Media Laziness – Page 6 – The Wrongologist

How Democrats Should Message The Midterms

The Daily Escape:

Sunset along the Last Dollar Road (from Telluride to Ouray), CO – photo by Rich Briggs Photography

Democrats are messaging like mad about the Jan. 6 attempted coup public hearings that start tomorrow. The NYT is asking whether the “Jan. 6 Hearings Give Democrats a Chance to Recast Midterm Message.”

The NYT thinks the real question is whether the “message” of the Jan. 6 hearings will “resonate” with voters. We know that the Republicans now deny that Jan.6 was an attempted coup. We know that the Big Lie, the Great Replacement Theory, and the idea of the Second Amendment uber alles, are mainstream views of the GOP. The Times shouldn’t be covering the mid-terms and the hearings as if they are sporting events – the future of the American experiment is on the line.

Along the way to becoming a Party that totally supports violence, for years, Republicans have been a Party of Senators who do nothing to solve America’s problems.

And it isn’t simply their position on government spending. Once upon a time, Wrongo considered Republican concerns about government spending and budget deficits a serious viewpoint. But since they give tax cuts to the wealthy and to corporations whenever they’re in power, they have lost all credibility on spending.

Under Republican rule, the US left the international consortium to blunt climate change. They walked away from an Iran nuclear deal that leaves the world in a much less safe place. They politicized the pandemic and mocked efforts by public health officials to prevent Covid from becoming the endemic disease it is today.

Going back five decades, they steadfastly opposed national health insurance for the millions of Americans who had none. Their opposition continued by causing the Clinton plan for health insurance to crash on takeoff. Republicans fought the ACA during the Obama administration, although it passed without a single Republican vote in 2010. They fought to overturn it throughout the Trump years.

Today, the Senate is in a position to act on multiple measures, including gun control, that would improve the lives of millions of Americans. They could vote tomorrow. But they won’t because neither Party can muster a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

The 2022 mid-terms provide a moment for all Americans, including Democrats, Independents, and a few Republicans to do some serious soul searching. They need to answer the question: Do you want a government that does nothing or a government that tries to solve problems?

Do you want to elect representatives who despise government, or do you want men and women who bring informed views and respect for our Constitutional democracy to the House and Senate?

Wrongo was in high school when the book “Profiles in Courage” came out. It was ghost-written for then-Senator John Kennedy (the original JFK, not the current empty suit from Louisiana). The book profiles Senators who defied the opinions of their Party (and constituents) to do what they felt was right. Most of them suffered severe criticism and losses in popularity because of their actions.

Today, no one expects to see a Senator of either Party act solely on the basis of moral courage. It is a terrible shame that it takes more courage for a politician to say or do the right thing than they can muster.

But there’s no public mandate for do-nothingism. And the structure of the Senate empowers a minority who doesn’t want anything to get done. When legislators refuse to legislate, they’re telling the American people that they couldn’t care less about urgent issues like gun violence, fair wages or voting rights.

They’re happy to sit on their hands despite Americans needing their help.

This is anti-democratic. If there was strong public support for do-nothingism, at least our governing institutions would reflect public opinion. But the Senate doesn’t reflect what the public wants.

The Senate has changed drastically since its “Profiles in Courage” days. It was conceived as the body that would cool the passions of the House and consider legislation with a national perspective. But today, the Senate has become a body that shuns debate, avoids legislative give-and-take, proceeds glacially, producing next to nothing.

Wrongo worries that in the mid-terms, Democrats will run mainly against the Big Lie, and their sparse record of legislative achievements. They should run against the “Do Nothing Republicans” in the Senate.

The Democratic Party is more diverse ideologically than the Republicans. This is a messaging challenge for them. The Republican’s coalition is narrower. It’s more ideologically homogenous. Given the Senate’s skewed geography, Republicans need only appeal to their base and little else, to succeed. That allows them to use simpler messages.

In “The Cause, The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783” by Joseph Ellis, he says that before the revolution, colonists didn’t think of themselves as Americans. They described their fight for independence as “The Cause”, an ambiguous term that covered diverse ideas and multiple viewpoints. It succeeded in unifying them against the British.

