Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Still ISO a Coherent Biden China Strategy

Tags

Antony J. Blinken, Asia-Pacific, Biden, Biden administration, China, climate change, Cold War, decoupling, Indo-Pacific, Jimmy Carter, national interests, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, rules-based global order, Soviet Union, strategic ambiguity, Taiwan

In June, 1978, then President Jimmy Carter laid out in a speech the tenets that were going to guide his strategy toward the Soviet Union at a time when East-West tensions were mounting. His clear aim during this key juncture of the Cold War was telling Moscow what kinds of actions it could take to make sure that superpower rivalry was “stable” and even “constructive,” and what kinds would be sure to place it on a “dangerous and politically disastrous” path.

Unfortunately, the speech was widely considered to be such a confusing word salad that rumors quickly spread claiming that what Carter read were drafts from the hawkish and dovish groups of his advisors that he simply stapled together. This rumor turned out to be untrue (at least according to this study of Carter’s foreign policy), but the fuzziness of Carter’s bottom line surely helped ensure that U.S.-Soviet relations continued worsening for most of the remainder of his one-term presidency, largely because the Soviet Union became more aggressive – especially when it invaded Afghanistan.

I bring up this historical episode because Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken just gave a speech laying out the tenets of the Biden administration’s strategy toward China. It, too, seeks to ensure that today’s superpower relationship becomes more stable rather than move ever closer to conflict, but it looks just as incoherent as Carter’s address – and just as likely to produce the outcome it’s trying to prevent.

But I’ll start with a problem that was only barely detectable in Carter’s speech but that’s bound to undermine Mr. Biden’s efforts to deal with China successfully: a failure to identify American interests precisely and concretely. To be sure, the Carter speech wasted a great deal of verbiage on Soviet activity that never held any potential to endanger U.S. security or prosperity – especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Eventually, however, the President specified that “We and our allies must and will be able to meet any forseeable challenge to our security from either strategic nuclear forces or from conventional forces.”

These kinds of specific objectives were at best secondary themes of Blinken’s. Instead, his emphasis from the get-go was on defending and reforming “the rules-based international order – the system of laws, agreements, principles, and institutions that the world came together to build after two world wars to manage relations between states, to prevent conflict, to uphold the rights of all people.”

Not only can this definition of U.S. interests way too easily turn into a formula for wasting America’s considerable but ultimately finite resources on an infinite number of international troubles having nothing to do with the nation’s safety or well-being. But good luck motivating the American population and its military to fight or even sacrifice for an objective this gauzy.

At the same time, the kind of ambivalence so broadly conveyed by Carter toward the Soviet Union permeates the picture drawn by Blinken of China. For example, the Secretary argued that China

>”is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to do it.  Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years”:

>rather than using its power to reinforce and revitalize the laws, the agreements, the principles, the institutions that enabled its success so that other countries can benefit from them, too…is undermining them.  Under President Xi, the ruling Chinese Communist Party has become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad”:

> “has announced its ambition to create a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and to become the world’s leading power”;

> is “advancing unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea, undermining peace and security, freedom of navigation, and commerce….”

> “wants to put itself at the center of global innovation and manufacturing, increase other countries’ technological dependence, and then use that dependence to impose its foreign policy preferences.  And Beijing is going to great lengths to win this contest – for example, taking advantage of the openness of our economies to spy, to hack, to steal technology and know-how to advance its military innovation and entrench its surveillance state”;  and

> is “trying to cut off Taiwan’s relations with countries around the world and blocking it from participating in international organizations.  And Beijing has engaged in increasingly provocative rhetoric and activity, like flying PLA aircraft near Taiwan on an almost daily basis.”

In all, according to Blinken, “The scale and the scope of the challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China will test American diplomacy like nothing we’ve seen before.”

So given these malign aims and actions, how could Blinken also insist that

> “We don’t seek to block China from its role as a major power, nor to stop China…from growing their economy….”;

> “We know that many countries – including the United States – have vital economic or people-to-people ties with China that they want to preserve.  This is not about forcing countries to choose.  It’s about giving them a choice….”;

> ”The United States does not want to sever China’s economy from ours or from the global economy – though Beijing, despite its rhetoric, is pursuing asymmetric decoupling, seeking to make China less dependent on the world and the world more dependent on China.”; and that

> “as the world’s economy recovers from the devastation of the pandemic, global macroeconomic coordination between the United States and China is key – through the G20, the IMF, other venues, and of course, bilaterally.”

That last point, and a companion Biden administration argument about climate change, seem compelling – at least superficially. But think about it for a moment: Why would anyone holding the view of China’s hostile actions and intentions laid out by Blinken expect any meaningful cooperation from Beijing on anything?

Even on climate – that supposedly quintessential threat that respects no bordes – it logically follows that the kind of Chinese leadership depicted by Blinken will be working overtime to ensure that China minimizes any sacrifices it makes to prevent dangerous warming, and maximize those required of everyone else. Consequently, the most effective way to spur China to do its share and therefore boost the odds that the climate problem actually gets solved is to deny Beijing the economic power to stay off the hook.

There’s a big (and in my view, legitimate) debate currently underway over whether the United States should continue its longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding defending Taiwan from China, or explicitly pledge to do so, as President Biden may or may not have done a week ago (and not for the first time). But there shouldn’t be any debate over whether America’s underlying strategy toward the People’s Republic should be as completely ambiguous – not to mention as nebulous – as the approach just articulated by Blinken.

Those Stubborn Facts: China Celebrates Earth Day

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China, climate change, coal, Earth Day, energy, fossil fuels, Those Stubborn Facts

Coal production capacity China says it will add this year:   300 million tons

Increase from China’s new coal production capacity last year: 36.36%

China share of global coal production & consumption: c. 50 percent

 

(Source: “With coal surge, China puts energy security and growth before climate,” by Christian Shepherd, The Washington Post, April 22, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/22/china-coal-climate-change-xi-energy/)

Making News: Back on National Radio to Talk War and the Economy

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climate change, energy, European Union, fossil fuels, green energy, Green New Deal, Iran, Iran nuclear deal, JCPOA, Making News, Market Wrap with Moe Ansari, Moe Ansari, natural gas, oil, renewable fuels, Russia, Ukraine

I’m pleased to announce that tonight I’m scheduled to be back on the nationally syndicated “Market Wrap with Moe Ansari” radio program to discuss the economic – and especially energy – repercussions of the Ukraine-Russia war.

