WITH THE CONTINENT IN DISARRAY, EUROPE'S POPULISTS EMBRACE TRUMP

Following the U.S. election, many celebrated a significant electoral victory. Many simply exhaled. Others are showing signs of frustration and despair. A significant segment of devastated voters is beginning to reflect on what just happened, and many, if not most, anxiously wait for the next shoe to drop. Our European allies exhibit a mixture of many of these same emotions. They have been here before. Most of its leaders experienced Donald Trump's leadership style during his previous presidency. However, few expect that that experience somehow fully prepares them for what is to come. The conditions in Europe have changed and the political balance of power in many countries have shifted and now favors the U.S. President Elect. Europe has been mired in economic stagnation, rattled by war on its eastern doorstep. It has fallen victim to the same political forces that helped Mr. Trump gain popularity among conservatives and swing voters: a backlash against rapid consumer price increases; an anxiety and anger over increased immigration; and a rapid erosion of public trust in political elites. Traditionally, the disarray demanded renewed and forceful leadership from the continent's two largest economies, France and Germany. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz scuttled his governing coalition recently by firing his finance minister Christian Lindler. He will now likely face voters during early elections in March, which is projected to oust him in favor of the far-right "Alternative for Germany" party which has doubled its appeal in recent polling. President Emmanuel Macron of France lost power in the aftermath of a recent, ill-advised, snap election he called. He is clinging to support from a shaky coalition against the far-right and left. He is essentially termed out since he won't be able to run again in 2027. Uncertainty from Paris to Berlin has created a power vacuum on the continent, which could embolden Russia in the war in Ukraine. It further muddles the difficult political task of ratcheting up military spending, which analysts agree will take on new urgency amid anticipated threats by Trump to pull out of NATO, pull back security guarantees, or severely reduce or eliminate support for Ukraine. Analysts agree that the most natural fit to lead a more muscular independent Europe would need to come from Germany and France - the very countries most troubled, their political power curtailed. The longstanding effort to keep extremist forces out of government in Europe is officially over. For decades, political parties of all kinds joined forces to keep the hard-right from the levers of power. Today, this strategy, known in France as a "Cordon Sanitaire" or "firewall," is falling apart as populist and nationalist parties have grown in strength across the continent. Mainstream political parties have lost support. Populists and nationalists, including once fringe parties on the far-right, have surged. Right-wing or far-right nationalist movements now encompass the biggest parties in Switzerland, Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, The Czech Republic and The Netherlands. In all these countries the insurgent parties have joined government coalitions. In Austria, the "Freedom Party," founded by Nazis, just gained dominance. Sweden's "Sweden Democrats" play a significant role in support of its government. It is the second largest political force in the country. And Marine Le Pen, perennial far-right opposition leader in France, is currently polling at 30% support, well ahead of President Macron. Most of these political forces express support for Mr. Trump. They tend to see a key ally across the pond, someone who shares their mix of authoritarianism, populism and extreme hostility to immigration. The Trump organization has been diligently building strong ties with its allies among Europe's ultra nationalist and populist forces which now hope to capitalize on his success. Much to analyze and much to worry about. It is difficult to escape the thought that much of Europe is beginning to come full circle since the deterioration of the Weimar Republic during the early days of the 1930s. President Elect Trump's insertion into Europe's disarray is unlikely to become a stabilizing force. Theo Wierdsma

