Im-Politic: The NBA’s Not Real Woke on Hong Kong

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Adam Silver, basketball, Bradley Beal, China, Chris Paul, Daryl Morey, David Fizdale, democracy, Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors, Gregg Popovich, Hong Kong, Hong Kong protests, Houston Rockets, human rights, Im-Politic, James Harden, Jaylen Brown, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, National Basektball Association, NBA, Russell Westbrook, Steph Curry, Steve Kerr, Tilman J. Fertitta, Trump, Twitter, Uighurs

In recent years, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has worked hard to earn its reputation as the most socially conscious sports league in America and possibly the world – and certainly its owners and Commissioner Adam Silver have both permitted the players to speak out on various political and policy issues, and demonstrated a pretty high degree of “wokeness” themselves. Nor has American men’s pro basketball’s commitment to social and economic and political justice been limited to words. Time after time, many of the NBA’s biggest stars and most successful franchises and coaches have backed up their rhetoric with actions, ranging from boycotting events with President Trump to supporting social programs in low-income communities and other worthy causes.

What a shame, then, that neither the players’ nor management seem to believe that Hong Kong’s democracy protesters deserve even a syllable of sympathy. Worse, the issue has gotten the silent treatment even from the NBA’s most outspoken figures, and the league itself just made clear that it’s so determined to maximize profits in its current huge and potentially much bigger China market that it’s given the cause of freedom in Hong Kong – and by extension, the mainland – the back of its hand.

Hong Kong has been in turmoil since June, engulfed by massive, angry, and sporadically violent protests – and a more violent government crackdown – triggered by the government’s proposal of a law that would enable the extradition of criminal suspects to China. To be sure, despite Beijing’s promise as part of the 1997 “handover” agreement with the city’s British colonial rulers to permit Hong Kong to retain its largely democratic political system and rule-of-law legal system to remain in place for fifty years, China has steadily encroached on those freedoms practically since Hong Kong became a “Special Administrative Region” of the People’s Republic.

Nonetheless, the extradition measure has apparently convinced many Hong Kong-ers that China has greatly sped up the timetable for replacing the “one country, two systems” arrangement with “one country, one system.”

But although the NBA has been a large and rapidly growing presence on the Chinese sports scene for decades, there’s no record of anyone associated with the league making any remarks on the Hong Kong situation until last Friday – when Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”

That long-time silence isn’t necessarily proof of NBA hypocrisy. What does look disgraceful is the U.S. pro basketball world’s reaction. Morey’s boss, Houston owner Tilman J. Fertitta, denounced the tweet, insisting that the Rockets “are NOT a political organization.” The NBA itself expressed “regret” that Morey had deeply offended many of our friends and fans in China” and specified that his backing of freedom in Hong Kong “does not represent…the values of the league.”

It’s important to note that Morey has (so far) kept his job – after deleting the original tweet from his account and sending out a subsequent statement on the network indicating some contrition, albeit seemingly for commenting on Hong Kong in haste, without considering “other perspectives” and not for his Hong Kong views per se. The NBA also pointedly declared that it backs individuals “sharing their views on matters important to them.”

But there can’t be any reasonable doubt that the NBA’s China stance has been much more timid than its position on issues such as rebuking President Trump – which prompted this statement from Silver:  “These players in our league, our coaches, are speaking out on issues that are important to them and important to society. I encourage them to do that.”

Nor can there be much doubt that the league’s Hong Kong timidity stems from China’s sharp reaction – which has so far included decisions by the league’s chief Chinese digital partner and state media (the only kind permitted in China) to remove Rockets games from their broadcasts, and by the country’s official basketball organization to “suspend cooperation” with the Houston franchise.

In fact, the NBA’s record on other China-related issues looks pretty shabby, too. As reported on Slate.com:

“The league runs a training center in Xinjiang, a region where the state has imprisoned and subjugated an entire class of people who are part of the Uighur minority. The NBA’s most progressive coaches, Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich, have rightfully spoken out against the Trump administration’s Muslim ban. If anyone associated with the league were to bring attention to human rights abuses, it’s them, but neither man publicly addressed the Chinese government’s imprisonment of roughly a million Uighurs while they were in the country with USA Basketball [the private, non-profit organization that, among other responsibilities, supervises American participation in international basketball competitions like the Olympics] for this summer’s FIBA [International Basketball Federation] Championships.”

All the same, the number of ordinarily outspoken star NBA players, prominent teams, and leading coaches who to date have said absolutely nothing about the Hong Kong protests – or the league’s plain vanilla reaction – is stunning, and aside from Kerr and Popovich includes the following (as of early this afternoon):

Lebron James, Steph Curry, the Golden State Warriors, Draymond Green, Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, Jaylen Brown, David Fizdale, and Chris Paul.

But even their silence looks good next to James Harden’s reaction: He’s apologized for Morey’s original tweet both on his own behalf and that of Houston Rockets teammate Russell Westbrook.

