NO WAY TO PICK A PRESIDENT II

Americans now appear to be heading towards the awful task of having to choose between a man who is abysmally ignorant regarding the constitution and government of the US, and who thinks that judges “sign bills,” and on the other side a candidate who will receive her party’s nomination….unless she is indicted. In the face of that the Republican leaders are starting to rally around a man that none of them can stand, but now Ted Cruz has improbably become the white knight for the Republican establishment, which is understandable given the alternatives of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Trump does not appear to have any brain trust, but since there is little evidence he possesses any kind of political philosophy, that becomes important because it will provide some indication of where he is likely to go.

How have we come to this, especially when this long campaign season began with such a promising field of potential Republican candidates?  The blame must fall on a seriously flawed modern electoral system which inherently yields flawed results, as we have seen with the past few presidents. It rewards people who can endure the marathon election cycle, and who are good at running for office, but not so much at governing. I’ve written on this in the past, and now more than ever believe that true reform of the political system can only occur by overhauling the way people are nominated, especially at the presidential level. My proposal is essentially this: that presidential candidates should be nominated by the elected officials of the respective parties. Who, after all, constitutes the party more than those who have been elected to office?  Who better to judge the character and capabilities of potential candidates than colleagues who are familiar with them? In the present environment this notion may finally gain more traction in congress. 

Against this it could be argued that “the people” ought to choose the candidates, reflecting the popular will. The trouble is “the people” as such don’t really make that choice. Only a small percentage of the population actually votes in primary elections, and they usually tend to be those who are both politically active and ideologically motivated. But the result is that extreme candidates tend to win these contests, which inevitably results in political polarization. It was not always this way. Primaries have only become decisive in modern times. Although primaries began as a progressive reform early in the last century they did not lead to the party nomination until 1960, with the election of John F. Kennedy. 

It is worth noting that Kennedy didn’t even announce his candidacy until January of 1960 for the election held in November that year. Today candidates start running the day after the last election, and in earnest at least two years before the actual election. The result is all politics all the time,  and a virtually permanent campaign. To sustain such a campaign over so long a period requires vast resources, which means endless fundraising as well. Under these circumstances it is futile to try and reform campaign financing because it is not the fundamental cause of the problem. It is rather the length of the campaigns that requires the resources.  Thus what we really need to do is limit the amount of time a campaign can take place in, as they do in the U.K. 

If elected officials nominated the presidential candidates and the campaign period was limited we would get better candidates, and an end to the ceaseless cacaphony of the permanent campaign. It is true that there are interests that might have a lot to lose under these conditions, such as campaign consultants, fundraisers, party hacks, but above all the media, which is primarily responsible for turning the whole thing into a circus. They anointed Obama and have now given us Trump. It is true that this proposal would cause huge amounts of advertising revenue to be lost and it might bring an end to coverage of the campaign as though it were a sporting event.  Then they might be compelled to provide more real news for a change. The political temperature would be lowered and as we have hit bottom with the current election campaign, this might lead to a restoration of faith in our institutions at long last. 

JFK AIRPORT TRAVEL MISERY

Every time I return from a trip abroad I dread the miserable process of passing through JFK airport in New York, which continues to a be a national embarrassment, especially when you think that this is the first thing people from other countries experience when they come here. It is says a lot when it is an even worse experience than traveling to Venice, where I just returned from.  

Venice is notoriously difficult to come and go from as you either have to travel via a water taxi, or haul your luggage to your destination from the furthest point a train or bus from the airport can take you. From there you have to cross canals, and since this will involve dragging suitcases up and down the steps of a series of bridges to get to your hotel, it is well worth paying a porter to take care of that for you. But with canals instead of streets everywhere, these difficulties are at least the result of unavoidable physical conditions.

The same cannot be said for the dismal conditions at JFK which are man-made and entirely avoidable. It is a disgrace, compared to modern and efficient airports in other cities around the world. First you have to walk through an endless dingy corridor to a huge room with a vast series of lines below a huge, truly dreadful mural. Initially there is a line for US citizens, foreign legal residents, and first time visitors, but then the first two pointlessly get merged. Then you have to get on a very long line that snakes back and forth several times, until you finally get to stop number one. Then you go to a kiosk, insert your passport and it prints out a paper with your picture verifying your information, with such new technology apparently designed to speed things up and smooth your passage. But it doesn’t, because you then go to another line anyway, and at this point the confusion is such that I can’t even tell you what department each stop is for, but after that there is yet another line. Then you pick up your luggage and wind up on yet another line, before finally exiting the airport to one mercifully quick last line to get a taxi, by which time nearly two hours have transpired since landing. If you weren’t exhausted after spending eight hours on an airplane you will be after this. 

