(What’s Left of) Our Economy: More Evidence of Biden-Flation’s Toll

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American Rescue Plan, Biden administration, Covid relief, energy prices, Federal Reserve, food prices, hunger, inflation, monetary policy, progressives, recession, supply chain, Ukraine War, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Left-of-center critics of the Federal Reserve’s inflation-fighting efforts keep insisting that risking recession to tame prices would unnecessarily harm the most vulnerable Americans and their struggling working class counterparts. Instead,  many have claimed that living costs can be cut sufficiently by forcing greedy corporations to charge less through windfall profits taxes, price controls, and the like.

And they’ve bridled in particular at charges that the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) greatly worsened the problem by handing trillions of dollars of CCP Virus relief – and therefore purchasing power – to U.S. consumers well after economic growth had already rebounded strongly and unemployment had already nosedived.

Any development that can engulf the gargantuan American economy, like historically high inflation, almost by definition has many different causes. But anyone doubting the economic overheating role of the ARP should check out the graph below, which is found in this Reuters piece from over the weekend.

The article adds to the evidence that still-towering inflation rates are devastating low-income Americans by super-charging the prices of that most basic of basics: food. But the graph makes clear as can be how the ARP contributed to the problem.

As it shows, prices of food (the darker line) began taking off just about the time that the ARP’s strings-free child tax credit payments started to be sent out (July 15, 2021, to be precise) – and not just to the needy, but to considerably better off households as well. Not so coincidentally, the share of American families with children reporting to U.S. Census Bureau surveys being “sometimes or often” short of food (the lighter line) started taking off soon after. And also noteworthy – these food price rises began many months before Russia’s February, 2022 invasion of Ukraine began playing its own major food inflation role. 

As the article also emphasizes, between 2020 and 2022, “as pandemic restrictions eased, so did the appetite for congress and some states to fund hunger prevention efforts.” But continuing federal purchases for “pantries, schools and indigenous reservations” were needed in the first place largely because food – not to mention other necessities – kept becoming so much more expensive.

The lesson here isn’t that no pandemic assistance should have been provided at all. After all, genuine suffering was widespread in its early phases and no one knew how long they would last. And the Fed’s left-of-center critics are correct that ongoing CCP Virus-related and Ukraine War-related energy supply disruptions have greatly boosted prices recently, too.

But as noted here previously, the supply- and demand-side roots of inflation are very closely related (because businesses can be relied on to continue raising prices as long as they can find enough buyers, and to cut them when customers start balking). Moreover, although in economists’ lingo, some prices are “inelastic” (because they’re for goods and services that are essential enough to prevent purchasing cutbacks even after major price increases), when they rise high enough, they can still foster lower prices for other purchases that are deemed less important.

Therefore anything, like big government checks, that fills consumer pockets will strongly tend to spur inflation sooner or later. So when help does need to be provided, it should be much more precisely focused on relieving genuine privation than pandemic relief was.

Even more important: The inflationary effects of supporting household consumption can be offset – and are best offset – by policies to support more production. When the Fed’s left-of-center critics start addressing defects in that supply side of the economy, rather than trafficking in gimmicks sure to exacerbate them, their complaints about excessive central bank monetary medicine will deserve a much bigger audience. In the process, they’ll be able to deliver lasting assistance to those whose plight they rightly emphasize.        

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Im-Politic: Progressive Censors Keep Getting Ever Doofier

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African Americans, Brown Sugar, censorship, entertainment, Federalist Society, higher education, hip hop, Im-Politic, Keith Richards, Layli Maparyan, Native Americans, political correctness, pop culture, Popeye's, progressives, racism, Rolling Stones, speech, The Los Angeles Times, UrbanDictionary.com, Washington Free Beacon, Yale Law School, Yale University

As we’ve all learned in recent years, higher education and the entertainment and pop culture worlds can both spur and mirror major changes in society and politics. So I wasn’t entirely surprised yesterday when two items came to my attention that nicely illustrate much of the hysteria and outright derangement being displayed and spread by self-appointed progressive champions of equity and justice. What did surprise me was the combination of utter incoherence and unmistakable ignorance they displayed.

