It's the inflation, stupid

"Inflation is a priority that government and central banks are expected to tackle."   

Summary of 11-country poll by Global Progress/YouGov

The ground is shifting politically. It is bad for Democrats. 

The election may be a referendum on inflation. Not Trump. Not abortion. Not overthrowing elections. Americans know that our democracy is at risk, but they just don't care all that much. It isn't a priority. Nor is abortion. 

New York Times

That was the conclusion of the New York Times/Siena College poll released this week. It dovetailed with the results of the international poll released in September. Many candidates who adopted full-on election denial positions to win their GOP primaries are still strong candidates in the general election. 

Inflation hurts incumbents in all the Western democracies. It isn't special to Biden or to U.S. Democrats. The graph below is for 11 different democracies. The blue area, averaging about 10%, are people who think that inflation is bad, but there isn't much governments can do about it. The red area, about 60%, are people who think a competent government could solve it, but people have little confidence in their government. The yellow area, about 20%, are people who do have confidence their government can solve it. The green, about 10%, are people who say they don't know. Red dominates.

Here is the U.S. band, shown on its own: 59% lack confidence that our government can do what it should be able to do.

Briefly, abortion looked like a silver bullet for Democrats. That may be a misfire. The Dobbs decision and Republican legislatures implementing total bans on abortion were presumed to energize young voters. The ballot issue in Kansas sent a misleading signal. It was a single up-or-down vote on the topic, not a vote on the salience of abortion as an issue.

Polling and on-the-ground behavior in Texas send up a warning to Democrats.

Texas Tribune

The left-leaning Texas Tribune quotes a participant in a poorly attended pro-choice rally in Fort Worth, Texas:

 I just don’t think people understand that women are going to die. I don’t think people understand the urgency of the issue.

Abortion bans are law in Texas. The article cites polls that show that 80% of Texas voters think the Texas law goes too far. The Texas Tribune reports it is the ninth most important issue to Texas voters. Election denial isn't a deal-killer either. Abbott refused to acknowledge Biden's 2020 victory after the election. This year he has been campaigned with Trump in Texas and joined Trump in saying fraud took place. A Democratic candidate for governor, Beto O'Rourke gives Texas voters a clear choice on abortion and election denial. He currently lags Abbott by five to 11 points.

I may be wrong and out of touch. I thought that overthrowing elections and total abortion bans would be over-riding issues in the general election. Surely Americans who stand for the Star Spangled Banner won't support candidates who tolerate overthrowing a presidential election. Surely a total abortion ban goes too far. Most people agree with me on those issues. My error is thinking that those issues are the important ones.

Incumbent governments in Western democracies are being replaced. We are in an era of political turmoil, most vividly in the U.K. Democracy and abortion are abstractions. The price of food and gasoline are practical realities.

Republicans in America have no different or better solution to inflation than do Democrats. Cut military spending? Cut Social Security and Medicare? Let in more immigrants so they can bring down the cost of agricultural labor?  Raise taxes to reduce net demand? Fat chance. But that is no matter. If voters think the current government is incompetent to deal with inflation, they will change leadership.

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Economic War with Russia

Russia is at war with Ukraine. It is also at war with the U.S.

That war spells trouble for Biden and Democrats. 

Washington Post

Russia can use its oil to weaken our economy and make inflation worse. That forces the Fed to raise interest rates to slow the economy. The economic effect is double-misery: Stagflation. The political effect is to make Biden less popular and to elect Republicans. 

College classmate Sandford Borins is an economist and a Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto. He described how Putin could do this. This blog looks at campaign craft and message management. No amount of deftness in that arena would have as much affect on the course of American politics as would a period of profound economic distress. It's the economy, stupid. In retirement Borins posts his observations at his blog site https://sandfordborins.com.

Guest Post by Sandford Borins. 

Our Long Economic War with Russia

Borins

It is easy to imagine that when western central banks raise interest rates, stock markets tank, and economic growth slows, there are feelings of elation in the Kremlin that go far beyond schadenfreude. Indeed, one could imagine Russian state investors gleefully shorting western indexes and individual stocks. (In this post, I will use “west” or “western” to refer to the loose alliance of nations in Europe, NATO, and the OECD that oppose Russia.) It is this scenario that leads me to speculate about the course of the economic war between the west and Russia.

Leader for Life?

There is rampant speculation about the outcome of the military war in Ukraine. My expertise is in economics rather than military or strategic studies, so I will focus on the economic conflict.

