Happy Trump

The ink isn't dry on the Barr Summary, which gives Trump a lukewarm pass on conspiracy & obstruction of justice, and he's already claiming "total exoneration", despite the Barr Summary indicating that the evidence does not exonerate him. I've already given my opinion on the summary and what it does and does not say, but let's take a look at Trump's reaction in the last day or so:

But first, a look back. Over the last two years Trump has done everything but fire Mueller himself and dissolve his team of investigators, even though he had the legal right (but perhaps not the political will) to do so. If he was so convinced that there was nothing to find, why expend so much energy attacking the credibility of Mueller and his team, calling them 13 (or 19, the number changed) Angry Democrats, conflicted, a witch hunt? He regularly misrepresented the basis for the investigation and openly questioned its legality. Either he knew that there was something to find, or he genuinely believed that it was a partisan coup attempt, despite all of the principals being Republicans.

But the Barr Summary comes out, and assuming that the Mueller Report doesn't contradict it, Trump should be elated that at least one investigation has concluded. Although it's difficult to reconcile his insistence that this was an illegal witch hunt, run by conflicted angry Democrats intent on taking him down and his celebration of its conclusions. So now its conclusions are legitimate? What is disturbing is Trump's and his spokespersons' remarks that those who initiated the investigation are guilty of treason and will be "looked into" (investigated?). One spokesperson said that the penalty for treason is the death penalty". It's not, but that's a pretty chilling thing to say. There's also new promises to investigate Hillary Clinton (sigh...again?) and President Obama (what for?), a Banana Republic maneuver that he first hinted at during the campaign debates. Since when is investigating a President for suspected or alleged crimes, especially with so many red flags and circumstantial evidence, treason? Since when is it appropriate to retaliate against ones political opponents as he suggests he will do?

Also today, it became known that the Trump 2020 campaign sent letters to multiple television stations formally complaining about them allowing politicians coming on and making "false & outlandish claims" and asking that they not allow anyone on the air who accuses Trump of...anything. The irony and lack of self-awareness inherent in that request made me laugh, but then the attempted attack on the First Amendment made me angry.

This is what we're dealing with now - a newly emboldened Trump, believing a cloud over his presidency to have blown away, he can partake more brazenly his autocratic tendencies.

Mueller Report

1. Robert Mueller completed his report on Friday, March 22, 2019 and turned it into the Attorney General
2. We don't fully know what's in it
3. However, Attorney General William Barr put out a summary over the weekend
4. He says that Special Counsel Mueller did not find that Trump or anyone on his campaign conspired or coordinated with representatives of the Russian Government in the actions to interfere with the US presidential election. 
5. He also says that Mueller made no determination on obstruction of justice - but that he found that the evidence did not exonerate Trump
6. Barr determined that since there was no underlying crime to obstruct, there could be no obstruction of justice.

Keep in mind that William Barr was appointed Attorney General to replace Jeff Sessions, who was fired because he had recused himself from oversight of the investigation. Trump wanted a loyalist in place, and he got one. Well before being considered for Attorney General Barr had sent an unsolicited 19-page memo outlining his belief that the investigation was illegitimate. 

Really, that should be about it, but no matter what is in the report, we know this:

• Several U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russia took actions to interfere with and influence our presidential election
• Members of Trump's inner circle met with a variety of Russians, some with government or intelligence connections
• One of them was Donald Trump Junior
• Most of them lied about it when confronted
• Several of them have been indicted and some are going to prison
• There have been documented campaign contacts with Wikileaks, which received hacked emails & other documents from Russian sources
• One campaign staffer bragged about it to an Australian diplomat during a drinking session. The Australian notified the FBI
• A former British intelligence officer initially working for Republicans and later for the DNC came across information that the Trump campaign was working with Russians to get "dirt" on Clinton and turned it over to the FBI
• Trump is unusually deferential to Putin, taking his unsupported word that Russia had not interfered
• Trump fired Comey, bragging to Russian officials afterward that firing Comey takes the pressure off him for the "Russia thing"
• Trump publicly humiliated Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from oversight of the investigation and eventually fired him, putting in loyalist William Barr
• Trump constantly and publicly threatened potential witnesses and attempted to undermine the investigation
• Trump's lawyers did not want him to be interviewed by Mueller or his team because of Trump's predilection for lying, they were concerned he would perjure himself

My prediction all along has been that there will be nothing in the Mueller report that unambiguously links Trump to anything illegal. Michael Cohen testified that Trump, like any good crime boss, maintains plausible deniability. Hardcore Trumpists will always maintain that it was all a politically motivated "witch hut", but there sure was a lot of smoke for there to have been no fire.

