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According to a recent poll published in Axios, more than half of white Republicans (is there another kind?) have serious doubts about being vaccinated. Viewed over time, the percentage was always high, but increased after the election, and still remains higher than the percentage for minorities or white Democrats.

What does this mean? That Trump convinced Republican voters that the virus was a hoax, so no vaccine is required? That Republican voters never believed in science, anyway? That Republican voters don’t trust vaccines that were created by private sector companies under protocols adopted under a GOP administration just because Biden is now president? That life under Biden is unendurable, and it would be better to die of the virus? That dying of the virus would be a way of getting even with the Democrats?

Probably some of all of those. Two things are certain: Trump is going to be responsible, in one way or another, for a lot of unnecessary deaths even out of office; and the vaccine will be more readily available for Democrats, which is good, because only living people can vote.

As I noted in a post about a year ago, it’s hard to make a convincing case for the filibuster in the abstract. It’s not in the Constitution. It specifically was not contemplated by the Founding Fathers. It cuts off deliberation, rather than enhancing it. It makes reasonably bipartisan legislation impossible; something closer to absolute consensus is necessary. Finally, it effectively shifts power from a paralyzed Congress to the executive and the judicial system in a manner that was never contemplated by anyone, and which frustrates a large segment of the population. In the end, this leads to government by litigation and furry Vikings.

Why does Mitch McConnell love the filibuster? Because it doesn’t stop him from doing what he really loves when he’s in power: cutting taxes and confirming right-wing judges. It prevents the Reactionary faction in his own party from jamming through unpopular social legislation that would ultimately cost the GOP seats and the PBPs their tax cuts. So, of course he loves the filibuster.

Will it survive? For now, yes. In the long run, no, because the Reactionaries have more and more control of the GOP. My guess is that it will be buried by the extreme right, not the left.

The Biden agenda is definitely a mixed bag for investors. On the positive side, taking vigorous action to end the pandemic and address its interim impacts is a plus, the infrastructure plan will help the economy, and putting an end to capricious tariffs will also help. On the down side, the planned tax increases on corporations will probably reduce share prices, and there is a possibility of an overheated economy, interest rate increases, and a corresponding fall in stock, bond, and real estate prices.

As of today, the markets seem to be assuming all of the news will be good; the tax increases, the inflation, and the interest rate increases won’t happen, but all of the good stuff will. That could turn out to be true, in which case the Democrats should prosper in 2022. It helps that the Fed seems to be determined to cooperate, and recent history is on Biden’s side. But what if the markets are too optimistic?

There is a very reasonable possibility that we could have a major shift in wealth accumulation from investors to workers by 2022 if the Biden plan, including the minimum wage increase, is implemented in its entirety. You can easily make a case that investors (meaning, left-leaning professionals as well as right-wing capitalists) gained disproportionately from the Obama and Trump years, and that workers are entitled to their turn. Biden hasn’t made this case to the public, however, and the political implications of a significant drop in stock and bond prices prior to the election could be very substantial.

Bret Stephens ranted about “cancel culture” once again in yesterday’s NYT column. As anyone who reads this blog is aware, I am sympathetic, but I have two questions for him:

1. Who is his audience for these diatribes?
2. What is he seeking to accomplish?

Typically, NYT opinion columnists write in the hopes of persuading the federal government to do something, or to stop doing something. In the case of “cancel culture,” we are talking about behavior by young left-wing activists that manifests itself on social media or, occasionally, at the local government level. The federal government in no way caused it, has nothing to do with it, and has no power to stop it.

This is a case of a million tiny tyrants. There is no Orwellian monster to restrain. Even GOP control of government at all levels won’t solve the problem–at least, not without massive and unwelcome changes to our system of government. If Stephens wants to get anywhere with the blue culture warriors, he has to convince them they’re wrong, not ridicule them or count on NYT readers to shut them up.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act basically puts the social media companies in the same position as the cable networks after the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine. They have no legal obligation to be gatekeepers, and plenty of economic incentives not to be, so they only do the absolute minimum necessary to fend off criticism from politicians and the public. As a result, lies and conspiracy theories fly around the internet at the speed of light, and the survival of our political system is in question.