FINGERS CROSSED - THE END IS NEAR

Not since the 1860 election featuring Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, which tore the nation apart and which precipitated the Civil War, have we experienced an as intense and potentially consequential election in our national history. The impassioned personal campaign of the past 90 days focused predominantly on the top of the tickets. However, it would be a mistake to ignore the down-ballot contests that could affect control of the Senate and House during upcoming legislative sessions. In the battle for the Senate, 34 seats are up for election. The outcome will probably be decided by 8 of the most competitive races. Democrats and those who caucus with them currently occupy 7 of the most competitive seats. Republicans could maintain control of the House of Representatives by just winning 12 of the 26 seats currently rates as toss-ups, assuming they also secure the seats rated "likely" or "lean Republican." The party has incumbents in place in 15 of those toss-up seats. Be it as it may, most of us are anxiously laser focused on the presidential component of this election. This is not only true for the domestic audience. Next Tuesday politicians, analysts and general observers among many allies and adversaries alike, are holding their collective breath in anxious anticipation of the end result of our quadrennial contest. Most of Europe, NATO, Ukraine, the Middle East, and yes, even Russia and China claim to have a stake in this process. For us the choice has been binary. We either vote for past President Donald Trump, or we choose to elect Vice President Kamala Harris - presumably on the basis of party affiliation or policy preference. Mr. Trump advocates increasing oil production to lower energy prices, grow the economy, and pay for a myriad of funding shortfalls like Medicare and Social Security. He proposes a highly controversial aggressive tariff structure on imports to improve domestic manufacturing prowess. His team flaunts plans to round up millions of undocumented immigrants, and detain them in camps before deporting them en masse. Among other policy ideas he vows to roll back every "Biden attack on the Second Amendment;" expand the the use of the death penalty; rescind every one of Biden's climate initiatives; and leave the question of reproductive freedom up to the states. Ms. Harris plans to use tax increases on billionaires and corporations to make resources available for Social Security and Medicare. She broadly supports Biden's environmental policies; advocates to restore and protect reproductive freedom in every state; favors universal background checks for gun purchases; opposes the death penalty; and supports the bi-partisan proposal on immigration which was scuttled by Congress on advise of Mr. Trump. The devil is in the details. As Donald Trump and Kamala Harris race toward the finish, pro democracy advocates and elected officials are preparing for a volatile period in the aftermath of Election Day, as legal challenges are filed, bad actors spread misinformation and voters wait for Congress to affirm the result. Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, remarked that "One of the unusual characteristics of this election is that so much of the potential danger and so many of the attacks on the elective system are focused on the post-election period." Reminiscent of the controversies surrounding the outcome of the 2020 election, Vice President Harris has committed to accept the result of the upcoming plebiscite. Former President Trump has refused to accept the outcome unless he wins. He has also not dismissed the possibility of political violence if he loses. Our long held tradition of a peaceful transfer of presidential power is again at stake. We need to keep our fingers crossed a little longer. The end may be near, but there could be more to come before we and the rest of the world can exhale. Theo Wierdsma

IS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE STILL APPROPRIATE?

We are again just weeks away from another presidential election. An election that won't be decided by a plurality of the popular vote, but by what even our Supreme Court has referred to as the "anachronism of the Electoral College." A perpetual majority of voters continue to believe that we ought to adopt a system whereby the presidential candidate supported by the most citizens on Election Day ought to be declared the winner. However, with the exception of President Biden's victory in the most recent contest, accumulating seven million more popular votes than his opponent, multiple election outcomes produced winners who lacked a popular mandate. In the election of 2000, George W. Bush managed to barely compile the mandatory 271 electoral votes necessary to win the election after being declared the controversial victor in Florida, winning that state by 537 votes. His opponent, Al Gore, won the national vote by 543,000. In the 2016 election, former president Donald Trump won the electoral college by a count of 306 against 232 for Hillary Clinton, even though the latter amassed almost 3 million more votes nationally. These outcomes have persistently regenerated a popular outcry chastising our electoral college system, questioning why we would not use the popular vote tally to choose our president. As recent as a few weeks ago, a PEW research poll indicated that more than six-in-ten Americans (63%) would prefer to see the winner of the presidential election be the person who wins the most votes nationally. Roughly a third (35%) favored retaining the anachronistic system we have employed for the past 200 years. Hence, the questions remain: Why do we have an Electoral College? Why don't we change the system if that appears to be the popular preference? And what are the arguments supporting continuing with our current system? Our Founders feared factions and worried that voters wouldn't make informed decisions. They were in a quandary. They did not want to tell the states how to conduct their elections. Many feared that the states with the largest populations would essentially end up choosing the president. The Electoral College was a compromise. The compromise adopted at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 allowed the popular election of the president, but on a state-by-state basis. Each state's citizen would vote for president. The winner would take all the electoral votes allocated to that state, based on the combined number of seats that particular state had in the House and Senate. The tricky part was how to account for all the slaves when determining a state's total population. Even though white slaveholders generally did not intend to represent their slave populations, their numbers helped determine the state's number of seats in the House of Representatives. The compromise the convention came up with was to count only three out of every five slaves as people, giving the Southern states a third more seats in Congress. The Constitution adopted during the convention included this three-fifths compromise, which was not superseded until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1968. Section 2 of this Amendment gave former slaves equal protection and voting rights. It specified equality for male slaves. Female slaves and all women were excluded. Today's supporters of the Electoral College argue that we live in a constitutional republic rather than in a democracy. They maintain that the process is integral to our federalist, state focused philosophy, and serves a a firewall against fraud. It prevents systematic fraud by diffusing fraudulent voting across multiple states. Until the trumped up charges of the last four years, the suggestion has been that a small number of fraudulent votes would have no impact on the outcome of a presidential election. They also submit that the College encourages a national campaign, because the power of small states with at least three electoral votes can be decisive in close presidential elections. Some white supremacist leaders also spread the belief that with a popular vote white people would have less influence. California, Texas and Florida would do the electing. A shocking expression resulting from this creed can be found in a 1957 article published in National Review, authored by William F. Buckley, titled: "Why the South must Prevail." It reads: White Americans are "entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally," anywhere they are outnumbered, because they are part of "the advanced race." Popular vote supporters predictably suggest that our votes would count the same wherever they are cast. Whoever gets the most should win. A national popular vote would eliminate the "battleground state," a key feature of post-convention campaigning, leaving most Americans alienated from the decisive phase of presidential campaigns. One of the arguments against a popular vote system is that a candidate could actually win with less than 50% of the vote. If you had more than two challengers, somebody could presumably win with 30% of the vote, which could be a ticket to an extremist candidate. Either way, changing the system requires more than popular desire to do so. It would involve changing our Constitution. An amendment would need a two-thirds majority in the House and the Senate, and support from three-fourth of our 50 states. Given our political climate, agreement in support of significant systemic change will be unlikely for the foreseeable future. Theo Wierdsma