And here’s what’s even weirder about this soft NBA cave-in to China: It apparently hasn’t occurred to anyone associated with the league that it’s astronomical popularity in the People’s Republic is not only an immense cash cow – it gives them considerable leverage, too. Sure, if major American basketball figures decried repression of Hong Kong-ers, or the Uighurs, or any other Chinese, the government could drastically reduce the NBA’s activities in China and reduce the league’s profits. But just how well is that likely to sit with China’s legions of basketball fans? And given the unrest in Hong Kong, would Beijing really be so anxious to antagonize another significant chunk of its citizenry?

The answer might indeed be “Yes.” But wouldn’t it be interesting and important – not to mention courageous and inspiring – if any of pro basketball’s (already incredibly wealthy) social justice warriors decided to put this proposition to the test?

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Im-Politic: Why Trump’s Ukraine China Ask Was So (Needlessly) Stupid

Tags

China, collusion, conflict of interest, Democrats, election 2020, Hunter Biden, Im-Politic, impeachment, Ivanka Trump, Joe Biden, Obama, Pelosi, Swamp, Trump, Trump-Russia, Ukraine

It’s lucky for President Trump that being stupid per se isn’t (yet?) grounds for impeachment, because if it was, his recent call for Beijing’s aid to investigate the Biden family’s possibly corrupt activities in China would surely qualify. In fact, it’s hard to think of a presidential action in recent memory that fails on so many substantive and political grounds. And no, I don’t agree with Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio that the President was simply trying to troll the press.

Even so, it’s still possible that this episode could have a silver lining for Trump-World.

First, let me repeat my previous position that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with Mr. Trump probing Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China, Ukraine, or anywhere else, and whether they’ve improperly or illegally influenced U.S. policy toward those countries while his father was Barack Obama’s Vice President. In fact, since the current challenges and opportunities facing Americans nowadays from both countries have been strongly affected by policy decisions made during the Obama years, every American caring about the nation’s interests should want to know more about the Bidens’ goings on.

Nor should Joe Biden’s presidential bid this year shield him from scrutiny. In fact, as the President has pointed out in remarks on the Bidens and China, the former Vice President’s White House bid makes full disclosure absolutely essential. After all, as Mr. Trump has asked, “How would you like to have, as an example, Joe Biden negotiating the China deal if he took it over from me after the election? He would give them everything. He would give them everything. How would you like to have that?”

Can Americans be certain that a President Biden would sell his country down the river in China trade talks or on other fronts? Of course not. Can they be certain that Biden let China off the hook on various important interests, or urged doing so, since Hunter (successfully) began soliciting Chinese business in 2010? No on that score, too. But the uncertainties created and the undoubted, ongoing possibility of various payoffs are precisely why conflict of interest laws are on the books to begin with.

Moreover, conflicts of interest are especially important to investigate when it comes to countries like China and Ukraine. For there, governments and/or the oligarchs to which they’re closely connected call all the major economic and business shots.

Of course, claims abound that Mr. Trump is vulnerable to comparable (or even worse) charges. But regarding the Russia allegations, they’ve been big news since his 2016 Republican primary campaign began gathering real steam. In addition, after his inauguration, they were thoroughly examined by a Special Counsel probe that lasted nearly two years. And so far he’s still innocent until proven guilty in a legal sense. In addition, and revealingly, the current impeachment probe isn’t attempting to revive any of these charges.

Policy-wise, the Trump Russia record has been mixed, including support for measures (like strengthening the U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe right up against Russia’s borders, and strongly backing the American fossil fuels production revolution), that plainly aren’t pleasing Moscow.

It’s true that Trump daughter Ivanka operated a business that made shoes and apparel in China and imported these wares into the United States. I’d joined the ranks of those who believed those ties should have been severed at least once Mr. Trump became the Republican nominee. But Ivanka Trump has now shut down her China business. And can anyone seriously believe that in return for whatever copyrights she received from Beijing while her father was in office, that the President has taken it easy with China? After tariffs on literally hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese products that have deeply wounded China’s economy? And a Taiwan policy that has poked Beijing in the eye on an issue of deep importance to China’s leaders and many of its people?

By contrast, it’s entirely legitimate – and important – to point out that the Obama-Biden record on both China trade and security issues was an eight-year exercise in coddling Beijing.

And both leaders’ records get to much of the reason why the President’s ask to Beijing was so boneheaded. Whether the Bidens are playing dirty or not, how can it help but legitimately expose Mr. Trump to the same kinds of conflict-of-interest charges he’s leveling against Biden? Indeed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now making them. Moreover, it’s not as if China has anything like an impartial, rule-of-law-dominated criminal justice system. And let’s not forget the so-called political optics of his gambit at precisely the time when Beijing is violently repressing democratic protests in Hong Kong. “Appalling” isn’t too strong an adjective.

Just as bad, the President’s ask undercuts one of his most effective campaign themes – that for decades, his predecessors and their cronies had conspired with foreign governments like China’s to shaft everyday Americans on trade issues in particular. Just think back to his Inaugural Address. So now the same Chinese regime that’s conspired with Swamp-ers from both parties is supposed to help a President damage someone he’s labeled (with good reason) as a prime member of that corrupt complex?

