"It's The Economy Stupid"...Or Is It?

The only, and I mean only rationale for voting for Donald Trump that I have heard that seems even remotely reasonable is that the economy was "good", i.e. no or low inflation, and that for a large percentage of Biden's term the economy has been "bad", i.e. inflation has been high. And it's true, for most of Trump's term inflation was low, unemployment was low and the jobs were being created in the aggregate. But is this the whole picture? Nope. I addressed this briefly in an earlier blog post "Inflation". The rationale only seems reasonable. What drives most Trump voters isn't an emotion-free analysis of the economic state of affairs and a reasoned conclusion that the Trump's re-election will usher in an era of prosperity. No, it's an excuse to cover for the real reasons for supporting Trump.

There isn't now and there never has been a reason to vote for Trump that isn't rooted in his message of hatred. 

Whatever else he decides to ramble on about, at the center of Trump's public pronouncements is a continual stoking of hatred and fear of (the wrong kind of) immigrants. Listen to his interviews - no matter what question he's asked is turned into a diatribe about immigrants. Even people here legally are demonized as "poisoning the blood" of the nation. Of course he's got other targets for his hatred: "the media" is the 'enemy of the people", undermining a free press, to mention one. That's it, that's all he's got and any fantasy that he will make us strong, or prosperous, or respected internationally is a delusion to justify support for a hateful bigot. 

Trump's administration was a combination of autocratic tendencies with utter ignorance and incompetence. There is no reason to think anything would change in a second Trump presidency other than the ratio of autocracy to incompetence could increase. In the four years he's been out of official power he hasn't gotten any smarter, he hasn't gotten an less self-serving or narcissistic, he hasn't become more familiar with how things work. He's less likely to appoint subordinates who will attempt to guide him toward doing the right thing, or refuse to implement illegal orders, and will be appointing more sycophantic loyalists into high government positions. Whether the loyalists he would hypothetically install are any less ignorant or incompetent as he is is an open question.  Despite his public disavowal of Project 2025, his own stated policies align pretty well with theirs. His Vice Presidential running mate isn't ignorant and incompetent, even if he is often tone-deaf and wrote the introduction to Project 2025. If any of the brains behind 2025 get appointed to government positions, you'll see it implemented, despite what Trump says now. 

There's your options with Trump: some combination of stupidity and fascism; certainly not prosperity.

Democracies, Republics and Elections, Oh My

I have heard the supposed difference between democracies and republics "explained" to me numerous times over the years, and by "explained" I mean "shouted at me", usually with an admonition to "educate myself". For these people a Democracy is nothing more or less than a Direct Democracy, i.e. "Mob Rule", while a  Republic is a government by elected representatives who are guided by a constitution. This is partially true.

"Republic" comes from the Latin Res Publica, "a matter of the people", whereby the government is a public matter and not the private property of a monarch. In other words, in the strictest interpretation, a republic is simply "not a monarchy". The form that a republic can take is quite varied. In the United States, most people who refer to republics are talking about a representative-constitutional government, whereby the executive and legislators are elected by the people for fixed terms and are guided by laws, in our case, a constitution. However who "the people" are can be circumscribed quite broadly. In the early days of the United States only adult, white, male, landowners were permitted to vote. This eventually gave the way to voting rights for all adults, except some felons. In a Socialist, or Communist, Republic, the will of "the people" is assumed to reside in the ruling party, which has elections, but decides ahead of time who may run. In an Islamic Republic, the Quran and the clergy empowered to interpret it decide what's good for the people. Ancient Greek republics limited voting to a citizen class. But even if we accept that the correct or true form of a republic is an elected representative government bound by a constitution, that does not makes democracies and republics mutually exclusive.

