Covid’s ‘new normal’ is here to stay

 

Gordon L. Weil

Covid has affected everyone, whether or not you were vaccinated.

Not that Robert Kennedy, Jr. is right about shots.  Despite his claims, vaccinations can protect your health.  But they can’t shield you from the changes Covid has brought to the American economy.

The post-Covid world is often labeled negatively as the “new normal.”  Despite broad economic recovery, many people are unhappy and hope for conditions that are long gone. 

“Make America Rich Again” could be their slogan.  Polls suggest that people ignore the economic recovery and blame Joe Biden for not giving them the kind of personal prosperity that had supposedly boosted their purchasing power and assured their retirement.  

There probably never was an “old normal.”  Whatever the state of the economy in 2000, it was hit by the double whammy of the Great Recession of 2008 and the Covid pandemic in 2020.  Covid got us, and no president could provide a quick fix.

The Great Recession brought a massive slowdown and kept inflation low between 2009 and 2020.  People may have grown accustomed to low inflation, but it zoomed when Covid caused shortages and the government pumped recovery dollars into the economy.  To reverse inflation, the Federal Reserve has boosted interest rates.

The Fed’s anti-inflation efforts are working, but the higher interest rates have made some major costs, like buying a new home, much higher than they were.  The collapse of aggressive lending brought on the Great Recession and then the resulting slowdown kept housing costs well below traditional levels.  It will not again be as easy to buy a house.      

Covid changed almost everything.  Employment, retirement, remote work, and what we purchase and when we buy it were all affected.  Prices will not recede to the unusually low levels of a few years ago.  There’s no political magic that can change that.  The “new normal” is here to stay.

The good news is that unemployment caused by Covid has come down.  The bad news is that we are left with a shortage of workers.  Businesses cannot fill slots and low joblessness affects the economy in areas ranging from home building to restaurants. Wages are higher, but are not attracting the new workers that are needed. 

Why isn’t the labor supply better?  One major reason is that some people who might normally have been at work have decided to stay out of the labor force.  There’s been an increase in people who remain at home as caregivers and in people taking early retirement.

Some older workers lost their jobs during the pandemic and choose not to return to work or have not found jobs at their former pay level or requiring their skills.   More people accept reduced Social Security payments at age 62 rather than struggle to find suitable full-time work.  

Covid made remote work more common.  The pandemic’s spread required more people to evacuate the workspace. Though many have been required to return, the percentage of workers in remote locations has remained relatively high.  Downtown buildings have empty offices, permanently abandoned as the popularity of remote work has gained.

The limited labor force has meant that home builders are scarce.  Housing demand has grown faster than the available labor.  Less new housing has reduced sales and driven up home prices.  The construction labor shortage may partly be the result of the uncertain availability of workers thanks to a nonexistent immigration policy.

People have become more uncertain about their ability to finance their retirement. Added to worries about the future of Social Security, essential to many retirees, are concerns about their vulnerability when technology transforms the demand for skilled workers.  Their doubts can affect their spending and their purchasing decisions then flow back to promote more change.

People now hold on to their cars for 12 years.  Previously, frequent trading up to a new model was an American tradition. A pool of traded-in cars was created, and now they are in high demand.  Auto dealers continue to see service and parts grow, far surpassing their profits from sales of new and used cars. 

People worry about high inflation.  Some believe personal savings have increased, cutting into consumer buying.  Most think we’re in a recession. These beliefs are wrong.

The Fed is bringing inflation down.  Personal savings are not unusually high and, while personal consumption faltered, it is once again soaring.  The American economy grows steadily, ahead of most other countries.

Biden gets little credit for the good economic news and blame for the bad, whether real or imaginary.  Donald Trump left office before having to face most of the pandemic’s economic effects.

Biden does not deserve the blame nor does Trump deserve credit for the economy.  More powerful than any presidential policy, Covid’s unavoidable impact has left us all worried about our economic future. 

 

Political redlines vanish amid partisan fury

Opens way for more authoritarian rule 

Gordon L. Weil

“How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person,” fumed Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized the appearance of another female House committee member. Greene’s statement might have had racial overtones.

Greene had lashed out against a colleague’s eyelashes and Ocasio-Cortes’ retort, dissing Greene’s figure, both crossed a “redline” of acceptable behavior. However strong their partisanship, members of Congress traditionally have stayed away from personally attacking their opponents based on their appearance, race, age or religion.

A “redline” is supposed to serve as a warning: if you cross the line, you risk suffering adverse consequences. Hence, the relatively minor House committee exchange.