Running against “Do Nothing” Republicans would also use an ambiguous term covering multiple viewpoints. It would allow Democrats to move away from the idea that they have to sell a wider array of ideas to a wider group of voters.

It might also energize both Dems and Independents at a time when they are dispirited.

Saturday Soother – May 7, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Griffith Observatory, LA, CA – April 2022 photo by Mike Holzel

You undoubtedly missed it, but on Wednesday, Biden gave a short speech on the budget deficit and the national debt. You can watch a video of his talk here. You didn’t see it because it received virtually no coverage in the media. From Robert Hubbell:

“….let’s engage in a thought experiment: Ask yourself, ‘By what amount has the deficit increased during Biden’s tenure—rounded to the nearest $1 trillion?’”

It’s a trick question. During Biden’s first year in office, the deficit decreased by $350 billion and is on track to decrease by an additional $1.5 trillion by the end of this fiscal year (9/30/22). It will be the largest single yearly decline in American history. Biden also said that this quarter, for the first time since 2016, the Treasury Department is planning to pay down a small portion of the national debt.

Biden pointed out that the deficit increased for each year of the Trump administration, both before and after the pandemic. Let’s remember that the main driver for deficits during Trump’s administration was the Republican 2017 tax cut for corporations and millionaires. The Trump tax cuts didn’t add any additional revenue, and without any offsetting savings, deficit spending went way up.

After Biden finished speaking, he took a few questions from the press. He was immediately asked about Russian sanctions and the leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s abortion opinion. Biden responded by saying:

“No one asked about deficits, huh?….You want to make sure this doesn’t get covered.”

Why isn’t good economic news covered by the media? Most members of the media seem to be uncomfortable with it. Biden shares responsibility for getting the good news out as well. He should speak to the American people directly, not just indirectly through the press in the middle of the day.

Maybe Ukraine’s Zelensky could be a role model. He speaks directly to his people every day. Had Biden announced paying down the debt and cutting the deficit while seated at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, people would know that it was a big deal.

He should also speak about the location and targeting information we gathered about Russia’s cruiser and then shared with Ukraine:

“Intelligence shared by the US helped Ukraine sink the Russian cruiser Moskva, US officials told NBC News, confirming an American role in perhaps the most embarrassing blow to Vladimir Putin’s troubled invasion of Ukraine….The US…was not involved in the decision to strike.”

Despite America’s chicken hawk pundits’ finger-wagging, releasing this information hurts Russia’s already badly-run war effort. It shows Putin’s bad decision-making, poor command structure, and with it a likely collapse of morale. Going public also helps other NATO members see the differences with Trump’s four years of doing everything he could to sow distrust in the alliance.

There is a big country outside of DC desperate for good news. And therein lies the central problem for Democrats. Biden delivered this speech just before a meeting with Olympic athletes. Wrongo bets that this is the last we will hear from Biden on this accomplishment.

Just like FDR used his “fireside chats” to brief Americans on what his administration was doing, Biden should speak directly to the American people when necessary on matters of significant importance to the nation. He needs to discuss his accomplishments at every opportunity—and not just from the East Room of the White House.

Better messaging has to come from the top. If it does, voter support will follow. Oh, and by the way, we had another very good jobs report on Friday. The unemployment rate is 3.6%, and 428,000 new jobs were created last month according to the BLS. But the media only report about inflation.

It’s a continuation of Biden’s record job creation. In his first year in office, there were 6.6 million jobs added to the economy, 60% more than the next highest total, which was 3.9 million under Jimmy Carter. Wait, you thought Trump was the biggest job creator in history just because he said so? Wrong!

You might say that Putin is losing his domestic disinformation war while Biden is losing his domestic information war.

Time to turn off the news for a few minutes, and center ourselves for another rock ‘em, sock ‘em week ahead. It’s time for our Saturday Soother!

Here on the fields of Wrong, our crab apple trees’ blossoms will open over the weekend. It appears that we may not have bluebirds in our nest boxes for the first time in 10 years. A juvenile Cooper’s Hawk is using a box as his perch to survey our mix of woods and open grassland. That has driven many birds away.

