Political Gridlock – Page 18

Who Has the Answer For 2016?

We have entered the presidential election year, but we, the people, really do not see any candidate as the answer to our problems. Voters on both sides of the aisle think the country needs to turn a page. We are frightened and angry, and increasingly feel that the two parties have no answers to our questions about tomorrow.

The Democrats say the choice is Hillary or Bernie.

The Republicans say we should choose between Trump, Marco, Ted or Jeb!

Consider what Tom Friedman said in Wednesday’s NYT: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The agenda that could actually make America great again would combine the best ideas of the extreme left and the extreme right. This year is probably too soon for such a radical platform, but by 2020 — after more extreme weather, after machines replace more middle-class jobs, after more mass shootings and after much more global disorder — voters will realize that our stale left-right parties can’t produce the needed answers for our postindustrial era.

Ok, agreed! Friedman argues that it’s time for an extremist, a nonpartisan, whose platform draws ideas from both sides. To give Friedman his due, he outlines a fairly radical agenda that includes universal health care, a form of income guarantee for low wage earners, increased military spending along with some unintelligible tax reform:

Slash all corporate taxes, income taxes, personal deductions and corporate subsidies and replace them with a carbon tax, a value-added consumption tax (except on groceries and other necessities), a tax on bullets and a tax on all sugary drinks — with offsets for the lowest-income earners.

A Value-added Tax? Instead of a progressive income tax? That’s the icing on Tom’s pro-business cake.

So he has some good ideas, and some that won’t work. That makes him the same as our two political parties. Much of the problem can be traced to the Democratic Party walking away from its intellectual base in the New Deal and the Great Society, and failing to offer better choices. As Sam Smith says:

It’s [the Democrats] failure to come up with alternatives, [while following] an agenda that appealed to comfortable and more upscale liberals rather than to ordinary Americans.

Bernie Sanders is a New Deal Democrat in “democratic socialist” clothing. He is the first democrat in decades to look outside the box for solutions to the problems our current economy visits on average people. It is unlikely that he will beat the Clinton political machine in 2016.

Hillary Clinton leads in the primary polls, but is she electable in the general election? No one should enter the 2016 general election thinking that HRC isn’t a vulnerable candidate. Democrats seem to forget that in 2008, she lost to a little known black guy with a minimal political record.

If voters are looking for a political savior, Hillary is more of the same middle of the road economics with a slight tinge of social liberalism that Mr. Obama offered.

The question is, has the country moved past that kind of “political triangulation” that Bill Clinton perfected in the 1990s? In 2008, Mr. Obama won as a new breed of politician. By 2012, with staunch legislative opposition from the GOP, he was triangulating to win a 2nd term. Can triangulation work again for Hillary?

Sam Smith points us to the age issue:

Nobody’s talking about this, in part because Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would each be the oldest presidents except for Ronald Reagan. But what if Clinton at 68 faces Rubio or Cruz, both in the mid-forties? It makes the image of a new future considerably harder to project.

He might add that Bernie Sanders is 74 now. Ronald Reagan was 78 at the end of his 2nd term.

So what’s the alternative? It is too late for 2016. Partly due to the strength of Hillary’s resume, the Democrats have no viable alternatives. If Ms. Clinton stumbles, the Democrats would be trying to win with Bernie Sanders, who might do well, but who could also make the George McGovern 1972 shellacking seem like a win. This is indicative of a huge problem for Democrats: It has no viable bench.

Assuming that Clinton is the Democrats’ choice, her liabilities could be lessened by treating the campaign more like a struggle between opposing parties instead of one between political celebrities. The argument becomes: if you want to retain Constitutional freedoms that are under attack by a conservative Supreme Court, if you want to keep Social Security, Medicare, food stamps and other social programs, if you want less foreign adventurism, then you have to vote Democratic regardless of what you think of Hillary Clinton.

Despite the fact that many of us are desperate for something shiny and new, this contest is not a “Survivor” or “American Idol” TV series.

It’s the 2016 presidential election.

