TRUMP DYNASTY OR QUICK EXIT ?

 

IMPEACH AT YOUR PERIL.

After the latest act in the extraordinary pantomime that is the Trump presidency, some are concluding that The Donald’s impeachment is just around the corner. I think they are wrong and if by any chance there were right, moves to remove the President, America could face widespread social unrest.

“It’s the economy, stupid”, was the quote hung on the Clinton campaign HQ in 1992 to keep everyone focused on what mattered. It is the same today. It is easy to get distracted by the comings and goings from the White House, but the American economy is doing well under Trump. The Dow Jones Index is at record levels, more jobs are being created, business confidence is high and growth for the year is predicted to be 6%.

Trump’s supporters in middle America either don’t care about the Russia scandal or see it as the liberal elite trying to get their hero. They voted in anger for Trump last autumn and would likely take to the streets if impeachment proceedings were started. That eventuality is unlikely anyway because both Houses of Congress are controlled by the Republicans. They are going to take some persuading to turn on their President despite his past strained relations with the party’s establishment.

So where does the Trump dynasty come from? I merely want us to think more widely about what might happen in America. It remains possible that the multiple investigations into the Russia business turn up some smoking guns that finish Trump or that his erratic behaviour becomes intolerable. It is also possible that the new Chief of Staff, John Kelly, will get a handle on the dysfunctional White House, Trump will quieten down and if the economy remains in decent shape, he could win a second term. After all there is no obvious Democratic Party challenger. Three women are being spoken of; Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Michelle Obama (my choice) and Oprah Winfrey. Trump versus Winfrey would be a colourful race!

If The Donald successfully serves two terms, watch out for his daughter Ivanka who has far more political skill than her father. There, I’ve given you a scenario where Trumps could be in the White House till 2033. What a nightmare, no its goin’ to be great, goin’ to be great!

LABOUR CHALLENGE ON EUROPE.

The excellent people at the British Election Study based at Manchester University have just published their analysis of June’s General Election. One of the most striking findings was that Labour picked up substantial support from Remain voters. This despite the fact that the party’s position on Europe was, and still is, opaque and the leader Jeremy Corbyn has always resented the EU rules that prevent state intervention to protect failing industries unfairly. Despite also the clear offer from the Lib Dems of a second referendum

The vagueness is skilful politics to try to keep on board northern Labour voters worried about immigration and southern ones who want either a soft Brexit or none. On the latter point, a recent survey funded by the Economic and Social Research Council called the Party Members Project showed a majority of Labour members now want a vote on the final EU package. Jeremy Corbyn should be pressed to move to this position. If he refuses he will be exposed for the anti-EU politician he has always been.

Follow me @JimHancockUK.

 

 

 

 

BREXIT PLUS PLUS PLUS.

 

ADVANCE OF THE RIGHT.

The same anti establishment roar of anger that is taking Britain out of the EU has now landed us with President Trump.

The comparisons between the two seismic events are uncanny. Donald Trump in particular, and Nigel Farage to a lesser extent, broke the conventional rules and became “the bloke at the bar” to get past the elite and appeal to the “left behind”. The same tactics of flirting with racism and wild exaggeration were used by both men. Millions of Turks were due to settle in Britain according to Farage. Turkey is not even close to EU membership. Trump is pledged to deport two million illegal criminal immigrants. There are 178,000.

UKIP has indulged in endless infighting, Trump made lewd remarks about women. None of it mattered. Indeed the unseemly behaviour seems to add to the “authenticity” of Trump and Farage. The establishment right in the UK and America have been unable to handle the disruption. David Cameron was forced to concede a referendum which destroyed his career. Donald Trump, not a real Republican at all, managed to see off 15 rivals in the primaries.

And one more similarity, the polls. This is now the third time in 18 months they have got it wrong. Last year we were heading for a hung parliament, last June we were voting to Remain, last weekend Hillary Clinton was going to win the White House. The polls didn’t pick up shy Tories and enough pro Leavers. With Trump you had the classic candidate where people would hide their intention to vote for such a man.

RETREAT OF THE LEFT.

Hillary Clinton is the latest victim of the collapse of the centre left in European and American politics. They have no answer to the problems of the world where a refugee crisis is fuelled by terrorism and globalisation has left millions behind. Extremists want to polarise us and they are succeeding in a frightening way. Watch out for the German and French elections next year.

Clinton would have made a good President but had accumulated too much political baggage over three decades in the public eye. She never fully won over the Bernie Sanders radicals. She was sabotaged by the FBI over her emails and she couldn’t defy history. Only once since the Second World War has the White House been won by the same party three times on the run.

WHAT NOW ?

Trump has made a large number of dangerous promises. Will he actually build that wall on the Mexican border? It will be compared to the Berlin Wall and America will be shamed. Will be try and ban all Moslems? That will delight ISIS and violate the constitution. Will he repudiate the NATO pledge that an attack on one is an attack on all? Conscription is back in Lithuania. And will he tear up all those foreign trade treaties?

You can see where we’re going. In the UK and the US we’re pulling up the drawbridges, turning in on ourselves, allowing racists to feel a sense of legitimacy.