IS FREEDOM MORE THAN AN ILLUSION?

A recent visit to a very moving, emotionally taxing Japanese-American Exclusion Memorial on Bainbridge Island in Washington State's Puget Sound generated some disturbing thoughts about the concept of freedom. The exhibition memorialized one of the darker episodes in our country's history. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, we experienced a surge of anger and fear directed at people of Japanese descent. Emotions were fueled by long-standing racial prejudices and rumors. Expressions of concern about loyalty, fear of sabotage, or even a potential Japanese invasion of California, Oregon, or Washington served as an excuse for President Franklin D. Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 9066, which led to the transportation and incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese people. Two-thirds of the affected racial minority were American citizens. They were relocated to 26 sites in 7 western states, including remote locations in Washington, Idaho, Utah and Arizona. We, in essence, imprisoned U.S. citizens in what were fundamentally concentration camps, based only on their race. This was not very different from what the British did during the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1902 in South Africa, or what the Nazis did in Europe during the second world war - be it without the systematic murder of inmates. Subsequent to our visit at the memorial, we made a point of stopping off at the Panama Hotel, made famous in Jamie Ford's book "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," which was located at the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. In it, still displayed, we discovered the belongings of Japanese families left there when they were rounded up and sent to the camps. They were only allowed to keep what they could carry. Many of the stored possessions were never reclaimed. One of the conspicuous historic documents posted in a display case on the outside of the hotel was a copy of a speech given by Phil S. Gibson, Chief Justice of California, in 1940. Its content struck a cord, and could well have been spoken today. It deserves to be quoted in its entirety: "There is every reason to believe that we will be called upon again and again to defend our liberties. We must prepare now for their defense against attacks from within as well as against attacks that may come from without. It is not necessary, however, to suppress the liberties of our people in order to prepare for their defense. In periods of national emergency, when we are all under great emotional stress, we are likely to be intolerant of others, whose views are not same as our own. Many good intentioned but, unthinking people, seek to deny constitutional freedoms to people who do not agree with the course our government has determined to pursue. In dealing with such situations we should not allow ourselves to be carried away by hysteria. We should be careful not to violate the rights guaranteed by our constitution. Liberty cannot be divided; it cannot be granted to a majority and denied to a minority. In a democracy, freedom means freedom for all. Denial of freedom anywhere in this country means its eventual disappearance everywhere." Aside from their historic significance, these words remain relevant within our contemporary political climate. Recent promises revealed by candidates contending to assume some of the most powerful political positions our system offers, include the use of internment camps for 15 to 20 million people, "bloody" deportations of Haitians from Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado, sending them "back to Venezuela." Aside from this idiotic statement of intent, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of these immigrants have legal Temporary Protected Status, the terminology used is indicative of a racist agenda. They are part of a larger volume of anti-immigrant and dehumanizing rhetoric which actively courts political violence. The Japanese motto displayed at the memorial reads: "Nidoto Nai Yoni," "Let it not happen again. Enough said. Theo Wierdsma

