 Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel on Think Tech Hawaii. This is Life in the Law and we have a, I guess it's a legal show, with John David Nann, Professor of History at HPU. He's been on the show many times and he's helped us understand events in the context of history because historians think differently. So we can talk about the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States yesterday and where this extraordinary result fits in the context of American history, world history and history going forward. Thank you for helping us understand this, John. You're welcome, Jay. Glad to be here. So, you know, the broad reach of American history says that this is, of course, an historic election. You had the first time a female candidate for president from the Democratic side and then the election of Trump on the Republican side and, you know, it's historic in several ways. I mean, the polls, of course, were all wrong. It's historic in bringing out of high school educated whites in a historic manner. It's historic because the last time we had somebody who didn't have government experience elected was Dwight D. Eisenhower. But, of course, Eisenhower had all kinds of military experience and tremendous organizational experience, which I think definitely helped him. So, you know, we elected really somebody who doesn't have any governing experience whatsoever. Did they know what they were getting when they voted for him? I mean, it's been such a humbug about what people have said in this election. Did they know? Did they realize what they got? Well, I think it's clear that the feeling was that there needed to be a change and that the insurgents won the day throughout the election cycle. And that's, you know, that's kind of one of the biggest takeaways. The thing is we've seen this not just in the United States, but we saw it with Brexit in England, you know, five or six months ago. And so, and while there are many differences between the two, the global context is that there is a sense that people in first world countries or countries, you know, developed countries, developed economies, are feeling afraid. There's a great sense of fear. I mean, fear drove the Brexit, you know, fear in many ways. Trump really trumpeted fear. You know, he talked a lot about terrorists. He talked a lot about illegal immigrants. He talked a lot about people threatening us from the outside. So there's the takeaway here is that we're getting a lot of pushback on globalization. This process of the world becoming more integrated now is having impacts that are being felt at home in small towns across the United States. And those folks are unhappy with the results. Connect it up for me. What makes them afraid about globalization? Well, I think they see, I mean, there's this kind of old adage that, you know, in the United States you could expect that you'll do better than your parents and your children will do better than you did. But that's no longer true. Incomes have been stagnant in the working classes and the lower middle class. There seem to be fewer opportunities for, you know, moving up. You know, large-scale manufacturing has offshored. So there's fear that their opportunities and their children's opportunities will be foreclosed. And, you know, I think that's, there's legitimacy in that. But of course, there's also many irrational fears that drove voters to the polls as well. You know, fear of Ebola, fear of disease, fear of jihadis, you know, fear of anybody who's not like you because Trump, of course, made that a major part of his campaign to talk to these people and then talk against other people, people of color, women, you know. So it was unfortunately, I think it was very negative. And catalytic, wouldn't you say? In other words, somebody may not realize that he doesn't like minorities. Somebody may not realize that he's afraid of jihadi to the point where he would act on it. And then a guy like this comes around and he's a catalyst, makes you, pulls you out of the closet. Yeah, it gives voice to their fears. And it empowers them. So, fortunately, I think it's a good thing that we haven't had any violence so far after the election. I mean, I think that's definitely positive. But of course, after the Brexit, there were racist slogans and anti-immigrant slogans that, and so these folks kind of came out of the woodwork. And we're probably going to see some of that, quite frankly. But we haven't seen it yet, and I think that's a good thing so far. Let me ask you something that occurs to me from a historical evolution point of view. History and politics, and for that matter, the economy, all seems to me, in my way of looking at it, a function of how the group, the society is feeling. If they're feeling optimistic, you like to see more entrepreneur activity, better economy, they're feeling pessimistic, well, nobody wants to do anything, and they're afraid. That's putting in gross terms, but it seems to me that history is probably loaded with this kind of sine curve, where in good times you're feeling good, in bad times you're feeling bad, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I think more than just good or bad times, it's times that are transformational, and globalization has transformed the American economy, it's transformed American society. And so there was another time, to use history as an example, there was another time when we were going through a pretty substantial transformation, and that was during the first industrial revolution in the 18, from about 1815 to about 1850. And during that first time period, we had an election, we had several elections in which this transformation created a situation where