If there is one word that summarizes 2016, it’s discontinuity
and rejection of political correctness. It was a year in which the most improbable
became reality. Great Britain voted
itself out of the EU Club, a nonpolitician won the U.S. presidency, and the
Cubs won the World Series. The odds
against all three occurring were long indeed.
Politics
The world order and, indeed, traditional political alignments in the entire
Western world are being reordered in the most significant way since the end of
WWII. In both Great Britain and the
United States, the political system voiced dissatisfaction and voted with their
feet. Great Britain voted to affirm
its sovereignty and exit the EU. In
America, voters rejected both the Democratic Party and the Republican
Establishment and elected a populist that defied both. As the sun sets on the Obama administration,
it is unclear exactly where all this will end, but it’s clear that voters were
willing to gamble on a change. Who
would have thought that a Republican that asserted that Bush lied, was
protectionist and advocated a $1 trillion infrastructure spending package could
not only get the nomination but defeat an incumbent party in the midst of an
economic recovery with unemployment below 5% and who was solidly backed by the
MSM? For the second time, Hillary
Clinton failed to defeat an opponent with NO executive experience. This time, she failed to defeat an opponent
that didn’t even have the solid backing of his party. I assert that Trump and Brexit are two sides
of the same coin. Both represent a
desire to push back against a faceless, unaccountable bureaucracy and a desire
to reassert nationhood. Both Great
Britain and the United States have a great national identity and culture and a belief
that they hold special place in the world.
A nation is composed of three basic
pillars: language, culture and
borders. The Brits saw the EU
attempting to erode those pillars and Barack Obama and the liberals tried the
same here in various ways. An aspect
of this reassertion is the Muslim refugee problem. As Americans and Brits saw Muslim refugees
overwhelm Europe and the ever present threat of Islamic terrorism (which both
Angela Merkel and Barack Obama downplayed), voters called a time out. Trump and Brexit were also reactions to an
increasingly undemocratic political process where decisions were being imposed
more and more without the consent of the governed (Obama with his pen and phone
and regulatory agencies; the EU Commission).
Voters decided that they had had enough.
The consequences of both are hard to ascertain, but they mean change.
Economy
While the economy continued to grow and finally kicked up past 3% for the first
time in Obama’s tenure as a result of revised figures. This recovery is seven years old and one of
the longest on record, yet it’s hard to find many people that think of this
period as salad days. Most Americans
have lost ground during this expansion.
Increased taxes and health insurance costs suffocated many families
financially. Many industries are
drowning in regulations. Many
businesspeople I talk to liken this era as “like trying to swim in peanut
butter,” and conversely, one businessperson said of Trump’s election, “I feel
like somebody took a plastic bag off my head—for the first time I feel like I
can breathe.” Hillary Clinton promised
more of the same—more regulations, higher taxes, and much bigger estate tax,
and because of the pressure put on by Bernie Sanders, gave up on free
trade. And despite Paul Krugman’s dire warnings that
the stock market “may never recover,” the market has boomed since the election,
despite an increase in interest rates.
Trump is considering appointing Larry Kudlow,
an old Reaganite to the post of Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. That would be a real plus. Kudlow understands the incentives created and
distorted by excessive taxation and regulation and could be a real force in
getting Trump to moderate his protectionist inclinations. Despite the accelerating growth, our economy
has some real headwinds—the damage done by the ACA and other regulations as
under Dodd Frank, rising interest rates, a strong dollar, low productivity, an aging workforce,
student debt, $10 trillion in debt and
low household formation and labor participation rates. Layered on top is a dysfunctional, bloated
government that needs to go on a diet.
So far, Trump’s appointees have been solid, but Trump’s protectionism
and his bullying tactics (as with Carrier) remain wild cards.
Foreign Affairs
Nowhere has the toxic blend of Obama’s narcissism and naivete become more
dangerous and dreadful than on the foreign stage. Just a few days before Christmas, Obama was still
complaining about slavery and colonialism as if remedying those ills should be
a priority guidepost for today’s foreign policy. His worldview of Western Civilization as an
evil to be contained has turned the world completely upside down and we now have
a foreign policy that embraces and does deals with sworn enemies like Cuba and
Iran and kicks longtime allies like Israel.
