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Democrats Lost More than the House of Representatives

11/18/2022

Kevin McCarthy; Susan Walsh/AP, FILE

We are gratified that there was no red wave in the 2022 midterm elections. But the Democrats did lose their majority in the House, although by a small number. That loss will allow Republicans to use their control of the House to investigate members of the Democratic Administration, the agencies that refused to yield to Trump, and President Biden’s son, Hunter. House Republicans have announced their plans to investigate, at least, the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. Also, the Republicans have said they will revisit how the Justice Department and the FBI handled the investigation of Trump. And because some House Republicans have labeled the Bidens a crime family, there is a possibility they will impeach President Biden.

Although some people might argue that if these individuals have done nothing wrong, then investigations will not matter. Investigations will add to the burden of the individuals and agencies involved. Inspector Generals or Special Prosecutors have examined each of the announced investigations and found no wrongdoing. Besides the waste of time and resources involved in these planned Republican investigations, Democrats should fight them for three other reasons. First, as many other observers have noted, Republicans want to conduct these investigations to undermine his run for reelection for President in 2024. In 2015 Republicans in the House used this tactic to weaken Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. For more than 11 hours, Clinton faces Republican questioning about the terrorist attack on Benghazi. This hearing was Clinton’s second Congressional testimony about Benghazi; the Republicans discovered no new information.

Second, even if Republicans are unable to undermine Biden, they undoubtedly hope they can normalize Trump’s criminal activity. Even the Congressional investigation of Biden’s son (currently being investigated by the Department of Justice) will normalize the suspected wrongdoing of Trump’s family. Trump’s supporters will use the investigations to verify their claims that “all politicians are crooked, but Trump is the best of them.” Third, investigations of government agencies undermine trust in the government. And it creates doubt that anything the government says is true. Republicans will use this distrust in government to undermine the pillars on which democracy rests.

Democrats should fight the investigations by House Republicans because they threaten our democracy. Unfortunately, Democrats have decided they have nothing to fear if they ignore the game being played by Republicans. Democrats could not be more wrong.

Election 2022

11/14/2022

Like about 65 percent of Americans, I was relieved by the Democratic victories in the midterm elections. Various commentators are pushing their favorite explanations for what Democrats did to reverse the historical trend of Congressional members of a first-term President’s party losing their elections. Some commentators posit that Democrats were able to turn the election from focusing on economic issues like inflation to cultural issues like abortion and democracy. Other pundits’ explanations stress the low quality and extremism of the Republican candidates.

Explaining this reversal is essential. But another question is even more critical. Considering the Democrats’ accomplishments compared to the Republicans’ blunders, how could Republicans continue to be competitive against the Democrats? Republicans were implicated in an insurrection against our government, campaigned without an agenda, and promised to end Social Security and Medicare as we know it. Democrats passed milestone safety-net legislation, such as the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. In addition, Democrats passed an Infrastructure Bill, a CHIPS Act, to increase U.S. semiconductor manufacturing and aid to Ukraine to boost democracy in Europe.

Republicans do not have any governing ideas. The purpose of the Republican Party has become to stop any idea that will improve the quality of life for Americans. Republicans reject addressing the problems confronting us, such as healthcare, climate change, immigration, and inflation (the lowest in the industrialized world). Their purpose is to upend the possibility of a governing majority by splitting the Democratic coalition that includes independent voters. If Republicans successfully stifle effective governance, citizens may sour on democracy and turn to authoritarianism. Of course, Republican donors are willing to fund Republicans to ensure their taxes remain low.

The Democratic victories in the midterms are gratifying. Republicans were competitive in the midterms because they were able to raise funds from ultra-rich donors. Democrats could reverse the historical trend of the President’s party losing Congressional members by returning to a 50-state campaign strategy and shunning broadcast advertising in favor of on-the-ground organizing. Democrats also strategically promoted the weakest candidates in the Republican primaries to face them in the general elections. Most importantly, the Democratic base was energized and showed up because the Supreme Court overturned Roe and democracy was on the ballot. When the Democratic base shows up, Democrats tend to win.

Nonetheless, until independents, and perhaps, some Republicans, learn over the next two years that Republicans have nothing to offer. We will face another election in which democracy is on the ballot. Unless we develop a more persuasive approach to offsetting Republican efforts to turn this country to authoritarianism, they may eventually hit a long shot.

Saving the Union

11/3/2022

One of the many problems President Abraham Lincoln faced in the summer of 1861 was the location of Washington, D.C.; it was surrounded by states in or sympathetic to the confederacy. To help counter this precarious position, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. This suspension allowed military authorities to arrest and indefinitely hold suspects without indictment or judicial hearing. Lincoln ignored an order issued by Chief Justice Taney to release or try a suspect the military had arrested. Lincoln ignored Taney’s ruling. And Taney responded by calling Lincoln “lawless” and opining that “the people of the U.S. was no longer living under a government of laws.”

Lincoln’s “unlawful” action suggests that there is a path between upholding our democracy and allowing a fascist takeover. That path is the temporary suspension of some Constitutional protections, if necessary, to save our democracy. The notion that we must allow fascists to use the privileges of our democracy and permanently end those privileges is folly. It is a folly that none of the slave-owning Founding Fathers would ever abide.

Political Violence

11/1/2022

Police and investigators at Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco residence, where her husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder Credit...Jim Wilson/The New York Times

The attack on Paul Pelosi signals a step backward to the political criminality that gripped this country during the Red Summer of 1919. More than 26 race riots and at least 250 deaths occurred during Red Summer. White mobs attacked black people seeking to remove some of the boundaries imposed by Jim Crow America. Surprisingly, even with the history of violence that the U.S. has known, our leaders cannot recognize that we are facing an onslaught of this political violence. And if they realize we are facing an attack of violence, they do not seem to have any ideas about quelling it.

Many of the government responses to the violence of the Red Summer could be considered political crimes. Leaders say that the attack on Mr. Pelosi is “not who we are” and “we can’t have this in our country.” Rev. Al Sharpton called for Donald Trump, whose comments helped to ignite the violence, to retract his statements. Solving the problem of political criminality by asking the people responsible for it and benefiting from it to “stop it” is not much of a solution. The U.S. solution to political crime has not been exemplary in the past.

Nonetheless, President Biden cannot be limited to waiting until there is more bloodshed and treating the violence as though it were simply another instance of “street” crime. The perpetrators are not street criminals who can be deterred by flooding a high-crime area with more squad cars. We are under attack. Our institutions are under attack. We must expect our government to respond and protect us.

Inflation Is Not the Problem

10/27/2022

Republican office-seekers have been driving the narrative that the U.S. inflation rate is dystopian on the one hand and the fault of President Biden and his COVID relief aid on the other hand. The mainstream media, eager to add drama to critical midterm elections, has aided this narrative. Despite having higher inflation rates than the U.S., other countries (Mexico, 8.7; Italy, 8.9; Spain, 8.9; Germany, 10; United Kingdom, 10.1; Russia, 13.7; Netherlands, 14.5; Argentina, 83; and Turkey, 83.45), seem to handle inflation better than the U.S. While the media stress the fact that the U.S. has not known inflation this high for forty years, Americans may view 8.3 percent inflation as devastating because of the lack of social safety nets. Of course, the 8.2 percent annualized inflation rate stretches many families to the breaking point.

Although U.S. unemployment is as low as it has been for two decades, most U.S. workers have not had an actual wage increase in 40 years. Except for the highest-paid workers, wages have remained the same. At the same time, health care costs, sometimes a part of workers’ compensation packages, have been increasing, usually more than inflation. Many Americans, some earning as much as $90,000 a year, say they can not afford the health care they need. Also, the Federal Reserve reported that 32 percent of Americans could not afford a $400 cash emergency. While 32 percent is a new low—it has been as high as 50 percent—it is another indicator of how close to financial hardship many Americans are.

Inflation in countries with higher inflation rates (listed above) than the U.S. also has more robust safety nets. The countries listed above have government health systems. And most have other government safety nets to help shield their citizens from inflation. Nonetheless, high inflation is painful, especially for those with few resources. But government programs and safety nets can help. Government programs and wage increases commensurate with productivity increases could have lessened the adverse impact of 8.2 percent inflation.

Crime in Atlanta, 1908

10/26/2022

From: Project Gutenberg - Following the Color Line by Ray Stan Baker. "Showing how the color line was drawn by the saloons at Atlanta, Georgia."

In 1908, Ray Stan Baker, the noted muckraking journalist, toured the South to assess the condition of blacks some 50 years after the Civil War. Below are some quotes from his book Following the Color Line.

One thing impressed me especially, not only in this court but in all others I have visited: a Negro brought in for drunkenness, for example, was punished much more severely than a white man arrested for the same offence. The injustice which the weak everywhere suffer--North and South--is in the South visited upon the Negro. The white man sometimes escaped with a reprimand, he was sometimes fined three dollars and costs, but the Negro, especially if he had no white man to intercede for him, was usually punished with a ten or fifteen dollar fine, which often meant that he must go to the chain-gang. On of the chief causes of complaint by the Negroes of Atlanta has been of the rough treatment of the police and of unjust arrests.

Baker quotes the white leader of the Civic League with one of the consequences of the disparate treatment between blacks and whites in court. “We complain that the Negroes will not help to bring the criminals of their race to justice. One reason for that is that the Negro has too little confidence in our courts.”

One reason for the very large number of arrests—in Georgia particularly—lies in the fact that the state and the counties make a profit out of their prison system. No attempt is ever made to reform a criminal, either white or coloured. Convicts are hired out to private contractors or worked on the public roads. Last year the net profit to Georgia from its chain-gangs, to which the prison commission refers with pride, reached the great sum of $354,853.55.

Of course a very large proportion of the prisoners are Negroes. The demand for convicts by rich sawmill operators, owners of brick-yards, large farmers, and others is far in advance of the supply. The natural tendency is to convict as many men as possible—it furnishes steady, cheap labour to the contractors and a profit to the state.

People want to feel safe and thus can agree that criminals should be arrested and held to account. But people differ in the steps communities should take to minimize the number of criminals and how the police should treat those they charge.

Fascism Promises What Only Liberal Democracy Can Deliver

10/25/2022

Pro Gun MAGA 2nd Amendment Guns Rights - Ebay sale

I believe in liberal democracy (as opposed to fascism, illiberal democracy, or autocracy), which is the only way I know to keep hope alive. First, because a country guided by all its citizens will be more economically and socially successful, I hope the U.S. will remain a liberal democracy. Second, democracy has institutions that protect its people from corporations and others with more power. And eventually, in most societies, those without power will need to be protected from those with power. Illiberal or autocratic countries reward loyalty to autocrats rather than achievement and merit.

Those who believe in illiberal democracy or fascism do so because they think they will benefit, even if others do not. And in fact, those favored by the autocrats may benefit. But the advantage of liberal democracies over illiberal democracies is that fair treatment should not depend on being in a selected group. Of course, that has not been and still is not the case in the U.S. There is rampant discrimination. Are autocrats or democratic institutions more likely to address discrimination? A clue to the correct answer is that we know how democratic institutions are supposed to function. Who are the autocrats, and why should they continue to favor the groups they say they prefer now?

Consider how the groups' that autocrats favor can change. Before and after the Civil War, the autocrats who ruled the South did not treat poor whites well. Poor whites did not have plentiful economic opportunities or receive first-class public education and health care. Many Southern autocrats claim they do not have the funds to provide for poor whites because they must provide for "unfavored groups." Poor whites may feel better, but they do not do better. Democracy is our best hope.

Some MAGA Republicans now show a preference for illiberal democracy or authoritarianism. An illiberal democracy is a governing system in which the ruling elite allows their citizens to vote but denies them the information or rights needed to exercise the right to vote effectively. Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, who describes Hungary as an illiberal democracy, won his last election by about 18 percentage points, giving his party a two-thirds majority. Orban's opponent partly attributed his loss to his inability to access media. Unsurprisingly, many MAGA Republicans who prefer an illiberal democracy also admire Orban. Those MAGA Republicans who want the U.S. to become an illiberal democracy are silent about what aspects of fascism they favor. They favor a white Christian nation with no homosexuality, although they do not say how they intend to make that happen. But they do not say what other aspects of an illiberal democracy they favor or are willing to accept.