The only justification I can think of for the China ask – at least politically – is the following (and don’t think I’ve got a lot of faith in this speculation): Now that Beijing has brushed off the President, he could turn around and contend that the Chinese are helping the Bidens cover up. Substantively – and whether this objective is being sought intentionally or not – the China ask could result in Mr. Trump taking a harder line on the trade talks.

More credibly, and encouraging in my eyes given my doubt that any verifiable China trade deal is possible: Even had Beijing complied, the President could come under enough Pelosi-like pressure to make impossible the kind of cosmetic deal that in principle could have solved some big potential China-related political problems heading into the election (i.e., with farmers angered at losing a big export market, or consumers outraged at tariff-induced higher prices).

The problem is that constructing these kinds of tortuous scenarios should be completely unnecessary, because, as I’ve stated,

>the Bidens’ conduct has been so questionable;

>the China-related case against them looks so compelling:

>Mr. Trump surely can get enough damning foreign government information about their doings from less substantively and politically controversial sources like Australia and, yes, Ukraine (to which the Democrats seem strongly devoted); and

>consumer and farmer complaints aside, the Democrats will have a devil of a time this coming election year making political hay by accusing the President of being too tough on China.

So the China ask looks an awful lot like another damaging and completely unforced Trump error. Nonetheless, the next time such a blunder seals his political fate will be the first. And even though my above scenario is pretty far-fetched, who can still confidently say that the President’s string of good luck has finally run out?

Im-Politic: Why Former Ukraine Envoy Kurt Volker Really Matters

Tags

America First, foreign policy establishment, globalism, Hunter Biden, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, John McCain, Kurt Volker, Russia, Trump, Ukraine, Ukraine Scandal, Vladimir Putin

Kurt Volker, who just resigned as special U.S. envoy to Ukraine, is testifying in closed session to Congress today, presumably to shed light on charges that President Trump improperly (and maybe impeach-ably) asked that country’s leader to investigate possible corruption by Democratic Presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

As much as I’d like to know what Volker says on this score, I worry that neither the lawmakers questioning him nor America’s supposedly watchdog Mainstream Media will examine an issue that’s at least as important: Why on earth did the Trump administration hire Volker in the first place? Because the likeliest answer will provide more evidence about an immense flaw in Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, and a consequent, neglected danger to American democracy, that shows no sign of ending any time soon.

President Trump, after all, campaigned promising to disrupt and transform American foreign policy. Out would be what he condemned as a globalist strategy that inevitably led to Forever Wars in places like the Middle East, and benefited only the country’s elites. In would be an “America First” approach he claimed would serve the entire nation’s interests.

As I’ve explained, the President’s foreign policy record in office has been mixed, but America First elements have definitely been introduced. And one of the biggest examples is policy toward Russia – whether you believe Mr. Trump has been motivated by a conspiracy with Russia strongman Vladimir Putin to fix the 2016 election, or by a sincere determination to deal realistically with a major (and nuclear-armed) military power.

And one of the biggest pre-Trump U.S.-Russia sticking points had been Ukraine – whose independence (including the freedom to tilt toward the West if it wishes) globalist U.S. Presidents have tried to maintain, against Moscow’s designs, but which Russia believes belongs squarely within its sphere of influence.

I’ve previously argued against antagonizing Russia over Ukraine because the latter’s fate was never viewed as a vital U.S. interest even during the Cold War. The idea that it’s become more important now makes no sense at all from an American standpoint. Worse, the United States plainly lacks anything close to the military capability to help Ukraine decisively (just look at a map if you don’t already understand why). So policies like arming the country to the hilt, and encouraging the idea that it can resist Russian hegemony militarily, look suspiciously like virtue-signaling exercises to “fight to the last Ukrainian.” Vastly preferable for all concerned, as I see it, is something like the deal I first outlined here.

The President has said little explicitly on the subject, but his reluctance as early as the 2016 campaign to go all-in on Ukraine arms aid indicates he’s open to such thinking (again, whatever his motives).

Which is why the Kurt Volker appointment was so bizarre. For Volker has long supported a hard-line anti-Russia approach to Ukraine. In fact, he was such a strong backer of military aid (and a “military solution” to the ongoing crisis) that he viewed former President Barack Obama’s Ukraine policy as needlessly spineless. Indeed, Volker is a protege of the late Arizona Republican Senator John McCain – one of the most prominent of the Ukraine-Russia hawks, and a leading Trump critic on foreign policy and many other issues – and in 2012 became head of a new institute created at Arizona State University to promote such ideas. (That’s why the school’s student newspaper broke the story of his resignation from the Trump administration late last month.)

Neither Volker’s views nor his affiliation with McCain is the slightest bit improper. (His work for defense contractors who would profit handsomely from Ukraine arms sales? That’s another matter altogether.) What is downright weird – and troubling for two reasons – is Volker’s decision to take a job with Mr. Trump’s State Department.

