Cromwell

If you’re familiar with the HGTV program “International House Hunters,” you know that the buyers are confronted with three choices, and their first task is to eliminate one. In a nutshell, that is one of the objections to the second referendum; there are three choices, and the British public is not accustomed to that.

In my opinion, there are two fair ways to structure a referendum to deal with the three option problem. They are:

1. Have a single ranked preference vote with remain, the May deal, and no-deal as the options. This has the advantage of only requiring one vote, and it ultimately results in a majority in favor of one of the alternatives. The down side is that the British people aren’t accustomed to ranked preference voting. But really, how complicated can it be?
2. Rerun the first referendum question. If remain prevails, nothing more needs to be done. If leave wins, have a second round pitting the May deal against no-deal. This approach avoids the novelty of ranked preference voting, but it could involve multiple votes, which should be avoided, if possible.

The option that does not work is having a first round with just the May deal and no-deal, because supporters of remaining would be able to vote tactically to help their cause. That wouldn’t be fair to the leavers.

As to the other objections to the second referendum, tune in tomorrow.

The world according to David Brooks:

“Back in the seventies, when the government was run by Democrats, business was overregulated and overtaxed, and the people suffered. Fortunately, St. Ronald came to the rescue. Supported by his trusty sidekicks, St. Milton, St. William, and St. Margaret, they cut taxes and unleashed the power of capitalism. Freedom and prosperity reigned, and the people were happy.

But somehow it all went wrong. The left, with its secularism and relativism, was largely to blame, of course, but the capitalists lost their moral compass, too. Growth slowed, inequality soared, and communities withered. Today America is spiritually sick, and an inept, corrupt white nationalist is president as a result. I’m not sure how to fix that, but if I write about it enough, maybe someone will think of something.”

To which I say: LOL.

Do you remember Milton Friedman thundering about the moral responsibility of corporations? Do you recall Reagan banging on about the need for a strong safety net? What about all of those articles in the National Review that insisted we needed to protect the American worker from the effects of creative destruction? And everyone remembers Mrs. Thatcher’s quote about society prevailing over the individual, right?

Well, of course not–none of that happened. The libertarianism that Brooks decries was at the heart of Reagan/Thatcher ideology, and it was obvious from the beginning; you do, in fact, remember Gordon Gekko and “Wall Street.”

It gets worse. Sure, Reagan was an altogether more attractive figure than Trump. Yes, he was a small government idealist, and he traded more in hope than fear. Yes, he was willing to raise taxes, as well as cut them; it was his successors who turned tax cutting into a religion. Yes, he wanted to tear down walls, not build them. But Reaganism was Trumpism in embryo. It was Reagan who made the GOP the swaggering, tax cutting, socially reactionary party that it is today. It was Reagan who created the bargain that has been the foundation of the party for so many years: tax cuts and deregulation in exchange for reactionary judges and welfare cuts for “those people.” Gingrich, Ryan, Bush 43, and Trump all believed in the bargain, and it paid off at the ballot box, thanks mostly to the votes of the people in red states who are suffering today.

What we are seeing today is the convergence of many factors: the power of creative destruction, which is a feature, not a bug, of capitalism; the impacts of globalization and technological change; the advent of the internet and Fox News, which have damaged national unity; and the failure of the federal government, due mostly to the efforts of the GOP, to maintain an adequate welfare state for the benefit of the victims of economic evolution. Blue states, in general, have prospered, and levels of crime and divorce are down; it is only the areas that were left behind economically that have turned into the Brooks dystopia.

How does it get fixed? You start by throwing off tired Reaganite economic theories and making the welfare state more effective; the benefits of that will be felt mostly by red state residents, whether they appreciate it or not. One hopes that the debates within the Democratic Party over the next few years will move us in that direction.

In 2009, Barack Obama gave a speech at Cairo University in which he acknowledged that the Iraq War had damaged America’s image and interests in the Middle East. He made it clear that America had no quarrel with mainstream Islam, but that we would resist extremists, and that we were entitled to help from the locals. He also indicated that America was willing to talk to Iran. In general, the speech was well-received in the Islamic world.

