​Brexit, the UK’s irrational departure from the European Union, has been an unmitigated disaster for the former empire over which, for several hundred years, the sun never set. These are dark days indeed for Britain, and they are likely to get even darker before any light appears at the Dover end of the Chunnel.
 
Former Prime Minister David Cameron’s gamble of a referendum to determine if Britain should “stay” or “leave” the EU was beyond reckless. Now, six years after deciding by a slim margin to divorce from Europe, Britain has plummeted into Third World territory. Following the hapless Cameron, the country has been afflicted with three mediocre Prime Ministers–Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and here-today, gone-tomorrow Liz Truss–proof positive that the Peter Principle is alive and well in un-merry old England. It is stunning to think that these three minnows occupied the same office that previously hosted giants like William Pitt the Younger, Castlereagh, Disraeli, Gladstone, Salisbury, Lloyd George and Churchill. The jury is still out on Truss’s replacement, Rishi Sunak. The signs, however, are not good. Sunak continues to insist that Brexit was a good idea.
 
Britain’s standard of living is declining and accelerating downward at a dizzying rate. The nation is in recession and headed for depression. Its 11 percent inflation is the highest among G-7 countries. Incomes are plummeting while energy costs skyrocket. There are no good economic policy alternatives available to a government that less than a third of Britons still support.
 
Trade has been disrupted because the price of an open border between Northern Ireland (part of the UK) and the Irish Republic (a member of the European Union) is border checks when goods travel between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Trade between the UK and EU is down by 20 percent. The pound sterling is not so sterling anymore. The weak pound has increased the costs of imports, leaving UK households poorer. Wage growth has stagnated while the cost of everything rises. Britain’s labor supply has crashed due to a massive outflow of EU workers. Investment is down by 14 percent. British companies are voting with their feet, leaving for the continent. All in all, Brexit has been a catastrophe for Britain. Prospects moving forward are dismal.
 
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, believes that the time has arrived to move forward with another referendum on Scottish independence. Why would Scotland want to continue to be dragged down by affiliation with the governmental chaos and disastrous economic policies foisted upon the nation by Westminster? The courts have stalled an independence referendum for now, but if Scotland succeeds in saying goodbye, can Northern Ireland and Wales be far behind? London may soon find itself governing a tiny, no longer relevant rump state like Austria after World War I.
 
U.S. Republicans should heed what the markets told Truss after she proposed tax cuts for wealthy Britons and large corporations without paying for them other than by printing money and fueling even more of the double-digit inflation that torments the country today. It was stunning to listen to her argument, identical to the Republicans’ failed playbook, that the benefits would trickle down to the masses and that tax revenues would subsequently rise. That this specious thesis discredited multiple times in the U.S. over the past 40 years could seamlessly cross the pond and find favor in the mother country is proof beyond any doubt that Truss and her now-deposed cronies were in way over their heads. We on this side of the Atlantic can only wonder why the markets give a pass to this absurd Republican notion every time the GOP goes down this potholed path. Maybe now that they slapped down Truss, the markets will react similarly the next time the GOP promotes it.
 
UK polls reveal that almost two-thirds of Britons have buyer’s remorse regarding Brexit. It may be too late for the only solution to bedraggled Britain’s self-induced dive into the rabbit hole of economic penury: going hat-in-hand to Brussels and begging to be let back into the EU. They can only hope the continentals don’t respond with: you can’t have your crow and eat it too.
 
Dick Hermann
November 27, 2022

Before the celebrations about democracy triumphing become too raucous and take root as the lesson coming out of the midterms, some more sober reflection is in order. We should defer sighing in relief for four reasons:

