The Wrongologist – Page 6 – Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Will The Guilty Verdict Matter?

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Cundy’s Harbor, ME – May 2024 photo by Eric Storm Photo

Everyone’s talking about it. Apparently, as with everything political, there are two sides. In real life, Trump was found guilty. For those of you who feel good about what the jury decided, Wrongo would give you all a big hug if you were nearby. In the Republican parallel universe however, he’s the victim of a Communist show trial. Wrongo hasn’t seen this many White men cry since Larry Bird retired. Don’t be surprised if the verdict caused Martha-Ann Alito to lower her “Stop the Steal” flag to half-mast.

You may not have already heard, but one of the jurors who voted to convict Trump regularly gets their news from Truth Social and Fox, meaning against all odds, they were convinced by the evidence. That was most likely the juror Trump was counting to deliver a hung jury.

At the Mansion of Wrong, we opened a bottle of good champagne.

In a nutshell, the reality facing Americans in the presidential election is that one of the two main contenders is a felon whose campaign is based on claiming the system is rigged. From Ed Luce in the Financial Times (paywalled):

“The Republican party’s nominee now joins his former campaign manager, senior political adviser, chief White House strategist, and national security adviser as a convicted criminal. The jury’s speed and unanimity leave little doubt about the watertightness of the verdict.…No matter what his lawyers advise, Trump’s court of appeal will be the US electorate.”

What happens between the guilty verdict in New York and inauguration day on January 20, 2025 will be a comprehensive stress test of American society. The decision will be made by the individual votes of the 244 million citizens who are eligible to vote, many of whom will stay home rather than vote.

November 5^th, 2024 isn’t the end point of this struggle because if the election outcome is disputed, societal forces beyond the courts and the ballot box will again come to draw up sides, as they did in the interregnum between November 2020 and January 2021.

The verdict matters. But is it enough to be decisive? The jury is, well, still out on that, and will be until November. But the verdict is a welcome outcome if you’re anti-Trump. It pierces Trump’s preferred narrative that he’s a winner and it’s plausible that it will depress some margin of potential Trump swing voters while activating the Democratic base.

Biden should seize the moment. He doesn’t need to speak about the details of the NY case, except to profess his faith in the judicial system and his respect for our fellow citizens who served on the jury. He doesn’t have to engage with the hysterical Trump defenders, except to point out their dangerous demagoguery and un-American attacks on our legal and judicial system.

Trump OTOH, can bitch and moan about unfairness all he wants, but only losers do that. And if you’re explaining, you’re losing. So while we should expect Trump’s conviction to have a very small effect on MAGA Republicans, it will be repellant to most centrists. By contrast, the verdict will be a heartening reminder to liberals and anyone invested in responsible government that the system can still work.

But first let’s take a deep breath and let this uplifting moment wash over us. Now, agree to start every conversation about him by saying: “Convicted Felon Donald Trump…”.

From Dan Pfeiffer:

“A lot of polling shows that a conviction is bad news for Trump. The highly respected Marquette University Law School poll recently did a split-sample. The first group was asked “If it turns out that Donald Trump is found guilty in his New York trial, would you vote for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump?” Biden led Trump 43-39. The other group was asked “If it turns out that Donald Trump is found not guilty in his New York trial, would you vote for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump?” In that group, Trump led 44-38.”

Other polls are similar. CNN released a poll in late April that offered some interesting details on the voters who could abandon Trump if convicted:

“They tend to be younger than other Trump supporters (64% are younger than 50 compared with 37% of those who would not reconsider), are less likely to be White (49% are people of color compared with 17% of those who would not reconsider), are more apt to report being Biden voters in 2020 (20% of them say they backed Biden in 2020 vs. 6% of those who would not reconsider) and are likelier to acknowledge that Biden legitimately won enough votes to win the presidency four years ago (63% vs. 22% among those who would not reconsider). They are also more apt to be politically independent (49% vs. 31%) and ideologically moderate (50% vs. 38%).”

These are some of the same voters who supported Biden in 2020 but who might defect in 2024. We need to remember that Trump is very good at distracting people from his problems by creating new ones, and most voters have very short attention spans.

America no longer has political guardrails. We no longer have standards which are bottom-line required in order for someone to be considered an admirable person. Apparently, a significant percentage of us are willing to elect anyone who yells the loudest or lies the most.

