Leadership – Page 10 – The Wrongologist

Biden’s Speech Showed His 2024 Strategy

The Daily Escape:

Sea smoke at Portland Head Light – February 2023 photo by Rick Berk Photography

(The Wrongologist is taking a few days off. The next column will appear on Tuesday, 2/14. Enjoy your nachos and jalapeno dip on Sunday.)

Wrongo and Ms. Right watched the State of the Union (SOTU) extravaganza. You have already read many insightful observations, so Wrongo’s facing the daunting task to come up with something original for you. Let’s start with some data. CNN’s flash poll of SOTU viewers found that 72% had a positive reaction to Biden’s speech, while:

“71% said Biden’s policies will move the country in right direction — up 19 percentage points from before his speech.”

That’s a win. Politico reported that:

“…the White House is ecstatic that the GOP’s ‘boos, taunts, groans, and sarcastic chortles’ helped Biden paint them as ‘unreasonable and chaotic.’”

It was the most confrontational SOTU address ever, but Biden seemed up to handling the catcalls. Like CNN, most pundits gave Biden good marks for the speech. It ran from “best Biden speech ever!” to “Biden Kills It” to Kate Riga of Talking Points Memo tweeting:

Everyone’s talking about how House Republicans underestimated old man Biden. His speech was an early look at his 2024 general election strategy. Biden is a career politician. Maybe he learned somewhere along his way to the Oval Office that you are only as unpopular as your enemies are popular. In that case, he’s a winner.

Based on Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ GOP rebuttal, Trumpists and their ilk plan to treat 2024 as another braying appeal to their grievance-filled base. They’re adding a rich creamy layer of culture war to help spin up their base, along with their evergreen awfulizing about the national deficit. From JV Last:

“Where Biden spent the majority of his speech talking about steel workers, bridge projects, insulin prices, and junk fees, Sanders insisted that Biden has surrendered to “a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.” And that “his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left.”

OTOH, Biden’s 2024 strategy won’t be a re-run. It’s different and new. As Eugene Robinson says in the WaPo:

“The call to action during President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday — “Let’s finish the job” — would never be mistaken for soaring poetry.”

That also resonated with Jon Last, who agrees that “Finish the Job” will be the campaign’s guiding theme. Here are the implied pillars of Biden 2024:

The economy has to keep growing and it must help everyone.
The deficit must be cut to the extent possible over the next six years.
Biden’s great accomplishments were achieved with bipartisan help of centrist Republicans.
The government needs to keep funneling money to small towns and rural areas, something that he started with the infrastructure bill.
The risky ideas of the MAGA Republicans who plan to torpedo Social Security and Medicare will be front and center in the campaign.

Instead of the Republicans’ embrace of the culture wars, here’s what Biden had to say: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“My economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the past four decades too many people have been left behind or treated like they’re invisible.

Maybe that’s you watching at home.

You remember the jobs that went away. And you wonder whether a path even exists anymore for you and your children to get ahead without moving away. I get it.

That’s why we’re building an economy where no one is left behind. Jobs are coming back; pride is coming back because of the choices we made in the last two years.

This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America and make a real difference in your lives.”

A “Blue-Collar Blueprint” is a smart way to brand your 2024 agenda, instead of some focus-group tested acronym or clever name. Sometimes it just makes sense to say what you mean. As Ron Brownstein wrote in The Atlantic: (brackets by Wrongo)

“He [Biden] repeatedly noted how many of the jobs created by his economic agenda are not expected to require a four-year college degree.”

Jon Last contrasts Biden’s strategy with the GOP strategy, which he thinks is doomed to failure:

“Republicans believe they can increase the number of votes from one group of Americans (their base) by….attacking another group (the coastal elites). Further, Republicans believe that the number of votes they will win through this use of negative polarization will be greater than the number of votes they might otherwise gain by trying to empathize with and persuade the out-group.”

That’s a re-run of Trump 2020.

Biden isn’t going to play defense in 2024. The GOP’s core strategy is always to sway working-class voters and use that political base to implement policies that enrich corporations and the wealthy at the expense of their base.

If Biden can find a way to drive a wedge into that Republican coalition, and peel off 3%-5% of their working-class supporters, it would translate into a big victory in 2024.

China’s Spy Balloon

The Daily Escape:

Zion NP in snow – January 2023 photo by Rich Vintage Photography

What is it about the Chinese balloon story? Why did the media and politicians go totally nuts about it? Here’s what Damon Linker thinks:

“Degraded American public life”. This is another example of Wrongo’s column yesterday about how we’re all living in our virtual vertical communities. The Republican political vertical immediately locked in, like a cat watching a laser pointer, to this mostly low-risk intrusion into US airspace by China. From Forbes:

“Talking heads on cable TV are up in arms about the Chinese spy balloon that was floating across the continental US, before it was shot down Saturday afternoon. Conservative commentators have insisted President Joe Biden should’ve ordered the balloon be shot down earlier and that a foreign balloon flying over US territory never would’ve happened under President Donald Trump. But it did happen under Trump…”

It happened under Trump at least three times.

