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We Need To Talk About Joe Biden

We need to talk about Joe Biden.

Joe Biden, Senator, Vice President, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, subject of a million memes, is inches away from jumping into the 2020 fray. I picture him like this, poised, waiting to swoop into the race.

I believe I can fllllyyyyyy!

But for all the meme-tasticness of Joe Biden, we need to acknowledge one thing about him and that is a thing we should be taking very seriously: he has more foreign policy experience than any other declared candidate.

That is not a minor distinction as the world eddies around the Trump Doctrine of foreign policy. We are on track to emerge from this administration with our traditional allies alienated and dictators emboldened by Trump’s encouragement of their standing as global power elites. The process of realigning our relationships back toward favoring democratic nations above dictatorships and rebuilding the trust we used to enjoy among NATO and beyond will take knowledge, skills, and determination. Biden’s experience as Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and his time as Vice President make him almost as qualified to do that as Hillary Clinton was in 2016.

Almost. She was the most foreign policy savvy candidate in a generation. But, you know. Her fucking emails or something.

Annnyyyway.

We cannot idly dismiss the need for foreign policy expertise going into 2020 and if we have a top of ticket candidate who’s thin on that experience, they need to be damn sure to pick someone for Vice President or Secretary of State who’s a foreign policy powerhouse. Biden’s entry into the race will likely underscore that issue and it’s one we need to consider as we all make our primary choices.

Which brings us to Part Two of the Conversation About Biden. This week, rumors have been flying that Biden will select a running mate early. In so doing, he probably hopes to forestall criticism about his age by implicitly having a younger second in command who stands ready to step in – and possibly run at the top of the ticket in 2024 – if needed. He likely also hopes to bring in diversity with his VP pick and overcome all the whiteness and maleness that comes with the Biden brand.

He purportedly thinks he can accomplish all of this by inviting Stacey Abrams to be his Vice President.

I love Stacey Abrams. She is smart, she is savvy, and she is the next wave of Democratic politicians. Pretty much everything in Democratic politics is improved by the addition of Stacey Abrams. That’s why I really wanted to be excited by these rumors. Instead, I had a sinking feeling that reminded me uncomfortably of the day when John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate. It was only a day or two since Hillary had conceded the 2008 nomination to Obama and Palin smirked her way to the podium and told the crowd that the “women of American aren’t done yet!” I stared at the tv and thought “Is John McCain trying to insult my intelligence?”

Yes, as it turns out. He was.

Now, Stacey Abrams is no Sarah Palin. She’s a serious person with serious abilities. That’s why it feels doubly insulting that Biden would trot her out and say “Meet Stacey! She’s a woman! A Black woman! Vote for us!” And if you don’t believe me when I say the optics on this idea are actually that bad, believe Black women who have things like this to say:

What Biden knows in all of this is that no Democratic candidate can win without Black women. They are the base of the electorate. They showed up for Hillary, they showed up for Barack. But if the only way Joe Biden can get them to show up for him is by offering them a side-order of Stacey Abrams, he needs to understand that he himself is not what Black women want. He’s not even really what white women want and white women make some very questionable choices in presidents. More than half of white women voted for Trump. Our standards apparently suck.

Joe Biden needs to be willing to sit down, listen carefully to his critics, and make the case for himself in a clear and uncluttered way. Using someone like Stacey Abrams as a shield to deflect questions about his many shortcomings is a chicken move and he should be better than this. He does have things to offer but he apparently doesn’t know how to do it.

That’s not what wins elections and it’s why Joe Biden has never won a presidential primary and I don’t think he’ll win this one either.

The ‘Right’ College Is The One You Go To

by Kevin Kelton

I got an 1190 when I took the SAT in the 1970s. And though I went on to become a fairly successful professional writer, my verbal score lagged far below my math score, proving that the SAT’s ability to test “aptitude” was pretty poor in my case.

In the college application world, anything under a 1200 SAT score is considered modest at best, and I ended up getting into Boston University and a few state schools, not the prestigious universities many of my high school classmates got into. Back then B.U. was nowhere near as respected as it is today. But it was still darn expensive, so after my freshmen year I transferred to a somewhat dreary New York state public university to cut my tuition costs. I had adored living in Boston and going to B.U., loved that they had a Division 1 hockey team, and had forged several close friendships I was loathe to abandon. I ended my freshman year devastated that I had to give all that up.

Sounds like a pretty sad story, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. 

