Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Establishment’s Korea Nuclear Cover-Up Continues

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alliances, allies, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, East Asia, free-riding, missiles, North Korea, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, polls, South Korea

If a pollster asked respondents a question on the order of “Would you favor the government handing Americans unlimited amounts of money?” without specifying that “it might destroy the economy,” you wouldn’t take it very seriously, would you? In fact, you’d probably (and rightly) condemn the survey as a con job.

And that’s exactly the reaction you should have to a new “finding” by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that this year, for the first time [since 1990, when the organization began asking the question], “a majority of Americans express support for using US forces to defend South Korea” if it was attacked by North Korea. According to the Council, moreover, this figure has risen sharply since 2015 – from 47 percent to 62 percent.

If you’re a RealityChek regular, you know why this question is fraudulent. It doesn’t tell respondents that North Korea is terrifyingly close to being able to retaliate against such U.S. military involvement by destroying an American city or two with nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In fact, the question doesn’t mention anything about specific consequences for riding militarily to South Korea’s rescue. Even granting that the public realizes that wars are not picnics, the Council’s full phrasing was inexcusably anodyne:

“There has been some discussion about the circumstances that might justify using US troops in other parts of the world. Please give your opinion about some situations. Would you favor or oppose the use of US troops if North Korea invaded South Korea?”

Like the issue was simply being debated in a seminar.

Nor did the Council tell Americans why their country would need to risk blood and treasure to aid South Korea. It’s because, even though the South’s economy is vastly larger than the North’s, and even though the North actions have been threatening for decades, this long-time U.S. protectorate spends a negligible fraction of its wealth on its own defense.

So here’s what the Council should have asked:

“For nearly seventy years, the United States has pledged to defend South Korea militarily from attack by communist North Korea. But this promise was made when it created no risk for the American homeland, when the South was dirt poor, and when Washington feared that communism was on the march worldwide. Now it’s clear the North will very soon be able to launch a successful nuclear attack on the United States if it keeps its promise to the South. Since the alliance was formed, South Korea has skimped on its own defense spending even though it’s become one of the world’s richest countries. And communism is dead as a global military menace. Would you favor or oppose using U.S. troops to defend a free-riding South Korea if the result could be the nuclear destruction of an American city?”

Of course, my phrasing could be toned down. It could also add the argument American trade and other forms of business with economically dynamic East Asia would suffer if major war broke out anywhere in the region (although it’s easy to argue that business with the region has been a big net loser for the American economy), and that so far, the U.S. military presence and commitment have helped keep the peace. And to be fair, the Council didn’t mention any pro-interventionist arguments, either.

But the main point is that it’s hard to imagine any consideration surrounding the decision to intervene in a Korean war remotely comparing with this development: Until recently, Americans could be certain that their own territory would remain unscathed. Now such involvement could kill and maim millions of their compatriots, and turn important metropolitan areas into radioactive wastelands.

As I’ve long written (along with others), the American foreign policy establishment has been so irrationally wed to the country’s alliances that it’s concealed the catastrophic, and sometimes suicidal, (in the case of Europe, where the antagonist has been the Soviet Union and now Russia) dangers they have inevitably created. The only useful information contained in this Chicago Council on Global Affairs Korea finding is that, wittingly or not, this group is participating in the cover-up.

Im-Politic: Beyond the (Poll) Numbers on Immigration

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culture, Democrats, economy, Gallup, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, Jobs, polls, Republicans, taxes, Trump, wages

Do apparently clashing poll results on immigration mainly signal that polling companies don’t know what they’re doing? That Americans are fundamentally conflicted on the issue? Or can sensible, and even obvious, reasons be identified for the seeming gap if you just do a little extra thinking? Examining three recent Gallup soundings convinces me that it’s the latter.

On the proverbial one hand, two new Gallup surveys about immigration appear to show that Americans have become much keener on immigrants – possibly including illegal immigrants, though Gallup hasn’t drawn this distinction. On June 29, Gallup reported that a record (post-1993) share of Americans (49 percent) now agree that “immigrants mostly help the U.S. economy by providing low cost labor.” Moreover, except for a drop in the very late 1990s and early 2000s, this number has been rising – though since 2005, the increase has been gradual.

Forty percent of respondents agreed that immigrants “most hurt the economy by driving wages down for many Americans.” In contrast to the trends for those expressing favorable opinions, the share of Americans worried about immigrants’ wage-related economic impact has decreased pretty sharply since 1993 (when it stood at 64 percent), and especially since the early 2000s (when it peaked at 65 percent).

Also encouraging for proponents of more immigration or more lenient policies towards illegal immigrants: a poll the day before showing that the percentages of Americans viewing immigrants as a plus rather than a negative for the country on economic and non-economic grounds had grown impressively between 2007 and 2017. Interestingly, though, even in 2017, the only category in which a majority of Americans emphasized the positive impact of immigration was in “food, music and the arts” (57 percent – up from 40 percent in 2007). Only ten percent of Americans said that immigration had worsened matters on these scores.

