Month: September 2019

Like many other right-wing strongmen, but with less excuse, Donald Trump has no understanding of basic economics. Until recently, however, investors have been eager to give him the benefit of the doubt. The theory has always been that the “good” Trump–the one who supports tax cuts and deregulation for business–could always be trusted, while the bad, capricious, tariff-loving Trump would ultimately be restrained by the adults in the room and his own self-interest.

Personally, I never viewed this as a good bet, and the chickens are coming home to roost. The point of this post, however, is that investors aren’t going to give Bernie Sanders the same benefit of the doubt. If they were wrong in thinking Trump was one of them, they aren’t going to have any illusions about Bernie, because he makes no bones about despising them. And so, if you vote for Sanders, you do so with the certain knowledge that he’s going to damage the value of your investments if he wins; it’s only a question of how much, and for how long.

A note to my readers: I will be out of town for a few days rediscovering my roots in Ohio. Regular posting will resume on Monday.

1. Would someone please slap Julian Castro for me?
2. No debate should last more than two hours.
3. This version of Beto was far more compelling, but it’s too late for him.
4. Klobuchar and Mayor Pete are sensible and articulate, but they don’t stand out.
5. Booker had an excellent night. To me, he is the most plausible of the Biden replacement group. I don’t think he made up much ground, however.
6. Sanders did his usual thing, but he looked and sounded old and tired.
7. Warren didn’t impress me. She once again conspicuously avoided the question about raising middle class taxes for Medicare-for-All, when even Bernie admits it is necessary. She used the same kind of simplistic rhetoric about the rigged system and the evils of big (fill in the blank) that Bernie always does. I didn’t hear any reason to prefer her to the real deal.
8. Biden had easily his best night. Sure, he rambled at times, but he will have reassured his donors. He made the realo case quite well, particularly on the question about what happens to wages under Medicare-for-All, which needs to be discussed at some length.

On the whole, I don’t think you will see any dramatic changes in the polls, which is effectively a win for the three front-runners.

There is an ongoing dispute within the Democratic Party as to whether the best way to win in 2020 is by converting swing voters or by mobilizing the base. My position, of course, is that history supports the swing voter approach. The question for today is, what exactly does “base mobilization” mean, in practice?

The term itself is somewhat misleading; the actual “base” consists of ideologically-driven activists who typically vote regardless of the identity of the candidate, and who can be relied upon to vote against Trump under any circumstances. The real unknown is not whether that group will vote, but whether it can be expanded to include people who are potentially sympathetic to the cause, but too apathetic to vote under normal conditions. The question which follows is, who are those people?

Bernie Sanders almost certainly thinks they are poor workers who can be motivated to vote by a program which appeals strongly to their economic self-interest. Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, undoubtedly believes that her pool of new voters comes from millennials; her program consequently offers them quite a lot. On balance, I think she has the better argument; the poor white workers are frequently moved more by conservative values than by money, and they are more likely to vote for Trump than any Democrat, whereas the millennials have strong economic grievances and far less attachment to traditional social values.

In today’s political climate, anyone who worries about the deficit is immediately labeled as a crank and a bore. After all, the deficit is soaring under Trump, and where are interest rates now? Look at Japan, with its monstrous deficit and low inflation! This is the new normal; its continuing existence can be taken for granted, and debt is just a talking point for hypocritical GOP congressmen.

The part about GOP hypocrisy is true, but the rest isn’t. Japan gets by because its debt is held internally, and because the Japanese people have confidence in their political system. A large percentage of our debt is held overseas, and while the world still has confidence in our system, it is being tested every day. Who is to say that four more years of Trump might not kill it off altogether?

Argentina is proof that the law of gravity has not been repealed. Even in a world marked by secular stagnation, when the public loses confidence in your government, your currency falls, inflation and interest rates rise, and lots of pain ensues.

The UK could be next. We’ll see.

Absurd and trivial as it may seem, it’s important to make Trump pay a price for each of these authoritarian episodes. It’s the public ridicule that makes the difference between a man on horseback and a man on golf cart.

Here’s what we know about the debates, so far:

1. Elizabeth Warren is the most skilled debater of the lot, by a large margin.
2. There are too many people on stage to have anything more than a superficial discussion of the issues.
3. The format is predictably driving the candidates to the left, to the ultimate benefit of the GOP.
4. No potential Biden replacement has emerged to eclipse the real deal.

Here’s what we don’t know:

1. Can Warren somehow annihilate Biden without turning off his supporters or pushing the party way too far to the left?
2. Is it too late for any of the other realo candidates to get into the top tier?

We’ll know a bit more after Thursday night, although the sheer number of people on stage will probably prevent anyone from landing a knockout blow.

There was an article in Politico a few weeks back which suggested that Warren needed to build some credibility with moderates by attacking extremism within the Democratic Party. A Democratic version of “Nixon goes to China” sounds plausible. Could it happen?

It wouldn’t be easy. Warren has put a lot of effort into avoiding any daylight between herself and Bernie Sanders. Furthermore, she is a conviction politician; if you put “Nixon” and “conviction” in the same sentence, it has an entirely different meaning.

Nevertheless, it could be done. Warren could give a speech extolling the virtues of a better-regulated capitalism and calling out “democratic socialism.” Would she actually try it? Probably not until she has the nomination in her hands.

I would call Ross Douthat a principled reactionary. His ideas are grounded in medieval Catholicism, not white nationalism. He’s embarrassed by racists in the GOP. He dreams of a populist, but color-blind, version of the GOP run by fellow principled reactionaries in the interests of working people, not business. His Republican Party would represent “national conservatism,” but without the racism.