Because while I was studying Business Administration on my new upstate NY campus, I met a guy at the top of our dorm tower watching ˆSaturday Night Live” who shared my passion for comedy, and learned he and some fellow comedy nerds were writing and producing a radio sitcom for the school’s AM station. They invited me to join in, and soon I was working regularly at the station as a disc jockey and newscaster, things I had never thought to try before. In my senior year I roomed with that guy I had met watching SNL and we began writing and hosting our own sketch comedy show on the school’s new FM station. 

I graduated SUNY Albany with a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Marketing (areas for which I had little passion), but I chose to pursue a comedy writing career instead. Forty years later it seems I made the right choice, having written and produced several hit TV series – including an Emmy nomination writing for Saturday Night Live, a dream of its ownand building a very substantial nest egg in the process. Plus that roomie who shared my love of comedy is still my best friend. And it all happened at a school I wasn’t the least bit excited to go to.

I didn’t get into the colleges of my choice. But the journey I did take turned out great.

The same is true for my oldest son. He got into a great in-state public school, UC Santa Barbara, but he still pined to go to the University of Wisconsin where his best friend was attending. So my son applied to transfer to WISCO, but the required collateral paperwork didn’t arrive in time, and he had to stay on at SB. So my son dedicated himself to his newfound passion of sportscasting and is now the play-by-play announcer for several UCSB varsity teams. He plans on pursuing broadcasting as a career, and he knows that the opportunities he got to hone his talents at SB might not have been available to him on the Madison campus. 

Instead of getting into the school of his dreams, he turned his existing school into a dream experience.

I also know someone who eked their way into Harvard, was miserable, and quickly bombed out there, then “found” themself at a less-prestigious public university.

Let this be a lesson (albeit anecdotal) to the high school students who are sweating out the college acceptance wait right now, and to the parents who think their kids’ lives will be ruined if they don’t con an elite university into accepting them. It’s okay to have a dream college, but you don’t have to go to it to live a dream life.

Whatever college you attend will most likely turn out to be the right one for you. Because the one you get into and do attend is the one where you’ll make lifelong friendships, meet lovers you will never forget (and maybe one you’ll marry), find new interests that weren’t on your radar before, and have multiple adventures that will enrich you life forever.

Sadly, we have turned the college acceptance process into an end-all, be-all destination instead of what it should be: a single step on the wonderfully unpredictable journey of life.

So to the student running to the mailbox (or your email) every few hours waiting for that acceptance letter that will change your life, slow down and enjoy the excitement of the wait. Whatever school you attend will be the right school for you, I promise. In all likelihood, within months of arriving on campus, you’ll be living a great new life and rarely give those other schools another thought.

And to the parents of high school seniors, stop trying to micromanage the process. Your job is to protect them from harm, not from minor life disappointments. If your daughter or son doesn’t get into Yale or USC, it won’t be the end of their world. But if they think they’re somehow a failure at 18 because they didn’t live up to your unrealistically high standards, it might.

Let your kids try. Let them fall short. Let them learn to accept adversity and persevere. Those are the lessons that will propel them to success, whatever the name of the school on their diplomas. 

And once they graduate, let them pursue careers in comedy writing or sportscasting or ballet if that is their calling. Love them for who they are, not who you’ve always wanted them to be. Parenting is not about gaming the system to their advantage. It’s about teaching them to excel and be happy with who they are.

Chances are, they’ll turn out just fine. Even with a state school education.

Kevin Kelton is a cohost of The More Perfect Union podcast and runs the Facebook political group, Open Fire Politics.

 

In Defense of Freer Trade

by D.J. McGuire

As we careen towards another presidential election, one of the issues that has been once again shunted to the side is international trade. This is a mistake, especially for Democrats looking to expand their coalition (or hold the expansions achieved in last year’s Congressional election). Before we get to that, however, we must revisit why protectionism is wrong, and freer trade is better for Americans and for everyone else.

America has had a conflicted history when it comes to trade. One would presume that protectionism had an advantage when tariffs were our primary source of revenue. In fact, protectionists in the nineteenth century preferred tariff rates so high that revenue would fallbecause imports would so low. Indeed, it was just such an economic platform that enabled the Republicans to win the election of 1888 (despite losing the popular vote) and enact the McKinley Tariff. It is the most common historical marker Donald Trump uses in his own speeches when he defends his protectionist outlook.

Here’s what he doesn’t mention: the tariff was so unpopular that the Republicans lost half their House seats in the election of 1890 (including McKinley’s) and the Democrats took back the White House in 1892. By the time McKinley returned to national politics (as the Republican nominee for President in 1896), he had remade himself as a defender of the gold standard.