On “the economy in general,” only 45 percent in 2017 saw immigrants “making the situation in the country better” (up from 28 percent in 2007). And only 23 percent and 20 percent believed that immigrants had improved the national situation when it comes to “taxes” and “job opportunities for you and your family” – up from 19 and 11 percent, respectively, in 2007.

As for those who believed immigrants’ effects were negative, 30 percent agreed with that proposition regarding the overall economy, 41 percent went along on the subject of taxes, and 28 percent expressed this view on the job issue. (The remainder of respondents stated that immigrants weren’t having much effect in any of these areas.)

As Gallup noted, positive answers to these questions in 2017 were generally at their highest levels since the firm began asking them in 2001. And despite the high negative numbers, a strong argument can be made that the considerable indifference expressed can be seen as an endorsement of immigrants’ growing numbers overall, given the emotional resonance of the issue.

Yet a June 7 Gallup survey created a substantially different picture. It reports that the shares of Americans believing that immigration “should be decreased” has kept falling since the mid-1990s (from 65 percent to 35 percent). But it was still bigger than the growing share believing that immigration “should be increased” – which has risen from the high single digits from the mid-1960s to 24 percent nowadays. Thirty five percent of Americans want “immigration to be kept at its present level,” and this number has stayed pretty stable – with some fluctuations – since the mid-1960s.

And here’s a surprise: Over the past year, the share of Democrats and Democratic leaners who favor decreasing immigration has actually risen slightly (from 20 to 23 percent) while that of Republicans and Republican leaners has shrunk from 60 percent to 48 percent. It’s true that the share of Democrats and leaners favoring greater immigration levels rose slightly as well. But it still stands at only 33 percent. (The rest expressed satisfaction with current levels.)

In this survey, Gallup analysts ventured an explanation for the unusual finding for Republicans; the GOP shift:

“could reflect a sense of political victory among Trump supporters who believe the president is fulfilling the immigration-related promises he made on the campaign trail. Republicans could, thus, feel more satisfied with the current status of immigration than they did during the height of the presidential election. Also, some Trump supporters might believe immigrants are being more thoroughly vetted by the Trump administration.”

I wish that Gallup had been as analytically ambitious in interpreting at least some of the growing popularity of the immigrant population according to the many indicators. One explanation that seems pretty obvious to me: It’s been influenced pretty considerably by the phenomenal growth of the country’s immigrant population. Indeed, since 1960, it’s more than quadrupled in absolute terms (to an estimated 41.3 million as of 2013). And from 1970 to 2013, immigrants increased their share of the American population from 4.7 percent to 13.1 percent. So more of the respondents being reached by Gallup are immigrants themselves, or their children.

It’s true that throughout American history, immigrants have shown a striking tendency to oppose more immigration once they’ve become established in their new homeland – usually for fear of facing new economic competition. But one of the most important and distinctive aspects of American immigration policy in recent decades has surely undercut this form of nativism – the focus on family reunification. That is, it’s likely that many recent immigrants favor more immigration because they view it mainly as a chance to bring in not additional low-wage workers, but close relatives. At the same time, we’ve got statistics strongly indicating that Hispanics’ views on immigration don’t necessarily dovetail with this observation.

So it seems that the most useful bottom line is that polls continue to be important sources of information about major political, social, economic, and other trends, but that to gauge public opinion accurately, you need to keep looking beyond the raw numbers.

Following Up: Germany’s Merkel on NATO and Defense May be Leading, but Could Lack Followers

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allies, Angela Merkel, Europe, Following Up, Germany, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Pew Research Center, polls, Russia, Trump

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who’s not known as a bomb-thrower, at least chucked a pretty good sized grenade into newly volatile relations between the United States and the European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Merkel told a crowd at a political rally today that “The times when we could fully rely on others have passed us by a little bit, that’s what I’ve experienced in recent days.” She clearly was referring to her experience with President Trump, a longtime skeptic of the Atlantic alliance, at NATO’s summit last week. And Merkel continued, “For that reason,” Merkel continued, “I can only say: We Europeans really have to take our fates in our own hands.”

These remarks don’t count as full-fledged bombs for several big reasons. First, as I noted in a recent post, the Trump refusal to endorse explicitly NATO’s Article Five pledge to aid militarily any member under armed attack might have the transatlantic foreign policy crowd in a state of hysteria, but the clause is ambiguous and German and other European leaders have always known – and fretted – about this.

Moreover, U.S. allies repeatedly have discussed creating a meaningful defense capacity of their own with varying degrees of independence from the United States. So far, they’ve never followed through – mainly because American leaders typically responded with renewed pledges of undying loyalty. So the allies understandably felt perfectly free to continue free-riding.

But let’s say that This Time It’s Different (and sometimes it is, otherwise, we’d have no history). What’s interesting to say the least is that Merkel is going to face some major obstacles with her own people and many others in Europe. How do we know this? Let’s simply look at that Pew Research Center NATO poll I posted on yesterday.

