Im-Politic: How to Deal with the Confederate and Other Now-Controversial Monuments

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A.P. Hill, Abraham Lincoln, Arlington National Cemetery, Aunt Jemima, Civil War, Confederacy, Confederate monuments, Constitution, cross-burning, Elizabeth Warren, First Amendment, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George C. Wallace, George Washington, Im-Politic, Ku Klux Klan, Mexican War, military bases, Pierre Beauregard, racism, Reconstruction, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Theodore G. Bilbo, Thomas Jefferson, treason, Trump, Tucker Carlson, Woodrow Wilson

Not that anyone’s asked for it, but the Confederate and other allegedly racist monuments issue is back in the news, so here’s my handy dandy guide for figuring out which of these memorials should be taken down or removed, which should remain publicly displayed (and how), and which should be left alone. (This guide, which only covers the major controversies that have reappeared recently, will of course include naming decisions for public buildings and spaces like parks and squares and streets.)

Some major misconceptions need to be cleared up first. Right off the bat, everyone should agree that whatever actions are taken (removal or alteration), they must result from legal processes. Unauthorized teardowns and inflictions of damage are simple vandalism and should be punished as such. No private person or group has the right to take these matters into their own hands, precisely because no one’s voted for you. As for public officials, unless laws specifically empower them to act unilaterally, they should always work through legislation or established rule-making procedures.

In addition, let’s drop the dishonest nonsense about statues and plaques on public grounds, and choices of names for public buildings or military bases and spaces like parks and squares, being simple descriptions or illustrations of history. Nothing could be clearer than that they’re meant to express honor and pride.

Similarly, making changes (including removal) has nothing to do with “erasing history.” To take one example, if Robert E. Lee’s name is taken off a high school or highway or whatever, there’s no chance that Lee will be forgotten. Every American who takes a public school course in U.S. history will learn about his role as commander of the Confederate army during the Civil War. And if you happened to cut or sleep through that class, you can always access one of the upteen gazillion books about that conflict that have been written for the last roughly century-and-a-half since it ended.

It’s true that public school students may not encounter the names of lesser Confederate figures. To which the only adult reply is “Big deal.” The reason that folks like Generals A.P. Hill or even Stonewall Jackson may be overlooked is because, in the end, they weren’t such big deals.

Also a no-brainer: If Americans want to honor controversial or despicable figures or movements or ideas on their own property, that’s in virtually all cases their Constitutionally protected right. Ditto for private businesses. If your neighbor is flying a Confederate flag or has painted a swastika on his property, you’re free to shun him, and to urge others to do the same. If you’re offended by Aunt Jemima, switch your pancake syrup brand, ask the company to use a new image or character, or encourage boycotts and trust in the market and consumer choice to settle the issue. (Cross-burning on one’s own private property, a la the viciously racist and anti-semitic Ku Klux Klan, is legally treated somewhat – but only somewhat – differently.)

More complicated is the question of which level of government should be making which decisions where public property is concerned. For instance, should a federal ban be enacted on using Confederate names on any public grounds, including state and local? I can see an argument for that proposition (as indicated below, it provides encouragement for treason, a Constitutionally designated crime or, alternatively, creates a discriminatory environment). But I can also understand the case for leaving the decision to the states and localities – and ultimately letting the market decide (mainly in the form of privately organized boycotts of the type that has pushed several states to drop anti-LGBT measures).

So having cleared away this intellectual brush, here’s the guide – at least for some of the major cases:

>Confederate leaders – they’re the easiest call of all. They were traitors. They took up arms against the U.S. government. No decent American should want to honor them in any way. Yes, there’s an argument that some of these naming decisions (e.g., for U.S. miIitary bases) were made in order to promote reconciliation between North and South after the Civil War. Indeed, President Trump just made it.

But the U.S. decision not to prosecute the leaders of the Confederacy – and execute them if found guilty – was a strong enough gesture of reconciliation. In addition, nearly all Confederate veterans – including senior officers – were soon permitted to vote and hold public office once more. And the same states whose rebellion ignited the war were admitted back into the Union.

As a result, naming numerous U.S. military bases after Confederate generals represents a grossly mistaken (at best), and I would argue utterly perverse and continuing slap in the face to all American citizens and legal residents of the country, and especially to the soldiers who fought and died to preserve the Union and their families and descendents. There are plenty of other American military leaders who served their country in actually patriotic and genuinely heroic ways. Their names belong on these bases instead.

But what about the graves of Confederate veterans (including rebels from “ordinary” backgrounds who may not have been slave owners or even racists) currently lying in U.S. military or other national cemeteries, including Arlington? There’s no doubt, as made clear here, that a number wound up there because of mistakes in identifying very partial physical remains. But it’s also clear that many were placed in or actually moved to these plots and the graves specially marked as signs of respect – and that Congress approved.

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has recently introduced legislation to “remove all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America and anyone who voluntarily served it from all military bases and other assets of the Department of Defense.” Presumably (though I haven’t found the full text) this includes the markers.

Fox News talker Tucker Carlson (who I generally admire) condemned this measure as grave “desecration.” That’s reckless hyperbole, but if Warren would actually remove the markers, that looks excessive as well, since at least according to the official description in the National Parks Service post linked above, they simply identify the deceased as Confederates.

My bottom line: It’s not possible to figure out which of these veterans were bad guys and which were at least reasonably good guys, and the bodies are already interred. So I’d leave them be.

Not so, however, for the Confederate Memorial at Arlingon Cemetery – which even its official website says “offers a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” The Cemetery authorites go on to contend that “The Confederate Memorial offers an opportunity for visitors to reflect on the history and meanings of the Civil War, slavery, and the relationship between military service, citizenship and race in America.”

But given the monument’s clear glorification of the Confederate cause and its rose-colored view of slavery, and given that visitors have lots of other opportunities to reflect on the meaning of the Civil War and related issues, I’d ship this slab of stone out of there. It has no place on arguably the most sacred ground of this nation’s civic religion.