What’s the Matter with Kansas? Part Infinity

From the WaPo:

In April 2012, a Kansas SWAT team raided the home of Robert and Addie Harte, their 7-year-old daughter and their 13-year-old son. The couple, both former CIA analysts, awoke to pounding at the door. When Robert Harte answered, SWAT agents flooded the home.

The family was then held at gunpoint for more than two hours while the police searched their home. Though they claimed to be looking for evidence of a major marijuana growing operation, they later stated that they knew within about 20 minutes that they wouldn’t find any such operation. So they switched to search for evidence of “personal use.” They found no evidence of any criminal activity.

It started when Robert Harte and his son went to a gardening store to purchase supplies to grow hydroponic tomatoes for a school project. A state trooper in the store parking lot had the job of collecting license plate numbers of customers, compiling them into a spreadsheet, and sending the spreadsheets to local sheriff’s departments for further investigation.

They were looking for folks who grow marijuana.

Yes, buying gardening supplies could make you the target of a drug investigation in Kansas. Naturally, the family was cleared of any wrongdoing. The Hartes wanted to know why they were targeted. What probable cause did the police have for sending a SWAT team into their home? But that information was difficult to obtain.

Under Kansas law, the sheriff’s department wasn’t obligated to turn over any information related to the raid. They spent more than $25,000 in legal fees to learn why the sheriff had sent a SWAT team into their home. Once they finally had that information, the Hartes filed a lawsuit.

And they lost the case. Last week, US District Court Judge John W. Lungstrum dismissed all of the Hartes’s claims. Lungstrum found that sending a SWAT team into a home first thing in the morning based on no more than a positive reading by an unreliable field test and spotting someone at a gardening store was not a violation of the Hartes’s Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Think about this:

The Hartes are a white, financially sound couple who both used to work for the CIA. Most people on the receiving end of these raids aren’t white, aren’t middle-class, didn’t once work for a federal intelligence agency and don’t have $25,000 to fund a fight in court…you can imagine the long odds faced by the typical victim of a botched raid.

Another brick is removed from the wall of Constitutional rights that protects you from your government. By the way, the people who support this kind of thing also like to talk a lot about freedom and liberty.

News you can’t use, Trump edition:

Trump says US wages are too high. (Business Insider)

Trump says US Wages are too low. (CNN)

Former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke says that Donald Trump speaks “a lot more radically” than he does. (Reader Supported News) David Duke is now a GOP “squish”, since Trump has gone even further right than the KKK.

Personal Note:

Today is the Wrongologist’s birthday. He remembers a time when to be a liberal was to be heroic. It seems that time has returned. Wrongo’s wish for 2016 is an election that provides Americans with the opportunity to debate US policies. However, our politics also provides entertainment to voters along the way to the election.

My prediction is we will see/hear far more ludicrous posturing than serious policy conversations in 2016.

Yet, think about the rest of the world’s politics compared to ours: We peacefully change presidents, elect new congresses, and 50 new state governments.

We do it via the ballot box, not with guns and tanks. This is the strength of our society.

So, PLEASE VOTE IN 2016!

And remember that your vote in a primary election has huge value. That is where the candidate choices are made.

Best wishes for a healthy New Year.

Christmas Eve, 2015

Christmas Eve. Deer fencing is up, despite 60° weather and lots of other things for deer to eat just now. The fence makes the deer sad, and Ms. Oh So Right so very happy. Decorations are in place, presents are wrapped. Now we await the arrival of kids, grand-kids, family and friends over the next few days. Merry Christmas to all who read the Wrongologist!

No room at the inn, or even at the shelter. Maybe some room in your hearts:

COW No Room for Mary News you can’t use:

Earlier this month 59 Senators put their political differences aside for a Secret Santa gift exchange. (Fiscal Times) It was the fifth annual Secret Santa exchange since Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) brought the tradition to the Senate. Like at most offices, the gifts were lame.

More than 50 police officers involved in fatal shootings this year had previously fired their guns in deadly on-duty shootings. (WaPo) For a handful of officers, it was their third fatal shooting. For one officer, it was his fourth. Nothing to see here.

