It’s hard to assess the risk of political violence, given the US tradition of everyday gunslinging: the rival candidates for state elections in Montana, who each made ads showing themselves firing rifles at television screens, looked like actors playing Afghan warlords. Still, the recent ethnopolitical terror attacks in El Paso, Pittsburgh and elsewhere were shocking even by US standards.
The much tamer UK needs watching too. Like Americans, Britons have been upgrading their political views into their identities and dismissing opponents as traitors. Both countries now intend to resolve their conflict with winner-take-all elections.
Next comes an Afghan-style loya jirga, or grand assembly, to kick off a national dialogue.
Given the death of truth, a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission wouldn’t work in the US. Americans may also need to abandon the polarising impeachment of Donald Trump and let him seek exile in a friendly country: the model could be Ukraine’s kleptocratic pro-Kremlin former president Viktor Yanukovich, now based out of Russia.
The loya jirga writes a new constitution. This would be Britain’s first, and for the US, a much-needed update of its antiquated 1787 document. Japanese jurists could help draft it as a thank you to Americans for writing Japan’s excellent 1947 constitution.
The new text would dispense with vagaries such as “high crimes and misdemeanours”, define presidential corruption and end political control of the judiciary. If it’s undemocratic for the Polish or Hungarian governments to appoint judges, why can the US president do it?
The new constitution must cantonise the US, going way beyond “states’ rights” to neighbourhood rights. The smaller the units of power, the less important becomes the national political conflict. The US’s second republic will also need a new electoral system that favours coalitions instead of winner-takes-all rule. ...... The question for the international community then becomes: how much blood and treasure is it willing to expend on a country that may not be ready for democracy?
In the words of my native Greek; "Molon Labe"
Come on in, the water's fine.
Deaf Smith: ft.com is Financial Times, a magazine that has been around since the late 1800's.
The stupid is awe inspiring.