Still, there’s nothing but upside in believing Trump’s conviction will matter. Because if that turns out to be wrong, America will no longer be a place where it’s worth living.

Sadly, Wrongo has no plans for leaving it.

So it’s time for our Saturday Soother, where for the first time in forever, we can stay plugged into the news and talk about what’s going on with our friends and family. But we still need to take a few moments to consider the upcoming week and what it can mean for the nation. Since there’s beautiful weather in the northeast, start by grabbing a seat outdoors in the shade. Now, watch and listen to two musical performances.

First, “Song from a Secret Garden”, from an album by the Norwegian group, Secret Garden. Their music is sort of neo-classical new-age compositions. Here it is performed in 2022 by the Millennium Symphony Orchestra, a Korean group with solo Cello by Yoon Kyung Cho. It’s a lovely arrangement:

Second for levity, watch and listen to “I fought The Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four from 1966. The tune was written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets and covered by the Bobby Fuller Four. Their version of the song was ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004:

Democrats’ Grasp On Political Power Is Slipping

The Daily Escape:

Shiprock reflection, Shiprock, NM – May 2024 photo by Alex Spahn

Hope that everyone had a relaxing Memorial Day break. Despite our relaxing, time continued to march forward. And now some pundits are saying that America has entered the stretch run to the November presidential election. To a large extent, they’re correct. There’s only four months until early voting begins.

And its not just Trump we should be worrying about. At the moment, the Senate’s electoral map for November is grim for Democrats. They are certain to lose West Virginia, and the nine most competitive Senate races feature eight Democratic incumbents and Ted Cruz. And despite having a great Democrat (Colin Allred) running against Cruz, Texas may be the least likely to flip of those nine seats. So the odds on that are as long as drawing to an inside straight.

This brings up just how stacked against Democrats our Constitutional Republic has become. Fifteen years from now, states with 30% of the nation’s population will control 70% of the Senate’s seats. And the Senate is a legislative body where you need 60% of the votes (with certain exceptions) to bring a bill to the floor.

The difficult Senate map for 2024 means it is more likely than not that we may be kissing goodbye to adding additional progressive justices to the Supreme Court for some time, since a Republican-controlled Senate is unlikely to ever confirm a Biden nominee. (That’s assuming Biden wins in the fall.)

And it’s become clear that the Supreme Court as currently constituted is completely unfriendly to making voting easy for the masses. And they’re doing that in support of the Republican agenda. As Mark Jacob reminds us:

“The court has made a series of key rulings in recent decades that have handed Republicans major advantages, including:

The Bush v. Gore decision to block a recount in Florida in 2000 and award George W. Bush the presidency

The Citizens United ruling of 2010 that was rocket fuel for the political influence of wealthy donors and corporations

A 2013 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts that gutted the Voting Rights Act and cleared the way for voter suppression laws

A 2019 pro-gerrymandering ruling also written by Roberts that let political parties draw election maps to their unfair advantage. (The court takes the position that it can strike down gerrymandering if it’s done for racially discriminatory reasons rather than partisan ones….”

Back in the day, we all wanted to believe that the Supreme Court was MOSTLY unbiased and above the political fray. We’re now painfully aware that this “pillar” of justice is simply a facade. Alito and Thomas are doing whatever they please.

Most recently, as Democracy Docket reported, the Supreme Court ruled that South Carolina’s congressional map is not a racial gerrymander, reversing a lower court decision that had earlier struck down the same map. That decision will result in worse representation for South Carolina’s Black voters. This is in stark contrast with a Louisiana district court’s decision in which the state’s white voters were able to get a racially compliant map struck down as a racial gerrymander, meaning that it too will now favor White representation for a Louisiana district.

This now means that the Supremes have kneecapped the ability of plaintiffs either to prove racial bias or to change gerrymandered districts on the basis of partisanship. Black voters are reaping what was sowed by Chief Justice John Roberts in his 2013 opinion gutting the Voting Rights Act. The president of the South Carolina NAACP, Brenda C. Murphy, said about Alito’s decision against South Carolina’s map:

“The Supreme Court has failed. The American people’s voting rights have taken another gut punch, and the future of democracy in South Carolina is dangling by a thread,”

As if this isn’t bad enough, Matt Cohen, also of Democracy Docket, reports on yet another Right-wing group organizing to disrupt the national election this fall. The group is called United Sovereign Americans (USA). They’re planning a series of lawsuits aimed at upending the voting process in a handful of states by claiming that non-citizens are voting in the federal election. Forget that there is nearly zero evidence for the claim, and that non-citizen voting is already forbidden by federal law.

