Is Trump off to the worst start ever?

With only a few executive orders to his credit (and the major one held up by the courts), his approval rating well below 50%, his National Security Advisor leaving his job and probably under investigation for repeated contacts during the campaign with Russian intelligence, it might be that Trump is off to the worst start ever of a US president.

As HowLongHasDonaldTrumpBeenPresident.com tells me, it's only a bit over 25 days since Trump took the oath of office. So thus far the record of William Henry Harrison, who died after 31 days in office, is safe.

I don't know that anyone has said it yet, but: Special Prosecutor? Trump's, or at least his organization's, ties to Russia might prove to be his Watergate. Still very early though. And if Trump is brought down by treason charges, does that mean that White supremacy and war against Islam is okay if you're *not* also supported by Russian intelligence?

How bad will next week be?

Holy cow, the Trump administration is off to a really awful start. I knew London oddsmakers gave him only a 50% chance of serving at least 4 years, but I never thought he'd bring on a constitutional crisis so quickly.

As awful as the situation with the temporary ban on immigrants from some majority-Muslim countries, I think what we're seeing here is the break up of the establishment GOP and Trump coalition. The GOP establishment was always distrustful of Trump, but they thought they a) had no choice but to fall in line because of Trump's popularity among their base; and b) thought they could use him to get some of their pet laws passed--especially cutting taxes on the wealthy and dismantling social programs.

But with his flurry of poorly-thought-out executive orders, Trump has thrown the government into chaos. Spontaneous demonstrations have erupted all over the country. The courts have ruled against him, at least temporarily, and more lawsuits from individuals, organizations and states are in the works. Some GOP congresscritters have criticized the Muslim ban, and even Dick Cheney says it "goes against everything we stand for. "

If our democracy survives, I think the GOP will eventually rue the day Trump was elected. Or maybe they do already. He has only exacerbated splits in the party. He will unfortunately do a lot of damage to the country and world before he is eventually stopped, either by impeachment, the 25th amendment, or the 2020 elections.

Fun Diversion: Political Compass

I know that the "political compass" test has been around for a long time now, but I finally got around to trying it out the other day. This is a two-dimensional test measuring economic left vs. right and social libertarian vs. authoritarian views. The scores go from -10 to +10 for each dimension, with minus being the economic left and social libertarian endpoints (minus not being a value judgment on us, I hope!) As will probably come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, I came out as very strongly to the economic left and only slightly less--but still quite strongly--tilted to the social libertarian point of view. Here are my official scores:

Economic Left/Right: -9.63 [very strongly to the economic left, almost at the very edge]

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.0 [strongly, if not quite completely, to the social libertarian end]

From available info on line, it seems that these scores place me beyond (on both dimensions) not only Bernie Sanders but even beyond Jill Stein of the Green Party.

Has anyone else on this blog, or who reads it, tried the political compass test? If so, feel free to post your own scores and thoughts in the comments!

What Could Have Been

Who would have predicted just eighteen months ago that Donald Trump would be inaugurated as President of the United States? No one in mainstream public life (although Minnesota congressman and leading reformist DNC chair candidate Keith Ellison presciently warned us it was at least a possibility back then, to derisive laughter from the elite media). Political change sometimes moves in directions that no one anticipates or expects, and that is especially true of the restless, anti-establishment times that we live in today.

And that is why I have been haunted over the past several months by the idea that US and world history could have taken a dramatically different direction, if only the Democratic Party establishment and too many longtime Democratic party loyalists, especially those over the age of 35, had not worked so hard to derail the populist insurgent candidacy of Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Imagine a parallel universe where Bernie Sanders was taking the oath of office today, along with VP Elizabeth Warren, and coattails that had elected a Democratic majority to the Senate and possibly even a wave election to overtop the gerrymandered districts in the House. Imagine a candidate who took climate change seriously enough--something, let’s be honest, that even Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton did not, on a scale commensurate with the threat to the future of humanity it poses--but who paired it with its absolutely inextricable counterparts in economic policy: the reversal of wealth and income inequality and the challenge to plutocracy and corporate power. This alternative universe (maybe if some scientists are right, it actually exists somewhere) is a place where the very serious and urgent problems of the world have at least a hope of being addressed--where long-shot, but vital, political change became reality.

For me, the moment when the contingency of history could have bent in a slightly different direction—but with profound and far-reaching consequences—was sometime in March or April, perhaps during the week between Bernie's earth-shaking and unexpected Michigan primary victory and his narrow defeat in multiple states such as Illinois and Missouri the following week. If history had changed just a little bit during that week--given the long roster of states where Sanders was poised to win during the month afterward (and, in fact, usually still did win, sometimes in landslides) we could have seen a political revolution on the Democratic side that was even more consequential than Trump’s demolition of the GOP establishment. I am also haunted that even I, strong believer that I was in Bernie’s candidacy, didn’t do more in the primary. I gave several donations, did some rallies, put a sign in my yard, but I never could quite even bring myself to believe it was likely to happen: That a genuinely leftist political candidate could actually be nominated by a major US political party.

Ultimately the DNC establishment elite proved to be simply too powerful, not least of all in its messaging to its rank and file voters, many of whom agreed more with Sanders’s positions on issues yet supported Hillary out of the misguided belief that she was more electable. So many people, especially of older generations, simply did not believe that a democratic socialist outsider candidate had any chance at all. They ignored all the polls showing that Sanders was a much stronger nominee against Trump than Clinton was, falling back on old Cold War era fears about the impossibility of winning with even the slightest association with left-wing politics. Yet it turns out that more people despised Hillary Clinton (rightly or wrongly--truth be told, some mixture of both) more than they despised socialism. And the Democratic Party ended up nominating an incredibly unpopular candidate, deeply out of touch with the anti-establishment fervor outside of the more prosperous coastal (and honorary coastal) urban centers. That the Democratic Party establishment was so insulated from reality has proved to be as much a part of producing our terrible outcome as Trump voters’ delusions that he actually would “drain the swamp” or take on Wall Street.

But that is where the opportunity lies. While I believe that history may be shaped by seemingly small contingencies that magnify into larger consequences, I also believe that history is shaped by long-term social, economic, and cultural forces that push outcomes back away from unpopular deviations. The main struggle now, in my view, is twofold: (1) to shift the terrain of opposition to Trump away from his Twitter distractions and divisive politics of provocation (while protecting basic rights of marginalized groups when necessary), and toward issues such as challenging corporate power and wealth, and defending policies that bring together Americans of diverse backgrounds in solidarity with one another, such as health care, education, wages/jobs, and the environment. (2) perhaps more contentiously, but even more vitally, to win back the Democratic Party from the donor class and the elite establishment who has run it into the ground since (if not before) the Bill Clinton years.