Now some sharp RealityChek readers may be wondering why I’m using this Pew data, since yesterday’s post demonstrated many fatal flaws. Here’s the answer: My criticism of Pew focused on its failure to inform American respondents that the nation’s NATO commitments created any risks. That’s important given how ignorant so many Americans remain about even major foreign policy realities, because they’re so physically isolated and insulated from the rest of he world.

But European publics – which were also surveyed by Pew, and whose views I’ll discuss below, are substantially different. After all, they live much closer to Russia, NATO’s main concern. So even if they’re by no means foreign policy experts, the continent’s war-torn past is something much more apparent to them, and especially to their parents and grandparents. Just as important, they’re the ones who will have to live with the worst consequences of poor governmental national security decisions. And if the views they expressed to the Pew researchers are representative, Merkel could well find it almost impossible to help create an independent European defense effort worthy of the name.

Interestingly, Merkel herself implicitly acknowledged that not all the forces jeopardizing European unity are coming from Washington. As she observed, the United Kingdom just voted to withdraw from the European Union last year. And of course she knows how strong anti-EU sentiments remain throughout Europe, and how many stem from resentments over the outsized role Germany has played in dealing with (and allegedly contributing to) recent economic crises like the one that’s engulfed Greece.

Yet what Merkel may not yet know about her compatriots and other Europeans should trouble her even more. For example, according to Pew, German support for NATO is strong (67 percent view the alliance favorably). But only 40 percent of Germans agree that their country should use military force to defend a fellow NATO ally under attack. Fully 53 percent would want Germany to sit out the conflict.

Merkel might draw some comfort from seeing that Germany’s commitment to NATO’s core mission is the weakest among the countries surveyed. But it’s not whoppingly lower than the support for going to war registered in the two other major European military powers, the United Kingdom (45 percent) and France (53 percent). Further, the Pew results show that a distinct minority of those surveyed in NATO’s European members view Russia as a “major threat to their nation.”

Merkel, however, isn’t the only national leader who should be paying close attention to these Pew findings. If they’re accurate, President Trump and the rest of Washington need to ask themselves whether America can count on any prompt, significant assistance from NATO Europe if push comes to shove.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Desperately Seeking Adult Polling on NATO

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allies, burden sharing, defense spending, foreign policy, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pew Research Center, polls, Russia, Trump, vital interests

There’s not much doubt that the main purpose of this recent Pew Research Center poll was to show the unpopularity in America of President Trump’s skeptical views of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Published just before this past week’s summit of the U.S. defense alliance with many European countries, the survey finds that “Today, roughly six-in-ten Americans hold a favorable opinion of the security alliance….”

So that seems to be quite the rebuke to a president who has faulted NATO as “obsolete,” accused many members of being defense free-riders, and during the meeting declined to promise unconditionally that the United States would help militarily any alliance member that came under armed attack.

Actually, the survey once again shows that polls on foreign policy issues tend to be among the most incompetently and misleadingly crafted polls of all. I say this because the Pew researchers failed to raise in any of their questions any of the most important issues Americans need to think about as they assess the value of NATO. Maybe the best way to make the point is to present question possibilities that would make these issues clear.

First: Would you favor the United States militarily defending a NATO ally if embroiled in an armed conflict with Russia if this aid might result in a Russian nuclear attack on the United States?

Second, Would you favor the United States militarily defending a NATO ally if embroiled in an armed conflict with Russia, and running that risk of nuclear war, if the ally in question had never been considered by any U.S. president going back to Franklin D. Roosevelt to be a vital or even significant security interest of the United States?

Third, Would you favor the United States militarily defending a NATO ally if embroiled in an armed conflict with Russia, and running that risk of nuclear war, if the nuclear war risk existed largely because NATO’s European members collectively refuse to pay for militaries that could repel the Russians on their own?

In other words, a poll that measured Americans’ true beliefs about and support for NATO would be one that reminded them that, as with most of what’s important about life, different positions and decisions have important potential downsides as well as important potential upsides. And until pollsters begin informing Americans about the real choices they face on important questions of both domestic and foreign policy, it will be painfully obvious that theirs is yet another portion of the chattering classes in desperate need of some adult thinking.

Im-Politic: The Polls Say “Let Trump Be [Campaign-Version] Trump”

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2016 election, ABC News, budget, conservatism, discretionary spending, entitlements, Freedom Caucus, healthcare, Im-Politic, Immigration, independents, NBC News, Paul Ryan, polls, poverty, Republicans, The Wall Street Journal, Trade, Trump, Washington Post

They’re only polls and we all should remember how badly most polls blew their calls in the last presidential election. But two new surveys from the Washington Post and ABC News on the one hand, and the Wall Street Journal and NBC News on the other, are signaling to me anyway that Donald Trump has made a major mistake so far in his young presidency in tilting so markedly toward the keepers of the orthodoxy (especially the most doctrinaire versions) in his own party. Instead, he should have been focusing all along on developing a promising new American political center of gravity that he started defining (in his own imitable way) during his campaign.