What to do with it, however, from that point – along with other Confederate monuments on federal grounds? Here I fully agree with those who would put them in museums instead of simply destroying them. Wouldn’t it be best to show them in a setting that could describe them fully and explain the context of their creation? And I’d deal with these statues and plaques on state and municipal lands in exactly the same way.

>Let’s move to American historical figures who didn’t revolt against their country, but nonetheless owned slaves and/or expressed racist views or supported racist policies. Here I’ll restate the argument I originally made in this post. If these figures were known only or best for racist views and positions – like former segregationist Alabama Governor George C. Wallace, or former (if you can believe it) even more racist Mississippi Governor and U.S. Senator Theodore G. Bilbo, I’d remove any statues etc from public grounds and stick them in museums, displayed as described above.

>The same would go, by the way, for Civil War leaders who for various reasons were widely seen after the conflict as personifications of honor or other military virtues, or who actually repented in word and/or deed after the war. Lee is the leading example of the former. However gentlemanly he might have been, or however well he may have treated his soldiers, and even however distinguished his record in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War (which, to complicate matters further, was in large measure a war of annexation), few would have paid much attention to him, or even known of him, if not for his Civil War role. So let’s get him and his name out of public spaces.

A prime example of the latter is Pierre Beauregard. This former Confederate general actually led the troops in South Carolina who fired on Fort Sumter and for all intents and purposes started Civil War. After the conflict, according to the official website of his hometown of New Orleans, he became “an early proponent of equal rights in Louisiana, serving as the outspoken leader of the short-lived and ultimately failed unification movement.”

Since I do believe in redemption (and hope everyone else does, too), I’d go along with a monument of some kind. But not the kind currently standing in the city – which depicts “the uniformed general astride his horse.” How about moving that statue to a museum, complete with a full bio, and putting up a new monument portraying him in civvies and celebrating his efforts to champion equality? Ditto for any similar cases.

As for those leaders with troublesome racial pasts and/or policy records who nonetheless are (rightly) known for much more (as I argued in the RealityChek post linked above) , I’d leave their monuments in place, too – but make the maximum feasible effort to add some explanations that mention these blemishes. By the way, such leaders include not only former slave-owning Presidents like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and outspokenly racist former Presidents like Woodrow Wilson, but even former Presidents generally seen as race relations heroes – like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. 

A final point about dealing with the Confederate and especially other controversial monuments: If anything should be obvious about this discussion of the issue, it’s how complicated much of the history is, and therefore how complicated many of the monuments et al decisions are. Some are indeed easy calls and should be made promptly. But no one should favor anything resembling a rush to judgment on the others.

Im-Politic: Why Biden Can’t Run Even as a Fake China Hawk

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Asian-Americans, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, China, Code Pink, Democrats, election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Im-Politic, Jeet Heer, Joe Biden, Judy Chu, labor unions, Larry Summers, progressives, racism, Rashida Tlaib, Sherrod Brown, The Nation, Trade, Trump

I know I just wrote about how dreadful Joe Biden’s China policy record has been for decades. But the former Vice President is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for President, and he could well be sitting in the Oval Office next January. So it’s eminently newsworthy to report that any hopes that a President Biden would recognize these disastrous mistakes, and generally speaking try to continue President Trump’s policy of reversing them, are now lying in ruins.

Specifically, it’s become clear in recent days that any Biden effort to keep his newly made promise in a political ad to “hold China accountable” for its role in unleashing the CCP Virus on the world is going to prove totally unacceptable to his party’s progressive wing – whose support he’s acting like he needs desperately to win in order to defeat Mr. Trump.

Moreover, it’s been reported that one of the campaign advisers chosen by Biden is Larry Summers, a former Clinton Treasury Secretary and Obama administration chief White House economic aide who has always championed reckless trade and broader economic expansion with the People’s Republic. Worse, during the Obama years, Summers was a major obstacle opposing ideas like sanctioning China for its protectionist currency policies – which would have gone far toward stemming the extraordinary increase in Beijing’s economic and therefore military power that took place while Barack Obama occupied the White House. In other words, the Biden campaign will be powerfully shaped by the Democrats’ centrist wing – and its own long record of enabling China.

If you doubt that Summers still backs coddling China, check out this 2018 post – which shows him turning intellectual backflips trying to excuse Beijing’s massive theft and extortion of American intellectual property, and to claim that the Obama policies succeeded spectacularly in bringing China to heel.

The stances of Democratic progressives are less well appreciated – but at least as important given this faction’s success in pulling Biden and other Democratic centrists to the Left this year on a host of issues. Moreover, don’t forget how if they’re unhappy enough with Biden, many of them will stay at home on election day and, as in 2016, help hand victory to Mr. Trump. At the same time, the progressives’ story it’s a more complicated story than the centrists’.

It’s more complicated because two of the progressives’ favorites – Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont – are definitely supporters of tougher and, more important, smarter U.S. China policies. That’s especially true of Sanders, who has voted against every U.S. effort to integrate the American and Chinese economies more widely and deeply during his long career on Capitol Hill. Nonetheless, it’s also true that neither Senator made China a major issue during their presidential campaigns this year.

And one main reason is surely that none of the progressives’ other leading (and younger) lights seems especially interested in China. Commendably, they have condemned China’s horrific repression of its Muslim Uighur minority. But ask yourself – when’s the last time Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, condemned the People’s Republic for the trade and intellectual property and investment policies that have stripped the United States of much of its manufacturing base and hammered the wages of manufacturing workers? I couldn’t find any such statements.

Ditto for Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib – and she represents a Detroit area district whose economic distress owes significantly on China-related and other trade policy failures. But you won’t even find these words on her website.

But although much of the Democratic Left has had little to say lately about China and trade, signs have abounded that it’s royally ticked off about Biden’s CCP Virus ad – in some cases because of their alleged potential to stoke anti-Chinese bigotry at home, but also because they supposedly blame China for U.S. virus-related losses that they insist are really President Trump’s fault.