The first item was an article in the (yes, conservative) Washington Free Beacon about a student at Yale Univeristy’s law school being accused by fellow students and the school itself (including its “diversity dean” – an Obama administration alumnus) of having sent an email to some other students with some racist content.

Of course, students (even at prestigious law schools) do stupid and offensive things all the time. But did this charge hold any water? Only if you believe that phrases like “trap house,” “Popeye’s chicken,” and “basic-bitch” are “triggering” and “oppressive,” and if you think that membership in a conservative political organization qualifies as well.

But if so, you don’t know much about these phrases. Specifically, not only is there no reason to believe that “trap house” “indicates a blackface party,” but the most popular use of the term is clearly in connection with a widely followed podcast described by no less than The New York Times as the “answer to right-wing shock jock radio” in the view of Vermont Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders’ supporters.

Especially laughable was the charge that “the word trap connotes” hip hop and that the connotation is therefore negative. Maybe the Yale administrators making this argument are talking about a musical genre other than the one that (African- American) Wellelsey College Africana Studies Professor Layli Maparyan has called part of “an oppositional cultural realm rooted in the socio-political and historical experiences and consciousness of economically disadvantaged urban black youth of the late 20th century”?

As for fried chicken is indeed ” often used to undermine arguments that structural and systemic racism has contributed to racial health disparities in the U.S.” But do, like, thirty seconds of on-line research and you learn that Popeye’s has been a favorite of at least several African-American celebrities (including Beyonce).

Moreover, the student’s use of “basic-bitch” has nothing to do with derogatory slang for African-American women, or even women in general, and everything to do with (according to the authoritative UrbanDictionary.com) “Someone who is unflinchingly upholding of the status quo and stereotypes of their gender without even realizing it.” (P.S. If you think I had to look this up because I had never  heard the term before, you’re right.) Moreover, in the email in question, “basic-bitch” was used as an adjective to modify “American-themed snacks (like apple pie, etc.)”, not the infamous poultry dish.

The conservative political organization in question is the Federalist Society, which the president of Yale’s Black Law Students Association claimed “has historically supported anti-Black rhetoric.” This study of a the group – from an outspokenly liberal organization – contains some supporting evidence. But interestingly, these incidents haven’t yet persuaded Yale Law School to ban the Federalist Society, exclude members from admission, or kick them out once discovered. So I haven’t seen Yale apologize to its black students yet – even though the Federalist Society was pretty much founded at Yale Law.

Finally, although you’d expect that the student accused of racist behavior was an exemplar of white privilege, it turns out that’s a long stretch at best. He’s half Native-American.

The second item illustrating the ongoing metastasizing of left-of-center authoritarianism that’s not only dangerous but outright incompetent involves no less than “the world’s greatest rock and roll band.” You got it: the Rolling Stones.

Last week, guitarist Keith Richards confirmed to The Los Angeles Times‘ pop music critic that the group had dropped from its performances on its current tour its 1971 hit “Brown Sugar.” When I first heard it back in the day, I thought it was pretty strange to set lyrics painting an appalling (and accurate) picture to such a rousing beat. And Richards only intimated that it had evoked complaints recently. But as he pointed out far better than I could, “I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is. Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery?”

Richards sounded optimistic that “we’ll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track.” I’ll defer to him on this particular controversy. But it’s precisely just plain doofy developments like this, and the Yale Law School flap, that keep me doubtful that the current burst of progessive-inspired threats to free speech is anywhere near its end.