In early March, United Sovereign Americans filed a lawsuit in Maryland challenging the state’s voter roll maintenance practices and other election procedures. The group says they plan to file similar lawsuits in at least nine states challenging election administration and voting laws. And although a federal judge tossed out the Maryland lawsuit, the group recently filed an appeal to the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

The crux of USA’s argument is that inaccurate voter rolls lead to illegally cast votes, a civil rights violation because the US Constitution guarantees that right. The group’s claim is that when an election is marred by hundreds of thousands of illegal votes, it dilutes the power of lawful votes and violates the civil rights of US citizens.

This is a legal longshot. So the group is also building a grassroots movement that, much like in 2020 and 2022, is radicalizing a large group of people across the country to become election vigilantes. Their job is to swamp local election officials with false claims in an effort to derail current election policies in various states.

Finally, we turn to that bastion of democracy, Texas. The Texas Tribune reports that:

“Republican Party of Texas delegates voted Saturday on a platform that called for new laws to require the Bible to be taught in public schools and a constitutional amendment that would require statewide elected leaders to win the popular vote in a majority of Texas counties.

Other proposed planks of the 50-page platform included proclamations that “abortion is not healthcare it is homicide”; that gender-transition treatment for children is “child abuse”; calls to reverse recent name changes to military bases and “publicly honor the southern heroes”; support for declaring gold and silver as legal tender; and demands that the US government disclose “all pertinent information and knowledge” of UFOs.”

How is it that these Republicans are taken seriously as politicians in a state as diverse as Texas? Apparently, they don’t trust their ability to keep winning statewide elections, even if it’s hard to see when (or if) Texas may become a purple or blue state.

Trump has shown America that there really aren’t any political constraints. Add to that the removal by the Supremes of several of the real constraints we did enjoy. What’s left is that state political parties can do just about anything to keep themselves in power.

Texas shows that. State electoral colleges? Sure. Gerrymandering where you can lose 57-43 and still win? Sure. Make voting a pain in the ass for voters you don’t want to see vote? Sure.

With the rules as they are, there is little recourse. But if Dems say “Court Reform” every time they’re in front of a camera, in a few years, the message might start to gain adherents.

Cartoons Of The Week – May 26, 2024

The Republican War against women continued as Louisiana became the first state to criminalize abortion pills. The state’s Republican governor Landry signed a bill classifying mifepristone and misoprostol, two drugs used to induce medical abortions as controlled substances.

That puts the abortion pills in same category as anti-anxiety medications Xanax and Valium. The law makes it a crime to possess them without a prescription or outside of a professional medical practice, punishable by one to five years in prison and fines of up to $5,000.

The law will also make it harder for people who need misoprostol for other conditions. The drug is used to induce labor, treat miscarriages, reduce the risk of serious bleeding from ulcers and other indications. This is yet another reason for women everywhere in America to turn Republican legislators out of office.

And we’ve ended another week of decidedly ordinary cartoons, with many about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his flags. On to cartoons.

What the future is for women in Louisiana:

Then and now, where “then” wasn’t long ago:

The Red Flags are there. What should we do?

Alito is sitting pretty:

In a not-so-unlikely future:

Haley backtracks on Trump:

Why do Republicans always minimize the Trump outrage du jour?

Memorial Weekend Musings

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Paines Creek, Brewster, Cape Cod, MA – May 2024 photo by Bob Amaral Photography

Wrongo and Ms. Right just returned from a whirlwind visit to family in Western MA and from there to family on Cape Cod, MA. We then moved on to the Havanese National Dog Show in North Kingston, RI. Now, we’re happy to be back at the Mansion of Wrong, where most of our flowering plants are in bloom or are budding.

Happy Saturday, and welcome to Memorial Day Weekend, when we remember those in the military who died in service to the country. Before 1971, it was called Decoration Day, which was first observed on May 30, 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of both Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. Back then, it was our most solemn holiday.

