Month: August 2022

Michelle Goldberg wonders why American culture seems so stagnant these days. The answer is simple: algorithms. The secret to popularity and financial success for artists lies in understanding and exploiting them, and they lead the public back to what is already familiar, so how likely is it that we are going to see anything radically different and appealing?

The artists we revere had the insight and the courage to take the artifacts of existing culture and package them into something that was generally recognized as completely new. You would have to be very brave or very stupid to try something like that in today’s world.

Imagine, if you will, Barack Obama threatening the Republicans with angry urban mobs if they denied Merrick Garland a vote on his nomination in 2016. The indignation would have reached 11. Obama is a fascist! Obama is a dictator! Obama has no respect for the rule of law! It would have gone on and on.

Obama, of course, did no such thing. But Trump has incorporated it into his playbook, and now Lindsey Graham is following his lead. The armed right-wing mob, it seems, has become an accepted part of American politics.

The encouraging news here is that the existing militias appear to have been demoralized by Trump’s betrayal and the prosecutions after January 6. There is no evidence yet that they are turning into the IRA to accompany the GOP’s Sinn Fein. If the right were to riot following a decision to prosecute Trump, then, the rioters would be ordinary, disorganized, clueless reactionaries instead of a ruthless counterrevolutionary vanguard with a clear plan to overthrow the government. They would not present much of a threat under those circumstances.

The same people, however, do present a serious threat following the 2024 election, because they will have a clear objective and a way to accomplish it at that point. The groundwork has already been laid for the next constitutional crisis, but it’s years away.

Rudy Giuliani has come to Bedminster to meet with Trump, who, as usual, has kept him waiting for about an hour.

T: It’s America’s favorite mayor!

G: That seems like a really long time ago.

T: Why so gloomy?

G: It’s the price I’m paying for defending you over the election. The defamation suits, the attacks on my license, and the criminal investigations, just to name a few. It’s driving me down.

T: Well, never mind that. It will all work out in the end. It always does with me, doesn’t it?

G: Whatever you say, boss.

T: Anyway, I asked you to come here because I need your help again.

G: With what?

T: With this big document witch hunt, of course.

G: I can’t represent you in that. I’ve got too many things on my own plate, and I’ve already destroyed my credibility with too many judges. I’ll give you some free advice, though.

T: What?

G: Hire some real lawyers to handle this situation, which is more serious than you think, and stop telling them to turn their pleadings into press releases. It’s not helping. You’re in real jeopardy here.

T: That’s where we disagree. I’m winning.

G: Why do you say that?

T: First of all, I’m a winner, so I always win. That’s what I do.

G: Oh, right.

T: But beyond that, this is really firing up the base. My fundraising is through the roof. It’s putting me on the front page again. DeSantis will never have the nerve to challenge me now.

G: You don’t understand–this is a legal problem, not a political one. If you go into a courtroom, you’re dealing with a judge and a jury, not your base.

T: I don’t agree. This is really a political problem. The objective is to scare Biden and Garland enough that they won’t have the nerve to charge me. Public opinion is a huge part of that. So is the potential for violence. Lindsey got that right. If Garland thinks there will be blood in the streets, he’ll back down.

G: Don’t underestimate Garland. He’s smart as hell.

T: Garland is just a typical left-wing wimp. You can tell just by looking at him. I don’t care how smart he is. It’s a question of balls, not brains.

G: I hope you’re right. In any event, I can’t help you with that. (He leaves)

It is very possible that Trump will be challenged in the primaries by someone who takes a very hard line on abortion. How will he respond?

This will be a very difficult decision for him, because his natural (practically only) move is to pander to the base. He has shown some awareness, however, that an extreme position on abortion is likely to damage his interests in the general election. My guess is that he will abandon the base on this issue alone and propose some sort of compromise.