Many experts are conjecturing that the failure of the Russian military on the ground in the Ukraine will jeopardize President Putin’s hold on power. If so, the question is what sort of leader would succeed him. If his successor is a Gorbachev one could imagine the possibility of a major diplomatic and economic rapprochement between Russia and the west. But leaders with views like Gorbachev are more likely to be in prison, like Navalny, than contenders for power within the Kremlin.

Stale Chips

If a hardline government is in power in the Kremlin, then even if the fighting stops in the Ukraine, the economic war between Russia and the west will continue. The key element of the western nations’ war with Russia will be a continued embargo on technology. By technology I am referring to computer chips, artificial intelligence, software, computers, and consumer and capital goods with embedded technology, such as commercial aircraft. These goods represent our comparative advantage relative to Russia. One motive for this embargo will be to punish the Russians for their war crimes against Ukrainian civilians. A second is to prevent the Russians from adapting our technology to use in future wars against civilians.

The Russian response will be to develop their own technology, but in most areas, Russian technology has been inferior to western, and the technology gap will be exacerbated by the ongoing exodus of Russia’s best technical minds. A second alternative is to import technology from other countries, especially China. Russian imports of Iranian drones and possibly Iranian ballistic missiles is an immediate example of this.

Let the Bastards Freeze in the Dark

Russia will fight the economic war by depriving the west of oil and gas and by trying to keep the price of oil and gas as high as possible. Russia’s strategy of being a plentiful supplier of oil and gas to Europe has been upended by the war. Russia’s shutting down and then sabotaging its own pipelines (the latter likely, but not yet confirmed) have marked it as an unreliable energy supplier, and Europe will never turn to it again. Russia’s response to the loss of its energy customers in Europe will be to try to find them elsewhere, especially China and India.

Russia is an active player in OPEC Plus and will exert pressure on the cartel to limit production and raise prices. Increased prices bring in more revenue because of the relatively inelastic short-term demand for oil. With the west now dealing with higher rates of inflation than experienced in the last 40 years, increases in the price of oil will contribute to the new inflation. Increased inflation reduces the popularity of political incumbents and spurs western central banks to use monetary policy (quantitative tightening to increase interest rates) to slow economic activity. From Russia’s point of view, the recent OPEC Plus initiative to cut production is a trifecta. It increases revenues for Russia, reduces the despised President Biden’s popularity just before the midterm elections, and helps to bring about a recession in the west.

If energy is a key battlefield in the economic war with Russia, there are short-term tactics and long-term responses the west can adopt. The U.S. Government’s deployment of its strategic oil reserve is a short-term tactic to lower prices. Attempting to form a buyer’s cartel is another, though it is unclear how effective or enforceable this will be. Reducing dependence on Russian, or indeed any other sources of oil and gas is the best long-term strategy.

One key policy instrument in both the long and short term to reduce dependence on oil and gas is a carbon tax. A planned increase in the carbon tax becomes politically infeasible if the price of oil or gas has already increased enormously. A carbon tax raises revenue but then redistributes it through per capita grants. A reasonable substitute for a carbon tax would be a tax on windfall energy industry profits. It too gives the government a source of revenue that could also be redistributed through per capita grants. The challenge to western governments is to establish and administer a tax on windfall energy industry profits and to work out its relationship to planned increases in carbon taxes. Whatever technical solution to this problem finance ministries develop must be sold to a skeptical public that is worried about inflation.

We face enormous policy challenges in preventing the Russian energy war from weakening our economies and from achieving our climate change goals. We should prepare for a long war.

 

 

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"Joe Biden is the President."

There is a way to have it both ways.

Done correctly, a politician can fool Republicans and Democrats at the same time. 

"Joe Biden is the president of the United States."

We see Marjorie Taylor Green use the phrase here in this video clip.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1581767732608966656

Question: "Did Joe Biden win the election Congresswoman Green?

Answer: "Joe Biden is the president of the United States."

That doesn't answer the question. Saying Joe Biden is the president preserves the grievance that Biden stole the election. She goes ahead and frankly claims there was widespread fraud.

