Thereâs an abundance of good cartoons this week. But before we get to them, letâs spend a few moments on the multi-year disaster in the US Department of Education (DOE). From NPR:
â…the US Department of Education is going to review the loan histories of most federal student loan borrowers….And the reason, in the department’s own words, is to, quote, “remedy years of administrative failures that effectively denied the promise of loan forgiveness to certain borrowers.” This review is expected to trigger loan forgiveness for tens of thousands of people and bring millions more closer to having their loans erased.â
More: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âFor years, income-driven repayment was badly mismanaged by Ed and its loan servicers, making it really hard for borrowers to access. And so hardly anyone has qualified for that forgiveness.â
Finally: (brackets by Wrongo)
âOur investigation in April showed some [loan] servicers weren’t keeping track of how close borrowers were to loan forgiveness. Also, some borrowers weren’t getting credit for all their payments, or they were even losing months of credit when they were transferred from one servicer to another. After our reporting came out, members of Congress called for an investigation. And later that month in April, the department announced this big retroactive overhaul that’s now getting started.â
This amounts to $5 billion in forgiveness for 74,000 borrowers. When people talk about how the government is terrible, they should be talking about the decades of mismanagement at US DOE. On to cartoons.
The destruction of Gaza wonât win the US any friends in the Middle East:
Biden declares the Houthis terrorists:
GOP intransigence on funding for Ukraine continues:
Iowa win means Republicans fall in behind Trump:
The GOP still singing the same old tune:
S&P hits record high, but Bidenâs still too old:
The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has crunched the latest Social Security Administration (SSA) wage data. It shows the average American workers haven’t made much money since the 1970s:
âThe latest SSA data demonstrates how vastly unequal earnings growth has been between 1979 and 2022. Over that period, inflation-adjusted annual earnings for the top 1% and top 0.1% skyrocketed by 171.7% and 344.4%, respectively, while earnings for the bottom 90% grew just 32.9%.â
That’s 33% over 43 years, less than 1% per year. The largest share of total earnings in the US economy have accumulated at the top of the wage ladder. The EPI is describing  âlabor market earningsâ, the pay (including benefits) of the 80% of workers who are not managers or supervisors at work. For decades before 1980, these workersâ hourly pay largely tracked economy-wide productivity growth.
When productivity growth slowed significantly, hourly pay growth collapsed even faster, leading to a growing gap between these typical workersâ pay and overall growth. That difference in missing pay for typical workers went to workers at the top or to business owners.
The EPI study shows that if youâre in the bottom 90% of wage earners, youâve seen annual wage growth of less than 1% per year over the past 43 years. If youâre in the âupper middle classâ things were very different. Hereâs a chart from EPI:
Average wages in the 95th to 99th percentile have almost doubled, from $120K to $234K (all figures are in 2022 dollars). But this leaves out the real winners, the top 1%. Average wages for them went from $289K in 1979 to $786K in 2022. But even this huge growth is eclipsed by the wages of the top .1%, which increased an astounding 344%, going from $634K to $2.82 million.
Note that the data are for average annual wages which for the bottom 90% were $40,845 in 2022. Data on average wages are all thatâs available, but itâs misleading. The MEDIAN wage for all workers is around $34k. That means half the bottom 90% are making LESS than 34k. Also, median household income is around $76k; which is two people working in the same household.
The media and the rest of us really have no idea how little the average person is earning.
And this is just income from wages. People at or near the top of the pyramid own the vast majority of the equity capital in the US â the top 10% of households own 85% of the total corporate stock owned by households.
The economic debate in America since the 1880s has been between those in favor of lightly regulated heavily financialized consumer capitalism, with some very modest income redistribution, sufficient â barely â to keep the losers in that economy from starving or freezing to death.
The other side are the Republicans who think England in the Industrial Revolution, is a model for what America ought to look like today. And Chaseâs CEO Jamie Dimon says we should listen to Republicans more. Heâs specifically talking about NATO and immigration.
And this has been the GOPâs pitch forever:
Democrats need to address the negative impacts of US wage distribution as part of their 2024 pitch to keep the presidency, and return to controlling the House and Senate in November.
The Fields of Wrong are covered in snow, mostly due to temperatures being below freezing for the past several days. We had a tree fall into the road during the big windstorm last Sunday. Now it sits, snow-covered, on our property waiting for our next chain sawing event.
Itâs Saturday, and professional football will be all over the television for the rest of the weekend. Good luck to those of you who follow one of the remaining eight teams. Itâs time for our Saturday Soother, where we  try to forget about the Red Sea, the New Hampshire primaries and funding the government, and instead try to calm ourselves for a few moments. Hopefully weâll be in better shape to launch into the roller coaster ride of next weekâs horrors.
Take a few minutes and grab a chair by a window. Now, watch and listen as John Williams is persuaded to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his “Imperial March” from Star Wars during a gala to celebrate his 90th Birthday.
There are many seriously talented people on the stage, including track star Florence Joyner, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Steven Spielberg, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Star Wars actor, Daisy Ridley. Williams is 91, still going strong, and an example to those who think young Biden is too old to run again. Bravo, Maestro:
What are we to make of the continuing war in the Red Sea? The Iranian-backed Houthis launched more attacks on merchant shipping just hours after the US preemptively struck them in Yemen. There is word from unreliable sources that the Houthis have now banned all US and UK ships from transiting the Red Sea, an escalation. Previously, they focused only on maritime shipping associated with Israel.