A generation later, the Republicans once again forgot the economics of freer trade – and the rest of us suffered the consequences. The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1929 is still mentioned in Economics classes today as an example of short-sighted policy. It either caused or exacerbated the Great Depression (depending upon which economist is talking). The political effects were also acute: the Republicans were denied a Congressional majority for the over a decade and a half, and after Hoover’s defeat in 1932 they would be out of the White House for twenty years. Congress became so mired in self-doubt that it handed the presidency de facto legislative authority to reduce tariffs (before taking it back under Trade Promotion Authority in the 1970s).

Thus was the “free trade” consensus established, a consensus that started fraying when the Democrats began flirting with protectionism in the late 20th century (before the Clinton era), and is now in serious trouble due to the populist takeover of the GOP. While I prefer to use the term “freer trade” (fully “free trade” is an impossible absolute), I am deeply concerned about the protectionist retaking control of the Republican Party, for reasons both economic and political.

Economically, freer trade means more options for Americans and more efficient markets for them. Please note, I did not limit those benefits to America “consumers” – and for good reason. The first tariffs Trump imposed in 2018 were on steel and aluminum, which hits firms across the country with higher production costs. Those costs led to jobs unfilled, products unmade, services not offered, and prices increased.

Those are the direct impacts of tariffs on inputs, but tariffs on goods and services also damage economies indirectly. Higher prices on these goods and services lowers both Americans’ standards of living and their savings balances. Less money saved means fewer funds available for business to invest in themselves. Once again, that leads to jobs unfilled, products unmade, and services not offered.

So why does protectionism still seem so popular among the populist right and the American left? Status quo bias is certainly a part of it. The opportunity cost of protectionism is the loss of jobs and growth not yet seen, compared to disruptions that are easily seen. Trump’s behavior on the “Carrier deal” before he took office is a class example. As I noted at the time, “saving” jobs in one area costs jobs in another (and worse), but those costs are less visible.

Or at least they wereless visible. In the social media era, with access to information much easier, we are seeing more discussion of the overall effects of tariffs. What once required the ability to follow several academic journals now requires little more than following Scott Lincicome. Meanwhile, Boeing’s recent problems have been another revelation on the advantages of freer trade: greater choice of products, services, and inputs – or, as Jane McManusput it: “Was never so relieved to see ‘Airbus’ on my upcoming booking.”

As for the politics of trade, that, too is changing. As Trump increasing rebrands the GOP as the protectionist party it once was in the 1880s and in the 1920s, supporters of freer trade are finding Democratic voters far more receptive to their ideas than certain Democratic elected officials (Pew Research). Even in 2016, a majority of Democratic voters approved of free trade agreements, despite neither of the two major contenders for their nomination openly supporting them. Indeed, the 45% of Americans who supported freer trade agreements only found one November candidate who agreed with them on that issue – and that was Gary Johnson. Democrats looking to be the nominee in 2020 should take note of what the party’s voters actually believe on trade – rather than what protectionists in the party are telling them.

First and foremost, though, those of us who know the damage protectionism can do must speak out against it and ensure the arguments for freer trade are heard – and that is why this post is here.

D.J. McGuire – a self-described progressive conservative – has been part of the More Perfect Union Podcast since 2015. He is also a contributor to Bearing Drift.

Against the New Isolationism

by D.J. McGuire

As good as the principle of democracy is, it can not defend itself. Like everything else in the battlefield of ideas, it needs people to champion it. For decades, the understanding that a more democratic world was more just, more prosperous, and more in America’s best interests was carried forth by those who called themselves neoconservatives.

It’s been a decade since their our time seemed past. In the interim, our alliances and our interests have been questioned from right (the Trump-led GOP) and from left (the newly emboldened left wing of the Democrats). Absent a re-engagement, this combined and bi-partisan isolationism will lead to an American retreat, a global disaster, and more costly American return to global prominence. We can and must prevent that.

The Bloody History of Ignoring the Tyrannies of Others

We can begin by reminding our fellow Americans why democracy is as necessary to export as it is to maintain. America learned the hard way – within a generation of her founding – that attempting to ignore the arguments between two major powers less democratic than us was impossible. Our attempts to steer clear of war with France in 1798 put us on an inevitable path to war with Britain (arguably the moredemocratic of the two) fourteen years later. In the midst of the Civil War, we recognized that Mexican democracy, for all its flaws, was a better neighbor than a would-be monarch backed by yet another tyrannical Napoleon.

