Category: Voter Turnout

An Economic Closing Argument for Democrats

The Daily Escape:

Snake River, Grand Teton NP, WY – October 2022 photo by Hilary Bralove

Yesterday, Wrongo said that the Dems should add a focus on inflation and the economy to their closing argument when asking voters to keep them in power. Here’s a suggestion of what that argument might look like from David Doney (@David_Charts on Twitter). Doney draws his stats from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (known as FRED) and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Below is an extract from his Twitter feed:

Jobs: More Americans are working than at any time in history: 153 million. The economy now has 500k more jobs than it did before the pandemic. The unemployment rate is 3.5%, the lowest since 1969. With more people working there’s more spending.

Wealth: The bottom half of US households have an average real net worth of $67,200, the highest ever. Under Trump, it was just $34,648. (While Trump gave tax cuts to the wealthy. Biden gave them to the middle and lower class.) Even those in the 50th to 90th percentile are doing better under Biden: average real net worth is now $747,010 vs. $699,530 under Trump. It’s important to remember that these are averages not median net worth numbers, which are lower. Median net worth in the US is $121,700, up 17.6 % from 2016.

Income: Real wages are higher than before the pandemic. Despite what some pundits say, they have outpaced inflation. From February 2020 to last month, wages for production and non-supervisory workers have risen 15.6%, while the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has risen 14.6%. So Americans’ purchasing power is greater today than it was in 2019.

The deficit: Our annual federal budget deficit is 50% lower than it was last year. It was $2.8 trillion in fiscal year 2021 and is $1.4 trillion this year, according to CBO estimates. Government income is up and government spending is down: Revenues are $850 billion (or 21%) higher and spending is $548 billion (or 8%) lower.

This continues the historical pattern of Democratic administrations being more fiscally responsible than Republicans. Yet the GOP’s closing argument includes screaming about Democratic spending which they say caused inflation. They are trying to convince Americans who either don’t read or bother to check facts that it’s the Democrats who spend like crazy. The opposite is true.

The economy: The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) hit an all-time high of $20 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2021, and currently is $19.9 trillion (for the second quarter of this year). The Atlanta Fed thinks GDP will grow 2.8% in the third quarter. So no recession just yet. In fact, Doney reports that the six key indicators that the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) uses to decide if we’re in a recession  were all up from June to September.

Health insurance: Biden revived the Obamacare signup campaigns and advertising that Trump had eliminated. And now 92% of Americans (and more than 98% of kids) have health insurance, an all-time high. Before Obamacare, close to 18% of Americans had no health insurance.

There’s no doubt that many Americans are worried about the high prices at the grocery store and at the gas pump. But one reason inflation has increased is because people have more money in their pockets. Americans have $4 trillion more in their bank accounts than they did before the pandemic. So they’re working, earning money, and spending it.

The other factor driving inflation is the consolidation of companies into just a handful of major corporations, and the ability of those corporations to jack up prices. Corporate profits are at a 70-year high, yet American corporations are still raising prices. They’re doing so because there’s so little competition.

Republicans in Congress won’t stop corporate price gouging. And we know the GOP will blame Dems for high federal spending (which, as said above, is down 8% so far vs. last year). But the GOP won’t let the facts get in the way of their bad policies. They’ll use this manufactured crisis, along with refusing to raise the debt ceiling, to try to force Democrats to support cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and other social safety net programs.

As blog reader T. Grosso commented yesterday: (Brackets by Wrongo)

“It is such a good question to ask what the Republicans will do if they gain control. We obviously know the answer. They will block anything and everything that might help people so they can blame Biden for [it in] 2024.”

The Democrats’ closing argument needs to include a strong, populist message. They should be saying that Democrats believe people must come before profits. Dan Pfeiffer reports:

“The folks at Data for Progress tested a series of messages on inflation and found that emphasizing corporate greed was an effective pushback on concerns about inflation.”

OTOH, the inflation and economic message must be carefully crafted. It could backfire with some who have missed the current jobs market and are struggling to pay their bills.

Democrats should acknowledge the pain caused by high prices while pointing out that a strong economy and the Party’s fiscal responsibility are helping many people cope with higher prices today and will help to reduce inflation in the near future.

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More Midterm Madness

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Thumpertown Beach, Cape Cod, MA – October 2022 iPhone photo by Wrongo

We’re back from a truly delightful time with family and friends on Cape Cod. The next few days will be hectic because we’re leaving again on Sunday, this time for a week in London.