If we cannot put forward a credible left-wing populist party, then right-wing populism will triumph. This is the key political reality of our times, around the world. As current events show, this is as true in Europe, and elsewhere, as in the United States. The corporate neoliberal status quo is failing, and the struggle is what will replace it. We must pick up the pieces of our shattered election cycle--and, to be optimistic, many of those pieces are very promising, such as the vast and incredibly diverse wave of young voters in favor of Sanders-style political revolution--and bend the arc of history back to democratic socialism, which is the only humane alternative that can realistically defeat right-wing authoritarianism. The nonviolent and peaceful revolution to save our collective future continues!

Let’s Focus on Unconstitutional Emoluments, Not "Russian Hacking"

On the eve of the Electoral College voting, it seems fairly obvious that the much vaunted effort to persuade several dozen of Donald Trump’s electors to vote against him will fail. Despite the sincere, well-meaning efforts of a wide spectrum of liberals, the effort seems to have made little headway, at least as far as I can tell. From my perspective, the greatest rhetorical mistake that liberals are making right now is the unjustifiable obsession with “Russian hacking” – which has been far too central to the case for asking the electors to overturn to the results of their states. This concern is appealing to elite Democratic establishment figures, because it builds bipartisan bridges with their fellow foreign policy establishment elites such as John McCain. It fits perfectly with a frame of mind that loves an appeal to the authority of traditional institutions, such as the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as (for many) a wistful return to the Cold War consensus of shared anti-Russian sentiment and fearmongering. More than this, what I find most outrageous is that the event most closely connected with the Russian government--the leaking of the Podesta DNC e-mails--is such an unbelievably poor issue on which to take a stand for the illegitimacy of an election. For the sake of argument, let’s postulate that the CIA is correct in its allegations about Russian involvement in the leak (but don’t forget that citizens should never trust the CIA’s word without proof on anything). But what were the Podesta e-mails about? Some were just airing the petty personal insults and gripes of DNC elites and certain elite media figures, but others clearly turned out to be leaks that were in the public interest, revealing their misdeeds and corruption. Michael Tracey makes this point cogently. So perhaps we should be thanking the Russians for helping shine a spotlight on this (although it remains a valid point that we would also benefit from equivalent hacks at the RNC, which would undoubtedly show similar, if not greater, corruption)? However, very few would seriously make the case that the Podesta e-mails were important to swing voters in the industrial Midwest. Yes, in a very small way they reinforced the (true) perception that Hillary Clinton and the DNC elite are corrupt, but they were a minor blip. In no way, except in elite establishment bubble world, can their hacking and revelation constitute a crisis of democracy. They certainly don’t constitute “hacking the election” in any serious sense. (If we discover that anyone, Russians or otherwise, was hacking into actual computer vote counting machines, that would be a completely different story, of course!) Donald Trump’s wide-ranging international business ties, including Russia but also many other places as well, are a much greater source of likely future systemic corruption and constitutional unfitness for the presidency. It now seems almost certain that he will be violating the “emoluments clause” of the constitution from his first day in office, and his laughably inadequate proposed solutions--having his children run his business empire, for example--will be both substantively and constitutionally insufficient. The problem, of course, is that you can’t overturn some election results simply because something is “likely” to happen. But once Trump takes office, an impeachment seems to be a very real possibility, unless he dramatically changes how he approaches potential conflicts of interest. (Interesting side note: Some have claimed maybe Trump can't divest his holdings into a blind trust, because he is so highly leveraged with loans that his net worth is less than zero--an intriguing theory!) Now, obviously, the public rhetoric can’t be about “unconstitutional emoluments,” which is a mouthful and incomprehensible jargon to most people. “Foreign bribery” might be a more straightforward shorthand that most people will understand. At a more substantive level, I have no doubt that most Americans, regardless of their vocabulary, understand that Presidents need to be making decisions for American interests, not for linking their own (and their families’) pockets. We just came through an election in which a great many people distrusted the other major candidate because of her corruption, including the Clinton Foundation’s solicitation of donations from foreign governments and leaders. It isn’t that great a step from this to a visceral awareness of how corrupt Trump’s dealings will be. It seems highly likely that grounds for impeachment will be available sometime soon after his inauguration. The only question is: should we wait until he loses popularity for some terrible policy decision, such as privatizing social security or cutting Medicare—in order to insure that people are primed to find his removal from office a welcome prospect—or should we pounce right away?

Working class & billionaires against urban professionals

Drawing on the Jacobin article by Matt Carp, the title of this post I think captures the current political alignment. Why would the working class--especially in this case the white working class--see a political ally in a billionaire real estate developer / serial liar? Partly it's that Trump can mimic signs of tribal membership, like being a class A jerk to women, generally enjoying pissing people off, and that sort of thing.

But also I think the series of tweets by Chuck Wendig, which I found via Daring Fireball, gets at the psychology pretty well, at least for a certain sector of the white working class. Basically, they don't like the poor or professionals, because neither of them want to work for a living.

How do we win enough of these folks back to the Democratic fold in the next four years? Well, some are probably lost causes--deeply bigoted, racist, or otherwise committed to jerkery. The Democratic party can't really appeal to them without damaging its existing coalition, which we don't want to do.

Confronting Trump and the Republicans on policy grounds, rather than trying to participate in the media circus Trumpers thrive on is probably also a good idea. And having policies that truly address the problems of the working class is also a good idea. But I'm not convinced that most voters really know or care much about policies.

What we need is a candidate who can speak like a member of the working class. Not like a jerk, as Trump does, but as someone who can be respectful and still show himself to be a member (or at least potential member) of the working class tribe. As Trump I think has demonstrated, what you say is far less important in American politics than how you say it. Sad, but probably true.

I think it would also help if the party put forward something more than just a set of policies. What we need is a platform calling for larger reforms--a complete overhaul of the political system. My shortlist of needed reforms: 1) abolish the electoral college and elect presidents via national popular vote; 2) run elections for national office through a national governmental agency, and take them away from the parties--the ballot and election regulations would be determined by the national agency, and election districts delineated by the Census Bureau; 3) elections for national office would use an instant run-off voting method instead of first-past-the post.

This might require amending the constitution. Fine. While we're at it, let's also 1) limit terms of Supreme Court members so that every president gets to name at least two justices; 2) declare that constitutional rights apply only to individual human beings, not corporate entities; 3) abolish the Senate; 4) double the size of the House of Representatives.

Does the long arc of history bend toward justice?

Despite the recent election, the world--and probably the United States with it--is probably in better shape in most ways today than it has ever been. More people are living better, levels of poverty worldwide are falling, and we've made tremendous strides in protecting the rights of minorities. But I wonder now if we have reached peak civilization. My faith, in Martin Luther King's words, that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice," is not as strong as it used to be.

The rise of liberal democracies, and concomitant increases in political freedom and living standards, may, in the long run, prove to be largely a 20th-century phenomenon. What we have witnessed in other countries, like Hungary, Poland, Turkey, and now (to a lesser extent, so far) in Britain and the US, may be signs that the world is returning to its pre-1900 baseline of mostly unfree societies, where wealth and political power are almost entirely within the hands of the extremely wealthy.

Yes, that's not going to happen with one lost election. But I worry that the world's response to the challenge of maintaining the 20th century's progress will be like its response to climate change--halting, myopic, deliberately sabotaged, and, to the extent that it has been effective at all, probably too little, too late. We may be at the proverbial hockey stick of authoritarianism, oligarchy, and plutocracy.

 

A Working-Class Politics Is Inherently Diverse

Perhaps the most maddening aspect of the rear-guard action of elite Democratic pundits defending the primacy of "identity liberalism" with a focus on language, speech, and symbolism, at the expense of shifting to a more robust working-class politics of common interests against the wealthy and powerful, is that the American working-class is obviously very diverse.

In fact, I'm sure everyone in this conversation is well aware that non-white racial and ethnic groups are over-represented in any definition of the working class, such as among workers without college degrees or those making less than any specified level of income. So why doesn't this obvious reality lead all Democrats to embrace a return to the party's working-class roots?

That is the topic for another day, and clearly there is a lot of self-interest on the part of professional class pundits and establishment Democrats of all races and ethnicities, but the Trump election tells us that we can no longer sweep this class divide within the Left-liberal coalition under the rug. As Matt Karp's brilliant article this morning in Jacobin details quite nicely, Clinton gained dramatically on Obama's performance in all the best off upper middle class professional and wealthy enclaves of the country while falling in working-class areas, among both whites and non-whites.

For non-whites this more often meant staying home, while the disillusioned white working-class divided between those who stayed home and those who switched to Trump. To be sure some fall-off in black voting, in particular, can be attributed to a rebound effect from the unusually high turnout for Obama. But the striking divergence between professional-class black areas, which pushed to even higher levels for Clinton, and the working-class black areas, which fell off noticeably, indicates that this rebound cannot be the whole story.

There is a class politics going on that cuts across all races and ethnicities. I remember back during the primary, as a Sanders supporter, how much comment there was on his relatively worse performance in less affluent black and Latino enclaves (though he did better with all younger voters, as well as with those who were living in more integrated areas rather than in segregated enclaves, particularly among Latinos). Overall, in retrospect, it seems that the turnout was depressed in these areas overall due to massive alienation and detachment from the political process, and Sanders's message never really had enough time build momentum there, and many people misread this somehow as black and Latino enthusiasm for Clinton, which the general election proves it obviously was not.

However, what was equally striking at the time, but much less commented on, was Clinton's enormous relative success in affluent and upper professional class enclaves, such as southwestern Connecticut, Westchester County, Manhattan, the nicest Boston suburbs, Silicon Valley, and elsewhere. These areas not only maintained their enthusiasm for her, but expanded upon Obama's performance quite substantially, as Karp's article details clearly. Clinton's coalition was a considerably more affluent, college educated, and comfortable group of people, compared to any Democratic voter base in my lifetime, and almost surely throughout the entire history of the Democratic party outside of the Old South.

Where can we go for here? Can the Democratic Party reclaim its working-class base, fully realizing that this is an inherently diverse and multi-cultural group of people? The good news is that the same kinds of universalist policies that can avoid the divisiveness of pitting group against each other and instead raise up all working-class people together--and, not incidentally, disproportionately this will help blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and other non-white groups, given the demographics. (Notably, however, it will not particularly help the most affluent and privileged members of these groups, many of whom are obviously speaking with quite a different voice as part of the Democratic establishment rather than in solidarity with the much larger base of their groups who are in the working class--though of course for every detestable Cory Booker, Jamelle Bouie, or Joy Reid there is a Keith Ellison, Ben Jealous, or Nina Turner, so just like among whites, there are some nationally visible figures who care deeply about class and universalist politics!)

What would a concrete politics of defending the diverse working class with universalistic politics look like? One sign of hope is the recent push by Bernie Sanders to call Donald Trump's bluff on his pledge during the campaign to pressure Carrier to keep its manufacturing jobs in Indiana rather than move them to Mexico, and to protect American workers rather than just doing the bidding of large corporations. If you've seen the viral video of workers being told of the outsourcing and impending layoffs, you will know that both non-white and white workers are there hearing the same horrible message, and reacting with outrage.

But rather than letting Trump off the hook, or allowing him to broker some shady backroom deal, Sanders has introduced legislation to make this a matter of policy through an Outsourcing Prevention Act, which would make this a general policy rather than just a political prop. This is exactly the kind of politics we need--letting the working-class of America know that we are firmly on their side, and simultaneously holding Trump's feet to the fire on an issue he is unlikely to be able to deliver on, while keeping his GOP establishment partners satisfied.

A funny thing about Trump's election: so far the only concrete policy change has been the end of the lamentably awful, anti-worker (and anti-environment) Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trump himself mentioned it as the first item in his recent transition video on his priorities upon taking office. But now he has committed himself to maintaining a pro-worker trade policy (less so on the pro-environment, admittedly) and a robust defense of working-class politics in the Democratic Party will make it difficult for him to simultaneously keep his pledges and satisfy the GOP. He is backed into a corner now, and we need to cheer on people like Bernie Sanders who are making clear that we once again want to be the party that defends the (increasingly diverse) working class of America.

Thanks, Obama!

Before the end of Thanksgiving weekend, I did want to post a link and brief response to a really great recent Salon article by the ever-reliable Paul Rosenberg: "Giving thanks for the Barack Obama we had — and imagining the one who could have done so much more" Rosenberg captures very well my own "glass half full and half empty" sentiments about the Obama years.

As he points out, the greatest problem was that he failed to seize the moment and realize the full potential, especially early in his presidency. But another thing that strikes me is how much Rosenberg's list demonstrates the potential of a universalist economic program for the common good, rather than the demands construed as being from narrow identity groups. Yet many of the things Rosenberg cites would have improved the conditions not only for the white working class but also for the non-white working class.

It's interesting to think about how our politics might be different today if he had taken on Wall Street more vigorously, pushed for a larger economic stimulus, truly invested in a robust Green New Deal, helped struggling homeowners more than bankers, and strengthened unions. If he had tried these things--and even if the GOP had blocked him on some of it--would Trump have found it so easy to peal away white working-class voters and to turn black and Latino working-class voters into non-voters? As Rosenberg points out, it is important to think about this because it bears directly on the debate over the direction we should go now by reinforcing--with very specific policy examples--where we went wrong during the past eight years in our failure of ambition on the Democratic side. So, with Rosenberg, I give thanks for Obama--especially on the Iran deal, thawing relations with Cuba, leading us out of economic disaster, and supporting cultural shifts toward gay and lesbian equality, among other things--but we should not shy away from a sober assessment of where Obama went wrong.