"Democracy" comes from demokratia, Greek for "power by the people". "Democracy" therefore literally means power or rule of the people. The simplest form of this is Direct Democracy, often referred to as "Mob Rule", where every decision is voted upon by everyone. Obviously this could only work in very limited situations, such as (very) small towns, or people in small isolated groupings. Direct Democracy almost never exists. A less "pure" form of democracy would involve an elected administrator and/or hired technical people who would keep things running, while important decisions would be voted on. The other end of the democracy continuum would be a system indistinguishable from what we defined above as a representative, constitutional, republic: you elect representatives for fixed terms, who are then responsible to run the government according to a constitution. Those who are careful about their words refer to this as a democratic republic, or just a democracy for short. Nobody who calls the United States a democracy really believes that it is a direct democracy or thinks that a direct democracy is a good thing for a large nation.

Nothing about being a republic guarantees that a tyranny of the majority, the mob rule that detractors of the term democracy so fear, cannot take root. Majorities can still elect representatives that will abuse minorities, and the representatives can be cowed by fear of not being re-elected. What gives the minority rights and protections are the rights and protections that we wrote into our laws early on, such as the Bill of Rights and separation of powers.  

Nothing about a democratic republic, whether you emphasize "democracy" or "republic", guarantees that a system like the Electoral College has to exist. Various representative democracies/democratic republics use different methods for choosing their head of government, or head of state. Most directly elect their president or prime  minister through popular vote. In some countries, notably in the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister is the leader of the party which wins a majority of seats in the House of Commons. We have the system that we do, not because we're a republic, or even strictly because we have a federal system, but because of various compromises arising from competing priorities among the various states. Predominant issues included slavery, small state versus larger states and the tendency for the states to view themselves as sovereign. 

There are several undemocratic features that were built into our framework of government. One has been eliminated: the indirect election of Senators. While today Senators are elected directly by the voters in each state, originally they were selected by each state government. Since gerrymandering was just as prevalent back then as it is now, a non-representative state legislature could appoint someone who represented their interests, which might not align with the interests of the voters. The founders did not trust "the people" to reliably choose their own Senators. Even today the Senate is an undemocratic institution. Small population states, like Wyoming, Vermont and the Dakotas have the same representation as large states like New York, Florida, California and Texas. This made sense in the early days of the nation when states (or at least their leaders) still viewed themselves as sovereign entities and jealously guarded their respective rights and perquisites, but is the culture really noticeably different when you cross a state border these days? The election of a president had several undemocratic features. The electoral college itself, where votes were weighted in favor of smaller states was originally even more undemocratic by the insertion of a second layer of voting between the people and the president - the electors. Unlike today, where the electors for the most part are required to vote in accordance with the voters in their state or district, originally electors were conceived as a way to overturn the vote of the majority of voters in a state if the voters voted for the "wrong" candidate. 

Today's Republican Party, and not just the predominant Trumpist faction, is fixating on these undemocratic aspects of our system and amplifying them in order to retain power. It's not just the lie of the stolen election either. Attempts are being made all across the country, not only in Congress but in state and local election boards, to find ways to "legally" reverse or overturn election results. Roadblocks and speed bumps continue to be put in place to make it more difficult to register or to actually vote. Polling places are moved or eliminated, early or absentee voting is curtailed and unnecessary steps are added to mail-in ballots (how many times do we need to sign or initial the ballots and envelopes?) Voter rolls are purged weeks before an election, referenda to allow felons who have served their time eligible to vote  have been neutered by byzantine rules, gubernatorial powers are curtailed by Republican state legislatures just before a Democratic governor is sworn in, legislatures slow walk or refuse to implement or fund petition initiatives...the list goes on and on. 

Today's Republican Party, as the cliche goes, talks out of both sides of their collective mouth. They claim that their candidate, Donald Trump has the support of the majority of the country, yet they do all that they can to make the will of the majority irrelevant. 

Let the States Decide?

The phrase "let the states decide" is usually used in conjunction with abortion rights and restrictions. But it can be, and is, applicable to many other situations. 