âJust as global supply chains finally returned to normal….The continuing attacks by the Houthis…have increased global shipping costs, caused cargo carriers or their clients to opt for longer alternate routes from Asia to Europe and the United States and raised alarms about the economic costs of a wider conflict.â
More:
âAlmost one-fifth of US freight arrives at East Coast ports after transiting the Red Sea and Suez Canal… Solar panels, electric vehicle batteries, toys and vacuum cleaners are among the goods making that trip. But for now, economists do not anticipate a major impact on the prices that US consumers pay â unless the violence worsens.â
Three months after the start of the Israel/Hamas war, a maritime danger zone has been created that extends hundreds of miles from its original location. Houthi militias have launched dozens of attacks on ships with drones and missiles, cutting container activity in the Suez canal by 90%.
The Western naval forces protecting global trade are now stretched dangerously thin. The attacks are beginning to spread beyond the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. That complicates the task facing US military planners.
The economic implications are easy to understand. What may be more difficult is what this implies for Americaâs preeminent role in defense of the seas. The US simply doesnât have the armament or manpower to: a) occupy Yemen or b) push the Houthi back far enough from the mouth of the Red Sea to reopen the Suez Canal to western shipping.
We have to consider the implications of an important global logistic choke point being closed as retaliation for the Israel/Hamas war. Also a second choke point, the Panama Canal, has also been forced to limit ships due to their persistent drought.
A second strategic implication is the impact of drone warfare on naval operations. Drones are plentiful and cheap. Large numbers of cheap drones means that warships now must have enough anti-aircraft (AA) systems to stop drones, along with electronic warfare counter-measure systems. Otherwise, they become sitting ducks.
A new fact of war is that cheap drones will overwhelm expensive missiles.
Our navyâs defense against drone attacks on commercial vessels runs headlong into the fact that our ships at sea can only store so many missiles. The US has sent a number of AEGIS destroyers to help protect international shipping, performing the dual role of intercepting Houthi drone and missiles and coming to the aid of distressed commercial ships.
Every missile salvo reduces the amount of time before they have to be resupplied by returning to base. We also know that Americaâs  manufacturing capacity for missiles is far below what is needed to refill stocks, given how many need to be expended against drone swarms in the Red Sea and elsewhere.
âThe [AEGIS] destroyers have a complement of 96 VLS cells, while the [Ticonderoga class] cruisers have 122…However, they need to fit a mixture of weaponry in those cells so they canât all be used for air defense….In short, each of the AEGIS has around 100 missiles.â
More:
âNeither the US nor the British ships can be reprovisioned at sea, so they have a limited ability to âstay in the fightâ if it continues for any length of time.â
So Yemen can launch a hundred drones and missiles at US ships and the destroyer escorts will very quickly exhaust their supply of air defense missiles. In the 1970s the U.S. Navy had ship tenders that could pull alongside a destroyer and resupply it. But today, these new Vertical Launch Systems must be reloaded in port.
In the ME, that means the destroyers will have to sail to Dubai or Europe, and the US aircraft carrier they are accompanying will have to follow because it relies on them for protection from ballistic and cruise missiles. Does America have enough carrier groups to rotate them when missile inventories are exhausted? The answer is no. Unless we are willing to move carrier groups from Asia to the ME. The US currently has 11 aircraft carriers in service, but hereâs a map from Stratfor showing the location of our three! active carrier groups (CVNs) as of Jan 11, 2024:
We have three of 11 active, and you can see that CVN 78 (The Gerald Ford) sailed out of the Mediterranean and was replaced by CVN 69 (the Dwight Eisenhower) this week. This is the likely rotation for resupply of on-ship missiles.
Then thereâs the issue of the US Navyâs manpower shortages. Forbes says in an article:
â…Americaâs newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), has downsized, cutting the crew aboard by hundreds of sailors….Over the past six months to a year, some 500 to 600 sailors have left the USS Ford and not been replaced.â
More:
â…most likely scenario, according to long-time Navy observers…is that, after the Navyâs massive 20% miss in FY 2023 enlisted sailor recruitment goals, the Navy simply has no sailors to spare.â
This is the US Navy that pretends it can take on either Russia or China or both together!
The âlaw of the seaâ is in decline. China increasingly ignores rulings that it objects to. And the Westâs use of sanctions has triggered a boom in smuggling: 10% of all tankers are part of a âdark fleetâ operating outside mainstream laws and finance, more than twice as many as 18 months ago.
The bottom line is that the US cannot invade Yemen or stop the Yemenis from shooting missiles at commercial vessels or at our own warships. As always, we can bomb a lot, but thatâs unlikely to stop the Yemenis. They live in a mountainous country and their missiles are mobile.
The US Navy canât take them out just by bombing. The Yemenis are tough, experienced fighters. They have endured one of the longest and most brutal bombing campaigns of the last few decades, and they are still here.
The plain fact is that the US and its western allies simply do not have sufficient deterrence to prevail in the Red Sea. The shipping industry has already come to that conclusion:
âIn response, some shipping companies have instructed vessels to instead sail around southern Africa, a slower and therefore more expensive route.â
Commercial cargo lines are not going to chance being shot up.
We donât have sufficient deterrence to keep the Red Sea, and thereby, the Suez Canal, open. We canât do enough to the Houthis to make them back down. And we wonât be able to stop them with boots on the ground.