The Pentagon says it was definitely a surveillance balloon and that China had the ability to maneuver it using external propellers. OK, if you’ve ever sailed a boat even in a moderate breeze, paddled a canoe across a windy lake, or bicycled on a windy day, you know maneuvering in high winds is very difficult. So how will a balloon generate enough power to overcome the prevailing winds at 60,000’? And the balloon doesn’t have an aerodynamic shape. So bottom line, you aren’t controlling the path of a balloon in any sizable wind.

A balloon actually sucks for spying. A quick look at earth.nullschool.net shows that the current winds at the specified latitude are running between 50-100 mph. No balloon with a propeller can plow through that. It’s likely that the propellers aren’t for propulsion, but for changing the direction that the antenna is pointing, so that it can phone home.

It’s possible that as the Pentagon says, the deceased balloon was gathering data on our defenses, but all nations do that all the time. So where’s our politicians’ and the media’s common sense? Their hysterical reaction is totally on brand, but as always, very depressing.

We have to hope the politicians and generals who control America’s nukes have better minds than our GOP politicians.

Let’s deal with the question about why Biden didn’t shoot it down over land. One issue was that the debris field when the balloon remains hit the ocean was seven miles long. One advantage of knocking it down where they did is that the ocean is only about 50’ deep off the Carolina coast. Imagine a seven-mile debris field spread across any American state: It would be a fantastic opportunity for souvenir hunting.

Back in 1945, before WWII ended, Japan sent thousands of bomb-carrying paper balloons via the jet stream towards North America. Only a small percentage of the balloons reached land. But six people, five of them children, were killed by one balloon that landed in Oregon.

There’s a (possibly apocryphal) story about a US Navy ship firing on a suspected Japanese balloon until they finally realized that they were shooting at Venus.

Bottom line, Biden and the US military showed professionalism and caution in tracking and attacking the balloon. The US military was able to jam the balloon’s instruments as it crossed America, while collecting information about Chinese intelligence gathering capabilities. They shot it down when and where the risk to civilian casualties and property damage was deminimis. From Robert Hubbell:

“But the ‘spy balloon’ did allow the Chinese military to glean one significant piece of intelligence about America—that Republicans are clowns who cannot be trusted to run the US military again.”

One Republican said Biden should be impeached. Several wanted to “SHOOT IT DOWN NOW”. Consider this tweet from Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC):

Does anyone believe the balloon threatened the lives of millions of American families? Or that Biden and Harris should resign? Wilson forgets to say that resignation would make House Speaker Republican Kevin McCarthy president. It’s just awesome how serious the Republican Party has become.

All of the hostile one-upmanship aimed at China over the balloon served to show that there is no downside to an American politician taking a hawkish stance towards China.

China remains a crucial trading and economic partner and competitor, but both Republicans and many Democrats are happy to take a battering ram to our relationship with China. And the media decided to work the Chinese balloon story rather than spend time talking about Friday’s blockbuster jobs report, or how unemployment reached a 50-year low.

That news wasn’t important or exciting enough when there was a Chinese balloon on the horizon.

America’s relationship with China has always been fraught. If you’re as old as Wrongo, you remember 1971’s Ping-Pong diplomacy, one of the first official contacts between the countries since before the Cold War.

You may ask, what’s happened since then? Well, the balls have gotten bigger.

Monday Wake Up Call – February 6, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Sea smoke, South Portland, ME looking towards Portland Head light – February 2023 photo by Benjamin Williamson Photography

On Saturday, Wrongo and Ms. Right went to a dinner party with friends and two generations of family. The after dinner talk turned to how quite a few of the kids and grandkids weren’t planning on having children.

We tossed around ideas about why they were unlikely to procreate, and somethings stood out. First, they see climate change as an existential threat that society is unwilling to solve, even though the technology already exists. Why bring a kid into that?

Second, society seems broken. Our group meant that we face simultaneous crises, layered on top of each other. This situation involving simultaneous global challenges, for which we have few solutions, is called Polycrisis.

And a crisis in one global system can spill over into other global systems. They interact with each another so that each new crisis worsens the overall harm. The Polycrisis environment weakens every individual’s sense of security and their place in the world.

One impact that seems related to the simultaneous climate, health, economic and geopolitical challenges are the effects on children. The needs for special education and special services for the very young has never been greater in America. It’s forcing big changes in public school budgets across the country.