Unfortunately for Douthat, Trump’s victory in the 2016 primaries proves that a plurality of Republican voters, if not a majority, consists of white nationalists. How are they to be expunged from the party? Where would they go? And, most importantly, how would the GOP operate as a viable party on a national basis without the tens of millions of votes that they provide?

Douthat cites the George W. Bush administration as a hopeful precedent. It is true that Bush 43 didn’t run or govern as a racist. The reality, however, is that most GOP members view him as a sort of crypto-Democrat, and have long since repudiated him and “compassionate conservatism”. As a result, the only way the GOP can rid itself of racism is to be annihilated in a national election which is viewed by everyone as a referendum on white nationalism; under that scenario, the status quo would no longer be seen as a plausible alternative by anyone on the right. I can imagine that happening in, say, 2030, due to demographic changes, but it isn’t going to happen in 2020, or any time in the near future.

Michael Flynn’s corrupt crony and election brother-in-arms routine collapsed after a few weeks. McMaster tried to turn traditional American foreign policy concepts, a few shards of Trumpian ideology, and Trump’s erratic impulses into a coherent vision; that was a miserable failure, too, because Trump is only defined by himself, not any ideas. Now Bolton and his bad cop act are out the door, hardly to be missed.

I can’t wait to see what’s next.

US AND THEM

Us and them

And after all, I’m an extraordinary man.

Me and you

The world knows which is which, and who is who.

_______________

Black and white

And when it’s done, only one can win the fight.

Up and down

And in the end, it’s only round and round.

__________________

Down and out

It can’t be helped, but there’s a lot of it about.

With, without

And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about.

_________________

Out of the way

It’s a busy day

The election’s on my mind.

I’m desperate to win.

If I don’t, it’s a sin

And the whole country dies.

Parody of “Us and Them” by Pink Floyd.

By all rights, the 2020 election should be a referendum on Donald Trump–the almost casual corruption, incompetence, divisiveness, racism, narcissism, authoritarianism, capriciousness, contempt for the rule of law, and support for plutocrats, just to list a few lowlights. If the election is framed that way, the Democrats will win, even if the economy is going great guns in November, which is unlikely at this point. But is that inevitable?

No. The Democrats can redefine the stakes of the election by overreaching. If they run as the party of reparations, no hamburgers, and socialism, the election will be a referendum on that platform, not Trump, and the incumbent will be able to portray himself as the safer choice to conservative swing voters who are begging for a simple return to decency, not a revolution. Under those circumstances, the only hope for the Democrats is a sharp recession. It could happen, but they had better not bet the ranch on it.

In some circles, Joe Biden is being analogized to Reagan; both are seen as elderly, genial, disengaged guys who survive repeated gaffes because of their sheen of fundamental decency. For Biden, the analogy is a mixed bag, at best. Is it accurate?

Only up to a point. Reagan’s certitudes were based in nostalgia and hard right ideology; they didn’t call it the “Reagan Revolution” for nothing. He was viewed as a dangerous extremist even by many members of his party in 1980. Biden is a centrist determined, at least based on his public statements, to bring about moderate change with the assistance of members of both parties and to purge our system of the fleeting evils of Trumpism. He is essentially a conservative, not a “revolutionary.”

In other words, he is more like Eisenhower than Reagan, which is no bad thing, from my perspective. If you want a left-wing Reagan, vote for Bernie Sanders.

The NYT breathlessly promised us an inside story we had never heard before, but relatively little of it was really new. We learned that Obama was negotiating with the Iranians behind the backs of the Israelis, but he certainly had his reasons. The rest of it was pretty familiar.

The question that remains is whether Netanyahu was truly prepared to go to war with Iran on his own, or whether the whole thing was a bluff to get the Americans to do his dirty work. Given the divisions within Israel’s security establishment, and Bibi’s general unwillingness to use massive force against Iran’s proxies, I think the more plausible answer is that he was bluffing. The truth is, however, that only he knows for sure.

For months, Jeremy Corbyn has been braying for an election in the mistaken belief that the UK is crying out for socialism. Today, he is using the Fixed-Term Parliament Act to prevent one, at least until after October 31. Does that make sense?

From a tactical perspective, absolutely. Having pushed through legislation requiring the government to seek another Brexit extension, the opposition/majority has put BoJo in a terrible bind. He must either: (a) blatantly defy the law, impose a truly chaotic Brexit over the will of Parliament, and then face an election; (b) relinquish power; or (c) alienate his hard line supporters and lose votes to the Brexit Party by doing what the law requires.

But what about the cost to the nation? Is it wise to put the UK in this position? Lord, no.

It made no sense to have an election when the two parties were both split on Brexit. BoJo has changed that by purging the Tories of the rump of Remainers; as a result, a general election prior to the deadline could operate as an imperfect version of the second referendum, which is better than no version at all. For the sake of the country, Corbyn should let that happen.

He won’t, of course. BoJo is likely to ignore the law, and the UK is going to tear itself apart in the next 60 days.

The most admirable thing about Bernie Sanders is that he always makes it about the “revolution,” and never himself. He has no interest in power and celebrity for its own sake. He has nothing but disdain for the personal, and for identity politics. If you get him and his ideas, fine; if not, he just moves on. It’s your choice; he’s not going to do much to try to tip the scales in his favor.

In that respect, he couldn’t be less like the current narcissist-in-chief. Bernie’s problem, however, is that identity politics prevail in this country, and his base is far too small to get him the nomination, let alone the presidency. If he won’t kiss babies, and he won’t move to the right on social issues, how can he expand his constituency beyond left-leaning white working class male millennials?

He has exactly one path to the presidency: a massive recession which destroys America’s belief in capitalism. That’s it. Don’t hold your breath.