Voter Turnout – Page 11 – The Wrongologist

Can Biden’s Union Roots Help Him In 2024?

The Daily Escape:

Red Mountain, San Juan Mountains, CO – September 2023 photo by Daniel Forster Photography

The “the biggest auto strike in generations” got under way last week, with 150,000 US autoworkers, including employees at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors walking off the job after contract negotiations failed to reach a deal. This strike, coupled with the likely government shutdown at the end of the month, will precipitate a very dangerous moment for the Biden administration.

From The Guardian:

“The United Auto Workers (UAW) union says workers have never been fully compensated for the sacrifices they made after the 2008-09 financial crisis, when they agreed to a raft of cuts to save the industry. The carmakers received huge bailouts and soon returned to record profits.”

The WaPo had a good article asking workers why they are striking. Most cited inflation and fairness:

“We’re not making enough money” said Petrun Williams, a 58 year-old Ford repairman. “People should be able to buy their own houses, but right now it’s not possible.”

This is going to be a difficult problem to tackle, because GM, Ford, and Stellantis are wildly inefficient giant bureaucracies with cost structures optimized to make $75,000 trucks, and their move into Electric Vehicles will take a lot of money and time before it pays off.

But the Biden administration isn’t necessarily helping: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“…Biden…is in a tough spot with the United Auto Workers….Through its industrial policies,…[Biden]…is giving away billions to automakers through production tax credits and loans, while supporting the transition to electric vehicles through consumer rebates and funds for charging infrastructure. Biden has promised that those incentives will lead not only to carbon emissions reductions but also good-paying union jobs.”

But the UAW leadership isn’t buying it. As the UAW goes on strike, their members don’t necessarily support Biden, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they support Trump either. Politico asked striking members if Biden had done enough to prevent the strike. They talked to Garry Quirk, the president of the local UAW union in Kokomo, IA:

“I don’t know what he’s done…Ask him. I don’t think he knows what he’s done. Seriously. I’m not trying to be mean.”

Quirk wasn’t freelancing: Fain and the union haven’t yet endorsed Biden’s reelection, throwing into doubt Biden’s standing in autoworker-heavy communities. But Politico reported that Biden had spoken that day with UAW president Shawn Fain and auto company CEOs. The chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers said this week that Biden had been very much engaged.

But his efforts didn’t resonate with union member Denny Butler:

“Historically, man, if you didn’t vote Democrat years ago, and you were in the union, sometimes you got your ass kicked…I’m telling you what, the Democratic Party is not what it was 20, 30 years ago.”

So this is another Politico story about Obama voters becoming Trump voters and not looking back.

What Biden is fighting is the sense that the Democratic Party has not been truly on the side of union workers for a long time. It is true that today the Democrats are more on the side of unions. Neoliberalism is not nearly as powerful in the Democratic Party as it was during Obama’s time, or earlier.

But perceptions can be sticky. Clinton, Carter, and Obama (especially in the first term) all promoted corporate policies over the unions. Workers got screwed as factories closed, and no one offered much to workers beyond retraining programs that they didn’t want, and for the most part, didn’t lead to better jobs.

If you said that Republicans (including Mitt Romney) were no better, you’re correct. But today’s Republican Party offers a way to channel anger and resentment. Union members can opt for the GOP path even if the GOP doesn’t have the union’s interests in mind.

Despite Obama (and Biden) saving autoworker jobs through the 2009 auto bailout, they did little to hold the auto companies accountable. They allowed the expansion of two-tiered wage rates that the union is still fighting during the current strike.

The perception is that the UAW shrank and sacrificed, while the auto industry leadership got richer. Biden absolutely cares about unions, but he’s fighting against decades of belief that the Democrats aren’t what they used to be.

And no matter what Biden does, it’s going to be hard to get by that perception. There’s a mixture of anger and nostalgia that sticks in the minds of people who don’t really pay attention to the details of politics. Let’s take a look at the price of cars over the last ten years:

The Big Three automakers reported $21 billion in profits in just the first six months of 2023. Despite these enormous gains, the companies have cried poverty in response to union demands for wage increases that would make up for decades of pay stagnation. Worse, during the last year, the Big Three automakers have authorized $5 billion in stock buybacks, effectively giving those dollars to shareholders instead of to autoworkers.

The Economist had an excellent observation (paywalled):

“Late last year I took a trip…in a shiny new vehicle, Ford’s electric F-150. The car is in some ways an avatar for today’s Democratic Party. Joe Biden’s administration likes things that are made in America by union labor. It also wants to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels. The F-150 car ticks both boxes. It is also a high-end item that markets itself as a vehicle for working Americans.”

“That’s a bit like the Democratic Party too…with each passing election Democrats lose votes among actual working-class Americans and gain them with college-educated ones (some of whom can actually afford a $75,000 truck).”

“When we talked to a…UAW…representative near Detroit, it became clear the unionized workers are lukewarm on the green transition. Electric vehicles are less labor-intensive than cars powered by internal combustion, which is bad for the UAW members. In fact that is one reason why the union went on strike today. College-educated liberals, on the other hand, like electric vehicles a lot.”

Apparently union members see the problem much more clearly than the Biden Administration.

There could be a settlement reached between the unions and the companies at any moment, but it feels like this will be a protracted situation: If the UAW workers get the 40% pay increase they are asking for, they probably would learn to accept electric vehicles. Don’t hold your breath.

Biden’s relationship with America’s unions is deep and personal, but the next few months are really about his political strategy. And they’re an example of how the Democrats are always trying to balance competing aims.

Time to wake up America! Will Biden continue pursuing his environmental policies and risk losing even more support among working-class Americans? Or will he pump the brakes on environmentalism and alienate upscale Democrats? Biden won only 33% of white, non-college voters in 2020, so maybe that’s where his opportunity to expand his base in 2024 lies. But does Biden really have a path to take back more non-college voters?

To help you wake up, watch and listen to a recent version of the union anthem “Solidarity Forever”, written by Ralph Chaplin in 1915. Although it was written for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the AFL–CIO have adopted the song as their own. Here it is sung in the Wisconsin capitol building in September 2011, by demonstrators who opposed then Governor Scott Walker’s “Wisconsin Budget Repair bill.”

The bill proposed to alleviate the state’s budget shortfall by taking away the ability of public sector unions to bargain collectively over pensions and health care, as well as ending automatic union dues collection by the state. Walker stated that without the cuts, thousands of state workers would have to be laid off. After two days of arrests for “holding signs” on the first floor of the Wisconsin State Capitol, the Solidarity Sing Along took to the rotunda in joyful defiance:

The law passed and remains in effect today.

Romney Exits

The Daily Escape:

Northern Lights, Malletts Bay, Lake Champlain, Colchester, VT – September 2023 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

By now, everyone’s heard that Mitt Romney (R-UT) isn’t going to run for a second term in the Senate. From the WaPo:

“Romney, 76, said his decision not to run again was heavily influenced by his belief that a second term, which would take him into his 80s, probably would be less productive and less satisfying than the current term has been.”

He used the opportunity to say that Biden and Trump were too old to be the presidential candidates of their Parties, and they, like him, should stand aside and let the next generation of politicians take center stage.

But the big news was generated from a few quotes Romney made to McKay Coppins, who’s book about Romney is coming out in October. Coppins has a teaser article in The Atlantic in which Romney lets loose his ire against Trump (who Romney carefully cultivated in 2016 and 2017, when he was angling to be Secretary of State):

“So many Republican Senators privately expressed their support for Romney’s public criticism of Trump that the Utahan began keeping count, telling staffers he’d had more than a dozen nearly identical exchanges. He recalled one senior lawmaker complaining to him: “[Trump] has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.”

Romney told Coppins:

“Almost without exception, they shared my view of the president.”

This has earned Romney accolades from the media and from a few Democrats. Karen Tumulty in the WaPo credits Romney with “paving the way for national health-care reform…” This ignores the fact that Romney ran for president in 2012 promising to repeal Obamacare.

Yet, after reading The Atlantic article, the media used terms like “noble,” “principled,” and “courageous.” But there is nothing courageous about saying the right thing only when you’re on your way out the door.

Wrongo has had issues with Romney since his run for the presidency in 2012. In May of 2012, Wrongo wrote:

“Over the past few days, Mitt Myth Romney has taken credit for GM being alive and Osama Bin Laden being dead.”

On the auto bailout Wrongo had previously reported what Romney actually said about the auto industry bailout: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“On February 12, 2012, Romney said: “Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry. The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama’s management of the American economy are evident in what he did.”

/snip/

“The president tells us that without his intervention things in Detroit would be worse. I believe that without his intervention things there would be better.”

Romney lied or changed his positions throughout his 2012 campaign against Obama. America is better off because he only received 206 votes in the Electoral College to Obama’s 332. He always was a plutocrat who’s political philosophy is basically trickle-down economics, low taxes and traditional religious cultural values.

There is room for those views in our politics, but Romney, who was the only Republican who twice voted to impeach Trump, could have done more to rally his fellow Senators to confront Mr. 91 counts. But, he’s gone from being the Republican nominee for president to being forced to leave politics just a decade later.

You may say “Thank God for Brave Men like Mitt Romney”, men with strong spines willing to stand up for what they believe and then march forward right out of the room!

Enough for this week, it’s time to let go of whatever is happening to Hunter Biden and his impeachable dad, and center ourselves for the government shutdown that’s coming at the end of the month. It’s time for our Saturday Soother!

Here in northwestern Connecticut, we’re seeing nights in the high 40° as summer draws to a close. Despite the threats from Hurricane Lee, let’s spend our Saturday Soother outside, sitting on the deck. To help you let go of the many insults of your week, listen to “Winter” (“Invierno”) from Astor Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires” (“Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas”). Piazzolla was an Argentine composer who is credited with developing the nuevo tango.

Wrongo and Ms. Right were fortunate to attend a concert last week which featured Vivaldi’s Four Seasons followed by Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Piazzolla’s classical work often features tango like rhythms. Here is his “Winter” played by Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, NL in 2014. The soloist is the conductor Liviu Prunaru:

Is Biden Too Old?

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Coquille River Lighthouse, Bandon, OR – September 2023 photo by Mitch Schrieber Photography

At lunch this week with three people all who are around 80 years old, one whispered that “Biden is too old”. The rest of us agreed. In a perfect world, Biden would be considering winding up his political life and shipping his boxes to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. Biden will run for president again, and the polls show it’s likely to be a tight race against Trump. Many in the press see Biden as too frail to carry out even basic duties, leaving his aides to secretly run the country in his stead.

But as Semafor points out, in the first book that now documents the early years of his presidency, the picture is the reverse:

“The Last Politician,” the Biden-in-power book that Franklin Foer published last week….presents an aging president who’s nonetheless fully engaged in the job, stumbling more when he loses his temper…than when he loses his train of thought.”

Foer’s book portrays Biden as a leader who sounds shaky in public but is the dominant force in his White House. Foer tells Semafor that Biden: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“…buries himself in details…[and] takes technocratic charge of issues”.

Two Writers Who Speak To What America Needs

The Daily Escape:

Wukoki, Wupatli National Monument, AZ – September 2023 photo by David Erickson

September is underway, and we’re about to have a negotiation about government spending. But that doesn’t mean that the news this month will be any less stupid than last month’s. Also, as the Republican presidential candidates demonstrate every day, we don’t actually know whether the GOP is a dying Party or, the rising single Party of an authoritarian state.

Unless and until the traditional press presents these as the stakes, it is very unclear which it’ll end up being. With this as an introduction, Wrongo wants to introduce two writers who are attempting to break through our chain of bad policies and the bad ideology that threatens our democracy.

First, from Wesley Lowery in the Columbia Journalism Review:

“We find ourselves in a perilous moment. Democracy is under withering assault. Technological advances have empowered propagandists to profit through discontent and disinformation. A coordinated, fifty-year campaign waged by one of our major political parties to denigrate the media and call objective reality into question has reached its logical conclusion: we occupy a nation in which a sizable portion of the public cannot reliably tell fact from fiction. The rise of a powerful nativist movement has provided a test not only of American multiracial democracy, but also of the institutions sworn to protect it.”

Lowery is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. He goes on to say:

“In 2020, I argued that the press had often failed this test by engaging in performative neutrality, paint-by-the-numbers balance, and thoughtless deference to government officials. Too many news organizations were as concerned with projecting impartiality as they were with actually achieving it, prioritizing the perception of their virtue in the minds of a hopelessly polarized audience…”

Lowery also says that news organizations often rely on euphemisms instead of clarity in clear cases of racism (“racially charged,” “racially tinged”) and acts of government violence (“officer-involved shooting”). He says that these editorial decisions are not only journalistic failings, but also moral ones:

“…when the weight of the evidence is clear, it is wrong to conceal the truth. Justified as “objectivity,” they are in fact its distortion.”

Lowery concludes by saying:

“It’s time to set aside silly word games and to rise to the urgent test presented by this moment.”

Second, Bob Lord is a tax attorney and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He also serves a senior advisor on tax policy for Patriotic Millionaires. At Inequality.org, he proposes a graduated wealth tax on the rich:

“The United States is experiencing a level of wealth inequality not seen since the original Gilded Age. This yawning gap between rich and poor has unfolded right out in the open, in full public view and with the support of both political parties.

A malignant class of modern robber barons has amassed unthinkably large fortunes. These wealthy have catastrophically impacted our politics. They have weaponized their wealth to co-opt, corrupt, and choke off representative democracy. They have purchased members of Congress and justices of the Supreme Court. They have manipulated their newfound political power to amass ever-larger fortunes.”

Labor Day Thoughts

The Daily Escape:

Hatch Chili festival, Hatch, NM – September 2023 photo by Eddie Gomez

“If we weren’t all crazy, we’d all…go…insane…” – RIP Jimmy Buffett

Wrongo was sad to learn that singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett died on Labor Day weekend. Wrongo isn’t a Parrothead, yet like most people, he will sing along whenever “Come Monday”, “Margaritaville”, or “Son of a Son of a Sailor” pops up on the car radio.

Labor Day kind of means the end of summer, and back to school for kids and their parents. Having Monday off is great. But what exactly are we celebrating? One answer is that knowledge workers have won the tug-of-war over work from home (WFH).

The NYT’s Sunday Business section has an article “All That Empty Office Space Belongs to Someone”. They ask the question: “What happens if the nearly 100 million square feet of workplace real estate stays empty”? They’re only talking about NYC real estate. The article quotes a real estate executive Eric Gural, whose family company, GFP Real Estate, owns and manages more than 55 properties and 13 million square feet, or about 2% of the city’s office real estate, about what happens next:

“Rents will be lower. Occupancy will be lower. We won’t be as profitable. The worst part about that is that it might affect some of the philanthropy we do.”

That’s kinda tone deaf. Why would a worker want to rush back to the office so Gural’s family can keep up with their philanthropy?

Among Wrongo’s six kids, most spend at least a few days in the office each week. Some are in the office every day. The problem generally isn’t that everyone hates the office. Mostly they hate how office work has changed during the past 20 years: Open floor plans, with people squeezed together into pods.

Then there’s the commute. Few office workers can afford to live in NYC or even a subway ride away. The average one-way commute in New York takes 40.8 minutes. That’s far longer than the US average of 26.4 minutes. That average time means that many, many commuters to NYC are in a car, train or bus for much longer than 41 minutes each way.

This means that people had a major lifestyle change when they started to WFH. No more getting up with the birds to sit on a train for an hour or more, and then stand on a 90° subway platform BEFORE they even get to their desk!

WFH also was family positive since most kids had remote schooling, which the WFH parents could supervise. At the same time, childcare also cratered. So the pinch on parents to be in attendance 24/7 for their young kids was clearly helped by WFH.

Nothing will solve the commute problems for those who live outside of Manhattan, not even giving everyone a private office. Maybe if companies offered to pay for commuting costs and childcare, people would come back. How about it, corporate America?

Another big labor issue is how long it has taken for women to return to the workforce. In the years leading up to the pandemic, women’s labor force participation rates were rising faster than that of men. Several factors were driving it, in particular the female-dominated industries, such as health care and caregiving were among the fastest-growing industries. Also, women’s educational attainment has risen substantially.

That ended during the pandemic. But CNN has reported that the labor force participation rate for women in their prime working age hit an all-time high in June of 77.8%. Prime working age is defined as 25-54. It was the third consecutive month that women between the ages of 25 and 54 have set a record high for labor force participation.

Women are doing much better in the labor market, and clearly, the pandemic’s “she-cession” is over. Yet, barriers remain: Notably, they’re still making far less than men. In 2022, women in the US earned about 82 cents for every dollar a man earned, according to a Pew Research Center report released in March. That’s a big leap from the 65 cents that women earned in 1982. But it’s barely moved from the 80 cents they were earning in 2002, and certainly hasn’t kept up with inflation.

The WFH movement helped women as well: Home-based work allowed for more flexibility in hours, and that helped improve access to childcare with schedules that allowed for easier drop-offs and pick-ups.

We should remember what else Labor Day is about. If you enjoy not having to work weekends, or having a 40-hour work week, or having sick days and paid time off, you can thank labor leaders. Thousands of Americans have marched, protested and participated in strikes in order to create fairer, more equitable labor laws and workplaces — and many are still doing that today.

So have a cookout. Go to the big box stores and spend because it helps the economy.

Here’s your Monday Wake Up Call, America! The challenge during the next year is whether the currently hot jobs market will cool off sooner than inflation. It seems likely that the Fed will be able to cool inflation without plunging the economy into a recession. If so, the jobs market will continue to offer average Americans a shot at a better life.

To help you wake up, let’s celebrate Jimmy Buffett’s life. From the Rolling Stone in 2018:

“WHILE PRESIDENT TRUMP took shots at Democrats in conservative Pensacola, Florida on Saturday, Jimmy Buffett hurled musical insults at Republicans in West Palm Beach during a Democratic campaign rally for US Sen. Bill Nelson and gubernatorial candidate and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum.

While singing his hit ‘Come Monday’ at the ‘Get Out the Vote’ rally, Buffett tweaked its lyrics to make a dig at Trump changing ‘Come Monday’ to ‘Come Tuesday, things will change. Come Tuesday, we’re making a change. It’s been two insane years and it’s time to switch gears.’”

Buffett long supported Democrats. So have a margarita, and toast ol’ Jimmy. Here’s his laid-back cover of CSN&Y’s “Southern Cross”, performed live at the Newport Folk Festival in 2018:

Note the Parrothead regalia in the audience. Anyone else think he looks like Biden?

Why The Polls Are Wrong

The Daily Escape:

Belle, a water taxi in Camden, ME – September 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner

Happy Saturday, hopefully, you are getting a great start to a restful Labor Day weekend! This past week, we had friends from Los Angeles stop by the Mansion of Wrong. We had a few bottles of a delightful wine, and the question that never goes away came up again: “Why is Biden doing so badly in the polls?”

There really isn’t a good answer. The economy is doing fine, much better than the pundits expected it would be in the third quarter of 2023. But as Dan Pfeiffer points out:

“…somehow — against all common sense — the 2024 election between a competent President and an incompetent criminal — will be incredibly close. The Real Clear Politics polling average has Biden up by only 1.4%. Biden won the popular vote in 2020 by 4.5%. Given the strong Republican lean of the Electoral College, a Biden popular vote win of this size would likely mean that Trump ends up with 270 electoral votes.”

Now, Wrongo never relies on Real Clear Politics’ average of polls, but they’re not alone in offering up grim polling data, and the one thing Trump beats Biden on in surveys is running the economy, a very scary number :

While the actual economic numbers are good, people mostly look at how much money is in their pockets, asking: “What can I buy, given what I’m earning”? The August jobs report showed continued solid gains in aggregate pay for nonsupervisory workers even after inflation is taken into account. From the Bondad blog:

“Average Hourly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel increased $.06, or +0.2%, to $29.00, a YoY gain of +4.5%….”

YoY is year over year. By comparison, the most recent Consumer Price Index for July was 3.3%. Pay increases have been outpacing overall CPI inflation this year. So wages are creeping up, inflation is almost under control, and there’s no recession on the horizon.

A helpful statistic is that spending on pleasure boats is near previous highs, Axios reports:

“Why it matters: You don’t buy a boat unless you’re feeling fairly confident the economic wind is at your back. So this is a good sign for the economy. The ongoing boat-buying binge — which began during COVID shutdowns — is another strike against the once dominant “looming recession” narrative.”

One million used boats sold in the last 12 months! One guess as to who’s buying all of these boats: It isn’t the antifa-BLM Marxist globalists from big cities and blue states. Florida and Texas are in the top three states in revenues from boating.

And you won’t buy a boat unless you’re fairly confident that the economic wind is at your back. That means despite what people are telling pollsters, people are feeling pretty good about the economy.

Pfeiffer notes that all isn’t lost. As of now, Biden is in better shape politically than Obama was at this juncture. August of 2011 was the first (and only) time Obama’s approval dropped below 40%, and he was losing to a generic Republican. More:

“The primary reason for the statistical tie in the race is that Trump is holding onto more of his 2020 vote than Biden. In a NYT poll, 91% of Trump’s 2020 voters are supporting him again while only 87% percent of Biden’s voters plan to vote for him in 2024.”

“Among Biden’s 2020 voters, only 77% percent of Democrats in the poll have a favorable opinion of Biden, compared to 80% of Republicans for Trump.”

But Pfeiffer says we shouldn’t panic, because convincing people who have already voted for Biden to vote for him again is doable, and easier than convincing a Trumper to vote for Biden. But despite that, given the Reddish tilt to the Electoral College, we should assume that 2024, like the 2020 presidential election, will depend on a number of voters smaller than the number of attendees at a Taylor Swift concert.

A second point we talked about was Biden’s age. There are two referendums that will be a part of the 2024 presidential election. First, on Trump and his 91 counts. Second, on Biden’s age and whether he seems up to the task going forward.

It’s one thing for Biden to tell us about all that his administration has accomplished in 3 years. His results should be pitched to turn his vulnerability as an older person into a perception of wisdom. He needs to convince voters that the country is on a good path and that Biden, our captain, with his age and experience, has steered us to where we’re starting to see success.

Charlie Sykes suggests the pitch should sound like this:

“We’ve done the hard work. We took the punches. We had a plan and now it’s starting to turn around. So the question is, as we come back, who do you want in charge for the next four years?”

And when Republicans spew their litany of racial hatred, and class warfare, Biden should be saying:

“Working folks like you need cheaper prescription drugs, you need to be able to spend more time with your family by getting better wages for your labor…”

Ultimately 2024 will be about voter turnout. Convincing younger voters and those who aren’t fired up about Biden to come out to the polls will decide America’s fate.

Now take a beat and forget about the many crises we face. Let’s focus instead on our Saturday Soother. We’re expecting beautiful weather in the northeast, and much of our time will be spent outside. So join Wrongo in pulling up a comfy chair in the shade and spend a few minutes watching this lovely video of a Loon family swimming on a lake in a thunderstorm. It’s guaranteed to improve your outlook. You may want to bookmark this video to use whenever our politics are driving you nuts:

Four Indictments, 91 Counts

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise at Laite Beach, Camden, ME – August 2023 photo by Daniel F. Dishner

There’s plenty of good reporting and bad punditry out of Georgia. So Wrongo, as in the past, will limit what is said about it here. From the NYT’s Peter Baker: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…most Americans made up their minds about Mr. Trump long before prosecutors like Fani T. Willis or Jack Smith weighed in, polls have shown. He is, depending on the perspective, a serial lawbreaker finally being brought to justice or a victim of persecution by partisans intent on keeping him out of office.”

Republicans will continue to rationalize Trump’s criminal behavior. Their main talking point today is that the Democratic Party is part of a giant deep state cabal working to take down Trump. It is the Dems, not the Donald who are guilty of election interference. And what about the Biden Family Crime Syndicate?

The courts are finally treating Trump as the career criminal he’s always been. And many pundits are shaking their heads, saying that the shock to the American political system is going to be extreme because Republicans are angry.

What the pundits and the wingnuts don’t understand is that the rest of us are angry too. We’re livid that this cancer of a person has evaded justice after what he did post-the 2020 election. We’re enraged that his goons desecrated the Capitol. Finally, we nearly stroked out once we realized that after trying to overthrow our duly elected government, Trump and cronies seemed to get away with it.

And we plan to vote in historic numbers.

Republicans think they are the only side that feels passionately about Jan 6, but that is a huge mistake. Many Americans are angry that justice hasn’t been done. One foundational tenet of the MAGA movement is its southern anti-DC attitude. But Trump has in essence been saying to Georgians that they screwed up. That Georgians held a fraudulent election. It seems highly unlikely that framing will play well with a Fulton County jury. (Although it will only take one MAGA jury member to create a mistrial.)

A few other thoughts: The sooner journalists stop pretending that Republicans care about holding other Republicans accountable, the quicker we can move on to saving our democracy. Most mainstream journalists miss the moment because of their inbred need to show both sides of an argument. It was Jonathan Foster formerly of Sheffield University who said:

“If one person says it’s raining and another says it’s not, a journalist’s job isn’t to report that disagreement, but rather to look out the window.”

America’s journalists should heed Foster’s advice.

Finally, the importance of the Georgia case is that Trump can never pardon himself if he’s found guilty in Georgia. In fact, Georgia’s governor doesn’t have that authority. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Unlike the federal cases, which could be dismissed by a future Republican president, Georgia’s pardon process is in the hands of an independent board, not the governor. Under the state’s rules, a person needs to wait five years after they serve any prison sentences before they can be considered for a pardon.”

What kind of person holds on to a lie and builds a scaffold of dishonesty around it? At any point in Trump’s Big Lie, from voter fraud to conspiracy, Trump could have said, “I lost fair and square, and I’ll get him next time”. Many in his Party in Georgia did just that. But Trump pushed on. The Senate could have convicted him at a time when the Capitol was in a damaged hulk. That also could have spared the country where we are today. But most Senate Republicans couldn’t find the courage.

Another tragedy is the enduring distrust of and lost faith in those America’s institutions that still function, if tenuously, today. Whether Trump wins or loses these cases, or whether he wins the White House again, this damage will take decades to undo.

We have zero control over what happens next in the various courtrooms. We have no influence over the juries who will weigh the evidence. Whatever the result, it will be divisive. But we won’t heal unless we lance the boil. Yes that means Wrongo is saying that Trump is a festering abscess poisoning our nation.

We need open, transparent trials, with public records of all witnesses and evidence. No one should argue for pardoning Trump because they’re afraid of his insurrectionist allies.

Trump and America deserve REAL trials, with REAL sentences. And we can move forward from there.

We were wrong to pardon Nixon. We let other Republicans (like Reagan and Bush Sr.) slide based on a wrong-headed sense of respect for the office, setting a bad precedent. It encouraged later Republican presidents to think they could rely on magnanimity when none was deserved.

Nail the crooks, starting with Trump.

Have we reached peak MAGA?

The Daily Escape:

Glacier Park Lodge, Glacier NP, MT – August 2023 photo by Jack Bell Photography

Wrongo’s Magic 8 Ball says “yes”. Let’s start with the Ohio Republicans failing to pass a state constitutional amendment that would have required a 60% supermajority to amend their constitution instead of a simple majority. That means the GOP failed to make it more difficult to enshrine abortion as a right in the state.

Ohioans voted 57% against the amendment. It followed similar unexpected defeats in Kansas and Michigan, along with losing the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. These are Republican losses in very conservative places. From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A review of six statewide votes since last year, including Ohio’s, shows that in 500 of 510 counties, access to abortion outperformed President Biden’s 2020 results….Across those counties, including a lot of deep-red ones, the margin of support for abortion access topped Biden’s 2020 margin by an average of 26 points, a significant shift to the left….Of the 510 counties included in the analysis, only two counties that voted for Biden in 2020 also opposed access to abortion. Among Trump-voting counties, 81 supported that access.”

These local MAGA stalwarts are getting their clocks cleaned on culture war issues. Republicans have repeatedly shown that their abortion agenda and their authoritarian agenda are really one and the same. And this week’s sweeping pro-choice victory in red Ohio shows once again that a majority of voters find both of those linked agendas repulsive. Politico quotes a national Republican operative:

“It has become quite difficult to rely on state parties….Because people who are involved for the right reasons…are pushed out, and now you’re stuck dealing with fringe characters who don’t know how to win elections, can’t be trusted to manage resources, and play with people’s worst instincts.”

In the Ohio aftermath, it seems that Republican politicians are still thinking that women in America will forget about abortion rights by the time 2024 rolls around. But it turns out most normal people don’t care much for sex-obsessed Republicans peeping through their bedroom keyholes.

And there are other problems for state-level Republican Parties. The National Review reported that in four key states, the state Republican parties are collapsing, either by going broke and devolving into infighting:

“Even worse for the GOP, these aren’t just any states — Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota all rank as either key swing states or once-purple states that would be tantalizing targets in a good year.”

More: (brackets and parenthesis by Wrongo)

“If Republicans [lose]….the 2024 elections…(which would be their fourth straight loss)….a key factor will be the replacement of competent, boring, regular state-party officials with…blustering nutjobs who have little or no interest in the basics of successfully managing a state party or the basic blocking and tackling involved in helping GOP candidates win elections.”

Back to Politico:

“Michigan’s Republican party is broke. Minnesota’s was, until recently, down to $53.81 in the bank. And in Colorado, the GOP is facing eviction from its office this month because it can’t make rent. Around the nation, state Republican party apparatuses — once bastions of competency that helped produce statehouse takeovers — have become shells of their former machines amid infighting and a lack of organization.”

OTOH, there will be plenty of Republican money flowing into these states in 2024 general election via Super PACs. That will largely be directed at turning out Republicans in support of their presidential candidate, but it will also help down ballot Republicans as well.

Democrats see an opening in some swing states and are redoubling their efforts to win more state legislative races, but the national Republicans has given some help to local parties.

In June, the Minnesota State Party received a $160,000 transfer from Protect the House 2024, a fundraising committee backed by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Other state parties critical to the fight for the House including Pennsylvania, California and New York also got six-figure checks from the McCarthy-controlled fundraising operation in June.

The conservative youth PAC Turning Point USA has announced it’s expanding efforts in Arizona, Wisconsin and Georgia ahead of 2024. Turning Point plans to spend $108 million in those three states and says it has recruited 3,000 state party precinct leaders around the nation since 2020. They will use this group to influence state parties to replace traditional local GOP leadership.

Finally, two Republicans made moves to join Republican Senate primaries in which they aren’t wanted. In each case, the candidate could win the party’s nomination, but would almost certainly get beaten by a more moderate Democrat in the general election. Toxic cloud Kari Lake appears to be joining the Arizona race, and in Montana, Rep. Matt Rosendale wants to run against Democrat John Tester. Rosendale lost to Tester by 3 points in 2018. The state GOP’s choice is retired Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy.

