Are you conservative, liberal or moderate? Political labels may be too simple, misleading

 

Gordon L. Weil

Conservative, liberal, moderate.  That’s how politics divide.

Which are you?  If you classify yourself in one of these groups, it should tell me a lot about your party affiliation and your views on major issues.

Maybe not.  Americans are continually reminded about this split in political orientation and the resulting deep partisanship.  But some new reports find that this three-way split is too simple.  And it looks only at your politics, not the effect of your personality and values on your choice. 

Recently, the Pew Research Center, a respected neutral organization, studied American voters and identified nine separate political groups, not just three.  Four reveal varying degrees of conservatism, four are on the liberal scale and one is in the middle.

The Pew report concluded, “...the gulf that separates Republicans and Democrats sometimes obscures the divisions within both partisan coalitions – and the fact that many Americans do not fit easily into either one.”

Using Pew’s classifications, the middle of the spectrum is occupied by Stressed Sideliners (15%) plus the Ambivalent Right (12%) and the Outsider Left (10%).  All three groups, amounting to more than a third of the people, share some disdain for politics and habitually vote less than do other more faithful groups.

If the political battles seem to be about how to win over this political center, the effort may be a waste of time.  These groups are already voting – with their feet – by not voting as much as others.  And they agree on little among themselves.  That provides little hope for their being the core of a new party.

The three groups on the right, beginning with the most conservative, are Faith and Flag Conservatives (10%), Committed Conservatives (7%) and the Populist Right (11%). That’s a total of 28% of all possible voters.

On the left, the three groups from most liberal toward the center are the Progressive Left (6%), Establishment Liberals (13%) and Democratic Mainstays (16%), yielding a total of 35%.

For anybody who thinks most people agree with them on policy, the clear answer is that they don’t.

Still, as expected, the Republicans are conservative and the Dems are liberals and now seem not to mind that label.

Among conservatives, Faith and Flag and Populists adherents are more pro-Trump than are the Committed Conservatives.  Among liberals, there’s a gap between Progressives, who want a much larger government, and others.

Within the two parties, conflicts have come into the open. Who are the RINOs – Republicans in Name Only?  Are they the Trump Faith and Flaggers or the Committed Conservatives?  If either side fails to choose the GOP’s candidate, will it still turn out to vote?

The Democrats have long been the more diverse party.  You don’t hear anything about DINOs.  Still, will the Progressive Left fall in line with the party as Joe Biden moves it more to the center, or will they stay home?

There is one stark partisan difference.  All four Democratic leaning groups believe more work is needed to deal with racial bias.  The GOP groups believe little more needs to be done.

Beyond the Pew analysis, there are some other examinations, attempting to explain why some women are Republicans and some men are Democrats, both against the stereotype. They find your personality may dictate your political views.

The dividing line seems to exist between authoritarian and communitarian people, a traditional distinction between masculine and feminine values.  That distinction has blurred, especially as wealthier people have become more liberal.  And, in the GOP, women are less authoritarian than men.

The Democrats attract more communitarian people, including a majority of white women voters and a greatly increased share of the upper middle class. Meanwhile, the GOP takes lower income white workers from the Dems and retains most men.  African Americans are almost solidly Democratic.

Of course, these factors filter through to elections as well as to daily life. For example, when it comes to Covid-19, the most liberal people are also the most worried about its risks.  Conservatives are far less concerned.

That translates into public policy.  Among the very liberal, some 62% support long-term mask mandates.  Only about one-quarter of conservatives agree, though more favor vaccinations.  Moderates tilt in the direction of the conservatives, which may explain why mandates are being dropped.  They are not politically popular. 

Each person’s vote is influenced by both their personality and their political values.  But emerging hot issues of the day also matter.  Inflation, Russia-Ukraine developments, a possible Covid flare-up and a Supreme Court abortion decision are still ahead of this year’s elections.

In-depth studies reveal that understanding voters is more difficult than the daily, snap judgments in the media.

That should be a warning about paying too much attention to pundits telling you in April who will win in November.

Senate rules give each senator presidential power

 

Gordon L. Weil

Big news! The U.S. Senate voted unanimously to make Daylight Savings Time permanent.

It’s amazing when 100 senators can agree on something as important as that.

Not exactly.  It turns out that the “unanimous” vote was slipped by the Senate by just two senators. One was presiding and the other proposed the decision.  The senator who was supposed to be there to object had no excuse.

The decision was made by using “unanimous consent,” which allows the Senate to act unless just one senator objects.  Silence or absence equals agreement.

This bizarre vote, reversible only if the House disagrees, illustrates a major flaw in this country’s system of democratic government.  The U.S. can often be controlled by a single person and that’s not the president.  It can be any single U.S. senator.

Under the Constitution, the Senate sets its own rules. It has set up a system that defies the very democracy that created it.  The rules are so complicated that few senators understand all of them. If they know enough to play by the rules, they can control single-handedly.

Much attention is justifiably focused Rule 22, which allows the filibuster.   A single senator has the power to prevent a vote by holding the floor.  The Senate has institutionalized that personal power to the point that merely accepting the possibility of a real filibuster has made doing it unnecessary.   

The power of any single senator goes far beyond the ability to stage a filibuster. Today, even a Wyoming senator, representing less than one-fifth of one percent of the American population, can control the federal government.

One used his personal power to seriously undermine the ability of President Joe Biden to run foreign policy.

A senator may place a “hold” on a vote to study its details before a final decision.  That “hold” delays a vote for an unspecified time.  Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz put a “hold” on the nomination of most of Biden’s top diplomatic appointments for about a year.  That had a direct effect on U.S. foreign policy.

