Can "They" Take Away Our Social Security?

Can Trump and Company actually "take away our Social Security"? 

Maybe.

Before we all start screaming "It's my money!" or "I paid into it since I was twelve!" Let's look at some facts.

The money that came out of your paychecks over the years is long gone. It was used to for Social Security benefits for the people who had retired while you were working. You're eligible for benefits when you retire, not because "your" money is in an account somewhere with your name on it, but because an algorithm based on your lifetime earnings record calculated how much your monthly benefit will be.  

It is true that until very recently the amount being paid out in benefits was exceeded by what was collected in payroll taxes, creating a surplus. That surplus is what is called the Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF). Currently the SSTF balance is $2.7 trillion. 

Every year that there has been a surplus it has been invested in "non-marketable government securities". This means that the SSTF isn't a Scrooge McDuck type vault full of money, or even a bank account with deposits equaling $2.7 trillion, but what amounts to $2.7 trillion worth of IOU's that are earning market rate interest. Until recently the balance grew each year as revenue exceeded benefits paid out. Since 2020 benefits have exceeded revenue through payroll deductions, so the SSTF balance has been reduced for the last three years. The deficit has been financed through the redeeming of the  "non-marketable government securities", aka "IOU's", which reduces the SSTF balance and is accounted for in the same way as any other government debt obligation, i.e. it is an expense against the general fund. The SSTF deficit for 2023 was $41 billion. 

A popular myth is that Congress, or various presidents, have "borrowed" from the SSTF in order to fund various tax breaks for the rich or foreign wars. While it is true that investing in the securities provides cash to the general fund, all that transfer accomplishes is to lower the amount of outside borrowing that needs to be done to finance the general fund deficit. Congressional or presidential pet projects are funded the way everything else in the general fund budget is funded, by deficit spending fueled by borrowing. 

A related myth is that Social Security will be "broke" some time in the next decade. It is true that by 2035 the SSTF will be depleted. What that means is, not that there will be no money to pay benefits, but that revenue from payroll deductions of then-current workers will only cover around 83% of benefits to then-retirees. Some action in the next ten years will need to be taken to cover the remaining 17%. 

Congress and the president have several options, increasing the cap after which FICA deductions are no longer assessed is one. A small 1% increase in FICA deduction on both employer and employee is another. Raising the retirement age is an unpopular option. Something needs to be done, sooner rather than later. (As unpopular as it was, Reagan's taxing some Social Security benefits when combined income exceeds a certain level, contributed to extending the life of the program)

Or Congress and the president can simply decide to kill Social Security by refusing to honor the debt obligations from the general fund to the SSTF. This would immediately reduce to zero the SSTF balance, effectively eliminating it and reducing benefits to whatever is brought in via payroll deduction. This would immediately reduce the national debt by $2.7 trillion (the total is currently around $31 trillion) They can change the formula by which benefits are calculated. If they only did it for new retirees, we'd never know - how many people know how their benefits are calculated anyway? Whatever solution, some people's benefits will be less than they would have been if no changes are made. 

It's unlikely that there would be enough support to totally kill Social Security. That doesn't mean that the 2025 crowd won't try. Lower and middle income Americans, the ones who depend at least in part on Social Security are far from the administration's priority. Everybody, including Trump, says they won't touch Social Security, but we've already seen how much a campaign promise from Trump is worth.

So, You're Saying That You Aren't Going To Lower Prices?

A few weeks ago I wrote about "What Will He Do?". I think that even with the inauguration more than a month away, we have some more information on what he will, won't and can't do. He made a lot of promises during his campaign, and we're already seeing some of them go by the wayside and other horribly coming to pass.

One of the processes that are different this time around is way he's putting together his cabinet and other key positions. In 2016 it was obvious that he and his core team had no idea how many slots needed to be filled or what qualifications were required. He ran the selection process like a small town job fair - taking applications and holding interviews, announcing on Twitter who the "finalists" were. (Who can forget the way he humiliated Mitt Romney, dangling Secretary of State and unceremoniously dumping him) This time around he's doing it more like the traditional way: deciding ahead of time who he'd want in various jobs, or sifting through those who expressed interest, then making an offer. A very much behind-the-scenes, opaque methodology. The difference between Trump's transition and an actually normal transition is that for many of these posts their qualifications are an antipathy toward the mission of the agency they have been chosen to lead.  The main qualification, however, is a servile loyalty to Trump himself. There are several nominees that would fit into any Republican administration, Senator Marco Rubio is one example, but even he has transformed from a typical Republican into a Trumpublican over the last eight years. In addition to cabinet picks who want to burn it all down, and traditional types, there are the truly unqualified. Loyalists whose only qualifications is loyalty. There are several potential appointees whose experience consists entirely of being a Fox News host. Even Pete Hegseth, nominated as Defense Secretary, whose qualifications appear to be National Guard officer and Fox News host, has no experience managing a large organization. This would be equivalent to viewing my nine years working for the Nebraska Department of Revenue as sufficient qualification to be Treasury Secretary. Let's not overlook the Attorney General and FBI picks who not only support the January 6th Insurrection and lies about a stolen election, but have made it clear that they plan on investigating, prosecuting and jailing political opponents. 

The biggest clue to what actions Trump will take came this week in the realm of economics. Many people who voted for Trump based their decision primarily on the economy. (Whether that was a rationalization to cover anti-immigrant bigotry or other categories of hatred is another subject). It is inarguable that inflation was high during most of Biden's term, compared to relatively low rates during Trump's first term. Anyone with a basic understanding of economics understood that a president has little to do with prices. (Not nothing, but the effect of presidential policies, with a few exemptions, is negligible). The inflation that we saw was caused by multiple factors: supply chain disruptions post-pandemic, increased demand for some items during Covid, and increased demand for different items after the pandemic died down, stimulus checks heating up demand, increased travel compared to a virtual shutdown causing shortages in fuel, widespread wage increases, opportunistic price increases by big corporations, and home valuations going up resulting in higher property taxes. 

