Campaign cash floods in, while gold moves out

 

Campaign cash floods in, while gold moves out

Gordon L. Weil

Political money mounts, funding falsehoods

The top tune of 2026 is the clink of campaign cash.  Billionaires and large corporations support candidates without limit so long as they are “independent” of the formal campaign.

The Supreme Court decided that spending money is free speech.  That means billionaires each get more speech than an average person.  It’s questionable if that’s what the First Amendment means.  The ruling transformed American politics, and each election sees new campaign contribution records.

Small contributions matter, but not much.   In Maine, Elon Musk’s money backs GOP Sen. Susan Collins, whose campaign funds top Democrat Troy Jackson’s.  In June, the Supreme Court allowed political parties to freely pour money into campaigns and has just cut their ad rates (!).  Trump’s PAC, after hoarding its cash, just committed to hundreds of millions for close races.

The obvious basis for political giving is that the candidate with more money is more likely to win.  That candidate has more to spend on television ads and direct mail, which make up the largest part of campaign spending.

Most voters likely form their opinions about candidates from the ads to which they are relentlessly exposed, not the debates watched by dedicated supporters.  Most ads these days consist of truncated truths or outright falsehoods about incumbents and challengers.  Money promotes myths that make winners.  Voters are victims.

But that’s not necessarily so, even if candidates keep asking for more.  In some campaigns, candidates win, though they are greatly outspent.  In other campaigns, contributors back safe candidates, ensuring their loyalty and giving them money to line up more backers.

Saturation may be the limiting factor.   Television time is fully committed.  Political mail readily becomes “junk mail.”  Lawn signs?    More money cannot be justified or it may even turn off some voters.  Money as speech may endure, but people may not like to be outshouted.

A message from the cellar

Deep beneath the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, gold bars are stored in bedrock vaults.  Most of this gold belongs to other countries, whose governments have long thought that the safest place for their gold, a part of their national currency reserves, was in the U.S.

The New York Fed does not control the gold; it only protects it.  Most nations with significant gold reserves, with the possible exception of the U.K., have kept some or all of their gold in the Fed’s vault.

But that is changing.  Germany keeps only about a third of its gold in the U.S.  France has taken its gold out of the Fed.  Last week, the Netherlands central bank announced it had moved its gold either back home or to London.  Other countries may be acting quietly.

Doubts grow about the U.S. as the world’s banker.  Trump attacks the independence of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, reducing respect for the dollar as a reserve currency.  This week, the Norway state fund, the world’s largest, announced it is sharply reducing its U.S. Treasury holdings.

Trump exceeds understandings about the limits of power, weakening confidence in the Fed.  He might suddenly seize other countries’ most precious financial asset in retaliation for their not supporting his Iran war.   It seems safer to take the bars out of the Fed’s cellar.

AI and its limits

In the previous column, I mentioned a Wall Street Journal column by investor Stanley Druckenmiller.  A report about it suggested that the writer may have had the help of AI.

This was one more sign that AI is penetrating American life, potentially affecting important communications.  In several cases, courts have found that lawyers let AI draft a brief, which included citations to phony cases.  College students are having AI write papers for them, and professors must use AI review programs to search for AI.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the head of the city’s schools have blocked the use of AI by elementary school students.  “Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow. They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own,” said the mayor.

School chancellor Kamar Samuels noted, “We’re putting guardrails in place to protect the human connection, curiosity and creativity that help children grow.”

AI can usefully supplement human research, but these challenges suggest it should not be allowed to replace HI – human intelligence.   If it does, the country will end up with a population that is less educated, articulate and literate.  The AI-based jobs that will displace rote tasks may go unfilled for the lack of educated personnel.  Automatons won’t do.

AI could get out of control.  Government has a role in protecting people, not simply promoting data centers.

For the record, this column is neither written by nor edited by AI.  Its defects are all mine.

 

 

Debt may doom the dollar

Debt may doom the dollar

Interest rates climb

Gordon L. Weil

Nine out of ten Americans are in debt.  The federal government, just having crossed $40 trillion in debt, owes more than all individuals together.