Most of this pushback so far has come from Asian-American activists in Democratic ranks who don’t hold political office. But it’s also come from California House Democrat Judy Chu, Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Does anyone believe she’ll face much resistance here from the rest of her party?

And non-Asian American progressives have ripped the Biden ad, too – including influential pundit Jeet Heer (national political correspondent for one of the progressives’ flagship magazines, The Nation); Sanders campaign surrogate Josh Fox; and Code Pink, the women-led progressive grass-roots group.

In theory, the Democrats’ still-powerful labor union base could prod Biden to lay out a credible plan to combat China’s many threats to American interests. But its representatives, at least, have been quiet about the virus and its implications. In fact, judging from this recent op-ed piece, its spokespeople seem at least as determined to blame Trump administration blunders for the country’s CCP Virus woes as they are to blame pre-Trump China-coddling and enabling trade policies. Indeed, one of the labor Democrats’ Congressional leaders, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, seems to adopted a “Biden uber alles” position during this campaign, even on China policy.

Yet although both Democratic centrists and progressives will be strongly pushing Biden to soft-pedal criticisms of China for the rest of this presidential campaign, this approach is likely to flop so badly with the American electorate in general (as shown in a post earlier this week) that it’s a natural for President Trump to exploit. And if a Trump campaign hammering China themes creates even more incentive and/or pressure for the President to maintain his hard and smart line against Beijing, it won’t just be his political career that benefits. It will be the entire nation as well. Maybe even the Democrats will start opening their eyes.

Im-Politic: Trends that are Trump’s Reelection Friends?

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Adam Schiff, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, economy, election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Gallup, Im-Politic, independents, Jobs, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Trump, Tulsi Gabbard

Don’t look now, but Gallup has just given President Trump two major end-of-the-year gifts in two separate sets of poll results it’s just published. Gift Number One: Mr. Trump this year moved into a tie with his White House predecessor, Barack Obama, as the man most admired by Americans. Gift Number Two: The state of the U.S. Economy, widely viewed as one of the most important determinants of Americans’ votes for President, has faded notably in their minds as a top national concern.

Impeachment, and the nonstop political coverage of Mr. Trump’s alleged wrongdoing, surely have been America’s leading political stories this year. But all the same, the President and Obama jointly headed the list of the country’s most admired man. Better yet for Trump-ers:  The survey was conducted in early December, so respondents had lots of time to digest the impeachment drama. And the possible icing on the cake – the tie was produced by a one percentage point reduction in the Obama score from 2018 (when he won this contest – and for the twelfth time!) and a five percentage point rise in the Trump score.

Further, although trend data isn’t available, Mr. Trump was named most admired by 10 percent of independents. That figure trailed the Obama total (12 percent), but not by much. And the former President won’t be on any ballots this year. 

The results for some of the President’s other major opponents and critics are bound to cheer him, too. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who’s helped spearhead the impeachment drive, increased his score from 2018 – but only by less than one percent to one percent. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also rose in the poll – but only from one percent to two percent.

As for the group of Democratic contenders for Mr. Trump’s job, the best performers in this survey were Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Hawaii House Member Tulsi Gabbard, and California Senator Kamala Harris (who recently dropped out). Yet they all garnered only one percent of Americans’ votes. Nonetheless, all did better than former Vice President Joe Biden, whose backers for this title declined from one percent in 2018 to less than one percent this year.

As for the economy, since the global financial crisis produced the Great Recession starting at the end of 2007, it’s been rated as “the most important problem in the U.S.” in Gallup surveys seven times (the last coming in 2016). In addition, “jobs” was mentioned among the top four most important problems nine times. (I find it odd that the two are presented separately by Gallup as well.)

But since the Trump inaugural, the economy has vanished from the ranks of the top four national problems, and the only appearance made by jobs was in 2017 (when it came in fourth).

Even if polling was more of a science than an art, none of these results would guarantee President Trump’s reelection. One potential trouble spot: During each of his years in office so far, “government” has topped Americans’ lists of the country’s most important problems. The Gallup results indicate that respondents assign about equal blame for Washington dysfunction to Mr. Trump and the Republicans in Congress on the one hand, and to the Democrats in Congress on the other. But during the Trump administration, the percentages prioritizing this concern have risen overall from previous levels – and markedly.

The big takeaway for me is that if the President turns and keeps his focus to at least a reasonable extent on substantive issues like the economy, and shoots off fewer dumbbell and wholly unnecessary tweets and remarks (here’s a prime recent example), and if no new misconduct-related bombshells emerge, he’ll calm the nerves of the independents he needs to win back from their 2018 defection to the Democrats, in particular relieve their Trump Exhaustion Syndrome, and win reelection pretty handily. The big fly in this ointment, of course, is that the above prescription so far has never been followed by Mr. Trump.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: What the Mini-Deal Says About Trump’s China Policy

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agriculture, business investment, censorship, China, decoupling, democracy, Democrats, election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Hong Kong, Hong Kong protests, human rights, impeachment, Populism, Republicans, tariffs, Trade, trade talks, trade war, Trump, Uighurs, Ukraine, Ukraine Scandal, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The “Phase One” min-deal reached by the United States and China tamping down bilateral trade tensions for the moment, speaks volumes about the three major forces that are now driving President Trump’s China policy, and that will keep shaping it through the next U.S. election – though not always in consistent ways. They are:

>the President’s evident belief that his reelection hopes are being threatened mainly by revived impeachment threats but also by an economic slowdown that has unmistakably been influenced by the so-called trade war with China;

>his consequently increased need for political support from the establishment Republicans so numerous in Congress who have never boarded the Trump Tariff Train and who are worried about their own reelection chances next year; and

>Mr. Trump’s consistent (though generally unstated) belief that no matter how the formal trade talks proceed, America’s national security as well as economic interests require the U.S. economy to continue steadily decoupling from China’s.

The strength of the impeachment drive faced by the president is now indisputable. Some polls are even showing growing Republican support for not only impeachment by the House but removal by the Senate. Moreover, this political challenge comes at a time when the President’s strongest suit by far (at least according to polls) – his economic policy record – is looking somewhat weaker.