Most people saw this as a binary economic choice. With inflation as the determining factor, Trump was good, Biden was bad, despite most other economic measures such as unemployment, stock prices, and job growth, being positive, people focused on inflation. They didn't want to hear the nuanced explanations from the Biden team and fell for the simplistic slogans from the MAGA camp. Trump doubled down on this, making all kinds of promises that would, if enacted, financially help most Americans. The problem was that it was all bullshit.

Trump promised to eliminate taxes on tips (Harris did this too) overtime, and social security. He promised to cap credit card interest at 10% and make interest on car loans tax deductible. Naturally he received loud cheers for this. But his most bullshitty promise was to reduce the price of gas and groceries. The price of a box of cereal is based on so many variables like supply chain increments, labor, and the cost of ingredients, that over the long haul prices go up but they never go back down. Deflation is not a good thing. Nonetheless, Trump has promised to bring down prices...quickly. The price at the gas pump has always seemed to operate under its own rules though. The trend is always upward, although there are peaks and valleys in the prices over time. The average gas price sunk to around $2.00/gallon in 2020 because people weren't driving. The peak prices of $4-$5/gallon in 2022 have since sunk back down to reasonable levels of under $3.00/gallon. 

Trump has already waffled on his promise to lower prices, which all of us who didn't vote for him knew was unattainable. In an interview last week Trump was asked if his presidency would be considered a "failure" if he didn't deliver on his promise to slash Americans' food bills. "I don't think so. Look, they got them up. I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard”. Yeah. It's hard. How about it's impossible. Which we knew. Let's not forget that two of Trump's other promises, to increase tariffs  and deport millions of immigrants are among the few actions that a president that are guaranteed to cause inflation. 

What does this tell us? That Trump simply doesn't care about lower and middle income Americans once he has their votes. He can't run again, so he doesn't need to court the electorate, except to stroke his insatiable ego. We can count on any of his campaign promises that would have helped 99% of Americans to be forgotten as he prioritizes actions that help the 1% and smooth the way for revenge against those who tried to hold him accountable. 

What Will He Do?

What will he do? That's the question that has been consuming everyone who pays attention to politics. While we should always consider with a skeptical eye any campaign promises a candidate makes, the second Trump administration leaves us with more questions than usual.

Even with a "normal" president, campaign promises are often more aspirational than concrete. Congress may not support the campaign promises. Global events may completely derail presidential plans. Bursting housing bubbles and pandemics change everything. 

With Trump it's a whole 'nother game.

Attempting to figure out what Trump will do in his second term is not as simple as listening to what he says. One reason for that is that he's a shameless, unrepentant, liar. Not just the typical politician's lies to make themselves look better, but lies about everything. Who else would spend valuable time during a debate arguing about crowd size? Or continuing to bring up a "Michigan Man of the Year" award that never happened? A corollary effect of his lying is that he will say whatever it takes to get people to applaud during his rallies. In Nevada, where the hospitality industry provides the lion's share of employment, he promises to eliminate income taxes on tips; in industrial areas, it's taxes on overtime. To his typical anti-immigrant audience he emphasizes deporting millions. His stance on abortion changes depending on who he's talking to.  

Another aspect of Trump's personality which effects the actions that he takes is that he is a narcissist. He has be to be the main character of every story, the guy in the spotlight. If any of his cabinet members, advisors, or supporters looks like they're getting credit for a program, even if it conforms to a known Trump priority, Trump's ego will prevail over getting his agenda implemented. Trump may say things that make his supporters think that he has their best interests at heart, that he loves our country and is doing things that they believe are best for the nation, but Trump is only in it for the boost to his own ego. He only ran for the second term because he couldn't stand the humiliation of losing in 2020 to the man he derided as "Sleepy Joe". 

Let's not forget, despite having been the president from 2017-2020, he is still profoundly ignorant about how things work. The most obvious example is his repeated misrepresentation of how tariffs work. He has no desire to learn how to connect the dots regarding any of his ideas or their ramifications. An observation that I saw the other day was a speculation about what minor concessions would Trump accept from Mexico, Canada (Canada!) and China in order to claim that his threat of tariffs "worked". He has already lied about the President of Mexico's response, claiming that she agreed to "close the border" - she responded that she would never do that. 

The previous examples focus on how things he said he would do might not get done. But there are a number of his pronouncements that are illegal, or unlikely to garner Congressional support, that a reasonable person might conclude can't get done. But this is an area where his ego and ignorance could very well combine into an arrogant attempt to circumvent the Constitution. His success at evading any meaningful accountability for his actions, combined with the Supreme Court ruling giving him virtually unlimited immunity from prosecution, will surely embolden him to ignore Congress and the courts. Of all his cabinet picks, the selection of Pam Bondi, who unlike Jeff Sessions, fully supports prosecuting Trump opponents for whatever imaginary crimes she can dream up, is the most disturbing. It remains to be seen whether the Senate will comply with Trump's "suggestion" that adjourn so that he can make recess appointments and avoid Senate confirmation hearings, but it's an authoritarian "suggestion" nonetheless. 

I'm under no illusions about this administration. But I just don't know how bad things will be. 

The Trumpist Cult of Ignorance

Trumpism is a cult. Many who voted for or otherwise support Trump are offended by this characterization, mainly because they don't know what a cult really is, or understand how a cult leader gets and keeps followers. 

I was in a cult for many years, been out for over twenty and have had the opportunity to reflect on my involvement and how the cult experience is applicable to today's politics. My series So, You Want To Join a Cult delves into the subject at some length. 

Trumpists get offended because they think a cult has to be people drinking the literal Kool-Aid, or are brainwashed, and have no free will. Cults are much more banal than all of that. One of the reasons people are taken in by cult leaders is ignorance. 

When I was involved in a religious cult, most people who joined had only a superficial understanding of the Bible, so the confident pronouncements of the cult leader sounded like they must be right. Of course there was little bit of truth - which was the bait. In my own specific cult, the leader, in his foundational instructional class spent a lot of time pointing out how what most Christians believed was not supported by the Bible itself. This wasn't to undermine faith in the Bible (he had spent hours hammering home the idea that the Bible was inerrant) but to undermine confidence in what he called "denominational Christianity". He then substituted a faith in his own teachings, which, if we had followed his own advice to "read what was written" and various other methods for vetting what we were taught, we would have realized were at least as unreliable as what the churches were selling. 