Those Stubborn Facts: Race, Class, and Crime in NYC

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"Defund the Police", African Americans, Bronx, class, crime, Democrats, Eric Adams, Latinos, law enforcement, Manhattan, New York City, police, police brutality, policing, progressives, race, subways, Those Stubborn Facts, whites

Share of college-graduate New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 62%

Share of non-college-grad New Yorkers wanting more policy on the subway: 80%

Share of New Yorkers earning $50K-plus per year wanting more police on the subway: 66%

Share of New Yorkers earning less than $50K per year wanting more police on the subway: 75%

Share of white New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 62%

Share of Latino New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 69%

Share of African American New Yorkers wanting more police on the subway: 77%

Share of Manhattan-ites saying they feel safe from crime riding the subway: 65%

Share of Bronx residents saying they feel safe from crime riding the subway: 43%

(Sources: “Progressives in Denial About Crime Are Catering to Elites and Losing Elections,” by Zaid Jilani, Newsweek, July 14, 2021, Progressives in Denial About Crime Are Catering to Elites and Losing Elections | Opinion (newsweek.com) )

Im-Politic: New York City Shows How Not to Fight Crime

Tags

African Americans, cities, crime, Im-Politic, inner cities, New York City, progressives, The New York Times, urban poverty

I gotta tell ya – nearly a week days later, I’m completely gobsmacked by the following paragraph in a June 30 New York Times article on New York City’s newly approved budget:

“To address a rise in shootings and homicides that have plagued the city since the pandemic, the city will spend $24 million to provide job training and support services to 1,000 people who are most at risk of participating in or being a victim of violence in neighborhoods including Brownsville, Brooklyn; South Jamaica, Queens; and Mott Haven in the Bronx.”

Granted, the spending barely moves the needle in the $98.7 billion plan for municipal outlays. But assuming the description is accurate, it’s difficult to imagine a program so deeply, and indeed tragicomically, weird in so many ways – not to mention one that so strongly reenforces doubt that the kinds of liberals and progressives who run cities like New York have a clue how to deal with crime. If your imagination is failing you on this score, ask yourself:

>The city is going to identify residents “who are most at risk of participating in…violence” in these crime-ridden precincts? Based on what? If the main or a major criterion concerns prior criminal records, including the commission of violent acts, what’s the rationale for putting any of these individuals ahead of anyone who’s “at risk of…being a victim of violence”? Like it’ll be tough to find 1,000 of these?

>If prior records aren’t being used, or prioritized, what other considerations will help decide who’s “most at risk of participating in…violence”? Are city officials going to seek out youngish African American and Hispanic men? That sounds like endorsing harmful racial stereotypes to me. Will they poll these or other residents and ask which ones are considering “participating in…violence”? And if they do, what happens to those respondents who raise their hands but aren’t selected? Do they get profiled by the police? Moreover, doesn’t that clear risk mean that few if any criminals-to-be are likely to come forward to begin with?

>As suggested above, the city is spotlighting these neighborhoods because crime is so widespread. So in principle, all adult residents are seriously at risk of “being a victim of violence.” But common sense indicates that the elderly and/or are likeliest to be targeted by thugs. Make that a double, lots of evidence indicates, for elderly Asian-Americans. Are many of them going to be channeled into job training programs?

>More fundamentally, helping the genuinely disadvantaged deserves applause. But when it comes to reducing violent crime, what’s the point of providing job training to its likely victims? They’re – obviously – not the ones prone to pulling triggers.

Unless maybe the assumption is that the populations of violent criminals and likely victims of violent crime overlap a lot (say, because gang members could easily fall into both categories)? But if so, to a great extent we’re back to the formidable-at-best challenge of reliably identifying likely violent criminals.

The city could have avoided all these questions – and the potentially fatal problems they spotlight – by simply announcing that the $24 million would be spent on creating more jobs and economic opportunity overall, and/or on improving education and other social services in crime-ridden neighborhoods. It could have even added that teenagers and young adults will be the focus – to increase the odds they’ll become success stories – and maybe that they’d be chosen by lottery or some other objective system.

Not that success would be guaranteed. But the outcome would doubtless be better than what New Yorkers evidently can expect (at least according to The Times description): token expenditures guided by nothing more than the most fatuous sort of good intentions.