“Market Wrap” is broadcast nightly between 8 and 9 PM EST, the guest segments typically come in the second half-hour, and you can tune in by visiting Moe’s website and clicking on the “Listen Live” link on the right-hand side.

As usual, moreover, if you can’t tune in, the podcast will be posted as soon as it’s on-line.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: U.S. Manufacturing Returns to Growth – On Automotive’s Back

Tags

aerospace, aircraft, aircraft parts, appliances, automotive, Boeing, CCP Virus, climate change, consumers, coronavirus, COVID 19, election 2021, electrical equipment, Federal Reserve, inflation, inflation-adjusted output, machinery, manufacturing, medical devices, medical equipment, monetary policy, petroleum and coal products, pharmaceuticals, printing, real output, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Just as earlier in this CCP Virus-whipsawed economy of ours, as goes the U.S. automotive sector, so goes domestic manufacturing when it comes to output (at least to a great extent). That’s the main story told not only by the inflation-adjusted manufacturing production figures released by the Federal Reserve this morning (for October), but by virtually this entire data series this year.

Domestic industry grew in price-adjusted terms by a healthy 1.30 percent on month in October, snapping a two-month losing streak, and the results were pulled up powerfully by combined vehicle and parts production – which shot up by 10.98 percent. That was its biggest sequential increase since July, 2020’s 29.39 percent, when industry and the entire economy were snapping back strongly from the steep but short virus-induced recession. Without this automotive spurt, real manufacturing output would still have risen nicely in October, but that 0.62 percent monthly gain was less than half the total with automotive.

Complicating the picture still further: Mainly because of the semiconductor shortage, after-inflation automotive output has been on a nothing less than a roller coaster this year. Here are the monthly results for 2021 so far:

January:         +0.63 percent

February:      -10.65 percent

March:            -3.99 percent

April:              -7.23 percent

May:              +5.20 percent

June:               -4.97 percent

July:               +8.54 percent

August:           -2.95 percent

September:     -7.12 percent

October:       +10.98 percent

And for a change, revisions didn’t make a big difference in either the recent overall manufacturing or automotive statistics.

Aside from automotive, manufacturing’s biggest growth winners among the big categories tracked by the Fed were petroleum and coal products (up 4.97 percent), chemicals (up 1.93 percent), printing and related support actvities (1.41 percent) and aerospace and miscellaneous transportation (1.36 percent).

The biggest losers? Electrical equipment, appliances and components (down 1.53 percent), machinery (down 1.27 percent), and miscellaneous durable goods (a grouping that includes much pandemic-related medical equipment – down 0.88 percent).

The machinery drop – the biggest since February’s 2.59 percent – was particularly discouraging, as its products are used throughout manufacturing and big non-manufacturing sectors (like agriculture and construction) alike.

As for manufacturing industries that have been prominent in the news during the pandemic, their October performance was decidedly unimpressive.

Aircraft and parts was the best of the lot. Their real output expanded by 1.43 percent on month in October, but September’s initially reported 1.83 percent increase was revised down considerably, to 0.45 percent. In all, price-adjusted aircraft and parts production is now 14.59 percent above its levels in February, 2020 – the U.S. economy’s last full pre-CCP Virus data month.

Moreover, the sector’s giant, Boeing, has had an excellent news week this past week – especially reports that China may end its two-year ban on buying the company’s jets. So even though aircraft and parts output after inflation has already topped February, 2020’s levels by 14.59 percent, even better times may lie ahead.

Pharmaceuticals and medicines, however, have lost significant growth momentum recently. Following August’s strong (but downwardly revised) 2.46 percent sequential real production increase, the sector has now slumped for two straight months. September’s previously reported 0.74 percent decline is now pegged as a 1.04 percent drop, and inflation-adjusted production sank another 0.51 percent in October. As a result, measured in constant dollars, these industries are just 11.86 percent bigger than just before the pandemic struck – and this despite massive vaccine production.

The news was only slightly better in the crucial medical equipment and supplies sector – which includes virus-fighting items like face masks, protective gowns, and ventilators. After-inflation production was off 1.08 percent in October from September levels, and September’s own initially reported 1.53 percent real monthly output growth is now estimated at just 0.73 percent. Since February, 2020, therefore, real output of these products has advanced by just 2.57 percent.

Whereas I was somewhat pessimistic about U.S. manufacturing’s near-term prospects in my post last month on the output data, the picture now looks brighter. As mentioned just above, the aircraft industry may be back after some very difficult years caused by the CCP Virus-caused slump in travel and Boeing’s safety problems. An infrastructure bill has been passed (though its impact is unlikely to be felt in a major way for many months). Strong overall economic growth seems likely for the fourth quarter of this year. And although the pandemic is by no means over, its main growth-depressing effects may well be past.

Moreover, most of the remaining threats to domestic industry – big business tax hikes and stricter environmental and climate-change regulations – seem less likely due to Republican victories in so many of this year’s elections. And manufacturing’s continued growth seems to indicate that, however serious supply chain snags have been, and however much longer they may last, companies are managing their way through them reasonably well.

The biggest cloud hanging over manufacturing – and the entire economy – looms bigger than ever, though: a tightening of monetary policy to try to tame heated inflation that looks less transitory with each passing month, and that also could curb consumers’ so-far-raging appetites all by itself. Don’t be surprised if volatile automotive stays a major key.  

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Now Oil’s Fueling the U.S. Trade Deficit’s Boom

Tags

Advanced Technology Products, Biden, CCP Virus, China, climate change, COP26, coronavirus, COVID 19, exports, Glasgow, imports, lockdowns, manufacturing, non-oil goods deficit, oil, oil imports, oil trade, OPEC, supply chains, tariffs, Trade, trade deficit, Trump, UN Climate Change Conference, vaccine mandates, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

So many records and multi-month or year highs and lows were revealed in this morning’s official report on U.S. trade flows (for September) that it’s tough to know where to begin. What caught my eye immediately, though, was a development that concerned a product that hasn’t generated much major trade news lately, but has produced quite a few headlines in the last few weeks alone: oil.

