The US needs a Leader of the Opposition

During a career in which I have been able to observe political systems around the world, I always harboured a special affection for that of the United States.

It seemed that the checks and balances built in by the framers of the US Constitution back in the 18^th century and its subsequent amendments were as near a perfect design for the stable and harmonious workings of a democratic system that humankind could devise.

How wrong I was.

I had fallen into the trap of thinking that the system was all powerful, imposing restraints and boundaries upon those who operated within it. It had, after all, resisted invasions, a civil war, two bloody all-encompassing 20^th century conflicts and a host of smaller, but no less vicious foreign adventures as well as the Great Depression.

It has taken the headlong sprint of technology and the Trump White House to reveal that the system is, in fact, a fragile thing, dependent on the good character of generations of people of goodwill for it to function smoothly. Today its faults are revealed by those who refuse to operate it as it has been operated in the past; in some cases to even acknowledge its existence.

What is needed in the US today, and what it patently lacks, is a cohesive political opposition. There is no one figure in the party currently out of power, the Democrats, under whom it can mount a cohesive alternative to the president. There is no leader of the opposition.

The defeated Democrat Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, is on the lecture circuit; of the figures in office that might perform this role, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his House of Representative counterpart Nancy Pelosi, are ageing and uninspiring.

Presumably newcomers will emerge in a general flexing of muscles as the 2020 election season nears, but that is still many months away, and anyway the candidates will spend most of the time fighting each other before a clear front-runner emerges.

It has fallen to the media to perform the role of opposition and critic to the Trump White House, but journalists are always susceptible to the criticism of “power without responsibility”, or to frame it in the president’s more simple language, purveyors of “fake news”.

An example of how desperate the situation has become can be seen in the increasing numbers of Republicans who have become critical of their own president. Chief among them is former presidential candidate John McCain whose attempts to provide an alternative to Trump’s barrage of anger and spite has drawn derision and in the case of the nominee to head the CIA, Gina Haspel a comment which has quite rightly been described as “insanely despicable”.

American constitutional government worked well when it was respected by those who used it, when liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats could cooperate with each other on the presidential agenda of whoever happened to hold the White House.

Today the flood of executive orders; of hirings and firings; of direct appeals to the mob over the heads of lawmakers, has demonstrated fundamental flaws in the body politic.

The much maligned Westminster Parliamentary system is often messy and chaotic, but at least those in power must meet their critics face-to-face a few metres apart in the debating chamber, where the alternative Government and those who might lead it, are on display every day.

Perhaps there are other better ways of conducting democracy, but in the days of the Trump White House, I have no idea what they might be. Answers must be found because the alternatives on show in many nations around the world are unthinkable.