Interest rates are rising.  The more people or the government must pay on their debt, the less affordable is everything else.  The federal government allows itself to keep piling on more debt to be repaid sometime later.  The problem is getting bigger.

Republicans traditionally fought to control debt, while Democrats were seen as big spenders.  Compromises between them kept some limit on the federal debt.  But the GOP has changed; it openly supports increases in the federal debt by spending more and taxing less. 

Debt affects everybody and could be the major threat to the American way of life.  It affects all costs from mortgages to groceries.  The more businesses and farmers pay for the loans they need to operate, the higher the costs they must pass on to consumers.

President Trump wants lower interest rates.  Rate cuts are politically popular, and he believes lower rates will reduce the amount of huge government interest payments resulting from massive federal deficits.  He wants the Federal Reserve, the central bank which sets short-term interest rates, to be the driving force to lower the long-term cost of federal debt.

The Fed’s Open Market Committee sets interest rates, based on economic not political factors. Its goals are low inflation and full employment.  It has not cut rates to Trump’s satisfaction.  He attacks the Fed, but the Supreme Court has upheld its independent role.

Trump blames former Fed Chair Jerome Powell, his own appointee, for not cutting rates.  When Powell’s term as chair ended, Trump replaced him with Kevin Warsh, who might be more favorable to his goal.  At the outset, Warsh was walking a tightrope, and refused to discuss the possible future of rates, leaving rate decisions to the market.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thought he could do better by trading government debt.  He apparently thought he could do the Fed’s job and cut rates.  His policy worked for a few hours, then it flopped, and interest rates went back up.  He could not control enough Treasury securities to sustain his policy in a trillion-dollar world.

Bessent and Warsh had worked under star investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who roundly rejected Bessent’s move.  Britain’s Financial Times headlined, “Bessent gets Drucked.”  Druckenmiller opposed the Treasury trying to take over the Fed’s job of setting monetary policy.   And market leaders said they wanted to know Fed thinking and disliked Warsh’s reticence.

Warsh got the message.   He admitted that persistent inflation could lead the Fed to increase interest rates.  As a responsible central banker, he eased market worries by recognizing reality.  Trump would not get the lower rates he demands, largely because the Iran war is pushing prices up.

Interest rates are soaring.  Competing borrowing demands by the AI sector force governments to pay higher rates to sell their debt.   Fighting the Iran war’s inflation requires central banks to raise rates to reduce borrowing and slow the economy.  Long-term interest rates are hitting highs, contrary to Trump’s intent.

He continues to wage war on the Fed, aiming to gain a majority of rate-setters beholden to him.  Winning has become an end in itself, detached from market reality.

The president still wants to harass Fed Governor Lisa Cook, a Black woman, off the Fed Board.    A Trump lackey argues that she cheated on two mortgage applications.  She proved that a clerical error was fixed and did not result in her receiving duplicate homeowner benefits.   Secretary Bessent also claimed two principal residences, but Trump has not sought his removal.

Cook has already spent about $1.3 million defending herself.  Trump has similarly gone after Powell, who protects himself from false charges by remaining on the Board.

This Fed foolishness is far less important than the huge and growing federal debt.  Annual debt payments exceed all U.S. military spending, and they keep increasing.  At some point, government outlays would have to be cut and taxes increased just to cover debt payments.  That’s not likely to be politically acceptable.

Then, the only way to pay for government to reduce the federal debt will be to make each dollar less valuable -- devaluation.  The U.S. did it in 1933 and 1971 by ending the dollar’s link to gold.  With devaluation, the dollar’s value would be cut relative to other currencies and gold.  The fixed dollars of the federal debt could be paid off with new dollars worth less. 

Devaluation is not painless.  While exports may be stimulated by cheaper dollars, people may have to struggle with inflation, as happened in the late 1970s.  And the devalued dollar could lose its place as the world’s reserve currency, the money other countries want to hold, drastically undermining American world power.

 

 

  

Blue Wave may be coming

 

Blue Wave: wholesale or retail elections

‘All politics is local’ no longer true

Gordon L. Weil

This year’s election may reveal the difference between retail and wholesale politics.