With the United Nations’ latest global climate change conference still underway in Glasgow, Scotland, and President Biden still asking members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost their production to ease national and global energy shortages, it’s more than a little interesting that September saw America’s oil trade deficit balloon from $28 million (yes, with an “m”) in August to $3.38 billion (with a “b”).

That monthly total is the biggest since May 2019’s $3.98 billion and the $3.35 billion sequential worsening is the greatest such change for good or ill in absolute terms since the $3.52 billion improvement in this deficit in Dec., 2012 (when the monthly oil deficits were regularly some five or six times larger). It’s also the biggest increase in the oil trade shortfall since Jan., 2013 ($3.86 billion).

At least as interesting: On a year-to-date basis, the oil trade balance has shifted from a $13.98 billion surplus to a $6.84 billion deficit, mostly because oil imports are up 23.55 percent during this period.

The monthly spurt in the oil trade deficit weighed heavily on the overall September trade figures, accounting for 41.26 percent of the rise in the total deficit to a record $80.93 billion.

Moreover, not only was the September combined goods and services trade shortfall an all-time high. It beat the previous record (set in June) by a healthy (or sickly?) 10.52 percent, and the 11.52 percent monthly jump was the greatest such widening since the 19.87 percent recorded in July, 2020, when the U.S. economy was rebounding sharply from the short but deep downturn produced by the CCP Virus’ initial wave and the shutdowns and lockdowns mandated in response, along with major consumer caution.

September’s deficit resulted from both major trade flows moving in exactly the wrong way. Total imports set their third straight monthly record, increasing by 0.58 percent to $288.49 billion. And overall exports sank by 3.01 percent, to $207.56 billion. That total was the first monthly falloff since February and the biggest since the 19.96 percent plunge in April, 2020 – when the pandemic’s impact on the U.S. economy was peaking.

Still worse was the trade story in goods, where the $98.16 billion gap grew by 9.99 percent over the August total to a new record $98.16 billion. That figure broke the old mark (also set in June) by 5.25 percent, and the monthly increase was also the biggest since July, 2020 – when it rose by 12.20 percent.

Here, too, both exports and imports can be blamed. As with total exports, the former also decline for the first time since February, and the 4.71 percent sequential decrease to $142.71 billion was the steepest since the 25.10 percent crash dive suffered in pandemic-y April, 2020.

Goods imports, meanwhile, climbed by 0.78 percent to $240.86 billion – a new record , too.

Since manufacturing dominates U.S. goods trade, it’s not surprising that much of this September deterioration on the merchandise side came in industry. This sector saw its own longstanding and massive deficit hit a second straight monthly record, rising 1.60 percent to $118.75 billion.

Manufacturing exports dropped on month by 4.69 percent, from $97.13 billion to $92.58 billion. But the much greater amount of imports was down only 1.25 percent, from $214.041 billion to $211.33 billion.

These new records have pushed the 2021 manufacturing deficit so far to $968.25 billion – 22.52 percent bigger than last year’s January-through September number. So the full-year shortfall is sure to top $1 trillion for the fourth straight year – and by October.

Yet another all-time high was reported in an important manufacturing sub-sector – advanced technology products (ATP). The $50.50 billion worth of these goods imported by Americans in September set a monthy record, and one that broke the previous mark of $47.24 billion set in October, 2019, by 6.91 percent. Largely as a result, the ATP deficit surged sequentially by 22.82 percent in September, to $19.74 billion. The total was the biggest since last November’s $21.90 billion and the increase the fastest since May, 2020’s 22.98 percent – early during that US rebound following the CCP Virus’ first wave.

With many of these ATP goods coming from China, the import boom in this category understandably led to a big (15.01 percent) increase in the bilateral merchandise deficit. Indeed, the monthly rise, from $31.74 billion to $36.50 billion was the biggest since the shortfall’s near-doubling in April, 2020 – when the Chinese economy was bouncing back from its own broad virus-related shutdown – and the level was the highest since December, 2018’s $36.60 billion.

Goods imports from China hit $47.41 billion – their highest level since October, 2018’s $52.08 billion. And their 10.27 percent jump in September was the biggest such monthly change since the 18.23 percent increase of this past March, at the start of the U.S.’ last post-CCP Virus recovery.

The China goods deficit in September did worsen faster than its closest global proxy – the U.S. non-oil goods deficit (which widened by 6.47 percent). It’s still also growing more slowly on a year-to-date basis – 14.89 percent versus 18.60 percent, which indicates that the Trump tariffs continued by Mr. Biden are still restraining it. But the gap is narrowing.

What’s especially sobering about these and other recent trade figures is that the overall deficit rose by 7.50 percent between the second and third quarters of this year while the rate of economic growth fell by 40.31 percent.  That’s not supposed to happen. Clearly, virus- and lockdowns- and mandates- and supply chain-related disruptions are distorting normal economic patterns, but that’s a huge discrepancy nonetheless.  Worse (in this sense), the American economy’s expansion is so far expected to speed up again in the fourth quarter. Although trees aren’t supposed to grow to the sky, it seems a safe bet that the U.S. trade deficit going forward will do a pretty good imitation.     

Im-Politic: Slandering the U.S. on Climate Change

Tags

Associated Press, Biden, Bloomberg.com, China, climate change, Conference of the Parties, COP26, Donald Trump, European Union, greenhouse gases, Im-Politic, Leaders Summit on Climate, Paris climate accord

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that it’s as typical for us news/policy bloggers as it is for journalists to start the day expecting to write on a certain topic only to change course abruptly upon encountering a development that SIMPLY CAN’T WAIT.

Especially with a big U.S.-organized global summit on climate change set for later this week, that’s the category into which I’d place this new Bloomberg.com post titled “Biden Wants the U.S. to Lead on Climate Action, But the World Needs Proof.” And if the header didn’t make the portrayal of the United States as a preachy climate change hypocrite clear enough, the subhead informs readers that “after policy reversals and years of inaction, the country has a wide credibility gap to overcome.”

Predictably, moreover, authors place all the blame on you-know-who:

“The Biden administration [will] have to overcome the major trust deficit run up by former President Donald Trump, who withdrew from the Paris agreement and dismantled domestic policies key to driving the the country’s promised emissions cuts. The past four years revealed how tenuous pledges of U.S government action can be.” {Note:  This Associated Press report made much the same point.] 