All of this should be good for Democrats, but as always, turnout will decide the 2024 election. As long as Republicans keep serving up pretend culture war issues that are unpopular with voters, it looks like Dems will do better in 2024 than recent polling predicts.

Happy Saturday! It’s time for our Saturday Soother. Here in the northeast, we’re having temperate weather, with scattered showers later. So quickly grab tall glass of lemonade and a chair outdoors in the shade. Now spend a few minutes thinking about Robbie Robertson of The Band who died last Wednesday. Somehow, this one hurts Wrongo a little more than the deaths of most musical contemporaries. The big irony is Robertson is categorized in “Americana” music despite having been born and raised in Canada.

Wrongo has previously featured Robertson and The Band six times. Here are two tunes to watch. First, a reworking of The Band’s classic tune, “The Weight” written by Robertson and remade in 2019 for the 50^th anniversary of the song.

It was produced by the charity, Playing For Change and features musicians performing together across 5 continents, led by Robertson and Ringo Starr. The musicians are incredible, but whoever mixed and edited the video deserved a Grammy. The shift between vocalists and locations feels seamless. The sound is nicely balanced, and the editor also gives each musician a sufficient share of the limelight. Take a load off and turn it up. Trust Wrongo, you won’t be disappointed:

Second, here’s one from the 1978 epic “The Last Waltz” a documentary film by Martin Scorsese capturing The Band’s last performance. Watch and listen to “Further On Up The Road“, first recorded by Bobby “Blue” Bland. That’s Levon Helm on drums and Robbie Robertson on guitar along with Eric Clapton. A little known fact is that Clapton asked to join The Band in 1968. They said no:

In these two videos, we see Robertson as a young man playing alongside Clapton. And we also see him fifty years later as a 76 year old, reprising a song he had written in 1968. Thanks Robbie!

Bidenomics For The Win

The Daily Escape:

Daicey Pond, Baxter State Park, ME – July 2023 photo by Lily Hurd

And we’re back! Apparently we didn’t miss much, just that July was the hottest month in the Earth’s history, and there was a new Trump indictment to go along with the others. And the Eagles announced that they will be starting their farewell tour. Another farewell tour?

While listening to the BBC, Wrongo heard a pundit say that “indictments are Trump’s big political problem while Biden’s is the economy”.

Really? Lots of Americans still think the economy is doing poorly, and are upset about it. People have already forgotten just how much economic dislocation happened during the pandemic. We’re still in the midst of rebuilding the economy and getting back to normal. The pandemic was a stark reminder of just how fragile America’s supply chains are and why they needed shoring up.

But looking at objective measures, it’s impossible to think the economy is bad. Because from the actual numbers, this economy is doing really well. Noah Smith asks: What do we want from the economy?

We want employment to be high, meaning that as many people as possible who want jobs can get them.
We want inflation to be low, so that people have certainty about how far their paycheck and their savings will go in the future.
We want real incomes to rise, meaning that we’re able to consume more than we could in the past, or save more if we want to.

And all three of these are happening right now, so maybe we’ve been in a “vibesession”, rather than in a recession. Maybe decades of no-to-low inflation left people psychologically unprepared for what a modestly sharp but short inflationary period would feel like.

Also, our political polarization has led to many people wishing for the worst possible economic outcomes. That, more than anything else, is probably driving the narrative. Think of it like this: The average American’s reaction to rapidly rising prices and wages:

1) Wages go up: I did that

2) Prices go up: The economy did this to me

Conclusion? I’m good, but the economy is bad.

Despite that thinking, things really look fine! GDP growth is moderate. Inflation is cooling. The labor market is humming along. From the NYT’s Peter Baker:

“Inflation at long last is down. So are gas prices and Covid deaths and violent crime and illegal immigration. Unemployment remains near record lows. The economy, meanwhile, is growing, wages are climbing, consumer confidence is rising and the stock market is surging.”

Everything is headed in the right direction except for Biden’s approval rating.

Democrats had a major breakthrough in 2020 and 2021 when under Biden, the federal government finally spent at the levels we thought were required to pull the country out of an economic nosedive. The results were terrific. We’ve had positive effects on incomes, poverty, unemployment, and economic growth. However, when inflation really hit, Republicans and the economic establishment launched their counter-offensive: They blamed inflation on Biden’s programs. And that’s partially true.

Two things: Democrats haven’t unified around a program for fighting inflation that could be seen by Americans as an alternative to austerity. And Dems need an elevator pitch for voters that says, “we’re on top of the economy’s problems”.

According to the WaPo, a slide show circulating in June in DC showed that in polling, the Party was losing badly to the GOP on the most important issue of voters: the economy. The recommendation was that Dems shift messaging to “growing the middle class.” It was then that Biden started talking about “Bidenomics”. From Vox:

“Bidenomics is a…way to package some very real things. Legislatively, it entails items such as the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the CHIPS Act. On the regulatory front, it tries to boost competition in ways big, such as antitrust enforcement, and small, like eliminating junk fees.”

In contrast to both supply-side economics and neoliberalism, Biden is focused on altering the structure of the economy. Over the past year, manufacturing construction in hi-tech electronics, which the administration has subsidized through the Chips and the Inflation Reduction Act, has quadrupled. Tens of $ billions in infrastructure spending has funneled to the states for roads, water systems and internet upgrades. More clean-energy manufacturing facilities have been announced in the last year than in the previous seven years combined.