The Republicans and many pundits see the congressional elections as hundreds of individual contests.  For most of them, picking a winner is easy, because voting traditionally hews to a single party.  The balance of power in Congress can be determined by a few swing elections, where there’s usually only a small gap between the two major candidates.

The GOP is increasingly worried about becoming a minority party.  They would be endangered if Democrats could add to their blue-collar and Black support with more women and, thanks to immigration, Hispanic voters.  Republicans have made inroads among union members and other blue-collar workers, but they are not expected to equal the Democratic gains.

Republicans look for ways to suppress voting among those voters seen as likely to support Democrats.  Their arsenal includes difficult identification requirements, shorter voting periods, reduced mail ballots and House redistricting to maximize the chances for their candidates to win.

However spurious his claims might be, Donald Trump’s assertion that his 2020 election had been fraudulently stolen, is used as justification for most voter suppression, which claims to help eliminate fraud.  For added GOP security, he pushed for congressional redistricting years before it is required by the Constitution and laws.

The president’s party often loses seats in the midterm election, and premature redistricting is meant to nullify that shift.  Redistricting for political purposes was explicitly approved by the Supreme Court.  The Democrats tried to match the GOP slicing-and-dicing moves, but have come up short.

The object of all these moves is to retain Republican majorities, no matter how thin, in the House and Senate.  That would not only help Trump continue to adopt policies by executive order without congressional oversight, but also to protect him from what he sees as an inevitable third impeachment if the Democrats gain control of the House.

Taken together, all of these moves constitute a retail approach to the elections.  The goal is to win just enough states and districts to hold onto control of both houses.  Most analysts have bought this approach, because it’s familiar. 

“All politics is local,” said the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill.  If retail politics prevail this year, then O’Neill’s wisdom prevails.  But Donald Trump has radically changed American politics and, if he is becoming the predominant issue in any congressional race, then the old sage can be proven wrong.

All serious polls show that Trump’s rating on every major policy is solidly negative.  Despite having almost unchecked power, he hasn’t delivered on key promises.  Even worse, he continues to promise success, but many people are losing confidence.  For example, he repeatedly announces that the unpopular Iran war is nearing an end, but it isn’t.  Then, he escalates it.

He promised no long wars, instantly lower consumer prices, deporting unlawful immigrants with criminal records and ending any special breaks for women and minorities.  He delivered a prolonged Iran war, higher prices, deportation of long-term immigrants leading productive lives and open discrimination against women and minorities, especially in military leadership.

In his second term, Trump has adopted or approved policies harmful to African Americans, women, farmers, Hispanic people, science and education.  While his policies may not create new Democrats, some of their members could vote for them as alternatives to his Republican enablers or simply not vote.  A relative few could tip many balances.

Trump relies on personal loyalty and keeps his core support.  Voter suppression and expected massive fraud claims where GOP candidates lose could help him.  By making the Democrats appear dangerous, he would frighten voters away from them.

Will Trump’s falling approval translate into enough Democratic votes for them to take Congress?  When the campaign began, few gave the Democrats a chance of taking Senate control.   Now nine Senate seats are in question.  This shift suggests that the Trump Republicans’ congressional control of the Senate is now in question.  The Democrats have a good chance in the House.

But will the success of Democratic Socialists in some primaries scare enough voters nationally to allow a clear path for Republicans?  The media promotes a possibly exaggerated struggle between the party’s progressives and moderates, but they could appear united in their opposition to Trump.

The Democrats make Trump the issue (wholesale); the Republicans make individual Democrat’s shortcomings the issue (retail).  Trump’s impulsive moves create political opportunities.  The Democrats’ infighting and inability to create a unified agenda do the same.

If the Democrats succeed, the result would be the Blue Wave.  It would extend the usual midterm congressional losses into a major rejection of Trump’s presidency.  If the Iran war continues and prices remain high, chances for a Blue Wave increase.  Trump probably knows that and has about two months to complete his defenses.

