35% of Americans Meet The Criteria To Be Middle Class.

The Daily Escape:

Stoney Brook Grist Mill, Brewster, MA – February 2024 photo by Michael Kerouac

Wrongo and Ms. Right spent Sunday with one of our daughters and son-in-law. We spoke about the Ezra Klein op-ed in the NYT about why Biden should step aside. One of Klein’s points is that in presidential campaigns, the candidate is always the campaign’s biggest asset, and that Biden isn’t being used by Democrats as if he is their biggest asset.

Elsewhere, some pundits are saying that the Democrats need to forget campaigning on policy: Dems always try to find things people like and tell them they’re going to help them — and after that, show them the candidate’s character, biography, and qualifications for office.

Instead, the Republicans campaign by appealing more to emotion than intellect, using a negative message to develop enthusiasm.

While Wrongo is happy that Dems want to campaign again on an anti-Trump message, he still thinks policy is the right way to appeal to at least two types of voters: Those who rarely vote, and those who voted Democratic last time but are less enthusiastic this time. These voters think our political system hasn’t produced results for them, and they’re looking for promises to change that in order to get their votes.

While we keep touting Biden’s economic performance, Wrongo recently found a very important poll taken last November by the WaPo that asked Americans how they defined being in the middle class:

“About 9 in 10 US adults said that six individual indicators of financial security and stability were necessary parts of being middle class….Smaller majorities thought other milestones, such as homeownership and a job with paid sick leave, were necessary.”

They also asked how many of those markers of being in the middle class people said they had achieved, and the results are a staggering rejection of how well the US economy is working for many people:

“Just over a third of Americans met all six markers of a middle-class lifestyle. While about 9 in 10 Americans had health insurance, only three-quarters had health insurance and a steady job. With each added measure of financial security, more Americans slipped away from the middle-class ideal.”

Let’s get into the findings. Here’s the WaPo chart about what factors Americans think it takes to be in the middle class:

It’s arbitrary to pick six, but they were the most frequently mentioned. A secure job. The ability to save. To afford an emergency. Paying the bills without worrying. Healthcare. Retirement. It’s a sensible list. And in the poll, huge majorities agreed those are the key criteria for a middle class life.

The Very Big Problem with this is that when the WaPo asked the same respondents if they had the ability to meet those criteria, the numbers are startling. Here’s the second WaPo chart:

Just 35% of people say that they meet the criteria that almost everyone, (~90%) agree should make someone middle class. If that’s true, America needs to redefine “middle” class. The majority in this survey did not have the financial security associated with being in the middle class. More from WaPo:

“The most common barrier was a comfortable retirement, something that about half of middle-income Americans over 35 felt they were on track to achieve.”

Think about what this research is really showing us. America no longer has a middle class. While ~90% of people agree on what a middle class life is, only a minority can afford it. This means we have a “phantom” middle class: Americans want to be middle class, but only a minority of them are. So what class does that make the majority?

What this research appears to show is that America is building something more like a permanent underclass.

Acknowledging this issue would be a great starting point for Biden to gain traction with low propensity voters and with the Gen X and younger voters who make up most of the low enthusiasm cohort of Democratic voters.

As Anat Shenker-Osorio puts it:

“Democrats rely on polling to take the temperature; Republicans use polling to change it.”

This time around the Democrats need to emulate Republicans who work at moving the needle instead of chasing it. And this middle class problem is an issue that will move the needle.

Fortune Magazine’s Tiffani Potesta writes that Gen Xers personify the problem of middle class life:  (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Gen Xers expect to keep working longer than they planned–and will be the first generation to go into retirement with less financial security than their parents and grandparents.”

Gen X will be the first to reach retirement under a new paradigm: the widespread move from Defined Benefit plans to Defined Contribution or 401(k) plans in the US. This is a barely cited yet fundamental societal change that shifted the responsibility to save for retirement from employers to individual employees. More:

“…the numbers do not add up: Gen Xers reported that on average they will need roughly $1.1 million in savings to retire comfortably, yet they expect to stop working with only about $660,000 saved–a savings gap of around $450,000.”

Still more:

“According to a report from the National Institute on Retirement Security, the average account balance in 2020 for private retirement accounts among working Gen Xers was $129,994. This is woefully short of the amount of savings most of us will need to be secure in retirement.”

