Why America seems to struggle to produce a leader worthy of its greatness

Letters to a Seffrican

Regardless of whether our Presidents are true leaders and competent or not, America’s problem of weak leaders is ultimately the World’s problem

By Anil Madan

My friend Gerrit, a South African—affectionately known as “Seffrican”—has asked why America seems to struggle to produce a leader worthy of its greatness. In response, I’ve penned these “Letters to a Seffrican,” aiming to explore this question that also troubles many in the U.S. and to delve into the intricacies of American politics.

President Joe Biden with Israel’s PM Netanyahu in the White House. Pic Times of Israel

In this opening letter, I want to address Gerrit’s concerns about the drama surrounding the race to the White House. Geritt aptly noted that despite being a nation of 335 million people, we often face the frustrating reality of choosing between the “lesser of two evils” in preside ntial elections. This widespread lament is a sentiment familiar to many Americans. Why do we find ourselves in such a predicament?

While I will eventually tackle how the U.S. manages to survive and thrive despite these challenges, for now, I’ll focus on the presidential selection process and the nuances that contribute to our current political landscape.

Defining Leadership

It is useful to define what we mean by leadership in this context. Obviously, “leadership” means many things, and different qualities in a leader appeal to different persons, depending on the context. There are, in my view, five different aspects of presidential influence, often mistaken for leadership, in the US.

The first is recognizing, influencing, and implementing policies on national issues that directly affect the well-being and prosperity of the American people. This catchall bucket is often referred to as the “domestic policy” agenda of a President.

The second involves foreign policy and how to formulate and execute positions and policies that the US takes in protecting its security and economic interests, and how it projects influence abroad, both by fostering and preventing actions of other nations. This aspect also involves both the active and passive deployment of American forces and military assets, both conventional and strategic. Absent a declaration of war, these functions are, for the most part, exclusively within the domain of the President. As our history has taught us, Presidents suddenly finding the military might of the US at their command, tend to unleash force, often in unproductive and tragic ventures.

The third involves leadership at the party level, that is, in fostering the agenda of the President’s political party.

The fourth is allied with the third and is about how a President can use the veto power and the immense power of the presidency to prevent legislation from taking effect.

The fifth aspect of leadership is a somewhat distant recognition that there is a “national” interest in having a cohesive American policy that, in capable hands, tries to coordinate domestic, foreign and parochial policy interests.

Over the years, we have learned that America’s outsize influence across the world allows us to have incoherent policies but nevertheless act like a Black Hole sucking up endorsements by other nations of our foolishness, and acceptance of American projections abroad that become accepted policy norms. This too is often mistaken for leadership.

The Absence of Leadership

When most people speak about the lack of leadership evident in US Presidents, it is often about a lack of leadership on the world stage, or the seeming chaos that exists within the US as viewed from abroad. Rarely do non-Americans see the lack of leadership as a problem for America’s domestic policies.

The quality of “leadership” around the world is lamentable. I don’t mean that there is any shortage of authoritarians and strongmen (Putin, Xi Jinping, Erdogan, Kim Jong Nuke, Modi, et al) or strong women (Sheikh Hasina before her defenestration, Gold Meier? Maggie Thatcher?), but I mean leadership in the sense of people who genuinely try to improve their countries and the lives of their people. So, although we should take no comfort from that observation, America is not singularly leaderless.

I will pause here to mention that India’s Prime Minister Modi, despite his failings in many other aspects, has genuinely worked hard at fostering India’s national interests as he works to modernize the country. China’s Xi, on the other hand, has used technology to suppress and surveil his people. Quite the contrast. And Putin and Erdogan are just simply repressive in their quest to hold on to power.

Regardless of whether our Presidents are true leaders and competent or not, America’s problem of weak leaders is ultimately the World’s problem because of the disproportionate influence that the United States wields around the world. And, as we see China’s influence grow exponentially, we are reminded of autocratic bullies who have suppressed their own people, wiped out the cultures of Tibetans and Uyghurs, not to mention of Hong Kongers, and threaten Taiwan, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines with metronomic regularity. These realizations make a leader like Xi Jinping also potentially the world’s problem.

But enough of my whataboutism and enough digression.

The american system is not designed to seek national leaders

The dearth of leadership in the US is primarily because our system of government and electoral processes are neither designed for, nor conducive to the selection of true national leaders as candidates for President.

This apparent contradiction, or oxymoron, that the search for a “leader” is not designed to find a “leader” bears some explaining.

As most people know, the US has two major political parties and they, more or less, alternate being in control of the House of Representatives and Senate. There are many other parties in the US, but they are, for the most part, marginal.

It is extremely important to understand that once the democratic process of electing Representatives to the House and Senators to the Senate is over, a decidedly undemocratic process takes hold and allows the party that gains control of the House or Senate, to seize control of the national legislative agenda.

