Chapter 22

Leading the Free World: US Politics

In This Chapter

Charting the US’s influence in the UK and around the world

Focusing on how the US government works

Getting laws passed in the US

Judging disputes: the work of the Supreme Court

Looking at political parties and influences

The United States is the only superpower in the world at the moment. Although some argue that the US is in decline, it’s still at the heart of international politics. Ask any British politician which relationship is most important to the UK and he’ll answer ‘the United States’. No understanding of the wider world, and for that matter Britain’s place within it, is possible without knowledge of the inner workings of the US political system, from the role of Congress and the Supreme Court to that of the president, unarguably the planet’s number-one politico.

If you want to know more about the premier nation in the world and why so often what the president says goes, this is the chapter for you.

Understanding US Influence in the Wider World and in the UK

Whatever the critics of America say – and plenty of those exist, even in a friendly country like the UK – it’s still the number-one democratic nation in the world. Despite the rise of China, the US is also the number-one economy, with the most widely used currency – the dollar – in the world. In fact, the scale of America’s wealth and influence around the globe is difficult to overestimate.

Here are some of the keys to America’s dominance on the world stage:

• Military might: The US has the most expensively equipped and best-trained military in the world. In brutal terms it’s top dog at making war and this fact guarantees huge influence.

  For example, if the US threatens military intervention in one of the world’s trouble spots, generally the warring parties sit up and take notice. The US armed forces are probably the only military capable of placing huge numbers of troops on the ground virtually anywhere around the globe in a matter of weeks. In essence, the US carries an awfully big military stick around with it and that spells power.

• Cultural output: Been to the cinema lately or turned on a music radio station? Well, if you did, you probably had a taste of American culture. US culture dominates the planet, with teenagers and adults around the globe – from China to Chile – wanting a little slice of the American way of life. Their news channels and television programmes inform debate around the world. American actors, artists and even politicians are widely known, demonstrating that the US is still the pre-eminent cultural influence on the planet.
• Economic powerhouse: The military and cultural might of the US is probably nothing compared to its economic influence. US businesses employ millions all over the world and are involved in securing natural resources and marketing their wares on a global scale. What’s more, the American consumer is responsible for huge wealth generation. Without the seemingly insatiable desire among Americans for cheap manufactured goods, no Chinese economic miracle would be underway.
• Technological leadership: The US undoubtedly has a disproportionate number of great academic institutions that have helped produce some of the key advances in technology over the past few decades. From the Internet to successful pharmaceuticals to the iPod, the US is the world’s biggest technological power. In fact, its military and private-sector research and development are several years ahead of even those of western Europe and China. This situation gives the US a lead when designing new products to sell globally. People often say that what’s happening in the US this year will happen in the UK the next, highlighting just how advanced the good old US of A actually is!

The US has a population of around 300 million, making it the third most populous nation in the world behind India and China. It’s also the fourth largest by size behind Russia, Canada and (only just) China.

People often refer to the president of the United States as the most important person in the world, and the long, drawn-out US election process often attracts huge global media coverage. For example, the election of the US’s first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008 sparked intense interest around the world. On a visit to Germany, Obama spoke to a crowd of over 100,000 people in Berlin. This phenomenon was dubbed Obama-mania and he was portrayed by some commentators – particularly in western Europe – as the saviour of America’s reputation in the wider world.

Being buddies: The US–UK special relationship

The phrase special relationship was coined by the British wartime PM Winston Churchill in 1946. Churchill, who I cover in detail in Chapter 23, was himself half-American and had just spent four years working closely with two US presidents helping beat Nazi Germany, so he had personal reasons to big-up the US–UK relationship.

But the special relationship phrase struck at a truth. The two countries share a common language, a lot of history and a very similar culture. In fact, the British often refer to the Americans as ‘cousins’, emphasising this closeness.

But the special relationship isn’t all about being misty-eyed and chummy; the two nations’ governments have, since the end of the Second World War, often held similar foreign policy objectives and their intelligence and armed services work very closely together.

Some of the key reasons the special relationship between the UK and the US is still alive and kicking more than half a century after it was recognised include

• Military alliances: And I’m not just talking Second World War here; in fact, US and UK troops have fought side by side in lots of major conflicts in the past 60 years, including the Korean War in the 1950s, two wars in Iraq and, most recently, in Afghanistan.

  The US and UK are both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which was set up in 1949 to defend Europe from Soviet invasion, and of the United Nations Security Council. (Chapter 20 has more on these important international bodies.)