Republican Poverty: 93 of the poorest 100 counties in America are in red states. (Addicting Information) The overwhelming majority of the poorest counties in America are located in Republican controlled states, subject to Republican economic policies. Most of these Republican controlled states have an overwhelming Republican Senate and House majority, many even have a supermajority. Yet, despite Republican claims of superior economic policies, poverty is rampant where they rule.

Sued over old debt, and blocked from suing back. (NYT) Loan agreements force people into arbitration, but the banks and finance companies do not have to arbitrate, they can sue. This denies debtors access to the courts to contest the seizure of their property. That should be an unconstitutional denial of due process. But unfortunately, SCOTUS ceded that important bit of the US Constitution to the private sector in ATT v. Concepcion. Another knot in the noose that Capital should hang by.

Remember “reshoring”? Manufacturing jobs were supposedly returning to the US from Asia. Not so much. In fact, Offshoring has outpaced On-shoring in every year since 2004 except for 2011. (Global Economic Analysis)

CBGB, the mecca of punk music in the 1970s, closed this year, only to now be revived as a restaurant at Newark Airport. When Hilly Kristal opened CBGB OMFUG on the Bowery in 1973, he served his special chili—cooked in the presence of the chef’s pet rat. Rumors were that “Hilly’s Chili” contained unsavory seasonings like cigarette ashes and (occasionally) bodily fluids. But you went there for the music, not the food. Surely the food at the CBGB’s at EWR will contain better ingredients. And chili is on the new menu.

Why So Fearful?

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men” – Plato

Following on yesterday’s thoughts about how our presidential candidates are busy soiling their underpants over the possible threat of “Radical Islamic Terrorism” (say it Obama! What are you afraid of??), we heard Trump call for banning Muslims from visiting the US. Cruz and Rubio are merely for registering all of them.

This is a good time to take a look at the rates of homicide in America and our perception of the rates of homicide. Here is a chart from Gallup that shows the actual rate has fallen steadily and dramatically since 1992. The graph demonstrates that starting in 2001, we saw an increase in the number of Americans who thought violent crime was rising (the dark green line), even though the actual violent crime rate (the light green line) continued to fall, and remains roughly 75 points lower than it had been at its early 1990s peak. It’s clear that the perception of that crime rate tracked closely with the actual rate until 2001, when they began to diverge:

In addition, Pew asked Americans in 2013 if the number of gun crimes had: gone down, gone up, or stayed the same over the past 20 years. Bear in mind that the gun murder rate is half what it was, and the rate of non-fatal gun crimes is about a quarter of what it was 20 years ago, but only 12% said gun crimes were down, 26% said they were the same, and 56% said they’ve gone up.

This, despite the fact that the homicide rate/100,000 people in this country is lower than it’s been in 50 years, falling from 6.6 in 1981 to 3.6 in 2010. That’s not all. Ian Reifowitz at the Daily Kos offers more data:

• Violence in schools has dropped dramatically in the past two decades
• The overall rates of physical and sexual abuse of children is down
• The rates of rape/sexual assault and violence against intimate partners in the US is 25% of what it was a couple of decades ago.

We live in an environment where all politics is designed to ramp up fear and outrage. Where our media, both mainstream and Internet, awefulize about nearly everything, where people have short attention spans, and fail to understand nuanced problems.

The current “be afraid” broadcast coverage of San Bernardino is another opportunity to instill fear in the public about mass shootings. It sells commercials, but misinforms the public. The press and most politicians characterize these mass shootings as either the work of misguided crazies if they are Americans, or terrorists if they are not.

And then the media complains about the public’s ignorance, and basks in the fact of peoples’ acceptance of extreme political views, followed by hand-wringing about why people are so angry, frightened and cynical.

Polls show that Americans are afraid of Muslims. A 2014 Pew survey asked Americans to rate various religious groups on a 0 to 100 scale, with a higher score indicating more positive feelings.

• Republicans (including people who lean Republican) gave Muslims a rating of 33, on average — one point lower than atheists and far lower than any other religious group.
• Democrats had more positive feelings toward Muslims, but were still chilly; they gave Muslims an average rating of 47, slightly above atheists and Mormons and below other religious groups.

According to a Public Religion Research Institute poll conducted earlier this year, 77% of Trump supporters believe “the values of Islam are at odds with American values and way of life,” versus 72% percent of other Republicans, while 43% of Democrats said the same.