Whatever you think about the merits of the issue, there’s no question that climate change wasn’t exactly a Trump priority, that he weakened (but did not eliminate entirely) important Obama-era regulations aimed at slowing it, and ran a very fossil-fuel-friendly administration. Moreover, the former President displayed no interest whatever in meeting, much less beating, the Paris agreement goals set by Barack Obama’s presidency.

But is that the real measure of U.S. credibility on climate change? Only if you believe that words matter more than deeds. For the latest available (2018) data show that, by two key measures, America has actually done a better job  restraining greenhouse gas emissions than many of the main Paris accord signatories.

If the chart below looks familiar, it’s because I used it in a post near the beginning of last year. 

But it’s as important as ever. Because it shows that, on an absolute basis (the left half of the chart), U.S. emissions dipped slightly in 2009, and then stayed basically flat since (including in Trump years 2017 and 2018). That’s actually better than it sounds, however, because the US economy grew the entire time, meaning that more economic activity didn’t lead to more emissions. And growth picked up a fair amount during those Trump years.

As for other Paris signatory countries, China’s rapid growth has only slowed – but the Chinese economy has slowed, too, so that doesn’t necessarily signal any carbon efficiency gains.   

Emissions from 28 of the European Union (EU) countries, began falling in absolute terms in 1990, and have consistently been lower than America’s. (Earlier results aren’t presented.) But the EU’s economic growth also has been considerably lower than America’s throughout this period, so lower emissions no doubt are mainly due to that steady fall in overall economic activity. (You can compare the growth rates of any countries or groups of countries by playing around with this interactive feature on the World Bank’s website.)   

On a per capita basis (he right half of the chart), we see major U.S. progress since about 2000, and it’s continued with minor fluctuations through 2018 (an especially good US economic growth year).  In fact, the United States has performed better than the world as a whole since 1990.   

EU 28 progress on a per capita basis has been slower than the US’, but better than the world’s as a whole.  And China’s per capita emissions soared till about 2010, before starting to level off.

Does the chart show that the United States is doing enough to mitigate climate change? Nope. Does it mean that lots of skepticism isn’t justified about President Biden’s ability to turn his climate change agenda into U.S. policy? Of course not.

But it does make clear that it’s simply off the wall to claim that Mr. Biden will be chairing his own climate change conference, and participating in a United Nations conference this November, as head of a country with a climate credibility gap, or anything climate-y to feel sheepish about. Indeed, pushing that line can only undercut the President’s message, and do far more to retard climate progress, not spur it. 

Im-Politic: Looking Backward and Forward on Trump and Trumpism

Tags

cancel culture, Capitol Hill, Capitol riots, China, climate change, Congress, Conservative Populism, Constitution, Democrats, election 2016, election 2020, election challenge, Electoral College, establishment Republicans, Hillary Clinton, identity politics, Im-Politic, Immigration, impeachment, incitement, insurrection, Joe Biden, Josh Hawley, left-wing authoritarianism, mail-in ballots, nationalism, Populism, Republicans, sedition, separation of powers, tariffs, Ted Cruz, Trade, trade war, Trump, violence

(Please note: This is the linked and lightly edited version of the post put up this morning.)

The fallout from the Capitol Riot will no doubt continue for the foreseeble future – and probably longer – so no one who’s not clairvoyant should be overly confident in assessing the consequences. Even the Trump role in the turbulent transition to a Biden administration may wind up looking considerably different to future generations than at present. Still, some major questions raised by these events are already apparent, and some can even be answered emphatically, starting off with the related topic of how I’m viewing my support for many, and even most, of President Trump’s policies and my vote for him in both of his White House runs.

Specifically, I have no regrets on either ground. As I’ll make clear, I consider Mr. Trump’s words and deeds of the last few weeks to represent major, and completely unnecessary, failures that will rightly at least tarnish his place in history.

All the same, legitimate analyses of many developments and resulting situations need to think about the counterfactual. Here, the counterfactual is a Trump loss to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. And I’m confident that her presidency would have been both disastrous in policy terms (ranging from coddling China to moving steadily toward Open Borders immigration policies to intervening militarily more often and more deeply in numerous foreign conflicts of no importance to the United States) and heatedly divisive in political terms (because of her grifting behavior in fundraising for the various supposedly philanthropic initiatives she started along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton; because of her campaign’s payment for the phony Steele dossier that helped spur the unwarranted and possibly criminal Obama administration investigation of the Trump campaign; and because of intolerant and extremist instincts that would have brought Identity Politics and Cancel Culture to critical mass years earlier than their actual arrivals).

As for the worrisome events of the last several weeks:

>As I’ve written, I don’t regard Mr. Trump’s rhetoric at his rally, or at any point during his election challenges, as incitement to violence in a legal sense. But is it impeachable? That’s a separate question, because Constitutionally speaking, there’s a pretty strong consensus that impeachment doesn’t require a statutory offense. And since, consequently, it’s also a political issue, there’s no objective or definitive answer. It’s literally up to a majority of the House of Representatives. But as I also wrote, I oppose this measure.

>So do I agree that the President should get off scot free? Nope. As I wrote in the aforementioned post, I do regard the Trump record since the election as reckless. I was especially angered by the President’s delay even in calling on the breachers to leave the Capitol Hill building, and indeed the entire Capitol Hill crowd, to “go home.” In fact, until that prompting – which was entirely too feeble for my tastes – came, I was getting ready to call for his resignation.

>Wouldn’t impeachment still achieve the important objective of preventing a dangerously unstable figure from seeking public office again? Leaving aside the “dangerously unstable” allegation, unless the President is guilty (as made clear in an impeachment proceding) of a major statutory crime (including obstruction of justice, or incitement to violence or insurrection), I’d insist on leaving that decision up to the American people. As New York City talk radio host Frank Morano argued earlier this week, the idea that the Congress should have the power to save the nation from itself is as dangerously anti-democratic as it is laughable.

>Of course, this conclusion still leaves the sedition and insurrection charges on the table – mainly because, it’s contended, the President and many of his political supporters (like all the Republican Senators and House members who supported challenging Electoral College votes during the January 6 certification procedure) urged Congress to make an un-Constitutional, illegal decision: overturning an election. Others add that the aforementioned and separate charge not includes endorsing violence but urging the January 6 crowd to disrupt the certification session.