The first reason has to do with whose agenda Volker was serving – the elected Mr. Trump’s, or the globalist foreign policy establishment in which he worked for three decades. Given all the evidence that’s emerged throughout the Trump administration of bureaucrats and even Trump appointees committing acts of “resistance”. (See here for numerous examples, along with this unprecedentedly anonymous New York Times op-ed.) Given Volker’s ties to McCain, and given the way the so-called Ukraine scandal has so suddenly become a threat to Mr. Trump’s presidency, it’s vital to know whether Volker was one of these subversives.

If anything, the second reason is more depressing. For Volker’s appointment in the first place once again reveals a chronic weakness of the Trump administration and “Trump-ism” that will take many years to address even if the President and his supporters started right now: Mr. Trump entered office well before he or like-minded individuals paid any attention to the task of developing a group of skilled policymakers and analysts capable of staffing an administration both competently and loyally. As a result, the President had no choice but to fill any number of key posts with figures who, even when Republican and/or conservative, were far from America Firsters.

Not that this situation excuses the resistance that so many of these officials have mounted. But until those with Trump-ian leanings and the needed resources start creating the institutions needed to give these ideas scale and staying power, conservative nationalism, or nationalist populism, or whatever you want to call it, may wind up as a flash in the pan. Moreover, even if its adherents can keep the presidency, the clandestine bureaucratic revolt that’s been waged for three years, with all its dangers to accountable, democratic government, is only likely to worsen. And you should worry about that even if you’re a Never Trump-er.

Im-Politic: Why the Impeachment Case Isn’t Even Remotely Serious Yet

Tags

collusion, Deep State, Democrats, foreign aid, House of Representatives, Hunter Biden, Im-Politic, impeachment, Joe Biden, military aid, Mueller investigation, Nancy Pelosi, Trump, Trump-Russia, Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, Volodymyr Zelensky

OK, it’s not a verifiably un-doctored recording (apparently, they’re never available) – even though nearly all the Democratic members of the House of Representatives and many of the party’s presidential candidates view it as more than enough to warrant President Trump’s impeachment. (Removal from office? We’ve heard much less on that related but separate matter.)

All the same, the record of President Trump’s July 25 phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, sure doesn’t look like a Nixonian smoking gun to me – and yes, in the interests of full disclosure, I strongly support many of Mr. Trump’s policies.

The allegations that led the President to release this document – which was apparently prepared via the same procedures normally used for all such confidential conversations – haven’t always been made with exactly surgical precision. So in this vein, the most useful version may come from an opinion article written for the Washington Post by seven freshman Democratic House Members.

Because of the prior national security experience all of them boast, and their reputations for moderation, the concerns they expressed yesterday reportedly imbued the push for impeachment with enough momentum to spur House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to authorize the launch of an “official impeachment inquiry” – an unusual procedure that seems to have no bearing on the various ways that this body has initiated impeachment proceedings in the past, and that certainly doesn’t guarantee the holding of the kind of full House vote needed to impeach and move to a Senate trial to determine removal.

Here’s what those seven first-term Democrats wrote:

“The president of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use U.S. taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it. He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption and to protect our national security interests, for his own personal gain.”

But the way I read it, nothing in this version of the conversation does much to support either charge. Some of the key passages seem to be the following:

“President Zelenskyy: … I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost. ready to buy more Javelins [portable anti-tank missiles] from the United· States for defense purposes.

“The President [Trump]: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There-are a lot. of things that went on, the whole situation . I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I .would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, ·it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.”

Despite the non-coercive language, President Trump clearly established a quid pro quo involving U.S. military aid and Ukrainian cooperation on an investigation having to do with American politics. For me, the key is his use of the word “though” in his first sentence. (Not that Mr. Trump will win any articulateness awards.)

But where is the evidence that the quid pro quo involves a simple “political opponent,” as the seven House Democrats insist? (Obviously, it’s former Vice President and current Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden.) Everything in this passage, from his mention of “Crowdstrike” to the “nonsense” that “ended with a very poor performance” by Robert Mueller has to do with:

>the accusations (which that former Special Counsel’s investigation’s findings determined were untrue) that Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government to ensure his election at the expense of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton; and

>the counter-accusation that those Russia collusion charges were manufactured by Mr. Trump’s opponents in the FBI, the intelligence community, elsewhere in the so-called Deep State, and the Obama administration. (This possibility is currently being investigated by the Trump Justice Department.)

That counter-accusation is especially important here. If anything like it is true, it’s imperative for the health of American democracy that it be discovered. And in turn, if a foreign government like Ukraine’s can shed light on the facts, why wouldn’t anyone except the guilty and their allies want Washington to use foreign policy leverage to achieve that result – which would unmistakably serve important U.S. national interests.

Of course, Biden’s name did appear in the five-page document – about a page after the above passages – in this statement from Mr. Trump:

“The other thing, There’s a lot talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”

These sentences have to do with a Ukrainian probe of the ties between Biden’s son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company – and Biden’s public boast in 2018 that, as Vice President, in 2016, he secured the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had vowed to investigate the company in question by threatening to withhold a billion-dollar American loan package if that official, Viktor Shokin, stayed in office.

