Dispatch from Edinburgh

A study in contrasts

As the U.S. economy is “fluctuating wildly” (or, as some would say more bluntly, crashing), I am reminded that Scotland is the birthplace of the man who many refer to as the father of modern economics. While the Scots display their pride in Adam Smith with portraits in museums and a statue on the Royal Mile, the current U.S. administration is basing economic and trade policy on the “wisdom” of Ron Vara, an imaginary economist concocted by Trump’s equally sleazy financial advisor (and fellow convict).

Statue of Adam Smith, in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

Modern day economists may debate over some of Adam Smith’s ideas, but at least Smith based his economic theories mostly on what he experienced and observed. He may have been the originator of the concept of the “invisible hand” of the free market, but I’m quite certain he never talked or wrote about any “invisible economist.”

The architecture of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Supreme Courts of Scotland may seem similar but the way judges and justices are appointed is very different. In Scotland, as is the case throughout the U.K., there are centuries of tradition and structural safeguards to prevent the courts from becoming politicized, most especially their highest courts. Multiple levels of recommendation and approval are required after a justice is nominated; consequently, the U.K. has enjoyed centuries of comparatively even-handed jurisprudence. Is the system 100% without flaws? Of course not. But it certainly has evolved to be less vulnerable to manipulation than the U.S. system.

The Supreme Courts of Scotland (top) and the Supreme Court of the United States (bottom).

The U.S. Supreme Court has relied almost exclusively on tradition and on the presumed honor of its President to nominate justices who will maintain that tradition and honor. It has also relied on the single safeguard of Senate approval. But when a President has no honor and ignores tradition completely (as is currently the case) and when the majority in the Senate goes along with nominations out of fear of retaliation from the President rather than because of scrutiny and approval (as is also the case), we end up with a SCOTUS whose decisions regularly are far afield from the mainstream views of its citizens.

The additional vulnerability in the U.S. system is that we have a President who has a reputation for quid pro quo behavior. Consequently, extreme right-wing Christian fundamentalists, who represent a relatively small percentage of the population, have supported Trump’s campaigns and have inserted themselves as arbiters of who should be allowed to be nominated to fill Supreme Court vacancies. With Trump’s re-entry into the White House, they have been given carte blanche to act as the policy arm of his administration.

An exhibit at the National Museum of Scotland caught my attention — an exhibit that, at least in the era of Trump, would be highly unlikely ever to see the light of day anywhere in the U.S. It’s a tribute to and a step-by-step history of Scotland’s significant contributions to the creation of the vaccines for COVID-19, as well as to their nation’s efforts at rolling out the vaccine in a logical and efficient manner.

I found myself choking up several times as I walked through, partly because it made those first frightening months seem very present once again and partly because of the nearly unanimous gratitude and participation that the Scots demonstrated.

“Injecting Hope,” an exhibit at the National Museum of Scotland.

Things were not so unified in the U.S. We had a President who lied to the American people about the virus itself, initially impeding the development of the vaccines and then taking credit for their successes. He promoted absolute crackpot cures, like injecting bleach or somehow magically ridding the body of the virus using light. He vacillated about promoting the vaccines, despite having been vaccinated himself. He downplayed his own illness from COVID out of some bizarre sense of machismo, despite the fact that he was very close to death from the virus, when honesty would have driven home the seriousness of the illness to his followers.

I won’t attempt to enumerate here the number of unnecessary deaths attributable to his inaction; several experts have done that with specificity. But it’s safe to say that many, many lives could have been saved had he stepped aside and left the science to the scientists. We are still living with the consequences of his failure to convey the severity of the illness and the importance of being vaccinated.

Instead of honoring those who made the vaccine possible, Trump continues his personal vendetta with Dr. Anthony Fauci.

To add insult to this already grave injury, he has appointed a downright lunatic anti-vaxxer as the Secretary of Health and Human Service. The damage continues unabated to this day. RFK, Jr. and the DOGE team are working to undermine the CDC and the NIH — the institutions of our government that saved the nation from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Literally everywhere one looks in Edinburgh, one is reminded of (or is taught) the centuries-long history of this city and country. Scotland in particular and the U.K. in general have had hundreds and hundreds of years to work on refining a government that functions properly. That government is clearly still flawed and there will always be ways to improve it. But they have successfully worked through many of the issues that younger nations still struggle with.

The U.S. is a comparatively young nation; never has that been more apparent than in the last ten years. We have had a President who has, almost by instinct, zeroed in on the vulnerabilities of our young and remarkably successful democracy and, instead of using his position to mitigate those vulnerabilities, he has leveraged those vulnerabilities for his own political and financial advantage. He has masked his complete lack of genuine patriotism with a façade of hyper-patriotic jingoism, in much the same way tacky gold leaf masks the shoddy construction of his real estate properties.

We are left with a government that has created chaos, disorder, and destruction. The contrast is made clear by the absence of such levels of chaos in a places like Scotland.

The United States still has quite a few kinks to iron out. But don’t worry. As Scotland teaches us, it’s just the first thousand years that are the toughest.

I’ll end this dispatch with a photo of Edinburgh Castle — a symbol of both constancy and adaptability over many centuries.

Edinburgh Castle.