You have to be shocked at the lack of grace, empathy and compassion coming from Trump and the Right as this horrific fire emergency in Los Angles has unfolded. Itâs human nature to point fingers and there are no doubt mistakes that we uncover as the city recovers. Itâs also natural in such fast moving emergencies that wrong information will be disseminated even by officials you can rely on.
But the Right Wing media, influencers and Republican politicians have been callous about this ghastly event, even for them. Most Americans outside LA are showing compassion and empathy. Most know some family member or friend who has lost a home. But Trump doesnât do compassion.
People with compassion would ask âWhat would it be like if I had to flee my home with less than an hourâs noticeâ with all that comes with that? But Trump doesnât do compassion. He sees this as political opportunities, blaming California governor Newsome before saying “Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lostâ. His focus was the real estate, especially the upscale mansions, not the human tragedy. While Biden is using his last week, to get as much of FEMAâs available $27 billion out the door to L.A. as soon as possible, Trump is being cagey about whether he will provide any aid at all.
Musk also used the tragedy to bash the Los Angeles Fire Department for having some female firefighters. Musk actually tweeted “DEI means people DIE.”
This will not play well. Itâs one thing when Trump is disdainful toward refugees. Itâs another when he displays no compassion for middle- and upper-class Angelenos who played by the rules and lost everything.
Large-scale calamities cry out for moral leadership. But Trump and Musk are not moral leaders; they are amoral monsters. Itâs impossible to envision Trump as Consoler-in-Chief. California and LA County are vital parts of the national economic engine. Threatening to hobble the LA region by withholding relief funds makes the moralizing and finger-wagging by clueless politicians and pundit personalities unbearable.
This isnât what we should focus on: Â An area larger than San Fransisco has burned down: In the middle of Laâs winter, the rainy season. And the screeching about DEI and bad fire management helps no one.
Whatâs changing is the climate.
California was paradise because it had a Mediterranean climate. That climate is shifting north. Californiaâs moving towards a new climate. The old vegetation, suited for the old climate, will go, occasionally in fire like this one. If youâre a Californian and you want the old climate, move north, because thatâs where the Mediterranean climate is moving.
And California had floods not long ago. In some places, your home needs to be both fireproof and floodproof. You prepare for fire, flood, wind and power and water outages. All without property insurance.
People understand that Trump will feed the disinformation machine. They understand that when he tries to add conditions to the FEMA aid, that itâs a cheap stunt.
Fingers shouldnât be pointed at firefighters or political leaders in the trenches who are tasked with saving lives and helping people recover from catastrophes caused by an existential threat.
They should be pointed at the people who refuse to do anything about the real crisis weâre facing.
Perhaps later, in another two or four years.
In the meantime, focus not on the politics, but on what can be done to help on the ground in LA.
Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs, CO – December 2024 photo by Monica Breckenridge.
The Democrats are meeting this week to decide on who will lead them into the 2026 midterms and the 2028 general election. Wrongo thinks itâs time for a revolution.
The key question is how do Democrats go back to winning presidential elections? And it may not be the way you think. From Jon V. Last:
âSince Trumpâs emergence in 2016 the opposition has responded by acting as if it were still 2015. The Biden administration pursued a vigorous, bipartisan agenda filled with popular legislation designed to promote economic growth across the board. Biden spent money on infrastructure and manufacturingâmuch of it in red states and rural areas where Democrats had little support.
The Biden administrationâs theory was that by governing from the center and focusing on employment and economic growth, Democrats could retain the support of the majority….â
But that theory didnât work, and Trump won, running on zero ideas about growth, prosperity, or progress. His campaign was posited on the infliction of pain to outsiders. Trump didnât promise to improve the lives of his voters. He promised to punish the people his voters wanted to hurt. That was the entirety of his electoral proposition, and none of it was subtext. Instead it was bold-face, ALL CAPS text.
Last says it worked because America has changed and the majority of voters are no longer motivated by wanting progress for themselves. Instead theyâre motivated primarily by anger that out-groupsâthe people they do not likeâmight be succeeding or getting benefits theyâre not getting.
If this is true, and at least some evidence suggests it is, how do Democrats persuade voters not to be quite so angry and to vote for them? Â From Brian Beutler: (emphasis by Wrongo)
â…winning the next election will require Democrats to persuade some as-yet unpersuaded voters that theyâre worth voting for. Whatever policies Democrats think are popular, whatever affects they associate with normalness and affability, if they canât do the delicate work of changing a mind, they canât get anywhere.â
More:
âDemocrats are about to have as little power as theyâve had at any time in the past two decades for a simple reason: Most Americans werenât convinced that theyâd be better off under Democratic rule. Thatâs it. And thereâs no shortcut back to power that avoids the difficult task of convincing people to change their minds.â
More: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âThe Democrats need more and better communicators, and, crucially, it needs the people who donât understand their potential to influence conventional wisdom and public opinion to get with the times. Most persuasion doesnât happen person to person, it is mediated. When it does happen person to person, it is most often between people who already know each other, and usually one of those people is regurgitating ideas they picked up….And the ripest targetsare no longer classic swing voters who are happy to talk politics with strangers….â
Couple all of this with the problem of where people get their news, and you have Dems digging out of a ditch partially of their own making. What Democrats are missing more than anything is creative thinking about how to reach people who will never answer a telephone call from a number they donât recognize, never answer the door for a canvasser, and never form lasting political beliefs by watching or reading professional newscasts (because they rarely, if ever do).