As widely observed during the 2016 elections, Mr. Trump was anything but a conventional conservative – at least as the term has been understood for the last quarter century. Yes, he made frequent nods toward cutting taxes and regulations, as well as to balancing budgets (objectives that of course aren’t always consistent). He also expressed some support for social conservative positions like further restricting abortion and appointing “strict constructionists” to the Supreme Court. But as also widely observed, if that mix of views was what voters in the Republican primaries and general elections really wanted, they would have voted for an orthodox conservative.

Instead, Mr. Trump trounced his opponents even though he at least as often promised to protect massive federal entitlement programs heavily relied on by the middle class and senior citizens; to guarantee adequate healthcare for non-seniors who can’t afford it; to preserve government support for Planned Parenthood’s provision of non-abortion-related women’s health services; to uphold the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans; and of course to ignore free market dictates when they seemed to undermine public safety and prosperity by fostering unrestricted trade and immigration.

Undoubtedly, much of candidate Trump’s appeal also sprang from simple, nonpartisan voter anger at the failures and self-serving priorities of the bipartisan national political establishment. But Mr. Trump did the best job of all last year’s presidential hopefuls of identifying the combination of specific grievances that created this anger: notably, over those jobs and incomes lost to Americans Last trade and immigration policies, over those related dangers posed by terrorism and leaky borders, and over the astronomical costs and risks of fighting seemingly futile foreign wars and defending free-riding allies.

The president’s Inaugural Address – which declared his intention to fix these problems with America- and Americans’- First policies – unabashedly proclaimed that President Trump would govern like candidate Trump.

Yet although the president has by and large kept his immigration promises, and approved some (limited) measures to combat foreign trade predation, his domestic policy proposals look like they’re right out of the Chamber of Commerce and Moral Majority playbooks. Nowhere has this development been more obvious than in his endorsement of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s healthcare plan, and in his release of a budget outline that, outside of defense spending, libertarians should be swooning over.

Late last month, I ventured that the president’s support for the “Ryan Care” proposal was a head fake: He had knowingly backed a measure so draconian that he knew it would fail, in order to establish some orthodox conservative street cred with Congressional Republicans and thus enlist their support for the pivot to greater moderation he had planned all along. Something like this scenario could still unfold; according to press reports, even the hard-core anti-government House Freedom Caucus members are growing more amenable to a compromise proposal that would preserve many of the more popular provisions of President Obama’s healthcare reforms.

But Mr. Trump’s continuing insistence on a federal spending blueprint that either eliminates or greatly slashes funding for medical and other scientific research, Chesapeake Bay cleanup, and food and heating aid for the poor, is not only plain bizarre, especially since the dollars involved are trivially small. It’s also politically inexplicable, because there’s absolutely no evidence that these are viewed as priority savings among any important Trump constituencies.

And that’s where the new polls come in. As per the headline results, Mr. Trump’s popularity at this point in his presidency is much lower than the ratings of most of his predecessors early in their first terms. In fairness, the Post-ABC survey also shows that the president would beat his chief 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, in the popular vote if a new election was held – showing that he’s even more popular versus the Democratic nominee than on election day.

But the both polls showed the president’s support tightly concentrated among his own core voters and Republicans generally. Even accepting the claim that rapid partisanship by Democratic party leaders is proving effective in limiting Mr. Trump’s appeal to their rank and file, it’s still a sign of trouble for the president that his ratings among self-described political independents is markedly on the wane according to the Journal-NBC findings (falling to 30 percent) and low (38 percent) according to the Post-ABC survey.

One main reason: The Washington Republicans President Trump is apparently still courting are even less popular than he is. The Journal-NBC poll reports that many more Americans are dissatisfied with the Republican-led Congress nowadays than in February, and Ryan’s approval ratings are even lower. Moreover, the Republican-led Congress and the Speaker, in turn, are less popular than the president even among voters identifying as Republicans.

None of these results necessarily bodes ill for the Freedom Caucus. Its members don’t care for Ryan, either – allegedly for being too moderate. But many of the latest measures of Americans’ views of major policy issues do. For example, the Journal-NBC poll found that, since February, the share of respondents agreeing that “Government should do more to solve problems and help meet people’s needs” shot up to 57 percent. Even more independents (59 percent) endorsed this position. The share of total respondents believing that “Government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals plummeted to 39 percent.

More pointedly, the Post-ABC poll showed Americans opposing the Trump budget proposals by 50 percent to 37 percent overall, and independents disapproving by an even wider 52 percent to 35 percent margin.

The Journal-NBC survey also found record shares of Americans viewing “free trade” and “immigration” positively – at 57 percent and 60 percent, respectively. But the abstract nature of these questions could well have tilted these answers. One reason for supposing so: The Post-ABC poll reporting that, by a strong 73 percent to 22 percent, Americans favor “Trump pressuring companies to keep jobs in the United States.” Among independents, the results are an even better 75 percent to 19 percent.

