We all know what a coup looks like – we have seen them often enough in benighted counties around the world.

They usually begin with the appearance of armed troops in the street, with people being arrested and taken away, with radio and television studios and newspaper offices being closed, with opposition leaders being imprisoned and put on trial, with the newly dominant leader making speeches to proclaim his victory.

We are less used to, and therefore less likely to recognise for what it is, a coup that takes place in slow motion – one that takes place in small stages and is brought about by inertia rather than aggression, contempt for the law rather than violence – yet that is what we may be witnessing in the US.

How else are we to characterise the attempts by Donald Trump to maintain himself in power by refusing to accept the result of a democratic election? What is surely clear is that he is asserting his right to exercise power, even though that flies in the face of the people’s choice.

He is refusing to comply with the rules and precedents established by the US constitution, and he is doing so by sitting tight and defying others to remove him. He continues to assert that he won the election and to rely on the unwillingness of his Republican colleagues to gainsay him.

He is preparing for an eventual showdown by removing (from the Pentagon, for example,) those unlikely to support his claims and replacing them with others who will be more compliant. He is exploiting the interest of other Republicans in hanging on to power, and their fear of losing his support.

What more do we need to convince us that we are seeing a coup that is unfolding in slow motion and that depends for its success, not on decisive action, but on craven inaction? As Edmund Burke famously said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”

Trump’s Republicans may or may not be good men (or women), but they are – sure as hell – quite happy to do nothing.

The welcome given to Joe Biden’s election as President-elect is understandable. He seems to be a decent and thoughtful man, in stark contrast to his predecessor, and seems well-equipped to take on the considerable challenges that now face him.

But for many of us, the high point of the acceptance speeches from the successful Democrat candidates was the speech by Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris. For those of us who knew little of her, her acceptance speech was a revelation.

We knew that she was of mixed-race (African and Indian) descent, that she was (of course) a woman and was relatively young – and that, for all these reasons, she was someone who was in the course of breaking new ground. We were not, perhaps, prepared to encounter someone of such ability and passion, someone (she is a lawyer) so thoughtful and competent.

In the light of her acceptance speech, and as we review the tumultuous events of the last few days, I think we can perhaps make a re-assessment of what has happened. The role of a vice-presidential candidate is usually seen as ancillary to the main business, the decision as to who is to be President.

But, having seen and heard Kamala Harris speak, we might reflect a little further. In such a close-fought contest, the contribution of a woman of such considerable ability as a potential Vice-President may well have made a crucial difference.

This is not just because of the factors that, as her speech made clear, marked out her candidature as ground-breaking. She is of course a standard-bearer for women and for people of colour and, as she herself pointed out, where she has gone, others will be encouraged to follow. And the fact that Joe Biden chose her surely reflected well on him, as again, she registered, and will have helped his own chances.

But the further significance of her rise to her new eminence is that, in addition to her obvious ability to appeal to an important sector of the electorate, she is a relatively young Vice- President. And that is given added significance by Biden’s advanced years – he is the oldest person ever elected to the presidency.

It is not being too pessimistic or macabre to recognise the possibility that Biden may not be able to see out his term; if that proved to be the case, Kamala Harris would be required to step up. It must be a comfort to the Democrats, and to American democrats more generally, to have the assurance that a competent and proven potential replacement is standing by.

Nor should a misfortune for Joe Biden be seen as the only circumstance in which Kamala Harris might be required, or offered the opportunity, to step up. It is not unrealistic to foresee that Biden, at his age, might not, having completed a full term, seek a second term.

It would then be a highly desirable situation for the Democrats (particularly if Donald Trump were still around and wanting another crack at election) to have a ready-made candidate available. They could by-pass all the hassle and distractions of primary elections and proceed immediately to select a new candidate and, without delay, launch their new (but well-established and well-known) champion into the electoral arena.

What we saw a couple of days ago, in other words, might well turn out to have been our introduction to, in the fullness of time, not one, but two new presidents. But we should not get ahead of ourselves.

Having endured the past four years, the Americans are entitled to enjoy – in Joe Biden – the prospect of a gentler, kinder and more thoughtful President. But we can also recognise that part of his appeal has been – as Kamala Harris herself said – his “audacity” in choosing her as his running mate, and the care he seems to have taken to ensure a trouble-free succession.

What price President Harris in 2024?

Bryan Gould 11 November 2020

So, despite false claims of voter fraud and rigged elections (a strategy for which he had prepared the ground before the polls opened); despite repeated recourse to the courts; despite his refusal to concede; and, despite his incitement of his supporters to violence, Donald Trump has joined the ranks of those whom he has in the past contemptuously disparaged as “suckers and losers”.