>First, there’s even less evidence that the lawmakers who challenged the Electoral College vote were urging or suggesting the Trump supporters in the streets and on the lawn to break in to the Capitol Building and forcibly end the certification session than there’s evidence that Mr. Trump himself gave or suggested this directive.

>Second, I agree with the argument – made by conservatives such as Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul (often a Trump supporter) – that authorizing a branch of the federal government unilaterally to nullify the results of elections that the Constitution stipulates should be run by the states is a troubling threat to the Constitutional principle of separation of powers. I’m also impressed with a related argument: that sauce for the goose could wind up as sauce for the gander.

In other words, do Trump supporters want to set a precedent that could enable Congress unilaterally to overturn the election of another conservative populist with something like a second wave of Russia collusion charges? Include me out.

>Further, if the Trump supporters who favored the Electoral College challenge are guilty of insurrection or fomenting it, and should be prosecuted or censured or punished in some way, shouldn’t the same go for the Democrats who acted in the exact same ways in other recent elections? (See here and here.) P.S. Some are still Members of Congress.

>Rather than engage in this kind of What About-ism, and help push the country further down the perilous road of criminalizing political behavior and political differences, I’d much rather consider these challenges as (peaceful) efforts – and in some cases sincere efforts – to insert into the public record the case that these elections were marred by serious irregularities.

>How serious were these irregularities? Really serious – and all but inevitable given the decisions (many pre-pandemic) to permit mass mail-in voting. Talk about a system veritably begging to be abused. But serious enough to change the outcome? I don’t know, and possibly we’ll never know. Two things I do know, however:

First, given the thin Election 2020 margins in many states, it’s clear that practices like fraudulent vote-counting, ballot-harvesting, and illegal election law changes by state governments and courts (e.g., Pennsylvania) don’t have to be widespread. Limiting them to a handful of states easily identified as battlegrounds, and a handful of swing or other key districts within those states, would do the job nicely.

Second, even though I believe that at least some judges should have let some of the Trump challenges proceed (if only because the bar for conviction in such civil cases is much lower than for criminal cases), I can understand their hesitancy because despite this low-ish bar, overturning the election results for an entire state, possibly leading to national consequences, is a bridge awfully far. Yes, we’re a nation of laws, and ideally such political considerations should be completely ignored. But when we’re talking about a process so central to the health of American democracy, politics can never be completely ignored, and arguably shouldn’t.

So clearly, I’m pretty conflicted. What I’m most certain about, however, is that mass mail-in ballots should never, ever be permitted again unless the states come up with ways to prevent noteworthy abuse. Florida, scene of an epic election procedures failure in 2000 (and other screwups), seems to have come up with the fixes needed. It’s high time for other states to follow suit.

As for the politics and policy going forward:

>President Trump will remain influential nationally, and especially in conservative ranks – partly because no potentially competitive rivals are in sight yet, and possibly because Americans have such short memories. But how influential? Clearly much of his base remains loyal – and given his riot-related role, disturbingly so. How influential? Tough to tell. Surely the base has shrunk some. And surely many Independents have split off for good, too. (See, e.g., this poll.) Perhaps most important, barring some unexpected major developments (which obviously no one can rule out), this withering of Trump support will probably continue – though the pace is tough to foresee also.

>The Republican Party has taken a major hit, too, and the damage could be lasting. In this vein, it’s important to remember that the GOP was relegated to minority status literally for decades by President Herbert Hoover’s failure to prevent and then contain the Great Depression. Those aforementioned short American memories could limit the damage. But for many years, it’s clear that Democratic political, campaigns, and conservative Never Trumper groups like the Lincoln Project, will fill print, broadcast, and social media outlets with political ads with video of the riot and Mr. Trump’s rally and similar statements, and the effects won’t be trivial.

>What worries me most, though, is that many of the urgently needed policies supported and implemented by the Trump administration will be discredited. Immigration realism could be the first casualty, especially since so many of the establishment Republicans in Congress were such willing flunkies of the corporate Cheap Labor Lobby for so much of the pre-Trump period, and Open Borders- and amnesty-friendly stances are now defining characteristics of the entire Democratic Party.

The Trump China policies may survive longer, because the bipartisan consensus recognizing – at least rhetorically – the futility and dangers of their predecessors seems much stronger. But given Biden’s long record as a China coddler and enabler, the similar pre-Trump views of those establishment Republicans, and their dependence on campaign contributions from Wall Street and offshoring-happy multinational companies, important though quiet backtracking, particularly on trade, could begin much sooner than commonly assumed. One distinct possibility that wouldn’t attract excessive attention: meaningfully increasing the number of exemptions to the Trump China and remaining metals tariffs to companies saying they can’t find affordable, or any, alternatives.

>Much of the political future, however, will depend on the record compiled by the Biden administration. Not only could the new President fail on the economic and virus-fighting fronts, but on the national unity front. Here, despite his reputation as a moderate and a healer, Biden’s charge that Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley have used Nazi-like tactics, and race-mongering comments accusing law enforcement of handling the overwhelmingly white Capitol Rioters more gingerly than the racial justice protesters earlier this year represent a lousy start. And as his harsh recent rhetoric suggests, Biden could also overreach greatly on issues like climate change, immigration, and Cancel Culture and Identity Politics. Such Biden failures could even shore up some support for Mr. Trump himself.

>How big is the violence-prone fringe on the American Right? We’ll know much more on Inauguration Day, when law enforcement says it fears “armed protests” both in Washington, D.C. and many state capitals. What does seem alarmingly clear, though – including from this PBS/Marist College poll – is that this faction is much bigger than the relatively small number of Capitol breachers.

>Speaking of the breachers, the nature of the crimes they committed obviously varied among individuals. But even those just milling about were guilty of serious offenses and should be prosecuted harshly. The circumstances surrounding those who crossed barriers on the Capitol grounds is somewhat murkier. Those who knocked down this (flimsy) fencing were just as guilty as the building breachers. But lesser charges – and possibly no charges – might be justifiable for those who simply walked past those barriers because they were no longer visible, especially if they didn’t enter the Capitol itself.