This time around, Democrats either need their leaders to adapt, or else they need new leaders.
Jon Last thinks what will win votes in this environment is a lefty demagogue akin to what Bernie Sanders has been selling for years with his âmillionaires and billionairesâ rants. Sandersâs pitches resonated with younger voters. He got quite a lot of traction in 2016, but Democratic Party primary voters were not ready for him.
Who should the Dems support to lead them into the next round of elections? It should be a group of people in the 30âs, 40âs and 50âs. And thank God there is at least some movement among âyoungerâ Democrats on the Hill to challenge the partyâs gerontocracy.
Billy Ray is a screenwriter. His Captain Phillips screenplay earned him an Oscar nomination. He thinks the Democratsâ storytelling ought to start with:
âWhoever is going to be our next presidential candidate needs to look to the American people and say, âYou matter. Not me, not Trump. You matter. You matter to your family, you matter to your community, you matter to your country,ââ he adds. ââYou matter to our collective future, and you matter to me. And what Iâm going to do for the next four years is just work for working families. Iâm going to do the things that made the Democratic Party your party for so long.ââ
Working families. Who among the Democrats out there can build on and carry this message home?
Wrongoâs writing about how to Resist the Trump administration has focused on how in 2024 we didnât target our messaging at the family or at workers. Those lessons give insight into how to persuade voters in 2026 and beyond when Trump promises to be deeply unpopular. A third lesson is how Harris failed to hold on to the youth vote after a promising start.
One of the biggest stories of the 2024 election was Trumpâs gains with young voters, particularly young men. To understand the youth vote, we turn to John Della Volpe (JDV), the director of polling at Harvardâs Kennedy School of Government, and one of the leading experts on the youth vote in America.
âDemocratic Party leaders did not listen deeply to and earn the trust of young voters, who could have helped her prevail in Michigan and other swing states. As a pollster who focuses on the hopes and worries of these Americans, losing to Donald Trump â not once but twice â represents a profound failure. Ms. Harrisâs campaign needed to shift about one percentage point of voters across Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to secure the presidency, but instead struggled in college towns like Ann Arbor, Mich., and other blue places. Think about that: Flipping just one in every hundred voters would have stopped the likelihood of mass deportations, tax cuts for the wealthy, rollbacks of L.G.B.T.Q. protections and the reversal of climate regulations.â
The story from the last six presidential elections is simple: When Democrats capture 60% of the youth vote, like Biden did in 2020 and Obama in 2008 and 2012, they win the White House. Harris garnered just 54%. Looking at CNNâs exit polls, Bidenâs 24-point average margin among young voters in the seven battleground states collapsed to just 13 points under Harris, failing to hold 2020 margins among both young men and women.
The most dramatic shift came among the youngest voters (18-24), who swung 22 points to the Right from 2020, while their slightly older peers (25-29) showed more stability.
Wrongo has written before about how to reach the young voter. Reaching them required using different media than reaching the older generations. The young are largely on social media.
â…a new Pew Research Center survey reveals just how impactful so-called news influencers are in the current information ecosystem. About 21% of U.S. adults are turning to news influencers for information, with most saying creators âhelped them better understand current events and civic issues,…â
Hereâs a chart that breaks down how many people get news from influencers:
The number was highest among young adults, with37% of people ages 18 to 29 saying they turn to influencers for news.
(Pew surveyed 10,000 adults and analyzed 500 news influencers, which it defined as individuals who regularly post about current events and have over 100,000 followers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X or YouTube).
The gap in Harrisâs youth strategy was a failure to address the 37% where they get their news. And to provide persuasive messaging that resonated with their interests.
At the end of the 2024 campaign, nearly all of Trumpâs media interactions were with Right-leaning podcasters with massive social media followings. The GOP has actively tried to support their influencers with interviews and attention. While Kamala Harris did appear on the popular Call Her Daddy podcast, most Democrats kept podcasters and news influencers at armâs length.
From JDV:
âThe youth vote that emerged in 2024 defied every partisan prediction and stereotype – it was something entirely new. Generation Z maintained progressive positions on social issues while showing deep skepticism of foreign intervention. They combined concerns about economic inequality with support for free trade. They rated Trump higher on pure leadership while backing Harris overall.â
The vote shift from blue to red in college towns like Ann Arbor was staggering; in some University of Michigan precincts, the vote shifted 20 points toward Mr. Trump in just four years.
âDemocrats must radically reshape how we think about reaching the public. During the careers of powerful Democratic Party members (especially President Biden and some folks in the Senate), the press was the best way to reach the public….That world is gone, but too many folks in our party still run to CNN or the New York Times when they have news to make.â
More: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âWe need to widen the aperture when we think of the media. We must include folks who donât have a White House press pass. We must learn to reach the voters who donât pay attention to traditional news. We have to aggressively support the nascent progressive media ecosystem. Most importantly, we have to recognize that politics in 2024 is information warfare, and we are getting our asses kicked.â
In the campaign’s final weeks, Trump pulled out of interviews with CNBC and NBC News. He turned down a prime-time CNN town hall. In fact, Trump didnât do a single interview with a traditional news outlet in the campaign’s final stretch. No national broadcast interviews, no sit-downs with local TV anchors or newspapers journalists.