What’s worse is that the median account balance was scarier: $10,000–and 40% have zero savings.

For a society to be staring at the next few generations not being able to retire and not to be members of the middle class is very troubling, particularly in terms of what’s likely to happen if that’s the case. Losing our middle class is almost a sure path to autocracy, possibly through the rise of fascism and/or authoritarianism.

Biden and the Democrats need to acknowledge these problems are real and pledge to do everything possible to return America to having a true, bell-curve shaped middle class. They can run generally against Trump as “order vs. chaos”, but Trump is running on “America’s decline”, which includes the financial insecurity of millions of Americans. Biden needs to call that out specifically, along with ideas on how to fix the problem. That would make financial insecurity an issue for Democrats equal to abortion, something that targets a specific group and encourages them to get to the polls in November.

If Bernie Sanders isn’t too old to rage against economic insecurity, then Biden is old enough to do the same.

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The Mid-Terms Landscape

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Grand Teton NP, MT – June 2022 photo by Charyn

On Monday, Robert Hubbell had a very useful column about how some of the anti-Trump narratives are already baked into the politics of the mid-terms (barring some huge unforeseen event): (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…it is likely that the political throughlines are set for the midterms. That is both good and bad for America and Democrats. The topics for debate have been identified and the rules of engagement have been set….Let the media do its job, which, in this instance, will consist of talking about the same half-dozen stories non-stop.”

Hubbell outlines that the narratives that will dominate the news from now until November 8 are unlikely to produce political earthquakes:

“It is unlikely that the DOJ will indict anyone in Trump’s inner circle (including Trump) before the midterms. For example, in a filing last week, the DOJ said its investigation regarding the improper removal and retention of defense secrets was in the “early stages.” Nearly every Trump administration witness appearing before a federal grand jury was examined by the J6 Committee six to eight months ago. And the only grand jury subpoenas published in the press indicate that the investigations were opened in 2022 and that the subpoenas were issued in June.”

Wrongo agrees. This is also true for the Georgia grand jury investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia. Few realize the grand jury that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is presenting evidence to cannot indict anyone. According to the Georgia Recorder: (emphasis and brackets by Wrongo)

“In contrast to a typical grand jury, the 23 members on the special grand jury do not have the power to indict anyone but can [only] make recommendations to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.”

So, when DA Willis has sufficient evidence to indict, she must then impanel a new grand jury, present evidence, and ask for an indictment. Not likely to happen before November.

While the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago (MAL) has Trump on every front page, the DOJ says its investigation regarding the Mar-a-Lago search is in the “early stages.” The way America’s legal back and forth works, it is doubtful that we will see any facts contained in the affidavit the FBI used to justify the application for the search warrant before November.

Trump made a court filing requesting a Special Master (instead of the DOJ) review the documents removed from MAL. However Trump’s new request is decided, it’s likely to be appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, if not the Supreme Court, which will take time. That means we can expect Trump and the GOP to continue undermining the DOJ and FBI right through the mid-terms.

And there will be few new facts to indict Trump in the court of public opinion.

It’s likely we will see a steady drip of information about the recovered documents, just like Tuesday’s NYT article saying that, including the FBI seizure, Trump took more than 300 classified documents when he left office. That seems to say it couldn’t have been an oversight.

Finally, the January 6th Committee returns to work in September, but as of today, there are no hearings scheduled. Mike Pence will never testify. Since he still has presidential ambitions, testifying would put him on the wrong side of Trump supporters, making a run in 2024 problematic.

While the January 6th hearings have moved the needle on US public opinion, it’s difficult to what they will add to what we know in the time remaining for this 117th Congress.

Of course, running against Trump is the Dem’s dream, but there are other issues out there, like abortion. In the new NBC News poll, abortion rights was only the seventh most important issue:

But it’s only one poll, and voter enthusiasm and turnout win races. The Morning Consult has the Democrats’ enthusiasm at 62%, up dramatically from 52% on July 31. That’s comparable to the GOP’s 65%.

Dan Pfeiffer believes the political environment has shifted in Democrats’ favor because of the abortion issue:

“Democratic efforts to turn this midterm from a progress report on Democratic governance into a referendum on GOP extremism failed to connect until the Dobbs decision. That was when Republican extremism went from an abstract argument to lived reality.”