What will the US military say is our way out of the box weâve gotten ourselves into?
Old Stone Church, West Boylston, MA – January 2024 photo by Demi Pita
As Wrongo said in his last post, there was an 80th birthday celebration for him over the MLK weekend. It was a very gratifying experience spending time with friends and family from many parts of the country. Here are a few quick comments on the Iowa Caucuses and whatâs coming.
âIn 2016, Republicans set a turnout record with 186,000 caucus participants â up from 119,000 in 2008. Last night, the Iowa Republican Party estimated about 100,000 Iowans â a big drop from just four years ago.â
Many will attribute this shortfall to the frigid weather. But weather alone doesnât explain why turnout was cut by 46% since 2016.
Second, Nikki Haley finished third with about 20% of the vote, but a significant percentage of her voters said that they wouldnât vote for Trump in the general election. From Simon Rosenberg:
âIn the NBC News/Des Moines Register poll released this past weekend more Haley voters – 20% of Iowaâs GOP vote – said they would support Biden in the general election than Trump.â
Hereâs MSNBCâs Steve Kornacki with the details:
More from Rosenberg:
âLetâs review the math here. If 43% of Haley voters said they would vote for Biden over Trump, thatâs about 8% of the GOP electorate, or 3-4% of the national vote.â
This is consistent with general polling that suggests that between a third and 40% of Republicans are anti-MAGA. That may be something the Biden campaign can exploit in November if itâs representative of the feelings of GOP voters across the nation.
The breathless media reaction to the Trump win is laughable. From political twitterer Mueller, She Wrote:
Think about it: 56,000 Iowans voted for Trump. Thatâs 0.000168% of the population of the country, so the media shouldnât be making it seem as if this was a victory for the ages. As John Fugelsang put it: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âPeople, can we stop negatively harping on how only 14% of Iowa GOP showed up to vote? And not dwell on how this means only 7% of Iowa GOP voted for Trump? Let’s TRY to be positive & just remind the media how this means 93% of registered Iowa Republicans didn’t vote for Trump.â
Despite all of these thoughts, Trump will easily win the GOP nomination. If either Haley or DeSantis were a better candidate, it may have made Iowa look a little more respectable, but Trumpâs opposition was always sure to lose.
So, take your minds off of the media hype around the Iowa caucuses. Remember that going forward, should “Not Biden” get 49% of any Democratic primary vote, the media will go completely ape-shit over it.
Finally, it may be that Republicans are less enthusiastic this time around. Trump doesnât ever say anything new, and Republicans have lost almost every significant election since 2016, and no one likes always being on the losing team. The 91 counts against him are also a factor. Nikki Haleyâs message that Trump simply had too much baggage seems to be resonating.
Instead of thinking about alternatives to Trump, think about how you can help take back Democratic control of the House of Representatives.
Itâs been three years since the Insurrection on Jan. 6. One of the determining factors of the outcome of 2024 presidential election will be whether the cases against Trump for his role in the Insurrection are decided before the election on November 5th of this year. Itâs just 303 days away. That isnât a lot of time, and there remains only a small possibility that Trump will be convicted and sentenced to prison for his role in fomenting either the violence at the Capitol or in the stolen documents case before November.
Wrongo no longer expects that either of the political cases against Trump will be decided by then.
Hopefully you realize that if those cases are still pending on Nov. 5 and Trump wins the election, the US government will withdraw from them, eliminating the possibility of Trump ever being convicted.
The failure of the DOJ to see the past four years as an asset that had to used quickly and decisively before it was used up by the Trump teamâs procedural appeals, is unforgivable. This also applies to the DOJ efforts to try the downstream Jan. 6 insurrectionists. From the NYT:
âAs of December, about 1,240 people had been arrested in connection with the attack, accused of crimes ranging from trespassing, a misdemeanor, to seditious conspiracy, a felony.â
Another 350 cases are still pending. Thatâs out of a total of nearly 3, 000 people who have been identified as Jan. 6 insurrectionists. So far, around 170 people have been convicted at trial, two people have been fully acquitted, and about 710 people have pleaded guilty. More than 450 of them were sentenced to jail time, ranging from a handful of days to more than 20 years.
Yet the instigator of all that happened that day remains free. And his public still support him. Here is a chart from the WaPo that shows how the view of Trumpâs responsibility for the Jan. 6 insurrection have changed over time:
The survey also found that over a third of Americans now believe Bidenâs election was illegitimate compared to a December 2021 WaPo survey. Republicans are also less likely to believe that Jan. 6 participants were âmostly violentâ. Only 18% of them believe the people who entered the Capitol on 1/6 were in that category. They are less likely to believe Trump bears responsibility for the attack.
This prove that Mark Twain was right: you can indeed fool some of the people all of the time.
A few months ago, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released its annual American Values Survey. Buried inside their extensive report was a very alarming finding:
âOne-third of Republicans and 46% of people who think the 2020 election was stolen believe that âtrue American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.ââ
This is a dangerous powder keg: An increasingly unhinged former President, and a Republican base that believes violence may be the only way to preserve America as they know want it.
When Wrongo speaks about âdreadâ in the political sense, his biggest fear in 2024 is the powder keg weâre sitting on. If Trump loses again, we are certain to see more political violence from the Right. And if he wins? No one should think there is a zero chance of violence against Trumpâs political enemies.