people became afraid, they voted their fears, they voted for change, and in that case, starting in the election of 1824, and then in 1828, with the election of Andrew Jackson, and then in 1832, you had the development... He was elected again. That's correct, when he was re-elected. You have the development of a coalition of people, farmers in the west, slaveholders in the south, who were afraid of industrialization, they were afraid that industrialization would take away their livelihoods, and their slaves, and their slaves, and corrupt them, there were all kinds of different arguments about why industrialization was bad. But so Andrew Jackson used this, he used industrialization, and he used the hatred of Eastern elites, especially the U.S. National Bank. This became the focus of his efforts to rouse people, was his attack on the U.S. National Bank. But in a weird coincidence, wasn't Andrew Jackson the architect of the Trail of Tears across Georgia? That's true, yes, he was. I mean, there's a sort of Trumpian comparison there. But of course, he wasn't the only president to force Indians to move west. That was one of the most egregious examples of Indians being dispossessed of their land. But I think the thing about Jackson is he used these fears about this transformation to get elected, and then he attacked the National Bank and eventually destroyed the U.S. National Bank. There were some who celebrated. The Bank, of course, was an instrument of economic development. And the other party, the Whigs, supported the National Bank and State Banks. But Jackson created the first Democratic Party. This is the same Democratic Party that we have today. Continuously, all these years. That's correct. He created that in 1932 with his attacks on the bank. Make it 1832. Pardon me, 1832 with his attacks on the bank. That's 200 years, almost. A long time. So that created a new political formation, which came into the Civil War supporting slavery. And then, of course, its opponent, the Republican Party, came into the Civil War of rejecting slavery or wanting to limit slavery. And a war, a civil war, took place for it. Am I right to think that the Republican Party has been through more changes, really 180-degree-type changes than the Democratic Party? The Democratic Party has been more consistent over these 200 years? No, I wouldn't say that. What do you think, what do you think? The Democratic Party was the party of slavery. Of slavery. Of slavery. Okay, okay. And then the Democratic Party became the party's solid, solid south. Democratic Party was the party of segregation, the party of free trade. I mean, the name is the same, but actually it's very different. So what we see is a transformation of the Democratic Party in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s into the party that is more like what it is today, the party of multiculturalism and minorities. But people are coming at this election. I mean, everybody's sort of settling down now. Last night, it was like crisis. They're settling down. In the notion, and I think this is firmly held around my world anyway, that this is unprecedented. What happened here, is that true? Or have there been American elections like this in the past? I really think the Andrew Jackson election is a good example. So I don't think it's completely unprecedented. Jackson had not served in government previously. He was a slave holder, you know, and a plantation owner, and he had certain interests around which he was able to coalesce his coalition. It's not clear that Trump, I mean, Trump lost a popular vote. So it's not clear that he's been able to assemble a coalition. He might not even be interested in a coalition. But he did, in fact, use fear. And I think that's where he and Jackson have some similarities. And it's a kind of backward-looking vision, right? It's a vision of loss. People have lost something, and now they're looking to regain it. And Trump worked great again, right? That rhetoric resonates with people who feel like they've lost something. And the same was true for Western farmers and Southern plantation holders in the 1830s. So I think that's probably the closest election in terms of an analogy, in terms of parallels. You know, the thing about Trump is his language is very strong. Unrestrained language, you could call him a demagogue. Because he was using prejudice and that kind of language to forward prejudice. So did Jackson, was Jackson a demagogue? Jackson, in some ways, was a demagogue when it came to the National Bank and to the American currency. I mean, he was definitely using American prejudice against Eastern elites to get elected. Jackson became a nationalist, though. Interesting. In the 1830s, when he was president, he had to confront issues to possible secession, sectional issues, and he became a nationalist. So will Trump become a nationalist? I don't know, honestly. Well, from a historical point of view, you know, one thing, maybe we're not used to it because we're not historians. But if you look at this election, you see the rhetoric was really out of this world from Trump. Incredible things, he said, and that he has said in his lifetime that came out. And the question is, oh, and then we expect him to be Mr. President. And people already immediately are calling him President Trump. It's hard to hear that. It's hard to tolerate that. But you have this possibility that he'll clean his act, he'll clean up. And I wonder if this kind of thing, do you know about this, has happened in the past? Oh, sure. Where the president had horrendous rhetoric and then cleaned his act up when he was in office. Well, the rhetoric is pretty unprecedented. It's the, in the past, we definitely