There has always been a tension in the United States between the ideal of local control and the reality that we are all citizens of one nation. Rural people often complain about the hypothetical big city voters who is "telling them what to do". Residents in small states point out how "they're not California". I'll agree that some things should be left up to local citizens. Some things. 

I'll concede that there's often regulations that come out of the federal, or even state, government that do not adequately take into account the facts on the ground. Environmental regulations, safety regulations, you name it. Regulators and elected officials default to a one-size-fits-all approach to law-making. They seldom think through the consequences or downstream effects of their decisions. An example in my own experience as a state government employee involves remote work. In 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic, most state employees were allowed to work from home. When the danger was largely past, our agency head decided to extend the ability of many employees to work from home, leaving the ultimate decision to his managers who knew the situation best. Then we got a new governor whose personal experience informed him that in-person work was more effective an efficient that remote work. Remote work ended, despite evidence that most employees were more productive working from home at least part of the time. One-size-fits-all. In this example the governor should have allowed the work arrangement to be molded to the needs and productivity of the work groups and the individuals involved rather than having one rule across the board. Many government regulations are like this - a standard that doesn't fit that multitude of situations across the country. 

This should absolutely not apply to rights. 

The right of a woman to control her own body should not depend on what side of a state border she lives on. Rights that are enshrined in the Constitution do not change when you move from one state to another, why do we think that other rights do? Let's not forget that for fifty years a woman's right to control her own body was considered a Constitutional right! Not only should rights not depend on where you live, they shouldn't subject to being taken away when a partisan, religiously motivated majority takes control of the Supreme Court. 

And what is meant by "let the states decide"?

Usually it means "let the legislature decide". There's multiple problems with this. Most obvious is the issue of gerrymandering. There are a number of states where statewide elections are often won by Democrats, but the legislature is composed of a majority of Republicans, sometimes with a veto-proof majority. So you have situations where the majority of voters choose Democrats (who usually support abortion rights) but Republicans (who usually support abortions restrictions or bans) are elected. In addition to this, most people are not one-issue voters. Republicans who are elected for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with abortion will, once elected, push for abortion restrictions even though the majority of the electorate, including some of their own supporters, favor abortion access. My own state of Nebraska is a good example. Polling consistently shows that 50% or more of Nebraskans favor access to abortion, but since Nebraskans have elected a majority of legislators who support abortion restrictions, that's what gets passed in the legislature. Many of those 50% however live in districts where they are the minority. 

In any state so far that put abortion rights on the ballot, the measure has passed, even in "red" states where the legislature and executive had attempted to impose restrictions. There are several states with referenda on the ballot next month, including Nebraska (although in Nebraska there are two - one for and one against - pay attention to what you're voting for!). In Nebraska there have been attempts to remove the issue from the ballot, and hopefully the pro-Choice measure will prevail, but fundamental rights should never be subject to a vote.

Inflation

There are things that a president or Congress can affect, and there are things they can't. One thing that a president's policies can't substantially influence is inflation. 

During Trump's term, inflation was low; though most of Biden's term, inflation has been high. This has caused some voters to conclude that for purely economic reasons, Trump is a better choice for president. The question to ask, one which most people looking for a non-racist rationale for voting for Trump don't ask is "What specific actions did Trump take to keep inflation low and what specific actions did Biden take that resulted in high inflation?" The answer? None and none.

Most economic metrics have been on a positive trend since Obama's first term as we recovered from the recession caused by the housing crash, continuing through the first three years of Trump's term. Then came Covid. The economy virtually shut down for most of 2020. Due to the resulting lack of travel, gas prices dropped precipitously. These unusually low prices would make the return to more normal prices in 2021 and 2022 seem worse than it was. Other factors contributed to high inflation. The fast recovery in 2021 left many businesses scrambling to ramp up production, increase staffing and restart the stalled supply chain. The Econ 101 principle of supply and demand will cause prices to go up in this scenario. There's a theory that the stimulus checks issued in both the Trump and Biden administrations "overheated" the economy, contributing to increased demand with not enough supply. Wages have been going up in most industries, which is another factor. Let's not forget the probability that corporations are taking advantage of the situation to unnecessarily raise prices. Rents have skyrocketed - but this is a function of local property taxes and has nothing to do with anything on the national level. Gas prices, after a peak in 2022 have slowly receded to pre-2020 levels. 