About the November midterms. It seems clear that the polls are tightening in many races. Some of that is natural and to be expected as the political horse races head down the stretch. Some pundits like Amy Walter, think that this demonstrates that the Dems have reached the ceiling for their support in 2022:

“So, basically, what…I’m hearing from…sources in the campaigns is that Democrats may have maxed out that enthusiasm gap they got over the issue of abortion and that growing beyond that is going to be the challenge.”

Robert Hubbell agrees that recent polls have swung towards the GOP, but questions whether these polls reflect the facts on the ground:

“Never before in American history have we faced the elimination of an existing Constitutional right for 51% of the population. Never before have we faced a party whose platform seeks to end the very democracy they seek to rule…”

More from Hubbell:

“Do polling models account for those unprecedented conditions? I don’t know. Do polling models account for the fact that increases in registration among women are driven by outrage over the ruling Dobbs? I don’t know….Polls are not destiny.”

Polling isn’t an exact science. Much depends on how you frame the questions, and who gets asked the questions. One distinction is whether the poll asks the questions of “registered voters” or “likely voters.” Not all registered voters are likely to vote, but all likely voters are registered voters. In some polls Republicans are doing better among likely voters than they are among registered voters, meaning that in those polls, Republicans may be assumed to be more “enthusiastic” than Dems about getting to the polls.

Pundits think that voters’ view of the economy will decide how they vote. Since the 1990s, both Parties have been locked in a battle over which Party voters trust to handle the economy. Democrats have tended to win elections when they had a clear lead on this question, such as during the 2008 financial crisis or in the 1992 election. Otherwise, they’ve either lost, or the elections were very close.

From The Economist: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“According to a new Gallup poll released on October 3rd, 51% of adults now trust Republicans more with the economy, compared with 41% for the Democrats. Though Republicans held the advantage on Gallup’s question for much of the past decade, the gap between the parties’ ratings is now the widest since 1991.”

Sounds terrible for Dems, no? More from The Economist:

“…such a gap should doom the Democrats in this November’s midterm elections. If the average voter trusts Republicans to make them more prosperous, surely they would not deliver Congress back to the hands of the Democrats? After all, what voter casts a ballot against their own personal prosperity?”

But according to a survey carried out for The Economist by YouGov, there are plenty of voters who prioritize other issues. Each week, YouGov asks 1,500 Americans to pick their most important issue from a list of problems. Over a third currently say that either the state of the economy or inflation are their top concerns, followed by roughly 10% each who say it’s health care, climate change or abortion.

Fewer mention civil rights (7%), national security (6%), or crime, immigration, and government spending (5% each). Less than five out of every 100 Americans say it’s either education, or gun control.

The poll shows that while just 4% of adults said that abortion was their primary issue last October, nearly 9% say so today. Among likely voters having abortion as their primary issue, 75% of them say they will vote for Democrats versus just 21% of Republicans.

That’s a much wider gap than the advantage Republicans enjoy on the economy. The Economist notes that if just 20% of likely voters prioritized the economy above all other issues (rather than the 31% who currently say they do), Democrats would be ahead by 7 percentage points and likely keep the majority in both Houses.

Therefore, the outcome of November’s midterms may depend on whether the Democrats can make gains among those voters who mostly care about the economy. We see that the media and many politicians conflate inflation or the Dow Jones stock average with the economy, but maybe they should be covering that Industrial Production in the US is at an all-time high.

Manufacturing is higher than at any previous level with the exception of the end of 2006 through early 2008. And those elusive manufacturing jobs that went to Asia? We’ve added 1.5 million manufacturing jobs since April 2020, reaching a level not seen since December 2008.

But go ahead and vote Republican because of gas prices:

Voting has already begun in a few states, but we really don’t know what’s going to happen in the midterms. It will boil down to turnout. Our destiny is in the hands of those who bother to show up and many people don’t believe that their vote even matters.

Stop worrying. Instead, do something to help get out the vote. If you don’t have the money, donate your time. If you don’t have the time, donate your money.

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Saturday Soother – October 15, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Lobster boats at dusk, Lubec Harbor, Lubec, ME – October 2022 photo by Rick Berk Photography

Wrong and Ms. Right are chilling on Cape Cod. We took time out from doing nothing to watch the Jan. 6 Committee’s most likely final hearing on Thursday. You know by now that the Committee voted unanimously to subpoena Trump. You also know that he will never appear.

The Committee has to wrap up its work and publish it before the next Congress is sworn in, January 2023. And the most important thing that they can do is to make a criminal referral to the DOJ for Trump and a few of his fellow travelers like Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, John Eastman, and Jeffrey Clark. The Committee also must share the entirety of their investigative record with the DOJ as soon as possible.

