My Hubris

Many of my friends and family are feeling malaise now, given the outcome of the election.  I am no different.  But where I'm likely to be quite different is to have the urge to come up with a strategy for the Democrats, first by doing a SWOT analysis on their positions, then by coming up with a sensible path that emerges thereafter.  I need to say that as somebody outside the political machinery, in many respects I don't know what I'm talking about.  That I will come up with something both sensible and realistic is unlikely.  My hubris is that it will be otherwise.   Yet knowing that ahead of time I will still go through this exercise because I know myself well enough that if I don't do it, the ideas will just fester inside me. On the other hand, if I do the analysis and write about it, I can get it out of my system and move onto something else, perhaps not returning to thinking about politics for a good long time.

Let's begin.  Perhaps surprisingly, I'm going to take as my inspiration my World Series viewing on TV, particularly the commercials. Up through the League Championship Series, there were two main networks that covered the games.  TBS had the American League games.  Fox had the National League games.  It was Fox that had the World Series.  I don't know whether that mattered for what I say next.  Maybe it did.  

The commercials were repetitive and the bulk of them were about selling product.  Some were political, in support of one Presidential candidate or the other.  All of these were attack ads.  Rather than praise the candidate who endorsed the message, the commercial would rip the other candidate.  There were commercials from both parties, though there seemingly were more pro-Trump commercials than pro-Harris commercials.  I should also note that, except for viewing sports, I don't watch Fox.  So, I don't know whether the commercials during the World Series were the norm for that network or were specific to the World Series.

We should take a moment to reflect on why attack ads prevail rather than ads which might uplift and educate the public, while attack ads breed cynicism and contempt.  Apparently, it is believed by those who make the commercials that negative emotions are stronger motivators, particularly for voters who are undecided, as to the candidate they will choose or whether they will exercise the franchise. Given this, what's fair is fair.  Harris commercials told us that Trump would be a disaster.  Trump commercials reciprocated.  But the reality is that Trump had been President, so there was a record of how he operated in office.  Harris, as Vice President, played a much lesser role. The Trump commercials focused on what Harris said in interviews rather than what she did in office.  Further, the Harris commercials were delivering a condensed version of what a viewer would see when watching a segment on MSNBC, condemnation of Trump.  The Trump commercials, in contrast, focused on a very specific item to concentrate the fear about Harris.

The focus was on Harris embracing equal rights for Trans people.  Now, that a Democrat would support equal rights for all Americans regardless of (you can give quite a few qualifiers here) is not surprising. But instead of condemning this general principle, evidently doing that would be a political loser, the Trump commercial instead zeroed in on this incredibly small portion of the population.  I don't know whether this was a coincidence or not, I suspect otherwise, but around the same time there were news items about other schools cancelling their women's volleyball matches with San Jose State, which has a Trans player on the roster.  

There is an unspoken question in the background that needs answering.  Do voters truly embrace equal rights for all?  Or, instead, do they believe something else such as - they are entitled to have their own prejudices against others and don't want to be forced to feign otherwise?  Perhaps there could be some hybrid that is closer to the mark - the former is the ideal we strive for while the latter is the current reality.  This provides a backdrop for the evident resentment over the last few years against DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Programs in Higher Education and the far earlier pushback against 'political correctness' that should also be taken into account.  The Liberal Elite forced these ideas on the rest of the population, who didn't want them.  And the Democrats have been captured by the Liberal Elite.  At least, that's one interpretation of our recent political history that I've heard repeatedly.  But there is another question that's not being asked, but should be.  If the hybrid is a good first pass at the current reality, how does one get closer to the ideal?   As it is a difficult question to answer, I will move on.

It may be that all of this is a red herring and that the only thing which matters to the voters is given by that famous James Carville line - It's the economy, stupid. Here's my little bit on that, based on reading this piece from NBC on why we had the electoral outcome we had. There were only two real factors mentioned, immigration and inflation, which is what I'll focus on here.  The entire rest of the piece is about what I'd term political ephemera.  It may matter in the moment, but its significance is far more symbolic than real.

Ordinary people are pretty good at identifying economic problems, though there may be some issue with labeling.  For the typical consumer, inflation is associated with high prices of the goods and services they purchase, rather than associated with the economist's definition - it's the rate of increase of those prices which is inflation.  And while the official statistics measure that rate of increase on an annual basis, many consumers are likely to compare now with their pre-COVID experience.  On that score, gas prices are quite modest, at least around Champaign IL, where I live.  Grocery store prices, on the other hand, are much higher.  For people with a modest income, that's a biggie.  Interest rates are much higher now. And, while I don't mean to be frivolous about this, it's seems that TV prices are much higher, with many of the shows you want to watch found on subscription channels that you don't currently subscribe to.  The sellers of the TV programming are practicing death by a thousand cuts with their buyers, or so it seems.  Plus, the labor market is much softer now.  I have two sons, both in their early 30s.  Each was laid off earlier this year.  So I'm saying this based on personal experience.  That the labor market is softer matters.  It matters a lot. 

As to causality, however, especially when the causes are non-proximate, ordinary people tend to blame the current occupant in the White House, in this case Joe Biden, even when the root cause of the issues happened before the current occupant was elected.  The story is something like this.  COVID was the root cause.  Prior to COVID, the economy was doing quite well.  When COVID arrived,  it disrupted global supply chains in industries across the board.  In some cases, those were temporary disruptions.  In other cases, the suppliers went out of business.  When supply lessens, price rices.  That's elementary economics.  That is not the whole story, but it is the beginning. The next part is that other suppliers used the situation to act opportunistically - they raised their prices even without the drop off in supply, because it was profitable to do so and under the circumstances they wouldn't be blamed for price gauging.  This made the situation worse.  Then the final part is that once there is a general rise in prices, it tends to self-perpetuate as others try to catch up, since their own purchasing power has eroded.  In other words, an inflation expectation has been created.

The Federal Reserve has as one of its mandates to combat inflation.  It does this by raising interest rates, which makes borrowing more costly and thereby lessens demand.  That this happened during COVID makes Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, seem like an evil demon.  He was creating financial pain for many people at a time when the entire population was scared for their lives because of the disease.  In some sense, the experience mirrored my time in graduate school during the late 1970s, which was a period of Stagflation.  Prices were rising while the economy operated well below capacity.  The Fed worried about the former and assumed that when COVID came under control, overall economic performance would improve.  Alternatively, purchasing power can maintain under inflation if income rises at the same rate as prices.   The American Rescue Plan of 2021 did just that, so you might argue that the raising income bit should be handled by fiscal policy rather than monetary policy.  In my view, that plan should have been renewed for at least the next two years.  But politics is such that if the situation starts to seem almost normal, it is harder to get bills through Congress.  Biden does own that.

Let me turn to immigration and why so many Americans now seem to be against it. It is fundamentally about competition in the labor market and the belief that workers who are willing to accept low wages and poor working conditions should be deterred from entering the market, if at all possible, so that the wages of other workers get boosted as a consequence.  This means the jobs themselves must remain within the U.S. and not be exported abroad.  Further, there is a hidden hope that the work can remain labor intensive and not be automated in a way that fewer workers are needed.  This became explicit during the recent longshoremen's strike, where that was one of the contract demands.  But note that the longshoremen are unionized.  To my knowledge there has been no connection made between being anti-immigration and being pro-union.  

One can consider Trump's proposal to put tariffs on imports in this light.  It would have the effect of bringing supply chains for some products more inside the U.S. and in some cases entirely so.  Of course, it will also artificially raise product prices.  That's what protectionism does.  What will be the net effect on 'real wages,' which can be defined as the purchasing power of the income earned?  In any particular case it can go either way.  Normally economists think that protectionism lowers national income because it blocks potential gains from trade.  But there is a literature on 'strategic trade policy' (think of the Chinese here) where restricting imports and promoting exports in certain specific industries can raise national income.  As I have yet to hear anything about strategic export promotion, and the strategic trade literature focuses on a small trading country, not the U.S., I would bet on the policy shooting us in the foot.  Here I'm just trying to get at its origins, not at its merit, and with the origins get at the mindset of many Americans.

As I said, Biden owns this.  And Harris inherited it.  Given that, the polls should have predicted that Trump would win in a walk.  But the polls didn't do that.  This is a puzzle for which I don't have an answer.  It could be that polls were systematically wrong.  (But why?)  Alternatively, there might have been more shenanigans than have already been reported.  Possibly, it could be both.  I hope that the press can untangle this and do so soon, well before Christmas.  I believe that our reaction now depends on an understanding of the truth here.

* * * * *

Now I want to consider Trump moving America toward fascism by giving two possible ways to consider this.  Regardless of approach, it is helpful to consider the messaging that Trump employs entirely as misdirection.  He is manipulating the public, no doubt.  The question is this - manipulating toward what end?  That's what I will take on here.