We can only speculate what an illiberal U.S. democracy would look like. Fascist Italy or Germany in the thirties, Eastern Europe today, including Hungary, or the authoritarian U.S. South in the twenties or thirties do not provide a realistic picture of an illiberal U.S. The U.S. is too different. But we do have the policies that libertarians like the Kochs and their far-right donor networks have advocated and actions Trump either implemented, tried to implement, or said he favored.

The areas in which we can expect are as follow:

Privatization of the commons, such as public schools, transportation, and some of the protections afforded by government agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Drug Administration;
Elimination of federal government protections from both other government entities and private corporations, such as pollution, workplace dangers, financial dangers, and drugs;
Elimination of privacy rights, such as the right to an abortion, contraceptives, interracial marriage, and same-sex marriage;
Elimination or curtailment of freedoms of the press, speech, and assembly;
Elimination or curtail gun rights;
Elimination of safety net protections, such as Medicare, Social Security, right to unionize, and minimize wages;
Creation of obstacles for opposition parties and candidates, such as politicization of media regulation and sale of media outlets; and
Removal of the fair and equal protection of government such as judicial appointments, career bureaucrats, armed forces leadership, law enforcement including DOJ, court orders, and pardons.

Many MAGA Republicans support and would dispute the elimination or curtailment of many of these rights. For example, MAGA Republicans certainly support gun rights. But if Trump and his clan should become leaders of a perpetual ruling party, would that party support all citizens' access to guns? Similarly, MAGA Republicans now favor free speech, but in an illiberal democracy run by MAGA Republicans, I suspect their view of this and many other rights would change.

Fascism is not the same as Nazism; it will be different in the U.S. than in Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy. What is common to all forms of fascism in all places is its emphasis on group ethnicity and rule by one leader and his small group of sycophants. A white oligarchy in the South excluded African Americans from political power in the U.S. South for most of the 20th century. As a result, their economic and educational progress was severely limited, although a few African Americans could make some gains relative to other African Americans. In addition, the white oligarchy also reduced most whites' economic and academic progress in the South. Only a small number of whites benefited from a political system in which they held power.

A distressingly large percentage of Americans, perhaps 30 percent, want the U.S. to become a fascist country. Nearly the same percentage of Americans are willing to vote with those who wish to be a fascist country. The history of fascism in Germany, Italy, and parts of the U.S. shows that it limits the opportunities of all people. In fascist countries, the consequences of restricting the access of groups to political power can be rapid because it leads to war. In other countries, the adverse economic and educational effects of fascism take longer to appear. Despite this history of fascism, some people favor fascism over an all-inclusive democracy. These people seem to believe that even though most people will lose in a fascist country, they will be among the winners.

Their hope for a better future is based on dislike or fear of some people on the one hand and their trust in a small group of people with whom they share ethnicity on the other. I wonder why they place so much confidence in ethnicity. The nobility often shared ethnicity with their serfs.
I am confounded by two related blunders in Democratic messaging this cycle. First, Democratic politicians praise democracy and declare that we must fight to maintain it. But they never say why democracy is essential. It is almost as if they believe democracy is important because we have had it for over 200 years. Second, Democratic politicians and strategists claim that they must speak to the issues of uppermost concern to voters. These issues include the economy, abortion, inflation, education and schools, immigration, climate change, and crime. These have in common that democracy underlies our ability to address them. Without democracy, a ruling elite will decide the country's path to each issue. Our choices will be limited.

Why Democratic politicians cannot make a robust case for democracy as the foundation on which a strong economy, the right to reproductive health care, education, and other freedoms depend remains a mystery to me. Republican politicians do not support democracy. Republicans now support illiberal democracy.

We Should All Be Afraid of Fascism

10/24/2022

Credit: Lehigh University iStock/Douglas Rissing

Fascism is not the same as Nazism; it will be different in the U.S. than in Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy. What is common to all forms of fascism in all places is its emphasis on group ethnicity and rule by one leader and his small group of sycophants. A white oligarchy in the South excluded African Americans from political power in the U.S. South for most of the 20th century. As a result, their economic and educational progress was severely limited, although a few African Americans could make some gains relative to other African Americans. In addition, most whites' economic and academic progress in the South was also severely reduced. Only a small number of whites benefited from a political system in which they held power.

A distressingly large percentage of Americans, perhaps 30 percent, want the U.S. to become a fascist country. Nearly the same percentage of Americans are willing to vote with those who wish to be a fascist country. The history of fascism in Germany, Italy, and parts of the U.S. shows that it limits the opportunities of all people. In fascist countries, the consequences of restricting the access of groups to political power can be rapid because it leads to war. In other countries, the adverse economic and educational effects of fascism take longer to appear. Despite this history of fascism, some people favor fascism over an all-inclusive democracy. These people seem to believe that even though most people will lose in a fascist country, they will be among the winners.

Their hope for a better future is based on dislike or fear of some people on the one hand and their trust in a small group of people with whom they share ethnicity on the other. I wonder why they place so much confidence in ethnicity. The nobility often shared ethnicity with their serfs.

It Isn’t Just The Wall

10/20/2022

Strong winds blew over parts of Trump's new border wall with Mexico. TV News

Evaluating Trump's effectiveness as president is not as simple as it seems. We incline to view Trump as a clown whose primary accomplishments are criminal. Because this is our tendency, we must apply some systematic method to guard against our biases. The media's standard practice compares candidates' campaign promises to their accomplishments. This method can undercount Trump's achievements.

When Politifact considered a selection of Trump's campaign promises, Trump did not appear to be very effective. Ten promises and their outcome follow: build a wall — and make Mexico pay for it (failure); temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States (partial success); bring manufacturing [jobs] back (failure); impose tariffs on goods made in China and Mexico (partial success); renegotiate or withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement and Trans-Pacific Partnership (success); fully repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with a market-based alternative (failure); renegotiate the Iran deal (failure); leave Social Security as is (success); cut taxes; bomb or 'take the oil' from ISIS (success), and appoint conservative judges (success).

First, some of these campaign promises are feckless. For example, if 'leaving social security as is' and 'bombing or taking the oil from ISIS' is considered a campaign promise, they are Trump's accomplishments. But fulfilling these promises took little effort on Trump's part. Second, the media's method of measuring effectiveness does not consider the importance of one accomplishment relative to another. Cutting taxes for the rich and appointing conservative judges are two enormously meaningful accomplishments. Failing to eliminate the Affordable Care Act was one of Trump's biggest failures and liberal successes. Cutting taxes was consequential because it cemented the wealthy donors to Trump for the 2020 election, although it did not lead to victory. Appointing conservative judges may have resulted in the ultra-right's long-term effort to dismantle liberal democracy in this country.

Trump is capable of spearheading success. He may need enablers, but there seems to be no end to them. We must not underestimate or ignore Trump.

What Does the MAGA Base Want

10/19/2022

Getty images

President Biden delineated MAGA Republicans from other Republicans. Biden characterized MAGAs as not respecting the Constitution, believing in the rule of law, or recognizing the people's will. Although Biden did not indicate how many MAGA Republicans there are, Aaron Blake in the Washington Post estimates that about 10 percent of Republicans are MAGAs. Neither Biden nor Blake distinguished between the MAGA base and elected officials. Suppose the MAGA elected officials win majority control of the House of Representatives. In that case, the House is expected to hold numerous hearings on Biden Administration policies and conduct, the possible criminal behavior of Biden's son, Hunter, and, eventually, the impeachment of President Biden.

From what we know, the MAGAs want to end or severely limit immigration, and regain the status they believe they have lost because of social and demographic changes. While MAGA elected officials are carrying out this harassment plan, what will the MAGA base be doing? What will MAGAs do to reduce their psychological discomfort from the presence of people of color, LGBTQ people, and the inability to carry their guns where they please? Because it is unlikely that MAGAs will be able to enact any federal laws to obtain what they want. However, MAGAs in some states will be able to pass laws to give the MAGA base what they want. Even more frightening is the specter of MAGAs who are emboldened enough to take matters into their own hands.

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