• Cultural links: I could write a whole book on the cultural links between the two countries. In music, literature, advertising, television and even blogging, the common language and shared cultural experience mean that American and British citizens often see the world through the same prism.
• Common values: Both the US and UK are democracies. In fact, they’re two of the oldest democratic nations in the world. In addition, both have a long history of respecting individual liberty and free speech. These values may seem the norm to you, but for most people around the world free speech and democracy are either alien or relatively new concepts. These common values between the US and UK deepen and widen the specialness of their relationship.

Growing apart? Recent problems with the special relationship

Not everything’s rosy in the US–UK garden. In recent years the political and even cultural links between the two countries seem to be getting less pronounced. Some say that the special relationship isn’t so, well, special any more.

Some reasons the special relationship between the UK and US may be in trouble are

• War in Iraq: The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was hugely controversial around the globe. Many saw it as an illegal and aggressive war waged on the admittedly despotic regime of Saddam Hussein. The decision by UK prime minister Tony Blair to follow the US into Iraq was very unpopular among the British people. Overall, the Iraq war and the subsequent retaliation by Islamic militants led many in the UK to question the special relationship and the motives of the US.
• Population change in the US: Much of the special relationship is based on use of a common language, yet the US population is changing and a large proportion of people in America now speak Spanish as a first language. In fact, some suggest that within 50 years more people will speak Spanish than English. This situation is bound to weaken one of the key bonds between the two countries.
• Growing bonds between the UK and Europe: The UK is very much a key player in the European Union (EU) these days (refer to Chapter 21 for more). This means that much of the UK’s trade and diplomacy is with near neighbours like France and Germany rather than with the US. As a result, although still hugely important, the strong ties with the US are no longer as crucial to the UK economy as they once were.
• Rise of China: On the flip side, the UK is no longer as important a trading and economic partner to the US either. In fact, the US takes most of its imports from China, the rising superpower in the East. The government in Washington sees its relationship with Beijing as far more important than the one with London or, for that matter, western Europe.
• Trade disputes: The UK and US are now in opposing economic blocs, which I talk more about in Chapter 20. The UK is a part of the EU and the US signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. These blocs are in constant dispute over the imposition of import tariffs and paying of subsidies, which is bound to loosen the bonds between the US and UK.

Such was the level of support shown by Tony Blair for America’s policies in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s that he was referred to by political opponents in the UK and even internationally as America’s poodle – hardly a flattering image for a British prime minister. That fact has affected relations ever since: British prime ministers no longer see it as electorally beneficial to be the bosom buddy of the US president.

Looking at the US System of Government

The US national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, refers to America as the ‘land of the free’ and this is how millions around the globe see the place. Much of the positive press the US receives has its roots in what’s widely seen as the nation’s strong democracy. But backing up this democracy is one of the most famous documents in the world – the US Constitution.

The American War of Independence eventually gave birth to the world’s first written constitution – oddly enough called the US Constitution – which was adopted in 1787. The Constitution lays out what all the branches of American government do and lists their individual powers, as well as setting out the relationship between the government and the citizens it serves.

The US Constitution is alterable, and in fact has been amended 27 times. The first ten amendments were added when the ink on the Constitution was barely dry. Those first ten amendments are called the Bill of Rights and they set forth civil liberties such as freedom of speech, association and the press. The amendment process isn’t one to be undertaken lightly or quickly. Two thirds of the members of both houses of Congress may propose an amendment, and then three quarters of state legislatures must ratify it. Alternatively, two thirds of state legislatures can call for a constitutional convention to consider an amendment, which three quarters of the state legislatures must then ratify. So far, all amendments have been passed using the first method.

The US Constitution is a very valuable and precious document and is kept under lock and key. The next sections offer a basic rundown of what’s in it and the institutions of governance it establishes.

Building the houses of Congress

The US Congress is made up of two elected chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The 435 members of the House of Representatives each represent a district in an individual state – like a constituency in the UK – and serve a two-year term. The House is meant to be directly responsive to the people.

Each of the 50 states elects two senators. The Senate is supposed to be a more deliberative body than the House, and senators serve six-year terms, with the idea that they’ll be less influenced by the whims of popular opinion and more forward-looking.

Elections to the US Senate are staggered so that one third of the membership stands for election every two years. So, for example, in 2016 a third of all senators will stand for election and in 2018 another third and in 2020 another third. In 2022 the senators who were elected in 2016 will have to stand for re-election and in 2024 the ones who were elected in 2018 will face the voters again, and so on.

Congress has the power to

• Levy taxes and authorise the government’s budget
• Make laws
• Declare war
• Issue patents and copyright and set weights and measures (it may not sound as big as the other three but this power has a huge impact on everyday life!)

