IRAN - AMERICA'S NEXT STEPS

 

[Published in the Sunday Guardian of India: After Iran: America’s Next Steps]

What happens after the shooting stops?

This is Washington, DC’s main topic of conversation in the wake of Epic Fury annihilating Iran’s leadership.

The answer is fundamental to the balance of President Donald Trump’s Administration.  What follows removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro?  What is next in Iran?  What happens if the Cuban Communists fall?

America has shown the world that it is the most formidable military power in history.  Unfortunately, during the 21^st Century, America has also shown its ability to lose the peace after winning the war.

With the end of the Cold War, America guiding nations toward pro-West free societies has ranged from the “good”, to the “bad”, to the “ugly”.

SOVIET EMPIRE

The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989, marked the end of 72 years of tyranny for Russia and many “captive” nations.  The countries of the USSR, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe had viable opposition elements.  Most Warsaw Pact nations were viable democracies before being conquered by the Nazis and Soviets.

Credible leaders, such as Poland’s Lech Walesa and the Czech Republic’s Vaclav Havel, were ready to step in.  Dissident movements like Solidarity and Samizdat provided a core of policy and political activists to fill the power vacuum as Eastern European leaders fell.

The United States did not “nation build”.  It offered important support to the emerging leaders who were shaking off generations of oppression.

Bipartisanship dominated this effort.  The Clinton State Department and Speaker Newt Gingrich hosted delegations from the new nations to personally see Congress in action.  Prime Ministers, General Secretaries, and Parliamentary leaders spent days being mentored by the Clerk of the House and the House’s Chief Administrative Officer on how voting, legislative processes, and constituent services could be adopted to their respective settings.

Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, under a State Department contract, held week-long training sessions for Members of various Parliaments.  Senators, Members of Congress, and the House’s Chief Administrative Officer conducted these interactive seminars to provide real world, hands-on, insights on how to effectively represent their country’s interests while managing debate and opposing views.

The European Union stepped in to help align legal practices and guide the new nations into compliance and ultimately membership in the European Union (EU).  Nonprofits, such as the Atlantic Council and The European Institute facilitated dialogue with EU leaders and regional stakeholders.  European Ambassadors, posted both the U.S. and in Eastern Europe, served as coaches and mentors to their counterparts.

The key to this success was allowing each nation to evolve at its own pace based upon its own unique identity, history, and culture.  Adoption of “best practices” and “lessons learned” were offered but not mandated.

The only failure was Russia.  While Duma Members enthusiastically participated in Harvard’s courses, they could not anticipate that Boris Yelstin’s alcoholism and complicity in corruption would lead to the deal that brought Vladimir Putin to power.

AFGHANISTAN

The successes of Eastern Europe were totally lost on the Neo-Conservatives (NeoCons) that dominated the inner circles of President George W. Bush.

Afghanistan was a feudal society, divided among villages elders, clergy, and warlords, all owing titular loyalty to the Shah. 

Mohammadzai tribal leaders ruled Afghanistan for 155 years. The last Shah was toppled in a Soviet-backed coup in April 1978.  What followed were years of unrest.  This included civil war, the assassination of the Soviet puppet leader, and the full-scale invasion and occupation of the country by Soviet troops in December 1979.

A long guerilla war was waged by the pro-West Northern Alliance and Islamist factions known as the Mujahideen.  Eventually, the most radical of the factions, the Taliban, dominated the Mujahideen.

The Soviet withdrawal on April 14, 1988, left an uneasy coalition government between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. The leader of the Northern Alliance was assassinated days before the 9-11 attack on America.  These events consolidated Taliban control but also led to the United States toppling the regime in December 2001.

The U.S. chose to “nation build”.  Ignoring history and culture, Bush officials installed Hamid Karzai in December 2001, after the Taliban government was overthrown.  Karzai had been the CIA’s “paymaster” for moving funds to Afghan guerillas.  He would prove to be corrupt and untrustworthy, selling the country’s mineral rights to China for $40 million to his overseas bank accounts.

Bush officials prevented the reemergence of the traditional feudal society and refused to bring back to Shah’s family for national unification.  Instead, they attempted to establish Western Democracy with a tight timetable of before the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. The fact that it took Western Europe over 600 years to evolve from feudalism to true representative government was lost in the arrogance of occupation.