This brings to mind a quote from Churchill, who when speaking about countries appeasement of Hitler said:
âEach one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.â
That is clearly true for many Republicans and most of the media.
A lot of Democrats are down in the dumps these days. They are frustrated with the lack of progress on some issues (immigration) and by the never-ending cycle of bad polling on Bidenâs popularity. Some were hoping to vote for a younger or more progressive Democrat this time around.
Those feelings are legitimate, and it is incumbent on Biden and his campaign to persuade people why they must exercise their voting power against the dark forces on the Right. Democracy canât function when people intend to use force as a means to bring about their idea of justice. Itâs even worse when they are excused after their behavior.
This is the reason to unify and mobilize the disparate Democrats, Independents and anti-Trump Republicans. The use of force on Jan. 6 and the possibility of using more force this year to get an unconvicted Trump back in the White House and keep him there, isnât democracy. This is the time and place to stop Trump’s rolling Insurrection.
Biden recognizes this and kicked off his 2024 political campaign in Valley Forge, PA on Friday. Biden sees Valley Forge as a symbolic connection between his efforts to “heal the soul of the nation” and George Washington’s undaunted spirit during the American Revolution hundreds of years ago.
His second speech will be at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, where white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine Black parishioners as they welcomed him to pray with them in June 2015.
âSomething that stays with me, that few commentators ever mention: Trump came down his gilded escalator to declare his presidential candidacy just one day before the Charleston massacre. It would probably be too daring for Biden to make that connection, but I always do.â
Bidenâs campaign theme of âpreserving democracyâ isnât compelling, or âmade for TV.â But it is precisely what the nation needs as it stares into the abyss of a potential second Trump term as president. Like Biden, Trump has made promises. Heâs promised his followers that, if re-elected, âI will be your retribution.â
As with Biden, we should take Trump at his word: He will exact retribution and act as a dictator on day one of his second term. These competing promises of Trump and Biden tell us all we need to know about the choice we face in the 2024 election.
On to our first Saturday Soother of 2024. Here at the mansion of Wrong, weâre ready for tonightâs snow. Weâre also looking forward to next weekend when we will have all of our 12 grandchildren here for a belated Christmas party. Since they span the ages of 15-32 and are spread all over the country, this is the first time ever that they will be in the same space.
Itâs something that Wrongo and Ms. Right are looking forward to with great anticipation.
Today, letâs try to forget the dread and the likelihood that Trump will never be convicted for his crimes of Insurrection. Instead, grab a comfy chair by a window where, if you are in the Northeast, you can watch the falling snow.
Now watch and listen to the London Gay Symphony Orchestra play âLa Calindaâ from Deliusâ third opera âKoangaâ, written between 1896 and 1897. Koanga is reputed to be the first opera in the European tradition to base much of its melodic material on African-American music. Delius spent time as a young man working in Florida. Here is âLa Calindaâ conducted by Christopher Braime at St. Giles Cripplegate in February 2017:
Manhattan Beach Pier, CA – December 31, 2023 photo by Michael Franich
Welcome to Wrongoâs first column of 2024. Letâs dispense with the reviews of last year and the forecasts of this year. Letâs try to describe what weâre all feeling as we say so long to the presidential campaign of 2023, and welcome in the presidential campaign of 2024.
Whatâs the overwhelming feeling that comes to mind for Americans when thinking about the upcoming presidential election? Dread, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll:
âThe survey of 1,636 US adults…offered respondents seven emotions â three positive, three negative, one neutral â and asked them to select any and all that reflect their attitude toward the 2024 campaign.
Dread, the most negative option, topped the list (41%), followed by exhaustion (34%), optimism (25%), depression (21%), indifference (17%), excitement (15%) and delight (5%).â
Hereâs the relevant chart:
More:
âIn total, a majority of Americans (56%) chose at least one of the three negative feelings (dread, exhaustion or depression), while less than a third (32%) picked at least one of the three positive feelings (optimism, excitement or delight).â
Wrongo test marketed the idea that âdreadâ was the watchword for 2024 at a New Yearâs breakfast with people who span the political spectrum. They universally hated it, but after a short discussion felt it was arguably, the dominant feeling that they had about what will/might happen in 2024.
âWe are feeling an acute sense of loss….But what do you call the feeling of watching your society being taken over by fanatics, monsters, and lunatics? How about the feeling of watching democracy crash and burnâremember, itâs declining by the stunning rate of about 10% a decade, putting its extinction within our lifetimes.â
Psychology Today gives us a frame to think about dread in their 2023 article, âHow to Overcome the Sinking Feeling of Dreadâ: (emphasis by Wrongo)
âA sense of dread may be due to an abstractly internalized experience of external volatility called âdisembeddingâ….This phenomenon refers to our ability to interact with one another without having to make face-to-face contact. The result is an overabundance of information that comes our way. It becomes abstracted and metaphorically slips through the fingers of our minds in trying to grasp what it is. With a few clicks through an Instagram feed, scrolling through Twitter, or even just opening your web browser to search for something, your brain becomes a dartboard for world news.â
More:
âWhen one experiences this, there are often repeated attempts to secure a firm base. People will reassert their values as moral absolutes, declare other groups as lacking in value, draw distinct lines of virtue and vice, be rigid rather than flexible in their judgements, and punitive and excluding rather than permeable and assimilative….Another consequence of disembedding is the possibility of scapegoating: the underclass, racial minorities, new-age travelers, addicts, people with unusual behaviors, and other vulnerable social groups risk being singled out and demonized as the source of societyâs problems.â
Dread makes us less tolerant of differences, and as a result, we punish them. This is the emotional backdrop for 2024, and the road ahead looks murky as hell. And facts increasingly donât matter, since whichever side posits a fact, the other has a prepared rebuttal that says the source (even if its official statistics) are misleading if not outright lies.