Few signs point to a recession breaking out by Election Day, much less during the preceding weeks or months. But growth has been slowing to levels that Mr. Trump himself has deemed unacceptable – in no small measure because they were the rates that prevailed for most of the Obama administration.

The tariff-heavy Trump trade policies hardly deserve all the blame. (See, e.g., this recent post.) But the failure of business investment to stay elevated following passage of major tax cuts for business is especially telling. It buttresses claims that both the President’s various sets of tariffs and the inconsistency with which they’ve been both threatened and applied have inhibited companies from approving big new expenditures on new factories and other facilities.

As a result, nothing that can reasonably be expected from Washington (in other words, ruling out a big infrastructure spending bill) is likelier to boost the economy more than a nerve-calming trade truce with China mainly featuring some Chinese market opening or re-opening (especially for agricultural products) in return for some U.S. tariff cuts, promises to refrain from new levies, or some some combination of such moves. At the least, such an agreement would in theory help growth maintain the momentum it has remaining.

A mini-deal along these lines would also please the Senate Republicans who might ultimately judge the President’s fate, and who generally have lagged far behind the GOP base in turning against pre-Trump China and broader trade policies. Moreover, as I’ve written, impeachment politics have greatly magnified their sway over Mr. Trump before. Despite his sky-high popularity with Republican voters, the President was heavily dependent on their political backing until this spring in order to neutralize any impeachment chances while his Russia ties were being investigated. That’s surely why his early policy initiatives were dominated by traditional Republican priorities, like tax cuts and repeal of former President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul, rather than by populist priorities like an infrastructure bill and the prompt imposition to tariffs.

Once the Special Counsel and other investigations flopped for various reasons, Mr. Trump had a much freer hand. But because of the emergence of “UkraineGate,” for now, those days are over. Probes growing out of those events are certain to last for months. Therefore, continued, much less higher, tariffs on China that could further drag on the economy and further frustrate the rural constituencies so crucial to the President and many other Republicans seem out of the question.

The President is so hamstrung that he’s been unable to marshal greater public support for staying the tariff course even though China is antagonizing American public opinion with its harsh suppression of the Hong Kong protests and the Muslim Uighur minority, and with its heavy handed efforts to extend its censorship practices to the National Basketball Association and other U.S. businesses. And don’t forget: These developments have placed China in a much weaker position, too.  

One reason that the President hasn’t been able to capitalize could well be his reluctance to declare publicly the functional equivalent of economic war, or his intent to decouple – presumably because any such statements would prompt the Chinese to crack down even further on American companies even doing business in the PRC that have nothing to do with job and production offshoring aimed at serving the U.S. market from super-cheap and highly subsidized Chinese facilities, as opposed to serving Chinese customers. And that reasoning has been entirely understandable.

Much less understandable – the President’s insistence that a trade war with China would be easy to win and inflict no economic harm on Americans, rather than choosing to challenge his compatriots to endure some sacrifices in order to beat back a mortal threat to their national security as well as prosperity. No wonder public support for so-called hard-line policies remotely strong enough to offset the opposition and reservations of the Congressional Republicans and most Democratic politicians is nowhere to be seen.

And don’t doubt that the Chinese fully understand. Whatever problems they initially experienced in figuring Mr. Trump out, they surely have concluded that they’re best advised to play the waiting game on the broader and deeper so-called structural issues dividing the two countries (e.g., intellectual property theft, technology extortion, massive subsidies) until the President is replaced by a Democrat who’s much easier to deal with.

Indeed, the evidence for this conclusion is abundant. China issues have played a small role in the Democratic primary campaign so far – even when it comes to long-time critics of pre-Trump trade policies like Democratic Socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. One likely explanation: In recent years, Democratic voters and leaners have markedly flipped on those pre-Trump approaches, from deep dislike to general approval. This shift in public opinion (matched in part by a trade flip in the other direction among Republicans and leaners) may also warrant some Chinese confidence that even a President Warren might prove a more acceptable interlocutor than Mr. Trump.

Nonetheless, the formal talks are not the only track on which the Trump administration’s China trade policies are running. And the other track – featuring unilateral U.S. moves to restrict Chinese involvement in the American economy, and thereby foster decoupling – is much less controversial than the trade talks and especially the tariffs and tariff threats clearly required to spur any meaningful progress.

Highly revealing on this score (in terms of the importance attached in Washington to decoupling): Even as a high level Chinese delegation was jetting to Washington, the President approved actions against Chinese tech companies and Chinese officials that were justified by human rights concerns, but that in the first case clearly advanced decoupling. Just as revealing (in terms of possible Chinese acceptance of a more skeptical new bipartisan U.S. consensus on China policy): Despite the provocative timing, the Chinese didn’t turn around and head back home once they heard the announcement.

Reinforcing the new American consensus on decoupling has unmistakably been the growing realization by the U.S. corporate sector that its heavy bets on China have dangerously increased its vulnerability not only to the whims of American politics, but to a Chinese regime that’s turned out to be much less hospitable than expected. As a result, “Phase One” is not only a suspiciously convenient-looking term being used by the President to describe his new deal. It also looks suitable for describing where his administration’s overall China policy stands right now.     

Making News: Video of Presidential Campaign Economics Interview Now On-Line!

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Democrats, economy, election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Liquid Lunch, Making News, NewsmaxTV.com, Wall Street

This past week has been so crazy news-wise that I’d completely forgotten to post a link to a video of an interview I did for NewsmaxTV.com two Fridays ago. The subject: some recent economy-related developments in the current and intensifying presidential campaign!

So click here for a great (and still timely!) discussion on the “Liquid Lunch” program focusing in particular on Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s rise to just-about-front-runner status among the Democratic contenders – and on an apparently strong reaction from Wall Street.

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

Im-Politic: On the Democrats’ Debates

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African Americans, Amy Klobuchar, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, China, Cory Booker, debates, Democratic Party, Democrats, Democrats debates, economy, election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Michael Bennet, Pete Buttigieg, race relations, tariffs, Trade, Trump

So thanks to last week’s two debates, we’ve now seen most of the Democratic presidential candidates in, as sportscasters like to say, “limited action,” and have had some time to ruminate about the results. Here’s my sense of some of the biggest takeaways.

