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I don't often do these kind of op-ed pieces, but I'm going to do this one. And frankly I don't often get to do a real crossover of if you will analysis and comment on both Thai and American politics. Now let me start by saying with regard to Trump -Elon clash at the moment, there seems to be a serious difference of opinion within whatever you want to call it, the new Administration I guess is probably the best way to call it regarding the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill, regarding there's the spending bill that they are trying to get through and Elon has a real problem with it based on the fact that it doesn't really decrease very much spending. I've heard from a fair number of pundits, guys that I like to listen to over Stateside, I haven't dug too deep. People get into the “well Senate Rule this dictates that you can only cut this under this circumstance, so they did”, but I don't want to get into all of that. You can sit around, or one can sit around and go through the Byzantine nature of how American Law is promulgated all day long; that's not really what I want to get into here. This is more of a sort of an ideological/strategic discussion, and it also comes to issues I have been seeing over here in Thailand where there have been rumbling of shakeups and oh, we don't know if we are going to keep the Coalition together as it is and all of this. Again, not to go into too many details on that because sort of getting into the high weeds if you will of Thai politics is not exactly the thrust of this channel, although more and more we have discussed it because frankly Thai politics has policy implications. Policy implications oftentimes become law or become regulations and things that we then have to deal with here. 

So the point I am making here and the reason for the thumbnail, the thumbnail is actually, I pulled that and Link in the description below for the photo credit, that's actually from a clip in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" which is really good film but I love the closing scene because the whole movie sort of centres around this child, this kid who is a chess prodigy and he is constantly conflicted. He's just a nice kid at the end of the day and chess is ruthless. It's basically winner take all; it's a zero-sum game and even though people that aren't into chess, they look at chess as for like nerds and things and you can look at it like that but we are talking high strategy here. This kid in the film is kind of a whiz kid at this game, but he's also a kid and he wants to be a nice kid basically. That is kind of his constant conflict is between he has this aptitude for a game that he does love, and he also wants to be a nice kid; he wants to be a nice guy at the end of the day. But there is this scene at the end where he goes up against the other prodigy, and it's sort of the culmination of the movie is him going up against this kid that they have sort of been training him for and he has had this teacher who's really hard-nosed and he has got a father who really wants him to be the best at this game and again he's constantly conflicted but he gets to a point in the game where he sees the situation as it is, and he sees that the other kid is going to lose, but he's going to lose so far out ahead that the other kid doesn't actually see it. And the kid basically, the main character of the film says, "I am offering you a draw", and his opponent says "what?" And it's a great scene. If you are interested in movies, I urge you to check out the clip. It's worth a watch. Laurence Fishburne is in the film, Joe Montegna. I can't remember the lady, the actress's name that's in that, but she's a fantastic actress as well. In any event, they all are sort of befuddled by why he would offer this draw but it's because he says look take the draw and we will share the championship. And the other kid just isn't going to have it and so it plays out and the kid that offered the draw knocks him, he wins; you can tell it's a great scene. Both actors, the child actors in it are very good actors and both of them, how would I put it, they convey the emotion of the moment very well because did the kid who thought he was going to win is immediately humbled and you see how nice the other kid was being in offering the draw. It was a very magnanimous gesture basically.

But going back to what I am talking about here, it looks to me like it's a similar although not apples to apples comparison, but a similar set of circumstances in both Thai and American politics at the moment. One is first of all you have already won okay, Trump you won. I mean Elon is in your camp and in a way, Elon, you won. You have close access to an Administration here; you have direct influence on policy and frankly for good or ill. I mean there have been some good things I have seen coming from sort of the Doge method of doing things if you will where it's let's cut a lot of this spending; let’s cut unnecessary spending. I think there has been a lot of unnecessary spending found. I am not saying I agree with every single thing that Elon has done or advised. Meanwhile, you're back. I mean it's amazing, truly. It's up there, it's one of the great underdog stories of all time and again I'm not certain Trump necessarily deserves a ton of criticism because he's doing what the executive does which is he's trying to push new legislation and there's a fair point to be made, who elected Elon? I do get all of that. But there's also, look we can't continue spending in the United States and just printing money to do it; that's not a sustainable way of doing things. However, I do understand Trump's background and I understand Trump is a real estate guy; he understands finance. He does get that you can't just turn the spigot off immediately and expect everything to just be fine, no. Quite honestly, for lack of a better term all hell could break loose if you just turn off government spending overnight. So, you have to sort of walk a middle path through all of this. I think both sides in the Trump-Elon scenario - although apparently Elon has gotten quite barbed in his responses to some of this - but it looks to me like everybody is operating in good faith when you are looking at that, but they are going to these kind of extremes. They are taking their positions and taking them to the extremes. And it's one of the problems I have seen in American politics just generally over the almost 20 years I have been abroad but more acutely in the past dozen or so years is the hyperpolarization where no one is willing to see each other's side of things and okay in the sort of red-blue divide that we dealt with over the past roughly 5-6 years in the traditional Republican-Democrat if you will dichotomy. That became poisonous and poisonous to the point where I think the Democrats really are going to have to do some soul searching to figure out where they are going to be in the next election. Meanwhile, to some extent Republicans too because especially in the next Presidential Election, Trump is not going to be there and he very, well at least presumably not running for President unless there is a change to Constitution, which I don't see happening. But the point I am trying to make is this polarization has helped no one and this moving everybody to extremes and then getting acrimonious and pointing fingers and calling names, what has it done for anyone? And frankly it has just led to more issues. What people need to be doing in my mind in the American context is sort of coming together and figuring out, "hey how do we reasonably cut down on spending while not letting the entire American economy fall apart and shore up the dollar and place ourselves in the most strategically advantageous trade posture as we can, while not completely throwing our allies and trade partners under the bus, how do we do that?" Again, looking for the middle path in my mind is better than going out there and just attacking each other in this sort of hyper-partisan manner. That would be the first thing I think. And I also see people are, "oh, we need a new Party!" and all that. Well fine, then form a new Party.  But it doesn't mean throwing America under the bus and the process. That's not going to be good for anybody. 