The cult leader started out by showing us how his doctrine lined up with the Bible, but quickly veered off into "trust me, I know what I'm talking about" territory. We were even encouraged to "hold in abeyance" any doubts or questioning, convinced that the problem was our own limited understanding rather than the doctrine itself. The ignorance that we brought into the cult was reinforced into a belief that we could never be as smart of educated in Biblical studies as our leader. 

The cult of Trump is similar. 

Although there was an emotional attraction, in particular the fear that many White people had about immigrants and the vast amorphous "others", there were a number of people who thought that Trump actually had solutions to their perceived problems. As with religious cult involvement, the pathway to thinking that Trump had the answers was ignorance. 

One of the most common rationales that I heard from people who supported Trump, apart from the rabid anti-immigration or anti-"woke" arguments, was that he was better for the economy. This, of course, is an argument based on a profound ignorance of how the economy works. While there are actions that president can take which will affect the economy, in general, it is something that government has little control over. The factors that led to global inflation 2021-2023 and enduring high prices can be traced, among other things, to increased demand following depressed purchasing during the pandemic, supply chains not ready to restart, increased wages, and corporate price gouging. Interestingly, gas prices shot up 2021-2023, but have since settled own to right around where they were pre-pandemic. 

Trumpists not only convinced themselves that the economy was robust because of Trump and that inflation was caused by Biden, but somehow Trump would wave his magic wand and bring prices back down to pre-Biden levels. Social media is full of Trumpers celebrating the soon to be lower prices after Trump is sworn in on January 20, 2025. These beliefs are based on ignorance of economics. Related to this is Trump's ignorance of how tariffs work. He has insisted that tariffs are paid by foreign suppliers, or even foreign governments, when in reality they are paid by the importer, who passes those costs on to the consumer. 

Trumpist ignorance is not limited to economics, but can be applied to any subject. This can be traced back to Trump's own ignorance, with his followers declining to fact check him. They simply take what he says at face value. Their "research" is more often than not other Trump cultists conforming their "facts" and conclusions to what Trump has already told them to believe. 

Naturally there are other aspects to Trumpism and the Cult of Trump, but it all starts with ignorance and snowballs from there.

The Ultimate "Get Out of Jail Free" Card

Donald Trump has spent his whole life evading accountability for his actions. Most rich people do. Fight rich people in court and they can delay and delay, racking up the legal fees until you're exhausted and broke. Rich and powerful people flout the law with impunity, knowing that while they aren't necessarily untouchable, it takes a lot more effort and resources to hold them accountable.   

Until recently, Trump's legal problems were civil suits, not criminal charges. In the aftermath of his electoral defeat in 2020 he faced criminal charges for the first time. Several indictments were related to his attempts to overturn the results of the election, including inciting the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He was also indicted for retaining government records and refusing to return them when requested to do so. He was adjudicated a rapist (technically sexual abuse, a distinction without a difference) and lost a defamation suit by the woman he raped. He was convicted of falsifying business records in a scheme to hide payoffs to a woman he had an extramarital affair with. (He was convicted on 34 counts, which were basically the result of there being 11 checks written, 12 ledger entries and 11 invoices for legal services, all for the same underlying crime). But all of that is going to go away. The federal charges will be withdrawn when the new attorney general is appointed in January, or Special Counsel Smith may withdraw the charges in anticipation. The Justice Department has no jurisdiction over any state charges, but even if convicted, any sentence will be effectively moot - are we going to jail the serving president of the United States? Even before his re-election myriad legal maneuvers delayed accountability. The Supreme Court that he in large part appointed ruled that he had immunity for a large swath of actions taken while in office. A friendly judge dismissed charges, not on the merits, but because she thought the office of Special Counsel was unconstitutional. 

Trump and his supporters have accused the Biden administration and the mostly Democratic prosecutors of "lawfare" unfairly and illegally targeting him. Other than the so-called hush money case in New York we'll never know whether Trump would have been guilty as charged in any of the other cases. To anyone not blinded by worship of Trump, his actions clearly warranted some kind of legal action. He was indicted in all of these cases. Indictments are handed down, not by the prosecutor, but by a jury of 16, who in each case concluded that there was reasonable cause to hold a trial. The fact that someone aspires to political office shouldn't be sufficient to ignore potentially criminal actions. A majority of Americans apparently believe that it is. Many are even claiming that he's not really a convicted felon for reasons that don't make sense. And now, in typical Trumpublican doublespeak, they're cheering for using the Justice Department to go after Trump's 'enemies", not for any legally supportable reasons, but to enact retribution. There's talk of investigating Special Counsel Jack Smith apparently for doing his job. 

A majority of voters decided that the rule of law doesn't apply to Donald Trump. 

Why?

Why did Harris lose? Why did Trump win? Everybody has an opinion about what Harris did wrong. The truth is that nothing Harris did was going to make a difference. Nothing that any Democrat did was going to change the result. Why?

• People believe that the president is responsible for the economy and most people believed that the state of the economy was bad. 
• A president's policies affect illegal immigration and illegal border crossings were up significantly
• Many people who would have voted Democratic, or at least anti-Trump, stayed home because they believed that we were enabling a genocidal war in Gaza. 

Of course there were other reasons: misogyny and bigotry cannot be discounted. There are without a doubt demographics that usually vote for Democrats but harbored prejudice against women as leaders. 

The economy was the most common reason that I heard among voters who had voted for Biden in 2020 and didn't fit the stereotype of a Trump voter. Despite most metrics indicating that the economy was healthy, including the inflation rate being back to normal (around 2% annually), the results of several years of high inflation had not gone away. Prices are still high and aren't going back down. Many people remembered that there was low inflation during Trump's time in office and contrasted it with Biden's term and came to the conclusion that Trump was better suited to preside over the American economy than Biden or Harris. This belief required one to have no understanding of economics. The high inflation rate was a global phenomenon, not just in the U.S. and was the inevitable result of several interlocking factors. Supply chain issues, ballooning demand in the wake of Covid shutdowns, increased wages and even companies artificially raising prices to take advantage of the situation all contributed. Property taxes for home owners and rents for non-owners were big budget busters - the result of skyrocketing home valuations - a local, not a national issue. Gas prices were much higher during the first few Biden years compared to the last Trump year. Gas prices were low in 2020 mainly because few people were traveling and shot up in 2021 for the same reasons everything else went up - gas prices at least have settled back down to pre-2020 levels. Voters weren't wrong to be frustrated by the lingering effects of several years of high inflation, but ignorantly blamed Democrats for their predicament. 