No one is really sure why this is happening.

Wrongo isn’t proposing a solution, just suggesting we need to think more about how the problems of declining birth rates, coupled with the growing issues our young children are facing, might be interrelated.

Noah Smith an economist, has an interesting newsletter about how we define community:

“In the past, our communities were primarily horizontal — they were simply the people we lived close to….Increasingly, though, new technology has enabled us to construct communities that I’ve decided to call vertical — groups of people united by identities, interests, and values rather than by physical proximity.”

Smith says that in the past few decades, Americans became disengaged from their local communities, hunkering down in their houses, and failing to interact with the people around them. That led to a well-documented decline in Americans’ participation in civic organizations, local clubs, etc. Our neighbors can also be stifling and/or repressive because they impose uncomfortable community norms on us.

We’ve always had Smith’s vertical communities: “the Jewish community”, “the LGBT community”, and many others. But in the past, an identity grouping wasn’t a true community. We all have identities that connect us with faraway people — other Irishmen, other Taylor Swift fans.

Prior to the internet, we couldn’t have much contact with them. These loose vertical communities weren’t efficient ways to exchange ideas. Before email, text and streaming video, getting the word out was very slow, and our horizontal communities would decide whether what we wanted to share was worthwhile.

Now, we’re no longer isolated. The internet brought us a world of human interaction: social media feeds, chat apps, and so on. Suddenly we’re surrounded by people through their words, their pictures, and their videos.

Now we organize much of our human interaction around virtual vertical communities. Former occasional connections became Facebook groups, subreddits and personal networks on Twitter. And like our small towns back in the day, vertical communities use social ostracism to punish those who deviate from consensus norms.

But vertical communities can’t provide things like public education, national defense, courts of law, property rights, product standards, and infrastructure that we all depend on.

These require a government to administer them. And governments are organized horizontally; mostly defined by lines on maps. But what if we socialize, cooperate, and fall in love with the people from our vertical community? What if we grow apart from the people next door and the relationship is irreparable?

We see this every day in America when citizens go to a PTA meeting and discover a bunch of strangers saying things that they despise.

Wrongo isn’t saying that vertical communities are another enemy. But they can and do exacerbate the polycrisis by making truth harder to see. And by making effective action more difficult.

If you doubt this, remember how powerful the anti-vaxx vertical was at the height of the Covid pandemic. Today’s vertical communities are strong enough to keep our government from getting much of anything done. How can we work together with neighbors when we share few common bonds?

America today is a predatory society. We predate on politics, ideas, values, and culture. Biden’s trying to change this, but can he succeed? How many of us are trying to help? Changing a society that’s this broken, one that’s moving deeper into vertical communities will be a very heavy lift.

Time to wake up America! What can we do to maintain what Lincoln in his first inaugural address said:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”

To help you wake up, listen and watch the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 2022 cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” with Larkin Poe (Rebecca Lovell and Megan Lovell) on vocals and a fabulous slide guitar solo:

Sample of Lyrics:

Standing next to me in this lonely crowd
Is a man who swears he’s not to blame
All day long I hear him shout so loud
Just crying out that he was framed

Saturday Soother – February 4, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Grist Mill, Brewster, Cape Cod, MA – February 2023 photo by Nick Haveran

Ah, Florida. Wrongo and Ms. Right will be making our annual visit to the land of DeSantis in late March to see family. Florida has always been a destination for older Americans who are tired of the -2°F with the windchill making it feel like -25°F that we had last night in Northwestern Connecticut.

Martin Edic in his Medium column has it right:

“Picture a…retirement community with rules set by a Homeowner’s Association or HOA. An idyllic place to see out one’s final years, undisturbed by the reality of the outside world.

And then a man is elected leader of your HOA and he becomes consumed by writing rules and dictating how you should live your life….Welcome to the State of Florida under Ron DeSantis.”

Historically, Florida’s population skewed older. But its demographics have changed, driven in part by a large Latino population that is traditionally politically conservative. The older voters and the Latino block have become fertile ground for wedge cultural issues like those put forth by its governor Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis has a vision for Florida: His vision says that slavery really never happened in the Deep South, but if it did, it wasn’t as bad as people in the North say.

But since that’s controversial, DeSantis has ordered the Florida educational system to eliminate curriculum that differs from his worldview: No black history. No recognition that gay and gender fluid people exist.

His vision is to lesson plan by state government. If DeSantis says slavery was not a legitimate issue in Florida history, then it wasn’t. If kids have questions about their sexuality or gender preference, make it illegal for them to learn about it. Also make it illegal to help them.