Im-Politic: Why Progressives (& Mainstream Democrats) May Ditch American Workers For Good

Tags

Bernie Sanders, Biden, budget deficits, Democrats, Donald Trump, economics, Elizabeth Warren, Im-Politic, Immigration, imports, manufacturing, Modern Monetary Theory, productivity, progressives, Stephanie Kelton, The New York Times, Trade, wages, working class

If you want to start a (hopefully verbal only) fight about American politics, one good way is to tell a Democrat that his or her party – and especially its powerful progressive wing – has been abandoning the country’s private sector working class in favor of what New York Times columnist Ross Douthat just called “the winners of globalization, from wealthy suburbanites to Wall Street and Silicon Valley elites….”  (Here’s some polling evidence for this proposition.)

So it’s more than a little interesting that if you take this position, you’ve recently gotten some devastating ammunition from no less than one of progressivism’s leading intellectual lights – economist Stephanie Kelton.

Kelton has achieved renown for her pioneering “Modern Monetary Theory” take on economic policy. As she has explained, it holds that “Governments in nations that maintain control of their own currencies — like Japan, Britain and the United States, and unlike Greece, Spain and Italy — can increase spending without needing to raise taxes or borrow currency from other countries or investors.”

Naturally, Democrats of most stripes have seized on this argument to varying extents to justify running much bigger federal budget deficits to deal much more ambitiously with a whole host of national problems – to engineering an adequate recovery from the CCP Virus-induced recession to remedying major social and economic ills that they believe dangerously plagued the economy before the pandemic.

One aspect of Kelton’s views, though, has been widely ignored, and it’s this stance that led her last week to support explicitly measures with proven records of harming domestic U.S. private sector workers but with which the increasingly elitist Democratic Party has grown increasingly comfortable over the last decade or so – on trade and especially immigration policy.

The ignored Kelton stance: on inflation. As she has specified (in the column linked above), “Politics aside, the only economic constraints currency-issuing states face are inflation and the availability of labor and other material resources in the real economy.” And in the author’s latest column, she argues that it’s precisely the appearance of these threats today that require the Biden administration to embrace unfettered trade and mass immigration policies.

As Kelton puts it, the combination of (1) President Biden’s massive spending plans and (2) undeniable contraints on the nation’s capacity to supply all the new demand that they’ll create will produce worrisome inflationary pressures. Too many customers will be chasing too few products to buy, thereby forcing up the prices of the latter and possibly generating more economic problems than this new consumption solves.

Among the solutions she offers? Enabling the economy much more easily to satisfy all the new demand by accessing productive capacity from abroad. Thus she suggests both

“Repealing tariffs would make it easier and cheaper for American businesses to buy supplies manufactured abroad and easier for consumers to spend more of their income on products made outside of our borders, draining off some domestic demand pressures” and

“loosening legal-immigration policies, so that even once America nears full employment there would still be an adequate labor pool to meet the increased demand for workers.”

These arguments are entirely consistent with more conventional schools of economic thought – which have long insisted that the freest possible worldwide flows of goods, services, and people will lead to the greatest possible degree of prosperity for the world as a whole.

The problem, though, is that recent decades have taught that when the United States opens its economy wide to a world full of countries that still tightly protect their own markets, and when it opens its borders wide to enormous foreign populations with much lower living standards, American workers take major hits. Abundant research even in the mainstream economics community, for example, has documented the devastating impact of the “China shock” on trade, and the Trump years showed that when immigration curbs helped U.S. labor markets tighten to unprecedented levels, wages for low-income workers, who overall compete directly for employment against illegal aliens, rose especially strongly.   

For many years, Kelton’s fellow Democrats and progressives have been increasingly determined to deny these immigration realities – even when employment levels have been less than stellar. And although private sector labor union-oriented Democrats and even progressives like Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont still champion what might be called America First trade policies, the party’s rank and file has grown much more enthusiastic about the pre-Trump version of economic globalization — as indicated by the below survey results from the Pew Research Center.