His supporters contend that the quid pro quo Biden offered differed fundamentally from the Biden quid pro quo that Mr. Trump seems to have presented in his July phone call because Biden was carrying out firmly established U.S. government policy in order to serve the country’s national interests while President Trump’s interests were purely selfish and political.

All of which could be true. Except the 2016 date of the Biden episode should warn against imputing purely or even mainly non-political motives to his actions. In this vein, revelations during a presidential election year that Biden’s son was involved in shady or even criminal foreign doings certainly wouldn’t help the fortunes of the incumbent administration’s political party – so the former Vice President’s motivations might have been exclusively political.

Some considerations on this score do work in Biden’s favor, though – mainly evidence that Western European governments and the International Monetary Fund, all of which were complaining that Ukrainian corruption was undercutting their own aid programs, also sought Shokin’s firing. But illicit activity in Ukraine has been so pervasive that these non-American actors might have their own embarrassments to hide.

Just as important: If the Vice President of a previous administration, or any of his colleagues, was manipulating American foreign policy to cover up the activities of the Veep’s son, isn’t something that urgently requires examination from a national interest standpoint? Wouldn’t this be the case whether that former Vice President was currently running for office or not? In fact, wouldn’t that especially be the case if that former Vice President was running for office?

To be sure, the seven freshman Democrats also appear to be accusing President Trump of pressuring Ukraine to help dig up dirt on the Bidens (again, for solely political reasons) by freezing the disbursement of a previously approved military assistance package shortly before his phone call with Zelensky. 

Mr. Trump has admitted doing so, and as has been pointed out, he’s offered different explanations for this decision (which was overturned earlier this month). I agree that sounds fishy. But the reasons themselves (that other U.S. allies were shirking their obligations to help Ukraine, and that continuing Ukrainian corruption could prevent many of the funds from being spent effectively) are anything but ludicrous.

Also interesting:  More than three weeks before the aid freeze was first revealed by the Washington Post – and connected with the Zelensky phone call – ABC News reported that the administration was sitting on the Ukraine military assistance but not as part of any campaign to undermine Biden. Instead, the delay stemmed from a broad debate between Trump administration supporters of foreign aid generally and colleagues who were highly critical. The main reported complaints from Democrats had nothing to do with Biden, either. They centered on the President’s supposedly excessive coziness with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

And most interesting of all:  Mr. Trump never brought up the frozen aid in his phone conversation with Zelensky. If the seven freshman Democrats are right and the President had blocked spending the funds “for his own personal gain,” why didn’t he even signal this blackmail attempt to its target?        

Ongoing and broadening investigations of all these controversies by Congressional committees and by the Justice Department could well provide definitive answers to all the above questions, and even produce more and/or worse bombshells. Indeed, maybe the phone call document itself has been doctored. But when it comes to impeachment, or even besmirching the Trump record, that’s exactly what should be the main point now. There haven’t been such answers or bombshells yet. And until some start appearing, talking up impeachment will continue looking  like a thoroughly reckless course of action – and one with plenty of boomerang potential.

Im-Politic: The Washington Post Goes All Fake News on Trump, Biden, and the UN

Tags

Anne Gearan, Ashley Parker, Biden, election 2020, General Assembly, Im-Politic, Joe Biden, Mainstream Media, Philip Rucker, Trump, Ukraine, UN, United Nations, Washington Post

On Sunday, I wrote about an Associated Press article dealing extensively with manufacturing that I said might not have been Fake News, but sure came close. Today, the Washington Post published an article about President Trump’s activities at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York City that unquestionably deserves that label.

The theme of the article was made clear by the headline: “Trump uses U.N. meeting to wage domestic political attack on Biden.” Sounds pretty disgraceful, right? I mean, after all, every September the world’s leaders gather for this event, and address weighty issues ranging from threats to peace to climate change (a big focus this year). And here comes this notoriously egomaniacal and selfish boor of an Oval Office occupant determined to ignore his responsibilities as steward of the national interest and global leader – and the tradition of domestic politics stopping at the water’s edge. Instead, all he cared about was using this solemn conclave to slime former Vice President Joe Biden, a likely opponent during the next presidential election campaign.

As often not the case these days, moreover, the article itself faithfully reflected the header. According to authors Anne Gearan, Philip Rucker, and Ashley Parker, the President “turned” the General Assembly, “where foreign leaders converged to confront climate change and other global pandemics, into the backdrop for an assault on a domestic political opponent.”

They continued: “Trump used his meetings with heads of state to flay Biden, celebrate his personal attorney’s altercations and tend to his media feuds.”

For good measure, they wrote that Mr. Trump “seemed to revel in the opportunity to kick up dust around Biden, who has led Trump in virtually every public poll for several months.”

In other words, could the President be more of a reckless lout?