The idea is that you “draw a line in the sand” that is the acceptable limit. It’s a poor analogy, because, given the softness of sand, that line is increasingly and easily blown away.

In the late 1940s, Arthur Vandenberg was a Republican senator during Democratic President Harry Truman’s administration. While he might oppose Truman’s foreign policy, he asserted that Congress should unite behind the policy once adopted and make it bipartisan. “Politics stops at the water’s edge,” he said. That was a redline.

Recently, New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik addressed the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, to criticize President Biden’s Israel-Gaza positions. She is a member of House leadership and an ardent supporter of Donald Trump. Vandenberg’s redline crossed.

Her party’s once and hopeful president shows no restraint in attacking the policies of other American political leaders while abroad. He sees the world as his campaign stage and does not worry that a lack of foreign policy continuity, even allowing for its evolution, is essential for maintaining confidence in the U.S. For him, politics does not stop at the water’s edge.

When political leaders adopt no-redlines policies, the effect can get out of hand. People can take politicians’ wild admonitions as permission or even encouragement for taking physical action. A federal court may someday get to decide if the January 6 Capitol insurrection responded to Trump’s call to “fight like hell.”

Members of Congress, judges, prosecutors and witnesses are now physically threatened. If the operation of the federal system is pushed aside by threats or injury caused by a relative few incensed about a decision, it is also endangered. That system is not perfect, but it has rules, the redlines all have agreed to observe to protect officials.

The bias of Florida federal District Court Judge Aileen Cannon toward Trump is so evident that it is embarrassing to her and the judiciary. The people rely on courts to provide at least the appearance of not taking sides between the parties. But her efforts to excessively complicate and delay the Trump documents retention case destroy any such impartiality.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s home flew an American flag upside down at the time of the Capitol insurrection. That intended political support for Trump is likely illegal under the Flag Code and raises doubts about his fairness in political cases. He blamed it on his wife, a claim that insults peoples’ intelligence and cannot pass the straight-face test.

His apologists resort to whataboutism, claiming that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg opposed candidate Trump before the 2016 election. Assuming that’s true, two wrongs still don’t make a right to wipe out an established redline against the appearance of bias.

Before that same election, a tape revealed Trump’s having groped women, feeling his celebrity gave him license. Surprisingly even to him, society’s redline against such behavior was swept away by millions of voters.

The U.S. House Speaker heads a cornerstone institution of the federal government. Part of the Speaker’s job is to maintain the dignity and stature of the House, independent of the Senate and president. But Speaker Mike Johnson dashed to New York to stand in the street supporting Trump in a N.Y. state trial. Redline gone.

Given the power, role and influence of the president, candidates and incumbents have for decades made their full medical and tax records public. Trump never did either and the media took note and simply moved on. Trump and Biden, for his medical data, have given themselves a free ride. Redline deathbed?

Customs have grown up to make the bare bones of constitutional government work. Over time, these customs take the form of the redlines around the behavior of the people who operate that government. When redlines can be crossed without any penalty, the essential understandings that allow a political system to operate across a vast territory and population can be lost.

Of course, customs and redlines must evolve as the world changes. What was once not allowed can become acceptable. But this evolution must continue to protect or enhance the people’s rights. If it is abrupt, arbitrary or self-serving, crossing redlines leads to more authoritarian government.

Gaza War -- Is it a new Vietnam crisis?

Understanding Israel-Palestine

Gordon L. Weil

“I hope this is not 1968 again.”  Observing campus unrest, an academic friend expressed his concern, but his comment went beyond the demonstrations.

The Vietnam War was the focus of the turmoil of the 1960s and its effect transformed American political life.  The country itself changed and some shared political values were shredded.  The question is whether the depth of today’s differences will have a similar effect.

Then, there was a conflict over what American objectives ought to be.  The U.S. fought a war it claimed not to want.  Now, there is also a conflict over what American objectives ought to be. And the U.S. struggles to avoid a Middle East war it does not want.

One obstacle to an Israel-Palestine policy enjoying wide support and promoting unity rather than division is a lack of understanding of the situation.  On campuses and in public discourse, the issues may be oversimplified and turned into political slogans.

I have tried to create for myself perspectives on the events arising after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.  You may disagree with what follows, but maybe they are food for thought.

First, the Palestinians.  Though the word “terrorist” is overused, it certainly applies to Hamas. It has no policy other than the outright destruction of Israel.  It holds hostages. Think of how we felt when Iran held Americans.  It’s virtually impossible to see how any long-term agreement can be made with it.