Even more curious, and troubling for the economy as a whole: Kelton sorely neglects the concept of productivity, and the importance of continually boosting the economy’s efficiency in order to boost living standards in sustainable, as opposed to bubbly, ways.

Kelton does write that “Over time, the Biden plan’s investments in our physical and human infrastructure will enhance our economy’s productive capacity, leaving us with a better educated and more productive work force, more efficient railways, less congested roadways, improved technologies and much else.”    

But she also adds, crucially, “this can’t happen overnight. It will take years.”  Presumably, then she’d be OK with dropping the open trade policies at least to some degree.  What she misses, however, are the (further) productivity-killing effects bound to emerge during that period of re-enabling imports in sectors like manufacturing – which are central to the nation’s hopes for retaining sufficient productive capacity. 

Indeed, she seems unaware that those manufacturing sectors that have been heavily dependent on artificially cheap imports have been major productiviy laggards. (The same holds for parts of the economy that have leaned heavily on the comparable crutch of immigrant labor – especially low-wage, low-skill immigrant labor).

Kelton of course is only one Democratic party thinker, and as she complained in her latest Times column, too many Democratic leaders – including the President – are still clinging to their supposedly outmoded views on spending and taxing and promoting U.S.-made manufactures.  And as mentioned, even within progressive ranks, her views on trade may not prevail against the Warren and Sanders perspective.

But it’s just as reasonable to believe that progressives hold the whip hand among  Democrats today on many issues, and Kelton played the biggest role in turning their spending-happy views into virtual party orthodoxy.  If her immigration and especially trade positions take the same course, the Democrats’ once unchallengeable identity as “the party of the common man” will become an example of transparently false advertising.       

P.S. Special thanks to my Twitter friend who goes by the handle @RocCityBuilt for first alerting me to the trade and immigration material in Kelton’s latest article.   

Im-Politic: Why Democrats’ Latino Problem is Much Bigger Than They Think

Tags

conservatives, David Shor, Democrats, Donald Trump, election 2016, election 2020, Equis Research, Hispanics, Im-Politic, Immigration, Latino men, Latinos, New York magazine, Populism, progressives, racism, Republicans, Ruy Teixeira, sexism, The New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, xenophobia

You know that “Wow!” emoji, with the wide open mouth and eyes? Here’s some political news genuinely deserving that reaction. Remember how all the presidential election exit polls last November showed significant gains by Donald Trump among Latino voters? And how so many analysts attributed this progress to the former President’s “macho” appeal to Latino men – an appeal that was so strong that it overrode Trump’s supposedly obvious anti-Latino racism and xenophobia?

Well, at the beginning of this month, a major survey of Latino voters found that, actually, the Trump Latino vote was driven by women.

“Big deal,” you scoff? Absolutely. Because the results indicate that these voters’ backing for Trump didn’t stem mainly from his personality traits, which are not only pretty peculiar to him, but which repel at least as many voters of all kinds as they attract. Instead, the findings suggest that Latinos’ growing Trump-ism owes more to support for his economic message and record (including on immigration) – which signals big opportunities for other Republican/conservative populists not saddled with Trump’s often -putting character, but who focus on issues that will remain crucial to much of the Latino and overall electorate long into the future.

Examples of the “macho” theory include this piece from the New York Times and a later article in the Washington Post Magazine. And they nicely illustrate how it also reenforced the impression of Trump voters generally as “deplorables” that’s been spread relentlessly by the former President’s opponents of all stripes, and that conveniently strengthens the case for seeking to ignore and marginalize them.

It’s true that both these analyses recognized that Trump’s own business experience and the state of the economy for most of his presidency also attracted many Latino males. But their greater emphasis was on how these voters liked the fact that, as the Times piece put it, Trump is “forceful, wealthy and, most important, unapologetic. In a world where at any moment someone might be attacked for saying the wrong thing, he says the wrong thing all the time and does not bother with self-flagellation.”