Republican leaders correctly see Section 230 as being vital to the social media companies’ business model, but do not appear to understand that repealing it would work to the GOP’s disadvantage, since irresponsible right-wing partisans would suffer first from the ensuing censorship. In fact, the total abolition of Section 230 would be a mistake, as it would deter valuable as well as worthless speech. We don’t need what would amount to an unaccountable private sector Great Firewall of China.

The correct answer to the question is that Section 230 needs to be amended to make the companies liable for posts which include dangerous rumors and hate speech. Drafting this amendment will not be easy. Creating definitions of the kinds of speech which need to be eliminated will be complicated at best. It has to be tried, however. The status quo is unacceptable to everyone except liars and extremists.

From the 1950s until the 1980s, the regulatory scheme for TV was premised on spectrum scarcity. Since the American people as a whole owned the airwaves, they had a right to impose a public trust on the parties to whom they were leased. Part of the public trust was the Fairness Doctrine, which resulted in the exclusion of unbalanced and extreme opinions from TV. Every owner of a TV station was, in effect, a gatekeeper.

Technological changes made the concept of spectrum scarcity obsolete and ultimately led to the demise of the Fairness Doctrine in the 1980s. From that point forward, TV was treated as something similar to magazines and newspapers, even though, in reality, its pervasiveness and immediacy give it far more impact.

Today, in the real world, there are no TV gatekeepers. The business model for Fox News is to stoke the anger of reactionaries to a point just short of insurrection. There are no regulations prohibiting this; the Fairness Doctrine isn’t coming back any time in the foreseeable future.

The bottom line is that someone needs to talk to the Murdochs and persuade them that being the mouthpiece for violent reactionaries is going to blow up the country and cost them money in the long run. There is no other realistic solution to the Fox News problem.

The Democrats are, quite understandably, looking back at 2020 to try to figure out what went wrong, and how they can fix it in 2022. Good news, guys! I can already tell you that the 2022 election will revolve around two issues: whether Americans are better off then than they are today; and obstructionism and extremism in the GOP.

Since it is almost certain that the pandemic will be under control by 2022, the Democrats should be fighting this election on favorable ground. As to GOP extremism, that depends to a large extent on how prominent Trump is during the campaign.

The Republicans, of course, will want to make the election a referendum on “socialism” and “cancel culture.” In bright red states and House districts, that will work. Everywhere else, it won’t; “cancel culture” is not something that is imposed from D.C., and “socialism” in practice means $1,400 checks for everyone.

Imagine that you are running as a Democrat for a swing House seat in 2022. Your GOP opponent is predictably blathering on about how he represents real people against elitists like you. You respond by pointing out that you supported sending $1,400 checks to hundreds of millions of real Americans, while your opponent did not. When he says that he’s concerned about the deficit, you point out that he had no problems sending similar checks during the Trump years, and that Trump himself supported the additional payments. He has no plausible response to that.

The checks won’t help the Democrats get the Biden package through Congress, and they aren’t properly targeted disaster relief. They will, however, help in 2022. That, in a nutshell, is the case for them.

Immigration is one of the chief issues that divides PBPs and Reactionaries. If the Senate used a secret ballot on a comprehensive immigration reform bill, there would be enough PBP votes for it to overcome a filibuster. What does that mean for Biden’s chances of success with his bill?

Nothing, because the Senate doesn’t use a secret ballot. Illegal immigration is one of the signature issues for the Reactionaries. Given the passion of the extreme right on the question, the PBPs have learned to sit down and shut up. No matter what they might think privately, and regardless of whether they supported the Obama bill, they aren’t going to risk irrevocably splitting the GOP and facing a primary by acquiescing to the Biden bill. If you don’t believe me, just ask Marco Rubio.

Biden has a better chance with narrow issues, such as protection of the Dreamers. There, public support is so strong, the PBPs might be willing to step out of line. My guess is that we will see a Dreamer bill in a matter of a few months, after the comprehensive bill dies a quick death.

Obama was frequently attacked as the “deporter-in-chief” by immigration activists during the 2020 campaign. Biden, of course, was guilty by association. Is the accusation fair?