Both Trump and Harris have talked about reducing inflation, even though there's not really anything they can do about it. Harris floated an idea about targeting price gouging. Trump has suggested ending income tax on overtime; both have talked about ending taxes on tips. Trump has made vague promises about rolling back prices. Inflation has slunk back to a more normal level, so whoever gets elected in November can claim to be presiding over low inflation. What both Harris and Trump hope we don't realize is that once prices go up, they're not going back down, at least not macroeconomically. 

If you're looking for reasons to vote for either candidate, the inflation rates of the last few years shouldn't be among them.

Confession: I Have Voted for Republicans

Until fairly recently I would vote for the person, rather than the party. I have voted for Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Libertarians. After seeing how, with the election of Barack Obama, the Republican Party had turned into a party that prided itself on racism and ignorance, I vowed I'd never again vote for a member of that party. (In reality the change to the Republican Party had been underway at least since the 90's, as Newt Gingrich turned his party into nothing more than an anti-Clinton caucus)

Republican platforms used to emphasize fiscal responsibility, limited government, a strong military (with strong international alliances), and free trade. While taken to extremes, all of these positions could be harmful. Government is not a business where profit is the prime motivator. Government cannot be so limited that we're run by oligarchs. Regulations are necessary to protect those who are not part of the 1%. Free trade cannot be an excuse to abuse workers or eviscerate unions. But they are also, in theory, good policies when balanced by social programs, investment in infrastructure, reasonable regulation and worker's rights. Republicans of the past, while tending to be conservative, were also willing to work with Democrats and come to compromises, balanced approaches to governance. Republicans and Democrats at the state and local level were often indistinguishable from each other. A mayor or a governor was focused more on strictly local concerns and not their fealty to a president or other national figure. 

I still think some conservative principles make for good government. Fiscal concerns need to balance our desire to solve society's problems - you can't just throw money at everything thinking money will solve everything. I believe a strong military is essential, although I also believe we should be more circumspect about when we get involved in other countries' problems. In general I support free trade without a lot of barriers like tariffs, which often accomplish nothing other than raising prices for consumers - protectionist policies should be reserved for circumstances where foreign businesses are truly attacking ours. 

But there's really not a choice any longer. Any possible pros of Republican governance are swamped by the cons of not only their cultish devotion to Losin' Don, but the party's transformation into a vehicle for mindlessly attacking anything progressive or liberal. The flip side of that is that any liberal Democratic positions that I am uncomfortable with are immaterial compared to the horrors of incipient fascism that the Republicans represent. 

Opinions vs. Facts

There are some things that are objectively true no matter whether you agree with them or not, and there are things that are subjective, a matter of opinion. That ubiquity of social media has convinced many of us that all information is of equal value and truth is determined by what our opinion about the information is. 

Like it or not, what constitutes a fact in some realms is determined by experts. There are many areas in which I am incompetent to render an opinion - medicine, and it's subcategories of epidemiology and virology among them. I am happy to defer to my primary care physician for most medical situations, and to the CDC and other boards of experts in matters of pandemics. Can the experts, in medical science or any other field, be wrong? Of course. Science, in every category, advances and learns as time goes on, unfortunately, sometimes from its mistakes. But the response to the possibility that an expert might be wrong is not to reflexively and mindlessly disregard anything an expert tells you simply because they are an expert. Just because the answer might seem counter-intuitive to a non-expert, or involve discomfort or inconvenience doesn't mean that it's wrong. Surfing the internet looking for some crackpot to validate your ill-informed opinion is unlikely to yield any real answers either. 