Memorial Day is Monday, when we mourn the soldiers we knew, and we briefly remember those we never knew personally. By now, the standard American public’s response is, “thank you for your service”. Saying it has become a reflex, like “bless you” when someone sneezes. Our default position is to thank, but not to think. For most of us, America’s foreign wars are a kind of elevator music. Always present, but we barely notice them.

So maybe we watch our town’s parade. There’s likely to be a cookout. It isn’t about love of country. It’s about sad Facebook emojis, Memorial Day mattress sales, and burgers on Monday

Let’s take a moment to think about the wars we are currently waging in Ukraine and Israel. Alex Vershinin, a retired US Army Lt. Col, has an article at RUSI “The Attritional Art of War: Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine” about the costs of war and how countries fight them in different ways, which can create great difficulty for the combatants: (brackets and emphasis by Wrongo)

“The US (and Israel) are set up to conduct high intensity, airpower heavy conflicts. Russia has long preferred attrition and that is the battle plan adopted by [Hamas]…Attritional wars require simple to operate weaponry since the odds [are] that both sides will have their experienced and well-trained forces badly thinned, forcing them to rely more and more on not-well-trained recent inductees. And of course being able to produce armaments in huge volumes is also important. The Western dismissiveness towards this strategy, seeing it as primitive, is setting it up for a fall.”

Satyajit Das, a former banker takes a similar view: (brackets by Wrongo)

“War requires massive amounts of equipment, munitions and manpower…..Western powers are currently struggling to match Russia and China in producing armaments for its client states [Ukraine and Israel]. The US and its allies have [not prioritized]…heavy manufacturing essential for weaponry in favor of consumer goods and services.”

This is econospeak for saying that the US and Europe are unable to keep the weapons supply chain full for the two wars they currently support. More:

“In contrast, their opponents have prioritized military manufacturing and maintaining inventories for armed conflict. Western industrial ecosystems, frequently now privatized,…lack the necessary capacity and surge capability.

It has always been true that sophisticated weapons systems can be countered by low-cost and low-tech improvisation. We’re seeing this in Ukraine with the use of cheap drones and missiles that can alter the battlefield situation.

That stands in contrast to America’s ‘boys-with-toys’ syndrome that places its faith in expensive high tech weapons, such as the F35 jets that cost around $150 million. Or Patriot Air Defense Systems that cost over $1 billion, with each interceptor missile costing a further $6-10 million. Individual artillery rounds can cost upwards of $3-5,000.

Given the Russian strategy of attrition, degrading Ukraine’s ability to finance its military action is an essential tactic. Russia’s targeting of industrial and agricultural infrastructure combined with the displacement of manpower has reduced Ukrainian output by about 35%. The cost of rebuilding what has been lost in power plants and other infrastructure is thought to be around $500 billion. Soon, Ukraine will need to restructure the country’s $20 billion international debt to avoid default.

Israel’s obliteration of impoverished, aid-reliant Gaza is economically pointless, unless the goal is to drive Gaza residents away. How and when Gaza gets rebuilt is unknown, but certainly it will take decades. OTOH, Israel’s economy has shrunk by as much as 20%. The call-up of reservists for military service and flight of talent out of the country has disrupted its industries. The conflict has cost Israel around $50 billion (10% of GDP) while increasing Israel’s debt. Its credit rating has been downgraded.

Neither of these wars can go on indefinitely. Ukraine and Israel are reliant on their Western backers who will soon be less able to support them financially or in their demand for more weapons. And in both cases the enemy is conducting wars of attrition. Those type of wars last longer and they test both a warring country’s industrial capacity and its borrowing capacity. From Vershinin:

“Unfortunately, many in the West have a very cavalier attitude that future conflicts will be short and decisive. This is not true….Even middling global powers have both the geography and the population and industrial resources needed to conduct…attritional wars.”

If the West is serious about a possible great power conflict, say between the US and China, or between NATO and Russia, the West needs to look critically at its industrial capacity, mobilization doctrines and their ability to conduct a protracted war.

Today, most US war games take place over a single month of conflict. As Afghanistan and Iraq have taught us, that isn’t a likely outcome. The attritional strategy is counterintuitive to most US military officers. Western military thought views being on offense as the means of achieving the decisive strategic goal: forcing the enemy to come to the negotiating table on unfavorable terms.