Meanwhile, let's move come over here to Thailand. And when I say, I am not saying that it's only Thaksin and PTT, Paetongtarn our current Prime Minister, who by the way I still do believe in. I've done videos on this before. I do believe this Coalition can work and similar analysis though, you have already won. There's all this talk, "oh is Bhumjaithai going to stay in the Coalition? and we want to do this, that and the other thing and change these seats around and positions of this nature.” Why? You know for the first time in years, Thailand is in a position where we can see a couple of years of serious stability under a Government that nobody can really question the Democratic legitimacy of which that term Democratic is used, it's a brush that paints over all kinds of things and in my opinion is often unwarranted. I don't even love the term because we're not a democracy in Thailand; we're not a democracy in America. It's a Constitutional Republic in the United States; it is a Constitutional Monarchy here in Thailand. It is not a democracy, that's a different thing. If anything, true democracy is pure mob rule, okay? It doesn't work very well. In fact there's a reason the Greeks themselves who invented it, didn't keep it. I mean or at least couldn't keep it on a large nation state level scale. So in any event, sort of coming back to what we're talking about, the main point here. Again why create a bunch of division at a time where things could be done now that could benefit the people of Thailand? You went to the polls and said okay, we want to come in because we want to help the people. Great. How does wrecking the Parliament and possibly throwing us over into a situation where it becomes intractable for anybody to get anything done, help the people here in Thailand? How does that help? I don't see where it helps anybody, okay.

I was talking to a friend earlier about; it looks to me like there's a feedback loop between the media and politicians in both countries USA and Thailand where they get some kind of benefit out of creating this acrimony and then sort of fueling it via the media. They create this back and forth dialectic if you will and then the media kind of kind of sensationalizes it and then adds fuel to the fire and makes everybody more and more angry and makes everybody's tempers kind of flare even more quite frankly. And I have disclosed my own affinity regarding Anutin here, the Interior Minister. Every time I have seen him interviewed, he's played it down and said, "hey, there's no talk of this, it's not a real problem". And at the same time to her credit, I haven't seen Paetongtarn particularly out there to the best of what I have seen in the press trying to inflame. If anything, her comments have been, “no, no we are fine; everything's working out, we're moving on down the road”. But there are others out there that seem to be just completely fixated on the notion of creating these extremities, this polarity and then somehow, I don't know. I don't know what benefit is gained because it's not being gained at a populous level; it's not being gained to the benefit of the country. What would benefit Thailand most right now is the Coalition getting into Parliament by the way where these discussions are supposed to be occurring. Not out in the press, not out amongst the sensationalized media, but in the Parliament, in the Chamber where such discussions are meant to be occurring so we can hammer out solutions for long-term plans. That would be the best thing to do right now. And meanwhile we've got what? 2 years here in Thailand left or more of this Government. You're in now, you've won, you're in. The Prime Ministership, you've got it; you're in a coalition fine, but what more do you really want? Because any other alternative at this point for Thailand I see just leading to more intractable division.

Meanwhile there's a clear path and it's a fairly easy path to follow. Just get into the Parliament. You have got years to make new policies, new plans. Okay, maybe your Coalition partners may disagree with you; maybe the opposition may disagree with you. Sometimes things don't get done. That's the point of a Parliament. To express the will of the people through their representatives and when they are represented say, “hey no, we don't want to do that”, move on. I just don't see what the point is of all this acrimony and what it is doing to the benefit, or for the benefit of anyone.