Dems need to remind voters that unemployment is at record lows, that its Democrats who fight for economic progress, and to preserve women’s right to an abortion. Democrats can’t keep people from worrying about inflation, but they can influence whether it is the top issue to voters. They can keep the heat on Republicans for their extremist views on abortion and on Trump’s extremism and his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The hope is that these realities overtake concern about inflation as the main issue for a big swath of Independent voters.

That could be the difference.

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Monday Wake Up Call – February 17, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Looking west at sunset with Merced River in foreground, Yosemite NP, CA – 2019 photo by OlafIowa

“The general culture is often stupid or evil, and would vote out God in favor of the devil if he fed them back their hate and fear in a way that made them feel righteous”  -Charles Frazier, from his book, Varina, Pgs. 328-329

We’re living in the terrible present, an unprecedented time when Trump can say “Make me!” and we can’t, although Democrats have been trying since 2016.

That we’re in the middle of a “put the oxygen mask on your democracy first” emergency is shown by all that the Trump administration has done since his impeachment acquittal. Democracy is dying right in front of us, and in broad daylight. And the people trying to kill it are making no bones about it to the rest of us.

In this primary season, people are fighting over which Democratic presidential candidate will be the best at beating Trump, but that’s the wrong question. Strategically, Democrats win if they hold the House and take back the Senate. With both Houses of Congress, Trump will be neutered, even if he wins. If the Democrat wins, and the Party holds both Houses, passing progressive legislation becomes possible.

So the real decision is which candidate will have the best coattails.

That brings us to doctrinal purity tests. Most Democrats see the purity test as a doctrinaire standard of ideological purity. In 2016, Hillary Clinton objected to Bernie Sanders’s saying in a primary debate that she didn’t measure up as a progressive. Clinton argued that according to Sanders’s criteria, even Obama wouldn’t measure up, “because he took donations from Wall Street.”

Democrats must overcome their obsession about who is the most progressive, or who isn’t progressive enough. Otherwise, the Party will go into the November fight disunited.

In a column last week, Wrongo talked about Democrats’ disunity in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2016. But we can go back to an earlier event, the campaign of George McGovern in 1972. Nixon shellacked McGovern by a 23-point margin in the popular vote, carrying 49 states.

McGovern was a progressive who called for tax reform. He proposed payroll tax-funded single-payer healthcare. He was for a form of guaranteed income called a “Demogrant” of $1,000 per year for every adult, regardless of income, as an alternative to Nixon’s complicated means-tested welfare overhaul plan. Yang’s plan is similar to McGovern’s

Many Democrats failed to support McGovern, thinking he was too liberal. After McGovern’s defeat, Democrats began running towards the center, even though “the center” has moved further and further to the right with each presidential election.

We’ll have to play hardball to defeat Trump in November. But to play hardball, one must first have balls, something Democrats haven’t shown in a very long time. It’s not surprising that despite winning the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections, Dems have little to show for it politically.

Consider that two of the top 2020 contenders include Bernie and Bloomberg, who aren’t Democrats, and have at times, held the Party in clear contempt. Think about where we are: Biden couldn’t beat Obama or Hillary in 2008. Sanders couldn’t beat Hillary in 2016. Hillary couldn’t beat Trump.

Is it logical that either of Biden or Bernie could win in 2020?

Wrongo isn’t sold on Bloomberg. Criticisms of other candidates are as least as applicable to Bloomberg:

  • Biden and Sanders too old? Bloomberg is just as old
  • Biden too gaffe-prone? Bloomberg feasts on his own foot frequently
  • Sanders health a concern? Bloomberg also had a heart attack and the same operation to treat it
  • Sanders’s commitment to the Democratic Party? Bloomberg has actually bankrolled Republican office holders at the state and federal level
  • Biden and Klobuchar too conservative? Bloomberg is more conservative
  • Klobuchar an evil boss? Don’t read Bloomberg’s management philosophy. It’s best if you aren’t a woman

For Bloomberg, maybe it’s as Cyndi Lauper said: “Money changes everything”.

Still, after the disaster of 2016, there are people who will sit on their hands and let Trump be re-elected, rather than support a Dem they find ideologically impure.

You probably don’t remember the 1972 campaign clearly because you were too young, but 2000 wasn’t enough? 2016 wasn’t enough?