In the Utah election between Senator Mike Lee and Independent candidate Evan McMullin, Lee's post-2020 election effort to overturn the election became a point of contention in a campaign joint appearance. McMullin said Lee worked to overturn the presidential election. Text messages revealed Lee telling Trump's Chief of Staff that he was working "14 hours a day" to try to convince Republican state legislators to authorize alternative slates of electors. His effort failed. He voted to confirm the electoral votes. Lee's position is that he accepted the election, so McMullin should stop calling him unpatriotic. Lee said:

Yes, Joe Biden is our president. He was chosen in the only election that matters, the election held by the electoral college.

The campaign strategy of saying Joe Biden is president gives Republicans most of what they want. It lets them think Trump is correct. Biden has the job, but maybe-probably Democrats rigged the election. Meanwhile, Democrats can hear what they need to hear, that the candidate or officeholder conceded reality. The unwary don't notice that it doesn't concede legitimacy, only incumbency.

Sparacino and Golden 

Randy Sparacino, the Republican candidate for Oregon state senate, whose campaign I have used as an example of Republican strategy in local races, used the device in the televised joint appearance. Democratic Senator Jeff Golden asked two questions. He asked Sparacino's position on abortion and whether or not he acknowledges that Joe Biden won the election. 

Golden: "Do you agree with the Jackson County Republican Party's declaration that the 2020 election was stolen and that Joe Biden is not the legitimate president?"

Sparacino: "Well, it's tough to throw those two, uh, questions right in the end when I'm doing my closing statement, yes, Joe Biden is the president of the United States." 

Watch it here, section 3: https://kobi5.com/news/politics-news/state-senate-district-3-candidate-forum-197566/

Any police investigator or trial attorney would immediately notice the evasion. Campaign events allow candidates to get away with evasions. Media hosts don't ask a clarifying follow-up, nor does the public, nor opposing candidate. The event format doesn't allow it.

A candidate can tiptoe through a dilemma with this evasion. There is a cost. A significant segment of the American public has been allowed to think that elections are rigged and that their leaders don't disagree. That has an effect. It diminishes respect for the law, law enforcement, and obedience to the law. Why file an honest tax return? Why obey courts? Since there is cheating at the top, don't be a sap. Everyone cheats, so be a smart cheater. 

The rhetorical slight-of-hand hastens a breakdown in civic trust. We do not need to guess what this looks like when it is total: Somalia. Even in developed European countries, there are places where government trust is low. Tax cheating is expected and normalized in Greece. Not so in Switzerland. Switzerland has a high level of civic trust; Greece does not. Incomes and standard of living in Greece is half of that of Switzerland. 

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Candidate Forum on KOBI

A television joint appearance on KOBI

Better than nothing. 

Not as good as it could be.

I feel bad expressing disappointment in a candidate forum held by KOBI television. They did something no one else has done: Get two candidates for the Oregon state senate together to answer questions. I congratulate them. I thank them. If it were easy and profitable then I suppose more TV stations would do it, so, again, thanks.

But it could have been far more useful to local voters. 

The format of the 22-minute forum was a moderator asking brief questions of the candidates and seeing 60-second answers. Again, a congratulation: The moderator, KOBI news anchor Craig Smullen, exercised exemplary brevity and self control. He didn't try to be the center of attention. He didn't ask two-minute questions and seek one-minute answers. 

My disappointment is in the questions themselves.  Here are the first five: 

Why should voters in Senate District Three vote for you over your opponent?

If elected, what would your top two priorities be in your first year?

illegal marijuana grows have caused chaos for law enforcement in Southern Oregon and for water consumption. What will you do if elected to cure these problems?

Homelessness. What steps can you take in the legislature to get cities like Medford or Ashland get additional funding for mental health needs in relation to the homeless?

What is an issue facing state government that isn't on Oregonians' radar that should be, and what steps would you take to address that issue?

What's wrong with those? Those seem likely to get candidates to talk about what they want to do if elected. Isn't that what we want? 

No. Not really. Everyone wants to do good, popular things. If those things were possible or easy or didn't have entrenched opposition then they would already be done. Politics is the resolution of disagreement. It isn't wish list.

All of these questions got reasonable, conflict-free answers by fluent, intelligent candidates. They both wanted good law enforcement, homelessness solved, illegal marijuana grows ended, new problems addressed. Of course. Those questions don't get at the arenas of conflict and therefore avoid opportunities to resolve disagreement. They also don't tell voters anything useful.

Useful questions are ones that are uncomfortable for the candidates. I don't suggest that because I want to punish candidates. Nor am I attempting to come up with questions that will be "better TV," although I think that harder questions would, in fact, be better TV.  Better questions would be:

To Democrat Jeff Golden:

     ---“Did you disagree with Kate Brown’s position on management of COVID and if so, in what ways?”