While much of the criticism of immigration policy and border security falls into the tinfoil hat category, there's no question that Biden's approach to securing the border were inadequate. Was it all his fault? It was not, attempts to address the problem through legislation were sabotaged by Trump, who wanted there to be a border problem that he could run against. All many voters saw was a huge increase in illegal border crossings, ignoring the lack of Congressional cooperation. Also ignored was that although illegal crossings were lower under Trump, he was constantly crying wolf about "caravans" and even declared a national emergency at the border so he could divert funds to build his "big, beautiful Wall". Voters were apparently incapable of  seeing the nuances of the situation. 

Single-issue voters, or just people who thought that the Democrats were no different than the Republicans totaled around 1.6% of total votes nationally (0.5% to Jill Stein). Trump has 50.4% and Harris 48%. I haven't seen the state-by-sate breakdown to determine whether "3rd Party" votes would have made a difference if they had gone to Harris, but it's undeniable that a lot of 2020 Biden voters stayed home. Trump received almost exactly the same number of votes that he won in 2020 - 74 million. Harris however received 10 million fewer votes than Biden did. The most vocal of the anti-Harris, or sit-it-out electorate, were those who were opposed to our support of Israel in their war in Gaza. I'm not going to use this post to talk about what the U.S. should be doing (anyone who thinks they know what the "right" answer is over there doesn't know what they're talking about) but it's clear that no matter what position the United States takes a lot of people will be angry. One thing that is indisputable, our support of Israel's action in Gaza will continue, or even escalate, in Trump's administration. 

No matter what the reasoning for voting for Trump, or enabling his election by inaction, no matter how logical it may sound, how perceived self-interest had to prevail, a Trump voter had to be okay with the division, the hatred, the bigotry and the lies. A Trump voter, no matter how "normal" they may seem, had to be okay with his attempts to subvert an election, to rule autocratically, to jail his opponents. A Trump voter has to be okay with his ignorance of how things work, his cozying up to dictators while screwing our allies. A Trump voter has to be okay with the utter contempt with which he holds most Americans, including his own supporters. A Trump voter has to be okay with how he changes what he promises to do based on what gets the loudest applause, or who gives him the most money. A Trump voter has to be okay with his obvious mental decline. A Trump voter has to be okay with the economy being disrupted by increased tariffs and mass deportations. A Trump voter has to refuse to think. 

A Trump voter is complicit. 

Brainwashing and the Trump Cult

I've written a lot about the cultic aspects of Trumpism - how Trump fits the definition of a cult leader, how his core followers are no different than any religious or doomsday cult. What I haven't done is pin the label of "brainwashed" on them. 

What spurred me to write about brainwashing was a recent conversation with a friend whose mother accused him of being brainwashed. She brought up "coming to get him" and having him deprogrammed. This friend was not a Trumper, his mother is, and was offended at the "hate" (i.e. no holds barred opinions about Trump and his supporters) that he posted on social media. 

Trump and his supporters continually employ projection, accusing their opponents of the things that they are doing. Their own cultishness is projected onto Democrats, who are in turn painted as brainwashed cultists.

"Brainwashing" gets brought up a lot when it comes to cults. Although there is room for disagreement about whether those in religious cults are brainwashed or not, let me define the term as I understand it. Brainwashing is not a scientific term, and actually has no widely accepted meaning. But the way I understand it, it would involve the forcible conversion of an individual from one set of beliefs to another set that they would not have changed to without physical, chemical or mental coercion. Brainwashing could involve torture, it could involve sensory or sleep deprivation, it could involve threats to family members. Some kind of forcible change from one set of beliefs to another. 

I do not believe Trump supporters, even the most ardent, the most committed, have been brainwashed. Accepting the idea that they have been brainwashed would necessarily absolve them of any responsibility for their actions, most notably the Trumpists who participated in the January 6th Insurrection. No one tortured them into buying that giant Trump flag. No one drugged them in order to get them to attend one of his rallies. No one was locked in a sensory deprivation tank to force them to vote for him. Rather than Trumpers having their minds forcibly remolded in Trump's hate-filled image, Trump molded his image to conform to the hate that was already present. 

This isn't to suggest that Trump isn't a hate-filled misogynistic, ignorant, bigot - he is that. But that there was already a mass of grievance fueled resentment animating the electorate and Trump was giving voice to it all. It's as if there was this amorphous proto-cult just waiting for its cult leader to give it form, and Trump came down that golden escalator and it all coalesced.   

Assuming that Trumpists are brainwashed into their support assumes that they have no access to sources of information. Members of some religious cults were sequestered away from society - the cliche of the "cult compound" comes to mind. If a cult leader can control what information his followers have access to, he can mold how his followers think. It has been argued that this is exactly what Trump has done with his characterization of any news organization that didn't kiss his ring as fake news. Trumpists have eschewed professional news sources in favor of bloggers and podcasters who echoed Trump's nonsense. Much has been made of the social media echo chamber, where we are fed content mirroring what we already believe. But no one is forcing anyone to remain in their bubble. The sources of information are virtually unlimited and differing points of view are easy to find. Facts are easy to find. Trumpists who remain in a feedback loop of Trump fantasies are there because they choose to be there. 

Trumpists are not fooled, they're not tricked, Don't absolve them of their complicity.

Vote FOR 439 and AGAINST 434

The amount of disinformation, the amount of lying, surrounding the competing abortion referenda on tomorrow's ballot is just pissing me off. 

The anti-439 claims that if 439 passes that men will be able to force women to get abortions or that 439 will guarantee government intrusion into women's health decisions, or that somehow forcing children to transition is involved, is ridiculous, and hopefully no one who was planning on voting for 439 will be swayed to change their mind. 