Now what has to happen is that the full report must be given to Congress so that they may come to their own conclusions.

Republics

Another stupid thing that I keep hearing from Electoral College fans (which seem to all be Trump fans as well) is that we can't have direct, i.e. popular vote elections for President because "we're a Republic, not a Democracy". Both the terms refer to rule by the people. "Republic" comes to us from the Latin res publica, i.e. a matter of the people; "Democracy" comes from demokratia, Greek for "power by the people". "Republic" came to mean a government of elected representatives, as distinct from a monarchy. "Democracy" indicated a political system where 'the people' had a vote. Most early republics did not have universal suffrage, even the United States limited voting rights to white, male landowners at its founding. "Democracy" was often used to refer to direct democracy or mob rule, the tyranny of the majority. However, over time, Republics where the representatives weren't elected by the people became common; examples include Socialist Republics and Islamic Republics, where there were representatives that were elected, or more precisely selected by the ruling party or by religious elites. The term Democratic Republic came to be used for systems where the people elected their representatives, and often "Democracy" was used as a shorthand. Those who attempt to make a distinction between a Democracy and a Republic are defining "Democracy" as "Direct Democracy" when in fact most people are not using the term that way.

Even if the Trumpists were correct in their claim that we're not a Democracy, there is nothing about being a Republic that prima facie precludes it from directly electing a President. The people are still electing their representative, the President.

Electoral College Lite

One of the most frequent arguments that I have heard recently in favor of the electoral college is that 10-15 urban areas, or alternatively, New York City and Los Angeles, would decide the election. With respect to the NYC/LA argument, those two cities hold 6% of the total US population, which is pretty significant, but the states of New York and California already hold 21% of the electoral votes, so their influence is already outsize. What the supporters of this idea forget is that there are plenty of people in New York and California outside the major urban centers that are more rural, more conservative and tend to vote Republican. These votes would suddenly count, as they don't now, being drowned in the sea of Democratic votes, just as Democratic votes in primarily Republican states don't end up counting toward the total. Electoral College advocates believe that there will be no campaigning in the small states due to their small population, but isn't that what's happening now? Very seldom do you see much attention paid to small states, especially in those that are a lock for either party. An exception is in a close election (like this last one) where every electoral vote was thought to be significant - Trump worked hard to get that one electoral vote in Maine and Clinton campaigned to win that one electoral vote in Nebraska (and failed). If the big urban areas are viewed as a Democratic lock, would you see the Republicans campaigning in the smaller states in order to balance the urban areas? It's hard to say, but one thing is for sure, the rural votes in California, as well as urban votes in Texas would be in play as they would not be under the current system.

More Electoral College

Yes, yes, yes, the "libs" don't like the Electoral College when their candidate loses the election while getting more votes, in this case 2.5 million more 48.1% to 46.4%; the President-Elect didn't like it when he thought Obama won while losing the popular vote, but he guesses it's okay now.