But they should know better. All of their recent combat experience acquired in overseas operations says when we’re fighting a war of attrition, we lose.

Anyway, it’s Saturday and time for our Saturday Soother. Here is some beautiful (and meditative) music for your Saturday. The Adagio in G Minor is attributed to Tomaso Albinoni, but actually was composed by 20th-century musicologist and Albinoni biographer Remo Giazotto, purportedly based on the discovery of a manuscript fragment by Albinoni. Albinoni died in 1751, and Giazotto obtained a copyright for the Adagio in 1958.

Is Biden Doing As Badly As The Media Says?

The Daily Escape:

Wisteria, Seattle Japanese Garden – May 2024 photo by Lisa Ketchum

(New columns may be light and variable for the rest of the week as Wrongo and Ms. Right visit family in New England)

Wrongo and Ms. Right spent Sunday celebrating the college graduation of a granddaughter-in-law. That led to some discussion about the current wave of campus demonstrations and how college students seem so lukewarm about Biden.

Wrongo asked if anyone was aware that Biden had delivered the commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA earlier that day. Morehouse is one of the HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). None of them knew he was even speaking at a graduation. And given the uproar on campuses across the nation and what we’re hearing about how Black people are moving away from Biden, their thought was that it wasn’t going to be a good day for Biden.

Turned out that Biden had a pretty good day at Morehouse. From Simon Rosenberg:

“Yesterday, President Biden gave what I think is one of the most important speeches of his Presidency.”

As with the presidential debates, in this election year, every Biden speech is pitched by the media as a “make or break” event for Biden as The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports “Biden delivers high-stakes commencement address at Morehouse College”. But as Xitter commenter Scary Lawyer Guy says:

“Of the many double standards employed by the media, Biden needing every speech to be some combination of Lincoln and Cicero while Trump’s public appearances are 90 minutes of word salad, non sequiturs, and dictatorial musings that get no push back, is among the worst.”

Wrongo is still looking for an explanation why every news event is somewhere between a “test” for Biden or a “danger” to his candidacy. You can watch Biden’s entire Morehouse speech here. It was a good speech and an important moment in Biden’s campaign for reelection.

There is some truth to recent polling that shows Biden in difficulty with college students. Pew has a poll showing that younger Americans think Biden favors the Israelis too much (36%), while just 12% of young adults say he’s striking the right balance in the Israel-Hamas war:

These kinds of polls are why the media are concerned about Biden’s popularity, but 41% of those same students say that they’re “not sure” how Biden is doing. That’s five points more than the number who believe he’s doing the wrong thing. And for “all adults”, the favoring the Israelis too much is only at 22%, with the “Not Sure” holding at 40%, eighteen points more than those who dislike what Biden is doing.

Time to wake up, America! As Daniel Miller said after Biden’s speech:

“The media must do better. We all must do better. We cannot allow these lies that have poisoned the minds of the American public to continue unchallenged. We must challenge these lies and we must get the American people to see the truth.”

To help you wake up on a Tuesday morning, watch and listen to “Long Distance Call” from the new album “Sam’s Place”, the first Little Feat album in 12 years. The album title is for Sam Clayton, a Little Feat original who wanted to have Little Feat do an album of blues covers. “Long Distance Call ” was written by blues legend, Muddy Waters, and it has Clayton and Bonnie Raitt on vocals. It was recorded in Memphis TN at the old Sam Philips Studios and Sam and others in the band played on the same old piano that Jerry Lee Lewis played, decades ago:

Sample Lyric:

“I might buy you a brand new Cadillac, baby
If you only speak some good words about me…”

What’s the possibility that the media will find some good words to say about Biden?

Cartoons Of The Week – May 19, 2024

(There will not be a Monday Wake Up Call this week)

This week most cartoons were either about Justice Alito’s inverted flag, Congresspeople leaving their jobs in DC to go to NYC to help Trump violate his gag order, or the presidential debate which may or may not happen.