Billions of dollars poured into the country for training and infrastructure, much of it wasted and defrauded by contractors and Afghan elites.

The weakened local communities depended on NATO and U.S. forces to keep the peace, while Western values and processes were force feed to the populace. This became fertile ground for the Taliban to arise and win. Karzai stole the 2009 Presidential election against several credible opponents. His crumbling credibility, rampant corruption, and suppression of dissent placed Afghanistan in a death spiral. 

In September 2014, Ashraf Ghani, one of two opposition candidates in the 2009 stolen election became President.  It was too little too late.  The Taliban were dominating the battlefield and ultimately the negotiations for retaking power.  Their forces rolled into Kabul on August 15, 2021, after a disastrous withdrawal of American forces.

IRAQ

In 2003, Bush’s Neocons waged a war based on highly questionable intelligence.  They proceeded to line their pockets with billions in bogus contracts while wrecking the country.

The U.S. likes to establish highly centralized governments.  This ignores the federal system and local governance that made America a success.  Partly, centralization is lazy.  Having everything inside the highly fortified Baghdad “Green Zone” meant diplomats, bureaucrats, and contractors could avoid learning anything about the real situation and not leave the comforts of Western food and entertainment.

Unfortunately, this was the recipe for disaster.  Rulers, going back to 1639, understood that Iraq was three separate nations: the Kurds in the north; the Shiites along the coast; and the Sunnis in the center. The British bundled Iraq together after the First World War to consolidate their hold through a puppet King.  This fiction fell apart in 1958 when the Ba’ath Party took control and continued to rule a contrived unitary state.  Saddam Hussein emerged as dictator in 1988.

The 2003 war toppled Hussein, ushering in twenty years of waste, fraud, abuse.  Instead of pursuing a federal system, Bush occupation officials forced a strong unitary state.  It was inevitable that the three historic areas would bridle at this contrivance. 

The most tragic were the Kurds.  They had enjoyed semi-independence with the establishment of a “no fly zone” over their region since the 1991 war.  They had oil and a strong traditional governance structure.  They reached out to Western companies to help develop their lands and were crushed by the U.S. State Department.

One example says it all.

Kurdistan is populated by small villages isolated in deep valleys by high mountain ridges.  These small villages enjoy ample water as each is situated by small streams. This was ideal for deploying small immersible turbines that could generate electricity for each village. A U.S. firm had the proven technology, and a strategic partnership was forged to bring electricity throughout rural Kurdistan.

Enter the U.S. State Department.  Bush officials halted the partnership asserting that only electricity generated by hydroelectric dams on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers would suffice.  They declared that decentralized electricity would weaken the Central Baghdad Government.  The Kurds and their U.S. company pointed out that (1) there was no plan to create hydroelectric dams to serve the entire country, (2) a network of power lines and substations would be easy targets for sabotage and impossible to defend, and (3) the region was subject to earthquakes that would disrupt a centralized grid.  The Bush bureaucrats refused to listen and stopped the project.  To this day, these villages are without electricity.

THE FUTURE

Venezuela has a viable opposition movement that had the last election stolen.  It has a Nobel Prize winner, María Corina Machado, as its titular head.  Trump seems content to let Interim President Delcy Rodriguez do the heavy lifting of steering the country back to credibility.  Her public statements distance her from “Washington’s Orders”, but her actions display begrudging cooperation.  Behind the scenes “carrots and sticks” are probably guiding the relationship. What happens next is going to be driven by internal forces, with the U.S. incentivizing a pro-West and free society outcome. Iran has a viable opposition inside and outside the country.  This includes the extensive Iranian diaspora residing in the United States and other countries.     The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) was formed in 1981.  It is a 460-member coalition “committed to a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear republic”. The NCRI’s mission is to “hold free elections within six months of the fall of the theocracy and to ensure a peaceful transition of power to elected representatives”. Just as Epic Fury started, Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the NCRI, announced the formation of a Provisional Government by the NCRI to transfer sovereignty to the people of Iran and establish a Democratic Republic based on a long established ten-point plan. The Ten-Point Plan was presented by Maryam Rajavi in December 2006 at a session of the Council of Europe. The NCRI’s plan for the future is, “a pluralistic republic based on the separation of religion and state, gender equality, the abolition of the death penalty, peace, coexistence, the elimination of double oppression against Iran’s ethnic and national minorities, and a non-nuclear Iran”. This well-organized effort, along with the possible symbolic national leader, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, could quickly fill the void as the current regime is toppled. There truly is hope after the bombs…as long as Trump and his team learn from the past.