The winning candidate ignored the traditional media, focusing instead on partisan media outlets and politics-adjacent podcasts. While this change isnât new, it seems clear that 2024 was a pivot point for the role of the legacy media in politics.
The biggest lesson is that the youth vote is reached by influencers. Our older-than-dirt politicians need to give way to the younger pols who can survive on social media. We need a generational shift in who communicates. A younger generation of elected Democrats who prefer to fight back instead of curling into a ball and hope Republicans leave them alone.
Think Josh Shapiro, AOC, Fetterman, Katie Porter, Gretchen Whitmer, Abigail Spanberger and Chris Murphy. There are a hundred others but Harris wasnât one of them.
Ledgewater, Cashiers, NC – July 2024 photo by Mark Krancer
Wrongo and Ms. Right have spent a great few days enjoying the company of kids and spouses. While the subject of the 2024 election was on everyoneâs mind, it only occasionally broke through into whatever we were discussing at the time.
All the while, the chorus of media and pundits calling for Biden to step aside has continued. Back on June 30, Wrongo said this:
âThe NYT has an editorial saying that Biden should stand down for the good of the country. Even though the idea has been rejected by Biden, that thought is alive and will play out over the next few weeks. And for better or for worse, it will largely gain or lose traction based on poll results…â
Over the July Fourth weekend, more Congress members and the Massachusetts governor called on Biden to cede the nomination. There also were reports that Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) was organizing a group of Democratic senators to urge Biden to step aside.
What comes next? Biden will stay, or decide to yield to the pressure and go. And Biden or not, the media is going to harp on the shortcomings of whoever it is, no matter what. Hereâs the Democratâs dilemma:
In some sense, we are like online voters on a TV reality show. So far, the response by the leaders of the Democratic Party has been pathetic. Theyâre cowering in their offices and texting us for more money. This is the state of play in July 2024: Weâre presented with a yes/no option for the presidential candidate, and are told to: a) send money and b) vote hard in November. In truth we have only limited agency when it comes to deciding on Biden or another candidate as the Democratic nominee.
Starting today, pressure will continue to mount, since Congress returns and the pols will get confronted by reporters asking what their positions are on Biden.
Paradoxically, Biden has narrowed Trumpâs lead in key swing states, according to a new survey by Bloomberg/Morning Consult, published on Saturday: (emphasis by Wrongo)
â…Trump led…Biden by only 2 percentage points, 47% to 45%, in the critical states needed to win the November election. That’s the smallest gap since the poll began last October. Biden now leads Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin. Heâs within the pollâs statistical margin of error in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, and is farthest behind in…Pennsylvania.â
The poll also showed Biden narrowed the gap with independent voters, with Trump and Biden being tied at 40%. In a previous poll, Trump had led Biden by 44% to 36%. Hereâs a visual from the survey:
This poll is the first comprehensive survey of the states most likely to decide the outcome in the Electoral College since Bidenâs debate disaster on June 27. They surveyed 4,902 registered voters in seven swing states: 781 registered voters in Arizona, 790 in Georgia, 694 in Michigan, 452 in Nevada, 696 in North Carolina, 794 in Pennsylvania and 695 in Wisconsin. The surveys were conducted online from July 1 to July 5. The statistical margin of error is plus/minus 3 percentage points in Georgia and Pennsylvania; 4 percentage points in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, and 5 percentage points in Nevada.
The poll showed that Trump also has hurdles to overcome: Some 62% of voters said heâs dangerous, an increase from 59% in February. That comes after the NY jury found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
And what happens if Biden steps aside?
The only viable replacement for Biden at this point is VP Kamala Harris. Wrongoâs informal surveys over the past year showed very little support for her, although there is zero reason to think that Democrats would vote against her in a two-way race vs. Trump.
And replacing Biden with Harris would remove the concerns about Bidenâs age and mental sharpness. Maybe there would be new concerns, but we’d know for a fact that the age/capacity concerns held by many moderate/swing voters and many in the Democratic party would disappear.
Thinking about Harris:
Recent polls suggest Harris might do better than Biden against Trump, although it could still be a tight contest. A CNN poll released on July 2 found voters favor Trump over Biden by 49% to 43%. Harris also trailed Trump, 47% to 45%, but within the margin of error. It also found independents back Harris 43%-40% over Trump, and moderate voters of both parties prefer her 51%-39%.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll also taken after the debate found Harris and Trump were nearly tied, with 42% supporting her and 43% backing him. The Reuters/Ipsos polls typically have a margin of error of about 3.5 percentage points.
For Democrats, the answer to the dilemma is deciding about risk management. Itâs clear that all polling suggests that Biden will face a very tough uphill battle to beat Trump in November. Itâs unclear whether Harris would do better. So Dems are dealing with the devil you know vs the devil you don’t.
And many Dems are genuinely concerned that they can’t win with the devil they know, and so want to take a risk with the devil they donât really know.
There are plenty of ways to think about this. Sports fans know that no one looks down on the great athlete who loses to Father Time. They only look down on an athlete who hangs on too long. Dems are no longer fighting just a story about Biden being âoldâ. Itâs become about Biden losing control, and Americans donât like that kind of story at all.
A Harris-lead ticket could change the conversation, adding stories about women, young people, people of color, and critically, how Americans have had to adjust in the face of change and disruption. Many voters could rally to that story. The Party faithful could build coalitions around it.