If you look at American inflation rates going back to 1960, here is what you find:

1. From 1960 to 1967, inflation was negligible–typically less than 2 percent. These were also years of low unemployment. Life was good, at least if you were a white worker and you didn’t have to worry about the draft.
2. From 1968 to 1972, inflation increased to an average of over 4 percent. This number is high by current standards, and was definitely noticed at the time.
3. Inflation exploded from 1973 to 1981. There were four years in which it reached double digits. This, of course, led to Paul Volcker, soaring interest rates, and the recession of the early 1980s.
4. Between 1982 and 1991, the inflation rate fell back to an average of 4 percent. This was consistent with the figures between 1968 and 1972, but was high relative to recent experience.
5. From 1992 through 2020, inflation always ran between 1 and 3 percent. In 2021, it increased to 4.7 percent. It has been higher this year.

What conclusions can you draw from this data? First, that Americans in the late 1970s had good reason to expect that inflation rates would remain high for the foreseeable future, given the magnitude of the problem and its persistence over more than a decade–hence, the need for shock treatment in the early 1980s. That is not true today. Due to demographic and technological changes and globalization, we have experienced nearly 30 years of minimal inflation. The American public’s apparent belief that the current rate of inflation is an aberration is consequently supported by the national experience, and we don’t need Jerome Powell to turn into Paul Volcker.

Millennials and members of Gen Z have a uniquely intense interest in the following issues:

1. Climate change (they will have to live with it longer than we will);
2. Student debt;
3. An economy that is tilted towards the interests of capitalists and knowledge workers; and
4. Housing costs.

Biden and the Democrats have now delivered on the first two issues. Workers also won higher wages and more freedom to change jobs in Biden’s first two years, although most or all of those gains have been eroded by inflation. Unfortunately, housing costs are beyond the control of the federal government.

Young people, along with women and minorities, are the backbone of the Democratic Party. Will they reward the Democrats by going to the polls in large numbers in November? We’ll see.

Supporters of Biden’s student debt relief plan are pointing to PPP debt relief to prove that opponents of the plan are hypocrites. Are they right?

No, because there are public interest considerations attached to PPP relief that do not apply to student debt. Student loans are contracts entered into voluntarily; the PPP was the result of the involuntary closure of businesses for overriding public health reasons. In addition, the economy would have collapsed, and unemployment would have skyrocketed, without the PPP; without astronomical student loans, the debtors would have been forced to seek out a less expensive source of higher education, most likely at no ultimate cost to themselves. Finally, the PPP was the result of an extreme experience that is highly unlikely to be repeated; you can expect new calls for student debt relief in the future, as the problem of excessive costs has hardly disappeared, and may well be exacerbated by the relief program.

Liz Cheney has no realistic shot at the presidency, but she is clearly determined to take down Trump, to her infinite credit. Would her chances be better as a Republican or an independent?

As I suggested in a previous post, her role model as a Republican candidate would be Eugene McCarthy; if she could destroy Trump in a series of debates, she would encourage other, more electable candidates to jump into the race. The problem, however, is that Trump would probably refuse to debate her, and the GOP leadership would do everything possible to stack the deck against her. Her candidacy as a Republican would consequently accomplish very little in the general election. What about running as an independent?

She would be lucky to win 5 percent of the vote. All of it would come from Never Trumpers and anti-anti-Trumpers; given her hard right views, none of it would come from Democrats. Even 5 percent would be enough to make a significant impact on a race that is likely to be fairly close. This is consequently the best choice available to her.

A few days ago, I posted on the similarities between the 1920s and today. The glaring difference, however, is that the 1920s didn’t produce a political figure like Trump; the GOP presidents of the day were remarkably boring CLs. Why?

Because America is a far different place than it was then. High speed travel was by rail, not by plane. The only really national media consisted of magazines and the movies. The military was tiny, international troubles were an ocean away, and there was no welfare state. As you would expect, then, meaningful political power was exercised at the state and local level, not in Washington.

The presidency simply didn’t matter that much in the days of Harding and Coolidge. As a result, if someone like Trump had been in power, hardly anyone would have noticed, or cared.

There are essentially three objections to blanket student debt relief under the current circumstances:

1. It will feed inflation;
2. It is Robin Hood in reverse–it takes money from the poor and gives it to the rich; and
3. Given that the “government” doesn’t bear the burden of making these payments–taxpayers do–this is an unjustified redistribution of wealth from taxpayers who either didn’t go to college, or who worked hard and paid off their student loans, to people who knowingly entered into a contract that they had reason to believe was in their best interests. The government didn’t require other taxpayers to pay my mortgage; why should student debt be treated differently? What public purpose is served by this handout other than enriching whiny millennials at our expense?