So the recipe for Trump political success seems pretty clear: Dump the Freedom Caucus under the Trump Train on the budget and healthcare; preserve (and even boost to some extent) discretionary spending programs that strengthen the economy’s foundations and provide for the needy; keep the campaign promises on entitlements so highly prized by the middle class; and take bolder measures to Buy American and Hire American (as one new set of trade-related Trump jobs programs is called).

Keeping the focus on these priorities, along with a well thought out infrastructure program, should attract and keep enough backing among Republicans and independents to offset any losses in Freedom Caucus ranks, both in Congress and at the grassroots level (where they seem modest in number). Adding new policies to combat predatory foreign trade practices, moreover, should please organized labor enough to bring into the fold many union members and leaders plus the Congressional Democrats they strongly influence. An extra bonus – this program could well give President Trump the political leeway he needs to stay his course on immigration (which of course has seen a softening of his views on the so-called Dreamers).

Often in American history, calls to “Let [name your favorite politician] be [name that same politician]” have reflected core supporters’ naive beliefs that campaign promises can easily be turned into policy by the office-seekers they elect. But as is so often the case with the current president, Letting Trump be Trump, could confound the political conventional wisdom.

Im-Politic: Americans are Far from Bitterly Divided on Everything

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Affordable Care Act, border wall, climate change, criminal illegal immigrants, Democrats, deportations, Gallup, illegal immigration, Im-Politic, infrastructure, Mexico, Obamacare, polls, regulations, Republicans, tariffs, taxes, TPP, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership, United Nations

America today is deeply divided on the new Trump presidency and many substantive issues. But the message sent by a new Gallup poll is that there’s considerable consensus when it comes to identifying the nation’s major challenges. And although polls have recently gotten a deserved black eye over their election performance, this fundamental finding tracks intriguingly with that reported (by a different organization) that I wrote about a little over a year ago.

Gallup sought Americans’ views on which of President Trump’s campaign promises they believe that it’s “very important” for him to keep. Here are the top four – which were also the only choices that topped 50 percent:

>”Enact a major spending program to strengthen infrastructure” 69 percent

>”Reduce income taxes for all Americans” 54 percent

>”Establish tariffs on foreign imports” 51 percent

>”Deport the more than 2 million illegal immigrants who have

    committed crimes” 51 percent

At least as interesting, three of these four stated Trump priorities enjoy strong bipartisan support:

>infrastructure: 68 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of Republicans

>tax cuts: 46 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of Republicans

>tariffs: 45 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of Republicans

The exception – interestingly – is

>deport criminal illegal immigrants: 33 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of         Republicans

Now here are the Trump priorities that Gallup found Americans regard as least important (note – which does mean that they oppose them):

>”Cancel billions in payments to UN climate change program” 30 percent

>”Withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership” 26 percent

>”Build a wall along the border with Mexico” 26 percent

>”Require that for each new federal regulation, two must be

    eliminated” 23 percent

Just FYI, the administration has already announced officially that it’s pulling out of the Pacific trade deal.

And guess what? There’s a great deal of bipartisan consensus on the relative unimportance of these matters, too:

>UN climate change payments: 23 percent of Democrats, 38 percent of Republicans

>Trans-Pacific Partnership: 19 percent of Democrats, 32 percent of Republicans

>border wall: 12 percent of Democrats, 38 percent of Republicans

>regulations: 14 percent of Democrats, 31 percent of Republicans

Finally, I couldn’t help but notice that the most divisive Trump priorities, according to Gallup, are the aforementioned deportations of criminal illegal immigrants and…repealing Obamacare. A total of 46 percent of Americans told Gallup this move was “very important,” but although 68 percent of Republicans were on board with scrapping the Affordable Care Act quickly, only 26 percent of Democrats agreed.

I know that the president has his own pollsters – and of course his own opinions. But I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if their list of top White House priorities didn’t wasn’t very similar to those identified by Gallup as the public’s. Nor would I be surprised if achieving these goals – and softpedaling many of the others – made for a great first 100 days.

Im-Politic: The Day After, Part II

Tags

2016 election, African Americans, Bernie Sanders, consumer confidence, Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, exit polls, Hillary Clinton, Hispanics, Im-Politic, labor, NAFTA, polls, TPP, Trade, trade laws, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Trump, white working class

It’s the day after the day after in America, and I’m still stupefied by the advent of the Age of Trump. I have absolutely no inside info on what to expect in the way of policy recommendations from the transition team or the new administration, so I’ll be just as eager as anyone for the hints and trial balloons to emerge.