With the exception of Biden himself, Harris has served in elected office â as a district attorney, state attorney general, senator and vice-president â longer than any Democrat elected to the White House in Wrongoâs lifetime, except for LBJ. And as a former prosecutor, she can make the case against Trump, a convicted felon.
Finally, think about a Harris/Shapiro ticket: PAâs governor Josh Shapiro has consistently logged high approval ratings. This is the crucial swing state that the Democrats have to win to keep Trump out of the White House. Â A January Quinnipiac University poll showed Shapiro had a 59% job approval rating, including 36% of Republicans who said they approved of his job performance, compared to Bidenâs 40% overall approval rating in the state.
Time to wake up, America! Weâre in that crucial period between Trumpâs first coup attempt and his second. The Democratsâ dilemma must be solved ASAP. To help you wake up, watch and listen to Coldplay perform their big hit âFix Youâ live on June 29, 2024 at Glastonbury 2024.
You will note Michael J. Fox joining the band onstage, playing guitar from a wheelchair. If you watch at 3:01, he does a kick that launches the crescendo in the song. European audiences are the best.
This video captures different people, different nationalities, different beliefs, collectively enjoying and engaging joyfully. No hate, no violence, just pure emotion.
Sample Lyrics:
When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want but not what you need
When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse
When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
Wrongo was asked if he thought the presidential debate would be watched by many Americans. Hereâs a report by CivicScience about the expected viewer demographics that show many will be tuning in:
âExclusive data from CivicScience reveal that just over 4-in-10 US adults plan to watch or listen to some or all of the debate as it broadcasts live on CNN next week, with an additional 12% intending to catch the debate after it airs. That brings total intended viewership to just over half of the population. The other half is split between those who will be following coverage of the event in the news and those who donât plan to follow the debate at all.â
Hereâs CivicScienceâs chart:
Note that there is zero data above for Independents or moderates. More from CivicScience:
Consumers who prefer to watch CNN for national news are the most likely to follow the debate live (59%), although Fox News viewers are not far behind (56%).
Wealthier earners ($100K or more yearly) are significantly more likely than lower-income earners ($50K or less yearly) to watch the live debate or follow the debate at all.
Americans who are concerned about inflation are twice as likely to tune into the live debate compared to those who are not concerned, ranking as the top election issue voters are following.
Less than a third of undecided voters (particularly younger ones) plan to watch the debate live, while a larger share will rely on social media clips and news coverage afterward. All that means is their perspective on the debate will be shaped by the people and outlets who curate their news for them. Thatâs the nature of politics today.
Younger audiences (under 35) are more likely than older adults to have cut the cord on cable for streaming, so they are the least likely (by a narrow margin) to watch the debate live. In fact, the percentage of the under-35 crowd who will watch or listen to the debate after it airs, or just plan to follow news about it instead, outnumbers those who plan to watch it live (see red dotted line box:
On to cartoons. Debate preview:
Should the GOP maybe reconsider their Biden attacks?
Artichoke blossom, Imperial County, CA – June 2024 photo by Paulette Donnellon
The repealing of Roe v. Wade via the Dobbs decision has helped create a dynamic new political movement: A revolt of millions of Americans (predominantly women) who think government has no business inserting itself into a womanâs personal decisions. This is going to be an important factor in the 2024 elections as it was in 2022.
â….ten thousand women eligible to vote in this Novemberâs elections were born before women won the right to vote. In the century since then, American women have steadily accumulated rights. In the 1960s the contraceptive pill let women choose how many children they had. In the 1970s no-fault divorce laws and Roe v Wade gave women more choices that had been denied to their mothers. This progress seemed irreversible, and was often taken for granted.â
Then it was time for the Trump-appointed Conservative Supreme Court majority to do what it had been hired to do: Overturn a womanâs right to an abortion. More from The Economist:
âA third of American women aged 15-49 now live in states where abortion is either illegal or impossibly restricted.â
These people are leading the biggest voter rebellion since the Tea Party movement in 2009.
Surprisingly, the number of abortions in the US has risen slightly since the Courtâs decision, mostly due to the availability of the drug Mifepristone, which can be prescribed by mail. Medication abortions now account for about 63 percent of pregnancy terminations nationwide. The legality of Mifepristone is also currently under review by the same six Conservative justices. That decision could come down as early as today, and certainly by early July.
What a country! Americans have grown used to the idea that every spring, we wait for 9 unelected government officials with lifetime jobs to tell us what kind of country weâre going to live in. Elections should serve this purpose, and we the people should be doing the telling.
But that revolution remains in our future. What is part of our present is an attempt by House Democrats to force a vote on codifying the right to birth control access nationwide. From the NYT: (brackets by Wrongo):
âThe [Democratâs] maneuver, through a procedural move known as a discharge petition, is all but certain to fail for lack of Republican support, but that is by design. It is part of a broad election-year push by Democrats to highlight Republicansâ record of opposing abortion rights and other reproductive health choices that voters fear will be stripped away following the fall of Roe v. Wade.â
The Senate Democrats also plan to force a vote on an identical contraceptive access bill, which once again, Republicans are expected to block. This coordinated push shows that Democrats regard access to abortion and contraception options as a key issue that will show a contrast with Republicans this fall.
Weâve seen that the Dobbs decision caused an immediate political reaction. Six states have held referendums on abortion, and in all six, the abortion rights side prevailed. A potential problem for anti-abortion Republicans is that referendums to legalize abortion could be on the ballot in up to 16 more states.
