Important

Read this.

Funny...

As of this very second, I'll give Trump credit for two pieces of policy.

First, USMCA looks like a marginally better deal than NAFTA.  That's not entirely on him, but in this instance he was able to leverage his protectionist bluster into an improved trade deal.

Second, it looks like we might be ending the Afghan war.  This should have happened years ago, but neither Bush nor Obama could find a way that got us out of Afghanistan while preserving long term goals of stability in Afghanistan so that it doesn't return to being a haven for terrorists.  Simply put, there is no deal in Afghanistan that gives us what we want, so we stumbled along dragging the thing out, transfering casualties to mercenaries and proxy forces.  Every year since 2014, we have lost between 14 and 54 US service members lives, because we feared what would happen in 5 to 10 years after we left.

Trump has no long term vision, but he does understand that among his overwhelmingly rural supporters, Endless War is a loser. 

It's ironic that what might be his most important policy accomplishment will be buried in the news, and disappear without a trace.

Hacks

This decision by two GOP appointed judges is terrible. 

As the dissent argues, if the judiciary can't resolve conflicts between the branches of government, what purpose does the judiciary serve? If separation of powers can't be enforced in courts, how does it even work?

Tipping Point

I am not a coronavirus alarmist. I believe that the mortality rate is lower than the 2% health experts are working off of, because I am assuming that many people are sick or have very mild symptoms and aren't reporting that they ill.  However, I just learned that a 2% mortality rate could be roughly comparable to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919 (we just don't have very good data on 1919).

The stock markets are not rational actors, they never have been.  But it's pretty clear that they are anticipating major disruptions to the global economy, and that seems a pretty safe bet.  The incubation period for this virus is especially long, and people can be infectious without being noticeably sick. With the flu - a virus with a similarly contagious profile - you come into contact with the virus and you are sick within 1-4 days.  With COViD-19, you can be infected for two weeks before showing symptoms.  That massively increases the ability of the virus to break efforts to contain it.  China - with all the levers and machinery of an authoritarian state - could not contain it; there is no way the US or Europe will be able to.

Right now, the CDC has 15 confirmed cases in the US. Given that long incubation period, that number is almost certain to grow. Where I am, in Connecticut, there are no reported cases.  But there is one case in Massachusetts, and what's more, if there are cases in California, then it is in New York.  If it is in NYC, it is in Connecticut.  What's more, we go on spring break next Wednesday, and while the school has asked people not to travel abroad, that's neglecting the likelihood that it's already scattered amongst communities across the US that we don't even know about.

So, while I am not an alarmist, I'm concerned by what I see as a dangerous level of unpreparedness.

Despite the fact that teenagers seems uniquely able to survive this illness, schools will shut down.  We live in a country with piss-poor family medical leave and employee sick days.  People will come to work sick and infect others, meanwhile parents will struggle to take care of kids that are home from their closed schools. The double whammy of healthy people staying home and sick people coming to work will create disturbances that I don't think we are really prepared for.

What happens when we have an outbreak in a community like The Villages, with tens of thousands of elderly people with poor immune systems?  How does the health infrastructure handle that?   What happens when there starts to be runs on medicine, fueled more by panic as medical necessity? And of course, we have a president and an administration that is openly contemptuous of expertise and science.  Putting Mike Pence in charge of a health crisis is like putting me in charge of the NY Ballet. I am aware that ballet exists, but I don't understand it, I'm not especially interested in it and I don't have the skill set to know where to begin.

Yes, it seems inevitable that Covid-19 will lead to a recession. This feeds into the global turbulence caused by Trump's trade wars and Brexit. It's a perfect storm of disruption to the global economy. Add in the rank incompetence that typifies the Trump administration, and it's difficult to see how this won't be terribly disruptive to the global economy and society.

Trump campaigned as an isolationist, America-Firster in 2016.  It would be ironic if a microscopic virus from that globalized world is what destroys his presidency.

Who Is Advising Biden?