As to #1, the debt waiver was tied to an end to the repayment moratorium, so the net effect will not be inflationary. Biden addressed #2 by limiting relief to the poor and the middle class. There is still no satisfactory answer, in my opinion, to #3, so the best you can say about this plan is that it could have been worse.

One would hope that the administration would make some meaningful efforts to reduce the cost of college in order to avoid this problem manifesting itself in the future. One would also hope that the beneficiaries of this windfall would be enthusiastic about it and will go to the polls in November. My suspicion, however, is that nothing further will be done on costs, and that the lucky millennials will just complain that it didn’t go far enough instead of counting their blessings and voting Democratic in the midterms.

Viktor Orban thinks the EU should leave Hungary free to deal with issues such as LGBTQ rights and immigration. What does history tell us about Hungary and sovereignty?

There is very little precedent for a genuinely sovereign Hungarian state over the last 500 years. Hungary was a battleground between the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs for centuries. When the Hapsburgs won the war, they took control over the Hungarian lands. A Hungarian attempt to win independence that started in 1848 was a miserable failure. The creation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867 gave Hungary a much greater degree of autonomy (as well as control over other ethnic groups in the Empire), but not independence. A much smaller Hungary was genuinely sovereign between the wars, but was swallowed up by the advance of the Red Army during World War II. Finally, Hungary agreed to give up a substantial amount of its right to self-rule in exchange for money and protection when it joined NATO and the EU after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR.

Hungary simply doesn’t have the economic or military strength to stand on its own. That’s why Orban insists on being both a beggar and a chooser. In the end, that’s unsustainable; he will have to live within the limits of the EU and NATO or learn to get along without them.

Experience tells us that America will not operate as a stable and productive liberal democracy in the absence of a reasonable and constructive center-right political party. Unfortunately, that is not on offer right now. The real question with the current GOP is whether it wants to completely destroy American liberal democracy as we have known it, or whether it is willing to live with the constraints of the McConnell Project (free, but gerrymandered elections, with a reactionary Supreme Court severely limiting the power of any Democratic administration).

Donald Trump is the spokesman for the “burn it down” crowd. There is a narrow path for a McConnell Project candidate to defeat him in the 2024 primaries. It includes criticism of Trump’s outrageous, but largely performative, behavior in office and support for NATO and Ukraine. Fox News and the WSJ are clearly open to this kind of campaign. Is there a viable GOP candidate with the intestinal fortitude to try it?

The leadership of the GOP pretty clearly believes that party unity is the road to power, that picking a presidential candidate other than Trump will split off the extremists and thereby make party unity impossible, and that winning power is more important than saving liberal democracy. In the face of that sentiment, do you really think DeSantis, Cotton, Cruz, Hawley, or any of the other wannabes would have the nerve to take on the man on golf cart?

Me, neither. We’ll see.

Like Putin, Viktor Orban has made much of his opposition to the LGBTQ community. Is there anything in Hungary’s history which suggests its culture is unique on that issue, so the EU should cut it some slack?

Not that I can see. Orban’s position is based on political opportunism, not principle.

The country had just survived a war and a pandemic and was ready to move on. The times were turbulent, however. Crime increased, partly as the result of a major constitutional change that put unprecedented pressure on law enforcement. The culture war between white, Protestant, rural America and the more ethnically diverse cities became more intense and figured heavily in national elections. Religion and science came to be viewed as enemies, rather than complementary ways of looking at the world. New limits were placed on immigrants, who were now seen as a threat, rather than an asset, to a still-growing country. America did its best to withdraw from the rest of the world, while in Europe and Asia, extreme nationalist forces were becoming more visible and aggressive.

Is it the 1920s or the 2020s? One thing is for sure: we have been here before.

I was not aware of this before, but according to the NYT, the IRA includes language which makes it clear that greenhouse gases are “pollutants” and that the executive branch has the authority to regulate them.

This is a clear effort to address the Supreme Court and its “major questions” assault on climate change regulations. Take that, Mr. Chief Justice! You’re going to have a hard time working around that one.