Abortion rights campaigners already have enough signatures to get on the ballot in a few states, including Florida. That state is crucial because it was the abortion destination for many women in the South until May 1st, when it outlawed most abortions after six weeks. If the Florida initiative passes, abortion will be legalized up to the point of viability, roughly 24 weeks. Democrats vainly hope the issue has put Florida in play in the presidential election, although it must pass by 60% to become law. It can easily impact the elections in Arizona and other states. More:
âIn only two of the six states that have held referendums, California and Vermont, did the abortion-rights side get such a large share. When Michigan held its referendum in 2022, 57% voted in favor of protecting abortion even though 63% broadly supported the procedure, a rate similar to Floridians.â
That means weâre in the middle of a vast political battle that parallels the presidential battle. Outside groups are pouring tens of millions of dollars into competitive House districts to amplify the message. The main super PAC supporting House Democrats last month announced a new $100 million fund focusing on abortion rights in swing districts.
And the group Americans for Contraception plans to spend more than $7 million on television and digital ads, targeting Republicans in the Senate who vote against the bill and House members who do not sign the petition.
A few voters could be pulled away from the Republicans. More from The Economist: (emphasis by Wrongo):
âThe midterm elections in 2022 hinted at that….Although only 14% of registered Republican voters were upset about the Dobbs ruling, a quarter of that group voted for a Democrat in their House district…. Republicans and independents who saw abortion as an important issue were more likely to vote for Democrats in 2022 than two years earlier.â
That equals 3.5% of Republicans, and may be among the reasons a predicted âred waveâ lifting Republican candidates failed to appear in 2022.
Republicans are in a bind on reproductive rights. They canât reconcile their Partyâs hard-line policies on womenâs health and theyâre out of step with the vast majority of the country. Despite that, they continue to try to tuck anti-abortion policies into pending legislation.
However the 2024 elections pan out, the anti-Dobbs movement represents something different in US politics. Unlike the Republicans, it isnât a group of keyboard warriors vying for attention or grift online. Instead itâs people giving up their weekends and evenings to try to persuade their neighbors about an idea they hold deeply.
And it isnât simply a political cause about a single issue. It’s many issues: The right to live, the right to privacy for medical procedures, the right to not be forced by the state to undergo unnecessary physical or mental injury.
Like most successful revolutions, itâs participatory and local. It is how democracy in America was designed to work. Help it succeed in November!
Sunrise, Paines Creek, Brewster, Cape Cod, MA – May 2024 photo by Bob Amaral Photography
Wrongo has just started reading Erik Larsonâs âThe Demon of Unrestâ, a history of how Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC fits into the overall story of the Civil War. It has a certain currency, since Wrongo and Ms. Right took a Charleston harbor tour in April that prominently featured Fort Sumter.
Usually, Wrongo would wait until heâs finished it to talk about a book, but today is an exception. In Larsonâs note to readers (pg. XI) he starts by saying:
âI was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021, took place.â
That is the only time Larson refers to Jan. 6. The book mostly covers the five+ months from Lincolnâs election in November 1860 to the shelling of Fort Sumter in April 1861. We see that during those five months, amid the building talk of secession, a pro-slavery mob attempted to stop Congress from tallying the vote to elect Lincoln.
Knowing about that should hit very close to home for Americans today.
While thereâs nothing explicitly in the book about Jan. 6, the Trump years (down to today) is a kind of spectral presence, not least when Larson describes the urgent concerns of public officials that the electoral count to certify Lincoln’s election would be disrupted, or that the certifications would be stolen or destroyed, and the Capitol attacked by angry Americans.
Sound familiar? The basic question today is similar to the question in 1861: âCan America stay together?â After the Civil War, we never thought that we would have to ask that question again. Today we can add a question about whether a presidential election loser should suffer consequences if they launched a coup attempt to retain presidential power.
It seems clear at this point that to bind the country together, we need to rediscover and commit to a new national narrative, a reaffirmation of America’s Cause.
All of this came to mind when Wrongo looked at a survey completed in April by the Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina Universityâs Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. The Nationhood Lab is working to develop a new narrative of Americaâs purpose that can be broadly shared.
They asked registered voters what in the nature of the US they most identified with by offering statement pairs about our national purpose, American identity, and the meaning of our past. In each case, one statement was keyed off the ideals in the Declaration of Independence (Civic Ideals) while the other was rooted in characteristics like ancestry, heritage, character, and values (Heritage and Traditions).
Each was presented in a manner that made them sound as attractive as possible. The participants were then asked to choose between civic ideals and our traditional heritage/character. Interestingly, the civic statements proved far more attractive regardless of gender, age, race, education or region, except for Republicans and those who voted for Trump in 2020:
Sixty-three percent of Americans preferred the statement that we are united ânot by a shared religion or ancestry or history, but by our shared commitment to a set of American founding ideals: that we all have inherent and equal rights to live, to not be tyrannized, and to pursue happiness as we each understand itâ
The alternative, that we are united âby shared history, traditions, and values and by our fortitude and character as Americans, a people who value hard work, individual responsibility, and national loyaltyâ, was embraced by only 33% of respondents.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said they agreed more with a statement that Americans âare duty-bound to defend one anotherâs inherent rightsâ over one that said we âare duty-bound to defend our culture, interests, and way of lifeâ which was preferred by 36% of the survey participants.