THE ROAD TO 911

[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study - Days that Shaped America]

For those old enough to remember, September 11, 2001, 9:03 a.m. is burned into our collective memory.  It was at that moment that United Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. 

Everyone was watching.  American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the North Tower seventeen minutes earlier.  For those few moments there was uncertainty whether the first crash was a tragic accident.  Then, on live television, the South Tower fire ball vividly announced to the world that America was under attack.

The nightmare continued.  As horrifying images of people trapped in the burning towers riveted the nation, news broke at 9:37 a.m. that American Flight 77 had ploughed into the Pentagon.

For the first time since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Americans were collectively experiencing full scale carnage from a coordinated attack on their soil.

The horror continued as the twin towers collapsed, sending clouds of debris throughout lower Manhattan and igniting fires in adjoining buildings.  Questions filled the minds of government officials and every citizen:  How many more planes?  What were their targets? How many have died?  Who is doing this to us?

At 10:03 a.m., word came that United Flight 93 had crashed into a Pennsylvania field.  Speculation exploded as to what happened.  Later investigations revealed that Flight 93 passengers, alerted by cell phone calls of the earlier attacks, revolted causing the plane to crash.  Their heroism prevented this final hijacked plane from destroying the U.S. Capitol Building.

The final accounting was devastating: 2,977 killed and over 25,000 injured.  The death toll continues to climb to this day as first responders and building survivors perish from respiratory conditions caused by inhaling the chemical-laden smoke.  It was the deadliest terrorist attack in human history.

How this happened, why this happened, and what happened next compounds the tragedy.

Nineteen terrorists, most from Saudi Arabia, were part a radical Islamic terrorist organization called al-Qaeda “the Base”.  This was the name given the training camp for the radical Islamicists who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani, was the primary organizer of the attack. Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi, was the leader and financier. Their plan was based upon an earlier failed effort in the Philippines.  It was mapped out in late 1998.  Bin Laden personally recruited the team, drawn from experienced terrorists.  They insinuated themselves into the U.S., with several attending pilot training classes.  Five-man teams would board the four planes, overpower the pilots, and fly them as bombs into significant buildings. 

They banked on plane crews and passengers responding to decades of “normal” hijackings.  They would assume the plane would be commandeered, flown to a new location, demands would be made, and everyone would live.  This explains the passivity on the first three planes.  Flight 93 was different, because it was delayed in its departure, allowing time for passengers to learn about the fate of the other planes.  Last minute problems also reduced the Flight 93 hijacker team to only four.

The driving force behind the attack was Wahhabism, a highly strict, anti-Western version of Sunni Islam.  

The Saudi Royal Family owes its rise to power to Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792).  He envisioned a “pure” form of Islam that purged most worldly practices (heresies), oppressed women, and endorsed violence against nonbelievers (infidels), including Muslims who differed with his sect.  This extremely conservative and violent form of Islam might have died out in the sands of central Arabia were in not for a timely alliance with a local tribal leader, Muhammad bin Saud.

The House of Saud was just another minor tribe, until the two Muhammads realized the power of merging Sunni fanaticism with armed warriors.  Wahhab’s daughter married Saud’s son, merging their two blood lines to this day.  The House of Saud and its warriors rapidly expanded throughout the Arabia Peninsul fueled by Wahhabi fanaticism.  These various conflicts always included destruction of holy sites of rival sects and tribes.  While done in the name of “purification”, the result was erasing the physical touchstones of rival cultures and governments.

In the early 20^th Century, Saudi leader, ibn Saud, expertly exploited the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and alliances with European Powers, to consolidate his permanent hold over the Arabian Peninsula.  Control of Mecca and Medina, Islam’s two holiest sites, gave the House of Saud the power to promote Wahhabism as the dominant interpretation of Sunni Islam.  This included internally contradictory components of calling for eradicating infidels while growing rich from Christian consumption of oil and pursuing lavish hedonism when not in public view.

