The Tribune

BY now, everyone who doesn’t live under a rock knows what happened in the United States on Tuesday. Voters turned out by the millions to give the president they elected only two years ago in a landslide a solid thrashing. They turned a nation around, transforming an all-Republican, one man-band-led government into a split executive and legislative management system of public affairs. Voters all but emasculated the law-making capacity of a president who will spend the next two years of his term basically getting nothing he wants done. He will not be able to name a new Supreme Court justice, nor declare victory in areas where he may have even deserved to do so.

In a word, America told its president, a leader they voted in amidst great excitement and anticipation of good times ahead: “You failed. You’re fired.”

Mid-term elections for The Bahamas?

This is not written in any way to be disparaging of the president of the US, nor to show favouritism toward him. It’s merely about a process that gives people the right to say what’s on their minds and to have a say in how their lives are governed.

Looking at what happened abroad through Bahamian eyes, I could not help but wonder what would happen if we had the ability to cast votes in a mid-term election. In other words, issue a performance report. This is not about being a Trumpster or an opponent of his style of governance. This is simply about recognising that the very people who pump money into our economy and keep us economically and financially alive have rights that we do not even dream of, votes that we do not entertain. They have the right to issue a performance report every 24 months. We vote personality and party. They voted according to their pocketbooks and their pocketbooks became their politics. They showed up in droves and said this president wasn’t giving them what they wanted.

A loud and clear message

Americans of every age and ethnicity sent a message that was loud and clear. What you are doing may work for you and your friends who golf at one Trump course or another, they told their president, but it’s not working for us. It’s not working for the farmers in Texas who have to bring in foreign workers who you call illegals and threatened to arrest, warning them not to dare try to cross the border.

It didn’t work for those who paid more for health care or who had to drop it and risk going without because they simply could not afford the higher rates.

It didn’t work at the pump or the grocery store check-out.

In a single day, America shouted ‘Enough!’ and the people hit the re-set button, skidding to a halt, drawing a new map of governance and flipping from a Republican-run Executive, Congress and Senate to an overwhelming majority of Democratic governance.

From MAGA follower to the hungry

As I said, this is not about whether you are a MAGA follower or eschew what you consider the egomaniacal reign of a man who does not know what it feels like to scrape to pay rent and put food on the table or somewhere in between. It’s about the right to offer your opinion. It’s not about whether you think Trump is saving the world by refusing to give in to Iran and what he firmly believes is its potential to develop or deploy nuclear missiles capable of striking US and European cities, or if you think the cost of war is too high a price to pay. It’s about the right to decide.

It is about a right to have a voice.

We in The Bahamas have one vote every five years or thereabouts. That’s it.

A single vote

Everything else is decided by the party we choose, which then chooses the people we have the right to cast that single vote for as our representative. A single vote.

What would be the repercussions if that were to change, if we were able to issue a performance report on our MPs? Would they be more attentive knowing they were going to be judged, knowing the report was coming mid-term and the people, instead of the party, had a right to decide whether they stay or go, even if the same party had a right to choose a replacement?

While many Members of Parliament are very involved in their communities – for which they deserve all the credit in the world, going well beyond attending weddings and funerals – too many MPs hardly visit the areas they represent. What would change if they were being scored and the performance report were dangled in front of their political careers every 30 months? Would they come around more often instead of just before elections? Would the streetlights in our community work on an ongoing basis? Would the toilets and water supply in the schools in our constituency operate every day, so schools did not have to close early? Would we have more secure communities? Would the potholes be fixed even if royalty weren’t coming?

A single vote every five years does not build our confidence that what we do makes a difference. It’s all up to them, whoever ‘them’ is. We blame them, we don’t blame ourselves. We feel the disconnect, we don’t feel empowered.

Local government

The other option to bring governance down to a level where we all feel we have a voice is the most reasonable solution of all – true local government. When areas govern themselves, the residents feel a greater sense of pride. The bush mechanic who sets up shop with one vehicle is stopped by local pressure before the street becomes a collection of half-repaired and half-ready for the junkpile cars and trucks. The homeowners who clean up what was an ordinary front yard and transform it into a small garden filled with flowers and greenery inspire those around them to do the same.

The most impactful change starts at the neighbourhood level. It grows from grass roots. And what greater inspiration is there to be part of a grass roots movement than to feel what you are doing is making a difference? When everything is top down, when rule is top down and local decisions are top down, those who are part of the ‘down’ feel disconnected.

America got one thing right in the recent elections – it may not have been what people are thinking, the rebuke of a president who didn’t listen to what they wanted. It was speaking up. It was going to the polls and making their wishes known.

What America got right was finding the voice of the people.