Fifty-four percent preferred the statement âFreedom, justice, and equality are ideals each generation must fight forâ and that âwe must pledge ourselves to make our Union more perfect.â While the alternate statement, âSecurity, individual liberties, and respect for our founding values are the heritage each generation must fight forâ was chosen by 40% of those surveyed.
Below is a chart with the full demographic results of the survey:
These results are in some ways, an antidote to the terrible polling Biden is experiencing. Nothing in the NYT poll  should cause panic. While the NYT headline is that Trump leads in 5 states, thatâs not actually what their own data says. Trump leads in 3 (AZ, GA, NV) and 3 are essentially tied.
But itâs very hard to believe that a significant share of people in the Nationhood Lab polls that share an overwhelming belief in civic ideals will turn around and vote for Trump in six months.
If you want additional support for the concept that current political polling canât be relied on, consider the just-concluded Maryland Democratic Senate primary. David Trone, a businessman who put $62 million of his own money into his primary campaign lost to Angela Alsobrooks, Prince Georgeâs County Executive. From Charlotte Clymer:
âThere were ten polls on the Maryland US Senate Democratic Primary released this year. David Trone led in seven of them, most by double digits. Angela Alsobrooks led in three, never by more than five points. Alsobrooks just beat Trone by double digits.â
Political polling is massively overrated even if there is some marginal utility to it. If you really want results, you have to get out and vote.
Footbridge, Magnolia Plantation, Charleston, SC â photo via itstartedoutdoors
Wrongo and Ms. Right are back at the Mansion of Wrong after a 16-day trip to visit siblings. One feature of the trip was that we didnât watch TV, read newspapers, or visit social media during in the entire visit. We experienced withdrawal, but we felt refreshed by the time we returned home. Highly recommended.
We stayed in three cities, Gettysburg, PA, St. Augustine, FL and Charleston, SC. These cities are a kind of throughline in that they each represent a snapshot of Americaâs past with slavery, and the efforts of modern-day citizens to place the good and bad of that past into a current context.
Letâs spend a few moments talking about each city. St. Augustine has been a part of the Wrong family history since the early 1970s, when Wrongoâs parents and his sister and her husband moved there. It was founded in 1565 by the Spanish and is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the US.
The enslavement of Black people in the Americas is a large part of St. Augustine’s history. The Spanish had no moral issue with using slaves to build the city and its fortifications. For three centuries after its founding in the late 16th century, most Black residents of St. Augustine were enslaved. Thirty Spanish crown slaves arrived in St. Augustine in 1582 from Cuba. They were sent to carry timber for the constant rebuilding of forts. Around 1672, Spanish royal slaves were transferred from Mexico to work on the building of the masonry fortress, Castillo de San Marcos, which still stands in the center of town.
There is much more information about the role of slaves in St. Augustine here.
In 1670 English colonists established the colony of South Carolina and the town of Charleston (Charles Towne) about 300 miles north of St. Augustine. Almost immediately, slaves began to escape from British Carolina to Florida with the hope of finding freedom with the Spanish. Those who reached St. Augustine were baptized as Catholics but werenât freed.
In the middle of the 20th century, St. Augustine’s Black residents were still being denied the vote, they were barred from Whites-only public accommodations, and their children forced to attend segregated schools. St. Augustine was like many other towns and cities in the US with racial restrictions. MLK Jr. was arrested in St. Augustine in 1964 while trying to integrate a motel’s restaurant.
On to South Carolina. Despite the aesthetics of the above photo, Magnolia Plantation also has a deep-rooted history in slavery. The major crop of the Plantation was rice, and it was home to many enslaved families from 1850 until the late 20th century. Today, the plantation does a nice job of placing slavery in a modern context through a 45-minute “From Slavery to Freedom” tour where docents speak about the people who were forced to live and work on the property.
The Plantationâs main house was destroyed three times, including once by General Shermanâs troops. Each time it was rebuilt with slave labor.
Charleston’s significance in American history is closely tied to its role as a major slave trading port. During the African slave trade, South Carolina received more slaves than any other mainland colony. As many as 260,000 enslaved Africans entered South Carolina from 1670 to 1808, almost one-half of slaves imported to the US.
Most of those slaves disembarked at Gadsdenâs Wharf, located on Charlestonâs Cooper River. The wharf complex was built by Christopher Gadsden, a prosperous merchant who is known today for having designed the âDonât Tread on Meâ flag. Gadsdenâs Wharf was the largest in North America, able to berth six ships at once and the capacity to hold up to 1,000 slaves on land.
The plantations and an economy based on slavery made Charleston the wealthiest city of the original Thirteen Colonies. In 1770, the city had 11,000 inhabitants (half of them slaves). It was the 4th-largest port in the colonies, after Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
In 2018, the city formally apologized for its role in the American slave trade. Today the city has an International African American Museum, sited at the original location of Gadsdenâs Wharf, now part of an ancestral garden. Black granite walls mark the outline of a former storage house where enslaved humans perished awaiting their transport to the slave market. The walls are emblazoned with lines of Maya Angelouâs poem, âAnd Still I Riseâ:
Today the very idea of Black peopleâs survival through slavery, racial apartheid and economic oppression being a quintessential part of the American story is being challenged by Conservative politicians throughout the US. Bans or limits on instruction about slavery and systemic racism have been enacted in at least 16 states since 2021. That list includes South Carolina.