More Thoughts on the Future of Left and Liberal Politics after Trumps Electoral College Victory

I just wanted to share some of my favorite links I have been reading lately in the wake of the recent political disaster, in addition to those that were posted already in previous posts. The common theme of most of these is the struggle to understand the discontented voters who handed Trump his electoral college victory, despite the potential for them to be part of a Left coalition.

I really do believe we have to reckon with this divide, and acknowledge the role of urban liberals in unwittingly (and often condescendingly) perpetuating it, if we are going to have a successful left coalition to overturn the power of corporations and the wealthy in America, in order to have a socially just and environmentally inhabitable world in the future:

• Ezekiel Kweku: "Skin in the Game: How to Beat White Nationalism at the Polls" 
• Alec MacGillis: "Revenge of the Forgotten Class" 
• Roland Merullo: "What Liberal Academic Don't Get" 
• Sarah Jones: "J.D. Vance, The False Prophet of Blue America" 
• Dan O'Sullivan: "Vengeance Is Mine" 
• Christian Parenti: "Listening to Trump" 

The inclusion of two articles from Jacobin on my list is no coincidence. This is my new favorite magazine. In fact, I have started subscribing to the print edition. Lots of great stuff in there. It's even better than the Nation now, which has become too watered down and centrist/establishment with Eric Alterman and Joan Walsh frequently writing for them (although I love it when the run something by John Nichols or Naomi Klein!)

 I would also like to follow up with some links I've been reading related to ambivalent_maybe's last post below, which I already commented on, especially the flare-up over the "end of identity liberalism" thesis of Mark Lilla.

There was an interesting discussion featuring Lilla on the WBUR public radio program, "On Point"--overall I have become strongly anti-NPR lately due to their relentless pursuit of clueless, bubble-land urban identity liberalism coupled with an actively pro-corporate, anti-working class economic bias on most of their news programs, but "On Point" does a far better job than most of them!--which is well worth listening to, in that it features Lilla himself along with two detractors (Vann Newkirk and Michelle Goldberg) who are far more civil and reasonable than those who simply denounce him as a white supremacist for daring suggest that identity liberalism may be a strategic cul-de-sac for the Left (or liberalism, as I believe he would prefer to categorize himself).

Lilla himself was not terribly impressive on the program, even though I agree with him more than the others. The conversation did motivate me to look up Goldberg's Slate piece disagreeing with Lilla, in which she admits the validity of some of his points, but argues that, ultimately, "democratic politics have to be identity politics." I think she is wrong overall, in her insistence on maintaining an emphasis on identity liberalism, but at least she is collegial, and I also fully agree with her sentiment that we have to stand in solidarity with any identity groups threatened by right-wing white nationalist identity politics, whenever push comes to shove.

Interestingly, her Slate article also induced me to look up some of the people she was arguing against, besides Lilla, and I think they are well worth reading, ranging from the more mainstream, such as Rob Hoffman in Politico, to the more fringe libertarian viewpoint of Reason magazine, all of whom make cogent points I agree with about the strong backlash aspect of stirring up identity politics on the right.

What Does the End of Identity Liberalism Really Mean?

A fitting saying about academic politics is that the fights are so bitter because the stakes are so low. I don't think that applies exactly in the argument among lefties about identify politics--because the potential stakes are whether or not the party succeeds in ousting a group who, besides its authoritarian and white nationalist tendencies, is intent on undoing not only the small advances of the Obama administration, but the entire New Deal. But I do think the difference between the two sides is really quite small. And the argument itself gets at a more fundamental problem with the Democratic party, and American politics in general.

The jumping-off point for this debate, at least in the several essays I've read, is Mark Lilla's op-ed in the NY Times, "The End of Identity Liberalism". I have read and re-read Lilla's essay, and fail to find in it even one specific recommendation for how the policy positions of the Democratic party should change. Instead, his focus is on the rhetoric of various political figures emphasized either what united us (Bill Clinton and Reagan) or what made each group special (Hilary Clinton). Most of the essay is not even about politics, in the sense of parties, policies, and elections, but instead focuses on how teachers and administrators in elementary schools, high schools, and colleges encourage students to "focus on themselves" and celebrate the differences among them and their diverse group of classmates.

This proposal, then, has nothing really to do with what should be the meat of politics. Instead it is, as Echidne of the Snakes calls it, merely a "rebranding" of the Democratic party. In other words, a tinkering with stump speeches, not really a new direction in policy.

On the other hand, Echidne of the Snakes and other critics of Lilla's essay seem to believe that giving up the rhetorical strategies of identity politics would be potentially disastrous for the Democratic party. Hilary Clinton won significantly more votes than Trump did, and the urban and multicultural base of the party could well be less motivated to vote, or vote Dem, if the party did not continue to speak to the issues most important to them.

But much of what is being argued about here--and much of what the right likes to make fun of in stories about those crazy liberals on elite college campuses--has very little to do with the Democratic party. The party is conflated with a hazy notion of ultra-sensitive lefty social customs and administrative policies of schools and colleges.

What first attracted me to the Democratic party, and what attracts me to it still, is that it was trying to help most those who needed the most. It was standing up for the rights of the most vulnerable--whether they were vulnerable because they were poor, or because they were persecuted by the majority because of their gender, religion, sexuality, or what-have-you. What was most important was not who they were, but that they needed help to live their lives with the dignity, opportunities, and respect that is due to anyone, regardless of how they were differentiated, or differentiated themselves, from the rest of society.

Keeping this in mind as the core of the identity of the Democratic party, I think it is easy to see that it can encompass both support for minority rights and broad-based economic policies. There is no necessary choice between identity politics and class. What we're sticking up for is not one or the other; we are sticking up for the underdog everywhere, regardless of why they are disadvantaged.

There are two larger problems that I think the existence of this argument helps highlight. First is that the Democratic party may have let rhetorical support for identity groups swamp its more fundamental message of helping those who need help because it was consciously neglecting policies that undercut the power of corporations and the well-off. While advocating policies that disproportionally benefited those who had the most, the party may have emphasized the rhetoric of identity to keep its base loyal. I don't know enough about the history of Democratic politics to say for sure that this happened, but it does kind of make sense. A renewed Democratic party does not need to abandon identity politics, but it does need to reclaim its soul as the defender those most in need.

 Second, a still larger problem that this argument reflects is the incredibly diffuse nature of "politics" in American life. We're constantly asked to demonstrate our politics in our language, what we buy, what we post to Facebook or Tweet. We've begun to imbue our political position on the red-blue spectrum with a sense of identity--a language, a lifestyle, a tribe. This is, I think, corrosive to our politics in two ways: It encourages an us-versus-them attitude toward our political opponents that is corrosive to progressive ideals, and especially so in a country already dominated by only two political parties; It also substitutes authentic political participation--voting and winning elections--for a multitude of faux political stands and arguments that really have little to do with actual governmental policies politicians might enact.

We need to get back to a very basic Democratic politics, centered on helping the downtrodden through governmental action. To achieve our goals, we don't need to rely on some Rube Goldberg process of cultural change or demographic shifts. We need to get our supporters to the poles and win some damn elections!

This doesn't mean that schools and colleges--or even Democratic candidates--can't continue, if they so choose, to celebrate our differences and use the rhetoric of identity politics. But it does mean that we can't view that as exhausting our political duties. We need to focus our efforts not on rhetoric, but on actual laws and policies that we want to see enacted, and actually getting the votes to put them in place.

Poetic Interlude

A poem by Ogden Nash that speaks to our age:

Everybody Tells Me Everything

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

From my corner of the world...

A post from still small voice, from up in North Idaho

Here, in North Idaho, an active, progressive faction of our community worked hard for many years to rid this corner of the world from white supremacists like the Aryan Nations, Ku Klux Klan, and Christian Identity adherents as well as the Militia of Montana, the Posse Comitatus and Holocaust deniers. Members of these various groups used to gather every April at the Aryan Nations compound to celebrate Hitler’s birthday, and to talk about their shared dream of an Aryan homeland.

North Idaho, eastern Washington and Western Montana were seen to be a perfect place to break ground for this movement, due to the lack of diversity. The Aryan Nations compound was razed to the ground and turned into a “Peace Park” in 2000-- after they lost a lawsuit filed against them by the local human rights organization with the help of Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty law Center.

I thought the concept of a white homeland was bulldozed over as well. Tonight however, I was driving home listening to NPR and heard an interview with Richard Spencer, a white nationalist who coined the term “Alt-Right.” Trump’s newly appointed chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, used to run the website Breitbart, which he called “the platform for the Alt-Right.”

Spencer exulted that with the election of Donald Trump the Alt-Right had entered the mainstream, where it will continue to grow. The end goal of this movement, Spencer stated, would be the formation of a “white ethno state” described as a safe place for Europeans. When Kelly McEvers of NPR asked him if he thought only white people should be citizens of the US he said that wouldn’t be something that could be changed right away but that …”European people were the indispensable central people that defined this nation socially and politically and culturally and demographically obviously. I care about us more. That's all I'm saying. But I respect identitarians of other races.” He went on to suggest that immigration be limited mostly to Europeans--“who are going to fit in-- who are more like us.”

Chilling. But I’m wondering if this time around there will be a broader section of the community who will find this idea not only ludicrous but repulsive.

The day after the election our local human rights group received 4 calls from people wanting to become members. That’s never happened before-- not even in a week, not even in most months. They want to be able to help protect those among us who might feel the most fearful and threatened at this time.

On Tuesday I received a call from a friend I had worked with closely on the human rights task force who since has devoted himself to environmental activism. He attended the Paris summit and started a 350 Sandpoint group inspired by the work of Bill McKibben. On Monday he’d been on a conference call with Bill, as well as other social justice activists in the fields of immigration, racial and ethnic as well as LGBTQ issues. They concluded that the best thing to do at this time was to begin to work together and support each other--So he called a meeting that night of people he knew were active in our community.

There were about 20 of us-- several people had just returned from Standing Rock, helping to support the protest there-- and others represented other organizations in the community. I don’t know what will come of it, but the energy is definitely there to reach out beyond the boundaries within which we all have been working and embrace a broader mission.

One thing that was mentioned was starting a “Safety Pin Campaign.” I had to look that up-- but found that after the Brexit vote, people in the UK started wearing safety pins to show solidarity with immigrants and refugees and others likely to become victims of harassment. If a person wants to be known to others as “safe” or someone to whom they could turn if they feared for their safety, that person wears a big, visible safety pin. Sometimes we need a symbol to rally around-- and this seems to inspire those who would be allies to members of the various groups who have been marginalized by Trump during his campaign and now are fearful of their future.

I will bring it up in a meeting I’m attending tomorrow of another group that has come together to prevent teen suicide, and counter bullying and harassment in the high schools. Perhaps it might take hold in the high schools as well as in our community at large -- and increase awareness of the fact that we have the power to stand up for others.

In some ways it seems like we are moving backwards-- but perhaps we are only going back over the same ground we had only begun to plow, to break up clods, and better prepare the soil so that the seeds we sow will have a chance to grow. And it appears as though many more people are gathering to share in the work, driven by the urgency that comes from a sense of imminent disaster.

The Intense Moral Urgency of Option Two: Some Further Links

I posted a brief comment on the recent post by ambivalent_maybe, in which he outlined two possible paths forward after the disastrous election results in the USA. As I said there, I strongly believe that Option Two--building a populist and progressive coalition around shared economic and social goals--is the only realistic way to build an effective coalition to challenge Trump. We might call this the "Sanders-Warren-Ellison-Gabbard" wing of the Democratic Party.

Also in response to this post, I sent some further links (besides those reactions already posted a few days ago) that lay out some of the prospects and perils of the next few years in our politics. As I told him in my e-mail, there is a way of connecting all these commentaries together into a coherent narrative about the grave dangers of moving forward without trying to rebuild a populist progressive coalition that includes white working-class voters.

One simplified way of putting this message is Marshall Auerback's slogan: It’s Class, Stupid, Not Race. Similarly, Owen Jones, in the Guardian, has declared, in the wake of the recent election results: "The left needs a new populism fast. It’s clear what happens if we fail" In practice, this means setting up a politics in which we can peel away some of Trump's voter base, especially the white working class voters who most dramatically shifted away from the Democrats this year. Les Leopold of the Labor Institute offers an example of what this would mean in a concrete case--Carrier in Indiana--that Trump himself talked about prominently during the campaign. This also means reckoning with the social realities on the ground, as Gary Younge has narrated in a compelling, tragic portrayal of Muncie, Indiana (aka "Middletown")

A broader vision of how we can think about this election is provided by Nathan J. Robinson at Current Affairs, who has provided great contrarian commentary throughout this election cycle: What This Means, How This Happened, What To Do Now.

Nevertheless, although one of Robinson's most devastatingly compelling contrarian take-downs targets has been Vox.com, I believe we will also need some of their "explainer journalism" as part of the coalition, including their summary of the scholarly literature, pointing out that simply accusing people of racism is highly likely to be counterproductive. And although I share Robinson's discomfort with Vox's elitist, centrist liberalism--and I am much more of a populist, anti-establishment insurgent, to use the terminology of Chris Hayes's incredibly prescient book from a few years ago, Twilight of the Elites--I was moved by Ezra Klein's video (and Matthew Yglesias's plaintive textual introduction to it) on how we will need to hope with all of our hope that our American institutions can provide an effective counterweight to the unprecedented systemic corruption which will rock the very foundations of the American republic under a Trump presidency.

As much as I often find myself disagreeing with centrist liberal elite commentators like Klein and Yglesias, we are going to need their help--and, as they point out, GOP members who believe in the American system over party--even as we push very hard for a populist progressive economic coalition under which opposition to Trump can be organized.

 The most urgent shift, in my view, is to emphasize less the outrageous tweets, statements, and insults, and emphasize more about the coming economic betrayals and political corruption of the Trump administration. I realize that there are many groups which are hurting from the wave of hate and bigotry which has campaign has unleashed, and we will certainly have to take action to protect the most vulnerable. But in terms of our larger political messaging, it is clear from the election campaign that outrage at Trump's bad language and contemptible attitudes will not bring about a robust coalition to oppose him.

We must focus on matters of broad-based interests: basic kitchen table economics, shared public aversion to corporate and Wall Street power, and popular revulsion at political corruption. (And now that Hillary Clinton is gone from the scene, they can no longer fall back on the easy rebuttal that focuses on the Clintons' corruption to distract from the Trumps' far greater corruption.)

Most provocative of all--inevitably and intensely controversial--is Mark Lilla's call in the New York Times for "The End of Identity Liberalism." While I am deeply uneasy about the dangers to our coalition building that may come from Lilla's call for an end to identity-based liberalism, I do believe it is a conversation we need to have on the left, given what happened in the election. This will be a very difficult and painful conversation, but if we truly want to create a world where everyone is equally valued and respected, we simply must ask about what kind of politics will get us there.

The more we care about vulnerable groups in our society, the more it is morally urgent to ask hard questions about what kind of politics will be effective in protecting their fundamental rights. And I am increasingly in agreement with Lilla: such a politics requires a commitment to universalism and shared civic ideals, around which all groups can mobilize.

What to do next?

First, some basic points to keep in mind.

1. However much the Trumpists might pretend otherwise, this election was really close. Just one or two percentage points here and there would have turned his into a victory for Clinton. 
2. Turnout was low compared to 2012 and 2008, especially in states that Clinton won.
3. Clinton won the popular vote, and only the archaic electoral college put Trump in the White House. 

We can conclude from these points that American democracy has not failed, and that a little more democracy would have been all we needed to win. In other words, we should have faith that the basic vision of a decent and pluralistic society, where people of all genders, races, and ethnicities feel safe and are equally able to participate in the economic, cultural, and political life of the country, is a vision that most of Americans share. The next four years probably do not presage the eclipse of this vision, and a long struggle to keep what we've achieved since the 1960s in its service. Rather, this election is a bump in the road of continued progress, assuming of course that we can get our acts together for 2018 and 2020. (And nothing really terrible--like a new war--happens in our foreign relations, to which I can only say: I have my fingers crossed.)

I think we will get our acts together, and in some ways the Trump victory helps us mobilize support and clarifies the issues involved. But there are at least a couple viable ways forward from here, it seems to me, and I'm not sure yet which is best.

Option 1: Build the Anti-Trump Coalition

Option 1 for the Trump opposition is to abandon the Trump-besotted white working class and instead build a multi-racial urban coalition that can consistently defeat them. This would include Republicans disaffected by Trumpism, even as the party in general seems all to eager to get behind him now that he's won. A big tent like this would tend to mute other economic and social issues. It's more of a first-things-first strategy: Let's kick these troglodytes back to the sidelines, and after that we can argue more about economic and social policy.

Option 2: Rebuild a Progressive Democratic Party

This is more an intra-party strategy--to get rid of the dead wood in the Democratic party and revivify it as a true advocate for the working classes and poor. This would use the multi-racial urban coalition as a base, but try to broaden it--and to win back some working-class whites--by emphasizing progressive economic policies and fundamental political reforms. This would likely keep away disaffected Republicans, and would be portrayed in the media as leftist extremism to balance Trumpism. But it could also attract more young voters and further heighten the distinctions between the two parties.

As I said, I'm not sure which of these options is best at the moment. I do think that Option 1 is more likely, because it's goal is concrete and short-term, it is less threatening to corporate America, and it hews to the media's (and perhaps voters') predilection for casting events as tales of moral drama, while de-emphasizing economics.

Why Did Trump Win?

Hell if I know, if the short answer. But here, courtesy of Christian Left, is a short list of articles looking at the question.

• Thomas Frank, "Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there"
• Glenn Greenwald, "Democrats, Trump, and the Ongoing, Dangerous Refusal to Learn the Lesson of Brexit"
• Dean Baker, "The High Price of the Trans-Pacific Partnership"
• Krystal Ball, "The Democratic Party Deserved To Die"
• Naomi Klein, "It was the Democrats' embrace of neoliberalism that won it for Trump"
• Michael Moore (back in July) "5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win"

I am still gathering my thoughts, moving through stages of grief, disbelief each hour, practically. The only thing I consistently feel is a determination to keep fighting. Exactly how best to do that, though, is still unclear to me.

Perhaps We Should Ban Marriage Between Christians Instead?

On this day, when the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to uphold a California ban against same-sex marriage--which would have a good chance of losing if it were to come up for a vote today, given shifting views on this issue--I propose an interesting thought experiment. As the opponents of gay marriage descend ever deeper into more illogical and convoluted justifications of their bigotry (is marriage really only valid if it produces children that are the naturally born genetic offspring of both parents due to heterosexual sex? really? really?) it has occurred to me that there is actually a better argument to be made for banning marriage between (most) Christians. Yes, I am serious about this--banning routine marriage between Christians, and possibly also taking away their children if they convert to Christianity later on. Now of course I am mainly bringing this up as a "shoe on the other foot" rhetorical tactic, in order to see how they feel if suddenly other people in society are talking about taking away their right to marry whom they love, on what appears to be a wholly discriminatory and unjustifiable basis. Really, the unfairness of disallowing marriage of one Christian to another may sound harsh, but it is no more unfair than disallowing gay and lesbian people to marry. Try this thought experiment, and I think you will immediately and perhaps more viscerally feel how unjust it is to single out one group for bigotry and intolerance. But beyond this, even though I don't ultimately support a ban against marriage of one Christian to another, the strange thing is that it is probably more justifiable, even if those justification do not ultimately outweigh the simple fact of equal justice under the law. Let me explain. For one thing, while gay and lesbian people do not have a sacred text of their own that would discourage marriage (as far as I know? maybe there is a secret text I have not seen because I'm not gay myself? just kidding...), the Christian sacred text--i.e. the Bible--does contain a prominent statement against marriage--presumably heterosexual marriage mainly, though the passage, like the rest of the Bible does not mention same-sex marriage one way or the other. In the Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in the New Testament (7:8-9) we find a fairly emphatic statement on this point. Here is that good ol' King James Version, for the traditionalists out there: "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I [i.e. remain unmarried like Paul]. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." Here is the New International Version (one of the favorite translations of present-day evangelicals): "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion." Now of course many Christians, self-proclaimed marriage advocates that they are, have explained this away, through various contextual readings, some of which can be persuasive. But a literal reading of the Bible in this instance would seem to suggest that Christianity's own sacred text is against marriage, except in cases of imminent "burning" or burning with passion. So perhaps we need to take those Christians at their word and refuse to grant them marriage licenses--for their own and society's good--unless they can demonstrate conclusively that they will go to hell otherwise. (A notarized statement from Satan himself would be decisive proof, I would think.) In the interim, we can do no less than to protect society's interests by banning Christians from marrying, to prevent them from harming themselves in the eyes of God. And we have other societal reasons to ban Christian marriage: the harm it causes to some children who are raised in Christian households that are excessively intolerant. Maybe we would be justified in taking away such children if their parents convert to Christianity and there is any danger that they might have such intolerant views forced on them. Societal interests would seem to suggest that the sacredness of marriage as a bond of love and commitment not be sullied by the potential for procreation in a household where harmful treatment of children might result. Are Christians really fit to be good parents? I'd say on the average, no more than gays and lesbians, and possibly less in some cases. (Of course there are many Christian households, including my own when I was growing up, where love and tolerance are taught, but we can't legislate based on the exceptions to the rule, now can we?) We would also need to consider the risk of exposing the children to close proximity to people who on the verge of burning in hell (otherwise they shouldn't be getting married, as the Bible says). I think if we were really serious about protecting children and society's interests--not to mention the adherence to the Bible itself for people who hold it sacred--we would be discussing whether to ban marriage between Christians. When that debate comes, I will argue against the ban on the grounds of tolerance and equal justice under the law, just as I do with gays and lesbians, but at least that debate would make a little more sense. Any thoughts? Are others ready to start a movement banning Christian marriage, if only to prove a point?

Mint the Coin or Be Impeached?

I just had a thought, which is a bit too long for twitter, so I'm putting it here: Doesn't the President HAVE to "Mint the Coin"--i.e. the $1t platinum coin, or whatever combination of coins is necessary--in order to prevent default of the U.S. government, if the Republicans in Congress refuse to raise the debt limit? And, if the President won't do it, is that not grounds for his impeachment? Let me explain. The President is obligated by law to spend X amount of money and to take in only Y amount of revenue (where Y is obviously less than X), and further it is stated in the Constitution that the government is obligated to honor its debt. If the Congress does not raise the debt ceiling, then these laws would seem to come into conflict. However, as we all now know, there is also a law in force with plain language allowing unrestricted platinum coinage in any denomination. Thus, the President could direct the Secretary of the Treasury to do this, and thereby keep from violating one of the laws. Would it not therefore be an impeachable offense for the President to violate the Constitution by refusing to mint the platinum coin? Is he not required to do this, since it is permissible and would allow an obvious way to mutually uphold the budget and revenue provisions legally in force? So, to my mind, the issue is not *COULD* the President (through the Secy Treas) do this and survive Supreme Court scrutiny, or *SHOULD* the President do this as a matter of policy or politics, but rather that he *MUST* do this, unless they can find another way around the debt ceiling. As I see it, it is the President's obligation to uphold the Constitution, in conjunction with the revenue and spending laws duly enacted by Congress and signed by the President. If the President refused to Mint the Coin, would he not be subject to impeachment for refusing to implement the laws of the land using a clearly available means? Hence my conclusion, Mr. President: Mint the Coin, or Be Impeached!