The Post Magazine article was much more nuanced and even-handed, but the author nonetheless described a not-trivial number of Latino men (using his own father as an example) as “archconservatives” and “conservative talk radio” fans. He also presented plenty of analyses from supposed experts likening them to low-status males desperately clinging to any patriarchical life-saver to preserve their remaining self-esteem, and consequently as prime suckers for any “self-made man” and any other bootstraps-type myths contributing to the brand Trump cultivated.

The Post Magazine piece also contrasted these Latino male views with

“the experiences of Latinas, many of whom are running their households, managing child care or employed as front-line and domestic workers — nurses or caretakers for the elderly. ‘They are making sure their kids are prepared for Zoom school,’ [one expert] explains. ‘I think there’s a fundamentally different experience that Hispanic men and women have in both what they experience day to day and what information they consume.’”

In other words, Latino men: kind of neanderthal and delusional. Latino women: nose-to-the-grindstone essential workers and heroines who are not only staffing the front lines at work, but keeping ther households together. Therefore, even if you were willing to hold your nose and wanted any opponents of conservative populists to reach out more effectively to Latino men, you’d have to admit that many are too unhinged to be reachable.

Significantly, the new findings – by a data firm called Equis Research – don’t dispute that Trump did better among Latino men than among Latino women. Equis did, however, generate data showing that, between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, the Trump Latino male vote grew by three net percentage points, but his Latina vote grew by eight percentage points. That’s what’s called “statistically significant.” And poll skeptics should note that Equis interviewed 41,000 Latino voters in battleground states, and studied voter file data, precinct returns, and focus groups.

Equis didn’t endorse any explanations for this Latina shift, although a Democratic analyst named David Shor believes that “the concentration of Trump’s gains among Latinas is consistent with his hypothesis that ‘defund the police’ influenced Hispanic voting behavior since, in his polling, women rank crime as a more important issue than men do.”

But to me, the new findings matter most for a more fundamental reason:  They further debunk claims from Never Trumpers in both parties that Trump’s Latino gains resulted from appeals to some Americans’ worst (i.e., most sexist) instincts (as mentioned above), or from simple misinformation, or from the Democrats’ alleged failure to court Latino voters ardently enough – that is, from problems that either shouldn’t be fixed, or that can easily be solved without compromising the party’s strong shift to the hard Left on issues across the board.

Instead, Equis’ report adds to the case that  a huge part of the problem is the shift itself – and with Americans of all races, colors, and creeds.

Special thanks to old friend Ruy Teixeira, a distinguished opinion analyst in his own right, for calling this news to my attention. And for a very good summary and analysis of the findings, see this piece from New York magazine (in which you’ll find David Shor’s arguments).

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Return of the Lippmann Gap?

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alliances, allies, Biden, burden sharing, China, defense budget, Democrats, Donald Trump, Europe, globalism, Japan, Lippmann Gap, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, progressives, Russia, soft power, South Korea, Walter Lippmann

No, it’s not the title of a newly discovered Philip Roth novel. Instead, the ”Lippmann Gap” is a phrase coined by scholars to describe the result of a country’s aims in foreign policy exceeding the means available to pursue them.

It was named after the twentieth century journalist, philosopher, and frequent adviser to leading politicians Walter Lippmann, who called attention to its frequency and dangers in his classic 1943 book, U.S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic. (P.S. In this post, I described a major flaw in Lippmann’s thinking, but he was right about the importance of establishing a sustainable relationship between a country’s ambitions and its ability to realize them.)

Troublingly for Americans, and for other countries that have long relied on the United States for protection, evidence has emerged that the gap could soon return in a big way under the Biden administration – whose principals, including the President, are typically described as diplomatic “adults in the room” making the welcome return to power after the dangerous tumult of the Trump years.

The evidence consists of reporting (see here and here) that the administration later this spring will submit a defense budget request that seeks no new funding over last year’s levels. Of course, this reporting may turn out to be inaccurate. Or the Biden-ites could still change their plans even if it is currently accurate. In addition, negotiations with Congress, which needs to approve these plans, could result in some increases.