So, grab a seat by a south-facing window and listen to Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto in C Major, Op. 56 No. 2” Largo, and Attacca, performed in 2019 by Anne-Sophie Mutter, Daniel Barenboim, and Yo-Yo Ma, accompanied by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at Philharmonie Berlin:

Saturday Soother – April 30, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Cactus bloom, Tanque Verde, AZ – April 2022 photo by Bel Meader

Since last fall we’ve seen headlines about the need for parental control of public school curricula. It’s been a huge political weapon for Republican governors like DeSantis in Florida and Youngkin in Virginia. The argument is that the way race, gender and history are taught in public school classrooms is outside of the cultural mainstream in America.

A new national poll by NPR and Ipsos shows that those concerns are held only by a minority of America’s parents, while the majority express satisfaction with their children’s schools and what is being taught in them. The poll’s findings show that fewer than 20% of parents seem to be concerned about the culture wars, but they seem to be driving 100% of the conversation about K-12 education in America.

The poll surveyed 1,007 parents of school-aged children. Parents answered questions about the impact of the pandemic on their children, academically and socially, and about their schools’ performance:

“This year’s responses showed positive trends as the nation continues to recover from the worst of the pandemic. Compared to 2021, a growing margin of parents say their child is “ahead” when it comes to math, reading, social skills, and mental health and well-being. Fewer parents say their child is “behind” in those areas. In fact, in 2022, almost half of parents, 47%, agree with the statement: “the pandemic has not disrupted my child’s education.” That’s up from 38% in 2021…”

However, that view is at odds with that of most education researchers, who see big disruptions in indicators like test scores, college attendance, and preschool enrollment. The Ipsos poll shows that parental satisfaction also included culture war topics. In the poll:

76% of respondents agree that “my child’s school does a good job keeping me informed about the curriculum, including potentially controversial topics.”
88% of respondents agree with the statement “my child’s teacher(s) have done the best they could, given the circumstances around the pandemic.”
82% agree “my child’s school has handled the pandemic well.”

Mallory Newall of Ipsos points out that:

“It really is a pretty vocal minority that is hyper-focused on parental rights and decisions around curriculum…. Just 18% of parents say their child’s school taught about gender and sexuality in a way that clashed with their family’s values; just 19% say the same about race and racism; and just 14% feel that way about US history.”

Newall also said that there was a lack of partisanship in the responses:

“The most partisan issue in our poll was gender and sexuality, but still only a minority expressed any concerns. Republicans are closely divided: 26% say schools are not teaching about gender and sexuality in a way that matches their family’s values, while 22% say schools are (the remainder don’t know or say schools aren’t addressing those topics).

The problem of course is that the vocal, 20+% of American parents are seeking total victory in the culture war. Republican-aligned groups like No Left Turn In Education and Parents Defending Education have continuously pushed these issues into the spotlight. And it’s working.

Ralph Wilson, a researcher who studies how partisan donors back the culture war, says these groups imply that they represent a silent majority of conservative-leaning parents. But that’s not necessarily the case:

“It’s definitely an incredibly small minority that’s being amplified with this large, well-funded infrastructure to appear larger and to appear to have more well-founded concerns than they do.”

The Ipsos poll found that about a third of parents say they “don’t know” how their child’s school addresses sexuality, gender identity, racism, or patriotism. Only 24% of parents believe they have too little say over what is taught or what books are in the library at their kid’s school.

That’s enough! Let’s leave the culture wars behind for the weekend. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we gather ourselves for the week ahead. In northwest Connecticut, we can’t escape cold weather, so our remaining yard work must wait for warmer nights before planting can start.

Instead, pour a mug of your favorite spice tea, grab a seat by a big window, and listen to “The Banks of Green Willow” by the little-known George Butterworth, who was part of the English pastoral idiom. Butterworth and Ralph Vaughan Williams were close friends, and you may hear similarities in their music. Butterworth was killed in 1916 in WWI during the Battle of the Somme; he was just 31.