I've heard some, in my opinion, ridiculous statements by people who are presumably Trump supporters. A lot of Clinton supporters, as well as others who were against Trump, make a point that Clinton got more votes, many more votes, than Trump did. While that's interesting, and points to (1) the fact that we are a very divided nation and (2) despite the big Electoral College win, there is no mandate from "the people"; it's largely irrelevant to the question of "who is our next President?". Both Clinton and Trump knew the rules and both campaigned in order to win the most electoral votes, not the most popular votes.  Although it's fun to prod Trump with the knowledge that he garnered less votes than "Crooked Hillary". One of the most ridiculous comebacks that Trump supporters, and even Trump himself, have put forward, is that Clinton really didn't win the popular vote, or that 3 million illegal immigrants voted for her, resulting in Trump gaining more legal votes. Another one that I heard is that if you count up the counties that each candidate "won", Trump received a majority of votes in approximately 2600 counties to Clinton's 500, as if this is somehow a significant statistic. Counties aren't like congressional districts, which each have similar populations (not exactly the same, since a state can have no less than one district) but are artifacts from earlier times. In Nebraska we have counties with less than 500 people, as well as counties with several million people. There are congruent situations all over the nation, so why bring up that meaningless figure? Because, somehow, Trump supporters can then assert that their guy won more of the nation, in addition to the electoral votes. They then derisively characterize the Clinton vote as having "won a couple of big cities", as if the almost 65 million votes were all from Los Angeles and New York City. The follow up to this is that we, as Americans, wouldn't want people "who are not like us", i.e. the city dwellers, to decide who our President should be, as if city folks aren't real Americans.

That brings us back to the recurring argument for keeping the Electoral College as it is: that by relying on the popular vote, the President would be decided by a handful of big cities. Los Angeles is 3.8 million, Chicago 2.7 million, and New York 8.4 million. That's 14.9 million out of 134.8 million total votes cast, those 3 huge, generally Democratic voting, cities together account for 11.05% of the votes cast, the number would be somewhat smaller if we added up the voting population. The total US population is 318 million, and since it looks like only 42% of the total population voted, the voting population of those 3 cities can be calculated as only 4.7% of votes cast. Add to that the fact that surely some  of the residents of these 3 cities voted for Trump, or even usually vote for Republicans and the steamroller that some imagine fades away. Add as many cities as you'd like, DC is only 0.6 million, Philly is 1.5 million, Boston and Detroit are 0.7 million each, and San Francisco is 0.8 million. That's only another 4.3 million, which only edges the voting population up to 6%.

There are other arguments against the Electoral College, but the argument that the big cities will decide the president under a popular vote system is not based on fact, or math.

Is the Electoral College "Fair"?

Is the Electoral College a fair way to decide who gets elected President of the United States? I guess it depends on what you mean by fair. First, a little history:

When the founders were putting together the Constitution, the framework for the governance of the United States, they did not really trust direct democracy. This distrust derived from several assumptions. James Madison warned about the rise of "factions"; he envisioned a single-issue faction growing to more than 50% and imposing its will on the rest (the tyranny of the majority). In general, the founders did not trust "the people" to always make the correct decisions and set up an additional layer in the Presidential election system “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” according to Alexander Hamilton. You can see the distrust for the will of the people in the early practice of Senators being chosen, not by direct election, but by appointment of state legislatures and by the restriction of the franchise to white landowners. The other influence on the creation of the electoral college was the fact that most people in that time viewed themselves more as citizens of their state than as "Americans". The United States under the Articles of Confederation was just that - thirteen "states" (state being back then more commonly applied to a sovereign nation than a subdivision of a larger country) - bound together by mutual treaties to act in concert, more like the European Union than the United States of today. Due to that attitude, much attention was paid to the rights of states, rather than individuals. Much was made of the more populous Northern states dominating the less populous Southern states, which is how we ended up with a Senate, which gave equal representation to each state, while the House of Representatives was proportional by population. Even within the House of Representatives, even the most sparsely populated states receive at least one representative, and are not joined together in one Congressional district with another state. It's interesting that state legislatures used to operate this way, but the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional, that it violated the principle of one man, one vote. 

When it came to organizing the electoral college, the principle of recognizing the distinctness of each state still held. Each state was assigned a number electors equal to the number of Congressional Representatives and Senators. In practice, 48 states award all of their electoral votes to whoever receives the most votes within the state (not necessarily a majority). Even the two that don't, break it down by Congressional district and award two votes to the overall state winner. 

Since we have had two elections in recent memory where the winner of the popular vote was not the winner in the Electoral College, there has been renewed concern. Admittedly, it's usually supporters of the candidate who lost in the Electoral College that make the most fuss, but it's a legitimate concern. 