Moreover, a flat defense budget request is by no means necessarily bad news for anyone, except for whichever defense contractors lose expected sales to the Pentagon. For example, the Defense Department has long been notorious for wasteful spending. And adopting different priorities, or more efficient weapons and other equipment, could well provide America and at least most of its allies with just as much “bang for the buck” as previously, as changing circumstances produce a shift in deployments from missions judged to have lost some of their importance to missions seen to have become more significant. In fact, I’ve long favored major cuts precisely because the nation spends way too much seeking objectives – like shoring up the defense of Western Europe – which haven’t been necessary in decades, and indeed in theory create greater dangers than they can address.

But there’s no reason to think that such considerations would be driving forces behind a reported Biden defense spending freeze, or near-freeze. And this is where the Lippmann Gap comes in. Because there’s every reason to believe that Mr. Biden intends to expand America’s foreign defense commitments on net, and because in at least one major reason of concern, the main potential enemy (China) keeps strengthening its militaty and has been acting more aggressively in recent years, and because a major object of China’s expansionist aims, Taiwan, has become the manufacturer of the world’s most advanced semiconductors – the computer chips that serve as the brains of an explosively growing number of civilian and defense-related products.

What other conclusions can one draw from the President’s repeated globalist assertions that “America is back,” and that in particular, it means to reassure allies around the world that allegedly become unnerved about U.S. reliability after four years of being (rightly, in my view) harangued by Trump attacks on their own skimpy defense spending, and threats to leave them in the lurch unless their alleged free-riding ends? (P.S. – not only weren’t these threats carried out, but as I noted in this article, in some noteworthy ways, the former President actually bolstered America’s alliance-related foreign military deployments.  Mr. Biden, meanwhile, has decided, at least for now, to let Europe’s members of NATO – the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance – Japan, and South Korea all off the burden-sharing hook, as made clear here, here, and here.)

Indeed, a flat or even reduced Biden defense budget request might come about in part from pressure from Democratic progressives to cut spending significantly. Fifty House members of his party have just urged him to reduce the defense budget “significantly.” And their rationale has nothing to do with the aforementioned potentially sensible reasons for cuts. Their case for a smaller U.S. military emphasizes that

“Hundreds of billions of dollars now directed to the military would have greater return if invested in diplomacy, humanitarian aid, global public health, sustainability initiatives, and basic research. We must end the forever wars, heal our veterans, and re-orient towards a holistic conception of national security that centers public health, climate change and human rights.”

I’m all for many of these particular aims, and also strongly support developing new definitions of national security and how to achieve and maintain it. But the Biden administration seems likeliest not to redefine national security significantly, but at most add these new domestic-oriented objectives on to the existing list of traditional goals. Therefore, if the progressives get even some of what they want, the effect inevitably would be to assume that “diplomacy, humanitarian aid, global public health, sustainability initiatives, and basic research” can substitute adequately for military force in carrying out an American foreign policy agenda that’s growing, not contracting.

Whether or not I believe this (I don’t), or you the individual reader believes, this is beside the point. U.S. adversaries seem unlikely to be impressed with these forms of what political scientists call “soft power.” Hence China keeps boosting its own military budget, and Russia responded to Obama administration Europe troops cuts by invading Crimea and attacking Ukraine.

U.S. allies are reacting skeptically, too. For example, European leaders evidently worry that Trump’s election revealed a strong popular U.S. desire to shed many global defense burdens that the Biden victory hasn’t eliminated. Therefore, there’s been increasing talk, anyway, in their ranks about reducing reliance on U.S. hard power by building up their own. And as I’ve repeatedly written, that would be great for Americans. But it’s sure not part of any Biden plans that have been made public.

A defense budget request fully reflecting the President’s bold “America is back” vow wouldn’t make me especially happy. But it would be far better than one that reopens or widens (depending on your views of current U.S. capabilities) a Lippmann Gap – and indicates to both domestic and global audiences that he really means to carry out globalism on the cheap.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! A Progressive Democrat’s Middle East Muddle

Tags

Biden administration, Democrats, foreign policy, Glad I Didn't Say That!, Middle East, progressives, Ro Khanna

Rep. Ro Khanna “is among the Democrats who dislike President

Biden’s Middle East strategy, as his administration signals the region

is no longer the priority it was for President Obama and his

predecessors.”