But continuing with the theme of yesterday’s post, I believe it is possible to identify some important questions that major actors in American politics – and the voters they’ll keep trying to reach – will need to grapple with. Let’s focus today on the Democrats and their allies and constituencies, since they face the most obvious challenges:

>At least one piece of the conventional wisdom about Hillary Clinton’s failings strikes me as being right on target – especially since the emails exposed by Wikileaks make clear that her senior advisers spotted it as well: She never developed a clear, compelling positive message.

It’s not that “Stronger together” isn’t a positive idea, and no doubt had some appeal at a time of deep national division. But this slogan begs the question “Stronger together to where?” Regularly, Clinton suggested that she meant “to the 1990s,” when her husband was president. Many Americans – particularly in the chattering classes – do indeed view the period as a time of unprecedented prosperity along with peace. To many others, however – especially in working class precincts – the decade evoked memories of job-killing trade agreements like NAFTA. And of course many others were reminded of a string of scandals, both real and alleged.

In fact, I’d take the critique of Clinton’s message one step further. Even though her campaign website and many of her speeches were filled with any number of specific proposals, they were quickly replaced on the campaign trail, and especially in her ads, by a non-stop assault on Trump’s character and qualifications for the Oval Office. Clinton’s defeat strongly indicates that you can’t beat even a deeply flawed something with nothing.

>In fairness to Clinton, however, her messaging problems might have been related to a genuine quandary she faced. Democrats have styled themselves, and often acted like, the Party of the Common Man. As I and others have written, when it comes to issues like trade, demographic changes in Democrats’ ranks seem to be clashing with this relatively populist identity, and Tuesday night’s results indisputably show that the party has the majority of the white working class.

Indeed, according to the preliminary evidence, Clinton’s performance among union voters was feeble by the standards of recent Democratic presidential candidates – despite labor leaders’ vehement opposition to Trump. And keep in mind that nearly half of this electoral bloc is comprised of government workers, who naturally tend to favor the freer spending Democrats. As a result, Clinton’s backing from members of private sector unions was probably much weaker still.

So the Democrats face a fundamental choice, and it could well have rhetorically crippled an undecided Clinton. Will they turn their backs on private sector union members, possibly also in the belief that America’s changing population profile is steadily reducing their political importance? Or despite the gulf between private sector union workers and younger, better educated Democrats on issues like trade (along perhaps with immigration and those amorphous but crucial cultural and values issues), will they try to bring them back?

>Nonetheless, major Democratic constituencies and their leaders – including the unions and the party’s progressive wing – still loudly oppose America’s current approach to trade. But as mentioned above, they’ve been almost hysterically anti-Trump, to the point of incoherence.

If they’re serious about overhauling trade policy, it’s time for these folks to wake up and turn the partisanship down. They’ll soon be getting a president who supports most of their major and longstanding trade positions, including opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), sanctioning China for currency manipulation, rewriting NAFTA, and using U.S. trade law more energetically to fight predatory foreign practices.

Working with Mr. Trump, they can achieve these goals. Remaining in spiteful high dudgeon could doom reforms they’ve sought literally for decades. Statements by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and from organized labor, are promising signs that these progressive leaders are open to cooperation with the incoming Chief Executive. Assuming that these declarations are serious, it’s time for the rest of the movement to fall in line and recognize that for the first time in modern U.S. history, the White House looks to be on their side.

>Finally (for now), nothing could be clearer about the 2016 election returns than the serious flaws they’ve revealed in the so-called science of polling. But politically focused surveys aren’t the only soundings apparently needing major surgery. Many of the best known economic surveys arguably were way off base as well.

For example, many polls – including this week’s exit polls – show strong public support for some form of legalization for illegal immigrants. Can this finding be reconciled with Mr. Trump’s win? Other surveys have revealed a notable warming of Americans’ views of free trade and recent trade agreements. That’s also hard to square with this week’s actual results – and would have been even had Mr. Trump lost by a respectable margin.

Also deserving of greater scrutiny – surveys of consumer and other forms of economic confidence. They have strongly tended to show significant improvement since the depths of the last recession, which isn’t hard to understand. But even their general claims of a simple return to pre-recession levels or, in some cases, better, ring false in light of this week’s voting.

One possible explanation is the gap identified by some researchers between rising optimism by African-Americans and Hispanics and the more downbeat views of whites. But if so, why did Trump fare much better among the latter than widely predicted, and why did he best 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney with both groups even though the economy was considerably weaker four years ago?

I can’t emphasize enough, however, how tentative my observations are, and how long my (and so many other) questions will defy confident answers. My only certainty so far is that election night this week was the most important historic event I’ve ever experienced. (I was born at the end of 1953.) I just wish I knew whether for good or ill.