The American people have at last come to their senses, and pulled their country back from the brink – back from becoming a “failed state”. A malignancy has been cut out of their body politic; it is now Joe Biden’s task to restore it to full health.

But Trump’s defeat still leaves the question as to how so many Americans supported such a dangerous charlatan and would-be autocrat. The answer is perhaps easier to discern than it may seem.

One of the weaknesses of democracies is that voters can too easily see party politics as akin to a team sport, and see themselves as players in and supporters of their team, so that they close their eyes to any malfeasance by “their” man. Republicans – as long as Trump bore the label “Republican” – were unwilling to disown him, however insupportable his words and actions.

And, he had the support of an openly partisan, Rupert Murdoch-owned media, who took his side, no matter what. For Fox News viewers, the nation-wide celebrations at Trump’s defeat would have come as surprising evidence of the unsuspected depth of his unpopularity.

And, voters in democracies are susceptible to “personality” politics – and no society is more susceptible in this regard than the American. Their culture is one that has grown up with, and derives its values from, what they see on their television screens. They are accustomed to watching supermen, heroes and celebrities – and Donald Trump offered them an instantly recognisable and even exciting image and a larger-than-life personality.

And Trump had a further advantage – he had originally introduced himself to the American public as a television personality, through hosting the television show “The Apprentice”. He had already entered their homes as a familiar and friendly face, apparently authoritative and successful, long before he became a politician.

The USA is, of course, not the only country to experience “personality” politics. Boris Johnson in the UK was, arguably, a beneficiary of the same syndrome – and we might, at a stretch, regard our own election in a similar light. Jacinda Ardern is of course a far more estimable personality than Trump or Johnson, but who can doubt that her landslide victory owed much to her “star” quality?

No other world leader, though, can match Trump for sheer vanity and narcissism. Who can forget the pleasure he showed when he recently declared that he was the most famous person in the world, conceding only that he might have to accept second place behind Jesus Christ.

The irony is that Trump seems not to realise that the platform afforded to him as President has not enhanced his standing and reputation. Quite the reverse – it has instead simply ensured that his failings and weaknesses have been given global publicity. He has been reviled and scorned in every corner of the globe.

If he had not entered politics, he might still be regarded as just another (supposedly) successful businessman and entertaining television personality. He would have avoided the spotlight which has revealed – to the world’s horrified scrutiny – all his reprehensible qualities and inadequacies.

The question now is how much influence he and his acolytes will wield in the post-Trump era. His self-image, after all, demands that he convinces his “base” that he was not legitimately defeated, whatever the election outcome, so that they still believe whatever he tells them. Will he set out to encourage them to frustrate Joe Biden’s task of rebuilding and uniting American society?

The rejection of Trump (the right description of an election when Trump was the only issue) at least offers some hope. The margin may have been a slim one, but a significant majority of Americans rejected the politics of division and prejudice.

History will judge Trump harshly. Let us hope that we won’t hear from him again. Long live democracy!

Bryan Gould
10 November 2020

With our own election behind us, we now await another election – one whose result will matter greatly to us but which will not necessarily go as smoothly or be as democratic as ours was.

We should never forget that democracy is not just about elections and is not necessarily guaranteed just because elections are held. An election is just a mechanism that allows democracy to operate, but that mechanism can suffer its own malfunctions and will not necessarily produce a result consistent with democracy.

We see, after all, many totalitarian regimes conducting so-called elections in an attempt to legitimise themselves. And the American election about to take place is itself subject to a number of flaws and inconsistencies.

There are, first, the Trump-engendered doubts and difficulties concerning mail-in ballots and his possible challenge as a consequence to the legitimacy of the election; and there is the threatened presence at voting stations of armed militia, allegedly checking that no double-voting occurs; and, sadly, there is the yet-to-be disavowed suggestion from Donald Trump that he might not accept the result if it goes against him.

And the American electoral process itself can act against or frustrate a legitimate democratic outcome. The electoral college system, whereby, in the case of a presidential election, each state conducts its own ballot and then, according to the outcome, casts its entire vote (calculated according to the size of its population) for or against a particular candidate, can mean – as we saw the last time, when Trump was elected – that the candidate who wins the most votes from the country as a whole can be defeated.

It may be that the time has come for the United States of America to adopt a new identity, for the purposes of electing a President, (as opposed to electing state legislatures and state governors and congressional representatives), and should become “the United People of America” – and should kiss goodbye to the state-based electoral college.