But there wasn’t one cartoon about Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s pardon of Daniel Perry, who was convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. You may recall that he shot Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran who was attending a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. Foster was carrying an AR-15, which is legal to do in Texas. Daniel Perry drove his car into the protesters and Foster (who was white) confronted him without raising his gun, largely to protect Whitney Mitchell, who was Foster’s fiancé. She was in a wheel-chair because she’s a quadruple amputee. Foster’s rifle was in a safe position: safety on, no round in the chamber, and pointed at the ground. Perry shot him five times. From JVL:

“The case had everything Republicans love: A peaceful protest with people exercising their First Amendment rights. A veteran lawfully exercising his Second Amendment right. And before the murder the killer had been searching the internet for young girls and sending sexually explicit texts to a minor. The only problem was the protest itself: It was a Black Lives Matter protest. And so Daniel Perry—a groomer who was convicted of murder by a jury of his peers—became a conservative cause celebré.”

Originally sentenced to 25 years in prison, Abbott pardoned him. He’s a sick, criminal piece of work who killed a man in cold blood. Abbott gave him a full pardon. Abbott’s death cult MAGA constituents are thrilled. On to cartoons.

We’re gonna have to shut down the whole Supreme Court until we figure out what’s going on:

Alito waves his flag for Armed Forces Day. It honors the Armed Forces, while Memorial Day honors members of the Armed Forces who died in war. But nothing about Alito is honorable:

What to expect from the next presidential debates:

The next GOP VP nominee will fit in the slot:

Dems are afraid of the political polls:

Two Bad Stories

The Daily Escape:

Squirrel in a bird feeder, Northbridge, MA – 2024 photo by Paul G. Dailey

Wrongo had planned today to talk more about Ukraine, but the nation’s news had other ideas. We will cover two stories today. First, Supreme Court Justice Alito’s shocking display of gross partisanship at the exact time he was hearing a case regarding the same issue.

On Thursday, in an exclusive, the NYT reported that Alito’s home displayed an upside-down US flag during the days after the January 6 insurrection. In 2021 and since, flying the US flag upside down is a symbol calling for people to “Stop the Steal” of the 2020 election from Trump. In case you miss the significance, that upside down flag is a call to insurrection. And it was displayed by a Supreme Court justice. More from the NYT:

“At the time the Alito’s flew the flag in front of their house, the Court was deciding whether to hear a vote-counting challenge from Pennsylvania. The majority said no, but Alito, joined by Thomas, dissented. They wanted the Court to take the case, whose theme, was that the Pennsylvania election had been stolen”

The NYT reported that Alito emailed the following when asked for comment:

“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

Who thinks that makes flying the flag upside down justifiable? Nobody. From Robert Hubbell:

“Alito’s response to the Times is a lie. He owns the flag. He owns the flagpole. He owns the property on which the flag was displayed. He permitted it to remain on display on his property. He, therefore, did have “involvement” in “flying the flag.” It does not matter that it was his wife who physically raised the “Stop the Steal” banner on the flagpole. Alito’s hair-splitting denial is misleading and incomplete—and therefore false.”

We have two Supreme Court justices (and their wives) openly siding with insurrectionists and deciding on cases that involve the insurrection and its leader, Donald Trump. The Court should be renamed “The Court of Supreme Ethical Violations”. Plainly, the Court has lost the ability to police itself.

And for the record, the upside-down flag was flying over the Alito’s’ home on Jan. 17, 2021. Why has it taken the NYT three and a half years to publish such an important story? Wrongo’s faith in the NYT has taken another hit with their deferred reporting on the flag at Alito’s home.

The second report comes from Kyle Tharp at “For What It’s Worth” a newsletter about politics and social media. He reports that pro-Trump content now dominates on TikTok, a platform that Biden began using this year:

“Since November, according to two TikTok officials, there’s been twice as much pro-Trump content as pro-Biden content on the platform….1.29 million positive Trump videos or images, with 9.1 billion views, compared to 651,000 positive Biden posts, with 6.15 billion views…This may not be the most precise survey of the landscape, but that’s still a nearly 10 to 1 ratio of Trump likes to Biden likes, and 12 to 1 in views.” ”

Let’s remember that TikTok is primarily used by younger Americans who may make the difference in which candidate wins in November. Two other points:

“…there are 10.5 million TikTok users in Pennsylvania, 3.4 million in Nevada, 2.4 million in Arizona, 5.4 million in Georgia, and 3.7 million users in Michigan.”