 

 

 

 

Trump policies abd their unintended consequences: American boomerang

 

Trump policies: American boomerang

Unintended consequences always happen

Gordon L. Weil

 

Here’s the theory of Trump’s policy: I dispose of the power of the U.S., the greatest military and economic power in the world, and can use it to force others, weaker and dependent, to fall into line.

Here’s the reality: I dispose of the power of the U.S., but it is not enough to force others, who increasingly sense their independence, to fall into line, revealing limits on American power.

The policies Trump tries to impose on others turn on him.  The American symbol is less the screaming eagle than the boomerang, the Australian missile that comes back to its sender.  What goes around, comes around.

These days, boomerangs are flying.

Trade negotiations with Canada finally seemed to become focused.  Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney proposed “Fortress North America,” a free trade agreement between the two countries and a joint foreign trade policy.  That’s similar to what the two countries had been developing before Trump launched his tariff wars, when Canada was almost the 51st state.

Trump claims that Canada wants the benefits of American statehood at no cost.  But the U.S. wants to formally install the 51st state in all but name.  It sought to determine Canada’s trade policies, be authorized to freely nullify their new trade agreement, and let American exporters ignore Canadian language laws.  In return, the U.S. would lower some tariffs it had raised.

While Trump thought he was nearing a deal, Canada refused last-minute American demands.  Canada insisted on its status as a sovereign nation, despite the sneers of U.S. officials.  U.S. negotiators believed that Canada was ready to surrender, leaving them surprised when Canada quit the talks.  Boomerang.

In Iran, the U.S. went to war, while Iranians were ready for continued negotiations. But supposedly the threat of American power was so great that Iran should simply fold.  Why negotiate when a brief display of American power could settle matters?

The war turned out to be lengthy and made matters worse, as Iran managed to close the Strait of Hormuz, causing an increase in world oil prices. In the U.S., rising consumer prices and dislike of “forever wars” hampered Trump’s extended and costly attacks.  The president could not convince Americans that ending Iran’s nuclear potential was worth the cost.

Military pressure having fallen short, Trump reverted this week to increased economic sanctions.  Usually, countries apply maximum economic pressure before taking up arms.  It saves lives.  But this time, the U.S. did it backwards.  Boomerang.

As part of its desperate economic sanctions, the Trump administration also threatened other countries that trade with Iran.  Will that apply to Russia?  For all the bluster, the U.S. recognized its dependence on China and limited the sanctions.  China was not happy and remains a major customer for Iran’s oil.  Boomerang.

Trump’s tariff policy has been aimed at restoring American production thanks to increased tariff protection.  He has gradually learned that American consumers pay the price when importers pass on their increased costs.  He may punish some foreign producers, but he also punishes Americans at the gas pump or in the grocery aisle. 

The trade policy has failed.  Part of it was not legal, and the government must refund tariff revenues.  Tariffs have boosted prices faster than incomes, turning “affordability” from a bureaucratic term into a political banner.  Tariff policy went from being a MAGA basic to a GOP embarrassment.

This week, Trump cut beef import tariffs as hamburger prices soared.  The American cattle industry, beginning to recover with the tariffs, was furious.  When the tariff policy did not work at the supermarket, it was suddenly reversed.  That created a political reaction in cattle country, and congressional candidates immediately knew it.  Boomerang.

Even when Trump’s policy works, its excesses lead to unintended consequences.  He ran on keeping his promises and, in perhaps the key area, he has.  He took advantage of broad public sentiment in stopping the flow of illegal entrants across the southern border.  It worked.

But he has gone further, promising to expel illegal residents with criminal records.  That, too, received broad support.  But, to reduce the population of undocumented residents quickly, his administration focused more on people leading ordinary lives.  Those people are the easiest to catch and their arrests run up the number of expulsions.

Sectors like agriculture and health care have suffered for the lack of immigrant employment.  People may react negatively when their law-abiding, long-term neighbors are whisked away.  The most popular Trump policy has failed to produce popular results.  As with all other policy areas, immigration has become a net negative for Trump.  Boomerang.