But even that step is not enough by itself to produce a working democracy in good health. The essential condition for a successful democracy is that the people should be “united” – not only in their adherence to democracy but in their understanding of what makes a good society and of how they should best interact with each other.

Sadly, and worryingly, the American people today are bereft of that condition, and do not share that common understanding. We see an American society riven by racial difference, uncertain as to whom to believe, distrustful of their media, tolerant of armed violence from militia groups and unfazed by downright lies from their leaders, preoccupied wth sectional advantage, prey to wild and destructive conspiracy theories, and apparently attaching little importance or value to the advantages that only a true democracy can bring. They seem recklessly unaware of the risks they run and unconcerned at the fact that they may well stand on the brink of a fascist dictatorship.

America’s friends watch this unfolding spectacle in despair and in open-mouthed disbelief. America’s enemies, on the other hand, rub their hands together at the prospect of further blows being delivered to America’s standing as the world’s leading democracy.

The truth of the matter is that democracy is not guaranteed merely by the process of election. Democracy is a plant that grows from, and whose roots are found in, society itself: it is nurtured by the standards that the people set for themselves – moral convictions, standards of tolerance, making common cause, working together, demanding the truth, trusting each other.

Whatever the outcome of the American election, the electoral process in that benighted country has revealed, not a functioning democracy, but a people and society that is blind to democracy’s true meaning and value. The real worry is that American voters seem – as individuals – to be so ignorant and self-obsessed as not to care about what they might lose or may have already lost.

Even if Trump were to be defeated, the problem would remain. How is it that, in the world’s leading democracy, so many people could be found to vote for such a charlatan – for someone who posed such a threat to democracy?

Bryan Gould
4 November 2020

Much of the political debate over the past few months – as we have grappled with the coronavirus pandemic – has centred on the question of whether it is the interests of business or the health of the community that should take priority in policy terms.

Much has been made of the damage done to business by the focus placed on controlling the virus through measures such as lockdowns of varying severity; but most people have understood that there is not a choice to be made between protecting business on the one hand and dealing with the virus on the other – that the best, indeed, only, way of helping business is to bring the virus under control.

That conclusion is strongly supported by the unhappy experience of other countries – the US and the UK, among others – which have followed a different course and attempted to protect businesses rather than people. In our case, the issue seemed to have been put to rest by our election result, which could be seen as an endorsement of the government’s current priorities.

It is therefore somewhat surprising that we now find ourselves threatened with further outbreaks of covid-19 brought about by the relaxed attitude apparently taken to the arrival on our shores of scores of foreign fisherman from countries – Russia and the Ukraine – known to be hotspots for the virus.

These foreign fishermen, many of whom have been found to be infected and have had to be quarantined on arrival, despite allegedly having been quarantined and tested before they left their countries of origin, are permitted entry, it seems, in the interests of large fishing firms who say that the imported workers are “essential” because there is a shortage of Kiwis who are trained well enough to be capable of working on the technically advanced fishing vessels used by the fishing firms.

Does being “essential” mean that their threat to our covid-free status can or should be disregarded or overlooked? How is it that the health and safety of the population as a whole (as well as the business interests of many other firms) are being put at risk in the interests of a couple of fishing firms who apparently have neither the foresight nor competence to train the staff they need? And when will they ever train virus-free Kiwis if they are permitted to go on importing trained, albeit infected, workers from overseas?

What efforts have they made to train Kiwi workers? How did the foreign workers get trained in the first place? And do they offer other advantages – perhaps settling for lower wage rates – as well as their superior training?

Surely our newly elected government must apply the lessons that they themselves have learned and proclaimed in their successful campaign against the virus? Surely they will give priority to the people who elected them, and will, above all else, take the steps required to prevent any further outbreaks?

Have we not reached the point when businesses must be told that we – the population as a whole – having made so many sacrifices ourselves, are entitled to expect businesses to accept and act on their own responsibilities; at the very least, are we not entitled to be spared the threat of a resurgence of the virus, merely because a business has been run so incompetently that it cannot function without jeopardising the health of the rest of us?

And what of other firms that have made so many sacrifices themselves? Are their interests to be put at risk, simply because another firm has lacked the foresight, over a period of twenty-five years, to train its own New Zealand-based crew?

Come on, ministers and officials! Show some of the clarity and decisiveness that have distinguished your performance so far. The public good must surely be the top priority .

Bryan Gould
27 October 2020