have had candidates that weren't ready. Okay, I think George W. Bush, in many ways, was not ready for the office. Harry Truman was not ready for the office. Warren G. Harding was not ready for the office and never really, you know, this. So Truman and Bush, I think, are examples of individuals who were able to take the office and then eventually became kind of leaders that we can at least respect. Warren G. Harding, not so much. That's an example of a, he was of course a politician, of a president where it really didn't work and he never really was terribly successful in his presidency. Will we have a Warren G. Harding or will we have a Harry Truman in Trump? I'm concerned that we might end up with a Warren G. Harding. Yeah, and the real problem is that in the nuclear age and the world of technology and as you say, global transformation, we don't, we have to be very careful because things move so fast and if there's a mistake, the consequences could be not only national but global. Right. So let's take a short break. That's John David Ann. He's a professor of history at HPU. He's helping us understand the real meaning of election day and that is something we need to focus on. We'll be right back. Join us at Think Tech of Hawaii. Our show is Asia in Review. Our next program is on November 17th. This is Johnson Choi, your host. Aloha, I'm Richard Emory. I'm with co-host Jane Sugimura of Kondo Insider, Hawaii's weekly show about association living. The purpose of these videos is to educate board members and Kondo residents about issues relating to association living. We hope they're helpful and that they assist in resolving problems that affect the relationship between boards and their residents. Each week, Thursday at 3 p.m., we bring you exciting guests, industry experts, who for free will share their advice about how to make your association a better place to live and answer a lot of very interesting questions. Aloha, we hope you'll tune in. Okay, let's go back to the days of Andrew Jackson for a minute because Andrew Jackson, who was a veteran, by the way, he was the guy that led the American forces to recover the city of New Orleans back in 1812, as I recall. Yes, no, that's correct. So he was pretty hard-nosed, hard-fifteen, thick-skinned. Yes, he was a very tough guy and he knew exactly what he wanted. He was suspicious of paper currency. He was suspicious of the tariff. There's the Congress and John Quincy Adams administration had passed a very heavy tariff, which helped manufacturers but hurt farmers. Farmers needed to buy things to do their business. Manufacturers wanted to sell things domestically and tariffs protected them. And so he ran against tariffs in 1828 and won on that basis. And then he ran against the bank, the U.S. National Bank, in 1832 and won again on that basis. And you're talking about the rhetoric around that issue. That's right. And relatively, he coalesced relatively uneducated people into a real political force. It's chilling, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, you know, so there are definitely some comparisons there. I want to shift to the international implications. And that means Europe, you know, in this morning's press, there were quotes from a variety of European leaders. Some of them were pro forma, as you always say, no matter who was elected. Some of them were cautious. I think the French government was cautious. What's really happening out there? How do they really react to him? Right. Well, I just heard a report before it came on about Russia. And the Russians aren't static. They loved Trump and they think he will heal the wounds between the United States and Russia. Is that real or is it just gameplay? Well, no, I think the sentiment is real that they think he can heal relations with Russia. And it's interesting because, number one, it indicates that the Russians are very concerned about the U.S.-Russian, the decline of the U.S.-Russian relationship. But number two, it suggests that they think that somehow he's going to play to their hand. And I don't think that's going to happen. So the President, of course, has a great deal of power in terms of foreign policy, not so much in terms of domestic issues, but the President also has to work with his Secretary of State and really can do very little absolutely on his own without a policy class and a bureaucratic to make those things happen. So we might see some movement on the Syria issue. That's one area where Trump could come in and say, hey, let's work together and let's just resolve this conflict. And so you might see the United States pulling out from the rebel forces there and allowing the Russians to have their way there. Trump is totally untutored in foreign policy. I think some of the most frightening statements we're going to give our creditors a haircut on our debt is like, okay, that would destroy the good faith and credibility of the American dollar and the American economy. And the reserve currency. That's right. And then he's talking about pulling out troops from East Asia. Japan has to carry more of its own payment for American troops. Troops might come home. NATO is outdated and might disappear or be really weakened under a Trump administration. But all of those things will tend to weaken American influence. And I have a hard time believing that over time, over a couple of years period, if he pulls the trigger on these decisions, that there will not be this tremendous backlash within the United States and within the international community. I mean, if he does this, he's playing with fire. And I think he'll be a one-termer if he tries to do some of this. Because there's way too many entrenched interests in this