After fifteen years of non-stop war against the Muslim world, it may make sense that Americans are insecure about Muslims. But, it is the media, and the 2016 Republican candidates who have ginned up this fear, against the reality of our actual experience.

It shouldn’t be difficult for either the candidates, or the media, to put public safety in a context of the past 20 years.

The facts above show that we are safer than at any time in the last 50 years, but that doesn’t mean we are safe, or that we do not have a problem with potential terrorist acts at home. We do, and we need to be vigilant. We also need to develop better techniques to identify potential domestic terrorists, and to teach citizens how to react in a potentially threatening situation.

Restrictive gun control wouldn’t hurt either.

The quantifiable improvement in crime and homicide rates in particular, should give us some hope that we can do better. But none of that happens unless we chose facts over fear.

Or, if we let fear drive us from our long-held values as a people.

Is The Second Amendment Now a Security Threat?

San Bernardino brings to the front burner an ignored reality of our open society: Bad guys (and gals) don’t need to use bombs or planes to cause terror in the US; they can use small arms fire in a crowded place. And Mr. Obama, in his Sunday speech, underlined that America was indeed attacked by terrorists, using guns that anyone can purchase at Wal-Mart and thousands of other stores.

This creates an issue for the Second Amendment absolutists. Last week, the epidemic of gun violence in the US transcended being just another crime. Now, it’s become a matter of national security.

Mr. Trump and the other GOP presidential nominee wanna-be’s have been pandering to the fear that terrorists could be among us, in sleeper cells, waiting to spring an attack. In effect, they are saying, “all you terrorists, off my lawn!”

But, American voters know that any terrorist, Atheist, Christian or Muslim, can go shopping for guns and ammo, and then be ready to get busy terrorizing. Now it HAS happened here.

And it is a paradigm shift from our efforts to make America safe from terrorists that fly planes into buildings. No matter the size of a 9/11-type catastrophe, we would be crippled emotionally but not economically. But, imagine what the economic consequences would be of a series of attacks on shopping malls (or supermarkets) around Christmas. Who would be brave enough to shop?

An amendment before the Senate last Thursday would have enabled the US Attorney General to deny the issuance of firearms to known or suspected dangerous terrorists, like those on the terrorist watch list.

But Senate Republicans voted against it, and the amendment was defeated. The Republican position is that any citizen has a right to their day in court before those rights can be suspended. Fair enough, but there are only about 8,400 American citizens on the list, so there must be a bigger GOP agenda at work here to torpedo the watch list amendment.

Republicans understand that Democrats could use this vote against them in 2016. They must know that as much as they think that they stand to gain politically from a fearful public, there will be more Planned Parenthood type shooters, and that ANY terrorist attack will be even more proof of the need for gun control as a matter of national security.

If voters can accept the “national security” arguments for limitations on the 2nd Amendment, maybe gun control has a better chance of limiting use of weapons in public places than we think. Perhaps, banning those on the terror watch-list from acquiring guns, an assault rifle ban, and large-capacity magazine ban would make even Republicans feel safer.

From David Atkins at WaMo: (brackets and emphasis by the Wrongologist)

[We have] already made a number of concessions to the clear wording of the 1st and 4th Amendments in the name of national security. The 2nd Amendment is explicit about its call for a well-regulated militia. It’s beyond time that if we as a people are going to be serious enough about stopping terrorism to invade countries halfway around the world…and set up…a mass spying agency against ourselves, we at least take seriously the imperative to regulate the terrorists’ latest weapon of choice…

A major problem is that the meaning of the 2nd Amendment has already been decided by the Supreme Court. SCOTUS has ruled that there is an individual right, unconnected with association with a militia, to possess firearms in the home for purposes of self-defense and that right applies to state regulations as well as federal regulations.

So, walking back recent Supreme Court decisions will be tough. How tough? Well, here is a video of Justice Scalia saying that rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are probably permitted under the 2nd Amendment:

(those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here)

RPGs. A weapon of choice for terrorists. And Scalia thinks it is ok for Americans to own them. Think this guy is going to vote to limit the 2nd Amendment? Doubtful.