Here it is played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Grant Llewellyn:

And the pastoral images are nice!

Eric Boehlert, RIP

The Daily Escape:

Woodenshoe Tulip Festival, near Salem, OR, with Mt. Hood in background – April 2022 photo by Mitch Schreiber Photography

Eric Boehlert, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, who wrote commentary and media criticism in his “PRESS RUN” newsletter, was killed on Monday while riding his bike in Morristown, NJ.

Boehlert skewered today’s journalism and its practitioners. He hated journalistic laziness and took great pains to call out the mainstream media’s daily obsession with Both Siderism. We have often quoted him at the Wrongologist. He did a great job of researching his material and his arguments were ferocious.

Whenever Wrongo saw something with Boehlert’s byline, it was sure to be interesting, important, and reliable. He usually posted on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Wrongo was surprised when he didn’t post this past Wednesday. But as someone who doesn’t always post on a reliable schedule, I thought that something just came up.

This is a particularly terrible time to lose such an important voice, but it’s always a terrible time to lose a good person. James Fallows paid tribute to Boehlert in his “Breaking the News” newsletter, Framing: In Honor of Eric Boehlert:

“We have lost a crucially incisive voice, and a kind and generous person….Here is an attempt to continue in his spirit.”

Fallows continued about the unspoken assumptions that the media bring to its political coverage:

“This means, for example: the press’s assumption that the most interesting aspect of any development is the politics of it—“What does this mean for the midterms?” “Are the Democrats in disarray?” “Who can out-Trump Trump?”

Or that you should get to the truth of an issue by quoting both a Republican and then a Democrat, or better yet having them argue on screen.

Wrongo didn’t know Boehlert but read his newsletters each week. That somehow, makes the news of his death more painful. It’s interesting how when someone that you have never met dies, it can still feel like a huge loss. In some ways, the loss is very much like losing someone you knew in real life.

And yet, Dick Cheney and Mitch McConnell still walk the earth. Why not Cruz? Hawley? Clarence Thomas? Or any of the other assholes who pollute and poison our politics?

America has far too few voices speaking truth about the corrosive behavior of the US political media. Now, it’s lost one of our most important critics of that industry. Hopefully, others who do this important work will redouble their efforts in homage to Eric’s efforts. Wrongo will try harder.

As Boehlert would say in his sign-offs, “Stay healthy. Be kind.” He was a good man that fought the good fight.

Boehlert concluded each of his columns with music. Let’s try to honor him by watching and listening to the Celtic Woman perform “The Parting Glass” live in 2018 in Ireland’s Johnstown Castle. The parting glass was the final hospitality offered to a departing guest in Scotland and Ireland. It has become a tune used to celebrate the lives of the dearly departed:

Lyrics:

Oh all the money that e’er I spent
I spent it in good company
And all the harm that e’er I’ve done
Alas, it was to none but me

And all I’ve done for want of wit
To memory now I can’t recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all

Oh all the comrades that e’er I’ve had
Are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e’er I’ve had
Would wish me one more day to stay

But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise, and you should not,
I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all

Should the Mainstream Media Stay Neutral?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise with sea smoke, Curtis Island Lighthouse, Camden ME – January 2022 photo by Daniel F Dishner. Sea smoke forms on Penobscot Bay when the air temperature is colder than the water temperature.

On Tuesday, Wrongo took aim at the New York Times for it’s confusing editorial that misstated how to use an economic tool, and then went on to use that tool incorrectly.

The media, including the NYT, have become a source of both misinformation and disinformation. We really have two media, the mainstream one and the right-wing one. Although most of the disinformation is centered in the right-wing media, it’s becoming less clear to Wrongo that, at present, the mainstream media can (or will) help to defend our democracy.

If you doubt that, look at the November Marist College poll which found, by 42% to 41%, that American adults see the Democratic Party as a greater threat to democracy than the GOP.

The broader results were that 81% of Americans believed there is a “serious threat” to our democracy, including 89% of Republicans, 80% of independents, and 79% of Democrats. That was the poll’s headline. But buried in the cross-tabs was the answer to which Party presents the bigger threat – the 42% to 41% split.