He demanded that Biden take action to block the Russian natural gas pipeline to Western Europe.  Even if his objective turned out to be correct, his attempt to run foreign policy by taking political hostages was not correct.  But other senators let him get away with his phony “hold,’ because they wanted to keep it in reserve for their own use.

Another way in which senators run the place for their own interests came up recently.  Previously, Congress used “earmarks” to allow each member some federal funds for what were truly local projects.  That way, each incumbent could tell their voters they had brought back home some federal cash.  In 2011, Congress banned earmarks, saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

This year, earmarks came back.  They are again available to reward a senator for voting the party line on a key issue.  They were touted as a rare sign of bipartisan cooperation, a rebuttal of attacks on the usual divisiveness. 

This kind of personal power should not be confused with the role of the maverick or independent-minded senator.  Coalitions once formed across the aisle based on issues, but party loyalty now dominates.  Bipartisanship consists of the rare times when senators like West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin or Maine Republican Susan Collins cast a swing vote.

Above all, the extraordinary power of a single senator is evident in the role of the two Senate party leaders.  Their parties have given them absolute authority over what the Senate may consider and when.  All senators may be equal, but some senators are more equal than others, as the saying goes.

For almost 30 years, the Republicans have followed congressional party discipline that is more characteristic of European parliaments than Congress.  That gives Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, the GOP leader, the ability to keep his troops in line and forces the normally unruly Democrats to try to do the same. In today’s Senate, divided 50-50, that’s a recipe for deadlock.

The only advantage for the Democrats is that one other single person, Vice President Kamala Harris, can break a tie.  Close Senate races this year place on a knife-edge the possibilities for Biden to accomplish much during the second half of his term.  If he returns as Majority Leader, McConnell could turn out to have more political power than Biden.

The Senate has called itself “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”  But it’s hard to recall any time when one senator convinced another through floor debate.  Speeches are usually political messages used by senators for their own or their party’s purposes.  Full of self-appointed stars, the Senate has become more theater than legislature.

Conflict, Covid, China and Congress give inflation historic mementum

 

Gordon L. Weil

Your wallet is at war.  It’s losing to inflation.

Almost everything from gasoline to food to computers costs more and there’s a good chance that a tax increase will top it off.

The reasons are clear: conflict, Covid, China and Congress.   

Most of us feel far removed from major forces of change.   We struggle to recover the lives we led just a few years ago.  But the interconnected world reaches into the pockets of average people.

You can see it in most L.L. Bean catalogs. Everything, except some boots, is marked “imported.” Imports are cheap, thanks to lower cost labor and lax environmental rules elsewhere, compared to the company’s traditional Maine-made products.  American consumers have liked it cheap and the heck with world politics. That will change.

It is impossible now to ignore world events and avoid their effects. Hostile relations among nations are leading to economic warfare among emerging zones seeking greater self-sufficiency. A zone led by China and one led by the U.S. seem to be forming.  Though each plays in the world economy, each also seeks strategic advantage by reducing reliance on the other.

There may be outright conflict in places like Ukraine or possibly Taiwan. The effect is felt by most people in the form of higher prices.  While it is easy to blame President Joe Biden or either party in Congress for inflation, the forces behind higher prices are far more powerful than federal deficits.

The most obvious and immediate upward price pressure comes from the Ukraine war. Russia is the largest supplier of oil and natural gas to Europe.  The EU now understands that its ability to fight Russian aggression is limited by its dependence on those fuels.  It is turning to alternate supplies all of which are more expensive.

The U.S. and Canada will step up more expensive fracking and send fuel to Europe.  Qatar will add its natural gas.  While Europe reduces Russian supplies, the price of fossil fuels increases. Oil and gas trade is conducted in a world market, so rising prices are felt everywhere.

American suppliers charge American customers more.  There are not enough renewables to save the day, and they have their own price tag.

Food supplies and most other products must be transported from their origins to end users.  The price of motor fuel figures in almost everything we buy or seek to sell.    Higher fuel costs yield higher costs of almost everything. 

The impact of Covid-19 on national economies as people have hunkered down and reduced production and transport has also led to shortages of consumer goods and resulting higher prices.  The notion of the “supply chain” and its interruptions has entered the everyday vocabulary.

Another effect has been a change in the attitude of many workers who resist low pay levels and part-time hours that undermine their quality of life.  The Great Resignation of millions of workers is real and limits output or raises wages, both leading to price increases.

At the same time, the Chinese government has moved to reduce the free market that had grown up there.  The Communist Party is regaining control over what is produced, by whom and at what price.  That way, it can use trade and finance as weapons in international relations. 

"Rare-earth elements are necessary components of more than 200 products across a wide range of applications, especially high-tech consumer products,” says the U.S. Geological Survey.  China accounts for 97 percent of the world’s supply.  Moving away from its dominance will make those products more expensive. 

In the short run, the economy is growing as its recovers from the effects of the coronavirus.  Government is able to cushion the shock of rising prices.  But that is first aid, not a cure for inevitably higher prices.

The Federal Reserve is now increasing interest rates, which have been maintained at extremely low levels to spur growth in recent years.  Going back to traditional levels should limit inflation by slowing an overheated economy and allowing it to manage itself.  Over the long term, higher rates will raise the cost of a home or a college education.

To these increases in the market price of almost everything must be added the planned federal tax increase at the end of 2025.  In the latest tax law, Congress gave a permanent break to corporations, but for individuals it was only temporary. Without congressional action, taxes will automatically climb back to their old levels.

The economy and the economic position of individuals will not again look like it did in the early years of this century.  While we may suffer the effects of inflation now and expect government to fix it, most prices will be permanently higher.

This is not merely old-fashioned inflation. This is history presenting its bill.