If they delay until the new Congress is sworn, and if it’s controlled by Republicans, the new Speaker will dissolve the Committee and refuse to cooperate with the DOJ.

But let’s move on and talk a little about the price of chicken. It’s going up bigly, but rotisserie chickens at Costco are still $4.99, as they have been for more than 20 years.

Chicken is our most popular meat: Americans consume 99 pounds per capita, way more than beef (56 lbs.), pork (52 lbs. ) or fish (19 lbs.). That’s 20 whole chickens per person, per year. The Hustle reports that about 10% of the chicken we eat are rotisserie cooked, and that Costco sells around 12% of all rotisserie chickens in the US. They began selling a 3 lb. cooked chicken for $4.99 in 2000. And 22 years later, the bird still costs $4.99. Adjusted for inflation, the Costco rotisserie chicken should be selling for $8.31, but they’re keeping the price low because nobody walks into Costco and comes out with just one chicken.

Costco says that they are losing a ton of profit on cheap chicken. In 2015, the CEO estimated that the lost profit was around $40 million. They have worked to control costs by opening their own chicken processing facility in Nebraska in 2019. That one facility produces 43% of Costco’s rotisserie chicken requirements. Costco reports that it saves them 35¢/chicken. And their rotisserie chickens have their own Facebook page with 19k followers.

Want to save on your food bills? Eat more Costco chicken.

It’s time for us to spend a few minutes decompressing from another week of crummy news. That means it’s time for our Saturday Soother. As Wrongo writes this, he’s looking at an Atlantic Ocean tidal inlet. The weather for the past week has been fantastic, but we’ve had very high winds and lots of rain to start this weekend.

Still, the shore birds are congregating on a small sand bar that’s visible at low tide in front of our rental house. They are often joined by a solitary man who motors over in a small skiff and spends an hour bent over at the waist with a clamming rake, hunting for shellfish treasures. He seems reasonably successful, returning every day at low tide to toss a bunch of clams into a plastic bucket, hop back in the skiff and motor away.

Wrongo couldn’t bend over at the waist and rake for an hour without needing spine surgery.

As you cruise into the weekend, start by brewing up a mug of Kenya Nyeri Hill coffee ($12.50/12 oz.) from Road Map Coffee works, in Lexington in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The roaster says that it has a chocolaty finish with notes of red currant and tangerine zest.

Now grab a seat on the deck and listen and watch “Kol Nidrei” by Max Bruch. Bruch wrote it in 1880. It is an Adagio based on two Hebrew Melodies for Cello and Orchestra, consisting of a series of variations on two themes of Jewish origin. Many mistakenly believed that Bruch was Jewish because he wrote this piece, but he was not. From Bruch:

“Even though I am a Protestant, as an artist I deeply felt the outstanding beauty of these melodies and therefore I gladly spread them through my arrangement…”

Here it is played in 2018 by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under the direction of Paavo Järvi. The cello soloist is Mischa Maisky, who was born in Ukraine:

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The Midterms Need Your Support

The Daily Escape:

Fort Hill, Eastham, Cape Cod, MA – October 2022 photo by Wrongo

Anyone else getting nervous about the midterms? As Wrongo has said, the avalanche of frantic email solicitations from Democrats can worry you even if you are by nature, an optimistic person.

Wrongo has recommended three Senate candidates as worthy of donations: Fetterman in PA, Kelly in AZ, and Warnock in GA. But there are other paths to retaining the Senate for Democrats.

Wrongo wants to add Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) to that list. He’s currently in a virtual tie with the execrable JD Vance to succeed the retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH). But Trump won Ohio by 8 points in 2020. One issue for Ryan is that the Democratic campaign funding arms have not been very supportive of Ryan in his bid to help them retain the Senate. NBC has reported that the decision by Democrats to put money elsewhere reflected a judgment about which races they believed they were most likely to win.

But Ryan’s surprising showing thus far in Ohio indicates that those judgments may not have been correct. While Vance has raised about $46 million, principally from Mitch McConnell ($30 million and from authoritarian entrepreneur Peter Theil ($15 million), Ryan has relied on small donors to fund his campaign. Still, with four weeks to go, Ryan has a decent chance of pulling off an upset (assuming the polling is accurate). If Ryan wins, it almost certainly ensures that Democrats maintain their majority in the Senate.