Of course, with 300+ million guns already in circulation, it will take decades for gun control to impact public safety, so why even try to do it?

Yet, you can bet that in a few weeks, some Christian we fail to call a terrorist, will shoot up a mosque. After all, how far are we from: “if you see something, shoot something?”

Then we can read these arguments all over again.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – Moar Terror, Moar Gunz Edition

The argument has already started: “They were Arabs, and no amount of gun control would have stopped them.” The OMG, they were Muslim Terrorists (!!) yelp obscures two problems: America has 300+ million guns in the hands of 320 million citizens. We’ve allowed guns to become ubiquitous. Second, the vast majority of American deaths from guns do not involve Muslims. The NYT reports that there’s been a mass shooting of four or more people in America every day in 2015. Including San Bernardino, a total of 462 people have died and 1,314 have been wounded in such attacks this year. Republicans tell us that this is the cost to water the Tree of Liberty.

Wrongo has no problem with gun ownership. If people wish to own guns for hunting or self-defense, fine. If people hunt for food, fine. If they hunt for sport, they should examine their consciences, to see if they can find one.

But no one needs dozens, much less scores of guns. No one needs semi-automatic, or worse, automatic weapons, other than to kill lots of their fellow citizens. You can defend your house nicely with a pump-action shotgun with ‘00 buckshot. You don’t need a 30-round magazine and a semi-automatic AR or AK rifle. The legitimate reasons to have a gun are:

• You are a cop
• You are registered in an organized, regulated militia
• You hunt for food
• You feel the need for home protection.

These purposes can be accommodated within a framework of reasonable laws. But unlike freedom of speech, or assembly, or religion, where most people see rational limits for other Constitutional rights such as: you can’t threaten a person’s life and claim a 1st Amendment privilege, or form a lynch mob. But, when it comes to the 2nd Amendment, people make the most extreme demands for freedom to own any weapon.

We cannot stop terrorist attacks on our soil. Despite our federal surveillance and the training of local police, more attacks are coming. It only takes a few people to pull off such attacks, weapons are easy to obtain in the US, and the materials to make explosives are everywhere.

We will see more virulent Islamophobia, and more restriction of immigration. What we won’t see is more restrictions on who/how many guns people can own, despite the fact that we could make it more difficult for those who want to commit these atrocities.

One shooting victim we’d like to see:

In other news, it’s beginning to look a lot like Trump:

New poll has The Donald at 36% among Republicans:

The Zuckerberg donation: A good thing, or a PR thing?

Democrats: Where the White Voters At?

Yesterday, we examined the fact that the poorest Americans are the least likely to vote, so they cede the policy agenda to those who do support the weakening of America’s social safety net, and who use low voter turnout as a key election strategy.

Do the Democrats have a strategy to counter the election strategy of the GOP? If they do it isn’t evident.

Dems think that they have a permanent Electoral College presidential majority, and that changing American demographics will help them build majorities in both houses of Congress by the mid-2040’s. They are apparently willing to wait for demographics to become destiny: The numbers of white working-class voters will dip to just 30% of all voters by 2020 and 44% of white voters.

This is a dramatic decline from 1988, when white working-class voters were 54% of all voters and 64% of white voters.

But, in the last three presidential elections, the Democratic candidate lost among white working-class (non-college) voters by an average of 22 points, and by 26 points in 2012 (62%-36%). Despite Mr. Obama winning two terms, his “Obama coalition” will not insure a Democratic majority in Congress, or even provide with certainty the election of a Democratic president again in 2016.

In fact, PPP, a Democrat-leaning polling firm with a great record for accuracy, says this about 2016:

Early general election contests are shaping up to be very competitive with Hillary Clinton polling within 2 points of 5 out of 6 Republicans that we tested against her. The only GOP hopeful to actually lead Clinton is Marco Rubio at 45/43. Rubio is also the only candidate in the field with a positive favorability rating among the overall electorate, at 39/37.