Not all Palestinians are affiliated with Hamas or ready to wage permanent war with Israel.  Many are citizens of Israel.  The Palestinians have lived on the land for centuries and have ceded much of it to the Jewish state.  As stalemate has persisted and armed attacks have failed, many have come to accept the existence of Israel and the need for it to exist side by side with an Arab state.

But the Palestinians have been hindered by their inability to create a realistic, democratic and stable alternative to their domination by Israel and Hamas.  That failure has opened the way for terrorism.  Meanwhile, backing for Palestinians by the neighboring Arab states has faded.

Next, Israel.  It’s been a special place as the world’s guilt at having allowed the Holocaust led to strong support for the Jewish state.  Jews see it as their “safe room” in a world that has been historically hostile. In other countries, many want their governments to continue to view Israel from that perspective.

Zionism, the movement for a Jewish state, is an integral part of their faith for many Jews.  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exploits this belief by insisting that support for Israel means unstinting support for Israeli government policies.  Abroad, this can turn opposition to Israeli policy into antisemitism, for which he must bear some responsibility.

Israel has occupied a privileged place in American policy.  Its democratic system is believed to embody values shared by the U.S. Yet its justifiable retaliation against Hamas has run to unbridled excess and, coupled with attacks on West Bank Palestinians, has stripped it of its democratic luster and threatens to turn it into an international pariah.

Finally, the U.S.  Historically, it has been Israel’s strongest backer.  A combination of reparations to the Jewish people and respect for Israel’s democracy in a hostile political environment underlie that bipartisan policy.  Its support has eroded as Netanyahu came to openly reject a two-state solution and courted Republicans.

As U.S. relations with Arab states have improved, coincident with declining dependence on their oil, and American political opinion has evolved beyond the post-World War II values, the U.S. view of Israel has matured.  While Israel has retained access to American intelligence and arms, its broad, unquestioning support is deteriorating.

Israel has become a political issue.  The Democrats are increasingly divided between traditional supporters and opponents of Israel’s devastation of the Gaza population and discriminatory treatment of Palestinians.  Republicans, always seeking to nurture wedge issues, line up with Israel.

The clash has spread to college campuses.  Opponents of Israeli policy sometimes flirt with antisemitism, and their ire may lead them to justify terrorist attacks. Some donors threaten funding cuts for colleges that permit demonstrations by Palestinian sympathizers. Congressional Republicans believe they can score points by attacking top universities.

Colleges should not take sides.  They are meant to help their students understand how to evaluate issues, not limit such inquiry.  Of course, they should prevent or punish any expression of opinion or actions that result in physical or hate attacks or harm to others.

A two-state deal is the only practical way to resolve the Israel-Palestine situation. American policy needs more than futile advocacy; it needs action. To get started, the U.S. can define the outcome that would best meet American interests and then pursue it with more than hopeful talk. 

  

Is U.S. a democracy or a republic?

Gordon L. Weil

A few weeks ago, I received a reader’s comment, trying to educate me on the difference between a democracy and a republic.  He noted that the word “republic” appears in the Constitution, while “democracy” does not.  The writer then canceled his subscription, probably making it impossible for him to read this reply.

There is no single historically agreed definition of “democracy” or “republic.”   Some people see a political conflict between them that could affect the way we are governed.  The pat answer has often been: “It’s both.”  While that’s superficially true, it does not go deep enough to resolve the argument.

In any of its definitions, “democracy” means a system in which the people either make political decisions or select other people to make them on their behalf.  It contrasts with a system in which an unelected person makes the decisions.  

In the most basic form, called direct democracy, people themselves are the legislature and make decisions.  In this pure form, it may only now exist in some Town Meeting governments in New England municipalities.

The second form in which people choose others to act on their behalf to exercise either legislative or executive functions is called representative democracy.

Either of these forms leaves open two key questions.  Who constitutes “the people”?   When the Constitution was drafted, “We, the People” did not include women, Blacks and, in some states, people without property.  That has changed.

The other issue is whether those chosen by the people are their delegates, expected to exercise the popular will, or their designees, who exercise their own judgment on behalf of the people who selected them. 

The U.S. is simply too large to be a pure democracy.  The people elect the decision makers, and do not decide federal issues directly.  The American system is a representative or indirect democracy; the Framers referred to it as “a republican form of government.”

A republic is a form of democracy; not an alternative system to democracy.  The republic does not alter democracy “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

“We, the People” recognizes that the sovereign is the American people as a whole – not each individually or a single ruler like the King of England.  Federal and state sovereignty results from an agreement among the people to allow their governments to use their collective sovereign power. 

If the right to vote is limited, that undermines democracy by preventing participation.  When a political leader acts outside of the limits of the laws meant to protect individual rights, that can reduce or eliminate democracy.