One interpretation is that this is a replay of Germany in the 1930s.  I'm guessing that many of my friends are fearful that is the case.  I am fearful too; I don't want to deny that.  But I want to keep open the possibility that there is another take on the situation.

This is that Trump throws the MAGA types a bone now and then, but in actuality treats them like dogs who can largely be ignored on economic matters.  Getting the followers stirred up is a way to attain the necessary votes for reelection.  But the economic spoils will not be shared with them.  It's the plutocrats who lurk in the background, including Trump himself, who will get those spoils.  In this sense the followers have been played by Trump, but they don't seem to realize that they have been played.  Will they wake up to what is going on?

If this other alternative better explains things, then you might imagine that the fascist machinations of the next Trump administration will be mild, when the economy is going okay, because the masses will be content, more or less.  If the economy sours, however, or if there is some other crises a la COVID, then those fascist machinations will ramp up, as a way to distract the masses from their own situation.  In this case there is a risk that the first alternative will obtain.  Consequently, one might ask whether many among the masses might sour on Trump before this happens and in addition ask whether they'd be open to messaging from other sources that suggests there might be alternatives for them.  This, it would seem, is entirely unknown and unknowable now.

Let me overlay on this the twin issues of Trump's longevity and Trump's senility, curiously parallel to the situation with Biden.  On the one hand, one might imagine that he doesn't last two more years in office and that Vance takes over then.  On the other hand, one can also imagine that he seems to get through the four years but he doesn't want to leave office, so he challenges the 22nd Amendment or simply bypasses it.  In the former case, the issue is whether the cult of personality that is Trump can carry over to others or if the magic will be gone then.  In the latter case, I can only imagine this happening if we are headed for a replay of Germany in the 1930s.  It is the most worrisome case.

* * * * *

We've reached the part where it's time to ask how the Democrats should respond to the circumstances.  Let me give a word of caution first.  The temptation to find answers quickly is very strong.  That temptation needs to be resisted.  Much thought needs to be put in trying to understand the situation fully and then giving an accurate description of what is going on.  As I said at the outset, I'm an outsider.  My analysis makes sense to me, but there is a lot I don't know.  Similar analyses need to be done by insiders.  If some agreement among them can be found, then there will be a good basis on which to determine the appropriate reactions.

Now a few things occur to me, which I'm comfortable affirming, even as an outsider.  First, the Democrats have a credibility problem because too much of their prior message has been on other than - It's the economy, stupid.  They have acted as if the agenda can been quite broad.  This works for those who always vote Democrat, but at present that's a minority.  If they are to broaden their base the agenda must narrow and the bulk of what's in it must be on economics.  This makes sense as long as Trump is pursuing the throw-the-dog-a-bone approach to governing.  Second, the messaging should be directed to ordinary working people, ignoring Trump and his indiscretions as much as possible.  The Democrats are not as good at propaganda as Trump is.  They should realize that much of what they've done has backfired, that they've been helping him with their overt attacks on him. Third, there needs to be persistence in this, not a quick one and done.  Many of the rank and file won't be happy with that, so there needs to be messaging with them too.  The thrust of such messages is that you can't move closer to the ideal if you remain in the minority.

And what should be done if the replay of Germany in the 1930s seems the likely outcome?  I would want to know this.  How many of those who voted for Trump are not MAGA types at all and would oppose overt fascism rather than support it?  The form of such opposition needs to be beyond the electoral.  You see batted around in the press the expression - civil war - which is easy to say but much harder to understand what it would mean now.  Some violence, I'm sure, would be part of it.  But resistance in other forms will be needed as well - a war of information, if you will.  The specifics on that are beyond me.  There is no good in me speculating about it further.  Others who better understand the situation need to fill in the details and then explain what should happen.

* * * * *

Let me wrap up.  While I have had some difficulty in writing blog posts for the last couple of years - the pre-writing activity would take much longer than it used to - this post was comparatively easy to write, even if it still took a few days from gestation to final product.  I take that as an indication that these thoughts were prominent for me and I needed to express them.  I'm less interested in trying to persuade others with this piece as to my recommendations, but am strongly interested in them demanding to get other analyses done similarly that get at describing the current political reality.  I'm suspicious that such an analysis can't come from the press, because it needs an arms length perspective and being less wrapped up in moment to moment matters.  I think it requires a social science background to provide.  With that, I hope others who are qualified have a go at it and, in turn, that gets the rank and file to reflect on what Democrats should be doing for now.