Pew found that those who are most unlikely to vote are demographically distinct from likely voters:

• 34% of nonvoters are younger than 30 years old
• 43% of nonvoters are Hispanic, African American, or other racial and ethnic minorities
• 46% of nonvoters have family incomes less than $30,000 per year, while only 19% of likely voters are from low-income families
• 72% of likely voters have completed at least some college, while 54% of non-voters did not attend college

On the subject of the white working class voter, The Democratic Strategist produced an analysis about the subject, “Roundtable on Progressives and the White Working Class”, which asked the question: “What do you think is the most important single step progressives and Democrats can take to regain support among white working class Americans?”

One thing stood out in their deliberations: It was clear from surveys that white working-class voters support public action to address chronic joblessness, income disparities, and unequal education and social opportunities. They cited the study on the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty conducted by the Center for American Progress, which found that more than two-thirds of white non-college voters supported 11 out of 11 policies to fight poverty, including:

• An increase in the minimum wage
• Subsidized child care
• Expanded Earned Income Tax Credit
• A national jobs program to combat unemployment

Support among this cohort topped 80% for universal pre-k, expanded Pell grants for low-income families, and affordable child care, and was basically on par with the views of African Americans and Latinos.

That indicates that there is a path for Democrats to gain a larger share of white working class voters, but The Democratic establishment does not have a serious plan that shows white non-college voters that they see the real problems facing Americans the same way.

Here is a modest program to improve Democrats’ chances with white working class voters:

1. The old guard Democratic leaders must go: Why would any Democratic candidate want to brand themselves with a party leadership that tells them to run content-free campaigns?
2. They should look at the political landscape: People are discontented, in part, because incomes haven’t risen in 15 years. What have Democrats done in response? Virtually nothing.
3. Democratic politicians need to listen to constituents. Democrats will never appeal to the majority of working Americans by primarily making more promises to enact new civil rights rules, or environmental laws. They have to deal with incomes.

The economic struggles of the white working class, combined with a feeling of powerlessness, have undoubtedly made them susceptible to right-wing rhetoric, a major coup for Republicans. The key to Democrats winning over this demographic is more about calls for straightforward job creation, wage increases, and benefits for working-aged families, and less about ploys that superficially connect to them.

We should remember that “low income white” is not a synonym for “Republican.”

Monday Wake Up Call – November 23, 2015

Earlier in the month, the Wrongologist wrote a column asking: “Shouldn’t Democrats Be Doing Better?” Over the last few days, we have seen others ask the same question. Notably, Alec MacGillis asked “Who Turned My Blue State Red?” in Sunday’s NYT.

He pondered why poor areas vote for politicians who want to slash the safety net, and mentioned two major points: That the “have-littles” have no interest in helping the “have-nothings”, and that the “have-nothings” rarely vote.

MacGillis quotes State Auditor Adam Edelen, a Democrat who lost his re-election bid this year:

People on Medicaid don’t vote.

The numbers show that the bottom 20% in socioeconomic status aren’t voting for anyone, while the next quintile wages a class war aimed at their inferiors. The poorest aren’t voting to shred their own safety net, they’re not voting at all. They have been demobilized, and the middle and upper classes are taking advantage of low turnout to drive their political programs:

• Maine re-elected a guy who ran on a platform of not helping the poor
• Kentucky voted in a governor who will dismantle Obamacare
• Kansas re-elected a guy who has nearly tanked their economy, and got elected after promising to hurt them some more

Democrats were counting on Obamacare to galvanize the bottom quintile of the population in red states to vote for them by 2016, but it isn’t happening. One issue that MacGillis does not address is how the politics of resentment is fanned and fostered, mainly by right wing propaganda. Otherwise, why are people a few steps up from the bottom blaming the poor rather than blaming the rich, when it is the rich who have gamed the system, not the poor?

The answer is that they are victims of welfare queen paranoia.

Their perceptions have been manipulated over the past 30 years by a steady diet of social Darwinism, led by the GOP, the Club for Growth, Fox News, and others. But Democrats and progressives have failed to develop ANY effective counter that gives people a reason to vote, or to vote their economic interests.

And this may be a good time to point out that the arguments that helping the poor disincents them have little empirical foundation:

For as long as there have been government programs designed to help the poor, there have been critics insisting that helping the poor will keep them from working. But the evidence for this proposition has always been rather weak.