The NYTâs Krugman notes that overall, the countryâs in pretty good shape. The challenge is that people so far continue to blame Biden for the chaos and ugliness that Trump and his cult are creating: (brackets by Wrongo)
âThe big question…was whether America would ever fully recover from that shock. In 2023 we got the answer: yes. Our economy and society have, in fact, healed remarkably well. The big remaining question is when, if ever, the public will be ready to accept the good news….Americaâs resilience in the face of the pandemic shock has been remarkable, [but] so has the pessimism of the public.â
The big question going forward is whether the grim narratives will prevail over our relatively sunny reality when we get to the 2024 election. Unfortunately, we are bathing in the hideous cultural nastiness caused by the Republican Right and itâs spread despair throughout the country.
Overcoming that mood (and the dread people feel) isnât going to be easy, but disaster is certain if you give up. Individually, we each can do more than we think we can to keep America in good hands.
Start by no longer buying into the bullshit spewed by the mainstream media, in particular, the NYT. Their both sides coverage of Trumpâs crooked behavior demonstrates their inability to let us know how real his threat is to the public.
The rest of the corporate mediaâs coverage is the same, with a few exceptions. Donât overlook outlets abroad which had good reputations for thorough and unbiased reporting. In the age of the internet with translation capability at your fingertips, itâs not absurd to look outside of the US news rut for different perspectives.
As long as the GOP can paint the Democrats as the bigger enemy, Independent and anti-Trump Republican voters have an out; they can justify staying on the sidelines. The mainstream media’s complicit role in broadcasting the GOP strategy canât be overstated. And the Democratic Party leadership’s long-term paralysis in the face of this simple equation is one reason why weâre in the situation we are in now.
Stop ascribing superpowers to the GOP. The Republican Party is a hot mess.
No matter what you read, act! Make a plan and act. It can be surprisingly easy to become a thought leader on the local level. Inside both Parties, the leaders are the people who show up and do the work. Thatâs it, thatâs all it takes to begin making change happen. Show up, do the work.
Weâre heading into what will be the toughest part of an existential fight for this democracy. Itâs going to be an ugly, messy show, one that is certain to add to those feelings of dread. Plan on it and then show up to do the work it will take to beat back the fascists.
Think about the toll Americans will endure in 2024. How many women will die of complications from a pregnancy they couldnât end? How many trans persons will give up because they canât live as human beings with autonomy over their bodies? How many persons will die from Covid this coming year because of right-wing propaganda supported by elected GOP officials? How many futures will be shortened because children may not get the food, health care, or education they need?
How many families will be split up because they couldnât find shelter?
Our message when weâre doing the work has to be about unity. Itâs clear right now that Democrats are splintering in all directions. Some donât want Biden because heâs pro-Israel. Young people find Biden to be too old. Some feel heâs too middle-of-the-road. We all need to remember American novelist Rebecca Solnitâs mantra:
Weâve enjoyed a few days away from the news, seeing kids and grandkids while eating non-stop and playing games in the living room. But itâs nearing the time when we will need to refocus on the state of our country. These are overstimulated times, as the abuse of all caps and exclamation-points around the internet shows us.
Hereâs one finding from a poll by YouGov  that was performed between December 11th and 14th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 adult citizens, with a 4± point margin of error:
The bad vibes were overwhelmingly felt by Republicans, 66% of whom felt that 2023 was âOne of the worst years in American historyâ even though it clearly was not. Â From the NYT:
âThe âvibeâ is bad, voters canât see that the economy is good.â
The economy is really good. Unemployment is near its historic low. Inflation is nearly controlled. While the Fed raised interest rates rapidly to slow economic growth, we are now likely to experience a soft landing of the economy. Back in December 2022, the Financial Times (paywalled) published a survey that showed 85% of economists were projecting a recession in 2023. But it didnât happen, largely due to US fiscal policy (adding money to peopleâs pockets) overriding the impact of the Fedâs desire for a restrictive monetary policy.
Maybe people believing that the economy was bad shouldnât be surprising. FOX, along with other media have been telling people non-stop that the economy is a problem (and using inflation as the proof). With few exceptions the Democrats havenât responded clearly. Biden tried to brand the economy as Bidenomics, but neither he nor the Democrats mention every day how great the economy is.
Without hearing from the Dems, most Americans hear that the economy is bad and nobody contradicts that. So one side uses proper messaging techniques and the other side wonders why theyâre unpopular. This is true for the Dems on issue after issue.
Heading into 2024, Wrongo is putting on his armor, because next yearâs not going to be easy. In fact itâs going to be a shitshow. We know that weâre having an absolutely make or break election for president. Control of Congress is on the line as well. Itâs now becoming clear that unless thereâs a legal miracle, Trump will not be judged guilty in any of his pending criminal cases prior to the election.
That means itâs up to us voters to get the 2024 election right: Overwhelming turnout, hammering the message locally and not simply relying on the national Democratic apparatus to get things done for us at the local level. If we fail, itâs hard to see how America recovers fast enough to keep the entire world from turning to chaos with a Trump win.