Initiative 439 guarantees a right to an abortion up to fetal viability, usually around 22-24 weeks, with certain exceptions past that time (there are also similar exceptions in the current law and in Initiative 434). Most importantly, this right would become part of the Nebraska Constitution, preventing the legislature from any further restrictions. If you believe that the current 12 week cutoff if "just right", be aware that we were quite close to a 6 week ban this year - one vote away from it becoming law. The anti-abortion crowd is only interested in compromising insofar as it is a step toward a complete ban. People who believe that abortion is murder will not stop at 12 weeks, or 6 weeks. They will keep pushing until the job is done. 

I've always avoided debates or arguments with anti-abortion people - it's generally not something that's open to discussion. I'm not going to change their opinion. Yes, it's an opinion. There's no science that can unambiguously determine whether the embryo or fetus is a human being, a potential human being, simply part of the woman's body, or when the transition takes place. What you think is no more than your opinion, and it's usually an opinion informed largely by your religious beliefs. And even when that's the case, evidence from the holy book of one's choice cannot be produced - in fact scriptural evidence that a fetus is not yet a person, or at least inferior to a person can be pointed to. 

No one's opinion, no one's religious beliefs, should become the standard for anyone else. 

Vote FOR 439 and AGAINST 434

Voter I.D.

It's now a requirement in Nebraska that you present identification when you vote. It was the subject of a referendum that passed with a majority of votes cast. Nebraskans were swept up in the Republican-led faux-concern about election integrity spurred by the lies told by former president Trump. Proponents claimed that it helped ensure secure elections. But what problem did it actually solve?

Even though we occasionally hear about someone voting twice, or groups turning in fraudulent ballots, and despite the hysterical claims of election interference or the 2020 election being stolen or rigged, there isn't any evidence that our elections are anything but incredibly secure. What isn't secure in many cases is the ability for many people to exercise their right to vote. In early 2021 Democrats in Congress attempted to pass a bill that would have, among other things, made it easier to register to vote. The bill included workarounds for people who did not have a government-issued I.D. and standardized the types of documents that would be acceptable. It passed in the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate. At the time Nebraska Congressional Republicans justified their votes against the bill by claiming that our voting infrastructure in Nebraska was just fine thank you, and didn't require any adjustments. But when the question of voter I.D. was up for a vote by petition initiative, these same Republicans insisted that our elections weren't secure and we needed additional hurdles for voters to leap over. For anyone who lives in a city where there's a handy DMV, who owns a car or is close to reliable public transportation and can afford the fee required to get a license, an I.D. requirement doesn't seem onerous. But in many areas it's not so clear cut. In Nebraska, many DMV offices had to close because they could not staff them. In many states the voter I.D. requirements "coincidently" are most burdensome in areas that tend to vote Democratic. 

What problem is being solved by instituting voter I.D.? Why, it's the problem of too many people voting for Democrats!

In a democratic republic, one might be forgiven for assuming that the goal would be to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to vote. And some jurisdictions do try to make it easy. Many states loosened restrictions during the Covid pandemic and there are states where voting is completely done by mail (Nebraska's rural counties have gone to all-mail voting). But for many people voting isn't easy. Election Day is on a day when most people work. Many states and cities limit the number of drop boxes. Even mail-in voting can be a Byzantine process of signing, initialing and dating multiple papers and envelopes. Republican groups routinely go to court to get ballots invalidated for failing to cross their "t"s and dot their "i"s. Not because they care about election integrity, but because it's becoming increasingly harder for them to win over a majority of voters.

Until the 2016 presidential election there was no widespread perception that there was any problem with our elections. Trump, with no basis for saying so, started publicly questioning whether it would be a fair election. He won, which one would think would undercut his argument, but he then started claiming that even though Clinton had received more votes than he did, millions of non-citizens had voted, "explaining" her "winning" the popular vote. He created an election integrity commission, which despite being staffed with his sycophants, found no election irregularities and was disbanded after a few months. And we all know what happened after the 2020 election that he lost. In the wake of the failed  attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Republicans throughout the country put into place many new laws that ostensibly increased election security, but in reality made it harder to vote: shortening early voting windows, restricting mail-in voting, eliminating drop boxes, restricting absentee voting, disallowing some types of I.D.'s, or purging voter rolls with short notice. 

In Florida a referendum restoring voting rights to convicted felons who had completed their sentences was neutered by the legislature by throwing up roadblocks that were virtually impossible to clear. In Nebraska the Secretary of State unilaterally decided that a law restoring voting rights to former incarcerated individuals was unconstitutional and refused to accept registrations until the State Supreme Court ruled that he lacked the authority. In Nebraska there have been multiple challenges to referendums: An end run around a successful  petition drive to repeal a bill giving public money to private schools involved the Republican-majority legislature repealing the original bill and substituting a similar one (a second petition received enough signatures to get on the ballot tomorrow); two medical marijuana petitions are being challenged in court because a notary failed to follow procedure involving a small percentage of signatures; what could have been a simple yes/no vote on abortion rights has been confused as a second referendum claiming to protect women and children is also on the ballot. In Ohio, the legislature attempted to increase the threshold for passing a  constitutional amendment for 50%+ to 60% (they failed). 

Given enough time I could point to numerous other examples. 

In a nation where there is no credible evidence of "cheating" or "rigging", where the elections are free, fair and secure, what is the purpose of making it more difficult to vote? 

I think I'll be voting for the party that wants me to vote.

Dan Osborn Ad Fishing for Trump Voters

An ad just broke for Independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn claiming, among other things, that he's "with Trump" on "China, the border and draining the swamp. In an article about his outreach to Trump voters he is quoted as saying that he would "help Trump build the Wall". None of this should be any surprise.

Osborn has never run for public office. He is a former union organizer who led a strike against Kellogg's in Omaha. He has been outspoken from the beginning that he is not beholden to either party, although early on he seemed friendlier to Democrats, even though no one could mistake him for a liberal. When he first declared his candidacy there was apparently a handshake agreement that he would accept an endorsement from the Nebraska Democratic Party (NDP) in exchange for the NDP not running a candidate. He later reneged and refused to accept the endorsement. 