In the mid-1970s Saudi Arabia used the flood of oil revenue to become the “McDonalds of Madrassas”.  Religious schools and new Mosques popped up throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.  This building boom had nothing to do with education and everything to do with spreading the cult of Wahhabism.  Pakistan became a major hub for turning Wahhabi madrassas graduates into dedicated terrorists.

Wahhabism may have remained a violent, dangerous, but diffused movement, except it found fertile soil in Afghanistan. 

Afghanistan was called the graveyard of empires as its rugged terrain and fierce tribal warriors thwarted potential conquerors for centuries.  In 1973, the last king of Afghanistan was deposed leading to years of instability.  In April 1978, the opposition Communist Party seized control in a bloody coup. The communist tried to brutally consolidate power, which ignited a civil war among factions supported by Pakistan, China, Islamists (known as the Mujahideen), and the Soviet Union.  Amidst the chaos, U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubbs was killed on February 14, 1979.

On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, killing their ineffectual puppet President, and ultimately bringing over 100,000 military personnel into the country.  What followed was a vicious war between the Soviet military and various Afghan guerrilla factions.  Over 2 million Afghans died.

The Reagan Administration covertly supported the anti-Soviet Afghan insurgents, primarily aiding the secular pro-west Northern Alliance.  Arab nations supported the Mujahideen.  Bin Laden entered the insurgent caldera as a Mujahideen financier and fighter.  By 1988, the Soviets realized their occupation had failed.  They removed their troops, leaving behind another puppet government and Soviet trained military.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Afghanistan was finally free.  Unfortunately, calls for reunifying the country by reestablishing the monarchy and strengthening regional leadership went unheeded.  Attempts at recreating the pre-invasion faction ravaged parliamentary system only led to new rounds of civil war. 

In September 1994, the weak U.S. response opened the door for the Taliban, graduates from Pakistan’s Wahhabi madrassas, to launch their crusade to take control of Afghanistan.  By 1998, the Taliban controlled 90% of the country. 

Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda warriors made Taliban-controlled territory in Afghanistan their new base of operations.  In exchange, Bin Laden helped the Taliban eliminate their remaining opponents.  This was accomplished on September 9, 2001, when suicide bombers disguised as a television camera crew blew-up Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic, pro-west leader of the Northern Alliance.

Two days later, Bin Laden’s plan to establish al-Qaeda as the global leader of Islamic terrorism was implemented with hijacking four planes and turning them into guided bombs.

The 9-11 attacks, along with the earlier support against the Soviets in Afghanistan, was part of Bin Laden’s goal to lure infidel governments into “long wars of attrition in Muslim countries, attracting large numbers of jihadists who would never surrender”. He believed this would lead to economic collapse of the infidels, by "bleeding" them dry.  Bin Laden outlined his strategy of "bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy" in a 2004 tape released through Al Jazeera.

On September 14, amidst the World Trade Center rubble, President George W. Bush addressed those recovering bodies and extinguishing fires using a bullhorn:

“The nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens”

A rescue worker yelled, “I can't hear you!”

President Bush spontaneously responded: “I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”

Twenty-three days later, on October 7, 2001, American and British warplanes, supplemented by cruise missiles fired from naval vessels, began destroying Taliban operations in Afghanistan.

U.S. Special forces entered Afghanistan.  Working the Northern Alliance, they defeated major Taliban units. They occupied Kabul, the Afghan Capital on November 13, 2001.

On May 2, 2011, U.S. Special Forces raided an al-Qaeda compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing Osama bin Laden. 

POPULISM TRIUMPHANT

[Published on Newsmax]

Senator Bernie Sanders’ rise to front runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination should be welcomed. The underlying cause of his ascendancy is very similar to Trump’s.  It represents a bipartisan rebellion against the elites and is healthy for America.

Since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal expansion of government in the 1930’s there has been an entrenched elite that runs America.  The bureaucrats in Washington, DC make common cause with crony capitalist lobbyists and pliable Members and staff in the Legislative Branch.  Together with their media allies, they have relentlessly thwarted the will of the people.  Government has expanded, waste of tax dollars has gone unchecked, and breaching our privacy is now commonplace. 

The denizens of the “Swamp” and “Deep State” have become rich and arrogant.  They have banked on the complexity and longevity of their schemes to bewilder and intimidate those unlucky enough to exist outside their circles of power. Their defense systems have been perfected to absorb and neutralize even the most assertive reformers. 