>I’m not security expert, but one question I hope will be asked (among so many that need asking) in the forthcoming investigations of the Capitol Police in particular – why weren’t the Capitol Building doors locked as soon as the approach of the crowd became visible? The number of doors is limited, and they’re anything but flimsy. The likely effectiveness of this move can be seen from an incident in October, 2018 – when barred Supreme Court doors left anti-Brett Kavanaugh protesters futilely pounding from the outside when they attempted to disrupt the new Supreme Court Justice’s swearing in ceremony. Window entry into the Capitol would have remained an option, but the number of breachers who used this tactic seems to have been negligible.

What an extraordinary irony if one of the worst days in American history mightn’t have even happened had one of the simplest and most commonsensical type of precaution not been taken.

Im-Politic: Trump-ism Without Trump for America as a Whole?

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"Defund the Police", allies, CCP Virus, China, climate change, coronavirus, court packing, COVID 19, Democrats, election 2020, enforcement, Executive Orders, filibuster, Green New Deal, Huawei, human rights, Im-Politic, Immigration, Joe Biden, judiciary, lockdowns, mask mandate, masks, metals, multilateralism, Muslim ban, Phase One, progressives, Republicans, sanctions, Senate, shutdowns, stimulus, Supreme Court, tariffs, taxes, Trade, trade wars, Trump, unions, Wuhan virus

Since election day, I’ve spent some time and space here and on the air speculating about the future of what I called Trump-ism without Donald Trump in conservative and Republican Party political ranks. Just this weekend, my attention turned to another subject and possibility: Trump-ism without Mr. Trump more broadly speaking, as a shaper – and indeed a decisive shaper – of national public policy during a Joe Biden presidency. Maybe surprisingly, the chances look pretty good.

That is, it’s entirely possible that a Biden administration won’t be able to undo many of President Trump’s signature domestic and foreign policies, at least for years, and it even looks likely if the Senate remains Republican. Think about it issue-by-issue.

With the Senate in Republican hands, there’s simply no prospect at least during the first two Biden years for Democratic progressives’ proposals to pack the Supreme Court, to eliminate the Senate filibuster, or to recast the economy along the lines of the Green New Deal, or grant statehood Democratic strongholds Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. A big tax increase on corporations and on the Biden definition of the super-rich looks off the table as well.

If the Senate does flip, the filibuster might be history. But big Democratic losses in the House, and the claims by many veterans of and newcomers to their caucus that those other progressive ambitions, along with Defunding the Police, were to blame, could also gut or greatly water down much of the rest of the far Left’s agenda, too.

CCP Virus policy could be substantially unchanged, too. For all the Biden talk of a national mask mandate, ordering one is almost surely beyond a President’s constitutional powers. Moreover, his pandemic advisors are making clear that, at least for the time being, a sweeping national economic lockdown isn’t what they have in mind. I suspect that some virus economic relief measures willl be signed into law sometime this spring or even earlier, but they won’t carry the total $2 trillion price tag on which Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems to have insisted for months. In fact, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of relief being provided a la carte, as Congressional Republicans have suggested – e.g., including popular provisions like some form of unemployment payment bonus extension and stimulus checks, and excluding less popular measures like stimulus aid for illegal aliens.

My strong sense is that Biden is itching to declare an end to President Trump’s trade wars, and as noted previously, here he could well find common cause with the many Senate Republicans from the party’s establishment wing who have never been comfortable bucking the wishes of an Offshoring Lobby whose campaign contributions it’s long raked in.

Yet the former Vice President has promised his labor union supporters that until the trade problems caused by China’s massive steel overproduction were (somehow) solved, he wouldn’t lift the Trump metals tariffs on allies (which help prevent transshipment and block these third countries from exporting their own China steel trade problems to the United States) – even though they’re the levies that have drawn the most fire from foreign policy globalists and other trade and globalization zealots.

As for the China tariffs themselves, the latest from the Biden team is that they’ll be reviewed. So even though he’s slammed them as wildly counterproductive, they’re obviously not going anywhere soon. (See here for the specifics.) 

Later? Biden’s going to be hard-pressed to lift the levies unless one or both of the following developments take place: first, the allied support he’s touted as the key to combating Beijing’s trade and other economic abuses actually materializes in very convincing ways; second, the Biden administration receives major Chinese concessions in return. Since even if such concessions (e.g., China’s agreement to eliminate or scale back various mercantile practices) were enforceable (they won’t be unless Biden follows the Trump Phase One deal’s approach), they’ll surely require lengthy negotiations. Ditto for Trump administration sanctions on China tech entities like the telecommunications giant Huawei. So expect the Trump-ian China status quo to long outlast Mr. Trump.

Two scenarios that could see at least some of the tariffs or tech sanctions lifted? First, the Chinese make some promises to improve their climate change policies that will be completely phony, but will appeal greatly to the Green New Deal-pushing progressives who will wield much more power if the Senate changes hands, and who have demonstrated virtually no interest in China economic issues. Second, Beijing pledges to ease up on its human rights crackdowns on Hong Kong and the Muslims of Xinjiang province. These promises would be easier to monitor and enforce, but the Chinese regime views such issues as utterly non-negotiable because they’re matters of sovereignty. So China’s repressive practices won’t even be on the official agenda of any talks. Unofficial understandings might be reached under which Beijing would take modest positive steps or suspend further contemplated repression. But I wouldn’t count on such an outcome.

Two areas where Biden supposedly could make big decisions unilaterally whatever happens in the Senate, are immigration and climate change. Executive orders would be the tools, and apparently that’s indeed the game plan. But as Mr. Trump discovered, what Executive Orders and even more routine adminstrative actions can do, a single federal judge responding to a special interest group’s request can delay for months. And these judicial decisions can interfere with presidential authority even on subjects that for decades has been recognized as wide-ranging – notably making immigration enforcement decisions when border crossings impact national security, as with the so-called Trump “Muslim ban.”

I know much less about climate change, but a recently retired attorney friend with long experience litigating on these issues told me that even before Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, the Justices collectively looked askance on efforts to create new policy initiatives without legislating. Another “originalist” on the Court should leave even less scope for ignoring Congress.

The bottom line is especially curious given the almost universal expectations that this presidential election would be the most important in recent U.S. history: A deeply divided electorate could well have produced a mandate for more of the same – at least until the 2022 midterms.