Even those lessons paled in comparison to the importance of democracy in the 20th century. We shrugged our shoulders as democracy died in interwar Germany and Japan (the latter by literal assassination), convinced it wasn’t our concern. We found out the hard way just how wrong we were.

Even after World War II, the lesson was lost on occasion. We spent the middle period of the Cold War telling ourselves anti-Communism was more important than democracy – as if that were an actual choice. By the time the Reagan Administration made democracy promotion a priority – and not just in places with Soviet regimes such as Nicaragua, but even with “friendly” tyrants in the Philippines, South Korea, and Chile – the mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s were there for all to see. Some are still with us, such as in Southeastern Asia.

It was in this period that neoconservatism first became a well-known term in the policy realm: a home for the Democratic Peace theory – i.e., democracies are far less likely to fight each other, and more likely to work together, than tyrants. When the Cold War was won, this became conventional wisdom, along with a dangerous overconfidence that democracies were not only better for the world (which they were), but so obviously better that they would be easy to build (which they were and are not).

The Fall of the Vision

This brings us to the mistake that felled the movement: Iraq – but not the mistake people think. These days, even the most well known and prominent neoconservatives and fellow travelers have called the liberation of Iraq an error. I won’t because it wasn’t.

Whatever one may say of Iraq’s stumbling democracy, I refuse to believe that Saddam Hussein was as better leader, or that the people would be better off under his tyranny. Given that so many of his regime’s middle ranks became the backbone of al Qaeda in Iraq (and its successor, Islamic State), it should give people pause to ask themselves if they would really prefer that crew still controlling and entire nation, with the apparatus of a reign of terror in place, and massive oil reserves at their disposal.

No, the mistake in Iraq was to assume it would be as easy to democratize as Eastern Europe had (supposedly) been (in fact, Eastern Europe had growing pains of its own – and as Hungary as shown, is still capable of backsliding). By the time President Bush the Younger recognized the task in front of him, the American people had lost patience.

Amidst the many differences between the two presidents who succeeded the younger Bush, one key common factor is this: they were both elected on promises to reduceAmerican obligations abroad. Indeed, it was a critical part of both their success.

Why We Must Return

The results are the danger we see around us: alliances fraying, American leadership replaced with mercantilist isolationism in the White House, while the opposition party is engulfed in arguments between the holdovers from the 1990s consensus and a new Blame-America-First isolationism on the left.

Neither have the foresight to recognize why the international order America helped build after World War II is so important. It’s up to those of us who dorecognize it to speak up, now.

We can start with simple questions. Who do the isolationists expect to replace us as the lead superpower? The Chinese Communist Party? Vladimir Putin? The confused, insular European Union? India? The first two would be a disaster for the planet, while the latter two are in no position to take up the mantle (and I say this as a friend to India).

What makes the isolationists so certain that unmolested tyrants will be more friendly to us than democracies? Again, has Putin simply allowed us to govern ourselves without intrusion? Has the Chinese Communist Party reined in its Korean satellite regime? Have Ortega and Maduro made their nations less likely to drive people to our borders, desperate for a peaceful and free life? Are the peoples of Africa truly better off with governments stealing from them to pay off Communist Chinese lenders?

Finally, and this one may be difficult for those who reversed themselves on Iraq, but the questions need asking. Who is superior to the democracies in the Middle East (the mature Israel and the developing Iraq and Lebanon)? An Iranian regime that is helping Bashar Assad butcher his own people? A Saudi monarchy that kills journalists with impunity?

The Contours of the Debate

To be clear, I’m not asking for a military-first policy – and none of my fellow neoconservatives (or whatever label they choose) should either. The problem is more fundamental. Arguments over the most efficient types of intervention against the tyrants of the world are necessary to find the optimal courses of action.

In this time, however, the very alliances and the very notion that democracy is superior to tyranny are under rhetorical assaultThat can not go unanswered – and, for what its worth, it will not go unanswered as long as I am posting here.

D.J. McGuire – a self-described progressive conservative – has been part of the More Perfect Union Podcast since 2015. He is also a contributor to Bearing Drift.

Trump’s Latest Unlikely Helper: Justin Trudeau

by D.J. McGuire

There are two governments in what is sometimes called “Anglo-America.” One of them is facing charges of corruptions, demands for resignation, and the real risk of defenestration by the voters in the upcoming election.

The other is the Trump Administration.