Wake up America! The best candidate is the one with the longest coattails.

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Can Democrats Unite Behind One Candidate?

The Daily Escape:

The Great Western Divide, Kings Canyon NP, CA – photo by enigmo81

Let’s recall a statistic from the New Hampshire primary (NH) exit polling: 15% of Democratic voters said they wouldn’t support the Democratic nominee unless it was their first choice. This has echoes of the 2016 presidential campaign when the divisions between Hillary and Bernie carried over to unwillingness on the part of some Bernie supporters to vote for Hillary in the General Election.

Many of their votes went to the Green Party’s Jill Stein. Vox reports that:

“In Michigan, Clinton lost by less than a percentage point, a deficit she could have recovered from with half of Stein’s votes. Again in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Clinton lost by one point, Jill Stein’s votes would have covered her loss. Had Clinton won all three states, she would have won the election.”

And remember the 2000 election. That year, the Green Party’s candidate was Ralph Nader, who earned 97,488 votes, in Florida, swinging the election to GW. Bush, who won Florida by less than 600 votes.

So will 2020 be another time that Democrats self-immolate? Can Democrats agree to back one candidate with enthusiasm? Can Dems unify to insure huge turnouts that carry the House and Senate as well?

Let’s talk turnout. It’s been underwhelming. The total of Democrat voters in the 2020 Iowa caucus was 172,669. This is almost the same number of voters who turned out in 2016 when Hillary and Bernie were battling it out: 171,109. That’s about 70,000 less than the turnout in 2008 for Hillary vs. Obama.

Doesn’t seem that Iowa showed much Democratic enthusiasm.

In NH, more than 296,000 Democrat votes were cast. This exceeded the 287,542 that voted for Obama and Hillary in 2008. However, there are more eligible voters today than in 2008. That year 29% of the electorate voted in the Democrat primary, while only 26% voted this time.

It gets worse. NH allows crossover voting in primaries. Wrongo lived in NH for 12 years, and on occasion, voted strategically for candidates he had no intention of voting for in the General Election. Charlie Pierce noted this post last Sunday from the NH Journal:

“Bill Kristol, founder of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine, confirmed to NH Journal that he is part of the effort, which involves tens of thousands of New Hampshire voter contacts and a six-figure budget. Kristol said:

“Yup. I’m happy to have joined with some others to help remind New Hampshire independents, who might be accustomed to voting in the Republican primary, that this year, they may be able to make more of a difference by voting for a responsible and electable candidate in the Democratic primary….”

Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report calculates NH independents responded to Kristol’s prodding, and some helped Buttigieg and Klobuchar:

Is this Democratic field causing less than expected turnout? What can turn this around? Wasserman’s colleague, Amy Walter, tweeted this:

“Dear Democrats: there is no ‘perfect’ candidate. There never is…”

It’s early in the primary marathon, but the signs are not good. Weak candidates, little enthusiasm, and a significant minority who is unwilling to say they’ll back the nominee, regardless of who it is.

And there’s been more than the two examples of disunity mentioned above. We have to go back to 1972 and the campaign of George McGovern. Nixon shellacked McGovern by a 23-point margin in the popular vote, carrying 49 states.

After McGovern’s defeat, Democrats began running towards the center, even though “the center” has moved further and further to the right with each presidential election.

For the past 40 years, party leaders and mainstream pundits have invoked McGovern’s name. In 2004, Howard Dean was the new McGovern. In 2008, Barack Obama became the new McGovern. Now in 2020, many think Bernie Sanders is McGovern. From Martin Longman:

“In 1972, we were told that the newly lowered voting age would bring out a surge of youth voters for McGovern. But only half of 18-21 year olds turned out to vote and 48% of them voted for Nixon. In any case, it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d all turned out and voted heavily for the Democrat. Without party unity, McGovern had no chance.”

We’re again hoping for the youth vote to drive turnout, and bring voter enthusiasm. What are the odds? Democrats are on a high risk course, when based on the midterms two years ago, the Party was pretty cohesive. What’s the reason to weaken the coalition that won the 2018 midterms?

Democrats need to think about how to drive their candidates toward agreement on a set of policies and eventually, on a candidate who can unify the Party.

Remember that regardless of who becomes the nominee, that candidate will be running on the most progressive platform of any major party in the past 40 years.

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