ICYMI, on Monday, Ryan debated Vance. The consensus is that Ryan easily beat him. From Jennifer Rubin in the WaPo:

“Ryan’s performance should be mandatory viewing for Democratic contenders. They should pay attention to Ryan’s tone and demeanor. He repeatedly took down his opponent without appearing nasty. His tone was more incredulous (Can you believe this guy?) than angry. Ryan looks like a regular guy. He appeared totally at ease, often standing with one hand in his pocket.”

From Ryan in the debate: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“We need leaders who have courage to take on their own party, and I’ve proven that, and he (Vance) was called an ass-kisser by the former president. Ohio needs an ass-kicker, not an ass-kisser.”

Ryan also challenged Vance’s support for police by reminding voters that Vance had contributed money to a defense fund for a Jan. 6th rioter.

Ryan’s being one point ahead with a month to go, and his shellacking of Vance in the debate should give Democrats some hope that he has a decent chance to pick up a Senate seat for Democrats in Ohio. So send him some dough at his direct site: https://timforoh.com/. Going direct means he won’t have to share a portion of your money with other candidates, which is what happens when you give to Vote Blue.

Wrongo stumbled across another idea (hat tip, Robert Hubbell) that you might consider using in an effort to get out the vote for the midterms. It’s called relational organizing, by which you reach out to your friends directly. Studies show texts from friends are 29 times more effective at bringing positive results than texts from strangers. And SwipeBlue is an app that helps you find all of the Democrats in your contact list by matching your phone contacts to the public voter files. It is secure, and since it doesn’t save the data, it also protects your privacy.

The app helps you divide your contacts into Blue and Red. The contacts that aren’t in either bucket can be coded Green. You can then text your Democratic friends with a call to vote by swiping the blue ­­- like Tinder for voting. The app then helps you to send them a customizable get out the vote text.

It can also help with registering them to vote, or to vote absentee.

This is critical since at least one current poll from the Morning Consult, shows that Democrats are flagging in voter enthusiasm. The chart below compares voter enthusiasm in 2018 with 2022. Democrats are lagging by 6 points over 2018:

Republicans are only one point lower than they were in 2022. While Independents are 6 points higher, there’s no reason to think that all of that increase will break toward the Dems. So texting your friends an encouraging message may be important.

This message while relaxing on Cape Cod is that we can’t relax. So open your wallets in races that are close and try texting a few friends.

Both could make a big difference.

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Saturday Soother – October 8, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Fall at Lake Gloriette, Dixville Notch, VT – October 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

(There will not be a Sunday Cartoon column this week. Wrongo and Ms. Right are off on their annual visit to Cape Cod, MA to see family and friends. It’s Oysterfest, people! Columns will be light and variable for the next 10 days.)

The midterms are just around the corner and if you’re planning to open your wallets to support Senate candidates, Wrongo suggests that you include Ralph Warnock (D-GA), John Fetterman (D-PA) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) in your budgeting. If you are particularly flush, you can add to this list.

But today, Wrongo is venting his frustration with the tsunami of emails and texts he receives from Democratic candidates and organizations. Small dollar fundraising, that is the art of getting money from ordinary folks, has apparently been perfected by Democrats. Sadly that seems to entail creating a constant state of panic via email and text. From Wrongo’s inbox:

…”we have bad news. NO ONE is donating to help us re‑elect Raphael Warnock. Our MAJOR fundraising deadline is at 11:59 PM, and you IGNORED our first email!”

From Mark Kelly:

“This is your last chance to donate before the debate ends and we need your help, we can’t fall short. We’re closing in on this crucial goal. So, before time runs out, we need you to add one more donation to help push us over the top.”

From Val Demings:

“WE TOLD YOU: If we can’t hit our fundraising goal, we can kiss Florida GOODBYE. We can’t launch an outreach campaign with no funds in our bank!”

Democrats are correct. These days, there’s plenty to panic about, but isn’t that part of the problem? We’d be frazzled enough just by the news. Do we have to be reminded on a daily basis by Democratic candidates that we should be frazzled?

After Citizens United created a crisis in how to fund our politics, Democrats were able to deal with the problem by growing online small dollar fundraising for candidates. It started out as a decentralized effort by individual candidates, and it brought in tons of money. It also helped individuals feel that they were invested in the political process.

Now it’s institutionalized. All Democrats have the same lists. That’s efficient in some ways, but in other ways, it’s a problem. It leads to terrible uses of the money, such as dumping endless dollars into hopeless campaigns like the 2020 Senate races in Kentucky (Amy McGrath) and in Maine (Sara Gideon).

McGrath was a terrible candidate and of course, Mitch McConnell won. Sara Gideon was so overloaded with money that she couldn’t spend it all. These retail donations made no meaningful difference in her race against Susan Collins, which she lost by a wide margin.