One of the arguments for keeping the Electoral College is that with direct election, highly populous regions or urban areas would hold an undue influence on the result, that by focusing on ten or twelve large metropolitan areas, candidates would ignore rural areas and smaller cities. But how is that different than what we have now? The large cities in California dominate over the small cities and rural areas and take all of the state's 55 electoral votes. New York City is  much more Liberal/Democratic than the rest of the state and their population negates the more Conservative/Republican votes in the rest of New York. Nebraska is all but ignored, with our five measly electoral votes, safely in the R column, not really worth the effort of campaigning here. (Although in a close election, campaigning for that one vote in District 2 happens on occasion). No matter what system that we use, states with higher populations (and hence populous urban areas within those populous states) will have more influence. However, in the current system, rural states receive proportionally more influence, since every state is guaranteed a minimum of three electoral votes. A state with three electoral votes has 0.56% of the electoral votes, while Wyoming, which has three electoral votes, has only 0.17% of the nation's population. 

The difference in a direct election system is that the votes in say, New York City, will not negate the votes in upstate New York. Every vote in the state will contribute toward the result. 

I believe part of the fondness in some quarters for the Electoral College, other than "my guy won", is an attachment for the concept that we're primarily citizens of different, unique states, not primarily Americans. 

No matter what system we use, some areas will have more influence than others, no matter what system we use, candidates will campaign in areas where the most votes are, the difference with a direct election system is that the votes of the Republican rural potato farmer in upstate New York will count exactly the same as the vote of the Democratic schoolteacher in New York City; the liberal college professor's vote in Lincoln Nebraska will count the same as the rancher in the Panhandle. The vote in near-the-Arctic Circle Alaska will have as much influence as a vote in Los Angeles. I saw a map this morning (pictured to the right)which purported

to show that half of the US population lived in the counties shaded in blue. This map was used as an argument that we should retain the Electoral College, since these small geographical areas had more influence than the rest of the vast stretches of the nation. To this I say "so what?" If there's more people in an area, that area should have more votes. England in the early 1800's had what was called "rotten boroughs", where parliamentary districts shrunk in population, but the law made no provision for changing election district boundaries as population changed. The Wikipedia page on rotten boroughs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs lists eight districts with less than 50 voters, two with only seven! The law was changed in 1832 to reflect population changes. Of course, this is not exactly the situation in the United States, but we do have a system where one person's vote counts for more than another's simply because of where that voter lives. 

The one objection that I have for scrapping the electoral college in favor of direct election is operational. Right now, most states' elections are not that close and recounts are rare. When the majority of states show a clear winner, it isn't even necessary to count all the votes. For instance, if Nebraska has counted 92% of the ballots, and Trump is ahead 70% - 30%, there just aren't enough votes in that 8% of uncounted ballots to make a difference. Currently, we count them all, but we concede that Trump has won that state long before all the votes are in. In a close race under direct election, what might trigger a recount? What would be recounted? I believe that five days after the election, we're still counting votes from Election Day. How long does it really take to count all the votes? Better election day security and modernization of balloting and counting, as well as better fail-safes and paper trails would be necessary before a direct election could take place.

One probable side effect of switching to direct election of the President might be the proliferation of third parties. One of the main impediments to a third party presidency is the electoral college. In very few instances has an independent candidate gotten any electoral votes. A third party contender, even while losing, might garner enough votes to be able to receive support for future runs. Right now, the prospect of zero electoral votes discourages serious candidates. Some would welcome competition to the two major parties, others point to the sometimes chaotic elections in European countries or in Israel, where there are a dozen parties, many of them single-issue, all competing for votes, where governments can only form when two or more parties form a coalition.

All in all, what is "fair" is for the person who receives a majority of votes cast should be elected as President (maybe a runoff? - but that's an argument for another day). I'm not suggesting that the results of this election be overturned, or that the electors not vote according to the will of the voters in their states - Trump won the election by the rules that were in place at the start of the election - but that we seriously consider changing the rules so that every vote counts, and counts equally. 

Make America Great Again?

As slogans go "Make America Great Again" did the trick. It was short, not difficult to remember, easy to chant at rallies, and most importantly, completely meaningless.