âIf I could weigh one magic wand and accomplish one simple change in the minds of anti-Trump voters, Republican or Democrat, it would be this: stop believing in miracles. Miracles are in short supply….Itâs taken me a while to overcome the hope that something derails Trump….But nothing does. He is a protean force in American culture now, seemingly beyond all sanction. He is not going to jail….He wonât be disqualified from the ballot in any states when the Supreme Court is done. Trump is going to be the nominee; he is going to lure the media into his narrative frame once again.â
More:
âThe miracles in politics are the ones we make. They come from work planning, preparation, organization, and focus. Nothing will set the Democratic Party back further and faster than the fantasy that somehow the law or fate will take Trump out of their way. This one will take a lot of work at every return, and there are no shortcuts.â
The DNC sends us their mealy-mouthed-please-send-money-now emails every week. They must up their game if they hope to win. Also, Wrongo canât understand why so many Americans can’t see the handwriting on the wall. This isnât a time for third parties, it isnât a time to âsend a messageâ to Biden.
The best defense for our democracy is to speak out and encourage everyone we know to vote.
We close this year with our final seasonal Christmas musical presentation, selections from the 2023 Christmas Carols Concert at Londonâs Royal Albert Hall. This is snippets of the whole carols, which may disappoint some:
Santa Christmas gondola regatta in Venice â December 2023 photo by Manuel Silvestri
Happy Saturday! Wrongo loves it when the days begin to get longer, if only by a fraction. Itâs a hopeful sign of the return to more daylight and eventually, spring and summer. This may (or may not) be the last column until the New Year. If it is, Wrongo wants to end with some positive notes.
First, The Economistis out with its annual âCountry of the Yearâ award. This year, it highlights the move back to moderation from conservative governments in three countries.
First, Brazil which swore in a center-left president, Luiz InĂĄcio Lula da Silva, after four years of mendacious populism under Jair Bolsonaro:
â…who spread divisive conspiracy theories, coddled trigger-happy cops, supported rainforest-torching farmers, refused to accept electoral defeat and encouraged his devotees to attempt an insurrection.â
The new administration quickly restored normalityâand reduced the pace of deforestation in the Amazon by nearly 50%. But since Lula likes Putin, Brazil didnât get the award.
Second, Poland had a remarkable 2023: its economy withstood the shock of the war next door; it continued to host nearly 1 million Ukrainian refugees. It raised its defense spending to above 3% of GDP. The countryâs biggest problem has been the dominance of the populist-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which has run the government for the past eight years, eroding the independence of the courts, stuffing state media with lackeys and nurturing crony capitalism:
âIn October voters dumped PiS in favor of an array of opposition parties. It is early days for a new coalition government, led by Donald Tusk, a veteran centrist, but if it does a good job of mending the damage PiS did to democratic institutions, Poland will be a strong candidate for our prize next year.â
But Greece won the prize. We all remember a few years ago when Greece was the economic basket case of Europe. Incomes had plunged, the social contract was fraying and extremist parties on the left and right were popular. The government turned to China and sold its main port, Piraeus, to a Chinese firm:
âBut after years of painful restructuring, Greece topped our annual ranking of rich-world economies in 2023. Its center-right government was re-elected in June. Its foreign policy is pro-America, pro-EU and wary of Russia. Greece shows that from the verge of collapse it is possible to enact tough, sensible economic reforms, rebuild the social contract, exhibit restrained patriotismâand still win elections.â
The Economist closes with the thought that nearly half the world is due to vote in new governments in 2024, so democracy isnât just on the line in America. Itâs on the line everywhere.
Second, a piece of good domestic news. Charles Gaba at ACA Signups reports that, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):
âIn 2022, the insured share of the population reached 92% (a historic high). Private health insurance enrollment increased by 2.9 million individuals and Medicaid enrollment increased by 6.1 million individuals.â
Another stunner from CMS: US healthcare spending as a percentage of the GDP was lower last year than it was 6 years earlier. More detail:
âWith a lower rate of health care spending growth of 4.1% in 2022, the share of GDP devoted to health care fell to 17.3% in 2022, lower than both the 18.2% share in 2021 and the highest share in the history of the National Health Expenditure Accounts of 19.5% in 2020. During 2016-19 the average share was 17.5%.â
Thatâs all good news. Around the global headquarters of the Wrongologist, weâre starting to look toward next year. And even if it seems the news canât get worse, it probably will. Think about Trump on trial, epic Supreme Court decisions, ongoing foreign policy crises and the most important election of at least Wrongoâs life.
2024 will be a long year thatâs going to require emotional and intellectual strength to avoid despair when the media continues covering this election as they have been. It will be a lot to handle.
Hereâs Wrongoâs wish that you find some comfort and joy over the next week. And please keep showing up around here in the New Year. Wrongo promises to keep trying to give you perspectives that hopefully make some sense of the world.
âIf you aren’t paying attention to the courts, you aren’t paying attention to democracyâ. – Mark E. Elias
The Colorado Supreme Courtâs ruling that Trump is disqualified from appearing on the stateâs presidential primary ballot because he engaged in insurrection was a bombshell. The plaintiffs included four Republican voters and officials, and two Independents. The organization bringing and managing the lawsuit was CREW and its chief attorney, Marc Elias, quoted above.