Concerns that such events may be occurring in the U.S. is likely what motivates Biden’s repeated claim that Trump endangers democracy.  Trump says he would be a dictator for a day and would have almost unlimited powers if he were president. 

The Supreme Court has decided that each person is entitled to a vote and presumably that all votes are equal.  But equality is true only up to a point, and the reason has little to with a democracy or republic.

The U.S. is a federation of states.  A democratic republic need not be a federation (for example, as in France or Japan), but, having been created by the states, the U.S. is both.

In the American federal system, each state must be a republic and has certain voting rights: two votes in the Senate.  As a result, a single voter in a low population state like Wyoming has greater weight than a voter in a large population state like California when it comes to choosing a senator. 

The Electoral Vote that chooses the president gives each state a number of voters representing the two senators plus a single vote for each congressional district. This gives greater weight to the voter in a low population state than one in a large state.  (Within each state, individual voters have equal influence.) Each state decides how it will select its presidential electors.

The state weighted vote system means that the Senate can enact bills with the votes of senators who represent less than half of the population, and the president can similarly be elected by states whose population is less than half the national total. Trump and four other presidents have been elected by a popular minority.

Whether elected officials should use their own judgment or follow public preferences remains unresolved.  But, even if they believe they can exercise their independent judgment for public benefit, they are limited in the scope of their discretion.  The Constitution includes safeguards intended to protect individual rights from the government.  

When Trump wants to be an authoritarian for a day or ignore legislative limits on his authority, the Republic would give him no such powers and his actions would violate the Constitution.  When people storm the Capitol in the belief that they have personal rights, they, too, violate the Constitution, because they would deprive others of those same rights.  

‘Figures don’t lie’ except when they do

Political polls far from ‘scientific’ 

Gordon L. Weil

“Lies, damned lies and statistics.”  

That old saying about the levels of lying both reveals and warns about the excessive use and misuse of numbers.

People love numbers.  Rankings and ratings are the basis of decisions that may determine matters ranging from which country is a world power to what toaster browns bread best to where a student should go to college.

These decisions matter, but they may be based on flimsy data.  Because we place much confidence in numbers, they become the tools or weapons of those seeking to impress or convince us.   Every day, we are flooded with facts and factoids by supposed experts who keep pumping out statistics.

The reason why numbers seem to be the gateway to the truth is that science relies heavily on numerical data.  A scientific law can be verified all the time by data and observation.  People who disagree on almost everything can accept scientific proof of a law of nature.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity, and its existence can be endlessly proved by observation and measurement.  It was not merely his opinion, wrapped in numbers.

Science distinguishes laws from theory.  Theory can be tested against alternative explanations.  Many numbers today would give us the same impression of certainty that we get from a scientific law.  In fact, they are so far from the real truth that they wouldn’t even qualify as theory. 

Take the Summer Olympics, soon to occur in Paris, which will produce numbers that are widely accepted as the truth.  Athletes will be proclaimed as winners, the best in the world.  Countries will engage in a race for the most medals, which somehow will indicate their superior standing among the nations of the world. 

Russia seeks to pile up medals in the belief that winning more medals is an indicator of its superiority.   So, it cheats by doping its athletes.   The late, unlamented East Germany used extensive doping to boost its international reputation.

Some events, like gymnastics and artistic swimming, are judged not scored, but awarded numerical rankings.  Judges rate break dancing, a newly added athletic event.  Baseball, which produces a score, has long been excluded. 

Athletic judges may make personal judgments, yet they contribute to the same medal count as timed races.  In fact, most ratings and rankings are based at least in part on the opinions and values of the raters and judges and not on standards required by good science. 

Among the most popular numbers are the college rankings that help young students decide where to pursue their education.  The numbers are unreliable.  The components may change, undermining long-term comparisons.    Information provided by colleges to raters may be falsified, fudged or incomplete.  Yet the rankings are revered.

When they hand out the Academy Award Oscars, do they truly go to the best picture or best performer?  The current ranked choice voting could produce a distorted result reflecting popularity and prejudice more than quality.  Some big mistakes have been made in the past. The best picture could be everybody’s second choice.

When it comes to ratings, from military power to movies, always beware of the word “best.”

Probably the subject where we most willingly follow questionable numbers too closely is public opinion polling about elections.  Numbers are published with so-called “margins of errors” that give the data the appearance of science.  Yet we know little or nothing about who participated or whether questions were fair.  What was the bias of the pollster?

And a survey is only a snapshot; the world can change.  Six months ago, few responses would have been influenced by events in the Middle East, but the Israel-Gaza situation is now a major issue.  How and how much will it influence voter preferences about six months from now?  And many other key issues may look different by then.