The Swamp/Deep State players depend on both Democrats and Republicans to nominate Presidents who are either already loyal to the status quo or, after winning with reformist rhetoric, revert to passivity.  This has been a reliable strategy for generations.

The Swamp/Deep State have had shocks as the grassroots can stir and surprise.  Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 was built upon a conservative movement that arose in the 1940s.  The elites had dismissed conservatives for years and viewed them like a newly discovered Amazon tribe when they took the Presidency and Senate.  The Reagan Revolution overturned the common wisdom that the Soviets would never be defeated, and that big government would forever expand.  It took 12 years of the Bush dynasty to dilute Reagan’s achievements. 

The Gingrich Revolution became another shock to the power elites.  They never saw the ground swell against the Congressional Kleptocracy that burst out of the ballot boxes in November 1994.  The Congressional breakthrough was short-lived.  By 2006, exploiting earmarks and the lobbyist revolving door stemmed the reformist tide.

While the elites celebrated their triumphs, Americans grew restive.

On February 16, 2009, the Tea Party Movement erupted to counter the political power grabs of Obamacare and the unchecked spending under the Recovery Act.  Two years later, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) took over Zuccotti Park in New York City, calling attention to “crony capitalism”.

Commentators across the political spectrum denounced both movements as “AstroTurf” – fake grass roots.  Both movements were accused of being funded and organized by nefarious forces.  Their motives were assailed.  According to the elites, the Tea Party was racist and OWS was communist.  Everyone within the political elites, conservative/liberal, Republican/Democrat, studiously avoided linking the growing dissatisfaction with the status quo as the unifying theme of these two populist protest movements.

Populism defined Andrew Jackson’s victory in 1828.  He tapped the concerns of western settlers who were tired of Eastern elites dominating the White House.   It arose again in the1890s as farmers felt unaccountable moneyed interests were exploiting and ignoring them.  Donald Trump tapped similar sentiments as he shocked the status quo in first winning the Republican nomination against heavily favored establishment candidates and then toppling Hillary Clinton, the anointed one, in November 2016.

President Trump openly draws inspiration from Andrew Jackson.  Trump’s policies are very Jacksonian, challenging elites and boosting America first.

It is no surprise that rallying the disaffection on the right would inspire a candidate to tap the disaffection on the left.  Sanders rise scares the establishment, just like Trump.  Sanders has assailed the Democratic National Committee for aiding the elites, just like they did in 2016.  He has called out the media for unfair treatment.  His legions of supporters are filling auditoriums. His is a real movement.

Americans should look forward to a Trump-Sanders race.  There have only been a few times in our lifetime when two candidates offered stark and fundamentally different futures for our country.  It will be a clarifying moment, awarding the winner a crystal-clear mandate to boldly act.  Only Johnson-Goldwater 1964, McGovern-Nixon 1972, Carter-Reagan 1980, and Mondale-Reagan 1984 have provided such opportunities. 

Americans should rejoice that a Trump-Sanders general election campaign would be the first time since Davis-Coolidge in 1924 to shut out the elites across the political spectrum. 

2020 could be the triumph of Populism. 

ENDING THE DEEP STATE

[Published on NewsMax]

The surreal world of the Trump Impeachment Inquiry is assailing those who respect the will of the voters.  Those defying this fundamental principle of American democracy are being lauded.

It is perverse to allow opponents of voter-mandated change to remain in policy positions.

Trump’s predicament was completely avoidable.  All he had to do was be as assertive with government personnel as he was with his company’s hiring and firing.  

It is doubtful that Trump left legacy executives in place when he acquired hotels, golf courses, and casinos.  Trump brought in his own team.  They assessed the management and service team members, to align them with Trump’s corporate culture and branding.  Those who displayed loyalty and competence remained, all others were replaced.  This happened quickly.  Once the Trump logo was unfurled, Trump’s operational culture and customer service experience had to exist. 

It is, therefore, disappointing that Trump approached the Executive Branch with such hesitancy.

Like any large vessel, the federal “ship of state” has a command bridge from where the captain leads the ship.  A new President quickly realizes that, while his bridge, the Oval Office, affords a wonderful view, its steering wheel and control levers must be hooked-up to run the ship.  Control of the engine room is fundamental to moving in the intended direction. The ship’s crew must follow the captain’s decisions.  It is the same in the Executive Branch.  People equal policy.