So it’s no surprise that as we enter Black History Month, DeSantis announced a proposal to all but remove both the teaching about that history and the descendants of those who survived it from Florida’s public schools and universities:

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he intends to ban state universities from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives….It really serves as an ideological filter, a political filter…”

In a press release about the legislation, his office called diversity, equity and inclusion programs “discriminatory” and vowed to prohibit universities from funding them. From CNN:

“The proposal is a top priority for DeSantis’ higher education agenda this year, which also includes giving politically appointed presidents and university boards of trustees more power over hiring and firing at universities and urging schools to focus their missions on Florida’s future workforce needs.”

DeSantis has seen his standing among conservatives soar nationwide following his public stances on hot-button cultural and education issues.

He announced his higher education agenda in Bradenton, a 15-minute drive from New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college where DeSantis has installed a new board with a mandate to remake the school into his conservative vision for higher education.

On top of all that, DeSantis wants to radically change the curriculum of Florida’s public education system:

“The core curriculum must be grounded in actual history, the actual philosophy that has shaped Western civilization,….We don’t want students to go…at taxpayer expense, and graduate with a degree in Zombie studies.”

Say goodbye to Black history, gender study, and any queer history courses in the state. And there’s also DeSantis’ criticism of the College Board’s new curriculum for its AP course in African American Studies.

DeSantis announced in January that he would ban it, because state education officials said it wasn’t historically accurate and violated state law that regulates precisely how race-related issues are taught in public schools.

That sent the College Board into edit mode, stripping much of the subject matter that had angered DeSantis and other conservatives:

“The College Board purged the names of many Black writers and scholars associated with critical race theory, the queer experience and Black feminism. It ushered out some politically fraught topics, like Black Lives Matter, from the formal curriculum. And it added something new: “Black conservatism” is now offered as an idea for a research project.”

The College Board’s revisions address most of the DeSantis’s objections. Why? Because the College Board makes most of its revenue from AP courses. From Popular Information:

“In 2019, the College Board made over $1.1 billion dollars in revenue, according to documents filed with the IRS. Almost half of this revenue came from “AP and Instruction,” and 40% came from “assessments” like SAT exams. In 2020, revenue shrunk to $800 million dollars. “AP and Instruction” now constituted the majority of revenue…”

For the College Board, right-wing criticism of the AP African American Studies course presents a financial threat. Assessments are dying: Compared to 2019, when 55% of colleges required test scores, only 4 % of schools had a testing requirement this past fall. So it needs more students than ever to enroll in its AP courses.

So much for the Republican’s vision of “limited government.” DeSantis’ objective is seemingly to provide White Floridians with a version of the past that they can be comfortable with, regardless of whether it’s true.

On to our frigid weekend here in the Northeast: It’s time for our Saturday Soother. Try to forget about the Chinese spy balloon slowly traversing the US, or why Nikki Haley thinks she has a path to the presidency.

Instead, put on a turtleneck and grab a seat by a window. Now, listen to Gustav Holst’s “The Planets – IV. Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” which can mean gayness (sorry DeSantis) played in Royal Albert Hall in London at the 2015 Proms by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Susanna Mälkki:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 22, 2023

There’s a difference between America’s national debt and our debt limit. Without question, our national debt must be reduced. That can happen only two ways, or by a combination of the two. We can increase taxes, or reduce future spending, or do both.

The debt limit is how much in total the US government can borrow. It uses borrowing (issuing treasury notes and bonds) to meet obligations for previously contracted goods and services. This is what must be increased as soon as possible by both Houses of Congress.

But Republicans say they won’t agree to increase the debt limit without action to reduce the national debt. The national debt is the accumulation of all the annual deficits (and any surplus – thanks, Bill Clinton!) that various administrations have racked up. It currently sits at $31.4 trillion.

The four Republican presidents from Reagan to Trump are responsible for more than half of that debt; they added $17.46 trillion to it by running whopping deficits each year. Trump was responsible for nearly half of that, $8.2 trillion, in just four years. About $3.9 trillion was pandemic relief and $2 trillion was the big tax cut he gave to the wealthy.

Republicans can’t explain why they voted to increase the debt ceiling every year of Trump’s administration. Even as he was racking up trillions of dollars of debt by increasing the annual budget deficit from the $665 billion he inherited from Obama, to a whopping $2.1 trillion deficit in just four years ̶ the highest in US history.

But in the past two years, Biden has cut that $2.1 trillion deficit by 33%, to $1.4 trillion. That isn’t stopping the GOP from screaming that spending has to be curbed because there’s a Democrat in the White House. On to cartoons.