Im-Politic: Economy/Election Poll Shows Surveys’ Strengths and Weaknesses

Tags

2016 election, blue-collar workers, Cato Institute, consumer confidence, Democrats, Donald Trump, economy, Financial Crisis, Great Recession, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Jobs, millennials, minorities, polls, recovery, Republicans, students, The Conference Board, TPP, Trade, Trans-Pacific Partnership

I was going to start off with today a post-mortem on last night’s presidential debate but decided to wait until we get what are billed as the complete TV ratings – which are scheduled to be released later today. In my view, until we get the first reliable polls, these will be crucial to answering the question of who won in the all important minds of the voters (as opposed to the chattering classes). I’ll explain what I mean in that post, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, I was really struck by the results – and the interpretations – of a new poll on how Americans view the high profile issues of the economy and trade. All else equal, at this point, these seem to be the main determinants of both the upcoming presidential and Congressional election results.

The survey was commissioned by the publication Politico and the Harvard University school of public health. (Go figure!) And when it comes to Americans’ assessment of the country’s performance since the financial crisis peaked in 2008, the findings look like good news for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. That’s no major surprise. What was more unexpected was how bipartisan the downbeat views are, and how that finding was soft-pedaled in the summary article.

Respondents were asked whether they thought that the U.S. economy had gotten “better” since the downturn in 2008, “worse,” or “stayed the same.” “Better” won with a 41 percent plurality, “worse” came in at 32 percent, and “stayed the same” was the answer of 24 percent. So that seems fairly encouraging for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who served in the administration that’s been responsible for the economy since 2009. At least, it seems, there’s no mass political uprising brewing against the Obama record.

But think about 2008. That wasn’t the run-of-the-mill “downturn” suggested by the poll’s bland wording. That was perfect economic storm time, a period when the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in particular nearly triggered a global financial and economic meltdown. In addition, the second half of the year in particular was also a time when Americans were losing not only their jobs but their homes in droves. So one in four respondents seeing no change since then is stunning enough. Even more so is the belief of nearly one in three that matters are worse.

Nor should you put too much stock in the article’s claim of “a clear partisan split on this question” with Democrats more upbeat than Republicans. It’s true that 67 percent of Democrats (versus only 21 percent of Republicans) perceived an improving economy since 2008. But 32 percent saw the situation just as bad or worse than during that crisis period. Just as important, a total of 62 percent of independents gave the expansion (which technically began in mid-2009) that kind of lousy grade.

The big questions that still arise, though, from these findings:

>How do Americans perceive their own economic and financial circumstances, as opposed to the country’s? Usually they feel much better about their own lots, and the latest Conference Board consumer confidence survey supports that proposition. It just hit a nine-year high.

>Which of these judgments will matter more in the voting booth?

>Will Americans who are down on the economy place more trust in Trump or Clinton to set things right?

>How will these and other economic poll results break down by state – which of course will influence the all-important Electoral College count?

Meanwhile, the Politico-Harvard survey produced several important results on the trade policy front. First, it found that although only 29 percent of the public has heard of President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Pacific Rim trade agreement that’s currently before Congress, 63 percent of those familiar with the agreement oppose it. And 68 percent disagree that Congress should vote on the matter in a lame-duck session of Congress – which the president is pushing for.

At the same time, such trade soundings have been all over the board lately – see this poll released a little earlier from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs for some contrasting results.

Much more interesting to me was the genuinely partisan split – which both surveys found. As Politico described it, Americans who call themselves Republicans have swung not only to being sharply critical of U.S. trade policy, but decidedly more critical than self-identified Democrats.

In GOP ranks, the Politico-Harvard poll found that 47 percent of respondents said that free trade agreements have hurt their communities and fully 85 percent called them net job killers. The comparable results for Democrats? Only about 25 percent and 50 percent.

My big takeaway here: “The party of the common man” may now be a misnomer for the Democrats. And interestingly, an analyst from the Cato Institute, which disagrees with nearly all my views on trade policy and even politics, concurs. He told a Politico reporter that the trade shift 

“might also reflect a shift in party affiliation among voters [especially among] ‘less-educated white males, blue-collar folks who probably used to support Democrats, but who are now Republicans. For cultural reasons, I think they are more prone to subscribe to the characterization of trade that Trump likes to use, the sort of nationalist view of us versus them.’”

Conversely, more and more Democrats look to be college students and other younger Americans (who have relatively limited experience in the job market or who take more cosmopolitan views of the global economy); government employees and workers in low-wage service industries (who face no foreign competition); and minority citizens (who have never been terribly active on the trade front but who should be).

Of course, polls shouldn’t be taken as gospel, especially this year – even when they agree. But if you look at enough of them, and read a bit between the lines, you’ll probably wind up more informed about American politics, not less. So I’ll be keeping an eye on them for the rest of this campaign – and you should, too, if you’ve got the time.

Im-Politic: More Political Delusions from the Chattering Class Bubble

Tags

2016 election, Barton Swaim, Bernie Sanders, chattering class, Donald Trump, Im-Politic, polls, RealClearPolitics, Washington Post

It’s always a tough call on any given day to decide which establishment media product deserves the award for “Dumbest (Article/Post/Broadcast) of the Day.” That’s why we all owe a debt of gratitude to someone named Barton Swaim, who for some reason has been selected by the Washington Post as a (regularly) “contributing columnist”. Because his essay this morning titled, “America is off the tracks, but the GOP errs in thinking it can right her” (not exactly catchy, to be sure) is the runaway winner.