And a recent study from MIT and Harvard economists makes the case even weaker. Abhijit Banerjee, Rema Hanna, Gabriel Kreindler, and Benjamin Olken reanalyzed data from seven randomized experiments evaluating cash programs in poor countries and found “no systematic evidence that cash transfer programs discourage work.” Attacking welfare recipients as lazy is easy rhetoric, but when you actually test the proposition scientifically, it doesn’t hold up.

We know that most people form their opinions about whole groups of people (such as people living under the poverty line) from their anecdotal experience. They do not develop an understanding of the policies, or the statistics that describe the outcomes of specific policies.

Thus, well-known facts such as increasing the minimum wage doesn’t decrease jobs, and that Obamacare has not decreased jobs, are unknown to them.

There is no such thing as a well informed electorate, at least not in the US.

So, time to wake up American voters! To help you get the sleep out of your eyes, here is “The Times They are a-Changing” the great Dylan song interpreted by Flogging Molly, an American Celtic punk band from Los Angeles, led by Irish vocalist Dave King.

They add a sense of energy, hope and joy to Dylan’s old classic. Those who read the Wrongologist in email can view the video here.

Bed-wetting vs. Leadership, Part Deux

We shouldn’t minimize the seriousness of the Paris attack. But we should realize that the biggest danger terrorism poses to our society comes from the wrong-headed responses it can inspire.

Consider Marco Rubio: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

This is not a geopolitical issue where they want to conquer territory and it’s two countries fighting against each other…They literally want to overthrow our society and replace it with their radical, Sunni Islamic view of the future. This is not a grievance-based conflict. This is a clash of civilizations.

America is not going to become a Caliphate, Mr. Rubio.

Or Trump on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe“, saying we might have to close Mosques:

I would hate to do it, but it’s something you’re going to have to strongly consider, because some of the ideas and some of the hatred is coming from these areas…

Or consider that 25 Republican governors vowed to block the entry of Syrian refugees into their states, arguing that the safety of Americans was at stake after the Paris attacks. Or, the recent poll by PPP in North Carolina, showing that 40% of Republicans thought Islam should be illegal in the US.

In Congress, the GOP is taking a stand against Syrian immigration, linking it to the current budget discussions with the White House on the omnibus spending bill that appropriates funding for the next 10 months. It, or some other measure, must pass by December 11th. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has sent the WH a letter calling for restrictions on Obama’s plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees into the US over the next year. Sessions called for a separate vote by Congress on funding Syrian immigration, which is highly unlikely to pass in the current political climate.

Sessions is saying he is for a government shut-down if Obama vetoes the Syrian immigration funding bill.

Preventing Syrian immigration polls very well. Instead of “Immigrants, eek!!!” it’s “Syrian refugees, eek!!!” But there is a legitimate concern among both Democrats and Republicans that we not let terrorists into our kitchen.

The Democrat’s problem is that one terrorist among 10,000 Syrian immigrants will be considered a failure of policy and execution of the policy. We shouldn’t scapegoat Syrian refugees, and reasonable, logical people won’t do that. The issue is our electorate is seldom reasonable or logical. That means that Democrats are going to be on the wrong side of the electorate when it comes to this issue UNLESS they can somehow address those fears.

This all started in the Democratic debate. CBS Host John Dickerson asked each candidate to respond to a Republican talking-point about whether or not they were prepared to call ISIS “radical Islamists.” But he got push-back from both Sanders and Clinton. So, Dickerson attempted to make the argument about why what words you use matters:

The critique is that the softness of language betrays a softness of approach. So if this language – if you don’t call it by what it is, how can your approach be effective to the cause?

You should focus on Dickerson’s usage of “softness of approach”. Here is Nancy LeTourneau about Dickerson’s point:

Once again, the Republicans are attempting to fear-monger us into making stupid moves in order to avoid being labeled “soft on terrorism.” So it’s time for Democrats to get out ahead of this kind of fear-mongering…When it comes to terrorism, we’d don’t need the bellicose chest-thumping we’re hearing from Republicans, we need leadership that is smart on terrorism.