A high-stakes game of chicken:

Their plan is to never have a plan:

Alec Baldwin’s on line one Mr. Speaker:

Truth is always in the eye of the beholder:

Floods in California have people looking for new places to stay:

David Crosby would be spinning in his grave:

Saturday Soother – January 21, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Round Bald summit, TN, looking towards NC – January 2023 photo by Tim Lewis. Those are some very blue Blue Ridge Mountains.

From the NYT:

“Western defense officials on Friday failed to reach an agreement on exporting German – or American -made battle tanks to Ukraine, setting back Ukraine’s hopes of quickly getting weapons it sees as crucial to its defense against an expected new Russian offensive.”

This is the fractured state of play in NATO’s support for Ukraine. Despite a statement signed by nine other NATO allies saying they were willing to participate in a coalition of German-made Leopard 2 tank donors.

Germany has not yet decided whether to allow Leopard 2 tanks to be sent to Ukraine. The NYT also reports that German Chancellor Mr. Scholz has insisted Berlin would not send any of its own Leopard tanks unless the US also sends its M1 Abrams tanks. However, the Biden administration thinks that the M1 Abrams tanks – which run on jet fuel and require frequent maintenance and spare parts — would be difficult to position in eastern Ukraine, where supply lines could be cut off easily.

Germany’s reluctance may be due to polling that shows a sharp division among Germans over sending battle tanks to Ukraine. This is despite widespread support by Germans for providing other weapons. Some think this is also a byproduct of its legacy of blitzkrieg tank warfare in World War II.

This is big since Ukraine’s senior military commander, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, has said his forces need about 300 Western tanks to make a difference in the battles for fiercely contested cities and towns in the eastern provinces of Ukraine that border Russia.

It’s clear that more and newer tanks are crucial in pushing back Russian forces. The Leopard 2 would help offset Russia’s superiority in artillery firepower. They would be of even greater value as the war begins its second year next month, and Ukraine needs to fight against a Russian spring counteroffensive.

OTOH, Britain has agreed to send to Ukraine 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks, and 30 artillery guns in a move it made at least in part to encourage other NATO countries to donate their own tanks.

There are clear advantages for deploying the Leopard 2: There are many in Europe (about 2,000). They are easy to move to Ukraine. The logistics and maintenance would be easier, as would providing supplies, spare parts, and training.

But the US and Germany are dithering because they remain concerned about the possible escalation of the Ukraine War into a larger conflict. Any conflict between Russia and NATO powers has the potential to devolve into a nuclear war. And no one wants to see tactical nuclear weapons used on any battlefield.

While it’s useful to exercise caution, we crossed the escalation bridge when we sent the HIMARS precision-guided missiles to Ukraine. Give the tanks to Ukraine!

On to our Saturday Soother, where we will try to forget that Rep. George Santos (R-NY) is denying that he ever appeared in drag, even though there is a YouTube video of him in a dress and makeup at Carnival in Rio.

Sorry to put that image in your mind but try to relax for a few minutes and think about the great David Crosby who died on Thursday. Crosby was a notorious dickhead who got kicked out of every band he ever played with. After The Byrds, he teamed up with Buffalo Springfield’s Stephen Stills and The Hollies’ Graham Nash to form Crosby, Stills & Nash. And later, Neil Young was added, making the group, CSNY.

By the end of his life, no member of CSNY would speak to him, despite Crosby’s efforts late in life to apologize to each of them. There’s a lesson to take from this. Evaluate your relationships. If something’s wrong or missing with the people who are important to you, do something about it before it’s too late.

Crosby wasn’t the primary singer or the main songwriter of the Byrds or of the CSN or CSNY songs that became mega-folk rock classics. But he was a superhumanly gifted harmony singer whose voice was the Super Glue of these groups.

It’s clear that the 2020s decade will see many of the remaining icons of the 1960s music scene leave us. Crosby, who received a liver transplant nearly 30 years ago (paid for by Phil Collins) is not someone Wrongo would have predicted to even make it this far.

Two ways to remember Crosby. Wrongo and Ms. Right strongly recommend “David Crosby: Remember My Name” a 2017 documentary in which Cameron Crowe interviews him.

One great song that Crosby wrote was on CSN’s 1970 album, “Déjà vu”. Listen to “Almost Cut My Hair”:

There are lots of dickheads in the music industry. Despite that it’s surprising how much good music gets made.

China’s Population Declines

The Daily Escape:

Dune Evening Primrose, Anza-Borrego Desert SP, CA – January 2023 photo by Paulette Donnellon

From the NYT:

“The world’s most populous country has reached a pivotal moment: China’s population has begun to shrink, after a steady, years long decline in its birthrate that experts say is irreversible.”

Irreversible. It was the first time that deaths had outnumbered births in China since Mao’s Great Leap Forward.