Even though polling shows that voters trust Republicans over Democrats on the economy, historically the economy has generally done better under Democrats. There’s no single reason that’s the case, but it’s true that Republicans have a straightforward message on the economy — spend less, slash taxes, weaken government oversight — that’s easy to understand.

Bidenomics is a way to try to change that. The goal of Bidenomics is two-pronged: To get Americans to see all of the good that there is in the economy right now, and to tie it back to Biden.

If Bidenomics continues to alter the structure of the economy in ways that help the vast majority, voters will give Biden another term and possibly reward Democrats with both Houses of Congress.

And if Bidenomics is successful, it will make the American economy stronger and fairer in the future.

Let’s close today by remembering Sinéad O’Connor, who died in July:

This wall art was painted by emmaleneblake in Dublin near The George, a gay bar. Sinéad was right about the Church. Let the memory of her anger be fuel for other battles!

Monday Wake Up Call – July 24, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Avon, NC – July 2023 photo by Donna Cartwright Hayden

We’ve reached a point in our politics where the silly season never ends. The truth is slowly beginning to seep into the public’s consciousness that lifelong scofflaw Donald J. Trump is in deep shit. Wrongo is referring to the slate of trials the Former Guy is facing between now and the 2024 presidential election.

Florida US District Judge Cannon has just set a trial date for Trump’s classified documents case, so we can tally his busy legal schedule. As of now, the first item on the docket happens in October 2023. It is a civil lawsuit alleging he, his adult sons, and the Trump Organization were engaged in a $250 million fraud for inflating the values of his golf courses, hotels, and properties to obtain loans and insurance.

Next in line is the second bite of the apple for E. Jean Carroll. On January 15, 2024, (the same day as the Republican Party’s Iowa caucuses), Trump is again facing off against Carroll who won her last case against him. This time, she is seeking $10 million in damages for repeated attempts by Trump to defame her. The judge recently allowed Carroll to amend her lawsuit over Trump’s 2019 comments to include similar comments he made recently on CNN.

After that, the big trial fireworks begin with a March 25 case, where Trump will face a jury for the first time in a NY criminal case charging him with falsifying business records. The Manhattan district attorney’s office says Trump falsified records to cover up a reimbursement to his former fixer Michael Cohen, who advanced a hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The judge has warned Trump that he is required to attend every day of the trial, potentially keeping him off the campaign trail for a couple of weeks.

Then it’s on to the May 20^th classified documents case in Florida. Judge Cannon has set the classified documents case to begin in a two-week period beginning May 20, 2023. By that time, only a few states will not have voted in caucuses or primaries. By then, it’s likely that Trump will have a commanding lead in the race for the Republican nomination.

We still don’t know if Trump will be indicted on federal charges for attempting to stage a coup to remain in power despite losing the 2020 presidential election. The signs are that he will face more federal charges from Special Prosecutor Jack Smith within a few days or weeks.

Also, state charges in Georgia could come sometime in August. The Fulton County DA is considering bringing racketeering and conspiracy charges in connection with Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.

These two trials could both be scheduled before the Florida documents case. And unlike the Florida documents case, they aren’t reliant on classified information which presents almost certain opportunities for delay by Trump’s lawyers.

The Jan 6 federal case will be tried in Washington DC. It would presumably take precedence over the Georgia case. It is likely that the presiding judge will schedule the trial for as soon as is practicable, irrespective of preexisting trial schedules in other cases. Otherwise, it’s hard to see a trial happening before a year from now.

If all of these cases move to a trial, it seems likely that Trump will be in court pretty much continuously from October 2023 (at a minimum) through the end of June 2024. The Republican National Convention is scheduled for mid-July in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But, there’s a real possibility that at least some of these cases will not be resolved by then.

For all of these legal problems, anti-Trump people can do nothing to bring about his conviction in one or more of these cases. This is in now the hands of judges and juries over which we have zero control. It will be more than frustrating to stand helplessly on the sidelines as the trials unfold over the coming year.

And it’s possible that Trump could win some cases, even though on the merits, he doesn’t seem to have a viable defense in any of them. The friendliest jury pool he’s going to face is in the Florida documents case, but the evidence against him is overwhelming and incontrovertible. His best chance is that the judge who previously was absurdly friendly to Trump regarding these same documents, will exclude some evidence or otherwise steer the jurors toward a reasonable doubt. Short of that, he can hope that at least one juror will be MAGA enough to refuse to convict, leading to a hung jury.

The other trials in New York and DC, will have more problematic jury pools for Trump. There’s probably as good a chance that he will lose all of these cases as that he’ll get a hung jury and mistrial in any one of them. Outright acquittals seem impossible because the cases are just too strong.

Time to wake up America! On the legal front all we can do now is hope for victory. To help you wake up watch and listen to Todd Rundgren and Utopia perform “Just One Victory” on their 2018 Reunion Tour. Wrongo never was a fan, although this anthemic song hits the right notes for Trump’s legal battles, and he’s kept his voice even after all these years:

“Give us just one victory, it will be all right”

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

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Monday Wake Up Call – July 24, 2023