Readers were also told that participants in the global gathering were “baffled by the sudden interjection of a complex Trump scandal that they found mystifying.” And the authors dutifully quoted (globalist) “experts” to validate their emphasis on the President’s allegedly alarming weirdness:

“‘It puts foreign leaders in a difficult if not impossible position,’ said Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. ‘How do you manage this complicated person who doesn’t play the game by the rules, and how do you somehow protect this important relationship? Everybody’s a bit wary.’

“Victoria Holt, managing director at the Henry L. Stimson Center, said the arcane details of the Ukraine story and its overlap with U.S. politics are largely beside the point for other leaders here. ‘I’m sure they are scratching their heads,” she said. “The United States is supposed to be leading on major issues” such as climate change.’”

Except a glancing reference in its paragraph completely destroyed the alarming premise of the article. As the authors briefly noted, the controversy over Mr. Trump’s own and the Biden family’s dealings with political leaders and oligarchs from Ukraine “hung over Trump’s first day at the annual U.N. meeting, beginning with a volley of shouted questions from journalists….”

Another unintentionally revealing observation: “Trump stayed away from the Ukraine topic in his only major prepared remarks of the day….”

That is, it wasn’t Mr. Trump who injected domestic politics into this year’s General Assembly and its work. It was journalists like the Post reporters. (Unless you attach lots of importance to the fact that the President tweeted about the subject beforehand – which the Post reporters clearly didn’t, since they devoted no other passages to it.) Talk about blaming the victim.

The Washington Post, of course, is the newspaper that throughout the Trump administration has been sanctimoniously warning that “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” As so often the case, though, it’s ignored how shamefully biased reporting by democracy’s supposedly impartial watchdogs represent an equally dangerous threat.

Im-Politic: Have We Hit Peak AOC?

Tags

2020 elections, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, Bing, Democrats, Google, Im-Politic

Like so many of us, I’ve followed the career of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with unusual interest. But lately it seems that I haven’t been reading or hearing as much about her as I had for most of her first months in Congress, when the first-term New York City House Member clearly established herself as one of the nation’s most influential lawmakers, a leader of the Democratic Party, and a social and legacy media superstar.

So I decided to check some data sources to see if my hunch was right, and was flabbergasted to come up with completely contradictory findings. On balance, however, the evidence tilts toward declining public interest. 

My methodology? Examining statistics from the Bing and Google search engines to see whether terms like her “AOC” nickname and “Ocasio-Cortez” have been sought out for more or less frequently since her election in November, 2018.

According to Bing, which permits folks to see the actual worldwide search numbers over various time periods, appetites for information about AOC have been steadily strengthening. Here are the monthly statistics from last November through today for “AOC” searches and for “Ocasio-Cortez” searches:

                                                      “AOC”       “Ocasio-Cortez”      total

Nov. 2018:                                         224K                346K              570K

Dec. 2018:                                         174K                202K              376K

Jan. 2019:                                          307K                342K              649K

Feb. 2019:                                         422K                350K              772K

March 2019:                                      383K                332K             715K

April 2019:                                        381K                298K             679K

May 2019:                                         474K                373K             847K

June 2019:                                         557K                442K             999K

July 2019:                                         791K                 869K          1660K

Aug. 2019:                                        817K                 761K          1578K

Sept 2019:                                        662K                  284K           946K

But the Google findings are very different. Google doesn’t enable calculating actual numbers of searches by month (unless I’m missing something – which is all too possible). Instead, it presents “search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term.”

For “AOC,” that peak popularity was hit between this past July 14 and July 20 – which matches the Bing findings pretty well. The likely explanation? That was when President Trump sent out his series of tweets urging Ocasio-Cortez and the three other progressive female (and non-white) House members comprising the so-called “Squad” to “go back” to their own countries.

The second highest peak, a reading of 82, came between this past February 24 and March 2 – which finds very confirmation with the Bing results, but only some.

But since late July, according to this measure, the numbers of AOC searches have sunk like a stone. The reading for the six days following July 20 was only 59. During the period after, it fell to 39, and between September 15 and 21, was only 33. The Bing results indicate no such drop-off.

Interestingly, the Google data for “Ocasio-Cortez” point to more overall searches than for “AOC.” But the highest peaks by far (and there were three between 89 and 100 as opposed to only one for “AOC”) came much earlier – between November, 2018 and this past February. The highest score for that peak ”AOC” mid-July Trump tweet period was only 39. The latest “Ocasio-Cortez” figure? Only a six.

I’d be the last one to count out Ocasio-Cortez – if only because she’s so young and for that reason alone, still boasts so much potential for reinvention(s), But with Google a much more popular search engine than Bing, and with an intensifying presidential campaign likely to take even more of the spotlight from her, there’s at least a case to be made that, for the time being, Peak AOC has arrived.

Im-Politic: Has Trump’s Record on Real Wages Been Good Enough Politically?

Tags

Barack Obama, China, Im-Politic, inflation-adjusted wages, Labor Department, manufacturing, private sector, real wages, tariffs, Trade, trade war, Trump, wages

Given the on-again-off-again nature of President Trump’s tariff policies (which against China went partly off again yesterday in the form of an announced short delay in the imposition of $250 billion worth of levies originally set for October 1), I figured there was no sense in performing my now-standard analysis of this morning’s new monthly U.S. consumer price inflation figures (for August).

Instead, I’ll focus on today’s inflation-adjusted wage data – which is always released by the Labor Department in tandem with the consumer inflation report –  and here there’s definitely some good news for President Trump, his supporters, and for manufacturing workers. One notable qualification: The shorter the memories of Trump working class voters, the better for his political future.

The table below makes clear what I mean. It shows the price-adjusted wage changes for the last three January-thru-August periods for private sector workers overall, for “blue-collar” private sector workers (that is, those not in management or supervisory positions), for manufacturing workers overall, and for blue-collar workers in general and their manufacturing counterparts. (To remind:  The Labor Department doesn’t track wages for public sector employees, since their pay stems mainly from politicians’ decisions, not economic fundamentals.) 

January thru Aug. real wages                  2019                2018                 2017

private sector:                                 +0.55 percent   +0.75 percent    +0.94 percent

private sector blue-collar:               +1.27 percent   +0.76 percent   +0.76 percent

manufacturing:                               +0.65 percent     -0.19 percent   +0.46 percent

manufacturing blue-collar:            +0.23 percent         0 percent      +1.15 percent

As you can see, manufacturing workers in particular have seen January-through-August constant-dollar wage gains in 2019 that were much better than in the comparable last year – but largely because the 2018 results were terrible. Moreover, for blue-collar manufacturing workers, the 2019 improvement was still much weaker than the 2017 increase. Private sector blue-collar after-inflation hourly wages accelerated year-on-year in 2019 as well, but the 2018 gain was at least identical to 2017’s.

Short blue-collar worker memories will also help Trumpworld if the Obama administration’s real wage record is forgotten. For Mr. Trump’s record trails that of his predecessor for all of these major worker categories (although the advance in inflation-adjusted manufacturing blue-collar wages under both Presidents during comparable periods of their terms in office is pretty similar).

                                                   Last 30 Obama months       First 30 Trump months

private sector:                                  +3.39 percent                      +2.62 percent

private sector blue-collar:               +3.97 percent                      +2.72 percent

manufacturing:                                +3.25 percent                     +0.37 percent

manufacturing blue-collar:              +3.22 percent                     +3.11 percent

Let’s end on a fairly positive note for Mr. Trump and his backers: The table below shows that overall, price-adjusted wages in manufacturing fared better after his tariffs’ advent in March, 2018 (for the most part) than during the pre-tariff phrase of his presidency. Because the two time periods have been of different lengths, I’m presenting the results in terms of average monthly changes in absolute dollars and cents terms.

                                                         Pre-tariffs                            Post-tariffs

Manufacturing:                               -0.31 cents                           +0.50 cents

Blue-collar manufacturing:           +0.85 cents                            +0.75 cents

Again, what these statistics mean for the future of American workers is anyone’s guess, especially in trade-heavy manufacturing, since trade policy decisions seem so ragged. And politically, the key question remains: Have times been good enough for working class and other voters during the Trump era to offset other concerns about his leadership sufficiently to bring him a second term?

Im-Politic: Gun Sense Urgently Needed in Chicago

Tags

Chicago, crime, gun control, gun violence, guns, Illinois, Im-Politic, Lori Lightfoot, Ted Cruz

That was some Twitter exchange Monday between Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and new Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot! Not only was it scorching (especially on Lightfoot’s part), but it was crucially important for clarifying a major problem with how Americans have been debating the issue of gun violence and what to do about it.

The problem concerns how to classify the kind of gun violence that has plagued low-income neighborhoods in big cities like Chicago for so long, and therefore how best to reduce it, and here’s why Cruz emerges as a clear winner.

Right after a Labor Day weekend in the Windy City that saw 41 shootings that resulted in seven deaths, Cruz took to social media to tweet

“Gun control doesn’t work. Look at Chicago. Disarming law-abiding citizens isn’t the answer. Stopping violent criminals—prosecuting & getting them off the street—BEFORE they commit more violent crimes is the most effective way to reduce murder rates. Let’s protect our citizens.”

Lightfoot was incensed. Her response:

“60% of illegal firearms recovered in Chicago come from outside IL—mostly from states dominated by coward Republicans like you who refuse to enact commonsense gun legislation. Keep our name out of your mouth.”

And she backed up her claim with a graphic.  (See this post for both tweets.)

But here‘s what Lightfoot overlooked: Let’s grant her apparent assumption that the share of these out-of-state guns that have been seized in the city roughly matches their share of Chicago’s total illegal gun supply. Let’s also grant her apparent assumption that better gun laws could actually reduce this supply meaningfully. Even so, it would still be a humongous stretch to conclude that Chicago would become significantly more peaceful.

Just look at these numbers: Chicago’s 2.71 million population came to just over 21 percent of the Illinois total as of last year. But according to the latest (2016) figures, Chicago’s homicide rate of 27.7 per 100,000 residents was 355 percent higher than Illinois’ homicide rate of 7.8 percent per 100,000 residents.