All of these over-confident policies have been adopted without a good understanding of their implications.  They come back to Trump, making matters worse for him, others and the country.  It’s a classic boomerang.

 

 

Strangle the enemy, end freedom of the seas

 

Strangle the enemy – it’s better than nuclear

End of freedom of the seas

 

Gordon L. Weil

Fearing that Iran would develop a nuclear weapon that it could use to disrupt the Middle East, the U.S. attacked.   Then, Iran realized that it already had such a weapon immediately at hand.

It is not a super-destructive missile, but a narrow passage of water through which 30 percent of the world’s petroleum is transported and which Iran can control.   The Strait of Hormuz has become a weapon of war that need not cause widespread death and destruction while delivering a bomb-sized blow to the world, day after day.

Historically, the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow body of water between Iran and Oman, has been used as an international waterway.  Vessels of all nations could pass freely.  Traffic was mainly related to petroleum and fertilizer exports.  International law covering such usage is well-developed and detailed.

Iran understood that it could exert economic and political power by controlling maritime traffic.  Action in the open sea is less constrained than conflict on land.  Retaliating for the American-Israel attack in February, Iran found, even though it is a minor naval power, it could block the Strait.

The U.S. does not want to damage shore facilities that are essential for the petroleum trade, so must limit its range of action.  Its bellicose threats and attacks on mainland facilities have not yielded submission by a determined defender.  By causing a stoppage in oil deliveries to China, Japan and other Asian countries, it faced opposition to its Iran gambit.

Even the U.S. is affected.  When the world market price of crude oil rises, American producers raise their prices in the domestic market.  Their profits are boosted without any increase in their production costs.  Consumers pay at the pump.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of at least four international waterways where a bordering country threatens to gain control in pursuit of its political objectives.  Reducing passage is turning out to be more powerful than armaments.  The prime American goal of eliminating Iran’s nuclear potential has been replaced by efforts to open the strait.

Middle East oil access has two marine gateways.  One is Hormuz. The other is Bab-el-Mandeb, a strait at the southern end of the Red Sea.  Vessels using the Suez Canal, the gateway to Europe and the Americas, must transit this narrow passage. 

Bab-el-Mandeb can be made impassable by the Houthis, Iran’s southern arm that dominates much of Yemen.  They resist the armed might of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and have recently picked up on Iran’s strait strategy.  They are less vulnerable that Iran’s proxies in Hamas or Hezbollah and do not depend on Iran.  They fight their own battles.

The Houthis have begun moving to cut off oil through that strait, which sees the transit of more than 9 percent of the world’s petroleum traffic.  Closures of Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb raise consumer prices for gas and food throughout the world.  The fleeting pleasure of having knocked off Iran’s Supreme Leader seems unimportant in comparison.

The biggest marine chokepoint could turn out to be the South China Sea.  This waterway is not narrow, but forms a vital link for Korea, Japan, and the Philippines.  It is an international thoroughfare and an estimated one-third of all world trade passes through it. 

China claims it as its own territorial waters.  Its navy and air force patrol it, and it has created artificial islands in it.  It accosts foreign vessels and warns away U.S. naval aircraft and vessels.  It is the path to its takeover of Taiwan.

Freedom of the seas there depends on the U.S. Navy.  Two aircraft carriers, destroyers and air surveillance tame Chinese ambitions.  But the U.S. has stripped the fleet there to concentrate on attacks on Iran.  No carriers are on station.

The American-Israel war on Iran is helping China move toward domination of a vital international waterway.  It gains influence on Asian nations while displacing the U.S.  It increases its threat to Taiwan.  For the U.S., these are the unintended consequences of an unintended war.

The fourth marine closure is the Black Sea.  Ukraine and Russia can block each other’s free access to it.  Together, they supply about 30 percent of the world’s wheat.  One expert warns that the loss of most of this supply would cause “severe global food price shock.” Many people might be unable to pay for food.

The U.S. could play a key role by pressuring Russia’s Putin to negotiate and end his invasion of Ukraine.  Russia’s lost sales as the world’s largest wheat supplier will weaken it, though it could also be impacted by more sanctions coupled with greater American help for Ukraine.