The message that emerges from our excessive reliance on numbers of dubious validity is that they should not be taken at face value. None of the daily flood of data that drowns us is truly scientific, no matter any claim.  Still, it may be as good as we can get it.

Perhaps the most useful information we derive from rankings and ratings is whether they change over time and, if so, by how much. Biden’s or Trump’s ratings moving by a point or two over a few days are probably meaningless.  If a trend continues long enough, a voter may begin to understand who is gaining or losing.

If we are not skeptical of statistics, we risk accepting politics as if it were nothing more than an athletic competition.  Poll numbers, like other statistics, are not perfect, and they are often overanalyzed.

The biggest risk is that another old saying may apply: “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” 

Election math favors Republicans

Democrats need big win

Gordon L. Weil

If the Democrats want to win the elections, they will have to win big.  The numbers are against them.

The Democrats depend on, well, democracy.  They expect to win when they get a majority of the votes.  Maybe not.  They could lose the presidency and Congress because of election math.

In four presidential elections involving the two major parties, the new president did not win a majority of the popular vote.  All of the winners in these elections – Hayes (1876), Harrison (1888), Bush (2000) and Trump (2016) were Republicans.

This outcome, which could well occur again in 2024, because an understanding among the Framers of the Constitution has gone awry.  At the time they wrote the document, their plan would have resulted in the president being chosen by electors representing a popular majority.

Before the first census, the Framers assigned seats in the House of Representatives based on population estimates.  The result was that a presidential candidate relying on the smaller states would need nine states of the 13 to collect enough electoral votes.  Perhaps not coincidentally, the Framers required ratification by at least nine states for the Constitution itself to take effect.

But the Framers also understood that a candidate relying on the larger states might need only six states to win the presidency.  Those states’ electors would represent 55 percent of the population compared with the 51 percent represented in the smaller states group.

In either case, when the Constitution was drafted, the Framers could expect that the president would be elected by states inhabited by a popular majority even if not chosen by a majority of the states.

History did not follow that rule.  Today, it is mathematically possible for 41 smaller states to elect the president, though they have only 46 percent of the population.  At the other extreme, the president could be elected by 12 states with 60 percent of the population.

Of course, states do not vote by population blocs but by party.  Many small, rural states are controlled by the Republicans, who also dominate former Confederate states like Texas and Florida.  The Republican candidate can win even without a popular majority, as Donald Trump did in 2016.

The proposed National Popular Vote Interstate Compact would restore the traditional expectation of a popular majority.  States with a majority of electoral votes would agree that all will assign their votes to the presidential candidate having won the majority of the national popular vote.  They would only be bound if all participating states kept this commitment.

Maine has just become the most recent state to accept the National Popular Vote.   By narrowing the gap to only 61 more electoral votes needed to join, the state’s move is significant. 

Inevitably, the Supreme Court will be asked to rule on the Compact and almost certainly its decision will be heavily influenced by politics.  In theory, though, the national popular vote could occur without a compact as the result of independent decisions of states with 270 electoral votes.

Maine has also been in presidential focus thanks to the way it picks electors.  The state, later followed by Nebraska, decided to assign electors to the statewide victor and the winner in each congressional district.  Other states use the statewide winner-take-all. The Second District in each state has occasionally departed from the state’s total result.

Seeking another possible electoral vote for Donald Trump, Nebraska is considering returning to pure statewide voting, eliminating the possibility of Biden carrying Omaha.  A Maine Democratic leader has warned the Cornhuskers that Maine could retaliate by taking away the chance it gives Trump to win a single vote. 

Just as the current method of picking the president favors one party, so does electing members of Congress.  State legislatures can design congressional district boundaries to divide voting groups to produce biased results.  Gerrymandering sometimes aims at limiting seats held by Blacks, but it often focuses on favoring one party.

Both parties gerrymander, but the GOP makes its moves in Texas and Florida – the second and third largest states.  The Supreme Court tries to block racial gerrymandering, but avoids most political redistricting disputes, except where they have a racial effect.  Much gerrymandering has already taken place, so the Court would have to unravel past actions.

Added to such creative House redistricting will be voter suppression, often intended to limit minority voting.  It’s based on unproven Republican assertions of possible fraud in federal elections (but not in their own state races).   It undermines efforts to increase participation.

Popular control of elections won’t improve for this year’s elections.  The Democrats would have to focus attention on voting issues as a way to turn out their supporters.  Faced with election reality, capturing seats from the White House to Capitol Hill will require the Democrats winning by big margins and carrying swing states.