The Executive Branch is far more complex than any ship or corporation.  The outgoing party leaves behind cadres of guerrilla fighters to frustrate, hinder, and destroy the new President’s agenda.  This preserves the old and enables defeating the new.  

Cabinet Departments and agencies each have unique cultures that shape those serving in the career service.  Depending on the party in power, some agencies will be more friendly or hostile than others.  

Careerists can be just as political as political appointees.  Their politics is about preserving power, funding, turf, prestige, and policy.  Those aligned with the previous Administration will have benefited from rapid advancement.  Those less enthusiastic, will have been relegated to dark recesses, well away from critical policy paths.

An incoming Administration uses its network of friendly Congressional offices, policy organizations, and media outlets to map out its allies and enemies within the Executive Branch.  This is what Transitions are for.

Trump was ill-served from the start.  He ignored the advice and offers of help from Ronald Reagan alumni, who ran the last fully successful Republican transition.  Instead, Trump turned to Governor Christie.  Christie turned to his friends in the Romney, Bush, and Ford circles.  They recommended that the Boston Consulting Group, the epicenter of Bush operatives, run the Trump Transition.  The rest, sadly, is history.  

It could have been so different.  

Starting in 1978, Reagan’s inner circle worked closely with the vast network of conservative groups: The Heritage Foundation, Kingston, Stanton, Library Court, Chesapeake Society, Monday Club, Conservative Caucus, American Legislative Exchange Council, Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, and the Eagle Forum.   

This conservative network placed key operatives into Reagan’s national campaign and transition.  They identified over 17,000 positions that affected Executive Branch operations.  A separate team identified the key positions in each cabinet department and major agency that had to be under Reagan’s control in the first week of his presidency.

On January 21, 1981, Reagan’s personnel team immediately removed every Carter political appointee.  They were walked out the door, identification badge taken, files sealed, and their security clearance terminated.  In one instance, a Carter political appointee at ACTION was physically prevented from signing the nearly one million dollars of leftist grants sitting on his desk.  The Carter era ended completely and instantaneously.

Over the next sixty days, Ambassadors were recalled, White House detailees were reassigned. Every management and supervisory careerist who had been hired or promoted during the previous year was reviewed, and those not truly there on their merits, were removed.

American voters soundly rejected Carter and wanted the Reagan Revolution.  They got it.

Reagan loyalists, as temporary appointees, entered every cabinet department and agency to enforce policy, review contracts, and terminate anyone or any entity that were there to promote Carter policy.  Every legal action, regulation, negotiation, and grant was stopped until assessed based upon Reagan policy.  Overwhelming numbers of fulltime Reagan loyalists rapidly implemented his revolution.

By May 1981, Reagan was in full command of the Executive Branch.  Core management teams in every department and agency moved deeper into the bureaucracy.  Wave after wave of management and personnel changes occurred, paving the way for the Reagan Era to flourish.

Thorough planning and expert implementation by solid loyalists resulted in no leaks and no sabotage. 

Reagan had a sign on his desk “It CAN be done”.  

It was.

MID TERMS MATTER

“CONSTITUTING AMERICA” SERIES ON CONGRESSIONAL HISTORY

The definition of a Midterm Election is that it is held mid-way through the term of the President. While not on the ballot, the President’s electoral mandate and actions to fulfill that mandate, are validated or challenged by voters as they elect members of the Legislative Branch.

Midterms were created as the solution to a fundamental issue in the founding of America:

What is the balance between responsive and responsible government?

The authors and advocates of the U.S. Constitution wrestled with this balance.

One the one hand, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, writing as “PUBLIUS”, asserted in their essays advocating for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, that frequent elections guaranteed Congress’ elected Members responding to the will of the people.

Federalist No. 52:

“First. As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people. Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured…. It is a received and well-founded maxim, that where no other circumstances affect the case, the greater the power is, the shorter ought to be its duration.”

Guaranteeing responsiveness and accountability also needed to be tied to short terms in office.

FEDERALIST No. 57:

“The House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when their exercise of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from which they were raised; there forever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it.”

On the other hand, Hamilton and Madison worried that too frequent elections would create instability.

Federalist No. 62

“The mutability in the public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members, however qualified they may be, points out, in the strongest manner, the necessity of some stable institution in the government. Every new election in the States is found to change one half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed a change of opinions; and from a change of opinions, a change of measures. But a continual change even of good measures is inconsistent with every rule of prudence and every prospect of success. The remark is verified in private life, and becomes more just, as well as more important, in national transactions.”

Hamilton and Madison raised an issue they considered worse than instability - arbitrary and capricious public policy. They sought a structural solution, “necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions.” [Federalist 63]

Hamilton and Madison’s solution was to have two separate bodies within the Legislative Branch, one of which would have longer terms of service. “The proper remedy for this defect must be an additional body in the legislative department, which, having sufficient permanency to provide for such objects as require a continued attention, and a train of measures, may be justly and effectually answerable for the attainment of those objects.’ [Federalist 63]

The Senate, having six year terms for its members, would be a defense against, “particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn.” [Federalist 63]

Hamilton and Madison cited the importance of deflecting transitory and ill-thought public passion throughout history. “What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next.” [Federalist 63]

They concluded that not only terms of service, but the cycles of elections would create the proper balance to assure responsive and responsible democracy: “when compared with the fugitive and turbulent existence of other ancient republics, very instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that will blend stability with liberty.” [Federalist 63]

Their solution is embedded in the U.S. Constitution.

ARTICLE I; Section 3

1: The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof,3 for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

2: Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year;

The combination of having the entire Membership of the House of Representatives face the electorate every two years, and only a third of the Senate submit to re-election every two years created Midterm Elections.

Throughout American history, Midterm Elections have reshaped Presidential agendas, ended or launched new political movements, and marked watershed moments in the civic culture of the nation.

The 1858 Midterm, prior to American Civil War, showcased the fragmentation of the Democrat Party over slavery and catapulted the four-year-old Republican Party into becoming the dominant plurality faction in both the House and Senate. Sixteen years later, Republicans lost 96 House seats and their majority in reaction to the Grant Administration scandals, and the mismanagement of Southern Reconstruction. 

The 1894 Midterms heralded the reemergence of the Republican Party as a new dynamic force that would bring William McKinley to the Presidency in 1896. The voters also blamed President Grover Cleveland for a major economic depression, leading to jobless workers marching on Washington demanding relief. The Democrats lost 116 seats in the House, the largest defeat in history. Fourteen years later, splits in the Republican Party, especially the falling out between old allies, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, triggered Republicans losing 57 seats in the House and 10 Senate seats. This fragmentation worsened, leading to Woodrow Wilson winning the Presidency in 1912 with 42 percent of the popular vote in a three-way race.

The October 1930 Midterm reflected Americans reeling from the Stock Market Crash, facing a deepening Depression, and the collapse of trust in Republicans. The Republican Party lost 49 House and 8 Senate seats. The Republicans barely retained control of Congress by only two votes in the House and one in the Senate. Their Midterm debacle set the stage for the 1932 election, when Republicans lost the White House for twenty years, and lost Congressional power for three generations. Over the next 62 years, Republicans had ten years of intermittent rule in the Senate and led only two separate Congresses in the House.

America redefined itself in the 1994 Midterm elections. President Bill Clinton had overreached on universal healthcare. There was a revitalized Republican Party, fueled by Conservative Talk radio and the visionary leadership and aggressive tactics of Newt Gingrich.

Democrats were shocked, losing 53 House and 7 Senate seats. This brought Republican rule to the House for the first time since the 1952 election, a forty-two year hiatus. Only one Republican Member had served in the previous Republican era - as a House page.

Since 1994, Republicans have dominated the Legislative Branch, even gaining 6 House and 2 Senate seats in the 2002 Midterm, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bush Administration unpopularity and Congressional scandals led to voters ending Republican rule in the 2006 Midterms. President Obama’s policy overreach, Conservative Talk Radio, and the rise of digital and social media, brought Republican majorities back to the House in the 2010 Midterms and the Senate in the 2014 Midterms.

No matter the outcome of the 2018 Midterms, the wisdom of those who struck the balance between responsive and responsible government in the U.S. Constitution will once again be vindicated.

[Scot Faulkner advises corporations and governments on how to save billions of dollars by achieving dramatic and sustainable cost reductions while improving operational and service excellence. He served as the Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served on the White House Staff, and as an Executive Branch Appointee.]