Tim Miller in the NYT:

“…hundreds of millions of dollars are being pumped into hopeless…candidates. At a minimum, that money could be used more efficiently by the Democratic Party….Aren’t there myriad better uses for all that altruism than pumping out…attack ads?”

Imagine if all of that money was poured into state house races where it could be used more effectively.

Our best funds raising tool has now been turned against us. What we thought would lead to great things could now threaten the Democratic Party. This season, as in the past, Wrongo has donated to Democrats, but it leads to receiving 6-8 ever more desperate emails/texts daily. Fortunately Wrongo believes in their cause. Otherwise, reading them might soon lead to death due to David P.’s “politics fatigue”.

Enough! It’s time for our Saturday Soother, a time to let go of another week of bad news while we reflect on where to place our limited political funding over the next 30 days.

Here on the fields of Wrong, our indoor plants that spend spring and summer outdoors are back inside. And our short sleeve shirts have been put away.

To help you contemplate your seasonal wardrobe, start by brewing up a mug of Colombia Cerro Azul Enano, ($26/12 oz.) by Marin, CA’s Equator Coffee.

Now grab a seat by a south facing window and listen to the Finale of Saint-Saens “Symphony No. 3 with Organ” performed in 2012 by the Auckland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Thomas, with Timothy Noon on the Organ. Saint-Saens who wrote this in 1886, was an accomplished pianist and organist, but this is his only symphony for organ. Also note the spectacular organ at the Auckland Town Hall. Play this LOUD to hear the deep register of the organ:

Wrongo and Ms. Right heard this piece played by the Waterbury Symphony on October 1st at Waterbury, CT’s St. John’s Episcopal Church, founded in 1732. It’s a beautiful old church with a very impressive organ that dates from 1956. Today the church reflects the changing demographics of Connecticut, having added a Hispanic ministry In 2003. Now the main Sunday service is in Spanish.

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Are Americans Fatigued By Politics?

The Daily Escape:

Early fall, Andover, ME – October 2022 photo by Eric Storm Photo

A lethal combination for democracy in America may be that not only do we field very weak candidates who hardly know how government works, but Americans are also woefully ignorant about our government.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center released its annual Civics Knowledge Survey in September. It focuses on the public’s understanding of the US Constitution. Here are some of its 2022 findings:

  • Less than half (47%) of US adults could name all three branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial), down from 56% in 2021. Here’s a chart of their findings on the branches of government:

A quarter couldn’t name any branch!

When asked to name the protections specified in the First Amendment, the number of respondents who could identify them had declined:

  • Freedom of speech was cited by 63%, down from 74% in 2021.
  • Freedom of religion was named by 24%, down from 56% in 2021.
  • Freedom of the press was named by 20%, down from 50% in 2021.
  • Right of assembly was named by 16%, down from 30% in 2021.
  • Right to petition the government was named by 6%, down from 20% in 2021.

Note how dramatically these results have shifted in just one year.

Over half (51%) said (incorrectly) that Facebook is required to let all Americans express themselves freely on its platform under the First Amendment. The First Amendment applies to the government not to private companies.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center said:

“When it comes to civics, knowledge is power….It’s troubling that so few know what rights we’re guaranteed by the First Amendment. We are unlikely to cherish, protect, and exercise rights if we don’t know that we have them.”

The precipitous decline in the First Amendment responses has Wrongo questioning whether the survey was performed accurately.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Annenberg found that having taken a high school civics class continues to be associated with correct answers to civics knowledge questions. In 2022, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents with at least some high school education said they had taken a civics course in high school that focused on the Constitution or judicial system, about the same as in previous years. More than a third of those with at least some college education (36%) said they had taken a college course that focused on the US system of government and the Constitution, significantly fewer than in 2021.

Yet, according to the Center for American Progress, only nine states and the District of Columbia require one year of US government or civics, while 30 states require a half year and the other 11 states have no civics requirement. This may explain why Americans are so weak on how their government operates.

Can we link Annenberg’s results about poor civic knowledge with this Gallup poll showing that Americans’ views of the two major US political parties remain more negative than positive? It also shows that the Republican Party’s favorability is now better than the Democratic Party’s:

The GOP’s favorable rating has edged up by four percentage points to 44%, while the Democratic Party’s rating slipped by the same amount, to 39%. With our political gridlock, along with high inflation and economic uncertainty, it’s understandable that neither Party gets high marks. But why did the Republicans’ position improve over last year? Is it that Biden’s poor ratings are dragging the Democratic Party down?