The whole premise underlying "Make America Great Again" was that at one time America was great. Other presidents, especially the liberal Democrats, made America not-great. Donald Trump would erase all that not-greatness since he alone had the deal-making ability to fix it all. After two plus years of Trump, apparently America is great again since the new improved slogan for 2020 is "Keep America Great". This causes me much flummoxation (yes, I created that word all by myself). If America in 2016 was so anti-great, as Trump laid out for us in his inaugural address referring to "carnage", among other things, are we really supposed to believe that he reversed all the horribleness that he railed against? A charitable examination of his record shows that he signed a lot of executive orders, mostly reversing a lot of President Obama's executive orders, primarily negating environmental and safety regulations; declawed the individual mandate in the ACA; and worked with the Republicans in Congress to ram through an ill-considered tax code change that didn't come close to achieving what was advertised. Although, if you believe his claims, the last two years were a time of historic accomplishments. He also regularly claims credit for others' accomplishments (The Veterans Choice Act was signed into law in 2014 by President Obama after being pushed through Congress by Sen. John McCain, yet Trump claims that he accomplished it) So, it stands to reason that if America was such a mess in 2016, it's still a mess.

One of the things about politics is in order to unseat an incumbent, or the incumbent's party, you have to make a good case that things are bad enough that the country needs a change. If the Republicans are in power, the Democrats are going to paint a picture of a broken system that they are qualified to repair, and the reverse is true when Democrats are in power. Partisans are also going to get offended when the other party points this out and suggest that the other guy isn't patriotic, that he "hates America". Some of you may remember the outcry in 2008 when Michelle Obama said that she was "finally proud to be an American" during the 2008 election cycle. While Mrs. Obama was clearly talking about what she perceived as an atmosphere of hope in the context of a black man being a serious contender for the presidency, she caught a lot of flack for suggesting that she wasn't proud to be an American prior to that. Republicans were outraged, Democrats shrugged. The opposite of the reactions to Trump declaring that America was a wasteland.

Of course there's the question of how to define greatness. Trump pines for a time without "political correctness", where casual, systemic bigotry and misogyny were accepted. He's nostalgic for a time when we got our way by employing our military to threaten other nations into compliance with our will. A time where there was de facto apartheid.

"Make America Great Again" is a mindlessly repeated slogan without any concrete meaning. 

Enemy of the People

One of the most insidious positions that Trump has staked out is his characterization of the majority of the media as "enemies of the people".

Of course he isn't the first president to have problems and disagreements with elements of the press. Newspapers and television stations are going to report on what's happening, their opinion writers and commentators are going to give their opinion about what's happening. Not all of what's reported is going to flatter the president. Opinions will be at variance with what comes out of the Oval Office. Analysts and economists will reach different conclusions. None of this new.

What is new is that Trump's style begs for attention. His constant tweeting, as well as the out-in-the-open disagreements and sometimes outright feuding give the media plenty of grist for their mills. And don't forget that media outlets are not charities or nonprofits, they are for-profit businesses that need to outshine their competitors in order to turn a profit. So if some "insider" leaks information that paints the president in a bad light, someone is going to publish it, especially if it fits what we see publicly.

Trump's view of everybody, not just the free press, is that they exist primarily to support him and his agenda (if one can call something as vague and changeable as his utterances an agenda). Judges are only legitimate if they confirm his decisions; Congressional Republicans are disloyal if they disagree with him or speak out against him; Congressional Democrats "hate America"; bipartisanship means both sides doing what he wants them to do. He thinks that the press should act as a cheerleader for him and his actions. Since they don't, and he equates what he wants with what is best for America, in his mind, the press is obviously the enemy.

I read a lot of news reports, from a lot of different sources. Other than overtly partisan outlets, virtually all articles that I have read since Trump declared his candidacy have been neutral. By neutral I don't mean that they don't contain negative information about Trump. Take for example the recent Congressional testimony by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. If a paper reported that Cohen claimed that Trump was a racist and a con man, was this a negative article? If it was reported that Jim Mattis resigned as Defense Secretary and put in his resignation latter that he had differences of opinion regarding defense policy with Trump, would that be a negative article? If CNN reports record stock valuations and record low unemployment is that positive reporting? No, these are all examples of reporting. What Trump wants isn't reporting, he wants puff pieces lauding his decisions and his historic this and record that.