Feng Wang, Professor of Sociology, UC Irvine agrees: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“As a scholar of Chinese demographics, I know that the figures released by Chinese government on Jan. 17, 2023…. is the onset of what is likely to be a long-term decline. By the end of the century, the Chinese population is expected to shrink by 45%, according to the United Nations. And that is under the assumption that China maintains its current fertility rate of around 1.3 children per couple, which it may not.”

China has tried different policies for years in an effort to delay this moment, first, by loosening a one-child policy and then, by offering financial incentives to encourage families to have more children. Neither policy worked. Now, facing a population decline, coupled with a continuing rise in life expectancy, China’s demographics will have consequences not just for China but possibly for the rest of us.

China’s rise as an economic powerhouse is the result of its becoming the world’s factory floor. That created the world’s largest middle class. It moved hundreds of millions of rural Chinese to urban areas and fueled the spectacular growth of its largest cities. It made China the world’s second-largest economy, and also led to the increase in life expectancy.

Both Feng Wang and the NYT worry that China’s declining population will lead to a time when China will not have enough people of working age to fuel its growth. In the short run, there will be fewer workers to generate future growth in their economy. In the longer run, the costs to maintain an aging, post-work population will become very high (like in the US).

But economies don’t stand still for long. That China has a manufacturing-oriented economy isn’t a negative but a positive in this scenario. China has been moving up the manufacturing value chain for more than 20 years. So they are in a good position to use automation to address increasing labor scarcity and (presumed) rising labor costs.

They could also encourage work after normal retirement age, even if part time, with better wages and job environments. And like other countries facing similar issues, they could encourage immigration.

The US may be closer to China’s fate than we think. The US Census says that: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The U.S. population grew at a slower rate in 2021 than in any other year since the founding of the nation….[growing by] only 0.1%…”

It looks like we’re on a similar trajectory to China as are many other developed nations. Japan is currently dealing with it. South Korea and Taiwan are currently at a crossroads as both are facing a massive demographic crash. But, both are smaller and more economically developed than China, so they also have options. Much of Europe is looking at the same problem.

The solution would seem to be to allow immigration from the less developed world. But that comes with the likelihood that the newcomers will change our social and cultural norms. With immigration, our norms will change, and control of the politics in each country is likely to evolve as well.

The alternative to permanent economic growth is to allow the population shrinkage to happen. It’s kind of infuriating that big business and their captured politicians fail to recognize that a shrinking population (within reason) is both essential for our future and a good thing in the long run.

It can be scary: But transitioning from an economic model based on a constant input of young, working people to one where, we create fewer jobs, can work. If we make sure that those jobs are extremely productive.

What is the end game of an ever expanding population and perpetual economic growth for the human race? The world population when Wrongo was born was about 2.3 billion. It’s 3.5 times that today. Since resources are finite, it’s an inescapable conclusion that someday we must shrink the number of people. So why not today?

Sure, we can extend the economic life of certain resources by using new technologies. But if we continue to expand the number of humans on earth, we’ll see a global war for those resources, which will be a catastrophe.

Is a commitment to low population/low economic growth even possible at this late stage of capitalism?

Citizen Genêt

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, after 10 inches of snow, Haywood County, NC – 2023 photo by Todd Roy

Over the holidays, Wrongo read “Dr. Benjamin Rush: The Founding Father Who Healed a Wounded Nation” by Harlow Giles Unger. Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. And he was a social reformer almost before America had a unified society.

Rush treated both the poor and Blacks, even while struggling to attract paying patients. He was the first American physician to treat mental illness as a disease rather than as criminal behavior. And he served as surgeon-general of the Continental Army’s so-called Middle Department that included Pennsylvania. So he got to see Washington’s army at Valley Forge in the worst of times.

Today, let’s focus on an important moment in American history that occupies only a few pages of Unger’s book. You may have heard of Edmond-Charles (Citizen) Genêt. He became France’s ambassador to the US during George Washington’s second term.

On February 1, 1793, the French Revolutionary government ordered the execution of King Louis XVI and then declared war on Britain. Britain responded by blockading French ports and seizing American and other country’s ships heading for those ports. Britain also impressed hundreds of American seamen, forcing them to work on British ships.

France responded by blockading British ports and seizing American ships trying to deliver goods to those ports.

Americans were immediately divided into two camps, those who were outraged by the British impressing our seamen, and those who were angry at the French for killing a King who had helped us overthrow the British a dozen years earlier. Half sided with their ancestral motherland, while the other half demanded that the US support France.

Washington was among the few who espoused neutrality.

Americans increasingly defined their domestic politics either by their solidarity with the French Revolution or their aversion to it. The French Revolution served to both consolidate the two parties in American politics and deepen the ideological gulf between them.