In October, 2021, Biden’s approval numbers stood at 45%. Today, he’s at 42.1%. That means he’s dropped 3 percentage points while the Party has dropped 4%. It definitely looks like he’s a drag on the whole Party. Since Annenberg tells us that only 47% of us can name all three branches of government, maybe we can conclude that Americans are getting their negative opinions about the two Parties from cable news.

Does anything explain the results of these two polls? Blog reader David P. offered a different view of Wrongo’s column on “Democracy Fatigue” in a comment. He says:

“Democracy Fatigue may be a misnomer. “Politics Fatigue” is closer to what I see around me and struggle to fight off in myself. The amount of money, airtime, phone messages, snail mail, etc. seems disproportional to discernible progress. News about scandal, verbal embarrassments and tactical mishaps outweighs discussion of policy alternatives or actual policy achievements.”

Has America just become too numbed by the news media “flooding the zone” with scare headlines about crisis after crisis to care much about something real – like the threat Republicans pose to our democracy?

Maybe our democracy is in peril not just because of poor civics knowledge. It’s always been a joke how badly people do when asked about the workings of government.

Maybe it’s that we’ve just tuned out. If so, goodbye democracy.

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Democracy Fatigue

The Daily Escape:

Fall arrives in Ouray, CO – October 2022 photo by Gary Ratcliff

Why is authoritarianism growing at home and abroad? There is a relatively new notion called democracy fatigue: Political passivity and disgruntlement that stems from the exhaustion of seeing endless politicking, but never seeing change that makes lives better.

We’ve had a constant barrage of existential crises: Covid, climate change, Russian imperialism, immigration, inflation, and growing economic insecurity. With needing to act on all of these (and a few more), the ideals of political compromise and letting everyone have their say, seem sadly dated.

On the American Right, many joke that what would make things better is a ‘benign dictatorship.’ Because democracy doesn’t get things done. Politicians everywhere are taking the opportunity to go with “the big lie”. It’s become about lying until your ideas are accepted as fact. From Heather Cox Richardson:

“After World War II, political philosopher Hannah Arendt explained that lies are central to the rise of authoritarianism. In place of reality, authoritarians lie to create a “fictitious world through consistent lying.” Ordinary people embraced such lies because they believed everyone lied anyhow.”

And distrust of democracy is growing. From Hal Gershowitz:

“…in the US, Germany, and Japan, somewhere between 20% and 40%…would embrace “a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliaments and elections.”

Hal reminds us that last April In France, Emmanuel Macron managed to once again defeat right-winger Marine Le Pen, but by a much narrower margin than in their last face off in 2017. Elsewhere:

  • In traditionally liberal Sweden, a coalition of right-wing parties, anchored by the far-right Sweden Democrats, took control of Parliament.
  • Hungary’s uber authoritarian, Viktor Orbán secured his fourth consecutive term as Prime Minister.
  • And most recently, in Italy, a coalition led by far-right leader Giorgia Meloni won and will put together Italy’s first far-right government since World War II.

Beyond these are the far-right British National Party, and the Norwegian Progress Party. While these are fringe parties, they can exert influence on whatever party leads in parliamentary democracies.

Freedom House, founded in 1941 and primarily funded by the US, also paints a bleak picture. It publishes an annual assessment of “Freedom in the World” which notes that authoritarianism is having a great run. Freedom House says in 2020, the number of countries  they listed as “no longer free” grew to the highest level in 15 years. Countries registering declines in political rights were also the highest in 15 years.

They note that a total of 60 countries suffered declines over the past year, while only 25 improved. As of today, some 38% of the global population live in Not Free countries, the highest proportion since 1997. Only about 20% of the world’s population now live in Free countries. The balance (41%) live in Partially Free countries.

The rise in authoritarianism may be due to the fact that in a sea of uncertainty, people are looking for a life raft. So they are willing to listen to and vote for those who articulate the importance of “traditional” values, and to assure them that the purported attack/assault on those values is a threat to them and their families.

The longing for benign dictatorship continues among America’s technology elites, whose denigration of politics flows from a Silicon Valley ideology that mixes libertarianism with authoritarian rule. They seem to want politics to work the way their products do: With elegant solutions implemented by smart, creative makers.

Their message is that surely, there’s a right way to get the job done: Fill the potholes, build the roads, keep our streets safe, get our kids to learn reading and math.

But whose potholes should get filled first? Should we keep our streets safe through community policing or long prison sentences? Should teachers be given merit pay, are small classrooms better, or should we lengthen the school day?