Yesterday, Mike Pompeo made a speech in which he attempted to repudiate everything Obama had said in 2009. Pompeo’s position is that, by definition, American interventions in the Middle East are always good, because America itself is good, which presumably means that the Iraq War was a rip-roaring success. Sunni autocrats are also a force for good; human rights issues in the countries they rule don’t matter. All of the evil in the region is attributable to Iran, including, counter-intuitively, the impacts of the Sunni extremists in IS. America will consequently resist Iranian attempts to expand its influence anytime, anywhere.

Today, we learned that American troops are already starting to leave Syria. Trump has also made it clear in the past that Iraq was a mistake. I guess someone didn’t get the memo.

None of this makes any sense at all. If you can figure it out, you’re smarter than I am.

Jeremy Corbyn clearly hopes that the Brexit mess will drop power in his lap. He might be right, but it won’t be automatic, and he needs to play his cards properly.

Here are three Brexit scenarios, and the likely results:

1. THE MAY DEAL IS DEFEATED, CORBYN PROMISES A SECOND REFERENDUM, REMAINER MPS ABANDON THE GOVERNMENT, AND HE WINS THE ENSUING ELECTION. The first part of this is virtually assured; the rest depends on Corbyn’s willingness to support the second referendum. His party supports it overwhelmingly, but he clearly has reservations. Will he change his mind? TBD.
2. THE MAY DEAL IS SOMEHOW APPROVED BY PARLIAMENT, AND THE BREXITEERS LEAVE THE GOVERNMENT. Neither part of that is at all plausible.
3. THE MAY DEAL FAILS, THE UK CRASHES OUT OF THE EU WITHOUT A DEAL, CHAOS ENSUES, AND THE VOTERS RETALIATE AT THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION. This could happen, but there is no guarantee that the no-deal option will be as catastrophic as most experts think. Furthermore, the Conservative Party will no longer be divided by Brexit at the next election, the chaos will almost certainly be over, and the voters may have their minds on something else by then.

Donald Trump once said, probably correctly, that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing some of his voters. Chief among them are white evangelical Christians. While some pundits tried to argue shortly after the election that Trump’s supporters were only nominal Christians, the data do not support that position; subsequent surveys have shown that Cruz voters actually have a better opinion of him than his own primary voters.

This isn’t because members of the religious right have any illusions about his character; it is because they think their values are being threatened to the point where their only alternatives are King Cyrus and the Benedict option. That sounds ridiculous to me, and probably to you, but while there certainly is reason to doubt their intelligence, there is no reason to question their sincerity.

So how can the Democrats peel off some of this group? Realistically, they probably can’t. For the sake of the peace and unity of the country, however, the nominee would be wise to make a display of being sympathetic to them, and to try to reassure them that their values are not under attack.

YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE

When you walk through a storm

Hold your head up high

And don’t be afraid–we’re with you.

At the end of the storm

Is a golden sky

And a presidency born anew.

________________

Walk on through the wind

Walk on through the rain

Though the Democrats covet your throne.

Walk on, walk on

With hope in your heart

And you’ll never walk alone.

You’ll never walk alone.

Parody of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Rodgers and Hammerstein

It’s fair to say that Donald Trump’s model for international decision-making isn’t a UN meeting–it’s the scene in “The Godfather” in which the heads of the five families reach an agreement on the dealing of drugs. In Trump’s view, international law is a bad joke, our “allies” are only out to screw us, thugs are everywhere, and nothing but money and power matter. In the end, the rich, the strong, and the shrewd always prevail.

While this is a gross oversimplification of how the world works, it isn’t completely wrong. There are plenty of thugs out there, starting with Putin. The Democratic nominee needs to be someone with the street smarts and the backbone to handle them.

And so, I would suggest that you impose the following test on each of the candidates: if he or she is president, and Putin shows up for a meeting an hour late, and with his dog, will he or she know how to handle the situation?

Joe Biden passes this test. Bernie Sanders fails it, due to his 70’s era phobia about using American power. As for the rest, it’s TBD. That’s the great virtue of the endless campaign; we learn a lot about the candidates in the process.