Realistically, Joe Biden is the only external barrier between Bernie Sanders and the Democratic nomination. (The other obstacle is Sanders' own health situation.) Most of Biden's appeal is that he's "safe."  While he would embrace policies to the left of most Democratic candidates from the past 40 years, he's still the safe, centrist candidate.  His other appeal - which he will be happy to remind you of - is his connection to Obama. 

The problem is that Biden has not properly learned from Obama on how to win a campaign.  It is undeniably true that Biden is and always has been a poor candidate.  He has spectacularly flamed out twice before.  But presumably he - or his advisors - would have learned from Obama's 2008 campaign the power of organizing. 

Yet, on the verge of Super Tuesday, Biden's ground game is apparently non-existent. While it looks like Biden could finally get a win in South Carolina, Sanders, Buttigieg and Warren look to have done a lot more organizing at the field level.

Biden's strategy looks similar to Bloomberg's, and there's some interesting overlap there.  Biden and Bloomberg are both counting on media over organizing, and being "not Trump."  Neither are especially charismatic nor does either have any sort of popular army of supporters.  They are the candidates of safety.  As Warren has destroyed Bloomberg, some of that support is naturally bleeding back to Biden.

There's an argument that Biden could make especially good use of Bloomberg's promise of spending a billion dollars to defeat Trump. Field organizing and registering voters is extremely cost efficient, and Bloomberg seems to realize this at least to a certain degree.

I would worry, though, about Biden's lack of strategic or tactical acumen to this point.  Campaigns aren't JUST the candidate.  It's about how they leverage support.  Bernie's supporters can be very nettlesome, but they are passionate.  Buttigieg has shown really sound strategic practices, to a fault.  He often sounds like a parody of an Obama imitation.

Can Booker or Harris get back in?

Exactly This

Martin Longman explains the unique vulnerability of Bernie Sanders.  Perhaps Sanders can simply ride opposition to Trump into both the White House and Congressional majorities in both houses.  More likely he creates chaos up and down the ticket and costs Democrats otherwise defensible seats.

Trump offered the Democrats an opportunity that they fully exploited in 2018: winning the suburbs. The GOP's descent into the party of Donald Trump and Mike Pence could allow for the Democrats to fashion a true governing coalition of African Americans, most Hispanics and Asians, young voters, single women and college educated whites. What's uniquely perverse about Sanders is that he seems intent on alienating various parts of that coalition.  Instead he's banking on massive youth turnout, and that has always been a poor bet.

Live By The Sword....

For years, the primary tool of Fox News and Republican politics in general has been to stoke populist fears via the "othering" of outgroups.  One way they did this leading up to the 2014 midterms was to incessantly stoke the fear of the ebola outbreak in West Africa.  Here's the thing: ebola, as it currently exists, is not a big threat to people with a developed health care infrastructure.  Even Nigeria, with its litany of governmental problems, was able to stop ebola in its tracks. Zika?  West Nile? All of these foreign sounding illnesses were bricks in the foundation of Trump's anti-international appeal.

Anyway, now we are faced with the coronavirus.

The coronavirus is in many ways the opposite of ebola.  Unlike ebola, it's really easy to catch.  Unlike ebola, it's not likely to kill you. So we have an illness that might be as contagious as the flu (yikes) but unlikely to kill people who don't have an additional underlying health issue (phew).  Of course, 2% mortality is a problem when the disease is this contagious.  It is currently on the verge of being a pandemic.  That word is very scary.  Thousands could die. The fact that thousands die every year from the flu is a fact we gloss over, because...pandemic.  (The flu is sort of a pandemic every year.)

The coronavirus is exactly the sort of unplanned crisis that Trump and his team of second raters have largely been spared. Most of his crises have been planned and limited.  His trade wars have been disastrous for American farmers, but he has simply given them massive subsidies to make up for (some of) it.  His assaults on the rule of law and American-led international institutions have not met their acid tests yet. Meanwhile, Trump has actively taken measures that will make this situation worse.

Instead, Trump has coasted along on an economy fueled by low taxes, low interest rates and the inertial momentum of the recovery from 2008-9.