Not really. The deportations were an attempt to build credibility with the GOP in the legislative process; strict border enforcement was offered in exchange for votes for comprehensive immigration reform. It almost worked; a reasonable bill passed the Senate with the requisite GOP votes. The problem, unfortunately, was timing; the Democrats had lost control of the House in the meantime, and the Hastert Rule was applied by the House GOP leadership to prevent a vote on the Senate bill. Once it became clear that the bill was dead, Obama completely switched gears on enforcement, and the rest is history.

What does this mean for Biden’s chances for a comprehensive bill? More on that issue in my next post.

The great sovereign state of Texas is the home of fossil fuels, rugged individuals, and the free market. Consistent with those concepts, the state built a power grid which is designed to be self-sufficient, and which provides an option for consumers to pay wildly higher rates during times of peak demand. Furthermore, there was no effort to winterize facilities, because climate change is, of course, nothing but a hoax, and because spending money for maintenance would drive up prices in the short run.

Now, of course, the bills are coming due, and guess who’s going to pay? Blue America, of course, through disaster relief. Expect the representatives of the great sovereign state to express their gratitude, much as they do after hurricanes, by objecting to state and local government pandemic relief as a “blue state bailout.”

It started with Rush Limbaugh. Fox News gave it a much wider audience. Sarah Palin brought it to light in a presidential campaign. Donald Trump perfected it. It’s hard to imagine any of the 2024 Republicans winning primaries without it in his tool kit. Yes, owning the libs is now a huge part of the job description for GOP candidates. Actually providing solutions to problems is an afterthought compared to scoring culture war points.

Could we ever see a Democrat with a similar skill set? Can you imagine a Rachel Maddow clone owning the cons all the way to the White House?

Sure, you can. She already exists. You know her by her initials.

About twenty years ago, there was a bit of a flap about Augusta National’s policy of not admitting women as members. The spokesperson for the complaining parties asserted confidently that men spent a lot of time talking about women on the golf course. When my wife agreed with that statement, I assured her that, unlike her, I had plenty of experience talking to men on the golf course, and that women rarely came up during the discussion. The most common topic of conversation, in reality, was golf.

What does this have to do with Rush Limbaugh? He made a fortune by telling red Americans who didn’t know better that blue America despises them, and that they should hate blue America in response. In reality, blue America is vaguely, if somewhat ineffectually, sympathetic to most of the reds. It is the WSJ crowd that is contemptuous of them, not people like me.

Limbaugh was the first truly successful culture warrior during my lifetime. He effectively monetized hate and division with his heavy metal, take no prisoners rhetoric. He so successfully stoked the anger of the right with lies and conspiracy theories that GOP candidates are now compelled to run against the snooty elites even in jurisdictions they completely control. He was the template for Donald Trump. Trump is inconceivable without him. So is January 6.

That’s a lot to answer for.

CDs: Government exists to provide essential goods and services to all citizens in the event the market cannot be relied upon to supply them.

CLs: Government should be the minimum size required to secure life, liberty, and property. Any other role infringes on freedom, and will probably be performed poorly in any event.

PBPs: The business of government is business. Government should encourage business through tax cuts, deregulation, and subsidies where necessary.

Reactionaries: Government should protect the interests of real Americans: white Christians. Our current government hates real Americans. It needs to be destroyed and replaced by something completely different.

Reactionaries are the biggest faction; hence, the nihilism of the party as a whole.

A responsible right-wing party identifies problems and proposes governmental solutions to them that are based on the use of the free market and traditional values. Today’s GOP has no interest in doing that; its mission is to prove that government can’t do anything right, even when Republicans are in charge. And so, for example, instead of suggesting market-based approaches to climate change, the mainstream of the GOP simply denies that it exists.

If you were wondering why the GOP did nothing of note when it had complete control of the federal government in 2017-2018 other than cut taxes for the wealthy, that is the reason. It is also the reason it didn’t bother with a platform in 2020. The actual, unspoken platform was for Trump to finish destroying the “deep state,” not to do anything positive for the American people.

This is nihilism, not conservatism, based on the culture war concept that the government is at war with the values of real Americans and the unenlightened self-interest of the tax-hating donor class.