One final thought, The Donald will have the nuclear weapons codes. Dark times indeed.

Follow me at www.jimhancock.co.uk

THE DEMEANING OF AMERICA

 

 

 

Some parents won’t let their children watch coverage of the American Presidential election. I’m not surprised. On a personal level the revelations concerning Republican candidate Donald Trump’s encounters with a host of women make him unfit to hold the high office to which he aspires. On an international level the thought of this erratic man getting anywhere near the nuclear trigger doesn’t bear thinking about.

Trump is the least suitable Republican candidate since Barry Goldwater in 1964. He was trounced by Lyndon Johnson after declaring “extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.” That sort of sentiment has run through much of Trump’s rhetoric. Talk of Mexicans being rapists, of building a wall to keep them out and banning Muslims from entering America are the modern day expressions of the ugly Goldwater campaign all those years ago.

So where is the landslide for the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton? It may come, but with a few days to go to the election some people are still talking about a Trump victory. Why isn’t America set to embrace its first woman President with the same enthusiasm that accompanied the election of its first black President in 2008?

After all, the choice is stark if one is judging the candidates on qualification for office. Hillary Clinton is a former First Lady, senator and Secretary of State. Trump has never held political office.

The answer is that with thirty years in public service, Clinton has attracted “baggage”. She is regarded as arrogant and did herself no favours by describing Trump supporters as “deplorables”. For many in the Democratic Party she is not radical enough. That is why Vermont senator Bernie Sanders put up such a strong showing against her. The biggest problem though has concerned her use of a private server for classified emails. What she did was not criminal and there is no evidence of a security breach. However it has allowed Trump to call her a crook. She had appeared to have put the problem behind her until the issue was reopened last week.

There are so many issues that this campaign should have been about; the American economy, gun control, climate change, foreign policy, policing of the African American community and health care. Instead most of the time has been taken up with Trump’s sleazy behaviour and Clinton’s emails. You can imagine dictators and theocratic tyrants around the world being reinforced in their contempt for democracy. That is why America has been demeaned by this contest.

Clinton will probably win, Trump is behind in too many of the swing states like Colorado and Ohio. Florida is in the balance and The Donald is ahead in Iowa and Ohio. However perhaps this year of surprises has one last twist. How many people have concealed their support for such a disreputable candidate as Trump?

A Clinton victory will be good for the world. A stable presence in the White House is essential. Her winning will encourage other women and girls to break the glass ceiling and she will attempt to implement a programme of social justice and international resolve

The question next Wednesday will be whether Trump accepts defeat. And how the millions of Americans bewildered by the modern economy and displaced from their jobs in coal and steel who the Trump campaign has tapped into, will react.

 

NEVER MIND BREXIT, WHAT ABOUT THE NHS?

 

 

NHS ON LIFE SUPPORT.

It will take something pretty big to knock Brexit off top spot for politician’s concern this autumn. Well I have a candidate, the National Health Service.

What brought it home to me was the decision to close the Accident and Emergency Unit of Chorley Hospital in Lancashire. They could not get enough doctors because of a cap on spending on agency staff. Three issues become obvious. The financial pressures on the NHS, the hand to mouth policy of employing expensive agency staff and the desperate decision to close a badly needed A and E unit. Nearby Wigan was overwhelmed as a result.

There are so many issues to be addressed I can’t list them all here but they range from the explosion in the numbers of elderly people, junior doctors in revolt over working hours, the price of drugs and the complexity of the commissioning process introduced by former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

We got by last winter because it was mild but the issue won’t go away.

TRUMPED.

It was tempting to think that this year of political upsets was going to end with Donald Trump heading for the White House.

The Republican Presidential candidate has just changed his campaign team for the second time. It begins to look like desperation. It seemed for a while that Trump would successfully tap into the “left behind” section of the electorate that is as big a factor in America as it is here.

However it appears The Donald has been rude to too many people and has increasingly become vulnerable to the belief that he is unstable and not up to the job.

Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Gerald Ford in 1976 came back from similar August deficits to make the race close, but nobody has ever made up the poll lead currently enjoyed by Hillary Clinton.

God forbid a terrorist attack or more revelations about the Clinton’s past could still affect the race but at the moment the USA looks on course to elect its first female President.

UNHAPPY ENDS FOR PRIME MINISTERS.

Things have gone a bit quieter even in this turbulent political summer so we’ve a moment to contemplate the last Prime Minister who left office at the time of his choosing and in reasonable standing with the electorate. That man would be Harold Wilson who having won two General Elections in 1974 suddenly decided to retire in 1976.

Since then it has been a succession of woes. Jim Callaghan lost power after the Winter of Discontent. Margaret Thatcher was brought down by Europe and the Poll Tax. John Major lost office due to rows over the Maastricht Treaty (Europe again). Tony Blair became haunted by the Iraq War, Gordon Brown was defeated at the polls and for David Cameron it was Europe again.

Perhaps Theresa May will be able to reverse this pattern. There are few threats on the horizon at the moment that suggest her period of office ending under a cloud, but that’s what the other five may have thought during their honeymoon period.