Instead of being the lantern of liberty in the world, the Obama foreign
policy apparatus has cozied up to antidemocratic regimes that have been hostile
to “Western Imperialism.” Obama has
been silent on the world’s great humanitarian crisis—the collapse of
Venezuela---largely, I believe, because Venezuela represents the logical
endpoint of socialism. Perhaps my greatest contempt is reserved for U.N.
Ambassador Samantha Power. I read her
entire treatise: A Problem from Hell-
America in the Age of Genocide in which she took the U.S. to task for not acting
sooner as the genocides in places like Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina
unfolded. Yet she has been nearly silent
as ISIS perpetrated its genocide against Christians in the Middle East and
Putin and Assad teamed up to wreak havoc in Syria, causing a humanitarian
crisis not only in the Middle East but Europe which directly led to
Brexit. Power’s shameful tenure at the
U.N. was capped off by the abstention of the U.S. vote that censured
Israel. With any luck, Samantha Power will soon be
teaching political science at some inconsequential liberal arts college where
the harm she inflicts on humanity will be minimized. It will take the rest of my lifetime to
reverse out some of the damage done to Western Civilization by the Obama
administration.
Film.
There have been some interesting films this year and I admit there are some
that I have yet to see. But my favorite
film is Manchester by the Sea. Its authenticity
is gripping. Its drama, vivid but not
overdone. A close runner up was
Moonlight—raw and intense, a film that tracks a boy growing up in the Miami
ghetto, coming to terms with his identity.
Moonlight was an emotionally tough film, but one of the best of the
year. After dining on the Downton Abbey
series for awhile, it was quite a change of pace to see films centered on
working class whites and urban blacks---people with REAL problems to deal with.
Music
2016 was marked by losses rather than gains in 2016. We lost some big names in 2016—Leonard Cohen,
Prince and David Bowie and just a few days ago, George Michael. My favorite live concert of the year was the
performance done by the tribute band that does the season ending concert at
Ravinia in Highland Park. In past years they have done the Beatles, Pink Floyd
and Led Zeppelin. This year was a
tribute to David Bowie, which was wonderful on a warm September night. They did all of his best songs—Space Oddity,
Suffragette City, Let’s Dance, Young Americans, and Heroes. It was a great event to recognize the talents
of one of rock’s greatest innovators. Another
giant in music was recognized in 2016.
Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. While the award stirred up some controversy,
I was supportive of it. Dylan stood as
a giant in the music world for decades and his was delighted to see him get the
award even if the Nobel Committee had to stretch to get it to him.
Sports
In sports, obviously, the big story was the Cubs. They broke their 108 year drought in Cubs
style by scaring the hell out of us as they gave up a 6-3 lead, only to win it
in 10 innings. Although nominally a Sox
fan, I was pleased as punch to see the lovable losers finally do it. Now, I have lived to see all the major sports
teams in Chicago win a championship in my lifetime—Bulls, White Sox, Bears,
Blackhawks and the Cubs. The most fun
championship was the ’85 Bears—lots of personality and swagger-- and from the
looks of things, Chicago may not see another Super Bowl champion in my
lifetime.
Still, the Cubs victory was sweet and they should be
competitive for years to come.
Books
There have been so many good books out this year…and so many that I haven’t yet
gotten a chance to read. But the two
that I thought were can’t miss were Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance and The
Mandibles by Lionel Shriver.
In the nonfiction category, I thought Hillbilly Elegy was
masterful. Sincere, honest and without
pretense, J.D. Vance turns the concept of “white privilege” on its head with
his memoir of growing up working class white of Appalachian heritage. I reviewed the book in my September 19 post,
so I refer the reader to that post for more commentary, but I loved this book.
In the fiction category, I liked the The Mandibles by Lionel
Shriver a great deal. The book
chronicles a family of at least some means that is trying to cope with a
Venezuela-type collapse of the United States.
It is laced with humor, but its dystopian future has become all too
realistic as U.S. debt rises, our economy seems to be stuck in neutral and spending
seems out of control. Shriver is a
talented writer whose prior work, We Need to Talk About Kevin also received
accolades. Interestingly, Shriver found
herself in the midst of a controversy as there appears to be a movement among writers
of minority status to assert that nonminorities cannot and should not write
their point of view in a novel with authenticity. Shriver pushed back hard and responded, “Otherwise,
all I could write about would be smart-alecky 59 year old, 5 foot- 2 inch white
women from North Carolina.”
Good for you, Lionel.
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