Im-Politic: Aftershocks

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abortion, African Americans, America First, CCP Virus, China, climate change, coronavirus, COVID 19, Democrats, election 2020, election 2022, election interference, establishment Republicans, Green New Deal, Hispanics, Hong Kong, House of Representatives, human rights, Im-Politic, Immigration, Joe Biden, mail-in ballots, mail-in voting, Mainstream Media, nationalism, polls, Populism, recession, redistricting, regulations, Republicans, Senate, social issues, state legislatures, tariffs, Trade, traditional values, Trump, Uighurs, women, Wuhan virus

I’m calling this post “aftershocks” because, like those geological events, it’s still not clear whether the kind of political upheaval Americans are likely to see in the near future are simply the death rattles of the initial quake or signs of worse to come.

All the same, at the time of this writing, assuming that the final results of Election 2020 will see Democratic nominee Joe Biden win the Presidency, the Republicans keep the Senate, and the Democrats retain control of the House, the following observations and predictions seem reasonable.

First, whatever the outcome, President Trump’s campaign performance and likely vote percentages were still remarkable. In the middle of a re-spreading pandemic, a deep CCP Virus-led economic slump that’s left unemployment at still punishing levels, and, as mentioned before, unremitting hostility from the very beginning on the part of most and possibly all powerful private sector institutions in this country as well as much of Washington’s permanent government, he gave his opponents a monumental scare. If not for the virus, the President could well have won in a near landslide. And will be made clear below, this isn’t just “moral victory” talk.

Second, at the same time, the kinds of needlessly self-inflicted wounds I’ve also discussed seem to have cost him many important advantages of incumbency by combining with pandemic effects to alienate many independents and moderate Republicans who backed him four years ago.

Third, the stronger-than-generally expected Trump showing means that, all else equal, the prospects for a nationalist populist presidential candidate in 2024 look bright. After all, how difficult is it going to be for the Republican Party (whence this candidate is most likely to come) to find a standard-bearer (or six) who champions the basics of the Trump synthesis – major curbs on trade and immigration, low taxes and regulations but more a more generous economic and social safety net, a genuine America First-type foreign policy emphasizing amassing of national power in all its dimensions but using it very cautiously, and a fundamentally commonsense view on social issues (e.g., recognizing the broad support of substantial abortion rights but strongly resisting identify politics) – without regular involvement in Twitter fights with the likes of Rosie O’Donnell?

Fourth, these prospects that what might be called Trump-ism will outlast Mr. Trump means that any hopes for the establishment wing to recapture the Republican Party are worse than dead. Ironically, an outsized nail-in-the-coffin could be produced by the gains the President appears to have made with African Americans and especially Hispanics. After Utah Senator Mitt Romney’s defeat at the hands of Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican conventional wisdom seemed to be that the party needed to adopt markedly more tolerant positions on social issues like gay rights (less so on abortion), and on immigration to become competitive with major elements of the former President’s winning coalition – notably younger voters, women, and Hispanics. The main rationale was that these constituencies were becoming dominant in the U.S. population.

The establishment Republicans pushing this transformation got the raw demographics right – although the short run political impact of these changes was exaggerated, as the Trump victory in 2016 should have made clear. But it looks like they’ve gotten some of the political responses wrong, with immigration the outstanding example. However many Hispanic Americans overall may sympathize with more lenient stances toward newcomers, a notable percentage apparently valued Mr. Trump’s so-called traditional values and pro-business and pro free enterprise positions more highly.

If the current election returns hold, the results will put the GOP – and right-of-center politics in America as a whole – in a completely weird position. Because the party’s establishment wing still figures prominently in its Senate ranks, a wide, deep disconnect seems plausible between the only branch of the federal government still controlled by Republicans on the one hand, and the party’s Trumpist/populist base on the other – at least until the 2022 mid-term vote.

Fifth, as a result, predictions of divided government stemming from Election 2020’s results need some major qualifications. These establishment Senate Republicans could well have the numbers and the backbone to block a Biden administration’s ambitious plans on taxing and spending (including on climate change).

But will they continue supporting Trumpist/populist lines on trade and immigration? That’s much less certain, especially on the former front. Indeed, it’s all too easy to imagine many Senate Republicans acquiescing in the Democratic claims that, notably, the United States needs to “stand up to China,” but that the best strategy is to act in concert with allies – which, as I’ve explained repeatedly, is a recipe for paralysis and even backsliding, given how conflicted economically so many of these allies are. As suggested above, the reactions of the overwhelmingly Trumpist Republican base will be vital to follow.

One reason for optimism (from a populist standpoint) on China in particular – Senate Republican opposition to anything smacking of the Green New Deal should put the kibosh on any Biden/Democratic notions of granting China trade concessions in exchange for promises on climate change that would likely be completely phony. Similar (and similarly dubious) quid pro quos involving China’s repression of Hong Kong and its Uighur Muslim minority could well be off the table, too.

Sixth, their failure to flip the Senate, their apparently small losses in the House, and disappointments at the state level (where they seem likely to wind up remaining a minority party) means that the Democrats’ hoped for Blue Wave was a genuine mirage – and looks more doubtful in future national contests as well. For state governments are the ones that control the process of redrawing Congressional district lines in (very rough) accordance with the results of the latest national Census — like the one that’s winding up. So this is a huge lost opportunity for the Democrats, and a major source of relief for Republicans.

Meanwhile, on a symbolic but nonethless important level, the aforementioned better-than-anyone-had-a-right-to-expect Trump showing means that the desire of many Democrats, most progessives, and other establishmentarians to crush the President (and other Republicans), and therefore consign his brand of politics and policy to oblivion, have been sort of crushed themselves. So it’s an open question as to whether they’ll respond with even more vilification of the President and his supporters, or whether they’ll finally display some ability to learn and seriously address legitimate Trumper grievances.

Seventh, as for Trump Nation and its reaction to defeat, the (so far) closeness of the presidential vote is already aggravating the nation’s continued polarization for one particularly troubling reason: A Biden victory aided by the widespread use of mail-in voting inevitably will raise charges of tampering by Democratic state governments in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Call it domestic election interference, and the allegations will be just as angry as those of foreign interference that dogged the previous presidential election. As a result, I hope that all Americans of good will agree that, once the pandemic passes, maximizing in-person voting at a polling place needs to return as the norm.