All of these issues can engender deep political fights. That’s because politics is disputes about values, not technical solutions. One person’s “right” is not another’s because people prioritize different values: Equity versus excellence, efficiency versus participation, security versus justice, short-term versus long-term goals.

Trump’s continuing control of the Republican Party is due to his ability to exploit grievance. His “America First” message continues to resonate with millions of voters who view the Democratic Party’s policies as an assault on America’s traditional values.

For the upcoming midterm elections we need to remember that constitutional democracy is not a gift from the gods.

It can be wrested away if we fail to uphold our democracy by voting this fall.

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Monday Wake Up Call – October 3, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Baxter Lake, Baxter State Park, ME – September 2022 photo by Laura Zamfirescu Photography

“We moved to a better neighborhood”. That’s the story of millions of Americans whose lives tracked toward success. In a way, that IS the American Dream, to escape from where you are to someplace better, safer, more upscale.

That version of the American Dream dovetails with our 21st century desire to be isolated from other people. We order dinner from Doordash. We buy housewares from Amazon. We buy automobiles online to avoid talking to the manager at the dealer.

Many of Wrongo’s grandkids say that they hate people, meaning that they only wish to speak with their friends, and not to anyone who might be their customer.

So is alone in a better neighborhood now the American Dream? What about billionaires? They already live in the best neighborhoods. They have battalions of staff insulating them from the rest of us. Have you ever had a meeting with a multi-billionaire? It isn’t an easy thing to do. Over the years, Wrongo has worked for two of them, and they were perfectly fine individuals. But they were completely insulated.

And they made their money the old-fashioned way, inheriting it from their Robber Barron parents.

Today’s mega-rich have mostly found ways to extract value from consumers and businesses via software. Take a look at Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. It’s a list dominated by people who have made money from the digital technology revolution.

And what are they doing with all this wealth? Many are quietly plotting their own survival against the world’s demise. Wrongo heard an interview with Douglas Rushkoff, author of “Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires”. Rushkoff is Professor at City University of NY, also a founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism, and a fellow at the Institute for the Future.

Rushkoff explained that billionaires worried about the end of the world know their money will likely be of little value. They’re thinking about political instability, social breakdown, and environmental catastrophe. A number of the world’s richest people are preparing for these events by building bunkers in New Zealand and in other remote locations. From Rushkoff:

“Most of these guys that we think are going to save us are actually wishing for the apocalypse. This is not just something that they fear. It’s something that at this point they’re ready to bring on.”

The book came from a meeting between Rushkoff and five billionaires at a desert resort. The topic? How to survive the catastrophe they know is coming. More from Rushkoff:

“And they spent the rest of the hour asking me really to…test their survival strategies…Do we go underground? Do I get an island?….What about space? And we ended up spending the majority of the hour on the single question, How do I maintain control of my security force after my money is worthless?…..because they’ve all got this money, they’ve…contracted Navy SEALs to come out to their compounds. But then they’re thinking, well, what do we do if our money’s worthless, then why are the Navy SEALs not just going to kill us and take all the stuff?”

Remember the back-yard bomb shelters of the 1950s: With that threat, how big would you want your bomb shelter to be? How luxurious and well-guarded? If the world were destroyed, you would try to live in that shelter full-time. Same thing with these billionaires.

Think about it: They want to use 21st century technology to revive a 13th century social order and impose it on the land and people who live around their protected fortresses. Missing from the plans of tech billionaires? Ideas to stop authoritarianism, decrease inequality, heal social divides, or slow climate change. Rushkoff explains:

“Even if we call them genius technologists, most of them were plucked from college when they were freshmen….They came up with some idea in their dorm room before they’d taken history, or economics, or ethics, or philosophy classes, and so they lack the wisdom needed to oversee their own perverse amounts of wealth.”

So maybe we shouldn’t rely on these guys to protect our future. In fact, Rushkoff says that these people who have the most power to change our current trajectory have no interest in doing so.

At this point in human history, making money is all that matters. In capitalist societies your worth is directly correlated to how much money you have. Everybody understands this. Billionaires are the most prominent symptom, but they aren’t the disease. Capitalism is the disease.

Time to wake up America! There is absolutely zero downside to relieving these people of a big slice of their wealth and putting it toward rehabbing our society. To help you wake up, watch, and listen to Carlos and Cindy Blackman Santana lead a Playing for Change global group of musicians in “Oye Como Va”:

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – October 2, 2022

Hurricane Ian should remind us of one thing: We’re all in this life together. It’s easy to let your partisan flag fly with “gotchas” since we’re talking about Florida.