Some people are saying that it doesnât seem right to toss him off of the ballot without a conviction. At issue is whether Trump is such a danger to the country that heâs ineligible to be a candidate at all, and the Colorado Courtâs reasoning for this seems very tight. Itâs not an interpretation about his rhetoric or an evaluation of his political extremism. Itâs solely a determination of whether he took an oath to protect the Constitution, and then fomented an insurrection against the government. And although the verdict was 4-3, all seven judges agreed that Trump had fomented insurrection.
The Court found that heâs ineligible. Regarding the âhe must be convicted to be ineligibleâ argument: The criminal cases against Trump that are wending their way through the courts are varied in their accusations. None of them were brought solely or even primarily to prevent Trump from being elected president, although the Colorado case was. The others charge real crimes. The importance of those cases transcends the individual who committed them. A failure to bring them would set a precedent that we as a country think these behaviors permissible by a future president.
As for letting the people decide about Trump, we did that already. Biden got seven million more votes than Trump. Yet Trumpâs still spouting the Big Lie that the election was stolen. Even after 60 court cases, Trump couldnât prove there was any election fraud. Conservative Judge Luttig says that the 14th Amendment isn’t about removing someone from qualifying for office. Rather it’s about meeting a baseline qualification in order to be considered a QUALIFIED candidate.
Thereâs also an argument on the Right that Trump shouldnât be in court at all. But we have a Justice system and in the Colorado case, the legal process was followed. The Court didnât take any shortcuts; no extraordinary maneuvers were made.
Jon V Last asks why Republicans were on one side of the law in 2020 and on a different side today: (brackets by Wrongo)
âSo ask yourself this: All throughout December 2020, everyone insisted that, no matter how foolish or baseless President Trumpâs claims might seem, he was entitled to pursue the legal process vigorously to its end.
Why is that not true in this case? Why is it that Trump…[in 2020 was] entitled to have his day in court, but the forces [today] looking to apply different laws to a different end are not?â
Last reminds us that many of the same people who insisted that Trump could pursue all available legal remedies in 2020 wanted a result that would keep him in power. Now, theyâre outraged that the people in state of Colorado also pursued legal remedies and won a result that might keep him from returning to power. Thereâs more from Jon Last. Those who are complaining about the result in Colorado are complaining not about the legal process, but the legal result:
âHave you ever noticed how, whenever Trump does something terrible, there is always an argument that holding him accountable can only help him?
You canât impeach him in 2020, because itâll just make him stronger.
You canât impeach him in 2021, because youâll turn him into a martyr.
You canât raid Mar-a-Lago to take back classified documents because youâll rile up his base.
/snip/
There is a…..helplessness to that thinking: A wicked man does immoral and illegal thingsâand societyâs reaction is to say that we must indulge his depredations, because if we tried to hold him accountable then he would become even worse.
Is there any other aspect of life in which Americans take that view?
Thatâs not how parents deal with children.
Itâs not how regulatory agencies deal with corporations.
And itâs not how the justice system deals with criminals.â
âEvery hesitation, reservation, and exhortation to âmake an exceptionâ because of potential violence or political chaos is an invitation to abandon the Constitution. We do so at our grave peril and possibly for the first, last, and only timeâbecause if we set our great charter aside once, there is no logical stopping point for setting it aside again when it serves the pleasure of a president who views the Constitution as an obstacle rather than a safeguard.â
The Colorado Supreme Courtâs decision to ban Donald Trump from the stateâs primary ballot for engaging in insurrection is probably on its way to the US Supreme Court. Wrongo isnât a lawyer, so you should look elsewhere for a discussion of the finer points of the law in this case, and he has no confidence that the Supremes will decide against Trump.
But Wrongo wants to address one item, the question of whether a candidate should be tried while running for office. Just the Mar-a-Lago charges of mishandling highly classified information and then obstructing their return makes it clear that he should be tried regardless of his candidacy. The government needed to secure the secret documents Trump had stashed all over his club. Trump thwarted those efforts. And the case was developed before Trump declared himself as a candidate for 2024.
A thought experiment: Letâs imagine that Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis had run for US president in 1868. Either of them could probably win a solid South and be competitive in several border states. Making sure that they didnât win at the ballot box what they couldnât on the battlefield is why Clause 3 was included in the 14th Amendment in July, 1868.
Would supporters of Lee or Davis have complained that they were ineligible for public office? Certainly! But, too bad. Insurrection and rebellion (still) have consequences. And nobody said that they had to be convicted before being ineligible.
When a president of the US loses an election and attempts to stay in power through violence, there really is no way to deal with it that doesnât have a political component. But that means nothing to the merits of the case. Should we prosecute it only to the point that the ex-president decides to run again, and then drop it?
The whole Republican “let the voters decide” talking point was trotted out after the Colorado decision. Itâs hilarious. We did that. We did let the voters decide. Biden won. And Trump refused to accept the results and sent a violent mob to overturn it. That’s the whole point of this case. We must apply the Constitution and the rule of law to Trump in the same way it would be applied to any other citizen.
Whatever lies ahead, letâs not underestimate the significance of the Colorado Court findings. They will figure prominently in the outcome in 2024. Our job is to fight for the soul of democracy and for a free and responsible government by popular consent.
Letâs close with a Christmas tune that is new to Wrongo: The Tractors perform their 2009 hit âThe Santa Claus Boogieâ, from their second album, âHave Yourself a Tractors Christmasâ. The band no longer exists, as several of the members have died:
Wrongo has seen enough. The US must change direction in its support for Israelâs war in Gaza. This isnât an easy decision. Israel has suffered mightily at the hands of Hamas in Gaza and at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon with its backer, Iran.