But, given that context, Charleston offers an invitation to dialogue and discovery. And there can be no better site for a museum dedicated to that purpose.
Finally, consider Gettysburg, the site of the most famous battle of the US Civil War. The battle was fought from July 1 to July 3, 1863. After Leeâs great victory over the Union army at Chancellorsville, he marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. On July 1, the advancing Confederates clashed with the Unionâs Army of the Potomac, commanded by General George G. Meade, in Gettysburg. The next day saw even heavier fighting, as the Confederates attacked the Federals on both left and right. On July 3, Lee ordered an attack by 15,000 troops on the enemyâs center at Cemetery Ridge. âPickettâs Chargeâ eventually failed at the cost of thousands of rebel casualties.
Lee was forced to withdraw toward Virginia on July 4. Following the nearly simultaneous Union victories of July 1863 at Vicksburg, MS and Gettysburg, PA., Grantâs victory in Chattanooga tightened the noose on the Confederacy, opening the door to Shermanâs march to the sea in 1864 and the end of the Confederacy.
The war ended and Lincoln was assassinated. But the effects of slavery remain, as does our seeming inability to leave the divisions of the 1800s behind us. Itâs possible to look at the entire history of the postbellum South as a long struggle over whether American Blacks really are equal in the eyes of the White Working Class. This shows in the continuing debate in the South over whether to embrace or resist becoming more like the rest of the country.
NPR has a report on historical markers. There are more than 180,000 of them across the US:
As Faulkner said: âThe past is never dead. It’s not even past.â
How we tell the American story will always be subject to an ongoing debate. Despite the reluctance of some in the South to be willing to leaving the past behind, there are plenty of new Southerners who have relocated from the North and West who are trying in hard to be Southern paradigm-shifters.
Wrongoâs back! What did he miss? Nothing? Letâs take a look at global demographics. Youâre saying, what, no discussion of Trumpâs latest falsehood, or about Bidenâs age? Nope, not today.
The facts are that the nation (and the world) need on average, a total fertility rate of 2.1 live births per woman to maintain its population at any given level. This is called the replacement rate. The additional .1 accounts for children who die before they reach reproductive age, or who never reproduce.
âPopulation growth could grind to a halt by 2050, before decreasing to as little as 6 billion humans on Earth in 2100, a new analysis of birth trends has revealed. The study…predicts that if current trends continue, the world’s population, which is currently 7.96 billion, will peak at 8.6 billion in the middle of the century before declining by nearly 2 billion before the century’s end. â
In 1970 the worldâs total fertility rate was well above 5 live births per woman; now, itâs about 2.3 and is continuing to fall. Africaâs total fertility rate is 4.1, down nearly half that in the mid-20th century, while Asia and Latin America both have fertility rates of 2.0. North America (including Mexico) is at 1.8, and Europe is down to 1.6 live births per woman.
India, the worldâs most populous nation, is at 2.0; China, second most populous, is at a stunningly low 1.1 despite efforts by its government to encourage births. Last year, China reported that its population was 2 million people lower than the year before. The US, third most populous, is at 1.7, and Indonesia, fourth, is at 2.1.
Only when you get to the fifth most populous, Pakistan, does the fertility rate sustain population growth (3.3). The sixth, Nigeria, has a fertility rate similar to what the entire world had half a century ago, 5.1. Only six countries on the planet have higher fertility rates than Nigeria does, while 187 have a lower rate. At the very bottom is South Korea, with a 0.8 fertility rate; if that stays unchanged, it will leave each Korean generation at a little more than a third the size of the generation before it.
Demographers say that sometime in the next two decades, the world will reach its all-time peak human population and begin to see sustained year-over-year contractions.
This will raise serious political issues. First, it means that economic growth will slow in any country experiencing a population decline. Lower growth means incomes will fall. Second, weâre already seeing the effects of illegal mass migration from high-growth/low income countries to the lower growth/high income countries in the developed world. Third, falling populations and better healthcare will make humanity older as a whole and lower the proportion of working-age people, placing an even greater burden on the young to finance health care and pensions.
But this isnât all bad. Many authors have written about how continued population growth would strain, and if unchecked, ultimately damage the environment and reduce resources required to sustain human life as we know it today. Whenever the dwindling resources discussion takes place, (e.g. America is using up its ground water) or similar, someone says not to worry. They insist that technological progress would soon eliminate our reliance on oil, water (or oxygen). That an even cheaper and more abundant resource will be found to replace the ones weâre wasting. But there isnât much evidence for that viewpoint.
Think about the equation: In most years the economy grows. Why does the economy grow? Ultimately, because population increases. With every passing year, there are more people joining the workforce, buying assets, making investments, and purchasing goods and services. Population growth is the engine behind economic growth. The smaller the population, the smaller the economy.
To see this more clearly, imagine that a population contraction was happening in the US. There are fewer people who need to buy or rent a home this year than last year; there are fewer people shopping at the neighborhood stores, or working at the shops and factories, and so on. From Nature Magazine:
âUsing population projections, we found that, by 2100, close to half of the nearly 30,000 cities in the United States will face some sort of population decline, representing 12â23% of the population of these 30,000 cities…â
What happens to housing prices, rents, business profits, local tax revenues, in that scenario? They go down. And if it werenât for immigration, western Europe, the US, and other countries would fall into population contraction. And the entire structure of business, power and wealth that depends on economic growth would slowly come apart.