PROGNOSES OF ECONOMIC DISASTER ARE GROSSLY OVERRATED

Predictions of the imminent end of the world as we know it have been made for centuries. What they all have in common is that none of them have come true. Former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, however, has a lot in common with some contemporary clairvoyants like John Hagee, Mark Blitz, David Meade, Ronald Weinland and Jean Dixon, when he predicted devastating outcomes for the U.S. economy if he was not reelected president in 2024. Earlier this year, on January 6, during an interview with Lou Dobbs, Trump even expressed the hope that the economy would crash during this coming year so he would not have to be "Herbert Hoover," who, during his first year in office was confronted with the stock market bubble bust, which led to the Great Depression. A few months later, he warned that our economy would enter a depression akin to the world-wide Great Depression of 1929-1939. He admonished that if Harris wins the election, the result would be a Kamala economic crash, a 1929-style depression. And he predicted that "when I win the election, we will immediately begin a brand new Trump economic boom. It will be a boom." During the previous Trump administration, inflation remained relatively low at 2.1%. The economy, Gross Domestic Product, grew at an average of 2.67%. Biden's grew 3.4%. The deficit worsened by trillions, topping $3.1 trillion during the pandemic. Unemployment increased to 6.4%. The Trump economy lost 2.7 million jobs during his presidency. Biden added 15.4 Million jobs. Our trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008, increasing 36.3% from 2016. Our national debt increased by 39%, from $14.4 to $21.6 trillion, reaching $27.75 trillion by the end of his term. The number of citizens without health insurance increased by 4.6 million. And, during his second year, Bloomberg News concluded that the Trump economy ranked number 6 out of 7 presidents preceding him, based on 14 metric of economic activity and financial performance. Our current, admittedly post-pandemic, economic situation looks much stronger. GDP increased at an annual rate of 3.1%. Inflation is down to 2.89%, the lowest since 2021. Unemployment tops at 4.3%. In 2023 our trade deficit narrowed to the smallest in 3 years. And the stock market, in which 57% of Americans contribute to a 401(k) is at an all time high. Although not entirely impossible, it appears difficult to give credence to Mr. Trump's prophecies of a return to a devastating depression akin to the crash of 1929 if he fails to reclaim the presidency. His record fails to support his ability to manipulate economic progress. During the Great Depression, real GDP fell 29%, the unemployment rate peaked at 25%, consumer prices fell 25%, wholesale prices dropped 32%, 7,000 banks, nearly 1/3 of our banking system failed, and the Dow dropped below 200. Daniel Alpert, managing partner of the investment firm Westwood Capital, sees it this way: "Donald Trump's greatest worry right now is that the economy is actually in very good condition. He understands that his free ride now is dependent on [the voters] bad memory of inflation. As that fades over time, in November he could be up against a candidate who [assisted] in stewarding a very strong economy, and the memories of inflation will have long passed." Theo Wierdsma

COUNTING THE VOTES

Joseph Stalin famously remarked that in an election, "Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." While stakeholders in our democratic system insist that our votes count, in reality, given our electoral system, which consistently features two major political parties, in many states the result of a presidential election contest is fairly predictable. There are currently only seven states in which the outcome remains competitive: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. And it is precisely in those states that followers of former President Donald Trump have taken Stalin's remarks to heart. Individual voters in every state essentially vote for a slate of electors that are nominally committed to a specific candidate. To win the presidency a candidate needs to amass the majority of 538 electoral votes, distributed to states based on their size, from across the country - a total of 270. To maintain its continued viability, our system depends on the peaceful transition of power following each and every election. The 2020 election was peaceful until Mr. Trump's supporters invaded Congress, dozens of lawsuits challenging the outcome across the country were dismissed, and a scheme introducing alternate slates of electors was foiled. However, a significant slice of the GOP base continues to pursue the issue, and it appears to be prepared to preemptively react to potential defeat in this year's election. Mr. Trump has steadfastly refused to definitively affirm that he would accept the election results no matter who wins. He suggested he would, but only if "it's a fair and legal and "good" election." Many of us read into this to mean that he will accept the results if he wins. He continues to maintain that the only way he can lose this fall is if Democrats cheat. While continuing to rehash the 2020 election, the former president, on his social media platform "Truth Social," called for the Constitution to be terminated. He also proclaimed to a conservative Christian group that, if they vote for him, they won't have to vote again after four years, because "we'll have it fixed so good." Troubling words indeed. After four years of listening to Trump's regular drumbeat that he won the 2020 election, the GOP base is mobilizing at unprecedented levels to monitor the election under the pretext that the process is unfair and corrupt. Nearly three dozen officials who have refused to certify elections since 2020 remain in office, and will play a role in certifying the presidential vote in nearly every battleground state this fall. Since 2020, county level officials in key states have tried to block the certification of vote tallies in both primary and general elections - unsuccessful thus far. According to election and national security experts, former president Trump's efforts to undermine confidence in this year's election are reminiscent of the tactics he used during the 2020 campaign, and indicate how he could again seek to invalidate the results if he loses, setting the stage for another combustible fight over the presidency. According to Joshua Matz - an attorney on the board of CREW, (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), "the legal ground game that was brought to bear against the election in 2020 was junior varsity compared to what we are going to see this year. There is now a much better organized, much more sophisticated, far better funded and far more intentional effort to thwart the smooth and steady certification of election results required by law." We should be strapping in. Our system could be under assault again. Many officials who count the votes in battleground states are primed to dispute the outcome. Theo Wierdsma