On April 8, 1793, France’s new ambassador, Edmond-Charles Genêt arrived in Charleston with two sets of instructions: Publicly, he was offering a new treaty that would amalgamate the commercial and political interests of both nations into a “mutual nationalization of French and American citizens” (pg. 133 of Unger’s book), a kind of national alliance that would separate the US from England.

Unger says that Genêt’s secret instructions were to foment revolution and bring the US under the political control of France.

Genêt, aided by newspapers in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities, whipped up Francophilia among average people. Genêt said Washington was pro-British. He organized a fleet of privateers to prey on Anglo-American commerce.

Anti-federalist governors in the south saw Genêt as a means to weaken presidential power and restore the supremacy of the individual states over the national government, so they aided him. Genet soon had a fleet of 80 vessels patrolling American waters.

In the summer of 1793, Genêt wrote to the French foreign minister:

“I have prepared the revolution of New Orleans and Canada…I have destroyed the maritime commerce of the English in these waters” (pg. 134)

He then made his way towards Philadelphia to present his credentials to Washington, gathering support from Americans along the way. Unger writes:

“…when he arrived at the outskirts of Philadelphia…500 coaches filled with ardent Francophiles waited to escort him into the city…”

Vice President John Adams described:

“…the terrorism excited by Genêt…when 10,000 people in the streets…threatened to drag Washington out of his house and effect a revolution in the government…”

Washington made plans to send his wife Martha and grandchildren to Mount Vernon and demanded that France recall Genêt. But Genêt left Philadelphia on the French flagship for New York, where more than 5,000 French sailors and marines joined welcoming NY crowds. This immediately led to violence, with Tory families fleeing the city. Genêt then went ashore to mobilize the cheering Americans, who chanted (pg. 137):

“Down with Washington…”

On August 15, 1793, Genêt was preparing to raise the French flag over New York and proclaim that the US and Canada were French. But, no one marched in the streets supporting him, because yellow fever had struck Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Most people became afraid to leave home for fear of dying from the disease.

In a way, the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 “saved” America from a second revolution. The army had been largely mustered out, so there was little that stood in the way of Genêt’s ambitions. In the summer through the fall of 1793, 5,000 people (10% of the population) died of yellow fever in Philadelphia, and 730 died in New York. As a result, support for Genêt crumbled.

The yellow fever epidemic continued through November, when cold weather killed off the mosquitoes. Genêt’s crew then mutinied, sailing back to France without him.

The French sent a new ambassador who arrived in December with a warrant for Genêt’s arrest and execution. But Washington wouldn’t comply. Although the French were upset, Washington allowed Genêt to stay in America, where he became an American citizen. He married Cornelia Clinton, the daughter of NY Governor George Clinton and settled on his own farm in Jamaica, Long Island.

A significant proportion of Americans have always been receptive to a charismatic leader with bad intentions, like Genêt. In early American history, just as now, people responded to crisis not by uniting, but by doubling down on factionalism.

These things are still true today. Think about the factionalism surrounding Covid that killed many that shouldn’t have died. While, back then, perhaps the Republic was saved by an epidemic.

Think about the mob who tried to overthrow our elected government on Jan. 6. Their Genêt still lives with us.

Saturday Soother – January 14, 2023

The Daily Escape:

A view from Shenandoah NP near Keezletown, VA – January 1, 2023 photo by One Man’s Outdoor Journey

Wrongo and Ms. Right live far enough out in the country that we have no city water, sewer, or gas lines. But the cooktop in our recently remodeled kitchen runs on propane while our ovens are electric. We have a well and septic. Our hot water is made by propane as well.

So what are we supposed to make of this week’s controversy over the Biden administration’s Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) possibly banning future sales of natural gas stoves and cooktops? The reason for this is that burning gas stoves put their partially burned fuel, including nitrogen dioxide (NO²) in the air, which causes asthma. And older stoves with pilot lights instead of electric igniters also push NO²into the air.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that the CPSC was considering new regulations around gas stoves, given growing concerns over indoor pollutants. Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said:

“Any option is on the table….Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”

The proposal by the CPSC followed a December study by scientists finding that gas ranges that burn natural gas account for almost 13% of childhood-asthma cases in the US. Advocates have long argued against gas stoves, saying the pollution they emit makes them inferior to other options, such as electric or induction ranges. But the asthma statistic breathed new life into the debate.

OK, Wrongo knows the difference between propane and natural gas, but when he first heard about the debate, it was unclear whether his gas of choice was also a health problem and had to die.