Members of Congress introduce new bills – which are in effect proposed changes to the law. Often laws are proposed at the behest of America’s powerful lobbying groups (I discuss how pressure groups work in the UK in Chapter 9). A staggering 40,000 lobbyists are active in Washington alone, which works out to around 75 lobbyists for every member of Congress.

Because of its power to veto presidential appointments and treaties, the Senate is considered the more powerful of the two houses of Congress.

Establishing the presidency

The head honcho, the main man, the numero uno, the big cheese; however you want to describe the president of the United States, one thing’s for sure: no job in the world is bigger.

Under the US Constitution, the president has the power to

• Appoint a cabinet to head up US government ministries (called agencies or departments in the US).
• Appoint justices to the Supreme Court (see the upcoming ‘Judging disputes: The US Supreme Court’ for more on this body).
• Enter into international treaties, with Senate approval.
• Act as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In wartime the president has final say over strategy.
• Veto laws passed by Congress.
• Grant pardons or reprieves to people who’ve been convicted of crimes or those facing trial for an offence.

Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war, but as commander-in-chief of the armed services, the president has the power to send troops into military conflict for up to 60 days before having to get Congress’s permission. So, in effect, the president has the power to make war.

Only the president gets to nominate cabinet members and top judges, but all appointments have to be ‘with the advice and consent’ of the US Senate. The president says who he’d like for a particular job and then the Senate discusses and ratifies that appointment, normally with senior senators sitting as a committee to interview the president’s candidate.

Treaties negotiated by the president must be ratified by a two-thirds majority vote in the Senate to take effect.

Since the US Constitution was amended in 1951 (after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president four times), the president can only be elected to two, four-year terms of office.

Exploring the mystique and power of the presidency

The president may have plenty of powers under the US Constitution, but it’s more than that which gives the person who works from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington a mystique and aura quite unlike that surrounding any other high office in world politics.

The US president has such a hold on international attention because

• The president is the head of state – in effect, the embodiment of America internationally.
• The president’s role of commander-in-chief puts him in charge of the most powerful military in the world.

It may be helpful to think of the president as a combination of the UK prime minister and the UK monarch – a head of state and the pre-eminent politician rolled into one.

The president may only have the power to veto bills from Congress but in reality he’ll often get a friend or party ally in Congress to introduce a bill he’d like to see become law. In effect, the president has the right to introduce bills to Congress but they have to go through the same consideration process as any other bill.

Exploring presidential perks and perils

The president has his own private jet aircraft called Air Force One, which is no small two-seater, but a jumbo jet the size of a commercial airliner. Why so big? Well, this plane is supposed to be a working office for the president that can house dozens of staff members and, of course, provide a safe haven in case of war. The idea is that in times of crisis the president can be safe from harm on Air Force One so that the government still has a leader.

The goodies don’t stop with a plane. The president has access to a huge nuclear bunker and a country retreat called Camp David. Camp David doesn’t involve tents and queuing at the shower block but is a luxurious property where the president can entertain world leaders and get away from it all. The prime minister in the UK has something similar – although a lot smaller – called Chequers.

The job of president of the United States isn’t a particularly safe one, and I don’t just mean there’s a danger of getting thrown out of office. In total, the US has had 44 presidents since the first, George Washington. Of these, four – Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy – have been assassinated while in office. President Ronald Reagan managed to survive being shot in an assassination attempt in the early 1980s. Perhaps one of the first things a newly elected president should do is call a life insurance broker!

The president has a vice – no, not drinking too much or being over-friendly with the opposite sex (although quite a few past presidents have done both!) – but a vice president; in effect, a deputy. The vice president advises and campaigns at election time with the president, and should the president no longer be able to serve, the vice president steps into the breach and becomes president until the end of the four-year term of office.

Impeaching the president

The president may be the most powerful politician in the world but that doesn’t mean that he can do anything he wants. The US Constitution was designed specifically to prevent the rise of a tyrannical figure – like Stalin in Russia or Hitler in Germany – as president. The system has inbuilt checks on the power of the president, such as only the houses of Congress being able to make laws and wars requiring their approval. And then, of course, a series of individual citizen rights is set out in the Constitution.

Congress’s ultimate check on the president is the power of impeachment. Impeachment is the removal from public office of the president or other official on the grounds that he’s acted unlawfully in some way.

In an impeachment proceeding, a committee of the House of Representatives passes, by majority vote, articles of impeachment. In effect, articles are just like charges of a crime. The full House of Representatives then holds hearings to investigate the claims of the articles of impeachment. If a simple majority of House members votes for impeachment, the trial moves to the Senate. To convict, the Senate requires a two-thirds majority. If impeached, the president is, well, no longer the president. The job then falls to the vice president, who serves the remainder of the four-year term of office.