The piece performs the impressive feat of making not one but two arguments that clash with reality. The first concerns his apparent belief that only the kinds of Republicans and conservatives who are inclined to support Donald Trump believe that America has (for various reasons) veered onto the “wrong track,” as pollsters like to put it.

Weirdly, Swaim says he agrees with this concern – and in fact, he articulates the conservative version well. But where does he get the idea that the fundamental worry is exclusive to supporters of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee? Or to any faction on the Right? Certainly not from the polls – which, for all their serious shortcomings, provide us with most of the major data points on such matters.

One of the most complete compendiums of survey data can (easily) be found on the RealClearPolitics website. The surveys in its files go back to early 2009. And as can be seen from the results over more than seven years, the vast majority of the time, the vast majority of Americans have viewed the country as being on the “wrong track” as opposed to moving in the “right direction.” Since (again, according to polling data), conservatives remain far from a majority of all Americans, then obviously the wrong-trackers must include lots of moderates and liberals.

Another kind of important clue regarding the non-partisanship of major voter concerns that’s escaped Swaim’s notice: Bernie Sanders shockingly unexpected run for the Democratic presidential nomination. Does the author think that a self-identified Socialist from a tiny state would have come so close to unhorsing the Democratic establishment favorite Hillary Clinton if most of much of the American Left thought the country was doing swimmingly?

Swaim’s second goof is at least as bizarre. It’s his contention that the most sensible choice that voters can make this year is to bow to the inevitable. In Swaim’s words:

“A republic in decline doesn’t need a leader who will try to force its electorate to be something it isn’t, or who will insult and berate its leaders into doing things differently. What’s needed, rather, is… [s]omeone…who can manage the decline of a great nation without making things worse.”

To be fair, the ellipses I’ve stuck in the above quote represent text in which Swaim offers entirely legitimate criticisms of Trump’s candidacy, as well as the eminently reasonable hope for “someone who will stand against the excesses of modern liberalism without entertaining the vain hope of obliterating it….”

But if Swaim thinks that either conservatives or liberals or moderates are looking for a president whose top priority is presiding over more of the same, he’s either seriously delusional or – as is much more likely – so comfortably esconced in the nation’s chattering class bubble that he equates his own privileged position with that enjoyed by himself and his affluent peers. Come to think of it, that’s probably why the equally cloistered Washington Post believes these thoughts are worth presenting.

Im-Politic: Polls Apart

Tags

2016 elections, economy, Gallup, Im-Politic, Jobs, national security, polls, terrorism

Since it’s a presidential election year, we’ve heard even more than usual about polls, and their dominance of the political news will only increase through the upcoming election. If only there was any reason to believe that all this polling will make us much better informed about the choices we face, or even about our views of these choices. Certainly, it’s tough to justify much optimism after looking at the Gallup organization’s work yesterday.

In one survey, Gallup asked Americans whether they are “satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time.” Just 29 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction, which, as Gallup observed continued “the trend of low satisfaction levels since 2007.” Since Gallup began asking this question, in 1979, the average “satisfaction level” has been 37 percent.

It’s easy to take this result and conclude that it cuts in favor of Republican political candidates this year, since Democrats hold the White House, since presidents usually take most of the blame or credit for the state of the union, and since this kind of question is seen as a key determinant of how successful the president’s party is likely to be. Also of note – during the satisfaction Obama years, the satisfaction level has averaged only 24 percent. So that’s another reason to suppose that voters are hankering for a change.

But on the very same day, Gallup released a survey pointing to exactly the opposite type of conclusions. The company asked respondents whether they think that now is a “good time or a bad time to find a quality job.” Those optimistic about the job market came to 43 percent of respondents – a level so high that it’s only slightly below the record of 48 percent, registered in 2007, just before the recession struck. (This data series began in 2001.) And when President Obama was first elected, in 2008, this reading was in the 20s.

It’s of course possible that Americans aren’t thinking of job-related issues when they rate the current state of national affairs. Maybe they have many other, more important matters on their minds? Yet other Gallup research casts major doubt on this possibility. It has consistently found that huge majorities of Americans in both parties – in the high 80s and 90s percent, view “the economy and jobs” as “extremely or very important to their vote for president.” That looks awfully promising for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and awfully gloomy for her likely rival, Republican Donald Trump.

To be fair, “terrorism and national security” are also seen as major keys to presidential voting by the electorate according to Gallup, and climate change and race relations (mainly among Democrats) rank as major concerns as well. But the latter two in particular register well below the economic issues.

Maybe next week, the polling concern will come out with results that resolve the apparent disconnect between the public’s views of the economy and its views of the nation’s course in general. Until it does, however, I’ll be vacillating back and forth over whether I should be pitying the politicians who need somehow to make sense of these contradictions, or simply swearing off polls altogether.