>The Democrats generally are in denial about the health of the economy. This problem became clear immediately, as the first question on Night One, posed to Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, noted that her “many plans” for the economy come “at a time when 71 percent of Americans say the economy is doing well, including 60 percent of Democrats. What do you say to those who worry this kind of significant change could be risky to the economy?”

Warren’s response? Ignore the cited polling data and claim – presenting no evidence – that “Who is this economy really working for? It’s doing great for a thinner and thinner slice at the top.” For good measure, sharing her fact-free perspective at the outset were her Minnesota Senate colleague Amy Klobuchar, and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke. And don’t forget former Vice President Joe Biden’s charge on Night Two that “Donald Trump has put us in a horrible situation” economically. Or California Senator Kamala Harris’ view that the economy is great only for those who own stocks.

No one is saying that too many Americans aren’t still being left behind in an economy that’s unmistakably shifted into a somewhat higher gear under President Trump. No one is saying that the economy hasn’t shown some signs of slowing. (See, e.g., this recent post.) No one is saying that the economy is going to be a decisively winning Trump issue in 2020. (This new poll throws lots of cold water on that proposition.) And no one is saying that because the economy is so far performing pretty well, Americans are especially happy about the overall state of the union. (Survey results like these make clear that they’re not.)

But no one should be feeling too great about so many politicians remaining so deeply in denial (or at least pontificating as if they are) about a state of affairs that is so easy to document.

>Kamala Harris is simply race-baiting. Let’s assume that all of the California U.S. Senator’s allegations about former Vice President Joe Biden’s record on school busing decades ago are completely accurate. How can the conclusion be avoided that she’s trying to portray Biden as remaining deficient as racial issues today, and in the process, stir up the worst kinds of national divisions? After all, he served as the second-in-command to the nation’s first African-American president. Black politicians, and especially long-serving black politicians, have publicly praised him as a long-time trusted ally.

In other words, whatever Biden’s past shortcomings on race, nothing could be more obvious than that they’ve vanished in every meaningful way, and in every way relevant to policymaking. It’s no longer possible accurately and responsibly to depict him as a problem for the African-American community. Harris’ indictment also indicates a refusal to acknowledge that individuals can learn, evolve, and grow, and to give them any credit when they do.

I recently spoke about this privately with an African-American friend who argued that the real Biden race problem that’s emerged recently stemmed from his indignant response to similar allegations and insinuations by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, another 2020 African-American Democratic hopeful. In other words, Biden’s refusal to apologize for comments about racist southern Senators signaled an insensitivity to racial slurs (like describing African-American men as “boys”) that could well prompt younger blacks to stay at home in the fall of 2020, and boost Mr. Trump’s odds of reelection.

I don’t disagree with that political analysis at all (though I don’t consider it a foregone conclusion, either). But politics aside, that would point to the same type of intolerance, censoriousness, and sanctimony being displayed by Harris. More of this, America these days clearly doesn’t need.

>Biden performed better than I expected. The former Vice President and still 2020 Democratic front-runner has widely been declared a major loser in his debate exchange with Harris, and poll results reinforce that conclusion. I agree that Biden was poorly prepared for attacks on racial issues that he must have known would come that evening from someone. In particular, his substantive defense of his busing record – that he only opposed a sweeping federal mandate – did indeed (as Harris charged) ignore the decisive role that the Federal government has regularly needed to play in advancing civil rights when state government were either hostile or indifferent to the cause.

Nevertheless, Biden certainly didn’t act like the “Sleepy Joe” he’s been labeled as by President Trump, and that seemed like an apt description for some of his more disjoint moments in these early phases of the 2020 election (for example, this rambling discussion of the China challenge). He flashed temper (or at least indignation), he sounded articulate, he stood tall, his energy level didn’t notably flag. In fact, assuming that his health holds up (he turns 77 in November), Biden looked like a candidate who could mix it up with Trump on a debate stage. As demonstrated by the race relations storm he’s kicked up, however, he’s as gaffe-prone as ever.

>The Democrats have no grip on China issues. Sure, they generally acknowledge that China poses problems for the United States (but there’s some disagreement as to what they are). But few so far have offered realistic solutions to these problems.

For example, Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado, “I think the president’s been right to push back on China but he’s done it in completely the wrong way. We should mobilize the entire rest of the world who all have a shared interest in pushing back on China’s mercantilist trade policies and I think we can do that.”

What a shame that he was never asked why countries like Germany, Japan, and South Korea, which profit enormously from selling sophisticated industrial machinery to China, would want to see any slowing in U.S.-China trade when so many of those machines are used in factories that supply the American market?

Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana agrees that the China challenge “is a really serious one,” but seemed most concerned that the Chinese are “using technology for the perfection of dictatorship.” He endorsed the stale and misleading “tariffs are taxes” trope, and insisted that “the biggest thing we’ve got to do is invest in our own domestic competitiveness.” He never explained if he’s OK with the infrastructure the nation unmistakably needs being manufactured in China and elsewhere abroad, or why “education” is so critical when children in China and everywhere else have the same capacity to capitalize on their learning as children in America – even though population considerations will long ensure that their wages stay orders of magnitude lower no matter how advanced the work they do.

Interestingly, Sanders is the only Democratic hopeful with a lengthy record of voting in Congress on China trade and related economic issues – always correctly (in my view) opposing reckless expansion. That explains CNBC’s ironic but on-target recent observation that “Sanders in particular has targeted Trump because his trade views overlap with the president’s.” And hence mushy Sanders statements like “I think we do need new trade policies that are fair to the working people of this country not just to the CEOs, but as usual, I think Trump gets it wrong in terms of implementation,”

Warren seems equally conflicted, agreeing with Mr. Trump that “tariffs are one part of reworking our trade policy overall” but lamely chiding him for engaging in “tariff negotiation by tweet” instead of “fighting back” with “strength and a coherent plan, not with chaos.”