President Trump seeks to enforce America’s will on the world.  He is not succeeding, because other countries can develop and use maritime leverage that is powerful enough to replace nuclear weapons.

 

Election key: Trump turnout

 

Election key: Trump turnout

War over ballots

Gordon L. Weil

A single factor may be the key to the outcome of the midterm elections – turnout.

President Trump gets it.  He gives signs of believing that it’s better for his Republicans if fewer people vote. 

In the 2020 presidential election, he lost by 7 million votes out of the 156 million between the two main candidates.  Four years later, he won by over 2 million votes out of about 153 million.  The Democrats shed over 6 million votes.

He asserts that he won in 2020 and could conclude that a lower turnout favors Republicans.  Because most Republicans vote at the polling places on Election Day, while most Democrats prefer early voting, often by mail, that might have led him to oppose mail voting.

Republicans want to tighten access to voting.  They say they are combating election fraud though there’s little demonstrated evidence of it.  But Trump claims his loss resulted from widespread fraud.  Massive efforts to prove that point totally failed, but the claims persist and accepting them is a required mark of loyalty to Trump.

Voter fraud is a myth. While there may be rare problems, they are so minor that they cannot influence the results.  But donning the cloak of protecting democracy, the GOP can seem to be the good guys while preventing many Democrats from participating.

The Republicans try to limit voting access and question vote tabulation (only when they lose).  Making voting access more difficult, the GOP expects to deter lower income workers and the poor from making what could be a big effort to register and vote in person.  They also try to influence how votes are counted, which aims at throwing out Democratic ballots.

Trump is currently thinking about declaring a national emergency giving him the power to reduce or eliminate mail voting and to impose strict identification rules to screen out lower income and less educated voters who won’t have time or transport necessary to collect needed paperwork.  Reducing mail voting could get some help from the Postal Service.

He has fought hard to secure passage of the SAVE act that could allow him to accomplish his goals, but Congress won’t pass his bill.  Declaring a national emergency would be a shortcut, though it would be challenged.

This year, increased turnouts for midterm primaries encourage uncertain expectations of a big November turnout.  In Texas, for example, the 2.3 million Democratic votes compared with 2.2 million Republicans ballots.  Both the turnouts and the Democratic showing were unusually high, but three-quarters of eligible voters did not participate.

In November, Republicans who are disappointed with Trump could stay away.  But if the Democrats are thought to be leftwing extremists, GOP voters are unlikely to swing to their side.  That’s why there’s so much handwringing by pundits when a Democratic Socialist wins a primary.

But, even merely by staying away, a lower GOP turnout could help the Democrats. And it’s possible that high prices caused by the Iran War and uneasiness about immigration enforcement could cause some to protest by voting for Democrats.  Turnout will depend heavily on whether the elections are a referendum on Trump.

In practice, the question is whether voter suppression will work and if so, whether it will have a partisan effect. The GOP may believe that educated, affluent people will vote and remain reliable Republicans.

But, despite the focus on the Democrats losing the blue-collar vote, they are making major inroads among what once was a solid GOP vote. If women, affluent, and better educated people continue moving toward the Democrats and show up at the polls, they could upset the GOP strategy.

If Trump aims to make it easier for those groups to dominate the electorate, he may have missed that they are moving away from the GOP.  If he believes less educated voters are increasingly Republican, he may have erred in making voting access more difficult for them.  Plus, their share of the electorate is declining, while the more affluent Republicans are defecting.

In both parties, campaigns could boil down to GOTV – get out the vote.

Rarely does an issue affect turnout to the point it can determine the election outcome.  But consumer price hikes could cause results that go well beyond partisanship.  Prices rose under Biden, and Trump won by promising to reverse them quickly.  The Iran war made the situation worse, but he tells voters that small gas price increases are worth it.

Whatever politicians claim, consumer price increases have not been small.  When gasoline shoots up more than one dollar a gallon, it can fuel the kind of turnout that flips the Congress. 