It would be useful to remember what President Obama said to Matt Yglesias about this in February:

…this is going to be a generational challenge in the Muslim world and the Middle East that not only the United States but everybody’s going to have to deal with. And we’re going to have to have some humility in recognizing that we don’t have the option of simply invading every country where disorder breaks out. And that to some degree, the people of these countries are going to have to, you know, find their own way. And we can help them but we can’t do it for them…

Obama went on: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

The real challenge for the country not just during my presidency but in future presidencies is recognizing that leading does not always mean occupying. That the temptation to think that there’s a quick fix to these problems is usually a temptation to be resisted.

The American right’s unwillingness to distinguish between victim and perpetrator, or between ally and enemy, does not bode well for our struggle against extremism. Our threat is not just terrorism, but also a reactionary political backlash that could create nationalistic, xenophobic governments both here and in Europe.

Let’s hope cooler heads prevail.

Shouldn’t Democrats Be Doing Better?

Wrongo watched the first half hour of the Republican Debate. If you feel you must, a transcript of the whole debate is here. The focus was supposedly on the economy. Perhaps the funniest thing was that the media password for WiFi was “stophillary”.

You will be inundated with expert opinion about what was said and who the “winners” were, but none of that is important. All you need are the Wrongologist’s observations: First, the moderators couldn’t be trusted to offer a reality-based picture of the world, any more than the candidates. Maria Bartiromo asked Jeb about unemployment, saying that almost 40% of Americans are without a job and are not even looking. Really? Media Matters checked, and her number included children, retirees, college students, and stay-at-home parents.

Yep, Republican policies will get those kids and retirees into the workforce.

Regarding the candidates:

• There was oratory, little of which sounded informed
• Most denied basic facts about economic and jobs growth
• Most candidates agreed that nobody needs a minimum wage, much less a higher minimum wage
• They agreed we need a small government, but one that still can dominate the world

When a Republican says “small government,” they really mean making the government’s legal and regulatory arm ineffective enough to allow businesses to do whatever the Hades they want until something bad happens. Then Congress can say: “who could have imagined” like the morons they are, and ask the taxpayers to clean up the mess.

You would think that the debate performance by Republicans, and their relative lack of political experience, opens up a window for Democrats in 2016. It should, but Democrats may not be in a position to take advantage. Since the Reagan era, they have deserted the world view and policies that gave them an upper hand politically. They have left the New Deal and Great Society behind, and failed to replace them with anything that anyone thinks is worth getting excited about.

They have morphed into “Republican Lite.” Republicans don’t like Democrats because they won’t agree to the GOP’s fringe ideas on guns, climate change and gutting the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts.

Most of the rest of the country just doesn’t care about these new Dems. Some detest their support of abortion and gay and transgender rights. Democrats aren’t doing better because it is obvious that they have become what we used to call moderate Republicans, and why should right-of-center voters settle for the imitation flavor?

A pundit said last week that Barack Obama is only slightly to the left of Richard Nixon. Judge for yourself: Nixon instituted national price controls, ended convertibility of the dollar into gold, signed legislation that started the EPA, and endorsed the failed Equal Rights Amendment. Would Obama we know today have done all of those things?

Since 2008, Democrats have lost the electoral argument in the states. Republicans now control both houses in 31 state legislatures, and have gained 900 seats in those state legislatures on Obama’s watch.

That doesn’t sound like Democrats are following a winning strategy.

Bernie Sanders is attempting to help the Democratic Party rediscover who they once were. However, that re-discovery is not widespread, and may be occurring too late to be of service in this election cycle. If the re-awakening does not occur in this cycle, there is reason to believe that the oligarchs will have all the votes they need both in Congress and on the Supreme Court to ensure a semi-permanent reign.

So Democrats, the choice is yours: You can endorse centrist, middle-of-the-road issues, or you can represent the issues that the American people actually care about. If you go middle of the road, know that you’re putting the millennial vote in play, since they are a generation that, for the most part, remains politically independent.

This strategy may lead to Hillary taking the White House, but it will make taking back the Senate harder, and it will not reduce the Republican majority in the H0use.

Democrats need to do better.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Political Gridlock