The Failing Conservative Fantasy Land Of The US And The UK

See if you can figure out what each of these reports are talking about. First: "We've also seen a series of unconventional proposals in critical areas of the negotiations that make our work much more challenging". "'They don't like what they are doing,' says the source, who was not authorized to speak about the talks on the record. There also appears to be a sense of confusion about the overall...vision...and who is really running the show". Another source added, "The...negotiators are like lawyers who hate their clients."

Next: "'[They are] not seen as a credible negotiating partner....it seems very confused. They don’t know who is in charge, and who speaks for the government." Another source added, "Sometimes it’s very difficult to see and understand what [the government] really wants from these negotiations."

The first comments are from the Canadians, talking about their US counterparts in the NAFTA negotiations. The Canadians, especially PM Trudeau and Foreign Minister Freeland, have done their best to remain upbeat about the renegotiation of NAFTA. That apparently ended this weekend as the US presented a number of shocking, essentially protectionist, demands that will be all but impossible for either Canada or Mexico to accept. Those demands include a five-year sunset provision, gutting the enforcement mechanism, and unacceptable changes to the current agreement on automobiles, dairy, and textiles that are all highly slanted to favor American industries. Even the Canadians now believe that Trump is instructing his negotiators to purposely sabotage the talks in order to end NAFTA which would decimate the Mexican economy, cause a recession in Canada, and put all existing US agreements, trade and otherwise, into doubt.

The second comments refer to the Europeans' current opinions of their British counterparts in the Brexit negotiations. PM Theresa May is seemingly powerless in the wake of her disastrous decision to call a snap election. At the same time, her ruling Conservative party is riven by division and jockeying among those who are positioning themselves to take May's place. The one negotiating lever that May does have revolves around the "exit payment". The EU has asked for in the neighborhood of $60 billion and May had countered with around $25 billion. Obviously, the deal to be made lies somewhere in the $40-50 billion range.

But there are some in the EU who believe that, like the US NAFTA negotiators, May does not have much leeway to negotiate at all and is constantly constrained by the hard-liners in the government who favor a complete break from the EU. As one German lawmaker stated, "“Looking at the never-ending internal divisions within the Conservative Party, we in Brussels are wondering how much leeway Theresa May has at all and if she is actually able to deliver, or whether she will be undermined by other members of her cabinet."

It goes without saying that both Trump and May are incredibly weak and ineffective leaders. But the reason they are where they are is because both the Republicans in the US and the Conservatives in the UK relied on selling fantasies to get elected and keep power. As Andrew Sullivan, hardly my favorite pundit but accurate in this case, writes, the problem is deeper that just Trump. "[I]t’s the impossible reactionary agenda that is the core problem. And the reason we have a president increasingly isolated, ever more deranged, legislatively impotent, diplomatically catastrophic, and constitutionally dangerous, is not just because he is a fucking moron requiring an adult day-care center to avoid catastrophe daily. It’s because he’s a reactionary fantasist, whose policies stir the emotions but are stalled in the headwinds of reality. He can’t abolish Obamacare because huge majorities prefer it to any Republican alternative, so he is sabotaging it. He hasn’t built a huge wall across the entire southern border because it’s a ludicrous project that cannot solve the problem it was designed for. Ditto ripping NAFTA to shreds, which would cause immense disruption to three countries’ economies and ricochet around the world. Or attempting to ally with Russia against the E.U., as if Merkel was worse a threat than Putin."

In the same way, the Conservatives sold the fantasy that leaving the EU would be so easy and and a windfall for the UK. Sullivan continues, "In Britain, meanwhile, Brexit is in exactly the same place — a reactionary policy that is close to impossible to implement without economic and diplomatic catastrophe. Brexit too was built on Trump-like lies, and a Trump-like fantasy that 50 years of integration with the E.U. could be magically abolished overnight, and that the Britain of the early 1970s could be instantly re-conjured."

Both the Republicans in Congress and the Conservatives in the UK have been hoisted on the petard of their own lies. "Repeal and replace", "the war on coal", "build the wall", they were all lies. And the GOP, with Trump as its serial Pinocchio, continues to double down on those lies as we see with the way they are selling their tax plan. In the UK, there is still a significant group of Conservatives who are still promoting the dream that Britain will get what they want in Brexit as the negotiations reach their critical end-point in 18 months. Another group believes they will just be allowed to walk away and everything will be fine, despite the business flight to the continent that will certainly occur. But none of them seem to be able to agree on what it is that they exactly want, because it is all just a fantasy. The EU conditions to leave will be punishing and a clean break will be even worse.

It is no wonder that the Republicans and the Conservatives can not get anything accomplished and that their leaders are feckless and weak. Because neither their parties nor their leaders can give up their fantasies and begin to deal with reality.