Talk of a Blue Wave, a massive Democratic win, has begun to pass the straight-face test. But it may take a Blue Wave to drown the voter suppression that Trump seeks.

 

 

 

 

Trump counterattacks Supreme Court

 

Trump counterattacks Supreme Court

PLUS Pundits’ mistakes

Gordon L. Weil

Trump fights the Supreme Court

Trump wants to limit birthright citizenship, mainly because he does not want the children of illegal foreigners to become citizens.  The Supreme Court has overruled Trump, finding that the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to any person born in the country and “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., (excluding children of foreign diplomats).

Justice Kavanaugh, voting with the majority, pointed out that Congress could define what is meant by being subject to American jurisdiction.  Because it had failed to do so, he agreed with the majority.  (The minority thought the Amendment applied only to Blacks and that the parents must be permanently domiciled in the U.S.)

The Kavanaugh opinion broadly hinted that the administration could have a chance to limit the scope of birthright citizenship, if it induced Congress to define “subject to the jurisdiction.”  It could draft a bill and send it to Congress, either creating a good campaign issue or getting it passed.

But that is the kind of legislative work Trump avoids.  He dislikes the time it takes and the need for dealmaking with members of Congress.

Instead, he issued new executive orders with his own definitions of who could be excluded under the jurisdiction provision.  Besides the undocumented, he wanted to exclude person who came to the U.S. for vacation childbirths (who are already denied visas).  His orders will go through a new and lengthy judicial process and will likely be suspended until a final decision is made.

Trump is launching his boldest remaining ideas and moves before he runs the risk of facing a hostile Congress.  He avoids exposing himself to the possibility of congressional rejection now, but might again use immigration to influence voters.  His support on reversing illegal immigration and expelling people has been falling, so he needs a boost.

Pushing back on the Supreme Court ruling also enables him to express his growing and openly hostile attitude toward the Court.  He believes its conservative majority betrays him, when justices he appointed fail to faithfully support his policies.  He wants to put the Court in its place, joining Congress in accepting or approving his policies. 

He expects other branches of government to support his presidency.  For him, the unitary executive should extend to other branches by dominating or ignoring them.

Pundits mislead, use anecdotes to support their prefab analyses

The November elections are either a national test of movements the MAGA and Democratic Socialist movements or a collection of the usual midterm challenges to the president.

The results could be a validation of Trump, a Blue Wave or the continuation of extremely narrow majorities in Congress.

The conventional wisdom is that the Democrats are engaged in a national struggle between DS and moderates.  They could blow their chances if it prevails.  The pundits view the facts influenced by this thinking.

The main directions of analysis are that (1) the election will depend on a few swing races and will be close, (2) the Democrats are throwing away their chances and (3) prices at the pump may turn Trump supporters away from voting for Republicans.

The underlying belief is that Trump’s Iran war is making GOP candidates vulnerable, but that Democrats are failing to take advantage of the opportunity it provides.  And what’s true in Michigan is also true in Maine, because politics have been nationalized.

To support that belief, news people spread out across the country to produce anecdotal reports based on a few interviews.  Their reports are tailored to conform to the national narrative.

I won’t hazard my analysis, because, like the pundits, I don’t know enough.

But here are some questions that I think should be explored before leaping to conclusions based on a short visit.

1. What is the local media saying about state or district politics differing from national analyses?

2. What is the price at the pump in the state compared with pre-Iran?

3. What are in-state industry and commercial groups telling their members?

4. How does the state behave politically compared with national elections and why?

5. Are candidate age and demographic change relevant?

6. What are the recent indicators of conservative or liberal leanings among voters?

I don’t see questions like these addressed in the New York Times or Washington Post.

In Maine, the national media sees Troy Jackson, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, as evidence of the risky, progressive takeover of the Democratic Party.  What’s the risk in a state where Democrats favored Bernie Sanders in 2016 and which was one of only three states to approve same-sex marriage though a referendum?

The bottom line is that you are your own best pundit.  What do you think?  What about people you know?  Whatever you conclude, don’t rely on the national media to tell you about yourself.