His public statements seemed to suggest that he was a moderate libertarian. To the left on social issues like abortion and marijuana legalization and more conservative on border security and crime. (He is on record as suggesting that the undocumented immigrants who pay into social security should be "just given a social security card"). He has said that he would not caucus with either party, although how he will get anything done without aligning with one of the major parties is unclear. (Hint: it's close to impossible)

Frankly, I don't trust him. I predict that he will end up caucusing with whichever party holds the Senate majority, and be a thorn in the side of the party that takes him in. Think Manchin without the experience or Sinema without the urge to build consensus. The biggest thing that he's got going for him is that he's not Deb Fischer. Whatever he ends up doing I guarantee that he won't be voting in lockstep with Republicans. 

The purpose of this ad is obviously designed to get Trump voters to vote for him and not Fischer while still voting for Trump. So what does he say in the ad? He's "with" Trump on China. Guess what, there's not a lot of daylight between Trump and Harris or Biden on China. Drain the swamp? He's been railing against corruption in DC since Day One. The border? Okay - I have a problem with that. The ad starts off by accusing Fischer of "betraying Trump", calling her "the same as Hillary Clinton". Ironic since the Fischer campaign is trying to paint Osborn as a AOC/Sanders/Pelosi/Harris liberal - maybe he's trying to counteract those ads.

Anyway, I don't fully trust him, but I'm going to hold my nose and vote for him

Why Should You Vote for Trump?

The election is in nine days and some people are going to vote for Trump. Why?

In another post I speculated that it was people hallucinating that 2017-2020 was an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity, with low crime and virtually no illegal immigration. They believe that in addition to domestic tranquility, we were respected and feared internationally.

Great reasons, other than them not being true. 

On the international stage Trump was viewed by our allies as unreliable and by our enemies as a joke. He was literally laughed at at the United Nations. Russia was in the process of invading eastern Ukraine, even though the full-on war hadn't started yet. We still had troops in Afghanistan and sent troops back to Iraq to fight ISIS, not to mention incursions into Syria and the assassination of an Iranian general. Illegal border entry, while not as high as during Biden's first few years was still substantial. Have we forgotten that Trump declared a national emergency at the border?  Crime statistics are a little hazy (the FBI stats showing crime reduction did not include several large cities) but there's no evidence that crime is any worse than it was four years ago. Inflation, which was a global problem, not specific to any policy of Biden's has resulted in a higher cost of living. Trump claims he will not only "end inflation" (which has receded to pre-2020 levels) but to reduce prices (how?). 

In other words, any reason to vote for Trump is based on a complete fantasy version of what his time in office was like. 

I have seen Trump supporters propose a straw man version of why people oppose Trump: "Orange Man Bad" or "Mean Tweets". No one that In know reduces their opposition to him to those "reasons". 

Trump started off his 2016 campaign with hate and hasn't let up. He has consistently labeled his opponents as enemies and traitors and called for their imprisonment. Not for actual crimes, which he stands accused of, but simply for opposing him. His supporters argue that he just "telling it like it is". But I expect the President of the United States, whether I voted for him or her or not, to represent all the people. I don't expect the president to threaten to withhold disaster relief from states whose governors criticize him, or whose electoral votes he didn't win. I expect the President of the United States to exercise a minimal level of decorum and represent our nation on the world stage and not act like a mafia don. 

Trump, before, during, and after his time in office displayed an appalling ignorance of how things worked. His lack of understanding of how tariffs work and how NATO is financed are two of the most obvious. But his ignorance of the laws that effect the office of the presidency or how legislation is passed is dangerous. And he's proud of his ignorance, displaying no willingness to learn. He's adverse to facts and information, preferring to make decisions based on his gut and has the attention span of a toddler. His appointees are "the best people" when he brings them on, but "losers" when they leave. And they usually resign, rather than be fired. 

Much has been made about Harris recently comparing Trump to Hitler, as well as the ongoing labelling him as a fascist. I'll concede that the comparisons are sometimes over the top and not very helpful, but the fact of his authoritarian tendencies is undeniable. This is what you get when you elect "businessmen". The CEO of a private company is effectively a mini-dictator. What he says, goes. They usually don't understand that an executive in government is constrained by the Constitution and by the other branches. And it's not like we have to speculate. Trump has made clear that he will exercise dictatorial power (but only on Day One) and has made many references to using the Justice Department and the courts to exact retribution on his opponents. 

Think his ignorance and incompetence means that the dystopia that he promises won't come to pass? That it's just rhetoric? The one thing he learned from his time in office was that appointing people whose loyalty to the Constitution was greater than their loyalty to him frustrated his plans. You can guarantee that the appointees in a second Trump term will not only be efficient, but will be unquestioningly loyal to Trump. 

But sure, vote for him because you believe that Harris didn't really work at McDonald's

Election Predictions

Election Day is in nine days. 

Will the election for president be close? I have no idea and neither does anyone else. Polls have proved unreliable over the last few elections for a variety of reasons. Pollsters have attempted to compensate for previous inaccuracies by introducing fudge factors which will supposedly lead to more accurate results. Political action committees and candidates' campaigns have flooded us with "junk polls" that skew the averages. 

What will be the influence of minor parties? Despite the moral high ground that some progressives are dubiously claiming regarding the government's support of Israel, their candidate, the Green Party's Jill Stein has no chance whatsoever of receiving even one electoral vote. Would a vote for Stein, or any other minor party, really be a vote for Trump? Only if you assume that these voters would have voted Democratic if not for Israel-Gaza. Many of them distrust both major parties equally and see no difference between them. Speaking of Israel's Gaza war (expanding into surrounding nations) will the Muslim voters help swing Michigan into Trump's column? Could be, since Michigan Muslims aren't any less stupid than any other American voter and don't realize that getting Trump back in the White House will likely be worse for Palestinians than it is now. 