The most potent issue is that birth rates are falling in some countries that until now have produced most of the immigrants. Mexicoâs fertility rate right now is around 2.0 per woman, below replacement level. As a result, these days, Mexico sends fewer migrants to the US. Most are migrants that are passing through Mexico from countries that still have a population surplus.
These consequences are already being felt in some countries. And when the world transitions from an economy based on growth to a new economy based on contraction, expect to see rapid political change.
âWeâre at a crossroadsâand we decide what happens next. We can maintain the economic status quo and continue to pursue infinite growth on a finite planet. Or we can heed the warning signs of a planet pushed to its limits, put the brakes on environmental catastrophe, and choose a different way to define prosperity thatâs grounded in equity and a thriving natural world.â
The Right-wing nativist movement in the US rallies around an anti-immigration platform. At the same time, they attack womenâs reproductive rights. But weâre not going to reproduce our way out of the coming depopulation trend.
The canary in the coal mine is birth rates.
Weâre entering an unfamiliar world, one that Wrongo certainly wonât be around long enough to see. But since demographics is destiny, we can be pretty sure depopulation is in our future.
Snow at sunrise, Grand Canyon NP, AZ – February 2024 photo by John Fecteau
Welcome to another Monday Wake Up. Wrongo wants to touch on a few different ideas today. First, a non-trivial topic that Wrongo plans to return to this year. When we look at the geo-political landscape today, the US is confronting a growing alliance between three countries, each of which holds ill-will towards us and towards our western allies. Those three are China, Russia and Iran.
Weâre confronting them separately and also in the case of the Ukraine War, jointly. This is an excellent time to harken back to something that Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in 1997. He had formerly (through 1981) been Carterâs National Security Adviser:
âPotentially the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps Iran, an âanti-hegemonicâ coalition, united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. . . . Averting this contingency . . . will require a display of US geostrategic skill on the western, eastern and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously.â
Todayâs geopolitical landscape reflects exactly what Brzezinski feared more than two decades ago. Is the world heading toward what the late Brzezinski referred to as âthe most dangerous scenarioâ? What should America be doing now to head off what weâre seeing from our three rivals? Or is it already too late?
Which presidential candidate will do the better job of blunting this potential power conflict ?
Second, what did the weekendâs South Carolina Republican primary tell us? Trump won by a wide margin. As of this writing, the tally has Trump at 59.8% and Nikki Haley at 39.5%. The media is treating this as a significant triumph. When you win by 20 points, thatâs true.
The real story, however, is that Trump underperformed expectations and failed to expand his coalition beyond his base. If you doubt that, take a look at the polling group 538âs polling vs. actual results for Trump across the three Republican primaries:
Weâre seeing Trump consistently underperform the polls by 7-8 points. Worse for Trump, Fox Newsâ John Roberts talked about an alarming exit poll finding that 59% of Haley voters in South Carolina last night (equal to 40% of the electorate) would not vote for Trump in the general election.
âItâs my view that something broke inside the GOP when Dobbs happened. That even for many Republicans, it was just too much, the party had gone too far, had become too ugly and dangerous.â
Trump and the GOP are showing signs of deep institutional weakness. They had disappointing elections in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023. Theyâre replacing the entire leadership team at the RNC due to their ongoing fundraising struggles. Todayâs RNC is broke:
In addition, the GOPâs state parties have atrophied in some key battleground states. Trump is burning through cash at unprecedented rates to fund his many lawsuits. Even Nikki Haley out raised him last month.
Wrongo thinks that weâre finally seeing âTrump Fatigueâ. Everybody has seen his act and has zero need to ever see it again. The assertion that Trump is strong beyond his die-hard MAGA base seems to at last, be untrue. But what does Wrongo know? When he retired from the F500, he thought he would go into private equity. But he was seduced into online journalism by the promise of very small paychecks and zero job security.
Our third story is for the birds. The Guardian reports that:
âThe Eurasian eagle owl named Flaco, which escaped New York Cityâs Central Park Zoo last year, has died after crashing into a building in Manhattan, officials said late on Friday.â
Hereâs Flaco in happier times:
More:
âFlaco was rescued by the zoo in 2010, when he was less than a year old. He was reputed to be the only owl of his kind in the wild in North America, and there were widespread fears he ultimately wouldnât survive for long outside captivity.â
The Eurasian eagle-owl is one of the larger owl species. Flacoâs wingspan was reported to be about 6 ft. Ornithologist Stephen Ambrose wrote on LinkedIn that there was evidence light glare from city buildingsâ windows could blind owls momentarily and increase their risk of crashing into the structures, especially at night.
This raises the evergreen question of how to keep birds safe in US urban areas. Federal officials estimate that one billion birds in the US die annually after accidentally flying into building windows. Wrongo and Ms. Right had this happen to us years ago when a hawk crashed through our lakefront cottage living roomâs wall of glass. He was dead when he hit the floor. It doesnât only happen in high-rise buildings.
Time to wake up, America! Thereâs glare everywhere, including in the mediaâs silly discussion about how overwhelming Trumpâs electoral chances are vs. Biden. Trump has a very small chance of being elected in 2024. To help you wake up, watch this great video of Englandâs Prince William singing âLivin’ on a Prayerâ with Jon Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift at the Winter Whites Gala charity ball at Kensington Palace. This is fun and worth your time:
The future King of England singing with the current Queen of Americana.