The urban/rural split is hardly unique to 21st century America. Jefferson made it the centerpiece of his political philosophy in the 18th century. Stuart historians talk about a religious, political, and cultural battle between the court and the country that ultimately led to the English Civil War. The Paris Commune was essentially a civil war between Paris and the surrounding rural areas. The Brexit vote generally pitted London against the rest of the country. It happens.

What sets America apart from other western countries is a federal system that effectively maximizes the clout of rural areas at the expense of urban residents. This effectively means that the GOP begins every election with an enormous structural advantage, which it then amplifies through gerrymandering.

Nothing remotely resembling the “revolution” is ever going to happen without the support of rural voters. How can the Democrats win a respectable percentage of them? By supporting free trade, and by making a big, sincere display of appreciating rural values. Will that happen? I see no sign of it, and none of the likely candidates is an obvious champion of rural values (oddly, given her fairly hardscrabble Oklahoma background, Warren has a better chance than most), but we’ll see.

A: One GOP President called for a wall to be torn down; the other to build one.

Q: Who are Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump?

As we know, the only political skill that Trump has is to throw red meat to his base. For the first two years of his administration, that had some effect; the GOP controlled both houses of Congress, and the real short-term threat to a large number of incumbents was a primary challenger, not the Democrats, so appeals to the base were a useful way of keeping wayward Republicans in line.

Today, not so much. Trump can huff and blow and appeal to the base all he wants; Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have to care, and she won’t.

When will Trump figure out that his one trick doesn’t work anymore? He’s slow, so it won’t happen overnight.

If you analyze Trump’s wall speech, and put it in its proper context, you get something like this:

1. The wall issue incorporates two of the primary themes of the Trump campaign: (a) the world, and Mexico in particular, is full of evildoers from whom only I can provide America with protection; and (b) I am the world’s greatest negotiator, as seen weekly on “The Apprentice.” No wonder it’s a point of such importance to him! If he fails, he has undercut the fundamental premises of his presidency.
2. He made a tactical mistake by attaching more value to the wall than it merits, which means the Democrats can trade it for something meaningful to them, and the country.
3. He initially tried to sell the wall to the voters by taking the federal workers, whom he described as “Democrats,” and the American public hostage. The country is only too familiar with that tactic at this stage of his presidency, so it isn’t working.
4. Having failed with hostage taking, the speech was an attempt to create a different kind of leverage by getting the American people to pressure the Democrats. Unfortunately for him, he just lost an election that revolved (at his insistence) around this point, and he took two years to decide that the wall was worth a shutdown. America has already fully digested this issue, and doesn’t agree with him. In any event, he had already undercut his message of Democratic intransigence by publicly owning the shutdown well before it occurred.
5. The speech was just recycled material from the campaign, delivered in a manner and from a location that didn’t suit his style.
6. Pelosi and Schumer were wooden, too, but they made their point: the most pressing issue is the shutdown, not the wall.
7. The support of the base isn’t enough, by itself, to get him the wall, and he has no interest in reaching out to anyone else. His failures on this issue show the limitations of his brand of politics.
8. I won’t bother fact checking the speech. You already know that it was full of exaggerations and absurdities.
9. So where does this go now? GOP support for the shutdown is starting to erode. He could go the emergency route and trade an immediate political problem for a bigger political and legal problem later, he could accept a tiny face-saving concession and lie about it to the base, or he could agree to a larger deal in which he trades something of genuine value for the wall.
10. John Roberts and Mitch McConnell will not appreciate it if he picks the emergency option; the ensuing litigation will damage their interests regardless of the outcome. Since Trump almost never takes the long view, that probably won’t matter to him.

Donald Trump famously said that he loved the poorly educated. They returned the favor; surveys taken after the election indicated that they voted overwhelmingly for him.

This phenomenon is not limited to Trump. In Florida, it was common during the campaign to see commercials featuring GOP candidates talking up shop class and disparaging elitists who think everyone should go to college. Given that Republicans control all of state government, and most local governments, the theme seemed ridiculous, but it was an effort to show working people that they, and not the snooty Democrats, understand them and their values.