Indeed, Warren has a detailed-looking plan for implementing a strategy of “economic patriotism.” It contains some good features, like what seem to be industrial policy proposals (with no real specifics), tightening up Buy American government procurement policies, and requirements that production that results from (amped up) taxpayer-funded research and development programs take place in the United States. But it’s unclear whether she realizes that tariffs are going to be central to their success. In addition, she appears quite enamored with devaluing the dollar as a trade policy panacea. And she puts considerable stock in government-run training and reeducation programs that, to date, have been proven failures and that have long (as noted above) evidently assume that Americans are the most educable and train-able people on earth.

If you’re a Democrat, or any American who wants to see elections held between the most qualified candidates possible, the good news is that the party’s hopefuls will have eleven more debate chances to up their games. Unfortunately, it might also turn out that the nation will simply witness eleven more events marked by hollow, and too often angry, grandstanding.

Im-Politic: Elizabeth Warren, Nationalist?

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Elizabeth Warren, Emmanuel Macron, global poverty, globalization, Im-Politic, nationalism, progressives, Seattle WTO protests, third world, Trade, World Trade Organization, WTO

Whatever its historical roots, “nationalism” has recently become a dirty word. Among the dangers embodied by this concept, as determined by political correctness authorities such as France’s (politically besieged) President Emmanuel Macron, it’s “a betrayal of patriotism. By saying ‘Our interests first, who cares about the others,’ we erase what a nation holds dearest, what gives it life, what gives it grace, and what is essential: its moral values.”

How stunning, therefore, to read Elizabeth Warren’s recent speech on U.S. foreign policy. According to this definition, the Massachusetts Democratic Senator, progressive heroine, and likely 2020 presidential hopeful, is a card-carrying, selfish, immoral (amoral?) America First-style nationalist – at least when it comes to international trade and related globalization issues.

Skeptical? Just read the Warren transcript. On the one hand, she admitted that “The globalization of trade has opened up opportunity and lifted billions out of poverty around the world” – which by any standard is a pretty remarkable achievement. Yet on the other hand, Warren condemned the “trade and economic policies” behind this epic success for failing to deliver “the same kind of benefits for America’s middle class.”

In fact, she emphasized, “U.S. trade policy has delivered one punch in the gut after another to [U.S.] workers and to the unions that fight for them.”

It’s true that, elsewhere in her speech, Warren briefly referred to revamping American trade policy to ensure “that workers are meaningfully represented at the negotiating table and build trade agreements that strengthen labor standards worldwide.” But much more often, she lambasted agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its successor, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) for encouraging “outsourcing jobs to Mexico.”

In other words, either such outsourcing somehow failed to ameliorate poverty in Mexico (even though Warren credits it with uplifting the poor elsewhere), or she assigns little importance to achieving that goal. In either case, Warren has some major explaining to do.

Also fascinating about Warren’s speech: If it’s to be taken seriously (never a sure thing when it comes to politicians’ rhetoric), it would represent a significant, and in my view, welcome change in progressives’ take on trade, globalization, and what’s fundamentally wrong with them.

For since these issues became front-page news during the debate over NAFTA, at the start of the 1990s, critics to the left-of-center have proclaimed that U.S. trade and related policies would remain unacceptable unless they boosted living standards everywhere, not just in America – and that they had betrayed workers in developing countries as completely as their counterparts in the United States.

American progressives’ emphasis on the devastation created in the third world by U.S.-spearheaded trade arrangements came to a head during the Seattle World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in 1999 – as did the companion belief that win-win solutions for workers and consumers everywhere should be and could be the very raison d’etre of the global economy. And as indicated by this 2015 statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, it remains their party line today.

The point here is not that no conceivable form of globalization can ever produce globe-wide benefits. Instead, it’s that the road to mutual gain is unlikely to proceed in a straight, smooth, uninterrupted line, and that without recognizing that hard choices are likely for the foreseeable future, and that those global benefits may not be distributed evenly, the worst of all worlds is all too likely.

So here’s hoping that her speech is evidence that Warren is becoming aware of these at-least-likely complications, that she’ll start prompting such globalization realism on the American Left – and that she won’t be deterred by apologists for a failed status quo who, along with most of her fellow progressives, have been reduced to portraying nationalism as part of the problem, rather than potentially part of the solution.

Im-Politic: You Bet Oprah Could Win

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2016 elections, 2018 elections, 2020 elections, Bernie Sanders, Democrats, economy, Elizabeth Warren, Im-Politic, independents, Joe Biden, Oprah Winfrey, politics, Republicans, Trump

Here’s a confession: I’ve never watched “Oprah.”

Still, since I’ve been in a waking state for much of the last few decades, I’m of course aware of the prominence she’s achieved in American culture and society, and the high regard in which so many hold her. That’s why I take absolutely seriously the idea that Oprah Winfrey could win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and even take the White House.

One suggestive data point is already out. In a new poll, she tops President Trump by an impressive ten percentage points as a presidential choice. And as many observers have pointed out, unless the field of likely Democratic White House hopefuls changes markedly in the next two or so years (and we’re of course still awfully early in the presidential cycle, so don’t rule out that possibility by any means), Winfrey would face unusually flawed opponents.

Indeed, at this point, the leading Democratic contenders look to be Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former Vice President Joe Biden. Whatever you think of them as individuals either personally or politically, all three are septuagenarians, and two look to be well to the Left of a critical mass of American voters. And underscoring their vulnerability is how enthusiastically so many Democrats and progressives have reacted to the idea of “Oprah 2020.”

More reasons for optimism about a Winfrey White House run:

>She’s rich as Croesus and would have no trouble raising outside money.

>She has ocean-wide name recognition.

>She has made a career largely on her matchless ability to “feel the pain” of Main Street Americans (a skill that former President Bill Clinton so effectively conveyed).

>Mr. Trump has already broken through the celebrity “glass ceiling.”

