RUTHFULLY YOURS

“And it gets worse when ethnic voting blocs become fixated on their own perceived ethnic interests. Alexis de Tocqueville worried about the tyranny of the majority. More worrying is the tyranny of minority ethnic groups pushing their own agendas and, by virtue of their strategic voting power, pushing the whole political process askew. No-one knows how this will end either. But it is not hard to see it taking Western societies away from their core cultural values. These are the values — free speech being one under notable pressure — which have separated Western societies from the banana republics that Latinos in America (or their forefathers) used to call home.”

There is a danger in these post-modern days, when Western culture is under attack from within by the left, that the impact of importing people whose culture is inferior (by any measure) will be underrated, that ethnic politics and enclaves shape the broader democracy.
According to CNN back in 2012, the Latino population in the US as a proportion of the whole will increase to 29% in 2050. It is now 17%. As to voters, according to Pew Research, published in January, 2016, 11.3% of eligible voters in the US election are Latino. This matters in some states more than others because of the uneven spread of the Latino population. In California, for example, it is 28%, in New Mexico 40%, in Texas 28%, in Florida 18% and in Nevada 17%. Usually around two-thirds vote Democrat in presidential elections. Obama got 71% in 2012.

What matters when it comes to having an open and prosperous society? It is clear that having material resources is not particularly relevant. When all is said and done it is only culture that matters. Or, (sotto voce) does race/ethnicity matter too in affecting cultural norms? My prior is that race only seems to be important because of the association of non-Caucasian populations with the absence of deeply-seated Christian norms of behaviour and civility. Though this does not seem to work too well when it comes to Central and South America. I don’t know the answer.

The US Census Bureau classifies Latinos (or interchangeably Hispanics) as having a lineage traced to Spain (25), Argentina (13), Cuba (n.a.), Colombia (6), Puerto Rico (n.a.), Mexico (9), Dominican Republic (6), Costa Rica (11), Guatemala (4), Honduras (2), Nicaragua (2), Panama (13), El Salvador (4), Bolivia (3), Chile (13), Ecuador (6), Paraguay (4), Peru (6), Uruguay (16), and Venezuela (n.a.). In brackets is the per-capita income of each country in 2015 to the nearest thousand $US, as published by The World Bank. Some do much better than others but, leaving Spain aside for obvious reasons; none are within distance of income in North America (55) or Australia (56) or prosperous Western European nations (Germany (41) France (36)).

Mrs Clinton is plainly a globalist like President Obama, Donald Trump an opponent—if not the best one. But this election will not decide the issue which of its nature pits most voters against the progressive elites. It’s your politics for the next century.
Five weeks ago I summed up the state of the US presidential race in the Weekend Australian. After a long stretch in the primaries that had produced one surprise after another, I wrote, the Trump-Clinton battled had settled down to a surprising if unedifying stability:

Maybe the best metaphor for the current state of the race is one Trump himself has used: the “fixed” fight. On this occasion, however, the Mob has blundered and “persuaded” both candidates to take a fall . . . Each is fighting to lose, moreover, in his and her distinctive ways: Clinton is being undermined by the continuing drip-drip-drip of her own emails that show her to have lied and broken federal laws during and since her time as Secretary of State; Trump is being derailed at intervals by his own gaffes and insults . . . Both presidential candidates as a result are now two of the most distrusted people in America. Each overtakes the other at intervals depending on whether her lies or his gaffes dominate the headlines.

That pattern has continued to the time of writing which is just three weeks short of the election—and two weeks before Quadrant appears on the news-stands. Surprises still occur, of course, indeed more extravagantly than before, but they do so within this pattern of gaffe versus insult, or as the race deteriorates, scandal versus scandal. Just at present the accusations of sexual impropriety (and worse) by numerous women against Donald Trump dominate the headlines. But the steady flow of leaked emails from the Clinton campaign courtesy of Wikileaks, including dismissive remarks about Catholics and Latinos (supposedly constituencies within the Clinton camp) ensures that the candidates remain within hailing distance of each other.