Bloomberg neglected to say that any CPSC regulations, like other proposed state and local-level bans of gas stoves, only applies to new construction. But that didn’t keep Republicans from evoking visions of a 2023 filled with government agents busting down doors and ripping out stoves. That tentative regulation conversation about how to best mitigate the health hazards of gas stoves morphed into a Right Wing campaign to convince Real Americans that the Government is coming for their gas stoves:

Rep. Ronny Jackson, (R-TX) tweeted:

“If the maniacs in the White House come for my stove, they can pry it from my cold dead hands,”

From Sen. Tom Cotton,(R-AK):

“Democrats are coming for your kitchen appliances,”

From Rep. Byron Donalds, (R-FL):

“Get your hands off our gas stoves!!!!”

From Rep. Jim Jordan,(R-OH):

“God. Guns. Gas stoves.”

God, Guns, and Gas stoves! All because one appointee in the administration discussed it. But this controversy isn’t about facts; like always, it’s about feelings. Over 30 years ago, the Clean Energy Act was easily renewed on a bipartisan basis. Since then, the environment has become part of the culture wars.

The reflex to position gas stoves as the last redoubt of traditional American life threatened by big government, is just stereotypical of the American Right wing. It’s difficult to see the fight about gas stoves as something that will move the needle since gas is far more common in cities and blue states. So, let the Republicans keep on cooking up the outrage du jour. It’s doubtful that the voters will be eating it up.

Remember their past freak-outs, like when former Rep. Michele Bachmann tried to build a political career around preserving incandescent light bulbs? Another useless freak-out.

In retrospect, it’s honestly shocking we were able in 1975 to ban leaded gasoline in America, although there were lots of dissenters at the time. And now, since we’ve gotten all their guns, it only makes sense that Democrats go after their gas stoves.

Let’s leave these partisan debates in the kitchen where they belong and embrace our Saturday Soother, that special time when we stop thinking about Biden’s secret document stash, or why Jim Jordan dresses like a gym teacher, and spend a few minutes contemplating nearly nothing.

Start by brewing up a big mug of Wilton Benitez Orange Bourbon ($19.00/8 oz.) from Wisconsin’s JBC Coffee Roasters. Apparently the coffee cherries for this variant turn orange when they ripen rather than the typical red and tend to be even more fruity than their red counterparts. The roaster says it is super creamy with flavors of candied ginger, pineapple, and cream soda.

Now grab a seat by a south-facing window to watch and listen to “Fandango” from the Guitar Quintet in D-major, G.448 by Boccherini, performed live in 2015 at the Schubertiade in Hohenems, Austria. Boccherini was an Italian composer and cellist who died in 1805. A fandango is a Spanish dance:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 8, 2023

On the fifteenth ballot of the new year, the House finally selected Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), as its new Speaker. What ended the impasse? In addition to the list of “concessions” that we know about, what other promises did McCarthy make to Freedom Caucus?

When selecting a new Speaker, the House operates more like a parliamentary system than America is used to or expects. When the Party in power has a slim majority, and if there is contention within that Party, coalitions must be built, promises are made, and concessions are extracted.

It seems that McCarthy relinquished all the power and authority of the office in order to win the title of Speaker. But a weak Speaker leading a fractured caucus is actually dangerous. The Republican House can frustrate Biden’s legislative agenda. It can conduct endless oversight hearings and investigations. It can restrict government spending.

When you look at the demands of the 20 anti-McCarthy holdouts and consider what he conceded to them, the next two years will be fractious. Over the past four days, they made demands in four areas. First, they object to funding Ukraine. They also object to the size of the omnibus spending bill that passed at the end of the last Congress. Third, they don’t want the US debt ceiling extended. Lastly, they want to hold investigations. Many investigations.

Since the bill funding Ukraine and the omnibus spending bill passed with bi-partisan support in both Houses, any action they try to take on those two are likely to fail. But they have the right to investigate anything and everything, so we need to be prepared for that.

The debt ceiling is a problem. There will be bi-partisan support in both Houses for increasing it, but McCarthy will control whether a clean debt ceiling increase ever gets to the House floor for a vote. There will be a bi-partisan group of House members to support that bill, but if McCarthy goes to Democrats for the needed votes to pass a debt ceiling increase, the anti-McCarthy faction will attempt to remove him from the Speaker position.

It’s very possible that McCarthy will be successfully deposed if Democrats aren’t inclined to save him. It was this kind of behavior that convinced John Boehner to retire.

McCarthy almost certainly made concessions about Ukraine and the debt ceiling and government spending in order to win the job. He will either break these promises, or he’ll lead the country to financial ruin. Or the moderates in the House GOP will try to kick him out. The Republicans have a majority but it’s not a functional one. On to cartoons.

McCarthy’s headaches are just beginning: