Trump and Russia decline, economy transforms: That Was the Year That Was

Gordon L. Weil

Some years are sure to end up in historical memory. 2022 is one of them.

Russia launched a land war in Europe long after people thought that the Second World War had ended such conflicts.

The economy underwent basic changes as people began to deal with the true costs of what they need and want.

And the dominance of one of America’s most disruptive political figures began to disintegrate.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine came as a big surprise. With the end of the Soviet Union, Russia ceased to be seen as a threat to the rest of Europe. It was invited to join the club of the world’s major economies. But participation did not align with its desire to remain one of the world’s two superpowers, and it could not remain in the club.

Russia, whose main assets are nuclear weapons and a large population, sought to recover lost Soviet territory, capped by its Ukraine invasion. It apparently expected that its formidable army and lack of interest in the West would make a takeover easy.

Heroically defending their land, the Ukrainians were taught both Russia and the world a lesson. They revealed Russia’s military as a sham. Whatever the outcome of the war, Russia has little chance of recovering its superpower role. As Russia’s weakness became obvious, China emerged as the leading authoritarian power and the chief challenger to the U.S. and its allies.

American consumers are bargain hunters, and China enhanced its power by selling goods at low prices, collecting dollars to finance its world expansion. But the spread of Covid interrupted trade flows from China, and U.S. leaders became increasingly aware that American customers were financing the quest for power of their country’s chief rival.

Parallel to this development, the unmanaged influx of immigrants had become a major concern in the U.S. and Europe. Though millions sought unauthorized entry, the lost contribution of immigrants as workers and consumers became more obvious. Workers demanded higher pay, shortages developed and prices climbed.

Some may still believe that the world economy is merely passing through a difficult and stressful period, but that it will soon return to normal. Inflation will slow, but prices won’t retreat and business will not pick up where it left off. Such thinking misses some clear reasons that a new economy has been emerging in 2022.

Pay increases will not be rolled back. Many people have been seriously underpaid and they have implicitly joined an invisible national labor union. They withhold their labor unless they get better pay and working conditions.

Countries are getting more serious about climate change. Turning environmental damage around will make goods and services more expensive. U.S. production costs will initially be higher than were charges on imports from China, which despoils the environment while exploiting its workers.

Paying increased labor costs, less dependence on cheap Chinese imports, and environmental improvement action will keep prices from dropping back. People may have enough money to meet their needs but not to satisfy all of their wishes. This new economy could last for decades.

Donald Trump probably changed the U.S. and America’s world standing in a brief period more than all but a few previous presidents. (He would say more than any of them.) He has his MAGA supporters. Like a stopped clock that is right twice a day, he has some accomplishments. But they are byproducts of a destructive ego, and he has proved dangerous to his country.

His greatest faults have been giving comfort to bigotry and placing his own ambition and interests above the values and norms of the country he was elected to lead. He chillingly proposed the “termination” of the Constitution so he could seize the presidency he knew he had not won. He encouraged irresponsible officials to dismantle essential constitutional practices.

His combination of ignorance and arrogance came up short. In Maine, former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, an ardent ally of Trump, chose to challenge Janet Mills, the Democratic incumbent. His record, irresponsibly flaunting the will of the people, would be pitted against her record as a rightward-leaning, moderate.

Her victory was the hard evidence of Trump’s decline. Mills had a mainly positive, though not flawless, record to run on, but LePage was stuck with his Trump-like legacy. If he tried to distance himself from his previous positions, it only looked like opportunism, which did not help.

This year, Trump was losing in the judicial system and key Trumpers like LePage were losing at the ballot box. Mills showed that voters would support steady progress over chaos and controversy. In Maine and elsewhere, a brief political era was ending.

Valiant Ukraine and failing Russia, the emergence of a new economy and the descent of Trump combined to make 2022 an historic year.

Popular vote for president remains at risk

Gordon L. Weil

What was Mike Pence supposed to do?

Attention is again focused on the January 6, 2001, insurrection at the Capitol when the Vice President didn’t do what then President Trump wanted and stop counting the electoral votes that would make Joe Biden president.

Just specific action he should take was never clear.   At least one Trump advisor suggested the Constitution gave the Vice President the power simply to declare the winner, if he found enough defective votes, thus denying Biden the election.  That was a bit of a reach, even for the person who proposed it.

If that went too far, some Republicans said that Pence should kick the matter back to the contested states, particularly to state legislatures. That theory rested on a constitutional provision that gives state legislatures the power to direct how presidential electors are chosen.  That could mean the legislature would pick electors favorable to Trump despite a state’s popular vote for Biden.

Pence followed none of this dubious advice.  But the belief that the Constitution gave state legislatures total, independent power to determine the outcome of federal elections has survived.  It is now squarely before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The question survives, because it is part of the GOP playbook of voter suppression measures aimed at Democrats.  The favored plays include making it difficult to register and vote, limiting voting periods and easily accessible polling places, restricting mail-in ballots and segregating Democrats into as few districts as possible.

Drawing district lines to segregate voters by race is illegal.  But the Supreme Court will not rule against possible racial gerrymandering unless it can be shown that no other significant factor could have been the basis for the district outline.  That’s a tough case to prove.  Some southern states have managed to create a single congressional district to sweep in the state’s Black and presumably Democratic voters.

The Court will not rule at all on political gerrymandering, when a state draws congressional or state legislative district lines to pack as many members of one party into as few districts as possible.  The Court will leave that issue to the individual states as allowed by the Constitution.  That raises the question of who within a state has the power to decide.

The Constitution states that the “Manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof....”   Can the state legislature gerrymander as it wishes, unchecked by any other part of the government?

If so, a legislature could ignore the popular vote as well as the governor and the state supreme court.  Because its powers are mentioned in the Constitution, the legislature would consider itself a federal agency, lifted out of state government when it creates congressional districts.  That’s what North Carolina Republicans claim in a case now before the Supreme Court.

State legislatures cannot normally act outside of the limits of state constitutions.  But a state supreme court decision in line with a state ban on political gerrymandering might raise a conflict with the federal Constitution. In that situation, the U.S. Supreme Court could overrule the state court.

Article I of the Constitution makes the president part of the legislative process, because Congress can make decisions only with the president’s consent or by overriding a president’s veto.  State governors have a similar role. Despite the claims of the North Carolina Republicans, the Supreme Court long ago decided that governors could veto legislative districting.

The Court has already ruled that the people of Arizona, who mandated by referendum that a neutral districting commission should replace the legislature, exercised a legislative function allowed by the Framers. 

For state legislatures to gain absolute power, the Court would have to reverse two previous rulings and strip state courts of their own constitutional jurisdiction over elections to federal office.

The Court’s decision might reveal how partisan it has become.  If it rules for the Republicans, as some justices seem inclined to do, a state legislature under one party’s control at the moment the Court decides could always draw districts to keep that party dominant and in power. It would take a massive change in the electorate itself to redraw the lines.

If state legislatures are given total control over the design of congressional and legislative districts, they could similarly have unchecked power over who may cast electoral votes for president.  The popular vote could be ignored, especially if the losing candidate claimed there had been voter fraud.

Such a Court ruling might easily lead to the warped legal view that state legislators, not the people, can decide who wins federal elections.  It could also harm the Court’s already suffering reputation.

A Supreme Court decision for the North Carolina Republicans could end up requiring a Pence successor someday to do exactly what he refused to do. 

Ukraine becoming partisan issue

Gordon L. Weil

Opposition to Russia has been a core value of American policy for decades.  Under the Soviet Union and now as the Russian Federation, it has threatened world peace as it pursues its quest for domination.  The U.S. favors a system governed by agreed rules; Russia favors chaos.

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is the latest example of its attempt to gain domination through force.  But the surprising ability of Ukraine to resist Vladimir Putin’s version of Russian expansion has given the U.S. and its NATO allies the chance to win their long struggle with a fading world power.

President Biden has led a successful response to Russian aggression without the loss of a single American life on the battlefield.  NATO was formed to block Russian expansion in Europe, and it has had to revive its mission as Russia’s attempt to take over its neighbor threatens other nearby nations, including Poland and the Baltic countries.

Ukraine stood up to Russian aggression on behalf of what was often called “the Free World” and the U.S. and its NATO allies backed its willingness to put Ukrainian lives at risk with some of the alliance’s latest weapons.

NATO has grown stronger as its member countries have been shaken from their mistaken belief that Russia, on which they had become dependent for oil and natural gas, would be a good citizen of Europe.  Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, and Sweden have moved off the sidelines to seek NATO membership.  The alliance has moved its forces closer to Russia.

The NATO countries also imposed possibly the toughest economic sanctions ever levied short of outright blockade.  Americans paid the price at the pump, but the cost to Russia will be higher and longer lasting.  Putin’s folly may have transformed the world economy for good.

Biden has had bipartisan support in Congress for his Ukraine policies of sending arms, training troops and easing the hardships of war.  Traditional GOP opposition to Russia coupled with Biden’s ability to lead a united Democratic contingent have been paying off in successful resistance to Russia, now revealed as a paper tiger, though still one with nuclear weapons.

But some Republicans oppose Biden’s policy.  Their numbers may be growing as the war wears on.  With GOP control of the House next year, they could try to undercut what has been a successful policy.  Ukraine aid is becoming an increasingly partisan issue.

There may be three reasons for the growing Republican opposition.  First, they don’t want Biden to succeed.  Second, they would revive traditional American isolationism based on ignoring much of what takes place in the world and focusing on our own concerns.  Third, some like Putin, because they see him as an efficient authoritarian.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and his people may be fighting an unwinnable war, because Ukraine is restrained by NATO from launching a counterattack into Russia.  And the weak Russian military is propped up by Iran and must fight to hold its ground, but no longer advances.

Each side seeks the best possible positions before the negotiations that will inevitably end the fighting.  Russia wants to demoralize Ukrainians by attacks on homes, hospitals and energy facilities, so they will be ready to cede territory.  Ukraine wants to recover as much territory as possible before talks begin and relies on continued U.S. arms supplies.

The minute the war halts, it will be fair to say that Ukraine has won and Russia has lost. Russia, which could not take over Ukraine and turn it into a buffer against NATO, has not only failed to annex its neighbor but has seen NATO strengthened.  Ukraine has shown it can field a strong army.

The first step toward a negotiated settlement is a cease fire.  Ukraine must force Putin to conclude that he must stop fighting and start talking.  Zelensky needs strong NATO backing, which depends on the U.S.  It’s an illusion to believe that Europe can go it alone without American leadership.  Wishing for that won’t make it happen.

The risk is that partisan congressional opposition could reduce or eliminate critical American support and hand Russia an unearned victory instead of ending its great power myth.  If the U.S. maintains its support for Ukraine, the result will reduce or eliminate its Russian rival.  And it could send a message to China, possibly discouraging an invasion of Taiwan.

The American president is responsible for foreign policy, but Congress has the power of the purse.   A bipartisan agreement on foreign policy is a worthy goal.  Such an accord does not mean that other goals cannot also be pursued.

Ukraine policy should not come down to opposing a Democratic president with a Republican “America First” view.  Ukraine is both too important and winnable.

 

Trumps' Constitution statement could help GOP, Biden

 

Gordon L. Weil

Donald Trump may have made matters a lot easier for both Republicans and Joe Biden.

He argued for “termination” of the Constitution when it came to dealing with his claim that he had been cheated out of winning the 2020 election.

Whatever our personal views, all Americans are supposedly united in supporting the Constitution.  Even when we honestly disagree about some of its terms, we all agree that it deserves our allegiance and support.  Without it, we have no American Republic. Trump seems not to care.

Republicans will have narrow control of the House of Representatives.  Their majority gives them the chance to set the table for the 2024 elections by offering alternatives to the Democrats, even if they are not accepted, and agreeing with the Democrats when it suits them.

But some Republicans want to keep following Trump, despite his focus on himself rather than on his party or country.   They would try to harass Biden and discredit the January 6 committee, which places some blame on the Trump White House for the insurrection.  These right-wing Republicans prefer to be backward looking, not forward looking.

Trump’s dangerous statement gives the GOP the opportunity to cut its dependency on him and his hardcore backers by taking the high ground, defending the Constitution.  They can reject the Trumpers without being vulnerable to any charges they are RINOs, Republicans In Name Only.

Congressional Republicans have mostly been silent about Trump’s statement, perhaps fearful of losing the support of his core.  Yet, at the start of the new Congress on January 3, 2023, all of them must pledge to support the Constitution, as required by its Article VI. The Framers wanted to ensure that federal and state office holders remember they are subject to it.

If Trump backers favor him over respecting the Constitution, they clearly lean toward authoritarian government, where the leader means more than the law.  If they forgive Trump his foibles or fear the political price for defending the Constitution, they enable him and others in destroying it.

This Congress is likely to be a turning point for the Republicans.  They can obstruct or offer alternatives.  Their House leadership can cater to the party’s extreme right wing and continue on the path toward permanent minority status, taking a majority of the House GOP with them.

The right wing does not want the Speaker to allow any matter to come to a vote unless it has the support of a “majority of the majority.”  In other words, nothing happens unless a majority of Republicans approve.  There would prevent any bill to be passed by most Democrats and some Republicans.  The Senate, even under Democratic control, would be stymied.

In the 2022 congressional elections, 26 seats were rated by nonpartisan Politico as pure toss-ups. Only six of them went to the GOP, which also picked up one seat leaning Democratic.  Those seven new members must be moderates if they want to hold onto their seats.  Ignoring them could be fatal to Republican control in 2024.  The right wing would simply roll over them.

It’s questionable if that’s what American voters want. If they prefer a government that finds compromises and produces results, they need a Republican House that works.  It can put its stamp on legislation rather than only using its majority to attack Biden and his proposals and to rewrite history.  Ensuring nothing happens except partisan bitterness is not good government.

The Maine Legislature was rated as a toss-up this year.  But the GOP failed to gain control of either house.  Still, it did not adopt Paul LePage’s hostility toward Governor Mills.  The Maine Republicans set an example for their Washington counterparts.

They agreed with the governor that more funding is needed for home heating aid rather than simply demanding she cut tax rates.  Their support is essential so that the help will come when needed.  The two sides readily began talking about ways to get the aid moving, while giving the GOP influence on who receives it.  That presumably is what the voters want to happen.

How does Trump’s attack on the Constitution, revealing both his unbridled ego and his disloyalty to his oath, help Joe Biden?

My assumption has been from the outset that Biden has never intended to be more than a single-term president.  But he did not want to be seen as ducking a new contest with Trump, especially in light of the charges that he had somehow won previously by cheating. 

Now, nobody should worry about running against the American In Name Only, who would terminate the Constitution for his own benefit.  In decline, Trump may be out of the Republican nomination race much less the general election.

Biden can now decline to run again without appearing to dodge a real challenge by Trump.

 

 

Debt ceiling is phony, should be abandoned

 

Gordon L. Weil

The U.S.A. is the greatest country in the world. 

The “debt ceiling” is boring.

But those often misunderstood words represent a prime reason for America’s standing as a dominant power with a strong economy.  They assure all that America pays its bills. Yet congressional politics get in the way of setting that limit.

The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of federal government borrowing allowed at any time.    It covers all money the government owes, including the funds owed by one government agency to another.  It does not approve or allow new federal spending.  Funds from borrowing are added to tax revenues to pay for spending Congress has already approved. 

Congress originally authorized each federal government bond.  When that job grew burdensome, it substituted a cap on total debt, leaving the Treasury to issue each bond.  For a while, Congress decided that each spending decision would automatically raise the debt ceiling.  That made sense, but the politicians could not accept losing the vote on debt as a political tool.

Now, one party can use its agreement to a debt ceiling increase to pry concessions on spending from the other side.  Like so much else in Washington, an historic government practice has been converted into a partisan weapon.  Budget politics ignores the shared responsibility of both parties for the spending that ends up requiring the increase.

Playing political games with the debt ceiling is like playing with fire.  And you’re surrounded by deadly explosives. 

If the debt ceiling is not increased, the Treasury won’t be able to pay current costs.  After using every dollar it can scrape up, it must stop or slow some regular government outlays.  Social Security, federal employee and military pay, and emergency response aid could be affected.

A lot of what people receive directly or indirectly from the federal government would be cut back or slowed down.  The effect on the national economy could be huge.  If we worry now about a recession, a sharp reduction in federal spending might guarantee it.

But the effect would be far worse than that.  The U.S. role as the leading global power reflects the role of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.  That means most of the world regards the U.S. dollar as the most reliable and secure currency.  The dollar is backed by the American economy and the U.S. has never defaulted, always paying its debts.

The dollar is so solid that 65 countries tie their currencies to it and 11 other countries use it as their official currency.  When countries or companies make deals, they frequently use the dollar rather than their own currencies.  The dollar is reliable and does not lose its value.

In the competition and conflict among the world’s great powers, the U.S. has two dominant strengths.  It has the largest, best equipped armed forces spread around the globe.  And it has the dollar.

Compare the U.S. with China.  With more than four times the population, China could displace the U.S, as the top economy in the world.  It is rapidly building up its military, trying to achieve equality with the U.S.  And it wants its currency – the renminbi – to become an alternate world reserve currency to the dollar, enabling it to extend its power across the world.

Historically, the U.S. has not been a typical colonial power with vast overseas territory.  It has projected its power by the outreach of its economy and the strength of the dollar.  As the world’s reserve currency, it is freely convertible with most other currencies.  That’s not true for the renminbi, suggesting that keeping the dollar strong is as important as keeping the military strong.

But threatening the strength of the dollar by raising questions about the willingness and ability of the American government to pay its bills weakens U.S. influence and power.

Republicans could use their House control next year to block an increase in the debt ceiling unless federal spending is reduced.  Lower outlays would leave money to pay outstanding debt.   In the waning days of the current Congress, Democrats are trying for an increase in the ceiling that will last well into the future.

If President Biden resists the GOP, the federal government could be forced to at least a partial shutdown.  In 1995, the last time that happened, the Republicans got the blame.  Would they now risk being assigned the responsibility for a shutdown that could bring a recession?  Even worse, would they give a boost to Chinese ambitions?

The debt ceiling is meaningless, because it merely allows for debt already approved by Congress.  It could either be abolished outright as being useless or raised automatically with spending bills, as was formerly the case, eliminating the need for a separate vote.  Either way, Congress should stop playing with fire.

Trump allies seek to retaliate for his two impeachments

Gordon L. Weil

“I’m a work horse, not a show horse.”

Candidates for public office have made that claim, trying to convince voters they would be serious about their duties and not merely headline grabbers.  They wanted to impress hard-working voters.

Now, Congress is peppered with show horses. For them, a seat in the House of Representatives provides them with the platform for pursuing conspiracies that can attract media attention.  They don’t want to make laws; they want to make trouble.

With the slim Republican majority in the House, these radical right-wing members may soon have the power to conduct mock “investigations” and possibly even to force a vote on impeaching President Biden.  They have resented being marginalized in the past and now see their opportunity to step into the spotlight.

There’s an agenda behind their moves that goes beyond merely gaining public attention for their theories.  It’s a vendetta for Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in 2020.

Some of these Trumpers still falsely claim that the last presidential election was stolen by Biden and the Democrats.  They can do little about that with Biden installed in the White House, but they can harass him.  To their election complaint, they add grievances about congressional hearings on Trump, especially his actions during the January 6 insurrection.

If they can force Biden into defending himself against their trumped up charges, they hope to weaken him as the Democratic candidate in 2024.  As the saying goes, if you “throw enough mud against a wall, some of it may stick.”  Even if their charges are fake, they might make some voters nervous about Biden.

If Biden has to go on the defensive, he will have less time for his legislative agenda.  The radicals would consider the defeat of his agenda a major accomplishment. They would have no need for a program of their own.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz had earlier warned that if his party took the House, there would be a chance it will impeach Biden, “whether it’s justified or not.”  It would be payback for the two impeachments of then President Trump, which the GOP saw as partisan excess. 

If Congress could impeach Trump for a phone call to Ukraine President Zelensky, the radicals may believe that pursuing Biden for the chaotic withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan could work. 

Presidential impeachment is political.  It has been used four times: Andrew Johnson (1868), Bill Clinton (1999), and Trump (2019, 2021).  All were overwhelmingly partisan and none led to the president’s removal.  The only bipartisan move, targeting Richard Nixon (1974), led to his resigning to avoid being impeached and then convicted by the Senate.

Trump, who often finds himself in court, is now facing serious legal charges, probably more challenging than impeachment.  He continually asserts that all charges against him are politically motivated.  But his likely violation of the Presidential Records Act keeps moving ahead, and he scrambles to put together a defense. 

His allies in the House may hope to use pressure on Biden as a way to induce prosecutors to back off on Trump’s cases.  But a new special prosecutor, beyond political reach, is dealing with his keeping government records and his insurrection role.  He also faces possible indictment in Georgia and New York on state charges, both unaffected by whatever happens in Congress.

Impeachment has been devalued by its increasingly frequent and overtly political use when there’s no hope of conviction by the Senate.  Charges brought by prosecutors may take its place as a way of holding a president accountable. 

Because Trump is once again a candidate, prosecutors must proceed with caution, but need not be deterred. Trump on trial could face what is for him a fate worse than impeachment – losing.

It’s likely that a Biden impeachment resolution will be introduced and that the Judiciary Committee will hold hearings.  Will the GOP unite to pass a resolution leading to a Senate trial?  Bringing Biden before the Senate, where he surely could not be convicted, would be counted as a big win by the radical right.

The GOP Speaker should be able control the Republicans and to ensure that they do not later pay a political price for focusing on Biden and not on congressional business.  But GOP control of the House is so narrow that the Speaker cannot afford to offend the radicals.  Besides, the radical agenda includes reducing the Speaker’s powers.

The radicals might be allowed to play out their game.  But their overreaching could cause a Republican split.  The radicals’ exaggerated role might bring a reaction from traditional conservatives that could boost the GOP’s appeal to a broader electorate. 

If Biden decides against running again, removing him as a prime target for the radical right, the Republicans might find it advantageous to return to their roots.

 

  

FIX IT #1: Reviving the Constitution without amending it

Gordon L. Weil

This is the first in a series of articles on measures to deal with current constitutional issues without amending the Constitution.  These issues have arisen because practices have evolved that result in abandoning original intentions and eroding democratic rule.  Each article in the FIX IT series will deal with a single proposal that would rebalance government.  Change would focus on creating conditions for compromise, essential for the functioning of the American government.  These proposals are only one set of ideas; others are possible.  I invite your comments.

 

 

In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, but the Republican dominated Senate refused to hold hearings on the nomination in the belief that, if a Republican won the presidency in 2016, they could fill the vacancy.   Later, Neil Gorsuch, the replacement GOP nominee of President Trump in 2017, could only be confirmed over Democratic opposition when the Senate GOP changed its rule on the majority vote required for confirming Supreme Court nominees.  

Both events were clear cases of historic constitutional customs giving way to partisanship.  Traditionally, the president’s choices of Supreme Court justices were approved by the Senate, so long as the appointees were found to be competent.  But, in recent years, senators had come to display extreme partisanship and apply ideological criteria.  That left no room for compromise.

The United States is a country built on compromises.

It began with the Declaration of Independence when delegates could not agree that “all men are created equal” included African-Americans.  At least five colonies found slavery essential to their economies and seemed ready to spurn independence if other colonies insisted on condemning the system on which they relied.

The Declaration created a military alliance of 13 independent states, united by their desire to throw off control by the British king and his government in distant London.  But no American government was yet created.  Instead, the states made voluntary contributions to the joint effort.  At the outset, there was no national army, leaving the war effort dependent on state militias.  And slavery survived.

On the day George Washington was selected to head the joint military effort, he might have qualified as the only American who was more than a citizen of his home state. 

Washington needed a national government that could marshal the resources to pursue the war.  The states compromised by reaching a formal agreement having its own voting procedures, but the country remained heavily dependent on voluntary state support.  

This agreement was the Articles of Confederation.  It created a “perpetual” union of the states and named the new country: the United States of America.  It provided for services, from military to postal, that only the nation as a whole could provide, but state financial support to provide those services remained voluntary.  It neither dealt with slavery nor created a standing army.

The compromise on slavery worked, because the confederation left most powers to the states.  While offering the opportunity for closer cooperation, the Articles provided more possibilities than real progress.

Daniel Shays changed everything.  In 1786-87, he led a rebellion in Massachusetts against  efforts to collect taxes and debts.  His rebellion was suppressed by the state, while the American confederation stood helpless.  Washington and Alexander Hamilton, his former aide, stepped up pressure for a stronger national government.

The Confederation Congress agreed that the Articles had to be revised.  In the end, the 39 men who negotiated a new agreement in the Philadelphia summer of 1787 almost totally replaced the Articles.  The new document was the U.S. Constitution.

The war against Britain was a rebellion, but the Constitution was the real American Revolution.  It created a completely new form of government.  It would have no king and no single dominant branch of government.  The legislative, executive and judicial branches would be separate and control one another through a system labeled “checks and balance.”

The new Constitution established a federation in which the national government and the states would share sovereignty.  Not only would this make sense for an already vast country extending over a thousand miles, but this compromise was essential if the states were to cede some real powers to the federal government.

The Constitution created a democratic republic, meaning that popular control would be exercised through elected representatives.  It embodied two main compromises.  Slavery could continue and there would be a combination of popular and state control of the national government.

All states would have equal power, as they had under the Articles, while the people were also given a stake in the government.  The compromise took the form of a bi-cameral Congress composed of a House of Representatives with membership elected by the people and a Senate in which each state would have two votes.

The two compromises were linked.  The existence of the Senate as an essential part of the legislative process not only respected the states but allowed the slave states to protect their “peculiar institution” as the country developed.

Two concepts were borrowed from the British.  Like Parliament, Congress – the lawmaking body – would be the most important branch of government.  There was no mistaking this intent as shown by placing it in Article I with the president following in Article II.

Britain had no written constitution.  Their basic agreement consisted of Acts of Parliament and some venerated customs.  Similarly, the written U.S. Constitution left many governmental powers subject to understandings, which would become customary. 

One central understanding was that the free states and the slave states would be kept equal in number.  But the Constitution could not guarantee that equality would continue indefinitely. The slave states of the South became increasingly concerned whether the basic constitutional compromise could be maintained.  With the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, they lost faith that their economic and social system could survive. “And the war came,” as Lincoln said.

Two post-Civil War events changed almost everything.  Slavery was outlawed and the states came more closely under federal control.  This was the Second American Revolution.

Still, it would take another hundred years before its intent was realized.  The former slave states delayed equality for the former slaves and their descendants.  They exploited a Senate rule that allowed them to prevent votes on civil rights for African Americans. By 1964, it could no longer block such votes, though the rule would survive.

The other change came in a constitutional amendment in 1913 that ended the Senate as a forum of the states.  Instead its members are elected by the people, not by state legislatures as they were previously.  But each state continues to have two senators.

Slavery’s legacy survived. Under their so-called Southern Strategy, the Republicans refashioned their party in 1960 by exploiting southerner discontent with the rise of African-American voters. Republicans gained political strength as the coalition between conservative Southern Democrats and liberal northern Democrats collapsed.  As election followed election, voters became polarized. 

By 2000, Republicans had discovered they could manipulate the historical customs that had allowed the relatively smooth functioning of the constitutional system.  There was nothing overtly illegal in what they did.  They found they could solidify their control of the federal government by substituting new partisan practices for those customs.  Democrats, fearing they might one day find themselves in the same position, accepted some of these new practices.

Such partisan practices meant that reaching compromises became almost impossible. What the Republicans had exploited for political gain would lead to sustained conflict that could ultimately disrupt or undermine the constitutional system.

To prevent this development, the federal government must recover the customary practices that had promoted compromise.  Preserving the Republic would have to gain greater importance than diverting constitutional custom for partisan gain.

Of course, the Constitution could be amended as its Framers had expected. But amendment is a difficult process and risks opening the door to repeal of some essential procedures and safeguards.

An alternative is to revive historic understandings by institutional change not requiring amendment.  These actions could take place gradually, piece by piece.  Identifying some of those pieces is the purpose of the following FIX IT series.

Each section contains four parts:  (1) Quick Fix, a summary of the proposal; (2) The Proposal, an explanation of its background and details, (3) Political Effect, a brief analysis of the implications of the proposed change on politics and power and (4) Major Repair, a description of more extensive but less likely changes, including amending the Constitution, that would achieve a similar result. 

No Red Wave, but big Blue Undertow

Gordon L. Weil

The heralded Red Wave – an overwhelming Republican election victory – obviously didn’t hit the shore.  But there was a strong undertow – a powerful countercurrent just below the surface.

The polls and the pundits, both merely skimming the surface as usual, missed the Blue Undertow.  

A fading Donald Trump is reported to have cost the Republicans at the polls.  In fact, he had a major impact, because in 2020 his big turnout allowed the Democrats only a small margin in the House.  That left them vulnerable to the usual mid-term losses of a party holding the presidency.  Their loss was the least in 20 years, but they began with only a small lead. 

President Biden’s reported unpopularity was supposed to drag the Democrats to defeat.  No poll found whether his relatively low standing was more personal than political.  Biden lacks charisma, political sex appeal, in a country where bombast (see Trump or Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis) catches the public’s attention.

Biden’s occasional oratorical miscues may not communicate the kind of strength that voters want.  His calm demeanor obscures his generally positive record.  He may suffer because voters want both good policies and a flashy personality that shoots from the lip.  But his drawbacks didn’t harm the Democrats.

Biden talked a lot about the threat to democracy.  His message was that, if the GOP won, election deniers and dishonest vote counts would undermine free and fair elections.  The Democrats adopted extreme moves to block the election of Republicans who would reverse election results.  His warnings and Democratic moves worked.

The results may have been a rejection of candidates falsely finding election fraud, but also reflected a deeper concern about democracy.  The January 6 insurrection at the Capitol left sentiments that short survey questionnaires cannot measure.

The Republicans had been concerned that the findings of the House committee investigating the insurrection would be used against them in the election campaign, and the committee’s hearings were likely part of the undertow.  Public concern about democracy may have resulted from Trump’s brand of political expression having gone too far.

The GOP succeeded in dumping Rep. Liz Cheney, one of their most loyal members, for expressing her concerns about Trump’s threat to democracy.  But the sacrifice of her seat in Congress for a larger cause caught national attention.  No survey asked about her influence on voters’ decisions.

By the way, Liz Cheney is a woman.  Next year, 12 governors will be women.  Polls report that most men vote Republican and most women vote Democratic.  That overlooks the increased political activism of women.  The abortion issue was in sharp focus in male-dominated GOP states mistakenly rushing decisions that only directly affect women.

Pollsters warn that the Democrats may only be able to count on 60 percent of Hispanic voters, while ignoring that they may be able to count on 60 percent of women voters.

Inflation was seen as the big issue that would swing voters toward the Republicans.  That strategy assumed that people would hold Biden and hence the Democrats responsible for higher gasoline and food prices.  But it also assumed that people were dim enough to believe that voting for the GOP would promptly lower the price at the pump. 

Inflation was probably less of an issue than expected, because people were aware of the effects of the pandemic, Ukraine war and possibly even Saudi Arabia’s oil cuts.  Voters worried about high prices and believed the GOP is good at managing the economy, but that did not translate into blaming the Democrats for inflation.  The polls simply did not read the issue well.

Another barely mentioned demographic influence is the split between urban and rural areas. In many key elections, the Democrats won big in the biggest municipalities, while Republican candidates carried many small towns.  There can be more voters in a few big cities than in all the small towns.  In Maine, Gov. Janet Mills won all of the leading vote-producing towns and cities. 

The Democrats did well in Senate, governors and state house races.  They might have done better in the House, except for the way district lines had been drawn by Republican state legislatures.  Gerrymandering by GOP legislatures had been largely left intact by GOP-appointed judges. The U.S. Supreme Court, mostly Republican appointees, still smiles on political gerrymandering.

In New York, the majority on its highest court, all Democratic appointees, turned down the Democrats’ redistricting plan.  By default, the Republicans got their favored plan and flipped four House seats, which could be nearly the gap between the two parties in the House. 

The Democrats’ surprisingly good showing, freeing Biden of responsibility for a setback, may make it easier for him to decide against running again.  Perhaps he never intended to seek a second term and now the way is clear, free from embarrassment.

Big bucks, Russia, pundits at the ballot box

 

Gordon L. Weil

Democracy was on the ballot this year.

The issue, perhaps never before appearing in public opinion surveys, was all about opposing efforts to suppress voting and deny election results.

In recent decades, the Republicans have pursued voter suppression, trying to reduce the number of Democratic voters. Beyond that effort, even before an election, fraud claims, lacking any evidence, were ready and ballots questioned.

This political strategy has become part of partisan politics without evidence that dishonest elections are increasing. Donald Trump’s prolonged campaign against his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden set the pattern for pre-election strategy to challenge results in close contests.

Attention has been focused on the conflict on these issues, ranging from scores of court cases to the January 2021 insurrection at the Capitol. But there’s more to it than that. Forces coming from outside the district or state have also powerfully influenced the elections, including this year.

Money’s role in politics is now huge. The country has moved almost completely to accept that spending money on elections is the equivalent of speech and so cannot be limited.

Campaigns now believe that the outcome of an election can be influenced, if not determined, by how much money is spent to support candidates. This year, it has been estimated that more than $16.8 billion was spent on federal and state campaigns.

While buying a person’s votes is illegal, their choices may be “bought” by massive media, mail and canvassing efforts to reach individual voters. If you can’t get into voters’ pockets, get into their heads.

In Maine, an estimated $1 million was spent on the contest for State Senate President Troy Jackson’s seat. That’s a new record. Using the number of votes cast in the same district in 2020, that spending amounts to about $54 for each vote cast.

This spending was less concerned with a single senator than about which party controls the seat and who leads the Senate. Could the Maine Senate be bought for $18 million, the price of gaining a majority in the 35-seat body?

In today’s politics that’s pocket money. So long as campaign spending is effectively unlimited because it’s free speech, elections will be increasingly influenced by the intense campaign attacks made possible by big bucks.

Then, there are the Russians. They have resumed sending their electronic messengers to spread false information in American social media. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has asserted that, “we interfered, we interfere and we will interfere. Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way.”

They have created phony characters that spread lies to favor Republicans. The Russians believe U.S. support for Ukraine can be halted by flipping congressional control to the GOP so that no additional funds will be voted to support the opposition to their stalled invasion.

Federal agencies have done little more than warn Americans against believing posts by people whose identities cannot be verified. But the Russians have improved their targeting and benefit from the momentum of their tactics gained in past campaigns.

Another background influence has come from treating elections like sports. Relying on questionable poll results, the pundits roll out the score every day. Primaries are like playoffs. Voters are guided to the final score by the incessant reporting on who’s leading and what the big scoring maneuvers are.

Much less attention is paid to the issues and coverage of a candidate’s promises and whether they would realistically be able to keep them. Political ads focus far more on an opponent’s defects than on the candidate. When issues become complex, it’s easier to focus on politics more than on policy. And maybe more fun.

This style of campaign coverage may create its own political reality. Voters become increasingly drawn to the daily score rather than to a sustained focus on what candidates propose and their records. With campaigns as sporting events, we’ve been getting more color comment than play-by-play.

Much less significant, but largely ignored, is the unusual electoral effect of non-citizens. According to the Constitution, the census, which prescribes how House seats are distributed among states, uses the total population within a state, not only the citizens or voters. Where there are many resident aliens, legal or not, the census count may be higher.

The effect of illegal residents on the census reveals that Texas, a Red State, probably received one additional seat in the House. The state that fights undocumented immigrants may be gaining power in Congress thanks to them. That could mean that another state, say Blue State New York, has lost that seat, helping shift control of the House from the Dems to the GOP.

Money, the Russians, pundits and aliens may have influenced this year’s election outcomes more than attempts to block voters from the ballot box.

From ‘Chief Twit’ to Chief Justice, believers in intentional lies

 

Gordon L. Weil

It’s easy to believe something that’s not true. From conspiracy promoters to the highest court, people intentionally choose to do it.

Take the assault last week in San Francisco on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Investigators have found he was attacked simply because he is the husband of the outspoken and controversial leader of the House Democrats.

Political differences, no matter how extreme, should not degenerate into violence. Oppose all you want, but your political views should not be reduced to a physical attack.

But the problem goes beyond that. The attack took place and it was wrong, but some try to excuse it by lying. Without any evidence, a well-known conspiracy promoter pushed the suspicion that Pelosi and his attacker knew one another and there was a fight between them. This lie could discourage GOP sympathy for Pelosi or even make it look like it was all his fault.

Relying on nothing more than this unsupported accusation by a rabid opponent of the Democrats, Elon Musk last week retweeted it to tens of thousands of people. He concluded, “there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”

Then, Musk, the self-styled “Chief Twit” on Twitter had to give way to Musk, the new CEO of Twitter. After buying control of this social site, Musk tried to reassure worried advertisers, who dislike controversy, by proclaiming, that Twitter “obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!”

But Musk’s “tiny possibility” says a lot about “free-for-all” statements that appear online in the social media. If a person harbors a bias and can conjure up a theory that might remotely be thought possible by ignoring the facts, they can promote an alternative explanation to the evidence. Spreading falsehoods may turn a situation that might benefit an opponent against them.

With the growth of social media, a kind of dumping ground for opinion as much as a forum for discussion, a tweet like Musk’s could reach more people in 24 hours than all the newspapers in America. Unlike the press which is subject to some editorial standards and review, the social media allows anybody to say pretty much anything.

The claim is sometimes made that nobody can stop this baseless talk because everybody has the right to free speech. In fact, the First Amendment to the Constitution only prevents the government from controlling speech, but it says nothing that prohibits a company, say a social media owner, from controlling speech on its own site.

Texas and Florida both passed laws that would prevent social media outfits like Facebook and Twitter from deleting false or inflammatory messages. The states argued that the companies were violating the free speech rights of conservatives. Federal judges found that the state laws, covered by the First Amendment, violated the free speech rights of the social media companies. The cases are now at the Supreme Court.

Of course, nobody is required to access social media. And the traditional media and watchdogs can reveal untruths when they are spread.

But it’s a different matter when the U.S. Supreme Court chooses to make decisions affecting millions based on false assertions contrary to the facts. It seems to be inclined to do just that on matters relating to race, the most significant issue in U.S. history.

In 2013, the Court ended federal government preapproval of voting law changes in areas where Black citizens’ voting rights had been limited. The Chief Justice wrote that Black voter registration was high, making protection unnecessary.

That dubious finding got him where he wanted to go. His decision was like saying that, when crime is low, we don’t need police. That intentionally ignores the effect that a police presence has on crime. Right after the decision, some states raced to reverse laws that protected Black voters, proving him wrong.

Threats to Black voting access, widely known and understood, were simply dismissed by a Court with little interest in civil rights. Last week, the Court seemed ready to intentionally make the same mistake. This time the case involves attempts by universities to have a diversified student body, which means Blacks may get some preference in admissions.

The justices, except for Clarence Thomas, seemed to recognize that diversity has educational value. But they wondered how long universities should be allowed to continue to pursue diversity and whether this policy unfairly denies admission to some people.

They ignored the point that, without an effort to promote diversity, it might melt as fast as voting rights did in 2013. Just as then, they were ready to believe something that’s not true – that discrimination and lack of access don’t much matter these days. The fact that the legacy of slavery has not yet been fully resolved simply escaped the attention of the justices.

Conventional wisdom could be wrong in this year’s elections

Gordon L. Weil

With the elections at hand, the conventional wisdom is that the Republicans will gain, almost certainly picking up control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate.  President Biden has a net negative rating and that’s expected to aid the GOP across the board.

The political analysts reach these conclusions based on three factors: the polls, higher retail prices that can easily be blamed on government spending, and the usual loss of seats in Congress by the president’s party in midterm elections.

Most election speculation is based on polling data.  The public is bombarded with online surveys and automated phone soundings to find out what issues matter to people and how they will vote. But there’s plenty wrong with polls.

Public opinion surveys are most reliable when they are based on a truly random sample of the population. They don’t exist.  Many people refuse or those who answer are not typical. Pollsters adjust the results and their natural bias can creep in. The survey questions may reflect political leaning if not outright bias. And the results are subject to interpretation. 

In short, polling dictates commentary and there’s good reason to be skeptical of it.  On this shaky foundation, the punditry begins.  The analysts sound authoritative, but at best they are making informed guesses.  The expectations created by polls that have the aura of being objective can affect decisions voters make at the ballot box.   Polls create momentum.

Biden tells us that the elections depend on whether the parties get their voters to the polls. The gap between a survey result and what people really do, including not even showing up to vote, is what the Democrats hope will refute the forecasts.

Inflation has become the big issue because it hits you every day.  What either party did for them six months ago matters less to many voters than what they pay for groceries or gasoline today. 

Higher prices have several causes.  The increase in the cost of oil and gas, the major economic byproduct of the Ukraine War, affects almost everything we buy.  Just like the disease itself, the economic effects of Covid-19 seem to be staying with us and are costly.  Bringing production home from China raises costs.

Though these factors are undeniable, they are simplistically boiled down to the cost of government being too high.  The GOP is the party that wants to lower taxes and cut down the size of government. 

Even if there’s a disconnect between benefiting from government action, like renewed roads or Covid-19 income support, and wanting a smaller government, the price of daily purchases may be somewhat blindly dictating the political response.  The purse beats policy.

Conventional wisdom also tells us that people are concerned about crime.  It is difficult to know what that means to each voter, but there is undoubtedly a sense that things are getting out of control when each day’s news seems to contain a report of killings of innocent people.  Without knowing how to stop these incidents, voters may feel that authorities should do better.

It’s also possible that talking about “crime” really relates to ill-considered calls to “defund” the police or police treatment of Blacks and the related reactions to tense situations.

Elections are supposed to give the people the opportunity to tell political leaders how they rate.  Whether the hopes raised in a presidential election year have been realized becomes the test.  If there’s enough disappointment, those in power suffer.  That’s considered to be the normal rule.

The country seems to be evenly divided politically.  As a result, even a small swing to one side or the other can change who’s in control of the government.  This year, there are at least two other factors at work.

One of them is Donald Trump’s effect.  The Republicans have produced some candidates who are closely aligned with him and his policies.  Do they appeal only to the right wing of the GOP, essentially ceding the election to the Democrats, or do they represent a majority of the voters?  Here’s where Biden’s emphasis on Democratic turnout may matter.

Politics in America has always contained a lot of negativity.  You are asked to vote for a candidate because of the defects of their opponent not because of their skills or policies. The chief casualty of this kind of politics is truth.  That’s one reason why elections almost inevitably lead to voter disappointment.

The other factor, mainly identified with the GOP, is voter suppression.  Reducing the effect of Democratic voters by gerrymandering districts, making access to voting difficult or even questionable vote counting are expected to be key factors in flipping the House to the Republicans.

Taking all this into account, we probably know less than we think we do about next month’s election results.    

Ukraine war remaking the economic, military world

Gordon L. Weil

The Ukraine War wasn’t supposed to happen.

At the end of the Second World War, Americans and others drank their own bathwater, as the saying goes.  They imagined that the winning alliance – the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union, France and China – had finally halted the endless land wars for territorial gain.

In 1945,their dream was wrapped into the United Nations, a forum for negotiating settlements and avoiding war.  The five big winners would run it, though really it would boil down to the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

Within four years, they failed.  After stealing American nuclear secrets, the Soviets occupied much of Eastern Europe.  To stop their advance, the U.S. organized NATO with Britain, France and others. Meanwhile, China crumbled, paving the way for a Communist takeover.  Quickly, the post-war world evolved into opposing blocs: democratic countries and dictatorships.

The Soviet Union was really Russia and the neighboring countries it controlled.  Eastern European satellite states were a buffer between Russia and the West.

Russia suffers from historical paranoia. With flatlands on its western border, the Russian Empire and later the Soviet regime always feared invasion, and with good reason.  Napoleon in 1812 and Hitler in 1941 marched on Moscow.  Only because they were overextended, outnumbered and seriously cold were they forced to retreat in defeat.

The history of national boundaries in Eastern Europe shows almost continual change.  At times, Ukraine was a key part of the Russian Empire, but it was also a maltreated part of the Soviet Union.  When the U.S.S.R. folded in 1991, it achieved independence.  In effect, it took its place near the end of the decolonization that had swept the world after the Second World War.

In the 1990s, it appeared that Russia’s paranoia could be cured by closer economic links with the West. But then Vladimir Putin came to power.  He lamented the end of the Soviet Union, and hoped to revive the Russian Empire.  Otherwise, he feared that the Russia he ruled would be nothing more than “a regional power,” just as Barack Obama had labeled it.

In his view, Ukraine, home to second-rate Russians, had to be recovered. As it became more attracted by the EU and NATO, Putin saw Russia’s buffer disappearing.  The West would be at the door, able to invade.  He had to stop Ukraine’s drift westward.

Based on his largely unopposed take-over of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, Putin seemed to believe he could capture the rest of the country in a matter of days.  With the UN having become ineffective and NATO having lost its mission as it still hoped for amicable relations, Putin could imagine winning a land war in Europe.

If Putin were a throwback to the bad old days of Nazi aggression, he surprisingly faced Joe Biden, an American president who was a throwback to the Cold War with the Soviets.

Putin made two mistakes.  He badly underestimated the Ukrainians, and he mistakenly believed that the only weapon in the U.S. arsenal was words. The impact of his errors was huge, disastrously affecting Russia and undermining the world economy.

Russia emerged as no longer worthy of a seat among world powers.  Its only weapon was nuclear, more effective as a threat than as an instrument of war.  By revealing his country’s essential weakness, Putin turned Russia into the junior partner of China.  His timing was bad.

Xi Jinping, China’s president, is at an earlier place on the dictator’s learning curve than Putin.  He dislikes the instability that Putin created, though he exploits it to boost China’s standing in the world. If Xi opposed Putin, the Ukraine war might come to an end. But he may reason that Putin taking even part of Ukraine by force is a helpful model for China taking over Taiwan.

And Putin could succeed at least in gaining some territory.  After a one-sided war in which Russia could pulverize Ukraine while Ukraine was restrained by its backers from touching Russia, a negotiated settlement might allow the Russians to save face by dividing Ukraine.

The world economy will never be the same.  Overdependence on others can be dangerous, as Russian oil and gas customers have learned.  Or as China’s TikTok users are learning. Globalism is reverting somewhat back to national self-sufficiency.  But this can bring higher prices.

It will also cost more to be prepared.  The Ukraine war has shown the limits of Russian readiness and war production, but it has done the same in the West. This is not merely a matter of armed forces and weapons.  It’s also about the domestic economy ranging from modernizing manufacturing to advanced research.

Above all, it is critically important to recognize that the post-war world is gone.  The times call for the U.S. to reassert itself as the world’s leading economic and military power.

 

  

Could U.S. become the ‘most successful failing state’?

Herschel Walker could help the U.S. top Belgium!

Gordon L. Weil

Herschel Walker could bolster U.S. chances of topping Belgium.

It’s not about football. The odd mix of Walker and a world record held by the European country echoes the classic story of a student in Poland, told to write about the elephant, who amazingly came up with an essay entitled “The Elephant and the Polish Question.”

Last week in the Financial Times, perhaps Britain’s most serious newspaper, a commentator wrote that, until now, Belgium had been the world’s richest “failing state” – a country that is simply ungovernable.  It is now losing the title, because “America is history’s most successful failing state.”

The Belgian “question” is about a deep split between two language groups – Flemish, which is a form of Dutch, and French.  Belgian history now includes the record for going without a national government, because the two sides could not agree.  Still, the country prospers and is the seat of both the EU and NATO.

The U.S. is similarly deeply divided between Democrats and Republicans.  As in Belgium, the two sides are so far apart that the federal government may end up incapable of deciding anything. Also like Belgium, the American economy produces great wealth, though lower taxes and easier regulation create a bigger gap between rich and poor in the U.S.

What does Herschel Walker, a former football star and current GOP Senate candidate in Georgia, have to do with the potential inability of the U.S. government to function?   

The Republican Party’s prime political goal seems to be defeating the Democrats.  In 2000, its National Convention failed even to adopt a party platform, preferring to fall in line behind Donald Trump’s presidential re-election campaign. While the GOP has positions on issues from abortion to deregulation, they mainly serve to create an anti-Democratic majority.

Candidate Walker was picked because he is famous for his Georgia Bulldog football career and is Black.  Incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock is also Black and the minister at Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Atlanta church.

Walker has little else going for him, having no political or government experience. He does have a carload of scandals, including fathering four children with four different women, while living with another. One of these women says he paid for her abortion and offered her another abortion, though she had the child.  He denies the claim. 

But one of Walker’s supporters responds, “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”

Those are the words of an ardent Republican who would accept an abortion that he might otherwise oppose to win GOP political control in November. Anything goes. Remember that married candidate Trump bragged about groping women in the “Access Hollywood” tape, but still was elected president.

The assumption is that as a senator, Walker would do as he was told by his party. All he has to do is show up. If he flips the Georgia seat, the GOP could attain a Senate majority, giving it veto power over any proposals by President Biden. That kind of gridlock makes for a “failed state.”

So do repeated challenges to election results. If Walker loses, it is reasonable to expect that the GOP will challenge his election defeat. Many Republican candidates around the country either claim past elections were tampered with or say they believe next month’s will be. Maine’s former governor Paul LePage and former congressman Bruce Poliquin are in this group.

Wanting to win so badly leads to candidates who are willing, even before a single vote is counted, to assume that being defeated means being cheated.   Winning is more important than avoiding serious harm to the political system.

How you get to that point is simple.  Some of the January 6 rioters believed Trump’s statement that the election was stolen and thought they were trying to stop Democratic tyranny.  If you can defeat the Democrats, you can prevent them from destroying the country.    

It has become clear that Trump knew that he had lost the election and that claiming fraud was a political strategy to change the results outside of the bounds of the traditional political system.  He was president and could lead his loyal followers to carry out his strategy.

The question this year may be whether questionable candidates like Walker can be elected based on a false fear of two more years of Democratic government.  If the partisan voter access and vote counting maneuvers of Republican state election administrators help GOP losers, governments across the country will be greatly stressed and the courts will be busy.

Much also depends on this year’s state legislative elections.  State legislators elected in November will make the rules for the 2024 presidential vote. 

This year could be about the GOP’s elephant and the American question.

  

Biden didn’t cause inflation; elections won’t fix it

 

Gordon L. Weil

The political campaign focuses on inflation.  Somebody must be held responsible for high prices and even for a recession that hasn’t happened.

Economic conditions could always be better.  But right now, things may be better than they seem.  And they’re surely different.

First, some good news.  The U.S. is the world economic superpower with the world’s leading currency.  When times get tough, people want the dollar. 

A strong dollar cuts the cost of imports, benefitting our consumer-based economy. But it boosts the price of American exports.  That’s somewhat masked by rising prices worldwide, thanks to shortages and supply chain glitches. And higher revenues bring new profits to some industries, like oil.

The glory days of American industrial production began to fade in the 1970s.  Now, in the wake of the Covid recession, manufacturing is again growing at the pace of 50 years ago.  More people work in factories now than before the virus struck.

Compared to other major economic powers, the U.S. is doing better.  China has a Covid problem. Europe and Brexited Britain face major fuel price increases and struggle with shortages, high inflation and reduced industrial output.   Then, there’s Russia!

We keep expecting unemployment to increase as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates in hopes of reducing inflation.  But the Fed’s moves have not yet caused joblessness, which remains low.

Higher interest rates raise costs, but the situation may not be as bad as we think. The Fed is bringing rates up to a level that used to be called normal.  For more than decade, they have been historically low and we grew used to it.

Contrary to the usual mantra, the biggest help has come from the federal government. To deal with the effects of Covid, the need to renew basic infrastructure, the climate crisis and bringing production back from abroad, the Biden administration and Congress have pumped trillions of stimulus dollars into the economy.  It worked.

The result is record high government debt. That may have been acceptable when interest rates were low, but paying it down later could hurt.  But that’s left by both political parties for another day or generation.

If everything is so good, why don’t people feel better?

In this country, the answer is clearly that the prices of essentials – food and fuel – are much higher than they were.  Inflation takes place when too much money chases after too few goods. That’s exactly what happened.

Two causes drive these price increases:  Covid-19 and Russia.  The virus brought a recession when millions lost their jobs or faced cutbacks.  Some workers chose not to come back after vaccinations were developed.  Workers stepped up demands for better pay.  Production could not keep up with normal demand.

Russia’s unexpected and disastrous land war in Ukraine led to inevitable disruptions in the world’s supply of oil and grains.  Russia used oil as a weapon to force its customers to accept its invasion, but the customers have resisted, pushing up the price of gasoline worldwide.  It cut grain exports from Ukraine, increasing the cost of wheat and other grains.

These causes contributed to uncertainty, which can cause the economy to hunker down.  The British decision to quit the EU was followed by its relatively sudden fall from the top ranks of the world economy.  Recently, that has added to uncertainty.

It falls to central banks like the Fed to manage policies that would combat inflation while trying not to overdo it and end up with a recession.  The uncertainty about their chances of success adds more doubt.

Although the economy seems to emerge as the major issue for many voters, no election result – keeping the Democrats in charge or turning the veto over to the Republicans – will change much.  The problems are not merely a short-term matter of national politics.

The world economy may be entering an historic transformation, almost at the level of the Industrial Revolution or the growth of social welfare like Social Security, each about a century apart.  After another century, we may be turning a new corner.

Technology with growing artificial intelligence, remote work, a more educated workforce, tax policy and deficit spending, trade and the new demands on the domestic economy will likely drive major change.  It will never be the same.

It’s possible that prices will never settle back to levels below where they are now.   Workers have forced a new minimum wage without government action.  Bringing production home from China, a sound policy, will cost more.  Dealing with climate change carries its own price tag.

Such changes cannot be reversed by this year’s congressional elections.  Economic reality in the U.S. and across the world will impose itself on us.  No president or Congress can change that, but they must now try to make the best of the new emerging economy.