Finally, for now – those polls. What a near-complete botch! And the general consensus that Biden held a strong national lead throughout, and comparable edges in key battleground states may indeed have depressed some Republican turnout. Just as important – a nation that genuinely values accountability will demand convincing explanations from the polling outfits concerned, and ignore their products until their methodologies are totally overhauled. Ditto for a Mainstream Media that put so much stock in their data, in part because so many big news organizations had teamed up with so many pollsters. P.S. – if some of these companies are fired outright, and/or heads roll (including those of some political reporters), so much the better.

Im-Politic: Final Grades on the Final Debate

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battleground states, climate change, crime, crime bills, election 2020, energy, fossil fuels, fracking, green energy, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, marijuana, narcotics, natural gas, oil, presidential debates, progressives, racism, systemic racism, Trump

I got something massively wrong about the second (and final) presidential debate of 2020. I thought that my frantic live-tweeting covered every important aspect of the Thursday night event. Upon reading the transcript, I realized there was lots more to say.

Let’s start with the 30,000-foot picture. There’s no question that President Trump performed more effectively than in the first debate. Even his most uncritical admirers, like Fox News talker Sean Hannity, have conceded as much (Check out the video of his post-debate show, in which he acknowledges that long-time Republican political operative Ari Fleischer was right in faulting Mr. Trump’s first debate performance as too overheated.)

But there are plenty of questions left unanswered about the second debate’s impact on the Presidential race. For the record, I’m sticking with the assessment I offered after the first debate: Given his lead even in most battleground state polls, because the Trump campaign and other Trumpers (including Hannity) had set the bar so low for “Sleepy Joe,” all Biden needed to do was show up and not screw up massively in order to win.

Those battleground polls have tightened somewhat, Biden’s perfectly fine first debate performance raised the bar for the second debate, and I’m far from thinking that the race is over. But I’d still rather be in Biden’s shoes than in Mr. Trump’s. And time keeps running out for the President. All the same, it’s important to remember that we haven’t seen any major post-debate nationwide or battleground polls come out yet, so there’s simply no hard evidence to go on at this point.

The time-is-not-the-President’s-friend point, though, brings up my first new debate-related point: Mr. Trump’s improved performance alone (whether he “won” or not either on points or according to the public), indicates that he erred in rejecting the Commission on Presidential Debate’s offer to hold the second debate virtually, due ostensibly to CCP Virus-related reasons.

Especially if Mr. Trump had by that time begun heeding the advice of supporters urging him to dial it down (which isn’t at all clear), he lost an opportunity to square off again against Biden in real time. And although there’s no adequate on-line substitute for the atmosphere and resulting pressures of in-person encounters, the President did lose a valuable opportunity to reassure voters unnerved – rightly or wrongly – by his first debate tactics.

Getting down to specific points, on Thursday night, two issues really do demand further discussion. First, I might have been mistaken in my tweeted view that the Biden comments on natural gas fracking and energy (and related climate change) policy wouldn’t be terribly important.

I did agree that the former Vice President did nothing to help himself in key energy states like Pennsylvania, where voters might worry that his various positions – and the prominence of staunch fossil fuels opponents in Democratic ranks now – would guarantee relatively rapid closures of the coal mines and gas and oil fields that created so much employment in their regions. But I stated that, because these subjects had been aired so thoroughly already, few energy voters’ minds would be changed.

What I clearly underestimated was the impact of an extended discussion of energy and climate subjects before a nation-wide audience. If I’d been right, why would the Trump campaign have almost immediately put out an ad spotlighting Biden’s assorted statements on these topics. And why would the Biden campaign have spent so much time trying to explain the Biden position?

Looking at the transcript helped me understand why energy- and climate-related anxieties in the energy states might have been elevated by the Biden debate remarks. For on the one hand, the Democratic challenger insisted that he was “ruling out” “banning fracking” and claimed that

“What I will do with fracking over time is make sure that we can capture the emissions from the fracking, capture the emissions from gas. We can do that and we can do that by investing money in doing it, but it’s a transition to that.”

And whereas previously, Biden had responded to a primary debate question about whether fossil fuels would have any place in his prospective administration by declaring “We would make sure it’s eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those. Any fossil fuel,” on Thursday night, the former Vice President referred to transitioning from “the old oil industry”–presumably to some (undefined) new kind of oil industry.

Nonetheless, it would be reasonable for energy states residents to question these assurances of gradualness and transformation instead of elimination given Biden’s continued contention that “global warming is an existential threat to humanity,” that “we’re going to pass the point of no return within the next eight to ten years,” and that the energy sector in toto needs “to get to ultimately a complete zero emissions by 2025.” Last time I checked, that’s only five years from now.

Moreover, given the notable split within the Democratic party on climate change and energy issues between progressives and centrists, the Biden statements suggesting that major fossil fuel industries will survive during his administration in some form could depress turnout in their ranks for a candidate who clearly needs to stoke their enthusiasm.

The second set of issues I should have tweeted more about entails crime and race relations. I think Biden deserves a great deal of credit for calling “a mistake” his support for crime bills of the 1980s and 1990s that, in the words of moderator Kristen Welker “contributed to the incarceration of tens of thousands of young Black men who had small amounts of drugs in their possession, they are sons, they are brothers, they are fathers, they are uncles, whose families are still to this day, some of them suffering the consequences.”

He was also correct in pointing out that President Trump – who quite properly pointed to some noteworthy achievements of his administration on behalf of African Americans – took a sweepingly harsh line on crime himself in previous decades.

But two positions taken by Biden should disturb even supporters. First, his argument that “It took too long [during the Obama administration] to get it right. Took too long to get it right. I’ll be President of the United States, not Vice President of the United States,” clearly throws his former boss under the bus. In fact, he also implicitly blamed Obama for the failure to resolve the problem created by children living the United States born to illegal immigrant parents.

The second such position was Biden’s argument that “No one should be going to jail because they have a drug problem. They should be going to rehabilitation, not to jail.”

I personally can support this view when it comes to hard drugs. But marijuana? For whose use so many American blacks have been jailed – and so many more than white Americans? (I’m not a big fan of the American Civil Liberties Union these days, but the data in this study are tough to refute.) Mandatory (government-funded?) therapy for potheads? That could use some rethinking.

But like I said at the outset, I expressed views on many other debate-related subjects on my Twitter feed (@AlanTonelson). So there’s no substitute for following there, as well as checking in with RealityChek, for the most up-to-date thinking on the election — as well as everything else under the sun.