This can’t be blamed on enhanced security, because oddly, leaving from the same airport took less than half an hour, despite full security checks. Problems returning are instead based upon bureaucratic ineptitude, needless duplication and terrible organization. Clearly no one is looking at things from the customer standpoint. What is clearly needed is an effort to bring this airport into the twenty-first century in terms of physical plant, as well as new and better management. 

I did come across one thing even dumber, in Croatia, one of the countries we visited. For some odd reason the government insists that merchants display prices only in the local currency, which is so obscure you can’t even find it on most conversion tables. In most other countries prices are usually posted in dollar or euro equivalents for the convenience of tourist customers. That is obviously good for business; pricing things in kunas  is definitely not, and local businesses suffer as a result. Clearly government ineptitude knows no borders. 

HALF-CENTURY PASSAGES AND JOHN F. KENNEDY

Fifty years ago on this day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and this fact has been much in the news. I remember the day well, as does everyone who was alive at the time. For those who weren’t, I won’t offer the sort of reminiscences that are ubiquitous at present, but rather explore some aspects of the man and his legacy, as well the experience of those decades. This compels us to consider the phenomenon of fresh memories of an event half a century ago, as well as its continued presence across that span of time. This has happened before, though not frequently. For example, both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were able to recall the American Revolution fifty years later. The Civil War was vividly etched in the national consciousness for the generations who experienced it, so that living veterans were ceremoniously reconciled fifty years later. 

We think we live in times of rapid change, but 1963 is still part of the broad national experience, whereas in 1963 the decades back to 1913 were remote, and change was far more pronounced during that period. in other words the world of 1913 is much further away from 1963 than the latter is from 2013. For following 1913 the great shocks of the century manifested themselves. Just a year later the most seminal event in modern history began, namely World War I, or the “Great War,” as it was known before World War II. The latter was but a consequence of the preceding war, if not a continuation of it. In the world of 1913 Europe was at the pinnacle of its power, while America was still a relative backwater, though emerging as a world power. The old European civilization totally collapsed as a consequence of WWI, and its repercussions are still being felt today. Its former glory was gone forever, following an unbelievably costly mass slaughter over four years of pointless war. By the end of World War II the continent was completely exhausted. 

John F. Kennedy served gallantly in the second war, and then went on to the political career we are all still familiar with. Kennedy was never a man of the left, despite subsequent claims. He was a political moderate; Hubert Humphrey was the “liberal” candidate in 1960. JFK would have some difficulty fitting in with today’s Democratic party given that, among other things, he did not raise taxes but cut them, and ran to the right of Nixon on defense in the general election. The Kennedy family “liberal” tradition really began with Bobby, when he was radicalized in the late 1960s, and then continued with Teddy. The notion that JFK was some sort of liberal is simply a myth sustained by those who have an interest in maintaining it. Another myth is the notion that somehow “right wing hate” brought about his assassination, when in fact he was killed by a dedicated Communist. Following his death endless speculation began about whether or not Oswald acted alone. The preponderant evidence suggests that he did, notwithstanding various conspiracy theories. and in truth the assassin was an early prototype of the “lone wolf” killer we have become all too familiar with in our own time. Indeed we can see how much more plausible the notion of a lone killer is today than we could back then, when it was too hard to believe that the great could be brought down by an insignificant, (but for the assassination), nonentity. 

JFK came into office after an extremely close (and possibly fraudulent) election victory, but so charmed the nation that he was very popular across the board at the time of his death. He was a very appealing man, but one wonders how he would have fared in today’s media world. Would his reckless behavior and chronic infidelity have remained secret? Or his compromised physical condition? Would his human frailty have been apparent?  In those days the press was far more deferential and protective of the presidency, in a way that is unimaginable today. It is also rare that you see anyone with his aristocratic bearing today. For he was a man of his times, a product of the years he lived, as well as his father’s ambition. He is not a transcendent figure, in the sense of being outside of time, but rather a man who was in his prime half a century ago. Some of his characteristics would not translate well today, and whether that says something good or bad about our own time, is up to the reader.