The thing about deferring to professionals, whether they are scientists with advanced degrees and a track record of results, or seasoned reporters working for established news agencies, or economists who understand the interplay of the myriad variables that make up our economy, is that we know who they are. We can check their reputations without necessarily understanding fully their field of expertise. Professionals will check their sources, make sure that their results can be duplicated, verify their math and underlying assumptions, before making an unequivocal statement. The non-professionals, be they bloggers, or podcasters, or some Bubba with a Twitter/X account can say anything. If they have a large enough following then the unsourced rumor that they just started is going to sprint around the globe multiple times before the truth can get its shoes laced up. I put politicians firmly in the camp of non-professional, by the way. 

The "stealing and eating cats and dogs" in Springfield Ohio rumor is a textbook example. One person posted about it on Facebook, only to later recant and take her post down. There was one police call (months ago) about a missing cat (which soon after turned up). The Facebook post was shared, it was picked up on X, people who themselves did not having a missing pet showed up at a City Council meeting to complain about immigrants stealing and eating pets. A candidate for the presidency repeated the rumor during the debate and was quickly fact-checked and corrected, which caused all the believers in this rumor to double down. Photos were shared, not of immigrants in Springfield stealing and eating pets, but of a mentally ill American woman in another Ohio city killing a cat and possibly eating it; a photo, also in another city, of man carrying a goose, which as it later turned out, he was picking up off the road after it had been run down. No actual evidence that immigrants are stealing and killing pets has surfaced, yet the believers are not dissuaded one bit. On social media platforms you'll often hear the phrase "the mainstream media isn't reporting this" - usually the reason is that it isn't happening. Long established reputable news organizations aren't know for publishing unverified rumors and the CDC isn't going to recommend that you inject disinfectant. 

Does this mean that everything that you see on social media is wrong? Of course not. But finding the truth in a given situation takes more than scrolling through Musk's online junkyard and searching for something that "makes sense" to you and fits with your preconceived view of the world. In my observation most of what I see posted on X is nothing but opinion. Occasionally there's a well researched and thought-through analysis (some that make me reconsider my opinion on the matter) but usually it's just someone screaming into the ether. 

A tactic that I see fairly often is a tweet with a photo or video clip attached where the tweet describes the attached image at odds with the image itself.  A recent example showed First Lady Jill Biden at a cabinet meeting. One tweet claimed that she was "sitting in" for President Biden others claimed she was running the cabinet meeting and pointed out that she was sitting at the head of the table. This of course spurred a lot of outrage for MAGA world, where they all assumed that Dr. Biden was pulling an Edith Wilson. But a glance at the photo would reveal that President Biden was there and was sitting in the seat where presidents traditionally sat (center of the long side of the table, on the right in this photo, in front of the flags) and Dr. Biden was a guest addressing the cabinet. 

Mainstream media has its own biases, the experts sometimes get it wrong, but looking to X for truth is idiotic. 

The Trump-Harris Debate

I'm usually of the opinion that debates are useless, that the participants don't really answer the questions and the moderators don't hold the candidates' feet to the fire, asking follow up questions. I certainly don't believe you can clearly declare winners and losers. After Tuesday's debate, I'm changing my mind, at least about this one. 

The debate between former President Trump and President Biden, was short on substance as usual. Biden presented his ideas and policies and mostly answered the questions, but he did so in such a halting manner, appearing confused and befuddled, and once even trailed off into unintelligible mumbles. All Trump had to do was stand up straight and speak in a confident tone and he appeared to be the stronger candidate. It brought focus to a situation which many Democrats had long feared: that Biden was not mentally and physically able to effectively campaign. (Whether he can still effectively lead for the remainder of his term is an open question). So the Democrats closed ranks and united behind Vice President Harris.

From the time it was clear that she would be the replacement nominee to the day of the debate Harris was written off as a weak candidate. That she had no accomplishments, that she was a "DEI Hire", that she was unintelligent, that she was incoherent when she spoke and had no plans. All of that was put to rest on Tuesday night.

I'm going to concede that she could have more clearly answered some of the questions. But I'll give any politician a pass if answering a question about a mistake is a no-win scenario. In a perfect world I'd like to see our elected office holders come clean when they erred, but what happens in reality is that the mea culpa becomes an out-of-context clip or meme that is used to attack them. For example, former Speaker of the House Pelosi has recently said that she takes responsibility for the events of January 6th, not because she actually did anything wrong, or incited the rioters, but because she was taking a "the buck stops here" position due to her position as Speaker. Right wing trolls have used this brief quote to claim that Pelosi was the instigator of the attempted overturning of an election. Harris addressed some of the questions aimed at her weaknesses and did as well as anyone - what she didn't do was attack the moderators for asking, calling them "nasty" and losing her temper. About the only time she got even a little bit rattled was when she talked about her change of position on fracking. 

MAGA world is accusing her of lying throughout, but most of what they are calling lies, might be misleading or out of context.

• The Trump National Sales Tax: Trump isn't proposing a national sales tax per se, but Harris is saying that his huge tariffs increases as effectively a tax increase since they will be levied on sales
• Trump supports Project 2025: Trump has specifically disavowed the plan, but many of his own proposals are mirrored in Project 2025, and in general they are not that different
• Trump calls for a bloodbath if he loses:  Trump used the term "bloodbath" to describe the state of the auto industry if he lost in November
• Trump will sign a national abortion ban: Trump says he won't, his VP pick, Vance, says he will. Trump has been all over the map on abortion, but he did very specifically nominate 3 avowedly anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court

Many of the other things that the Trumpists are calling lies, were, in fact, true. One example is the post Charlottesville quote "there were very fine people on both sides". He said it, Harris quoted it accurately. Snopes recently posted an article debunking a misquoting of his statement - he did not literally say "Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists are very fine people". Snopes was clear in their article that most of the people on one side were Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists and that he did say "there were very fine people on both sides". 

Trump has bragged that he doesn't need to prepare for debates, whether this is true or not is up for debate (ha ha), but it's very obvious that Harris did prepare. The questions were ones that you would expect and she thought through ahead of time how she would respond. She didn't need to be given the questions prior to the debate. Trump is bragging that he won and also that the debate was rigged against him. Harris is accused of wearing CIA quality in-ear receivers so that she could be fed answers. Repeating information heard through an earpiece in real time would not have resulted in the smooth, no hesitation, delivery of Harris' responses. 

Trump did himself no favors. His responses were, from the start, defensive and rambling. His claims of baby executions and cat eating by immigrants (still no videos of that, despite every American having a cell phone camera with them 24/7 - if there is, I will gladly admit Trump was right) was only the tip of the iceberg. What really decided the winner of the debate in my opinion was how Harris was able to take control and goad Trump into losing control and lashing out angrily over inconsequential things like the size of rally crowds and whether people left early. She kept her cool and determined the way things proceeded. 

Harris did say she was willing to debate again, but Trump has come out and said that he will not agree to any other debates...because he won. His rationale was that a loser in a prizefight will always ask for a rematch...even though after he debated Biden, Trump immediately asked to meet for another debate! make up your mind Donnie!

I doubt many minds were changed. The Trump cult is still 100% for Trump. The Harris camp isn't going to defect to Trump. Maybe a few people along the undecided fringes (who are these people?) will realize that Harris is a strong candidate and will be a strong president. I believe that some lukewarm anti-Trump voters will decide that sitting it out isn't in the cards any longer.

Meanwhile Losin' Don and his minions continue on, evil minds plotting destruction, sorcerers of death's construction, poisoning brainwashed minds.