     ---"What have you done to keep the Democratic supermajority from running roughshod over downstate voters?"

     ---“The fire danger map created controversy. We are told it was your idea. What was your role in it, and would you change any part of the map?"

     ---"Would you support legislation to ban or limit Oregon women’s current right to abortions, and if so, what changes?"

To Republican Randy Sparacino:  

     ---“Your TV ads complain about homelessness. We have homeless people here in the City of Medford. Have you done enough yourself? What should the state do?"

     ---"You were a public employee, paid by taxes. Are Oregon taxes too high, and if so, which taxes and programs would you cut?"

      ---"Do you agree with Trump that the 2020 election was stolen by Biden?" 

     ---"Would you support legislation to ban or limit Oregon women’s current right to abortions, and if so, what changes?”

What is different about these proposed questions is that they get at the points of disagreement. These are the issues brought up in advertisements and public statements by the candidates. Jeff Golden warns that Sparacino would vote to limit or ban abortion. He would have that power if elected. Would he really do it? He may feel uncomfortable answering. Republicans may want a different answer than do Democrats. All the more reason to ask it. 

Sparacino says that Golden is closely allied with Democratic governor Kate Brown's policies. She is unpopular. Let's hear if and where he disagrees with her. Golden may feel uncomfortable. His answers may irritate fellow Democrats. All the more reason to ask it.

If the answers to questions don't make the candidates uncomfortable, then the questions aren't worth asking.  Politics is hard. It's easy to say "cut wasteful spending." Really? What spending? In Salem the senator has to cast real votes.

I am a citizen and voter, not a TV news producer. I don't own a TV station. I realize it is easy for me to make suggestions from the outside and in ignorance. Still, I watched the whole thing, including the commercials, so I share my opinion.

Again, thanks.

Here is a link to the program:  https://kobi5.com/news/politics-news/state-senate-district-3-candidate-forum-197566/

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Sparacino's ads hurt him.

Randy Sparacino's campaign is choking on corporate PAC money.

Jeff Golden should welcome every mailer and TV ad Sparacino runs.

One cannot spend a million dollars of other people's money in a media market this small and not look like a tool of the people paying the bills.

I offer advice to Sparacino.

I expect to vote for Democratic State Senator Jeff Golden, not Republican Sparacino. I voted for Sparacino for Medford mayor, but I am disappointed in his campaign for state senate. He is playing footsie with the election-denying wing of his party. I also think abortion should remain available in Oregon and if Republicans get a majority they are pledged to outlaw it.

I freely give advice to Sparacino's campaign anyway. They won't believe me and won't change, so it is harmless. Here is the advice: Stop. Stop taking $100,000 dollars a week from PACs to spend on your advertising. Your ads are sinking your campaign. They have the wrong message. 

The intended message of Sparacino's ads is that Jeff Golden is a terrible, disgusting Democratic bad guy, and that Sparacino is the alternative. They follow the pattern of all attack ads, with ugly black and white photos of the opponent and creepy music.

TV ad

From a Sparacino mailer

The ads attempt to drive up the negatives on Golden. What's the problem? The problem is that the ad avalanche turns Sparacino into yet another standard-issue angry Republican attacking a Democrat. This role appeals to partisan Republicans, but it is a minority taste, especially in a senate district with a 12-point Democratic lean. Golden is helped when voters in a district like this see a Republican attack on a Democrat by out-of-area PACS. Democrats don't need to run ads warning voters that Sparacino is a partisan foot-soldier on the GOP/Donald Trump team. Sparacino is doing it for them.

The incident of Fox News and GOP pretending outrage over Golden's supposed racism signaled that Sparacino's teammates and funders were looking for dirt, even if they had to create it. Sparacino can claim it was done for him, not by him. It doesn't help, not in the face of a drumbeat of negative ads doing more of the same on Sparacino's behalf. The ad overkill sends a message of Sparacino dependence. It looks like he is being sponsored, and he belongs to them. 

Since Sparacino's ads have a hard partisan edge, they motivate Democrats. The ads turn off people of all persuasions who dislike nasty partisanship. The vote going to independent Betsy Johnson's campaign for governor shows there are a lot of people who appreciate feisty independence. Sparacino's ads work in the opposite direction. They diminish Sparacino. They confirm him as passenger on a luxurious Republican steamroller, a bad image in most districts, including this one. If you begin to forget or doubt that this is Sparacino's role, another ad will soon remind you.