Trump is very much a "if you're not for me, you're against me" kind of guy. Since the media isn't behaving the way he wants them to, they're his enemies. And since he fancies himself as the "people's president", protector of the working man, therefore they're the enemies of the people as well. Trump also recognizes, as someone who has had his own pre-political reputation enhanced by the media, that the media can damage his repudiation as well. To counteract this, he does what he does to anyone who crosses him: he attacks them and their credibility. And among his core supporters, it's worked.

But it's one thing to question the accuracy of reporting, even his constant refrain of "fake news" doesn't rise to the level of "dangerous".

Calling the free press, or anyone for that matter, an "enemy of the people" is dangerous. Despite his disingenuous explanation that he's only calling "fake news" (which apparently is everyone other than Fox) the enemy, he has so effectively labelled news media as traitorous that those covering Trump rallies are in danger of being assaulted (in fact a cameraman at a rally was recently assaulted). Characterizing anyone as a national enemy puts the men and women of the press in bodily danger. Trump's authoritarian impulses put the very idea of a free press in jeopardy.

Is the Economy REALLY Doing Well?

There's always debate regarding whether economic conditions, good or bad, can be attributed to actions taken by the government. Politicians like to take credit for the good things and lay blame for the bad things. But it seems like the tendency has escalated under the current president.

It's true that there are certain economic indicators that are unambiguously positive right now; there's argument whether they are a direct result of the current administration's policies or a continuation of the previous administration's or have nothing to do with either. So let's say that I'm happy that the positives are positive.

There's an accusation from Trump supporters that those who oppose him want to see harm come to the country in order to see Trump look bad. Periodically the Facebook meme comparing the national situation to an aircraft pilot appears. In this meme, it is suggested that wanting Trump to fail is like wanting the pilot of the plane that you are on to crash. It's not that we want the country to go to hell, war to break out and a second Great Depression, it's that we don't agree that Trump's policies are good for the country and we want him to fail to implement those harmful polices.

But is the economic health of the United States unambiguously good? Certainly the unemployment rate is so low as to be effectively considered full employment. There have been a few months of record lows, but we're hovering around 4%. Trump likes to take credit for that, but when he was running in 2016 he derided the official numbers as "fake" and suggested that the official government published unemployment rate was much lower than the "actual" figure. He may have been right, since the official percentage does not take into account people who have given up looking for work, but if he was honest (ha!) he'd be consistent in the figures he uses. But the problem with unemployment being so low is that many jobs go unfilled, which affects productivity and growth. When I was in retail management this trend caused us untold problems servicing our customers and spent a large percentage of our time hiring and training. An aspect of the low unemployment rate that is seldom discussed is the lack of real wage growth. Usually low unemployment causes wages to rise, since employers are now competing for employees, but for various reasons, this isn't happening.

The rise in stock prices, which regularly set new records, is also seen as an indicator that the economy is doing well. High stock valuations can be an indicator that the economy is doing well, but there's more to that than meets the high (and Trump seems to think that an increase in net stock valuation somehow erases the national debt) See my earlier blog post for my take on Trump & The Stock Market

Another thing that gets emphasized by the administration is that manufacturing jobs are on the rise. It's certainly true that job growth as been healthy, at least as far as raw numbers go. But it's not clear whether there has been a net increase in high-paying jobs, in manufacturing or elsewhere. Reports of new jobs never seem to materialize and plant closings continue, despite bluster and threats by Trump.

And finally we have the "massive, historic tax cuts", which were neither massive, historic, and for many Americans, not even tax cuts. Initially advertised as tax reform that would eliminate corporate tax loopholes in exchange for lower marginal rates, as well as tax cuts for American workers that would effectively give us all an average annual "raise" of $4000, the "reform" gave corporations a huge windfall while raising the tax bill of many individuals. Lower withholding gave the illusion of more money in our pockets, an illusion that was shattered when tax time came around.

If you voted for Trump, or continue to support him, for economic reasons, you might want to reconsider.