Change is in the air, mainly in politics. This is true locally, nationally, and globally. So, what political winds are stirring so blustery and ubiquitous?
Observe the public’s mood virtually everywhere. Sour, unhappy, grumpy, depressed, pick your description. The shutdown government in Washington is dysfunctional and the world is in chaos.
A majority blames President Donald Trump, who is a disingenuous, authoritarian, and a habitual bully, offending allies and adversaries at home and abroad. He is an unpopular political centerpiece, affecting all. Even Trump supporters are mad as hell at those who oppose their leader, seeing them as close to traitors.
The world is full of uncertainty, and few like it. Trump not included. He uses chaos brilliantly to dominate the news and put himself as the key historical actor. Will he or won’t he make a trade deal with China and a nuclear deal with Kim Jong-un in North Korea, build a beautiful wall, turn around the stock market, or get the government back to work? Most iffy, will he survive the Mueller investigation or get impeached? Uncertainty galore!
If the public doesn’t like the political, economic, and cultural uncertain climate, they’re open to change.
We saw that here politically over the past couple of years. A brash newcomer full of ideas for change, Gavin Buckley, became mayor of Annapolis. An energetic, activist horse farmer, Steuart Pittman, took out a steady Steve Shuh as county executive, and in a big surprise, young Sarah Elfreth defeated the well-established Ron George for the State Senate.
With the Republicans politically dominant during this bad period, change, as seen in the midterms, favored Democrats.
The re-election of Gov. Larry Hogan is the exception that proves the rule. He distanced himself from the Trump infection, worked across the aisle, and he cut taxes. A nice guy, say all.
Winds of political change are also sweeping the world, adding to general uncertainty. Chaos is all around.
Once popular international agreements are fracturing, whether the Paris Climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreements, the EU with Brexit, and even NATO. Wars continue to wage in slow but deadly motion in the Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, producing monumental hordes of refugees and immigrants.
Violence in Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua does the same. The Uited Nations, the key international center for diplomacy, is ham-strung, with the Security Council fractured, the U.S. and Israel leaving its specialized agencies, UNESCO the latest, and trade and tariff wars raging, especially between the U.S. and China.
Yes, Trump has added fuel to these conflicts, but there is a more fundamental cause, a stronger political wind.
The glue that tied countries together became undone, erasing shared interests that propelled them to cooperate. The end of the Cold War and the real absence of major military threats have had a profound effect of how countries behave. Untied to others for security, governments focused on their own particular interests, pushed by their publics’ domestic interests and concerns.
Examples abound. British voters rejected the EU and chose Brexit; Trump cleverly took advantage of latent anti-immigrant, racist, anti-Islamic, protectionist sentiment in key states to peddle his populous nationalism. Make American Great Again.
And nationalists blossomed in France, Hungary, Poland, Brazil, and elsewhere, joining established ones in Russia and China. With so many countries acting on the model of America First, cooperation faded, interests clashed, threats unleashed, and a host of protracted conflicts erupted or were exacerbated. The post-Second World War global system that the United States authored clearly shattered, a system that made relations structured and predictable. More global uncertainty added to domestic uncertainty.
Fixing the domestic and international change will not be easy. First, it is not obvious what has to be done or who is able to do it. Fixing bad change with good reform change, with no accepted leader, leaves everyone adrift.