The Biden campaign almost certainly knows those numbers. Tharp says that Democrats and liberal groups have six months to flood the zone with positive pro-Biden news clips or creative original content reaching core audiences on TikTok. They should start now.

That’s enough disturbing news for today, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, when we do our best to forget about Trump’s attempt to bribe Big Oil executives, or why Republicans think showing up at a Manhattan courtroom is good for their careers. Instead, let’s try to focus instead on the natural world around us as we prepare for another week of depressing political news.

Last Thursday was an exciting day on the Fields of Wrong. It’s garbage pickup day, and a medium-size black bear wandered around the Mansion of Wrong looking for treats. Garbage cans are his preferred target, followed by birdfeeders. But our cans were still in the garage, so he left our place without a snack, although several of our neighbors had to clean up their garbage, which the bear had strewn far and wide.

The bluebirds are nesting in our birdboxes, and with all the rain, our fields are very green. We’re expecting good weather today, so grab a seat outside in the shade. Now, watch and listen to the Paganini Ensemble Vienna play Paganini’s “Quartets for Strings and Guitar Vol. 4 Nos. 11, 6 & 13”. These were recorded in Vienna in March, 2022. Paganini’s string quartets with guitar are among his finest chamber compositions:

A Unifying National Narrative

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Paines Creek, Brewster, Cape Cod, MA – May 2024 photo by Bob Amaral Photography

Wrongo has just started reading Erik Larson’s “The Demon of Unrest”, a history of how Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC fits into the overall story of the Civil War. It has a certain currency, since Wrongo and Ms. Right took a Charleston harbor tour in April that prominently featured Fort Sumter.

Usually, Wrongo would wait until he’s finished it to talk about a book, but today is an exception. In Larson’s note to readers (pg. XI) he starts by saying:

“I was well into my research on the saga of Fort Sumter and the advent of the American Civil War when the events of January 6, 2021, took place.”

That is the only time Larson refers to Jan. 6. The book mostly covers the five+ months from Lincoln’s election in November 1860 to the shelling of Fort Sumter in April 1861. We see that during those five months, amid the building talk of secession, a pro-slavery mob attempted to stop Congress from tallying the vote to elect Lincoln.

Knowing about that should hit very close to home for Americans today.

While there’s nothing explicitly in the book about Jan. 6, the Trump years (down to today) is a kind of spectral presence, not least when Larson describes the urgent concerns of public officials that the electoral count to certify Lincoln’s election would be disrupted, or that the certifications would be stolen or destroyed, and the Capitol attacked by angry Americans.

Sound familiar? The basic question today is similar to the question in 1861: “Can America stay together?” After the Civil War, we never thought that we would have to ask that question again. Today we can add a question about whether a presidential election loser should suffer consequences if they launched a coup attempt to retain presidential power.

It seems clear at this point that to bind the country together, we need to rediscover and commit to a new national narrative, a reaffirmation of America’s Cause.

All of this came to mind when Wrongo looked at a survey completed in April by the Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University’s Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy. The Nationhood Lab is working to develop a new narrative of America’s purpose that can be broadly shared.

They asked registered voters what in the nature of the US they most identified with by offering statement pairs about our national purpose, American identity, and the meaning of our past. In each case, one statement was keyed off the ideals in the Declaration of Independence (Civic Ideals) while the other was rooted in characteristics like ancestry, heritage, character, and values (Heritage and Traditions).

Each was presented in a manner that made them sound as attractive as possible. The participants were then asked to choose between civic ideals and our traditional heritage/character. Interestingly, the civic statements proved far more attractive regardless of gender, age, race, education or region, except for Republicans and those who voted for Trump in 2020:

Sixty-three percent of Americans preferred the statement that we are united “not by a shared religion or ancestry or history, but by our shared commitment to a set of American founding ideals: that we all have inherent and equal rights to live, to not be tyrannized, and to pursue happiness as we each understand it”
The alternative, that we are united “by shared history, traditions, and values and by our fortitude and character as Americans, a people who value hard work, individual responsibility, and national loyalty”, was embraced by only 33% of respondents.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said they agreed more with a statement that Americans “are duty-bound to defend one another’s inherent rights” over one that said we “are duty-bound to defend our culture, interests, and way of life” which was preferred by 36% of the survey participants.
Fifty-four percent preferred the statement “Freedom, justice, and equality are ideals each generation must fight for” and that “we must pledge ourselves to make our Union more perfect.” While the alternate statement, “Security, individual liberties, and respect for our founding values are the heritage each generation must fight for” was chosen by 40% of those surveyed.