This is mostly the result of our media that defaults to sensationalism rather than trying to explain complex issues. One group slavishly supports a GOP that is full of cranks, bigots, conspiracy theorists, and careerist politicians with flamethrowers. They’re also the media that say things like “intolerance of racism is worse than racism”.

The other side makes a pretense of non-partisanship while echoing many right-wing talking points.

We’ve learned over the past few years that the right-wing media has more control over setting the national agenda than the mainstream press does. The idea that the Party that’s trying to protect and expand voting rights is wrecking democracy isn’t just a misconception—it’s the result of an orchestrated assault on reality. And nearly half of Americans believe it.

In early December, Dana Milbank wrote in the WaPo about how the media has treated Biden as badly as – or worse than – Trump. Milbank had a data analytics company examine more than 200,000 mainstream news articles about both the Trump and Biden presidencies. Milbank wrote that: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“During 2020, when the Trump administration’s response to and dishonesty about the pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, when he refused to denounce white supremacists at a debate and launched serial assaults on democracy, he got slightly more favorable coverage in the mainstream media than Biden has received since August.”

Remember that Milbank’s review covered articles and mentions in the mainstream press. Milbank concludes by saying:

“We need a skeptical, independent press. But how about being partisans for democracy? The country is in an existential struggle between self-governance and an authoritarian alternative. And we in the news media, collectively, have given equal, if not slightly more favorable, treatment to the authoritarians.”

Does the mainstream media have the power to try to counter this? The big question is how will the mainstream press cover the 2022 mid-terms and 2024 presidential campaign?

People want to be light and breezy, but Wrongo‘s brand is accuracy. Things have been really bleak for many years. And Wrongo has become short-tempered with those in the media who continue to deny just how deep the hole has become.

After the 2020 election, America had a chance to recover from the anti-establishment efforts of Trump’s administration. It was clear that Biden wouldn’t be able to do all that much, because of the slender Democratic majorities in both Houses.

It was a gamble for Biden and the Democrats to wrap every promise into one big bill that would set us on a course for changing the “economic paradigm”. In the end, that was a failure. Governing isn’t simple, especially with such narrow majorities.

And that’s where Democrats are now, paying a heavy price for overpromising and Biden’s naive expectations that he would work magic with Republicans getting some of them to vote for his agenda.

Biden and the Dems could still rebound. Passing a smaller, more focused version of Build Back Better, along with an easing of inflation, and a return to something like normal on the virus front could bring a fall comeback wave.

But it will also take a mainstream media that understands and accepts its role with a resolve at least equal to that of the right-wing media.

Let’s close with a palate cleanser. Biden has an uphill fight. He should take inspiration from The Temptations doing “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” live on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1969. Eddie Kendricks’ falsetto was the best:

The Sullivan Show aired on CBS from 1948-1971. For 23 years it aired a wide variety of popular culture.

NYT Editorial Board Misunderstands Economic Concept

The Daily Escape

Santa Catalina Mountains, Saguaro NP, Tucson AZ – December 2021 photo by Paul J Van Helden

Last Saturday, the NYT had an editorial called “President Biden’s Economy Is Failing the Big Mac Test”. The Times said that when the average worker’s paycheck doesn’t buy as many hamburgers from McDonald’s as it did last year, Biden’s in trouble.

Unfortunately for the NYT, that isn’t what the “Big Mac test” is about. They properly credit the idea to The Economist magazine, which originated it in 1986. It was intended as a semi-humorous illustration of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). PPP basically tells economists what the comparative strengths and weaknesses are of each country’s currency by looking at the cost of the same “basket of goods” across geography.

The thesis is that in a free market, foreign exchange rates should adjust to equalize the price of goods and services across different nations.

According to The Economist, the Big Mac PPP denotes the exchange rate at which the Big Mac would cost the same in the US as it would in other countries. There are all sorts of comparison problems with the Big Mac index. Russia has one of the cheapest Big Macs, despite the fact that Moscow is among the most expensive cities in the world.

But the Times didn’t want to talk about exchange rates at all. It wanted to make a point about US prices in the time of Covid, and Biden’s so-called failure to control them. It says:

“The dollar figures on workers’ paychecks rose handsomely over the past 12 months. But for most workers, that wasn’t enough to keep pace with the highest inflation in several decades, which eroded the value of each of those dollars….The purchasing power of the average worker’s weekly pay declined by 2.3% from December 2020 to December 2021.”

True, and that sounds bad, but maybe we should add some context. First, Investopedia says that US sales of Big Macs have been falling since the 1980s. Second, the NYT itself says a few paragraphs later: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Lower-wage workers have seen particularly strong wage growth. For workers in the bottom third of the wage distribution, Arindrajit Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, estimates that average wage gains have exceeded inflation.”

Just guessing, but Wrongo thinks that lower-wage workers are likely to be the primary market for Big Macs. And if workers in the bottom third of wage distribution are experiencing the strongest wage gains, maybe that’s what the Times should refer to as a Biden BFD!

And apparently, the Times doesn’t read its own business section, which on Monday said that US fast-food menu prices rose by 8% in 2021. For you non-economists, that means McDonald’s prices rose at a rate faster than US inflation, but instead, the NYT editorial board says Biden blew it.

The NYT tries to take what is a useful way to teach something about comparative exchange rates and forces it to say something critical about Biden. The title of the editorial says that Biden is failing, but in the fourth paragraph, they say:

“Mr. Biden inherited an economic crisis precipitated by the coronavirus pandemic, and his administration deserves credit for orchestrating a fiscal response on a scale commensurate with the nation’s need. The outstanding achievement of Mr. Biden’s first year in office was the passage of an economic aid package in March that shielded Americans from the economic effects of the pandemic and helped to deliver a faster recovery than in other developed nations.”

They seem confused. Later, they say:

“The challenge now is to bring inflation back under control without undermining the economic recovery. The work will mostly be done by the Federal Reserve, not by Mr. Biden or his administration. The role of presidents in shaping the nation’s economic fortunes is generally overstated.”

So presidents really don’t have a big role in improving the economy, except that Biden caused bad inflation, which he can’t fix, because that’s the job of the Federal Reserve.

Does any of this make the NYT sound smart to you?

As someone who was a working adult in the 1970’s and 1980’s, Wrongo remembers truly high inflation. He remembers having a 14% home mortgage. Today’s inflation doesn’t compare to that, something that the editorial board of the NYT must know.

There is so much media laziness in America today. The NYT missed a chance to educate the public about why the prices of various products are increasing. Instead, they settled for an easy criticism of Biden.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 23, 2022

The Dems need to build Biden back better before the mid-terms if they expect an outcome that’s different than what the polls are currently showing.

The question is how to do it. One thing that won’t be happening is support from the mainstream media for the makeover. There’s been a blizzard of over-the-top headlines such as the NYT’s, “Biden Can Still Rescue His Presidency,” or Time’s “How the Biden Administration Lost Its Way” and Axios’s “Biden’s Epic Failures.”

These headlines could say: “Biden Fails to Fix All of the World’s Problems in a year.”

What’s driving much of this “presidency in peril” coverage is Biden’s approval ratings. Some results are truly discouraging, while CNN’s poll of polls, released Thursday, found that 41% of Americans approve of the way Joe Biden is handling his job while 54% disapprove.

Still, Biden and the Dems need a mid-course correction. On to cartoons.

Can diplomacy solve the crisis in Ukraine?

The Senate failed to pass voting rights. Republicans wouldn’t help:

Republicans don’t want to look back one year, but they certainly don’t mind looking back at the 1950s:

The administration is sending rapid tests via the post office. Have they heard about Amazon?

Plenty of news this week about Trump and January 6. The dogs are gathering:

Democrats Must Go on Offense

The Daily Escape:

Oregon City Bridge, OR with Willamette Falls in background – January 2022 photo by Sanman Photography

Gallup says that the Dems are losing the battle for hearts and minds. Their most recent poll shows a dramatic shift over the course of 2021, from a nine-percentage-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter to a five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter. Here’s a chart showing the bad news:

Biden’s Speeches Are Better, but the Dem’s Messaging Isn’t

The Daily Escape:

Sea Smoke, Willard Beach, Portland, ME – January 2022 photo by Rick Berk Photography

Tom Friedman had a column in the NYT proposing that in 2024, Biden should drop Harris and run instead with Liz Cheney. When Wrongo read that, he poured a big glass of Bushmills 21 single malt.

The thrust of this, and other musings about 2024, is that Biden is a weak candidate who is further dragged down by Harris. That may be true. But assuming Biden is up against Trump again, who are the additional voters who will vote Democrat because of Cheney, and who otherwise would not do so?

We’ve learned in the past weeks that Biden can give good (and tough) speeches, as he did in calling out Trump in the Capitol Rotunda on the anniversary of Jan. 6. And in Atlanta on Tuesday for voting rights, where he said:

“I ask every elected official in America: How do you want to be remembered? Do you want to be on the side of Dr. King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”

Those words set a great example for how Democrats need to message in order to win.

It’s a good message, but what happens next on voting rights is crucial: Democrats can stick with Senate Majority Leader Schumer’s plan and lose on a vote to consider suspending the filibuster rules to pass voting rights. Everybody knows that Schumer’s plan will produce nothing meaningful. Can they instead find a compromise with Republicans (and Manchin and Sinema) to get some form of a voting bill passed? Wrongo favors getting something done, even if the Party’s left wing isn’t happy with the outcome.

Biden and the Democrats also need to message better on several other dangerous political issues.

First, schools are going to be a big problem for Democrats in the mid-terms and beyond. Politico has an article: “How School Closures Made Me Question My Progressive Politics” where the author says her son’s school was closed when Trump was President. It’s open now under Biden, but she’s still mad at the Dems.

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot fought with the Chicago teacher’s union about keeping schools open. This exposed divisions between traditional Democratic constituencies, the union, and a majority-Black populace. Keeping schools open has become a nationalized issue. As the NYT noted, it’s a problem for Democrats everywhere:

“Because they have close ties to the unions, Democrats are concerned that additional closures like those in Chicago could lead to a possible replay of the party’s recent loss in Virginia’s governor race.”

The Democrats messaging on schools should echo what CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said: “Schools should be the first places to open and the last places to close.” Biden also needs to side with parents and students. If reopening schools is a top priority, testing needs to be available and free to schools. And he needs to call out the teachers unions: “No one should be keeping schoolhouse doors closed, especially not our friends in the unions.”

Second, crime is also going to be an issue in Biden’s re-election campaign as well as for the Democrats in the mid-terms. We all know that the call to “defund the police” was a political disaster. Democrats need to change the conversation, particularly since they didn’t deliver on a long-promised bipartisan police reform bill last fall.

Dems need to be completely clear that they oppose defunding the police. Biden can lead by saying: “Some folks think that we shouldn’t put criminals in jail or they downplay the dangers of violent crime. They are wrong. We have to protect our families and our neighborhoods.”

The messaging should include: “Continuing the fight for social justice shouldn’t come at the cost of public safety.” Dems could also point to the hypocrisy of Republicans who claim to “Back the Blue,” but then turned a blind eye to the attacks on Capitol police officers on January 6.

Third, immigration isn’t going away as an issue. The Dems should be saying that America benefits from the presence of immigrants. But border security is important, along with an enforceable system that decides fairly who can enter the country, and who should stay.

NYC’s new mayor Eric Adams has announced he supports the idea of letting non-citizens vote in local elections. This would add something like 800,000 voters to the rolls only for city-wide elections. Today, just 15 US cities allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. Eleven are in Maryland, two are in Vermont, plus NYC, and San Francisco.

This will be a huge 2022 talking point for Republicans. They will say it’s proof that Democrats want immigration solely to increase the number of Democratic voters. Biden and Dem mid-term candidates should be saying: “Only American citizens should be allowed to vote.”

It isn’t the media’s job to fight the Dems’ partisan battles, despite Dems wishing that were so. Democrats need to ramp up their messaging game. The Democratic Party doesn’t have a true coordinated effort to counter the right-wing disinformation ecosystem, and are suffering because of that.

As Ron Filipkowski says:

“If the Democratic party had relentless, full-time people working as a team to fight the right-wing disinformation war, it would be more effective than all the traditional media outlets combined.”

Democrats have to get better at politics if they expect to hold the House and Senate in 2022.

Why Isn’t Good Economic News Covered?

The Daily Escape:

Crater Lake, OR – winter 2020 photo by Austin James Jackson photography.

We need to talk about the economy. The underlying economic news is very good, but both the press and the Republicans say it’s bad, while Democrats say very little.

There are three things being discussed. First, inflation is terrible. This is a key Republican talking point about how Biden is failing the country. Second, jobs are going begging in what journalists have dubbed “The Great Resignation”. This is supposedly the fault of giving too much in unemployment benefits, allowing people to stay home rather than work. Third, if the economy is so great, why isn’t employment growing faster?

Starting with the last point, take a look at this graph showing jobs growth since 2008. The blue bars are when a Democrat was president, and the red bars are when a Republican was president:

That last blue bar is the strongest jobs growth in history. During 2021, the US created more than 6 million jobs, the most since records began in 1939.

That means Biden has just managed a year of stunning jobs growth, but consumers were constantly fed headlines about “disappointing” jobs reports, because the initial reports rarely align with skewed “expectations” by economists and pundits. Explaining this should be fairly easy, but the press can’t seem to get it across to the American people.

In addition, wages have been moving up across the board:

In December, average hourly earnings for Production and Non-supervisory Personnel rose $0.12 to $26.61, which is a 5.8% year over year gain. This shows that American workers are finally building some economic power. People have choices right now. After years of worker insecurity in the wake of the financial crisis followed by the pandemic, they have options. Jobs are going unfilled, while virtually no one is getting laid off.

The unemployment rate has now fallen close to a 50 year low, at a level exceeded only by one month in 2000, and during 2018-19. The economic result of this is visible on the graph above.

While employment is continuing to be strong, we’re still lagging in terms of filling job openings created by pandemic losses. America must gain an additional 3.6 million jobs in order to equal the number of employees in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit. At the current average jobs growth rate for the past 6 months, that should take about 7 more months to reach the pre-pandemic employment level.

Economists are tying themselves in knots trying to figure out why more Americans aren’t going back to work. Some of those reasons are understandable: Fears about health, caring for someone who’s sick, and lack of childcare. But there’s a big reason that isn’t talked about. Employment has declined in the last year among workers who were 55 or older at the start of the pandemic. A WaPo analysis found that over 1.5 million more people were retired in November 2021 than would have been expected based on pre-pandemic trends. That would help explain the employment story if the mainstream media would look at the big picture instead of dutifully following Right-wing propaganda.

Turning to inflation, the WaPo says:

“The US economic recovery from the Covid pandemic was the strongest of any of the big Western economies…The Biden stimulus pushed the bank accounts of even the lowest-income Americans to unexpected heights. On average, they had more than twice as much in their savings accounts as they did when the pandemic began.

The Federal Reserve…helped, too. It held rates near zero and pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy. The twin fire hoses of cash — one from Congress, one from the Fed — sent Americans’ spending roaring back.”

Bloomberg reports that manufacturing companies are saying their supply chains are performing a little better. Their message seems to be that things aren’t worsening.

While oil prices get the most attention, the ISM surveys show manufacturers say the cost of more commodities are falling. In December, there were eight commodities that were identified as falling in price. In November, it was four. In October, just one (wood).

Finally, the NY Fed is out with its 2022 inflation expectations survey. It shows that In December, US consumers expected inflation to average 6.0% over the next 12 months and 4.0% over the next three years. Those expectations were unchanged from November 2021.

It also showed that Respondents were more optimistic about their future wage and income growth, as well as their ability to hold a job or find a new one.

One big question for Republicans is what will they pivot to if inflation actually slows down?

A larger question is why the Democrats and the press can’t explain good news when it happens?

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Media Laziness

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