Mrs Clinton is clearly ahead. Most pundits predict her clear victory, made sweeter by Democratic gains in the Senate. Her scandals have thus far been less scandalous than his scandals in the public mind—and less high-lighted by a largely partisan media. On the other hand it seems likely that Wikileaks’ supply of material will be at least as extensive as Trump’s legion of insulted women. And one less-noticed aspect of the campaign is the depth of consumer resistance to Hillary Clinton. Trump’s repeated comebacks from seeming catastrophe—the latest poll shows him trailing only four points behind his opponent despite the “bimbo eruptions”—are testimony to her dogged unpopularity as much as to his energy and media skills. Behind the sleaze factor, something deeper in American society apparently lies behind the resistance to Clinton and the refusal of the Trump rebellion to go away even as its champion implodes.

David Blankenhorn, the president of a small conservative think-tank devoted largely to reversing the decline of the American family, discovered that he didn’t know a single person who intended to vote for Donald Trump. He felt that was wrong in someone whose title was president of the Institute for American values. So he set off on a drive around America’s South-East—an electoral stronghold of Trumpism—to meet Trump voters and to find out what makes them tick. The results are collected in his article in the current American Interest magazine.

Among other things he found that the Trump voters were realistic, even cynical, about Trump. Those who supported him most strongly did so because they liked the fact that he was not bound by political correctness in speaking about immigration and similar issues. Paradoxically, some of the same people disliked his insults to others, his use of profane language, and his inability to control his own mouth–but liked what one might call his political profanities all the same. That lack of illusion about Trump helps explain why he has not been destroyed by the scandals plaguing him. They’ve been “factored in”.

No matter who wins on Tuesday, political reformers should focus on the lucrative ties between big business and big government. Consider the $17.6 million that Laureate International Universities paid Bill Clinton to be its “honorary chancellor” from 2010-2015.

We wrote about this in “The Clinton For-Profit Standard” (Sept. 7), and Laureate CEO Doug Becker criticized us in a letter for suggesting that Mr. Clinton may have been hired to provide political protection. Recently released emails via WikiLeaks provide a little more, er, color on the Clinton-Laureate relationship.

Clinton factotum Doug Band wrote a memo in 2011 to lawyers at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett showcasing Laureate as one of the relationships that his company Teneo cultivated for the Clinton Foundation. “Laureate is a Foundation relationship that evolved into a personal advisory services business relationship for President Clinton,” the memo says. “I have managed this relations and, since 2011, Teneo partners have helped this relationship, which is very time-consuming.”

We can only imagine. The memo says Laureate donated $1.35 million in 2009 and 2010 to the Clinton Global Initiative, plus another $50,000 for CGI University in 2011.

As the Washington Post reported, Laureate was invited to a State Department dinner related to higher education with academic leaders world-wide in August 2009. Another email that was released in a public records request last year shows that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Laureate should be invited to that dinner because it is “the fastest growing college network in the world.” Oh, and Mr. Becker is someone “who Bill likes a lot.”

It looks like our contributor, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, was right last week. FBI Director James Comey’s review of newly discovered Hillary Clinton-related emails was never going to change his legal judgment because the FBI and Justice Department handling of the case was never serious in the first place.

The Justice Department never went to a grand jury in the case, which was needed to gather all appropriate evidence and vet the legal charges. Judge Mukasey’s judgment was vindicated on Sunday when Mr. Comey sent a letter to Congress saying that the FBI had reviewed the new emails and “we have not changed our conclusion that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

To rehearse Mr. Comey’s actions: In July he publicly exonerates Mrs. Clinton in an extraordinary press event, two weeks before she is to be nominated for President, though that is not his responsibility. He thus liberates Attorney General Loretta Lynch from her decision-making obligations as the nation’s chief prosecuting official. Later we learn Justice cut needless and generous immunity deals with Mrs. Clinton’s advisers.

Then 11 days before Election Day Mr. Comey sends a letter to Congress saying the FBI has found new email evidence. He comes under ferocious Democratic assault for meddling in the final days of the campaign. His boss, President Obama, joins the criticism and says Mrs. Clinton has already been exonerated. Then two days before the election Mr. Comey sends another letter exonerating Mrs. Clinton again. And Washington’s political class wonders why Americans don’t trust government?

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the main point of Mr. Comey’s many political interventions has always been to protect Mr. Comey’s job and political standing. Certainly Mrs. Clinton will have cause to be grateful to Mr. Comey if she wins on Tuesday. The price to the country is the damage he has done to the reputation of the FBI as an apolitical law-enforcement agency.