So how do the Democrats deal with this? The obvious answer is to avoid condescending to unskilled workers, but the fact is that most Democratic candidates don’t do that, anyway. Just try not to provide any ammunition on this point and point out that most of the GOP candidates portraying themselves as proud supporters of shop class are actually wealthy college graduates.

Given that the Democrats are the nurturing, welfare state loving “mommy” party and the GOP is the swaggering “daddy” party, it is hardly surprising that a gender gap is an enduring feature of American politics. Trump, however, has driven the gap to new levels. Angry men are his core constituents.

The Democratic nominee, regardless of who he or she is, will feature a female-friendly platform in 2020. As a result, if the Democrats want to win back at least some of the angry men, the key variable is the identity of the nominee. Here are my thoughts on the matter:

1. If I could design a perfect 2020 nominee, it would be a man. There are no perfect nominees, however, and electability cannot be reduced to a simple formula based on identity. If the most electable candidate turns out, after extensive vetting, to be a woman, so be it.
2. Many of the angry men are pissed off for a variety of reasons that go beyond gender, and cannot be reached. The Democrats are reaching for swing voters, not for everyone.
3. The “Clinton problem” that I described in a previous post is, to my knowledge, limited to Warren. The other female putative candidates don’t really remind me of Hillary, although that remains to be seen.
4. Harris would bring a slight whiff of glamor to the race that might actually be appealing to men. The dynamics of a Harris-Trump race would be fascinating. Just the thought of it intrigues me.

So how does this turn out in the end? To be honest, I have no idea, and neither do you.

AOC’s proposal to increase the top marginal income tax rate to 70 percent is getting lots of attention in the media. Conservatives predictably find it ridiculous; left-center pundits and economists think it is perfectly reasonable. Who’s right?

Here are my thoughts on the matter:

1. The arguments in favor of the 70 percent rate are: (a) nothing in the data for the period between Truman and Reagan suggests that a 70 percent rate destroys growth; (b) there are recent studies by reputable economists supporting even higher rates; and (c) the marginal utility of a dollar for a billionaire is far less than it is for a less affluent person.
2. However: (a) capital is far more mobile today than it was prior to 1980; (b) there are also far more places for it to land; (c) recent experiments with supertax rates in the UK and France didn’t really work; and (d) Trump is proof that wealthy people value their last dollar as much as any of the others.
3. The incentive issue is typically framed in terms of a wealthy person’s willingness to work, but that really isn’t the problem. The real issue relates to risk-taking, and entrepreneurial behavior; projected returns on marginal investments at a higher tax rate may well fail to justify the risk of the investment, which thus will not happen. That is a negative consequence for employment and the economy in general.

Personally, I think 70 percent is too high. 50 percent strikes me as an appropriate balance. The marginal rate issue, however, cannot be viewed as a stand-alone; the real question is whether the money raised will be put to a good enough use to justify the increase. That is a topic for a different day.

Readers my age or older will undoubtedly remember the iconic movie “The Graduate,” starring Dustin Hoffman. The gist of the movie is that Hoffman’s character, an idealistic Baby Boomer and a newly-minted college graduate, is thrown into a world run by the corrupt, materialistic World War II generation, symbolized by the seductress Mrs. Robinson. In the end, of course, Ben’s idealism prevails, and all is right in the world.

Today, of course, the World War II generation is called the “Greatest Generation,” and the no-longer idealistic Baby Boomers are predominantly Trump voters. Trump himself is technically a Boomer. How’s that for a twist of fate!

The question for today is, how can the Democrats get the votes of more members of the Trump generation? The elderly vote Republican, even though the GOP leadership periodically threatens their cherished Social Security and Medicare benefits, for two reasons. First, they are more socially conservative than Millennials, and do not care for “political correctness”; second, they just don’t believe that the Republicans, as a matter of self-interest, would screw them over like that. Simply crying wolf over possible Social Security and Medicare cuts, based on quotes from Paul Ryan or Mick Mulvaney, isn’t credible to them.

In my opinion, the best way to win the votes of the elderly is to propose to shore up Social Security and Medicare with funds obtained by rolling back portions of the Trump tax cut. That would put the GOP on the spot, and force them to choose between their most reliable voters and the donor class. It’s a win-win from both a policy and a political perspective.