We could be smug watching Republicans like Governor DeSantis, who happily stoked outrage about “government tyranny” over vaccines and masks, getting frustrated when his constituents fail to follow evacuation orders.

We could go for the schadenfreude when watching the up-by-your-bootstraps types in Florida line up for government assistance from FEMA. Or what was the best part? Watching DeSantis, whose entire MO is trolling Biden and the Democrats, happily accepting help from Dark Brandon and the federales.

JVL says it best:

“But here’s the thing: We’re not talking about debating points. We’re talking about human beings…. Who’ve had tragedy visited on them. And the only responses should be empathy, charity, and love.”

On to cartoons.

Uncle Sam does his job, regardless of politics:

Some say that stronger hurricanes aren’t an indication that the climate is changing:

Has DeSantis seen the light?

How to win elections:

The Former Guy gets inspiration for next time:

Putin now has fewer options:

Did hitting the asteroid give us any ideas?

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Preventing Stolen Elections

The Daily Escape:

Sunset, Heceta Beach, OR – September 2020 photo by Jack Arnold Photography

From the NYT:

“Activists driven by false theories about election fraud are working to toss out tens of thousands of voter registrations and ballots in battleground states, part of a loosely coordinated campaign that is sowing distrust and threatening further turmoil as election officials prepare for the November midterms.”

Government databases being what they are, voter rolls do contain errors, usually because voters have died or moved without updating their registrations. States typically rely on systematic processes as required by their laws to update or purge voter rolls.

Now, outside partisan Republican groups are attempting to use privately generated lists to “help” clean up the information. The Conservative Partnership Institute, (CPI) which has Mark Meadows as a senior partner, has distributed a playbook that instructs local groups on how to vet voter rolls.

CPI and other groups have challenged at least 65,000 voter registrations across eight counties in Georgia. In Michigan, another group challenged 22,000 ballots from people who had requested absentee ballots for the state’s August primary. And in Texas, residents sent affidavits challenging the eligibility of more than 6,000 voters in Harris County, the state’s largest county, which is home to Houston.

These are challenges by Republicans who are targeting Democratic cities and counties in battleground states. It takes time for local election officials to review each challenge, and in some cases, the challengers are angry and impatient.

What would bring most of this to a halt, is for cities and counties to impose a hefty filing fee that would be refundable in proportion to the number of valid challenges. Checking to see if a challenge is valid or not takes time and effort. States shouldn’t allow partisans to gum up the work of local election officials for free. If there’s no penalty for throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, everybody will toss some.

In a more positive note about protecting our democratic process, it appears a reform of the Electoral Count Act of 1887 will pass Congress later this year. Abuse of the vague language in that Act led Trump and his co-conspirators to try to overturn the 2020 presidential election on Jan. 6, 2021.

Since Jan. 6, we’ve seen an organized effort by Republicans in many states to fill key, lower profile election jobs with people who will only certify elections that Republicans win. To prevent that from happening again, both Houses have come up with legislation to reform the Act.

In a move that most likely guarantees passage of an electoral reform bill this year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced support for the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022.

Eleven Senate Republicans have already announced they are co-sponsoring it, more than enough for it to avoid filibuster and pass. The Senate Rules Committee on Tuesday voted 14-1 to advance the bill, with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Asshole) being the only committee member to object.

Last week, the House passed its version of Election Reform, with the support of nine Republicans. It’s similar, and both bills make it clear that the vice president’s role in counting Electoral votes at the joint session of Congress is purely ministerial.

That by itself would have saved a lot of bloodshed at the US Capitol on Jan. 6.

The Senate bill ensures that Electoral votes counted by Congress accurately reflect the results of each state’s popular vote for president, something the House bill also does. It also provides clearer guidelines for when eligible candidates for president and vice president can receive federal resources to support their transition to power, something that Trump vindictively stalled after the 2020 election.

It would also substantially increase the threshold for Congress to consider an objection to the Electoral votes of individual states, requiring that at least one-fifth (20%) of each Chamber sign on to such challenges. Currently, that requires just one Senator and one House member. From Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-MN):

“Right now, just two people out of 535 members can object and slow down and gum up the counting.”

So it sets a much higher bar.

This is good news for America. One, it helps ensure we continue to have peaceful transfers of power between presidential administrations. And two, we’re seeing bipartisanship around a key Constitutional issue.

It’s clear that these bills must be negotiated into a single bill that is approved before January when there’s a decent chance that Republicans will get control of the House.

Most pundits think it will come to a vote after the November mid-terms. Now we have to hope McConnell doesn’t change his mind.

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