Below is a chart with the full demographic results of the survey:

These results are in some ways, an antidote to the terrible polling Biden is experiencing. Nothing in the NYT poll should cause panic. While the NYT headline is that Trump leads in 5 states, that’s not actually what their own data says. Trump leads in 3 (AZ, GA, NV) and 3 are essentially tied.

But it’s very hard to believe that a significant share of people in the Nationhood Lab polls that share an overwhelming belief in civic ideals will turn around and vote for Trump in six months.

If you want additional support for the concept that current political polling can’t be relied on, consider the just-concluded Maryland Democratic Senate primary. David Trone, a businessman who put $62 million of his own money into his primary campaign lost to Angela Alsobrooks, Prince George’s County Executive. From Charlotte Clymer:

“There were ten polls on the Maryland US Senate Democratic Primary released this year. David Trone led in seven of them, most by double digits. Angela Alsobrooks led in three, never by more than five points. Alsobrooks just beat Trone by double digits.”

Political polling is massively overrated even if there is some marginal utility to it. If you really want results, you have to get out and vote.

Status Update: Ukraine/Russia War

The Daily Escape:

Pueblo Bonito Great House, Chaco Canyon, NM – May 2024 photo by James C. Wilson

Today we return to the almost invisible war in Ukraine. Since the Oct. 7 start of the Hamas/Israel war, Ukraine has slipped out of the consciousness of Americans, and politicians in particular.

The terrible slowness of the US approval of additional funding for Ukraine also took a toll because the resulting lack of weapons forced Ukraine into a defensive posture, attempting to hold Russia at bay by conceding ground slowly throughout the past six months.

Now, Ukraine is slowly creeping back onto the front pages. There is a nervous tone about reports from Ukraine suggesting that the war has entered a new and dangerous phase. From the NYT:

“In the past three days, Russian troops, backed by fighter jets, artillery and lethal drones, have poured across Ukraine’s northeastern border and seized at least nine villages and settlements, and more square miles per day than at almost any other point in the war….In light of the Congressional vote for $61 billion in aid, this may come as a surprise.”

“Thousands of Ukrainian civilians are fleeing to Kharkiv, the nearest big city.”

Kharkiv itself may be threatened. This news brings with it tough questions: How far can Russia go this time? Is this a setback for the Ukrainians, or now that the US has approved new weapons, is it a turning point?

The Ukrainians complained for months about severe shortages of ammunition, which was exacerbated by the intransigence of Republicans in Congress. Their failure to act delayed the delivery of key air defense weapons and ammunition, possibly turning the tide of the war in favor of the Russians.

And the Ukrainian military also must replenish its fighting forces. Russia is a country with about three times Ukraine’s population, and while both have suffered heavy casualties, Ukraine’s personnel needs are becoming critical. The more than two years of fighting off the Russians has left Ukraine desperate for fresh troops. The delay in US arms shipments caused by Congressional Republicans has also been a contributing factor to undermining morale, in addition to undermining the defense of Ukraine.

In 2023 Russia increased its troop mobilization efforts. Since the summer of 2023, difficulties in raising the pace of Ukrainian mobilization and Russia’s efforts on the ground have given a decisive advantage to Putin’s forces. It is hard to see how Ukraine can overcome this difference, given its smaller population and its vastly smaller economy. Adam Tooze says that: (brackets by Wrongo)

“…at the start of the war the ratio [of Russia’s economy to Ukraine’s] was more than 10:1, it is now far worse…the likelihood is that the balance will tip further against Ukraine.”

Cartoons Of The Week – May 12, 2024

(The Monday Wake Up Call will be published on Tuesday this week)

It probably says something about the nation, since cartoons this week are, well, terrible. They’re mostly iterations of RFK Jr’s brain worm or riffs on Trump’s trial in NYC. Here are the best of a lower quality lot.

Brain disease is on the rise:

MAGA’s selective memory:

Cutting Bibi off from the big bombs sparks outrage:

The media’s lopsided reporting: