are eight proposals to help Democrats retake the White House in 2020 and win the 10 Senate seats up for re-election in 2018 (in states won by Trump).
1.     Accept the economic system is rigged against working people and campaign for solutions, including rebuilding a modern labour movement. Support living wages and portable benefits, which will stimulate demand. Explore novel proposals, such as allowing corporations to capitalise on their human capital (the present value of future compensation) and claim accelerated amortisation of it, just as they can claim accelerated depreciation on physical capital. This will correct the tax bias in favour of investing in automation rather than in people.
2.     Be the champion of all working people. Fight for every vote; do not be misled into thinking you can manipulate segments with algorithms and big data.
3.     Nominate younger candidates: Nancy Pelosi (76) has been a great liberal House leader, but Tim Ryan, a bright 43-year-old congressman from a working class district in Ohio, represents the future, with New York’s Joe Crowley, chair of the House Democratic Caucus.
4.     Challenge the “shareholder first” model of business and join those, including editors at Fortune-Time, attempting to create a model that challenges the domination of unfettered globalised capitalism and offshore finance.
5.     Increase gross domestic product growth and create millions of jobs by rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure through legislation that will repatriate billions in overseas earnings, provided it is invested in infrastructure.
6.     Ensure there is a competitive presidential primary process in three years’ time, which elects a telegenic, inspirational candidate who represents real change and hope for American working families. Names being floated include senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Tim Kaine, as well as John Hickenlooper, governor of Colorado.
7.     Rebuild the Democratic National Committee with a full-time leader who uses social media to unite a broad Democratic coalition. Fight back against bigotry and hold Facebook accountable for ensuring its algorithm does not give fake news an advantage over truthful news.
8.      Finally, at a time when inequality is growing, embrace the Democratic party’s proud history of progressive achievements from Roosevelt to Johnson, which created decades of strong and inclusive prosperity for all Americans. A majority of Americans want a fairer society with well-paying jobs and affordable healthcare, housing and education. This is the majority that Democrats must lead.

Ted Smyth, a former Irish diplomat, is a public affairs consultant in New York City

Irish Times