Impeachment is a very serious undertaking and has happened very rarely in US history. Two presidents have undergone impeachment proceedings:

• Andrew Johnson was narrowly acquitted by a vote in the Senate in 1868.
• More recently, President Bill Clinton was accused of lying to a grand jury over his actions regarding an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky in 1998. (Chapter 24 has more on this scandal.) The House of Representatives approved the impeachment articles but the majority of Senators voted against impeachment, which meant Clinton was acquitted and remained in office.

However, even the threat of impeachment can have a big effect on the actions of the president. In 1974 Richard Nixon became the first president to resign from office following widespread calls for his impeachment over the Watergate scandal.

Impeachment isn’t reserved for the president. Other senior office holders in US federal and state government can also be impeached if they’re believed to have committed crimes. In fact, since the US Constitution set down the process of impeachment in 1789, the House of Representatives has initiated such proceedings against 63 individuals.

Judging disputes: The US Supreme Court

Apart from the president and the houses of Congress, the other major cog of US government is the Supreme Court, whose job it is to act as the protector of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the country and hears cases in which constitutional questions are at stake.

The head of the court is the chief justice of the United States. Working alongside him are eight other Supreme Court judges, making a grand total of nine justices. The fact the number is odd is significant, because it ensures that a tie never occurs in votes taken by the justices. The court requires only a majority to deliver a verdict; even five votes to four carries the day.

The president appoints new Supreme Court justices, when a vacancy arises, and generally looks to install people who share his political and social viewpoints. For example, a Republican president may look to appoint a justice who has quite conservative views on political and social issues. However, the Senate has to approve the appointment of a Supreme Court justice, and senators hold hearings in which they interview the candidate to ensure that he’s experienced and capable of doing the job.

The Supreme Court decides whether the circumstances of the case in front of them are constitutional or unconstitutional. The court also acts as a final court of appeal for the country’s lower courts.

The Supreme Court employs a filtering system for cases it should or shouldn’t hear. The Court hears a case only if it must

• Resolve a conflict in the interpretation of a federal law or a provision of the Constitution.
• Correct a major departure from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings.
• Resolve an important question of federal law, or expressly review a decision of a lower court that conflicts directly with a previous decision of the Court.

Once appointed, Supreme Court justices have life tenure, which means that usually only the grim reaper can remove them from office! Of course, they can choose to retire from the job.

Probably the most controversial case heard by the Supreme Court in modern times is Roe versus Wade. This case dates back to 1973 and concerned abortion. A pregnant woman named Roe (an alias) wanted the legal right to have an abortion in the state of Texas, which outlawed it. She took her case to the state court, where the district attorney, Henry Wade (hence Roe versus Wade), argued against the right to have an abortion. Eventually, the case found its way to the Supreme Court because it was considered potentially unconstitutional to make a woman have a baby she didn’t want. The Supreme Court decided that Roe could have the abortion and this decision set a precedent across the country. Many Christian groups and Republican Party members argue that the Supreme Court decision was wrong and would like to see the decision reversed.

Passing a Bill into Law

Individual members of either the House of Representatives or Senate, or sometimes members from both houses, introduce bills. The relevant standing committee then considers them. For example, a bill relating to agriculture will be considered by the agriculture standing committee of the body it was introduced in.

Committees usually hold open meetings in which they invite interested parties to testify about the bill or the issue it addresses. At the end of the hearing committee members vote on whether to recommend the bill to the full body. If the vote is no, the bill is effectively dead, but if the committee recommends the bill, the relevant house of Congress consider it. The house debates and may amend the bill, followed by a vote.

A bill approved by one house is considered, often concurrently, by the other, which may pass, reject or amend it. In order for the bill to become law, both houses must agree to identical versions of it. If the second house amends the bill, a conference committee, made up of members from both houses, considers the differences between the two versions. The committee produces a final draft of the bill, and the two houses of Congress vote on it. If the bill gets the green light, all well and good, but it’s not law yet – it needs the approval of the president first.

Bills that propose levying a new tax have to originate in the House of Representatives rather than the Senate, according to the US Constitution.

The US is a federal state, which means it’s made up of lots of largely autonomous individual states. Laws passed by Congress apply to the whole country, but in many areas, such as criminal justice, the states are left to decide their own policies without interference from Congress.

Often Congress is referred to as Capitol Hill because of the area of Washington where it’s located. In the same way, the British refer to their own parliament as Westminster after the area of London that the Houses of Parliament stand in.