WILL IMPLICIT GENDER BIAS AGAIN IMPACT ELECTION RESULTS?

On June 3 of this year Mexico elected Mexico City's Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo its first female president. By doing so it joined dozens of other countries that have been led by a female executive at some point in their history. Nevertheless, there still are a significant number of nations that have never had a woman at their helm. Gender bias continues to reign in multiple places. More than 100 countries, including the United States, have never been led by a woman. Sri Lanka became the first country in modern times to elect a female prime minister, backing Sirimavo Bandaranaike in the country's 1960 election. Throughout the 1960s, Indira Gandhi of India and Golda Meir of Israel rose to leadership positions in their respective countries. Dozens of others would follow throughout the succeeding decades. In 2016, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be a major party's presidential nominee in the U.S.. In 2020, Kamala Harris became the first woman to become Vice President of our country. Both women cracked the "glass ceiling," but, thus far, neither managed to shatter it. With current President Joe Biden bowing out of the race for president this year, and after the ascension of Vice President Harris, who is slated to become the candidate of the Democratic Party and who is competing in a tight contest with former President Donald Trump, the question already being raised is: Are we ready this time to elect a female president, who, by the way, also happens to be a member of an ethnic minority? In 2015, in a survey conducted one month after Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy, 63% of respondents declared to be ready for gender change at the top. Sheryl Sandberg, former C.O.O. of Facebook, went on record a few years later, declaring that "some great progress" had been made during subsequent years. However, after President Biden dropped out of the race, a poll designed to assess the electorate's beliefs surrounding "gender bias," and Vice President Harris' chances in November, concluded that the sentiment expressed in 2015 had actually dropped by 9%. Respondents agreed that both Harris and Trump were equally qualified to do the job, but 30% said they were not ready to vote for a woman, and 41% assumed that more than half of their fellow countrymen would not be willing to vote for a woman over a man even if the two candidates were equally qualified. Respondents to a survey conducted by the PEW Research Center, in July of 2023, were asked to compare their opinion about the relative leadership qualities of men vs, women. While considering leadership characteristics, on the majority of evaluated traits - 53-60% of participants indicated that gender did not matter. Interestingly, while expressing their opinions about a fairly significant number of attributes, contributors expressed the opinion that, when considering some leadership characteristics, like: working out compromises, maintaining a respectful tone in politics, being honest and ethical, standing up for what he or she believed in and working well under pressure, women would actually do better than men. Even though the outcome generated by this polling sample appears rational, it does not translate into national acceptance. Our country has struggled to overcome gender bias in electoral politics. The condition generally stems from an unconscious or implicit bias. Some of us unconsciously assign certain attributes and stereotypes to candidates based on preconceived assumptions or prejudices about gender rather than facts, competence and performance. For many this reflects a psychological disorder which, over time, we seem to have culturally normalized and generally accepted. Although several nations unquestionably demean the role and status of women, throughout history multiple societies and cultures have been able to bypass, or perhaps never had, concerns about placing women in executive positions. Witness for instance: Catherine the Great of Russia (1729-1796), Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut (1507-1458 BC), or Queen Liliuokalani - the last monarch of Hawaii. More recently we experienced quality leadership from Angela Merkel in Germany, Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, and now Mexico's newly elected President Claudia Sheinbaum, who is joining the ranks of active female leaders of state and prime ministers around the world - eight in Europe alone. We should be less concerned about our cognitive biases and preconceptions, and be more focused on substance and competence. We should at least allow history to take its course and permit our glass ceiling to be shattered if a candidate is deemed qualified. Theo Wierdsma