Will the election be close? Why does Trump appear to have a chance to be re-elected? It's hard to imagine how it could be, given all that we know about Losin' Don, but there's a lot of amnesia about his four years, some people freaking out about the inflation and it's lingering effects during Biden's term and hallucinating that Trump's presidency was one of peace and prosperity. There's a solid base of Trump supporters, what I and others refer to as the Trump Cult, who would vote for him no matter what. Who believe his ridiculous claims and outrageous lies. If that was the sum total of people who would vote for him, he'd never be elected, but it's not. He had two serious challengers in the Republican primaries, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Ambassador Nikki Haley of South Carolina. The two of them received close to 50% of the votes cast in the Republican primaries. Other than registered Republicans who usually vote for Democrats or Independents (I am one of those) none of those people are going to vote for Vice President Harris; they'll vote for whoever the Republican candidate is. This group has significant overlap with the people who are convinced that every Democrat is a Communist and will vote for Trump as the only alternative. Add to those groups those who think that Harris is a lightweight and believe, for all his negatives, Trump will be better for the country. 

Despite all of that, my gut tells me that when all the votes are counted Harris will have a majority of votes cast. But the undemocratic Electoral College could go either way. As little as a few thousand vote win for Trump in all or most of the so-called swing states could give him an electoral college blowout, even if he once again receives fewer actual votes nationwide. Of course if this happens he'll crow about how he "won easily" and claim he also "won" the popular vote, blaming voting by non-citizens and other imaginary Democratic cheating. We all know what will happen if it goes the other way. He and his people have already been ramping up the accusations of rigging and cheating and election deniers are in place in key states, ready to cause chaos. 

Let's not forget that it's very likely that the Senate will became majority Republican, so even if Harris wins, getting anything done, including appointing federal judges, will be virtually impossible.

 

Nebraska's Dueling Abortion Ballot Questions

Nebraska currently has a ban on abortions past the 12th week of pregnancy. That particular ban was passed last year, changing the cutoff down from 24 weeks and narrowly avoiding 6-week and total bans. 

Initiative 434 would enshrine the 12 week ban in the Nebraska State Constitution, but would not prevent a more restrictive ban from being enacted. (There are several exceptions included) Over 300 petition signers claim that they were lied to by petition circulators and signed the petition under false pretenses. 

Initiative 439 would add a state constitutional right to abortion up to fetal viability (around 24 weeks) with "fetal viability" defined as “…the point in pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of the patient's treating health care practitioner, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus' sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures", which was the national standard before Roe vs. Wade was repealed. 

Abortion opponents have been scurrying around to try to misrepresent Initiative 439, claiming, among other ridiculous points, that "the wording in the measure would give human traffickers and abusers the right to subject women to forced or coerced abortions and allow unlicensed medical professionals to influence a woman's decision." and painting doctors who perform abortion as "the abortion industry". 

Some proponents of Initiative 434 characterize it as a "middle ground" between the anti-abortion and abortion rights camps that creates reasonable limits and exceptions". I'd consider that point if it weren't for the fact that abortion opponents don't compromise and view any "middle ground" as merely a step toward a total ban. They'll continue to chip away, as they have in other states, until there is a total ban. 

Initiative 434 is nothing but an effort to confuse the issue. We should have been allowed to have an up or down vote on abortion rights without having this initiative, which misrepresents the issue. I had read that whichever initiative receives more more votes would "win", but there's more detail than that: 

"For a ballot initiative to pass, it must receive a majority of supporting votes and at least 35% of total votes during the election. If both abortion-related amendments pass, the one with the most votes will be amended into the Nebraska Constitution." - to restate, to pass, an initiative must (1) have more "For" votes than "Against" votes (2) the "For" votes must be greater or equal than 35% of the total votes cast in the election statewide and (3) the "For" votes must be greater than the "For" votes of the competing initiative.
A side note - are the people who are totally against abortion going to vote for Initiative 434, which adds legal abortion to the state constitution?

No Good Guys, Just Innocent Bystanders

Over the last year I have I have refrained from commenting on the War in Gaza. Not because I didn't have an opinion, and not because I was ignorant about the political and religious situation there. I refrained from commenting (including responding to others' comments) because the situation is complicated. I don't "Stand with Israel" (even though I think it should be able to defend itself) nor do I "Stand with Palestine" (even though I think the civilian death toll in Gaza is horrendous) - because neither side has clean hands, terrible actions by one side are used to justify even more terrible actions on the other side and it escalates again and again. What is happening now in Gaza isn't isolated from previous events and goes back beyond the founding of the State of Israel.

There have always been Jews in what is now Israel and Palestine. There has been an uninterrupted Jewish presence from the Hasmoneans through Roman rule, Byzantine hegemony and a revolving door of Muslim caliphates until the League of Nations Mandate administered by the United Kingdom. Arabs have also been a continuous presence in the region. Jews have for at least the last millennium been a minority, but the claim that only the Palestinians are indigenous to the land and that Jews are merely colonizers ignores the demographic history of the area. Even outside the dubious claims based on a kingdom gone for two thousand years, or the rationale given by Christians looking to jump start the End Times, the Jews had as much claim to some of the land of the Palestinian Mandate as the local Arabs. The United Nations apparently agreed. 

The United Nations partition of Palestine granted to a proposed Jewish state the areas where Jews were the majority plus the sparsely populated Negev desert. The Arabs were to receive the areas that were majority Arab. (I use the term "Arab" rather than "Muslim" since the Arab population included a Christian minority). There was much organized opposition to granting the Jewish population even token political rights much less a nation of their own. Most people know that the independence of the new State of Israel was declared in 1948 and that it was immediately attacked by its Arab neighbors. What most people don't know is that the occupation of The West Bank and Gaza did not occur in the aftermath of that short war. The occupation didn't take place until 1967 after another war by Arab states against Israel. Jordan had been occupying the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza strip. 

This is one of the mysteries about this conflict. There could have been a Palestinian state in 1948 based on the U.N. Partition Plan, even after the Arab countries lost their war on Israel. In addition, at any time between 1948 and 1967 Jordan and Egypt could have established an independent Palestine - but they didn't. From the Arab perspective it was all or nothing - either Israel would be eliminated and replaced by an independent Palestine or they would refuse the half loaf and keep waiting and fighting. This set the stage for cycle after cycle of violence. The Arabs, at least their most vocal leaders, claimed that Israel had no right to exist and dedicated themselves to eradicating the Jewish state. The Israelis, seeing that their very existence threatened from all sides dedicated themselves to protecting their home at all costs. 