Even more striking: In 2016, 997 murders took place in Illinois that year. Of those, more than 76 percent (762) occurred in Chicago. That is, the number of murders in the city was nearly four times greater than what you’d expect if such violent crimes happened uniformly throughout the state. If out-of-state guns were the main problem, you’d expect their effects to be spread much more evenly, if not perfectly evenly.

What the Lightfoot-Cruz debate boils down to is the former’s claim that Chicago’s main gun violence-related problem has relatively little to do with Chicago, and the latter’s claim that something about Chicago matters critically – including in terms of attracting the out-of-state guns responsible for such an outsized share of Illinois murders. The data not only clearly vindicate Cruz. They powerfully remind that the term “gun violence” nowadays is too often used in America to describe a wide variety of behaviors, and that many of them aren’t remotely likely to be solved solely or mainly with tighter gun laws.

Im-Politic: New Article Shreds Trump-as-Fake-Populist Claims

Tags

election 2016, Im-Politic, middle class, Populism, The American Conservative, Trump, working class

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my newest freelance article.  Posted last night by The American Conservative, it uses recent, and usually overlooked, U.S. government data to debunk the claim that President Trump’s working- and middle-class voters were duped by the promises of a fake populist who proceeded to shaft them once he entered the Oval Office.  Here’s the link.

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

Im-Politic: A Good News/Bad News Labor Day Poll for U.S. Labor Unions

Tags

Economic Policy Institute, Gallup, government workers unions, Im-Politic, Labor Day, labor unions, public employee unions, unions, workers

As a firm believer that healthy democracies and vibrant economies need strong, independent labor unions, I’m happy to celebrate Labor Day each year, and pleased that Americans have been doing so now for 125 years. (Whether particular unions today are playing constructive roles is another matter entirely.)

And that’s why I’m also concerned that a recent Gallup poll on Americans’ views of unions contains as much troubling as encouraging news for organized labor.

Gallup’s summary emphasizes the positive, highlighting its finding that union approval is at a near-50 year high (64 percent, specifically). Moreover, that level is up sharply since the 48 percent all-time low recorded by Gallup in 2009. (Its figures go back to 1936, as shown below.)

At least as good, as I see it: On a relative basis, Gallup found that pro-union views lately have grown fastest among most strongly among self-described Republicans – a group that’s never been known for union support. Yet whereas unions’ approval rate grew by 33.33 percent overall from 2009 to 2019, among Republicans, it improved by 55.17 percent (from 29 percent to 45 percent).

This trend surely reflects the shift in the GOP’s base toward Trump-style working class-oriented populism, and away from the rigid claims still made by too many of the party’s representatives in Congress and various types of Washington, D.C.-based hangers on that simply pursuing business’ favored small government/low tax agenda will automatically bring the greatest benefits to the rest of the economy – and will be appreciated by voters.

Political independents’ union backing improved more than the national average, too, during this period – from 44 percent to 61 percent – but the 38 percent shift of has been less dramatic than that for Republicans. Since Democrats have always been most sympathetic to unions, their support levels remain the highest in absolute terms (66 percent), but the post-2009 improvement has been the smallest (24.24 percent).

The problems lurking for unions in these poll results? Mainly, that public approval of unions seems to have little at best to do with unions’ actual membership rolls. As the Gallup results make clear, although union support nowadays is indeed at relatively high levels, they’ve always been on the high side (at least since 1936). Indeed, support levels generally have exceeded 60 percent, even recently.

Yet during this time, union membership in America has nosedived. According to the Economic Policy Institute – a progressive think tank that supports unions and receives funds from organized labor – unions represented about 22 or 23 percent of U.S. workers in the mid-1930s. (See the graphic below.) As of last year, that figure stood at just 10.5 percent. And if not for government workers’ unions, whose membership accounts for nearly 34 percent of public sector employees, the share would be much lower. (See this report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for these data.)

Another big potential problem: During the last U.S. recession (which lasted from late-2007 to mid-2009), Gallup has found that public support for unions fell much farther and faster than during previous downturns. Optimists could note that the last recession was unusually deep, and that union approval ratings have rebounded strongly since. But during the Great Depression of the 1930s, which was much worse, union approval according to Gallup was much higher, and the Economic Policy Institute numbers show that union membership actually rose.

It’s also worth mentioning that this Gallup survey overlooked one big issue: Americans’ views of those government workers’ unions. That’s especially important because those public sector workers became a majority of U.S. union members in 2009, and remain so today. I’m not saying that this development has been either good or bad. But it does represent an historic milestone showing that the makeup of organized labor has changed markedly in recent decades. Does most of the public recognize this situation? Much of it? Do Americans regard government unions the same way they view private sector unions? Those are subjects Gallup and other pollsters need to explore. And there’s no reason to wait for next Labor Day. (Here’s a report on a poll dealing with some of these issues, but it’s eight years old.)