>Similarly, she shows no evidence of being a whiz on policy issues, but no one associated such expertise with candidate Trump, either. And plenty of veteran Democratic- and liberal leaning academics and other specialists would no doubt flock to her cause and give her all the tutoring she needs for a campaign.

>Like the president, she can boast real business success.

Obviously, Winfrey would face important obstacles. I wouldn’t include race or gender on that list. It seems clear to me she’s transcended both categories. But her background isn’t completely scandal-free – as this article makes clear. In this vein, she could well be hurt from the inevitable gushing her candidacy will draw from a Hollywood/celebrity class that much of the public finds completely off-putting.

Perhaps most important, once Winfrey throws her hat in the ring, the halo currently surrounding her will surely fall off, and she’ll start looking more like a conventional politician. Certainly, even though the Mainstream Media will be favorably disposed to her (as they have been to any Trump opponent), she’ll still be under a much harsher spotlight than she has been so far.

Even so, there’s one advantage she’ll have in a 2020 campaign that I believe will be especially important in putting her over the top. And I feel pretty confident about this view even if Mr. Trump enjoys major traditional tailwinds like an economy that keeps performing reasonably well (at least by the standard indicators that attract all the media attention) and U.S. avoidance of military involvement in foreign crises that generate lots of casualties and costs.

Let’s call this advantage “Trump fatigue syndrome.” It’s entirely possible that Americans could enjoy the kinds of safety and prosperity that have often won presidents second terms, and still yearn for a return to normality in their politics and public life – or at least greater normality.

On the one hand, I agree with those (including many Democrats) who insist that the typical voter is much less interested in the “Russia-gate” charges and the other scandals with which the president has been charged than with their personal financial and economic conditions, and their sense of security.

On the other hand, though, I’m confident that those charges, their endless repetition in the media, and the President’s consistently harsh reactions to them and to any and all criticisms, are generating a wearying effect – and starting to erode the broad voter anger that contributed so much to Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory. In other words, outrage can be exhausting even for a die-hard Trump-er, and I expect Trump fatigue to spread as long as the current level of political warfare continues.

Indeed, the recent Alabama U.S. Senate and Virginia gubernatorial elections – won by moderate, soft-spoken Democrats amid an improving economy – indicate that precisely this syndrome is becoming established among relatively well-to-do suburban voters who supported the President in the general election. The persistence of Mr. Trump’s weak national poll ratings during at least decent economic times is another sign that many of his Republican, conservative, and independent backers are tiring of his act.

I also expect that the Democrats and the President’s other opponents know this, and will ensure that the various investigations underway into the actions of Mr. Trump and his family, aides, and other associates continue as long as possible. Trump foes in the media, political, and entertainment worlds are likely to keep baiting him with social media and other attacks for the same reason. The only risk they would run (and it’s not negligible):  At some point, the public could well demand that they “put up” (with some specific evidence of major Trump wrongdoing) or “shut up.”     

Even so, unless opposition research, or simply the campaign grind, destroys her aura of empathy and moderation and good sense, who better to cure Trump fatigue, at least by promising to restore some peace and quiet and dignity to the White House, than Winfrey?

Strangely, though, my case for Oprah 2020 also indicates that a major turn for the worse in America’s fortunes could greatly reduce her odds of winning the White House. Despite her impressive business career, I’m by no means convinced that many voters would regard Winfrey as an effective recession fighter. It seems even less plausible that she’d be seen as a promising commander-in-chief type if the world starts appearing a lot more dangerous. (Nor does that judgment reflect gender considerations. Unless you think many voters doubted 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s national security experience or toughness?) Even more important, a worsening economy and a more menacing world would appear a great formula for reigniting American political anger – which Winfrey would struggle to mollify.

And don’t forget the biggest threat to a Winfrey candidacy (though it seems to me unlikely at present):  Mr. Trump is removed from office, and in the process eliminate the shine from the ideas of celebrity candidacies and presidencies. 

But however strongly I feel that, barring a Trump exit, Winfrey could be taking the oath of office in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 2021, I’m less sure about two other big questions: Will she start to play a political role on behalf of Democrats in this year’s off-year elections? And will she be able to encourage enough additional Trump fatigue to affect the outcome notably?

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Which Democrats are Serious and Un-Serious About Trade Overhaul?

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AFL-CIO, Bernie Sanders, Canada, Charles Schumer, currency manipulation, Debbie Dingell, Democrats, dispute resolution, Elizabeth Warren, environmental standards, labor standards, Mexico, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, Politico, Richard Neal, Robert Lighthizer, Rosa deLauro, rules of origin, Thea Lee, Trade, Trump, U.S. Trade Representative, unions, Wilbur Ross, William Pascrell, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Usually, paying attention to instances of politicians and other public figures getting up on their soapboxes is a waste of time. Yesterday served up an exception: a press conference held by House Democrats in reaction to President Trump’s official decision to open talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The statements recorded in this Politico account offer some evidence as to which leaders on America’s Left are willing to work with the administration on trade policies that can help the working class voters Democrats still profess to champion, and those who will remain content to sit on the sidelines and take partisan potshots.

Reportedly, all of the House members who spoke at the event “said…they feared Trump would make only modest changes to NAFTA after blasting it as an economic disaster throughout last year’s presidential campaign.” The basis for these worries? The letter sent yesterday by new U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to Congressional leaders announcing the administration’s intention to open NAFTA talks with the two other signatories, Canada and Mexico. According to these House Democrats and some other trade critics, the document apparently was “short on details,” which many claimed indicated Trump’s intention simply to “tweak” rather than comprehensively overhaul the agreement.

All else equal, wondering about the president’s real intentions is anything but unreasonable. His personality, after all, is mercurial, and one of his major trade initiatives to date – the negotiations begun with Beijing following February’s summit with Chinese leader XiJinping – has legitimately disappointed advocates of the major course change he pledged during the campaign. (The other major trade initiative, scrapping the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, kept a leading campaign promise to the letter.) Moreover, the Lighthizer letter is indeed short on specifics.