The coronavirus has the potential to change that.  In the wake of trade wars and Brexit, international trade has taken some body blows.  Supply chains have taken some small hits.  But the coronavirus has the potential to create massive problems in a global integrated economy.  Here - if most economists are correct - is the potential to expose the fallacy at the heart of Trump's economic nationalism and American First stance. Not to mention his basic incompetence.

The Dow collapsed yesterday, and while of course Wall Street isn't Main Street, the markets are capturing real concerns about a potential downturn caused by repercussions from reduced international trade. There is only so much tax cuts and cheap interest rates can do in the face of reduced supply and demand.

Trump's approval rating has been fairly steady in the 42% range, give or take.  If we tip into a recession, it is very likely that it dips into the high 30s, even with partisan loyalty. His blind disregard for experts and intelligent policy is likely to have an impact on how the government responds to this crisis, when it inevitably reaches our shores.  The medical establishment will do their best work, but government coordination at the federal level will ultimately be necessary.  Can you imagine Trump coordinating that?

Trump rose to power via his contempt for global institutions.  He rode the wave of angst over a changing, interconnected world.  It could be precisely a microscopic entity from that global, interconnected world that ultimately sinks him.

Interesting, But...

Here is some interesting polling on progressive policy ideas that do a rigorous job of framing the ideas in partisan-balanced ways.  Not surprisingly, some of the farthest left ideas like abolishing ICE or decriminalizing border crossings or reparations for slavery poll very poorly.  However, a number of positions that were pretty far left a few years ago poll well, including marijuana legalization and vigorous enforcement of the Clean Air and Clean Water acts. 

If Sanders is the nominee, how open will he be to walking back some of his ideas to reassure the center?  That's the million dollar question as Super Tuesday looms.

Reconciling With Sanders

It certainly looks like Bernie Sanders is in a commanding position in the Democratic primaries.  Certainly, as long as Biden/Buttigieg/Klobuchar divide the moderate vote, it opens a broad path for him.  At this point, Klobuchar in particular needs to reassess what her role in the race is.  Sanders seems set to rack up numerous primary wins without winning a majority of the vote in any of them.  Then, we have issue of his supporters especially toxic form of politics, but that's for another day.

Matthew Yglesias lays out a strong argument for why mainstream Democrats shouldn't fear Bernie Sanders.  For the most part, they are solid arguments.  Sanders' rhetoric rarely matches his actual political practice. He is not a communist bogeyman trying to force you into re-education camps. 

But the main consideration of most Democratic voters (and quite a few independents and Never Trump Republicans) is whether the Democrats will nominate someone who can beat Trump.  How can Sanders convince THEM to calm down and accept that he will be only as radical as the Senate allows him to be? His rhetoric has largely closed the door to reasoned incrementalism.

Much of the Democratic gains in 2018 were in the suburbs, among college educated voters repelled by Trump's vulgarity and rank corruption. Sanders could very well pick off some WWC voters while losing a comparable (or greater) number of those suburban Lean-GOP voters that helped elect a Democratic House.  How do you convince them to show up and vote for a guy they don't really trust?

Sanders' campaign has been atrocious at reaching out to non-acolytes. They actively alienate exactly the sort of voters that have recently flocked to the Democratic party.  Is Trump's unique awfulness enough to get them to show up and vote for Sanders (and all the down-ballot candidates)?

The Democratic primary field was filled with "good but not great" candidates.  Sanders certainly qualifies.  His ability to motivate certain hard to motivate voters is impressive and hopefully will continue through November, whether he's the nominee or not. The question is how hard will he work to assuage the fears of his skeptics?  And how will he manage to muzzle his fiercest attack dogs like David Sirota and Nina Turner, who seem more intent on rubbing salt in the wounds of Democrats than training their fire on the GOP?

Combine all the Dem candidates strengths (Warren's policy chops, Buttigieg's appeal to moderates, Biden's appeal to African Americans, Sanders' ability to motivate young voters, Booker's speaking ability) and you get a great candidate.  Democrats will not be nominating a great candidate, no matter what.  That candidate will be flawed.  Sanders included.