– Axios.com, March 5, 2021

 

“Khanna…backed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president and has worked

with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to enact a non-interventionist foreign

policy.”

– Axios.com, March 5, 2021

 

(Source: “Ro Khanna wary of Biden approach on Middle East.” Axios.com, March 5, 2021, Ro Khanna criticizes Biden on Syria, MBS, accuses president of quitting Middle East – Axios )

Im-Politic: Goya Adds to the Progressives’ Losing Streak

Tags

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC, authoritarianism, boycotts, cancel culture, CCP Virus, consumers, coronavirus, COVID 19, Democrats, election 2020, Goya, Hispanics, identity politics, Im-Politic, Julian Castro, Latinos, Lin-Manuel Miranda, progressives, Robert Inanue, The Squad, Trump, Wuhan virus

It’s almost enough to make even their opponents feel sorry for New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, her fellow members of Congress’ “Squad,” and the rest of Progressive World, especially those who have tried to use Cancel Culture to enforce their party line.

Since the Election 2020 period results have come in, these lefties, and their intolerant, extremist positions have been pilloried for their party’s setbacks in the House and lost opportunities in the Senate by many of their more moderate fellow Democrats.

Recently, however, reliable evidence also has appeared that one of their leading recent Cancel Culture campaigns has backfired spectacularly – their call for a boycott of Goya Foods products.

Goya says it’s America’s biggest Hispanic-owned food company, so at first glance, it would seem an odd target for the ire of Identity Politics-obsessed progressives. But at a July White House event for Hispanic business leaders, CEO Robert Unanue (whose family hails from Spain) committed the supposedly cardinal sin of praising President Trump.

Out came the progressive thought police, including not only Ocasio-Cortez (known of course by the pop culture-type monicker “AOC”) snarkily urging supporters to make their own adobo sauce without Goya’s popular seasoning mix, but Obama administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary and failed presidential candidate Julian Castro, and Hamilton composer Lin-Manuel Miranda.  (See here for the details.)  

For several months afterwards, I tried to find some hard data on the boycott’s impact, but failed – mainly because Goya is a privately held company. The boycotters and much of the press coverage contended that Goya was taking it on the chin, while Unanue claimed his business was profiting from a powerful backlash. But nothing more solid was available.   

Now it is. In October (sorry I didn’t spot this earlier), Goya announced plans for an $80 million investment in a factory in the Houston, Texas area. The facility, which serves as the company’s main hub for producing and distributing its products to the western United States, will be adding equipment needed for a product line that includes new organic offerings. Moreover, this project comes just two years after Goya completed a doubling of the factory’s square footage. So it should be clear that Unanue’s claims were reality-based.

And yesterday the coup de grace was delivered – in a devilishly clever way. Unanue revealed that the company had named AOC “Employee of the Month” for “bringing attention to Goya and our adobo.”

Ocasio-Cortez responded by calling descriptions of her boycott role “made up fantasies” and arguing that Goya’s increased sales stemmed from the shift from restaurant dining to home cooking prompted by CCP Virus lockdowns. And maybe there’s some truth to the latter – although American consumers have plenty of choices other than Goya for Hispanic food products. As for the former, though, it’s just an example of AOC lacking the courage of her convictions, and trying to wipe the huevos off her face.

I can’t help but close, though, by noting that even though President Trump – who joined the Twitter war on behalf of Goya – not only suffered no damage from this episode, but notably increased his support from Latino voters in last month’s election, can learn a lesson from Unanue. The Goya CEO (who also professed to excuse AOC for being “young” and “naive”) just killed a leading critic with kindness. Imagine if even just some of that kind of wit and subtlety had characterized the Mr. Trump’s own statements as candidate and President.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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