Sparacino's ads have a losing message, and his own campaign is paying to spread it! Golden should rejoice every time another ad appears.

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Easy Sunday: Internet Dog Fight

It is easy to be Mr. Tough Guy at a distance, from safety, when held up by the man.

But face-to-face is something else. 

I consider this a commentary on internet bullies and nasty anonymous comments on message boards.

Click below: 14 seconds. Turn on sound.

Click Here

Something rotten at the Secret Service

I hate conspiratorial thinking, but something isn't right at the Secret Service.

The January 6 demonstration was no secret. Everyone got the word: "Be there. It will be wild." A huge crowed showed up. The Secret Service had plenty of warning that they had a job to do, and they didn't do it.

The Secret Service has experience handling mass demonstrations. In 1968 and 1969, when I was in D.C. for anti-war demonstrations, transit buses were lined up nose-to-tail surrounding sensitive spots. 

The House January 6 Committee reported on Thursday that there was ample evidence sent to the FBI and Secret Service that armed people would be at the Stop the Steal rally. Well, of course. The mainstream media was full of stories about it. Trump had already directly spoken to the Proud Boys, telling them to "Stand back and stand by."  

Oath Keeper. Ready for battle.

People who follow Q-Anon and right wing social media chatter reported contemporaneously that the crowd would include people who praised 2nd Amendment power. On January 6 law enforcement agencies found and arrested people with explosives, handguns, and sniper rifles. People openly wore body armor and carried chemical sprays. 

Some Secret Service agents dispute the fine points of the testimony of Cassidy Hutchinson. She said that the lack of screening for weapons was the specific doing of President Trump. She said he told them to turn off the magnetometers. She testified that Trump said,

Let my people in. I don’t fucking care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the fucking mags (metal detectors) away.

Maybe Trump grabbed the steering wheel of his vehicle to go to the capital, maybe he just lunged toward it. What is not disputed is that the Secret Service knew of the hazard, knew there were weapons. The Secret Service protects the Vice President and Speaker of the House. They were inside the Capitol carrying out a Constitutional duty.

The incident of Michael Pence's refusal to get into a Secret Service vehicle to escape the Capitol rioters takes on special significant in the context of the Secret Service failure. Pence appears to have had a premonition that the Secret Service was not just trying to protect him. It might be carrying out a plan to get him out of the Capitol. 

I’m not getting in the car, Tim, I trust you, Tim, but you’re not driving the car. If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off. I’m not getting in the car.

Once he was out of the Capitol, ballot-counting would not take place as required by the Constitution. The transition of power would fail. Or, instead, Congress would be presided over by the Senate President Pro Temp, Charles Grassley, who might entertain the Trump's demand that electoral votes be discarded. 

A new picture emerges of the Secret Service. They aren't--or at least were not--defending the president and the Constitution. They were carrying out the political agenda of Donald Trump, against the Constitution. In 2019 Trump made a very unusual appointment. The head of his protective detail, Antony Ornato, normally a non-political job, was appointed to be Trump's new Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. Washington Post reporter Carol Lessing described Ornato as "very, very close" to Trump and a "yes-man." After Trump left office Ornato returned to the Secret Service where he led training. He has been subject to questioning by the FBI and the House January 6 Committee. He resigned from the Secret Service in this August, amid that questioning.

Questions and doubts emerge--which is the basis for conspiratorial thinking. Perhaps Mike Pence knew something very corrupt was in the works, which is why he refused to enter the car. Was the Secret Service a Praetorian Guard of personal bodyguards loyal to the man, not the office? Is it still? If they are loyal to the man, not the office, which man?

Questions and doubt about our democratic institutions are the rot that undermines democracy.  If institutions that employ armed agents aren't loyal to the Constitution then there is no reason to respect them. If democratic institutions aren't respected as legitimate, then democracy itself isn't respected. If democracy isn't legitimate then the will of the people gets expressed by people choosing to take power on their own. It's a dangerous line of thinking.

At the very end, Mike Pence held the line. He was prudent and loyal. Attorney General William Barr held the line. So did lawyers in the Department of Justice who threatened resignation. A great many voters don't seem to value that service. They are called RINOs now by Trump and apparently a majority of Republicans.

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