How and why does this happen? There is a provision in the Constitution of the United States to which little heed is paid. It states: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.”

Why is this provision important? For many reasons. First, because the party that has gained control of either the House or the Senate, can set its rules. And they do. This means that the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House, each chosen by the party that has gained a majority of seats in the particular chamber, get to control the legislative agenda. The Speaker and the Majority Leader can decide what issues come up for a vote and what do not have to defer to anyone else. It also means that the leaders of the party in charge can discipline members and cow them into subservience.

The most important aspect of this control is that a President whose party is not in control of the House and Senate cannot get much done without compromising with the party in control. And a President whose party does control both the House and Senate, can successfully push a legislative agenda that implements his party’s vision of how the country should be governed.

Whereas it is true that the President can veto legislation passed by both Houses, it is highly unlikely that a President will veto legislation passed by a majority of the members that are affiliated with his political party, and since it takes a two-thirds majority in both houses to override a presidential veto, if the party in control is not the President’s party, it has little chance of enacting any controversial laws.

There is a premium on gaining control of the House or Senate

Owing to the fact that control of the legislative agenda is so important, there is a premium on partisanship. Each party wants to control the House and Senate and have a cooperative president.

As a result, presidential candidates tend to campaign on highly partisan issues and not on matters that affect the national interest.

It is not logical to assume that a party’s candidate who has campaigned for a year or more on a highly partisan agenda will suddenly become a rational advocate for the national interest. This is a fundamental flaw in the way we go about choosing presidential candidates and it is not conducive to identifying and selecting leaders.

On the rare occasions that candidates do address national issues, they often fall into the pattern that Trump has displayed: pandering to the fears, prejudices, and hatred that so many Americans have for non-white minorities, immigrants, and foreigners in general. As well, they tend to offer simplistic views of job losses to China and other countries, while offering promises to fix the problems, but with decidedly no clue about how to fix things.

The Process of Choosing Presidential Nominees

Part One: Every political party in the US is entitled to nominate a candidate for president and get that candidate’s name on the general election ballot when the votes for president are cast. The process leading up to that nomination is done on a state-by-state basis. There are votes cast in Washington, DC, Puerto Rico, and the other US possessions and territories, but let us leave those aside for the moment.

The initial elections, or primary elections or “primaries” as they are called, are designed to allow members of a party to pick its candidate who will appear on the general election ballot in each state.

So, states as diverse as Massachusetts and South Dakota, California and Arkansas, get to nominate who will be the presidential candidate for the Democrats, Republicans, and any other party that has qualified to have its candidate on the ballot. Qualifying to be on the primary ballot often involves no more than collecting the required number of signatures from voters and paying the listing fee.

Part Two: That sounds easy enough. But what if Massachusetts picks Candidate A for the Republican nomination, and Wyoming picks Candidate B, and Massachusetts picks Candidate C for the Democratic nomination and Wyoming picks Candidate D? How do you reconcile these choices?

This is where the national party Conventions come in.

The primary in each state ends up allocating a certain number of electors to each candidate. Some states have a winner-take-all system and some states allocate electors to candidates based on the percentage of the vote they have received.

At the party’s national convention, the delegates allocated to each candidate vote to nominate that candidate. In the first round of voting, the delegates are bound to vote for the candidate in accordance with the allocation set by the primary voting results. If a candidate has enough votes to secure the nomination on the first ballot, that is the end of the story as we now have a nominee for the party. If not, there are subsequent rounds of voting. After the first round, the delegates to the convention can vote freely and eventually a nominee is chosen.

Primaries not designed to choose national leaders

In many states, only voters who are registered as belonging to a particular party may vote in that party’s primary. However, some states allow voters to choose whichever party’s primary they wish to vote in. Some states allow voters to decide on primary election day which party’s primary to vote in, and then change their party affiliation. It is a very loose system, and “system” is hardly the word.

As may be obvious, in local primaries, candidates try to appeal to voters based on issues of local concern. Some candidates try to address issues of national concern. But it is a balancing act.

The result is that State A may nominate a candidate who panders to voters on local issues, and State B may nominate a candidate who focuses on domestic social issues, whereas State C may nominate a candidate who addresses foreign policy issues.

This pattern of local voting is highly susceptible to local and parochial influences. Moreover, our history shows that people are rarely as motivated to vote in primary elections as they are to vote in the general election. This results in the disproportionate influence of fringe elements who are dedicated to particular causes and mobilize voters sympathetic to their causes to get out and vote.

So, this is how America’s political stew is cooked. And so often, America’s goose is cooked as we pick a flawed candidate.

Next time, we’ll look at the electoral college system of picking a president.

Cheerz…
Bwana

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 25 October 2024