1. Although it appears that every election denier who ran for statewide office in a swing state lost, many came dangerously close to winning. Certainly, it is terrific that so many election deniers who, if elected, could have thwarted the will of the voters in future elections, went down to defeat, some by huge margins. Also great that all the candidates for Secretary of State in swing states, who as a group had publicly pledged to make certain that Donald Trump or some other Trumpy candidate would prevail in 2024 despite the will of the voters, lost their bids to become fifth columnists. And that the Pennsylvania governor’s race went to Democrat Josh Shapiro by double digits, critical because the governor appoints the Secretary of State. Had radical right extremist Doug Mastriano won, a critical swing state would be in the clutches of election deniers come 2024. Even so, a great many voters preferred these election deniers over their democracy defender rivals. In those races, democracy only won by a hair.  Close to 50 percent of swing state voters aren’t at all interested in preserving our democracy.
2. More than 100 election deniers won congressional, statewide and state legislative races, primarily in red states. Around 25 percent of House Republicans are members of the extreme right House Freedom Caucus. They are the most ardent Trump supporters/election deniers in Congress. Two newly-elected members of Congress were at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. All could be in position to threaten democracy come 2024.
3. Donald Trump hasn’t gone away. In fact, he is once again running for President. There is little evidence yet that the MAGA movement will abandon its cult leader anytime soon. Despite being under a very dark legal cloud, he will use the next two years to hammer away at both his potential GOP rivals and Joe Biden, employing the fact-free universe in which he resides to rile up the MAGAverse and whack at the underpinnings of democracy.
4. Finally, a threat that has thus far been under the radar. Saudi Arabia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, which is controlled by Saudi dictator Muhammed Bin Salman (MBS), owns 17 percent of Twitter, making it the second largest shareholder after Elon Musk. Assuming Twitter survives Musk’s mayhem, this is perhaps the Saudis’ most dangerous infiltration of American business to date. Given Musk’s authoritarian propensities, Saudi intentions to possibly exploit Twitter to influence U.S. public opinion and lawmakers in directions aligned with its repressive policies and interfere in U.S. elections to the detriment of democracy mesh very well with Musk’s own despotic desires for his new toy. Together with Musk, the social media giant they jointly control is in position to suppress speech Saudi Arabia doesn’t like and to sway the American electorate in its direction.

 
There is, however, a vaccine available that can defeat the Saudi virus: The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a small obscure Treasury Department agency, has the authority to review and bar the Saudi investment for reasons of national security. Those reasons clearly apply in this case. So far, however, CFIUS has not acted. This is likely the result of President Biden’s about-face regarding Saudi Arabia. Despite his campaign pledge to make the kingdom the pariah that it is, he went begging the desert monarchy in a futile attempt to induce it to produce more oil and thus lower gas prices. Worse, he just rewarded MBS with immunity from civil liability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Even the Saudi-servile Trump administration didn’t do that.
 
No one should assume that the enemies of democracy have been routed. While they may be tending their wounds right now, it is highly likely that they will be back and just as dangerous as ever.
 
Dick Hermann
November 18, 2022

The attack on Paul Pelosi by a murderous, hard right fanatic is the direct result of almost seven years of Donald Trump’s advocating violence, encouraging crazy conspiracy theories, and making ad hominem attacks on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom he could not abide because she stood up to him and would not surrender to his lies and blowups.
 
The attempted murder of a political opponent’s family member moves us into extremely dangerous territory. The First Amendment does not enable Trump or his villainous acolytes to inflame their followers to commit violent acts. This behavior is nowhere close to protected speech.
 
The time is past for allowing Trump to get away with incendiary rhetoric. His encouraging of a march on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 resulted in multiple deaths and many serious injuries, mostly inflicted on the law enforcement officers that he claims to love so much. What happened then has not deterred him from continuing to encourage violence against his enemies.
 
The longer Trump is free to spout rabble-rousing rhetoric, the more his appalling behavior metastasizes throughout the MAGA-sphere and prompts Trump-fearing politicians to mouth similar over-the-top calls for violence against their opponents. The disgusting statements right-wing fever swamp residents like Kari Lake and Glenn Youngkin made regarding the Pelosi assault are ominous indicators that Trump’s malevolent rhetoric has spread. These spineless sycophants say terrible things only to curry favor with the Mar-a- Lago monster and his followers.
 
It is long past time to bring the full force of the law down upon Trump’s head and put him out of commission. There is plenty of evidence available to bring this about:

• The Mueller Report contemplated indicting Trump for obstruction of justice (ten incidents of obstruction are detailed in Vol. 2 of the Report), saying how important it was to preserve and document the evidence. The only reason for wording it this way was because, although the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said that a sitting president cannot be indicted; an ex-president certainly can be.
• The multiple criminal investigations of the horrible things this man has done have gone on long enough. The investigators have accumulated a virtual Everest of evidence of his criminality, whether it be his treasonous attempt to steal an election, his illegal effort to subvert the free and fair vote in Georgia and elsewhere, or his theft of highly classified documents when he grudgingly left office and his subsequent refusal to obey the law and return them to federal custody.

 
If it were true that “no man is above the law,” then Trump would be wallowing in a prison cell and denied bail just like what would have happened to any other person accused of his major crimes.
 
Regardless of how we get there, it is imperative that Trump’s festering evil be stamped out now. The longer it is allowed to spread, the more possibly irreparable damage it will do to the country. The glacial pace of bringing the chief perpetrator of our ills to justice is doing this country in. The law provides the only vaccine available to eradicate this sickness. Invoke it now.
 
Dick Hermann
November 4, 2022