Breaking: Drying Swamp Yields Ugly Reptilian Creatures

As the Shining City Sinks Slowly Out of Sight....
The current battles on Capitol Hill are struggles between entrenched interests over getting a larger share of the pie.  One major vote showdown came on a proposal to overturn the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's ruling that bank contract provisions with consumers preventing their ability to have recourse to class-action suits should not be allowed.  The CFPB was overruled on a 51-50 vote (Mike Pence breaking the tie); it was a victory for banks' interests over those of the lawyers who are the principal beneficiaries of class-action suits.  The Democrats argued that the opportunity to join class-action suits provided ordinary folks an ability to strike back at big companies who systematically abuse the public trust, such as Wells Fargo with their bogus accounts and Equifax losing our private information; they voted as a united bloc and got a couple additional votes from defecting Republicans, but the more powerful bloc won.

Similarly, the fighting over the tax cut proposal--which to me now seems likely to pass in some form, since the budgetary authority to facilitate its passage through Congress has now been approved--is basically a question of which rich people will get a bigger cut of the benefits.  The basic principle in this "reform" is to make the rich richer--though not all rich people; those to whom the Republicans are beholden are the intended beneficiaries.  There will be more work to pinpoint the individuals who will gain most, and some half-hearted effort to make some others pay more.  That last will probably not succeed, because they will need some votes from blue-state Republicans in order to get it passed, and so there will be some compromise and restoration of imperiled deductions, like state and local taxes and 401k contributions, but there will be the untouchables:  reduction of the top tax rate, of corporate tax rates (the benefits go to shareholders), and tax benefits for capital investors.  The main result will be reigniting inflation (generally a positive for equity investors) and making benefit programs more difficult to fund in the future.  I suppose I will end up having some net benefit, but the outcome I would appreciate most would be if it makes my taxes a little less difficult to prepare and file (not likely).

I will hold off on interpreting the news that Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election  has obtained some (still-secret) indictments from a grand jury.  The significance of that news will depend on further developments, though I welcome the continued paralysis this will help produce in the Drumpfenreich.

The Return of Meaningful Elections
Some of you may have noticed an absence of any comment in recent months about the special elections held in several House districts. That is because there is precious little of value to say about them:  their importance was always overstated, the expenditures were ridiculous, the outcomes basically foregone and trivial in importance.

They represent a few isolated data points, but those soundings do show that the disastrous start to the Trump Administration has so far not dissuaded most rank-and-file Republicans from continuing to support the party.  One should not expect anything different, really; though there may not be anything that seems likely to reward them for their blind loyalty, there has been no flash of light which would open their eyes or jolt their optic nerves into function.  I am still holding to my explanation of "Why Democrats Lose":  too many Republican voters, many of them deluded.

Along these lines, I offer this assessment from recently-retired Bereley linguistics professor, George Lakoff, famous for his theory of how effective politicians frame values to gain support, who nailed his prediction that Donald Trump would win the election with 47% of the vote:

 If they start re-framing Trump’s promise as “getting rid of two-thirds of federal protections” — and spell out what some of those environmental and health and water quality “protections” are — there might be less support for repealing federal regulations, Lakoff said. “Every progressive knows that regulations are protections, but they don’t say it,” he added. Similarly, “taxes” are actually “investments in public resources.” 

So, here's the thing, as I see it.  Lakoff is right, the principle is well-expressed, Democratic politicians would do well to frame things better and express some vision and enunciate their values better, but I don't see that frame moving many voters. Too many American agents of electoral power (contributors/voters/candidates/family patriarchs) don't want protections:  they have guns. They don't want public resources; they want more $$ in their own accounts. I am waiting to be proven wrong.

I am somewhat surprised to have found an election this year into which I do want to contribute--basically I have been holding out, except for a regular small contribution to the DCCC, keeping that portion of my powder dry until next year. The opportunity to replace Alabama's Senate seat with someone antithetically opposed to previous incumbent Jeff Sessions and his reactionary, racist politics--his name is Doug Jones, a Democrat--with the alternative of someone even more awful than Sessions--has moved me to action, even if it is something of a longshot (currently at 12% chance on predictit.org).  The special election is December 8.   Depending on the poll, Jones may or may not be within striking distance of this neo-Fascist clown (Judge Roy Moore). Moore was too extreme even for Trump in the Republican party primary, though the Drumpfster had no problem stamping his approval upon Moore when it was clear he had it won.  In some recent elections, there have been candidates too flaky to effectively rally the GOP, and Moore certainly qualifies.

A related story is the recent attacks on Trump by Senators Corker and Flake, who combined their denunciations with announcements that they would not run for re-election in 2018 because of the harm he is doing to their party--implied was a recognition that they felt unable to combat the degrading trend.  Noble were their words, but cowardly the effect of their actions:  if they were truly against the Trumpification of their party, they would run as independents against the eventual Tea Party nominee and represent themselves as the "true Republicans".  I still hope for such a movement to emerge--this may occur if the potential disaster for the party comes to pass in 2018-- but it is apparent that, for the time being, the true Republicans are Trumpists, and that those who oppose him within the party, as Corker and Flake recognized, are now being relegated to the sidelines.

There is one other US election in 2017 worth mentioning:  the battle for control of the statehouse in Virginia.  New Jersey and Virginia are the only ones that have their regular statewide elections the year after the Presidential contest, but New Jersey looks certain to end the two terms of the anomalous Republican occupation of Trenton's gubernatorial office in the person of self-abased Chris Christie.  As for Virginia, its history is to go against the result of the national election:  based on that, and an increasingly strong trend for Democrats there, moderate Democrat Lt. Governor Ralph Northam should be favored over former Republican party head Ed Gillespie.  Gillespie has been moving further and further in a Trumpward direction as the campaign  moves toward its climax, seeking to undercut Northam with racial and anti-immigrant ads.  It does appear to be close (though polls show a lot of variation; predictit.org has the Democrats' chances of winning at 71%).  Taking control of Virginia, both the governor's office and also of  the state's legislature, would be significant, and the kind of progress the Democrats need over the next couple election cycles; however, as was pointed out on Fivethirtyeight.com, the state's result will not necessarily provide a good indication of the 2018 election trends. The outcome of those midterm elections is  hugely critical to the fate of the Trump administration, and, thus, to our future.

More about that soon--in the meantime, we can hope for good turnout in Virginia and a surprise in Alabama.

There have been a number of national elections and referenda of various kinds in European countries.  A couple of generalizations;  referenda in Catalonia (Spain) and in Lombardia and the Veneto in Italy reflect a new form of stress, in which the more-wealthy regions are reacting against central governments which are transferring benefits toward the less-wealthy ones. I am generally against strong nationalism, but I can't feel this trend is favorable to those nations' population, nor even, in the case of Catalonia, which now seems headed for direct rule (instead of the autonomy they previously enjoyed) and civil strife, to the region itself.  Something like Brexit, on an intra-national level.  General elections in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic show fragmentation of voter support for parties, weakening of the center, and increasing difficulty in forming national government coalitions.

I will post next on China and East Asia, with some observations from my recent trip there.

An Excess of Calamities

Quite a string of bad news for America these days:  Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Nate, all affecting our states and/or territories; the massacre of innocents in Las Vegas; the wildfires in Northern California, stunning in their severity; and, most embarrassingly, the US Men's National Team of soccer and their improbable elimination from World Cup qualification.

This lastt, man-made calamity required a very unlikely combination of events, all of which happened within a course of a half-hour:  the US had to lose to Trinidad and Tobago, the worst team in their qualifying group; Mexico had to lose to Honduras, and Costa Rica had to lose to Panama.  All three games were being played simultaneously, and at halftime Mexico and Costa Rica were winning, while the US was, incredibly, losing by two goals.  i am a bit suspicious:  perhaps Mexico and Costa Rica, both of which already had their qualification assured, got the word that maybe they could arrange for the hated us rivals to get shut out, and they did the necessary:  lose.  Of course, the most important element was the USMNT's own letdown--after a fabulous victory over Panama a couple of days before--without which the rest of it wouldn't matter.  Maybe it was Putin (Moscow will be hosting the games in 2018)?   I blame Trump.

Our America'Nero
Not a typo, referring to a hero, of which we have many, but to Nero, the Roman emperor who, according to a famous criticism, "fiddled while Rome burned".  Our guy played golf while Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's underfunded infrastructure; he has since compounded the problem with his lame efforts on the that territory's behalf.  Just as bad as our ignorance of Puerto Rico's calamity, largely in the media, and more by this administration (though the military did its best to provide relief) was the weak response to Irma's devastation of another US territory in the Virgin Islands.

I don't begrudge Houston the attention given Houston after Harvey, at first clumsy, but then more effective; or Florida, also victimized by Irma, though not as badly as feared, or Las Vegas, site of yet another mass assault of gun violence in America.  But Trump showed clearly that the problems of these disenfranchised citizens--unable to weigh in on any Federal elections, though full citizens--mean less than our states'.  And let's not even talk about his level of concern for Guam, a territory with a disproportionate share of military enlistees and inconvenience, one that Trump seems very clearly willing to sacrifice if it will tease out a foolish military action from the North Korean dictatorship.

Nero, the last of the familial line of emperors beginning with Augustus, had a fairly disastrous end to his reign; historians of the era blame him for unsound executions, lowering the prestige of the office, and even for possibly starting the great fire in Rome, as a means to facilitate his urban renewal program. He was ultimately deposed by a rebellion, condemned to death, after which he committed suicide.  Just saying.

My comment above about Trump (and Putin) was facetious, but I do want to comment on one thing. Drumpfenreich is bad in almost every way, but one positive outcome is that it may retrain us some from thinking that every good (or bad) thing that happens is due to our President.  We have invested too much power in that office, but beyond that, too much emotional dependence.  We just had the best President we could hope for, and it was not enough:  not for his supporters even, certainly it was not in his power to convert his opponents.  Time to be a little more realistic in our expectations.

The Motive for Evil
Aside from the usual bootless wrangling over gun control--it seems some sort of ban on the "bump stocks" used by the killer to increase the rate of firing may be a concession that the NRA and its obedient servants in the Republican party could agree upon this time, though apparently not a limitation on the number of rounds in the ammunition clips which were just as important--most of the other discussion has been a search for what drove the ignominious killer to do what he did in Las Vegas, gunning down dozens at a country music festival from the safety and advantaged angle of a 32nd-floor hotel room.  There was no ISIS or al-Qaeda link to him, no criminal record or history of violence,  no obvious signs of insanity.

On the other hand, there is abundant evidence of premeditation and planning for the massacre. There is a lot of discussion about his motivations; also a school of thought that says it doesn't really matter, for policy purposes. I'm calling him out as an 'ammosexual':  loves his guns, hates people.  He went for the record, and to his discredit, he got it.  His brother said, "I'd like to be able to say he was a miserable bastard..." but he couldn't.  I have no problem saying it, with confidence.