Let's Ban (Most) Guns, Repeal Second Amendment

After several days now of reading about and reflecting on the horrific Newtown massacre and the various commentaries thereupon, I have come to the conclusion that we need to abandon the incremental approach and instead advocate for a more drastic shift on gun policy in America: the banning of most guns except appropriate and limited firearms for hunting and other strictly regulated purposes. Yes, I am talking, seriously, about banning most guns in America and implementing a program to buy back those in private hands, followed by outright confiscation if needed. I realize this will sound highly implausible and impractical to many readers--not to mention potentially counterproductive in seemingly driving away some allies--but hear me out. We are evolving as a society, and we have to open ourselves to the possibility of rapid shifts. For example, legalized gay marriage seemed hopelessly out of touch idealistic not that long ago, yet now it is becoming a reality. The resistance to gay marriage was deep, culturally and morally charged, and fierce (still is, in many places, though thankfully as a dwindling minority viewpoint). Admittedly, gun control faces a daunting Constitutional issue, which I will address shortly, but I think we need to face these challenges squarely, courageously, and unflinchingly. The carnage has simply become too great--already was many years ago, but I have new hope that we may be on the cusp of a gestalt switch that will transform the gun debate. (1) First, we simply must address the "second"--Second Amendment, that is. It will sound like anathema to the advocates of incremental change, because of its potency, but it must be said that the (gun rights) emperor has no clothes. The Second Amendment does not, has not, and will not protect any fundamental human or civil rights in the manner that is fantasized about by pro-gun zealots. It may have theoretically served to guard against tyranny in the early days of the United States, before we had an immensely powerful standing military force--although even then, historical research has suggested that it was less a high-minded or principled statement than an expedient to resolve the state vs. national militia power debates of its day--but it is ludicrous to suggest it could ever serve any such purpose today. The Second Amendment is archaic, barbaric, and has been tragically perverse in its consequences. It is time to REPEAL the Second Amendment, completely, unreservedly, and with our only regret being the carnage and bloodshed caused by our failure to come to our senses sooner. I think a major factor in our reluctance to do so, beyond the fear of sounding immoderate, is the sacredness with which the entire "Bill of Rights" is treated, and I will admit that I myself have felt squeamish about tampering with the Bill of Rights, so potent has been the air of sacredness that permeates the First Ten amendments to the Constitution. Indeed, so many of the other First Ten (as I shall call them instead) are rock-bottom principles I would be loathe to ever compromise, and are indeed sacred to the preservation of democracy. But it is time for us to abandon the idea that this flawed historical construct of the First Ten can ultimately be conflated with "civil rights" or "human rights," or that sacredness inheres in all of the First Ten just by virtue of them being passed through some political machinations in the early days of the American republic. There is much in the First Ten that must be protected at all costs, and such things as free speech, assembly, press, and religion, as well as protection from cruel and unusual punishment, habeas corpus, etc., are indeed sacred to democracy, but we must protect these specific rights on their own merits, as core principles of universal human, civil, and democratic rights. "Gun rights" do not meet this standard (nor, I might add, are all the crucial rights we should strive to enshrine and preserve even in the First Ten!), and in fact, given the tremendous killing firepower now available for those who threaten mass murder in public places, arguably the Second Amendment does more to threaten these other crucial human and civil rights (particularly freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion) than to protect them. It is time to push for full repeal of the Second Amendment. (I realize I have sidestepped entirely the pivotal debate over the meaning of the "well-regulated militia" clause, but given the Heller decision a few years ago, I am not inclined to trust the Supreme Court to interpret the Second Amendment in any way that would allow the necessary gun restrictions I am advocating. And so I am essentially saying we need to grasp the nettle and pull it out by its roots.) This will not be easy, but we must begin the struggle in earnest. (2) A second point that should be made, underlining the necessity of pushing for full repeal, followed by strict federal (and even stricter state and local) gun regulation, is that incremental and piecemeal reform is unlikely to fully address the problem. Closing gun sale loopholes, better background checks, limiting magazine sizes, and banning certain assault-type and semiautomatic weapons are certainly all well worth doing--and if advocacy for Second Amendment repeal does nothing more than make these approaches easier to swallow, then it will have at least served that purpose in the short term--but the truth of the matter is that America is awash with guns and there are too many ways around these partial measures. For example, in the case of background checks, it is too difficult to keep weapons from falling into the hands of the wrong person. (3) But "wrong person" doesn't even quite capture the fullness of the danger we face from guns. It is time to abandon the simplistic idea that we can somehow divide the population into the "good" and "bad" people--or even that, if such categories existed, we could reliably tell them apart. The truth of the matter is that good people do bad things, and people who are having difficulties in their lives, for whatever reason (mental illness being just one) often do terrible things. We don't always know why, and we certainly can't predict it with anything close to certainty. So unfortunately having the killing power of a gun so widespread and accessible means that heated arguments, boiling anger and rage, mistaken identities, and countless other reasons have produced violence on a grotesque scale. If we are honest with ourselves, I think we all have to admit that we are imperfect creatures--we are all sinners, after all!--and, if we had more humility, we would do whatever we can to prevent ourselves from turning our moments of weakness into deadly tragedies. (And I haven't even mentioned the suicide risk posed by guns, which dominates the gun statistics.) The only real solution is to dramatically reduce the number of weapons by criminalizing them and removing the vast majority of the guns from circulation--in the first stage, with a buyback program during a transition period, followed by law enforcement action to arrest violators. (And, yes, there will be lots of them initially, but with enough determination and social pressure, I believe we can make it happen.) Once most guns become prima facie illegal, then it will be quite obvious when anyone has one that it is in violation of the law. Manufacture of the vast majority of gun types will be shut down as illegal, and only hunting rifles and other strictly permitted, registered, and regulated uses will exist, according to very narrowly drawn laws adopted without fear of Second Amendment objections or of the whole (undeserved) aura of sacredness that therefore permeates such discussions. It will be so much easier to track the relatively small number of guns. (Not to mention, it will be make it much easier for other countries as well, such as Mexico, much of whose drug war weaponry comes from the United States.) (4) And speaking of other countries, it is about time that we call out peculiarly American pro-gun attitudes for what they are: the height of nationalistic arrogance. Dozens of other industrialized countries exist in conditions of very high freedom without anything like our Second Amendment "gun rights" in place. They strictly control guns and have dramatically lower gun violence rates. If we forego the arrogance, we can learn from them. Their experiences are relevant to ours, and vice versa. We are all part of one big world, we are all human beings, and we are more alike than different. America's peculiar gun culture is not immutable and can be changed--so let's make it happen!

A $140 Billion Solution?

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the whole "fiscal cliff" debate isn't just about rich people trying to force the mass public to accept an awful "grand bargain" compromise to shred the social safety net, and let us further assume that those participating in this discourse are trying in all sincerity to simultaneously achieve long-term deficit reduction while propping up economic growth in the near term. (Okay, I agree that both of those assumptions are very shaky...but let's play along.) But then shouldn't this CBO chart be the starting point for all serious discussions of how to balance deficit reduction with GDP growth? What the CBO chart basically shows is that, due to widely divergent fiscal multipliers, the tax cuts--particularly the high end tax cuts, which have a truly miniscule GDP effect--provide much less "bang for the buck" than government spending, payroll holiday, or unemployment benefits. Of course, we knew that already, but it is nice to see it confirmed and depicted in a simple chart created just for the occasion. This suggests to me that anyone truly concerned with avoiding the negative fiscal effects scheduled for Jan 1, 2013, would restore all government spending first and foremost (including, alas, defense spending--hey, maybe that is something the GOP can "get" in the negotiations?) by undoing the ridiculous "sequester," as well as preserving payroll holiday (or something equivalent) and extended unemployment insurance. The tax cuts, on the other hand, have an underwhelming and disproportionately low impact on GDP, even though they consume the lion's share of the government funds (66% if I have calculated correctly!) Indeed, letting all the income tax cuts expire actually would have less GDP impact than the other components together, even though the latter cost much less. And, hey, while we're at it, since government spending has such a high multiplier, why don't we just go ahead and let all the Bush tax cuts expire ($330b), then redirect a portion of the savings sufficient to generate an equivalent GDP--and if nondefense spending of $40b is associated with 0.4% of GDP, as the chart indicates, then we will only need about $140b of the $330b--and then we can bank the rest as deficit reduction! (Not that we need deficit reduction desperately right now anyway, but since that's what they say they want...) And $140 billion could buy a lot of important things, either directly at the federal level or through subsidies to state and local government: K-12 education, state universities, alternative energy research, environmental conservation, infrastructure spending, you name it--everything we've been watching get pummeled since the 2009 stimulus bill started winding down. So it seems that Obama's whole strategy may be wrong, despite his strengthened bargaining position. Maybe he needs to be asking to allow the whole tax cut to expire and then to spend half of the money on government programs that people value even more than the tax cuts, which are, it must be said, disproportionately skewed towards those closer to the top--whether Obama's "top" of $250k or GOP's "top" of infinity. (And am I the only one who finds Obama's whole "My2K" gambit aggravating??) How about, instead of My2K, "Our $140B"? (I also happened to notice that Medicare and Social Security are not on this "fiscal cliff" chart anywhere. And I sure hope Obama realizes how desperately most Americans want to keep it that way!)