Will Sanders' flaws be enough to get Trump a second term?  And can American democracy survive that?

Culture Warriors

There's some high quality shade in this piece about Trump wanting Gone With The Wind to be lauded over Parasite.

Look, GWTW is an important part of film history, but it is itself bad history. The fact that Trump focused on a blatantly racist whitewashing of American history should surprise exactly no one.  Frankly, I'd be surprised if he sat through the whole four hour movie. 

Ta-Nehisi Coates makes the point that the Right and Left in America each see themselves as powerless. The Left obviously looks at a country that it routinely governed by a minority party that wins fewer votes in national elections, yet leverages their special geographic advantages into controlling the levels of power. The Right looks at a country that is awash in the cultural influences of it coastal media and business centers.  The Left is losing at politics, whereas the Right is losing at culture.

Trump's throwback to Gone With The Fucking Wind is a great example of this ingrained cultural resentment from crotchety old white people who don't like the media that overwhelms Red America.  They don't like seeing married gay people in advertisements or rap music or atheistic depictions of life.  Political power is their only remaining lever, and so they have decided that basic democratic ideals are secondary to holding on against an onslaught of moral relativism that permeates the media landscape. Trump's White House is their Alamo against hordes of Latin Hip-Hop artists or lesbians kissing in a jewelry ad or the mosque that opened in the nearby city.

Conservatives are deeply afraid that they have lost, but Trump is - if nothing else - combative. That explains, as much as anything, why they simply will not abandon him.

More Hackery

Trump's impact on governmental institutions is likely the most underreported story of Trumpistan. 

Now he's putting a hack in charge of the CIA, NSA and the rest of the intelligence community. 

Super.

Same Dynamic

Sanders is benefitting from the same dynamic Trump benefited from in the 2016 GOP primary: his opponents are fractured, and he chugs along with his base, winning contests without garnering a majority of support.  Last night saw Elizabeth Warren take a blow torch to Mike Bloomberg on stage. Several other candidates did as well, and that's a good thing.  Bloomberg can go screw himself. Yeah, yeah, I'll vote for him over Trump, but that's a pretty low bar.  He sucks, and the vetting he's finally getting is overdue and needed.

But if everyone is (rightfully) piling on Bloomberg, then once again, Sanders kind of skates free. If he wins Nevada, then what?  How does he now win simply by being the frontrunner of a party that desperately wants to move on and nominate someone who can focus on Trump.  While primaries have always been divisive, Sanders' online supporters have been especially divisive. 

Sanders has a mass of things in his closet that aren't being properly vetted, and it worries me that the Democrats will nominate a hopelessly flawed general election candidate in the most important election since 1860.

Smells Like Bullshit

Bill Barr won't resign, he's tethered to that flatulent manchild for the rest of his life.

It's Funny 'Cause It's Not

"Trump was only interested in investigating Hunter Biden because if his deep concerns about corruption," has to be the most laughable assertion of this troubled era.

Monopoly

There is one major economic issue that might unite the right and left if we ever get a marginally functional government again: monopoly. The article uses a great example of how Americans get worse service at higher prices than other countries: the internet.  Internet service providers are routinely awful and expensive at the same time.  Given how consolidated telecommunications companies are, this is hardly surprising.  Monopoly and consolidation have a cost in medicine as well.

Back in 1912, Wilson and Roosevelt squared off over the issue of how to manage increasing consolidation.  Roosevelt won the argument in the long term, by arguing that government regulation was the best way to accommodate inevitable consolidation.  After the Reagan Revolution attacked the idea of the state, Wilson's argument was proved right.  As he put it:

If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don't you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now? Don't you see that they must capture the government, in order not to be restrained too much by it? Must capture the government? They have already captured it. Are you going to invite those inside to stay inside? They don't have to get there. They are there. 

We need a more vigorous regulatory state, but ultimately, unless there is competition, we will just trend back into the hands of oligarchs once Republicans take power again.