But none of the participants in the press conference seems to have noticed that in previous statements –including reportedly to leading Democratic lawmakers, top Trump officials have emphasized the need for dramatic NAFTA changes.

For example, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has described as high NAFTA-related priorities greatly tightening the pact’s rules of origin in order to incentivize more non-NAFTA manufacturing investment inside the free trade zone, and restructuring a dispute-resolution system that gives each signatory an equal vote even though the United States represents more than 85 percent of North America’s total economic output. Reinforcing this point was the Lighthizer letter’s contention that “establishing effective implementation and aggressive enforcement of the commitments made by our trading partners under our trade agreements is vital to the success of these agreements and should be improved in the context of NAFTA.”

Meanwhile, Lighthizer reportedly has told Senators that the administration is thinking of adding to NAFTA rules that would prohibit currency manipulation – a move that would set a valuable precedent for future trade deals. In addition, his letter mentioned the need to improve NAFTA’s labor and environmental protections. In my view, they’re largely unenforceable. But they’ve been a prime focus of Democratic Party trade policy positions for decades.

So given that background, it seems fair at this point to finger Connecticut’s Rosa deLauro, New Jersey’s Bill Pascrell, and Massachusetts’ Richard Neal as grandstanders. The former stressed the “tweaking” allegation. The latter two charged that “It was clear from the start that the administration was only interested in working with the Congressional Republican leadership in drafting this notice [the Lighthizer letter].”

I’d also include in this group several key Senate Democrats, including Leader Charles Schumer of New York, former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders of New York, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. They voted against Lighthizer’s confirmation despite his decades-long record of fighting predatory foreign trade practices both as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative during the Reagan administration, and as a trade lawyer representing domestic American producers.

More temperate in their judgments were Michigan’s Debbie Dingell, and the AFL-CIO’s Thea Lee. The former stated that she was “investing the time to understand where the consensus is.” The latter said, “We enter every negotiation in a good faith state of mind and we expect a lot from our government. Certainly candidate Trump made a lot of promises about fixing flawed trade agreements and looking out for American workers and good jobs, so we will hold him and his administration to that promise.”

I can’t think of a more reasonable position for politicians and other supporters of a movement that still styles itself as the “party of the common man [and woman].”

Im-Politic: No Learning Curve for America’s Left on Immigration

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American Muslims, Angela Merkel, assimilation, Attorney General, Cory Booker, Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, Germany, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Immigration, Jeff Sessions, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, liberals, Marketwatch.com, Muslims, national security, Obama, Open Borders, progressive, Social Democratic Party, terrorism, Trump, United Kingdom

I keep waiting for America’s self-styled progressives to start recognizing that they’re going absolutely nowhere in national politics until they abandon their devotion to Open Borders policies, and start responding to their fellow citizens’ legitimate economic and especially security concerns about mass immigration.

Sadly, nothing could be clearer from recent developments than that the wait will continue indefinitely. Even worse, the U.S. Left seems to be even more clueless on the subject than its counterparts in Europe.

Certainly President Obama remains unrepentant about his own record. In his Farewell Address, he touted his record in fighting Islamic terrorism overseas (not that he used the term), and warned against the dangers of domestic radicalization. But his boast that “no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years” once again made painfully clear his neglect of the dangerous impact of already having admitting so many newcomers whose original religion or culture creates huge obstacles to successful assimilation into American society. Why else would he have glossed over the deadly attacks by Muslim immigrants in Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando?

In fact, according to Mr. Obama, the only Americans who need to learn about current and emerging immigration realities are those in the native-born population – because their fear that some immigrants today could “destroy the fundamental character” of the country is not only obsolete, but bigoted.

Other progressives also seem to be doubling down on efforts to address valid immigration concerns with smears. Can anyone reasonably doubt, for example, that Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions’ appointment as President-elect Trump’s Attorney General would be sailing through the Senate if had not so forthrightly championed immigration realism – and enforcing the nation’s existing laws?

Yes, many Senate Democrats have accused Sessions of harboring racist views and neglecting the rights of a wide variety of discrimination victims. At the same time, none of these alleged transgressions prevented New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker – Sessions’ leading Congressional opponent – from feeling “blessed and honored” just last year “to have partnered with Sen. Sessions in being the Senate sponsors” of a Congressional Gold Medal for the voting rights activists of the 1960s. No one else in the Senate protested, either.

Maybe Booker’s Massachusetts Senate colleague, Elizabeth Warren, is moving in the opposite direction? Not if her declaration that she’s running for reelection is any indication. Warren marked the occasion by vowing to “fight back against attacks on Latinos, African-Americans, Muslims, immigrants, women, and LGBT Americans. Our diversity is what makes our country strong – and on this, there will be NO compromise.” As if all these groups can be lumped in the exact same victimization category.

In fact, the only sign of progress I can detect is that no progressives are urging Mr. Obama or Mr. Trump to quintuple the number of U.S. refugee admissions from war-wracked Middle Eastern countries – as failed Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton proposed.

The contrast with European progressive leaders is stunning. As reported in an insightful column on Marketwatch.com, the head of Germany’s Social Democratic Party – and the country’s vice chancellor in the current coalition government – is calling for “ncreased video surveillance…a ban on fundamentalist mosques as breeding grounds for terrorism, and…an end to freeloading on Germany’s generous child-support subsidies by other European Union citizens.”

Another German progressive leader has slammed Chancellor Angela Merkel for “uncontrolled border opening [and]a police force that has been downsized to the point of inefficiency, that neither has the personnel nor the technical resources that would enable it to cope with the current threat situation,”

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn, who heads the United Kingdom’s struggling Labour Party, is unmistakably rethinking his former opposition to Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in large part because of the grouping’s lax immigration policies. Corbyn had previously opposed “Brexit,” which British voters passed in a referendum in June.

Germany, of course, has experienced Muslim terrorist attacks much bloodier than America’s. The Labour Party seems headed for its worst showing in Parliament since the 1930s. Will it take these kinds of security and political disasters to bring U.S. progressives to their senses on immigration?