country who benefit greatly from globalization, who benefit greatly from the strength of the American economy, and who benefit from the strength of the American military and the American political influence around the world. So I have a hard time believing that he's going to be able to accomplish what he said. It could be that a good bit of who simply can't pay him rhetoric. The thing about domestic issues is that you can deceive a lot of the people a long time before they realize what's happened and take action against you. On the other hand, in the domestic setting, well, you have to go to Congress to get relief. And maybe there's an impeachment there if he does bad things or fails to cure the problems he promised to cure. But what I find really interesting is the notion that he could be acting ultra-virus on a given international issue, something that's not authorized, either by law or by the Constitution. And he could take some kind of crazy action that would be very provocative, even warlike. And how does the country stop him? I guess it would have to be an impeachment. And you have to have high crimes and misdemeanors, which is not so easy to prove, as we know. And then if there is an impeachment, it takes a lot longer to do an impeachment than it took to do the illegal act in the first place. Result is he could get away with it. Yeah, I'm not so, you know, like I say, I think it, you know, Trump doing stuff on his own, absolutely on his own, or, you know, saying to his advisors, look, I'm going to do this, I don't care what you think, which is of course what he did in the campaign. And it's a concern, definitely. But I think he's going to find it much more difficult to do that once he takes office. I really do. You know, one decision and there will be immediate consequences and immediate blowback from that decision. So, you know, I'm not quite as concerned about that. Maybe I should be, but I'm really, you know, I retain some faith that what we have is an American system, not just a president. And I think it's the, it's the accumulation of changes and the long-term impacts of some of those changes, which could, well, in the international arena, damage American credibility and lead to the decline of the United States as a world poem. The further decline, depending on... Well, I mean, you can interpret it in many ways, but, I mean, still, we have the strongest economy in the world. We have the largest military in the world. We have, right now, we still have the most influence of any country in the world, far and away. But I do think that that's under threat if Trump moves in directions that he's indicated, that we could, we could see a much more, or a precipitous decline in American power in the world. And this, you know, the thing is globalization is integrated, right? I mean, it's, you can't do one thing without it impacting the other thing. So, taking action on some of these things, maybe in terms of geopolitics, could impact the American economy back home. So, you know, we're going to have to wait and see what he does, but certainly his campaign rhetoric has produced fear. It's calmed those who were afraid, but it's also produced tremendous fear among those who oppose him. So, yeah. Well, you know, one interesting, taking your point about a one-term president, let's assume that he makes mistakes, not impeachable mistakes, blowback mistakes, but not impeachable mistakes for four years and gets through that and then he's not re-elected. And this involves a lot of damage to American interests overseas, its reputation influence, you know, in the world today. And of course, that doesn't come by itself because as we lose influence, China, Russia, other places gain influence. So, it's a, you know, zero-sum game in a way. So, my question always is that if he does things that cost us, cost us maybe even the reserve currency, you know, is that reversible after the four years? I always thought that whatever George Bush with W was doing, we couldn't really recover from it because he was in office. What's the process he says? I think reversing it, I mean, George W. Bush, of course, led an invasion into Iraq and that has had implications right up to the present day in our domestic political process. It's emboldened jihadis, you know, it's probably helped to elect Trump, ironically. So, we don't really know how these things will play out. History has its own trajectory. It might not be the reverse or reversing those policies. There might be a new paradigm that arises from this in which others can benefit from Trump's mistakes in political ways and then maybe do recovery or whatever, but taking the specific example of the reserve currency. So, yeah, I mean, if Trump actually was able to implement a policy of creditors taking a discount, that would destroy the United States in the American dollar as a reserve currency. No, it would want to invest in the United States then. And huge effect on the stock market. Yeah, that would really, really deeply damage the American economy. That would not be something that you could recover from or at least not over a short period of time recover from. And China, of course, has made the argument that their yuan is kind of a second reserve currency. China has built its own Asian Development Bank. They've got the Soap Road Initiative in Western China for the Central Asian countries. So, they're making a lot of investments and China would likely be able to, they might not be able to take over the world as a reserve currency, but they would make inroads in terms of their own currency being the reserve currency rather than the United States. So, yeah, I mean, we're talking about... That's hard to reverse that. We