When the dust cleared after the 1967 War, Israel had taken The West Bank from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Lebanon, and Gaza and the Sinai from Egypt and militarily occupied them. This added an intractable problem to the already impossible situation. In addition to dealing with being surrounded by enemies dedicated to erasing it from the map, Israel had just effectively taken some of those enemies within its borders and made itself responsible for them. 

I'm not going to attempt a comprehensive list of the provocations and atrocities from each participant. Israel's horrible treatment of West Bank residents, including the violence by the so-called Settlers with the collusion of the military, is inexcusable. (They are also, tract by tract, stealing the Palestinians' land) The regular firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel isn't making them any friends. Last October's attacks on Israeli civilians, including rape, murder and kidnapping was met by thousands of deaths of Palestinian civilians. Palestinian governing bodies, instead of trying to make a better life for their people, prioritize fruitless attacks that provoke retaliation, making things worse. Of course, in this conflict Israel is in the position of power and the Palestinians the oppressed people. Although a case could be made that the hopelessness of the situation makes even bloody acts of terror seem reasonable. Israel, understandably anxious after 80 years and several wars, puts security as a high priority, but in doing so they have become the oppressors themselves. 

One could reasonably ask, regarding either the Palestinians or the Israelis, "what were they supposed to do?", but in almost all cases one side is perpetrating an atrocity as a response to the other guys perpetrating an atrocity, which in turn was retaliation for another atrocity. I don't "stand with" the total war in Gaza or the elimination of the Arab presence of the West Bank and I don't "stand with" the Palestinians who provoke retaliation by murdering civilians. Both sides think they're justified in their actions and nothing outside parties do will convince them otherwise. 

There's no "good guys" in all this, just innocent bystanders.

Israel & Palestine - Part I - History of The Jews in The Middle East

There isn't any serious argument about the Jewish people having originated in the Middle East and having established political entities several centuries BCE, with a brief period where independent kingdom won it's independence from the Seleucids before being absorbed by Rome. What is being argued (by supporters of Israel) is that the Jews originated there and had a continuous presence there while others argue that Israel is a colonialist entity that supplanted the indigenous population. Still others argued that Ashkenazi Jews (Yiddish-speaking Jews from Europe) were not descended from Biblical Jews, but from the Khazars, a Turkic people whose ruling aristocracy may have converted to Judaism in the 8th Century. 

I'm going to argue that the Jewish people are indigenous to what is now Eretz Israel, the modern nation carved out of the Palestinian Mandate which was in turn a province of the Ottoman Empire. Later articles will discuss the Palestinian Arabs, the United Nations Partition Plan, persecution of Jews, persecution of Arabs, quasi-apartheid in Israel. 

Nothing I write should be interpreted as support either for the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians or the wholesale destruction and civilian deaths in Gaza. 

The last independent Jewish entity prior to the establishment of the modern state of Israel was the Hasmonaean Kingdom, which ceased to be independent in 63 BCE and was displaced completely in 37 BCE by King Herod, who was installed by Rome. Herod's client Kingdom of Judea ceased to exist upon Herod's death in 4 BCE. After Herod's death no independent Jewish political entity existed in Palestine, or anywhere else, until 1948. Despite there being no independent Jewish state post-Herod, Judea and the surrounding area continued to be the cultural and religious home of the Jews. There were Jewish communities in many cities of the Roman and Persian Empires, but Jerusalem and Judea were still regarded as "home". In around 70 CE the Romans defeated a Jewish revolt, destroyed the Temple and deported hundreds of thousands. After successive revolts, Jews were banned from Jerusalem, but not Judea, which was renamed Syria Palaestina. 

Nonetheless, Jews were never completely driven from Palestine. The population totals and percentages are unreliable and appear to to have waxed and waned in cycles before the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, but there were always at least some Jewish presence in what had previously been Judea. Not only native-born Jews, but immigrants from Europe fleeing persecution as well. Population figures become more reliable during reign of the Ottomans, 1516 through the end of World War I. (1516 was when the Ottomans conquered Jerusalem - the empire existed before that date) Jewish population according to Ottoman censuses remained a steady 5,000 from the 1530's through the 1800 census. The total population was around 156,000, increasing to 275,000 in 1800. The Ottoman Palestine region roughly corresponded to modern Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories and Jordan. There is no reliable figures for that area excluding what is now Jordan. (Throughout this time Palestine, including what is now Jordan, was simply a geographical term, like "The Midwest U.S." that is descriptive, but has no legal or political meaning. Palestine at this time was part of the Ottoman province of Syria.)

During this time, although there was recognition that Palestine was the location of their ancestral home, it doesn't appear that there was any indication that the area was a political Jewish homeland of any sort. On the contrary, Palestinian Jews were a religious minority living amid a Muslim majority in a Muslim-ruled polity, similar to how European Jews at the time were a religious minority living amid a Christian majority in a Christian-ruled land. 

It must be emphasized the Ottomans did not view their various provinces as potential independent nations, or even as "homelands" of various ethnic groups, but as simply administrative divisions, analogous to counties within an American state. Individual subjects were categorized according to their religion with Muslims at the top, with "Greeks" and "Armenians" next and Jews last. This is significant when viewing Jewish immigration into Palestine. In the 1500's the Catholic rulers expelled Jews from Spain and Portugal. These Sephardim were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire. Once welcomed into  Ottoman lands, many Sephardim settled in the center of the empire, in what is now Turkey, although many spread throughout Ottoman lands, including Palestine. This was not technically immigration, but movement from one part of the empire to another. 

During the 19th Century Jews continued to relocate from other parts of the empire and immigration into Palestine from outside the empire continued. Much of the immigration was driven by persecution that occurred not only in Europe, but in the empire itself and other Muslim nations such as Egypt. During the 1800's Jews continued to be a presence in Palestine, although never more than a tiny minority. In 1880 the Jewish population was around 23,000. This was the situation in the late 1800's as Zionism cohered and established itself. Despite the lack of a Jewish state, there had been a continuous Jewish presence in the area that is now Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories. Though a minority, Jews were clearly a people indigenous to the area. 

"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.