Throwing Political Parties into the Mix

The US political system, like the UK’s, has political parties right at its heart. The two main parties are the Democratic and Republican parties, both of which are chock-full of history. If a politician wants to get anywhere at election time, he has to represent one of these two parties.

Not only leading national and state politicians represent political parties. People stand for election as representing a political party in all manner of local elected offices. For example, the person standing for election to be in charge of refuse collection in a town or city signs on as a Republican or Democrat on the ballot paper, as do people standing in local mayoral elections.

Some people have tried to break the stranglehold of the two main parties on American political life by launching a third party. The most recent – and certainly best-funded – example was when the billionaire businessman Ross Perot formed the Reform Party and ran for president in 1992 and 1996. His platform promised to fight drugs, control the sale of guns and tax foreign imports. His policies were very popular with the American public but Perot, personally, was less so. However, in the 1992 presidential election he scooped 19 per cent of all votes cast. At the 1996 election he was less successful, attracting just 8 per cent of all votes cast.

Each main party has its own symbol. The Democrats are represented by a donkey, which you may feel isn’t particularly flattering (donkeys are hardly noted for their skills in government) but actually refers to a former Democratic leader depicted in a cartoon riding a jackass (again, not flattering). The Republicans are represented by an elephant, which again harks back to the days of political cartoons. Symbols do have a practical purpose, though, because they often appear alongside the names of candidates on the ballot paper. A voter seeing a donkey next to a candidate’s name automatically knows that person represents the Democratic Party.

After the 2008 elections, the Democrats were in the ascendancy. President Barack Obama won the White House and Democrats held a majority of seats in both houses of Congress. However, within a couple of years President Obama faced hostile Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. Like in the UK, the fortunes of the political parties tend to ebb and flow. In the 1950s, 1980s and early 2000s the Republicans were in the pole position, but in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s the Democrats often had control of Congress and the presidency.

Voting with the Democrats

The older of the two parties, the Democratic Party traces its roots back to the elections of 1800. It tends to gain most of its support along the eastern and western seaboards, among ethnic minorities and in the big cities. Some of the great Democratic presidents include Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

The Democratic Party tends to pursue more liberal, left-wing policies, believing in a degree of state intervention to help the poor and neediest in society. Democrats favour a minimum wage and government action to protect the environment.

Siding with the Republicans

The more socially and politically conservative of the two parties, Republicans stand for minimal government interference in people’s lives and in the affairs of individual states by the federal government. Republicans tend to believe in letting business get on with what it’s good at – making money – and support low taxes but strong national defence.

Republicans have had their fair share of admired presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln (the first Republican president), Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.

Rallying the religious right

One of the most significant developments in modern American politics has been the growth in power and influence of what’s been called the religious right. The US is a deeply religious country, with the majority of citizens regularly attending a place of worship.

Many Christian groups have taken their observance a stage further, looking to see their religious faith expressed through politics. More often than not, these people – and we’re talking tens of millions of people across the country – have gravitated towards the Republican Party. At election time, for the Republican Party this situation has proved both

• A blessing because the religious right supporters are very keen on turning up to vote, which in a society with very low voter turnout – often fewer than 60 per cent of eligible voters actually do so in Congressional and presidential elections – can be quite a boost to the Republican Party.
• A curse because the views of the religious right can be quite unpopular among many Americans (for example, they’re staunchly anti-abortion), which turns off many moderate voters whom the Republican Party needs to attract to win elections.

Some of the key policies that the religious right would like to see pursued include

• Criminalising abortion
• Retaining the death penalty
• Doing away with welfare benefits
• Saying Christian prayers in schools across the country every day
• Teaching the creationist interpretation of human history alongside the scientifically accepted doctrine of evolution

During the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, the Democrats undertook a massive Internet campaign to encourage more people to vote. They reckoned that only through increasing voter turnout could they overcome the effects of the religious right turning out and voting Republican. This tactic obviously worked a treat, because their candidate, Barack Obama, beat the Republican candidates, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, in the elections.

Republican Party candidates have actually adopted many of the policies that the religious right would like to see pursued.

Linking up: UK and US political parties

The special relationship between the UK and US also applies to the two nation’s political parties. The Democratic and Republican parties in the US and the Labour and Conservative parties in the UK have close ties, and share ideas, information and even personnel.

Naturally, the Conservative Party has closer ties with the Republican Party than it does with the Democrats, mainly because they’re both on the right of politics and share similar ideals such as a smaller role for central government and low taxes. On the flip side, the Labour and Democratic parties are close because they share ideals such as the state providing better welfare for the less fortunate.