can't turn that around. Yeah, I think that particular thing would be very difficult to turn around. You know, one thing, part of his campaign in his rhetoric has been to attack the government the way it works. And you know, there's a valid attack there. These people are not as connected to the government, they're not responsive, respectful of the government. And regrettably, you know, if you have a certain critical mass of people feeling that way, it does affect the way the system works. The system doesn't work so well. So now, last week, I think it was, NPR reported a conference in China where one member of the Politburo got up and said, you know, our system in China, you can criticize us, you can criticize the human rights, you can criticize us, and you know, and the way we do things. But in reality, we're not so bad. And when we compare ourselves against the United States, we're looking better every day. And so, I'm talking about democracy, morality, you know, the benefits of democracy as it has emerged to be the best system. So query, John, where is democracy going now? Okay, so democracy has definitely taken a hit in the last, I would say, since 2000 with the, I mean, any time you have an election where the popular vote goes one way and the electoral college goes another way, that's a hit. That's damage to democracy. And we've had it twice in the last 16 years. This is unprecedented. There were two other times when it happened. And but long ago, you know, 1888, election of 1888, election of 1876, and then, of course, in the election of 1824, but John Adams didn't win either. And he still became president. So, but the thing about it is that it's, it's what is what happened in this election is the Republican Congress, which refused to work with the president, right. And so things didn't work. And there was gridlock. And in some ways, Americans were voting against gridlock, but they voted back into power the party that was causing the gridlock. That's really ironic. So this is, this is not, this is a very negative politics. That's what I call a negative revolution. And that does not bode well for American democracy. Well, let me, let me close with asking you about what's his name, George Santiana. You know, do people understand the way things have been going well enough to make good decisions going forward? Or has the public, and the public is more and more empowered these days with technology, or is the public, you know, have a kind of a bad case of amnesia here? And amnesia can be very dangerous in democracy if you don't remember where you've been and where you expected to go. You know, is the way the public sees the government a bellwether or a canary in the coal mine? Yeah. I think it's, it's, look, it's possible to get back to a positive politics, but it takes politicians, quite frankly, being canny and clever. And, you know, the pathway, if, if Democrats are the ones to bring a positive politics, then the Democrats have, of course, have a strength, and that's that they pulled extremely well among minorities, and especially Hispanics, and Hispanics are becoming a larger and larger part of the American electorate. So that, that bodes well for the Democrats. And I think that the thing is the Democrats have a record, and it's not that bad in over the last eight years. The record is not that bad. It didn't, Obama didn't do all that he wanted to do. You know, he was opposed by a Congress that basically rejected everything he proposed. But so I think it's possible to get back to a positive politics. But I think it's going to take a while. That the other thing that is, should be noted here is that there's a split in the Republican Party. We don't know how deep the split is. I don't think Donald Trump will be able to create a coalition, quite frankly. I think he's a really divisive politician. And so he'll continue to divide and conquer. And that's going to create some pretty deep seams in the Republican Party. And that also provides an opportunity for Democrats. But the Democrats had their own work to do. I mean, they were really surprised last night that they don't have it together either. And I'm just, you know, okay, part of it was the insurgency factor. But the other part of it was that Hillary Clinton is a very unpopular figure. And for reasons which are, you know, it's too, it's, it's, I think I see it as a kind of modern tragedy, quite frankly. Yeah. Okay, I just, one, one more question and we'll go. And that is this. I asked Avi Soyfer yesterday from law school. I asked Tim Vandevere this morning. I asked him, I asked you the same question. Are we going to be okay? Well, it sets up to us really. I mean, you know, the thing is, we're a very divided electorate. Democracy is very, our democracy is very divided right now. And I don't honestly know if we're okay, because we've been divided before. But when we were really divided from the 1840s into the 1850s, we couldn't find a solution short of war. And civil war. And I'm not saying, you know, that we're even close to a civil war. But this, I mean, we're so divided. There hasn't been a unifier for 16, maybe even more, about 16 years in this country. You know, the elections have been 50-50. So we're deeply divided. You know, Trump has made us care more about politics. That might be a good thing. That's the, yeah, that could be a positive thing. That could be a good thing. But if we notice our divisions more, that might actually, caring more actually might be a bad thing, too, because people might act more on their divisions. I don't, you know, I don't do prognostications. Of course. But we're going to talk to you again about it going forward. These are interesting times. No.