Wrongo has written about the lack of proportionality in Israelâs attacks in Gaza. Now that the war is two+ months old, there can be little doubt that by turning about half of Gaza into a parking lot, Israelâs war is at least as much about uprooting Palestinians as it is about destroying Hamas.
It would be naĂŻve to think that cutting off (or reducing) American funding to Israel would materially improve the chances of Palestinian statehood. And the prospects of that happening have been decreased both by Israelâs disproportionate response to 10/7 and by Netanyahuâs explicit opposition to any form of Palestinian statehood post-hostilities.
Unless the war is ended soon, it will widen beyond Gaza.
Itâs already heating up in Lebanon with Hezbollah firing more than 1,000 different types of rockets, missiles, drones, and mortars toward Israel since October 8. Newsweek asked how close Israel was to full-scale war in Lebanon. Israelâs spokesperson said:
“…we could have been at war with Hezbollah…based solely on their actions, their violation of Israeli sovereignty and the casualties that they have caused…”
The tempo of attacks along the boundary between Israel and Lebanon are at levels not seen since the IDF and Hezbollah fought in 2006. Axios reports that Israel told the Biden administration it wants Hezbollah to move six miles back from its border, far enough that they will not be able to fire at Israeli towns along the border. But why would Hezbollah agree?
In Yemen, the Houthi are attacking ships transiting the Red Sea. The US announced a new multinational security initiative aimed at protecting ships in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks. Apparently itâs mostly a PR effort. Politico reported that three additional US destroyers have been moved into the Mediterranean Sea and a Carrier Strike Group vessel has been moved into the Gulf of Aden. Attacks by Houthi militants have prompted Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) (both are container shipping companies) to avoid the area.
And inside the Israel/Hamas war in Gaza, CNN reports that an IDF sniper killed a mother and daughter inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza on Saturday. Seven others were wounded in the attack on the complex, which is housing most of Gazaâs Christian families seeking safety. Pope Francis condemned it.
Also, Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza is no longer functioning and patients including babies have been evacuated, Reuters reported. Last week Israeli forces used a bulldozer to smash through the outside of the hospital.
Israel itself is roiled by the deaths of three Israeli hostages who were mistakenly killed by the IDF in Gaza. Apparently one was carrying a stick with a white cloth says the BBC. This sparked angry protests in Tel Aviv, where thousands of people called for a truce, chanting “Bring them home now“.
Netanyahu refused, saying Israel only had leverage if they continued to fight:
âMilitary pressure is necessary both for the return of the hostages and for victory. Without military pressure…we have nothing…”
âVoters broadly disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the bloody strife between Israelis and Palestinians….with younger Americans far more critical than older voters of both Israelâs conduct and of the administrationâs response to the war in Gaza.â
Hereâs a chart from the NYT:
But among young voters, 46% sympathize more with the Palestinians, against 27% who favor Israel. Only 28% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 said Israel was seriously interested in a peaceful solution to the broader conflict, while older voters had far more faith in Israelâs intentions and less in the Palestiniansâ. Biden sees this and is casting blame on the hardline members of Netanyahuâs war cabinet more than on the prime minister:
âOne of the things that Bibi understands, but I’m not sure…[Israelâs Minister of National Security Itamar] Ben-Gvir and his War Cabinet do…theyâre starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place…â
More from Biden:
âYou cannot say thereâs no Palestinian state at all in the future.â
âIâm proud that I prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state because today everybody understands what that Palestine state could have been…Now that weâve seen the little Palestinian state in Gaza, everyone understands what would have happened if we had capitulated to international pressures and enabled a state like that on the West Bank.â
Whatâs Israelâs end game? It says it wants its hostages back and Hamas eliminated.
Wrongo thinks that Israel has crossed a line with both the excessive killing of Palestinian civilians and the excessive destruction of Gaza infrastructure. The human toll in Gaza may be incalculable, but DW estimates that the costs of rebuilding what has been destroyed through the Israeli bombardment of Gaza may be as high as $50 billion. Who will step up to pay for that?
Also, its likely that Israel has intentionally or not, created a new generation of antisemites living on their border for the next several decades.
America has very limited influence over Israel’s conduct, regardless of our level of funding, so our decision-making needs to be based on other factors. The 2024 election is the most important domestic factor. Biden should do whatever maximizes the chances of his re-election.
A thought exercise: By explicitly rejecting the two-state solution Israel either supports the âone stateâ or a âno stateâ solution. The âone stateâ solution requires that both sides live together on the same land in peace. But decades of history shows that Israelis and Palestinians canât live together in peace. So the âone stateâ solution isnât viable.
That means looking to a solution where Israel divests the Palestinian population of their citizenship, rights, ancestry and land. Where would the Palestinians live? Does it follow that Israel will insist that they be deported? If Israel even tries this, the world will no longer be the same.
Finally, is there a better way to unite all the other ME states against Israel than the current prolonged bombing/ground campaign, followed by a rejection of the two state solution? All that Israel is accomplishing is fanning the flames of religious zealotry. History says that never ends well.
Take a break and listen to âHappy Xmas (War Is Over)â released in 1971 by John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir. Having the kids chorus in the background elevates this tune:
And one line worth remembering: âWar is over, if you want itâ