It’s been that kind of month in Canada, where former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould pointedly accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his staff of attempting to waylay a prosecution of a government contracting firm that, (1) donated $100,000 illegally to Trudeau’s Liberal Party, (2) is being tried for massive bribes to the Qaddafi regime in Libya, and (3) has insisted that any judicially imposed restrictions on its ability to win future contracts would cripple it.

The firm, SNC-Lavalin, has demanded a Deferred Prosecution Agreement ever since DPAs were enacted – as a paragraph buried in a multi-hundred page omnibus budget passed last year. The Director of Public Prosecutions said no; as AG and Justice Minister (the posts are combined in Canada), Wilson-Raybould ratified that decision. Trudeau and his minions tried to talk her out of it for months afterwards before demoting her to Veterans Minister. The current AG – who, like the PM, just happens to have his district in the same city as SNC-Lavalin’s headquarters – insists a DPA is now possible (Global News).

As I write this, the PM himself has just addressed the issue. Stunningly, he didn’t contradict Wilson-Raybould’s assertions that he personally intervened – he even acknowledged he mentioned his own political situation (although he laughably insisted it “wasn’t partisan in nature” – Maclean’s transcript). He even goes so far as to say he should have intervened further(same link):

In the months that followed that meeting, I asked my staff to follow up regarding Ms. Wilson-Raybould’s final decision. I realize now that in addition, I should have done so personally, given the importance of this issue and the jobs that were on the line.

It’s that last bit that begins to reveal how Trudeau, in his increasingly desperate attempt to save himself, may unintentionally be giving Trump a lifeline.

Yesterday, the PM’s former top mandarin – Gerald Butts – testified before the House Justice Committee about his own interventions. He, too, defended them on the basis of the jobs lost if SNC-Lavalin went under. Paul Wells of Maclean’s(full disclosure: my favorite columnist in North America) explains the disconnect (emphasis in original):

To put labels on the two viewpoints here, Wilson-Raybould obviously thought a decision by the AG to interfere in decisions about public prosecutions should be exceptional. Butts thinks it should be routine. Wilson-Raybould wants the independence of the director of public prosecutions to be robust. Butts wants that independence to be minimal.

Does any of that sound familiar?

At first glance, Trudeau’s excuse may seem more policy-driven than Trump’s. First glances can be deceiving though. In both cases, the national leaders are using the economy as a cover for stopping legal proceedings that would hurt their political prospects. They are both hoping their voters and their intra-party allies focus not on the damage done to the rule of law but rather the supposedly noble goals they were pursuing while doing the damage.

Of course, Trudeau and Trump would list those “noble goals” rather differently, but both lists include “jobs” – now more than ever. Moreover, with an election seven months away, Trudeau is almost certain to use Trump as a foil in the upcoming campaign, insisting the opposition Conservatives are kinsmen of the rancid Trump Administration in the hopes his Liberal base will stay with him via outrage and fear.

Of course, what works for Trudeau in 2019 can – and almost certainly will – be used by Trump in 2020. In fact, unless the Conservatives do dethrone Trudeau this October, Trump could use “Crooked Justin” as an asset for his own re-election, even as he borrows the PM’s playbook.

D.J. McGuire – a self-described progressive conservative – has been part of the More Perfect Union Podcast since 2015. He is also a contributor to Bearing Drift.

Kim-Trump Summit: Thank God It’s Over

by D.J. McGuire

About a week ago, I wondered if Trump would cave to Kim Jong-un at the Hanoi summit. It turns out he did. However, it wasn’t enough to get a “deal,” for which we should all be very grateful.

Prior to the summit, there was widespread concern about what Trump might offer the bloodthirsty tyrant of northern Korea. As it began, we found out (NBC News).

U.S. negotiators are no longer demanding that North Korea agree to disclose a full accounting of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs as part of talks this week between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, according to current and former senior U.S. officials.

The decision to drop, for now, a significant component of a potential nuclear deal suggests a reality that U.S. intelligence assessments have stressed for months is shaping talks as they progress: North Korea does not intend to fully denuclearize, which is the goal Trump set for his talks with Kim.

Negotiations between U.S. and North Korean officials in advance of Trump and Kim’s second summit…have focused heavily on a core component of Pyongyang’s program, the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, officials said.

To be fair, Donald Trump is notthe first president to decide a deal with the Kim family is worth jettisoning key priorities in the American interest. In this case, he was merely repeating the mistakes of his three predecessors.

Within hours, however, he ventured into territory none of them dared – and that wasn’t a good thing (NBC).

Kim Jong Un was not responsible for the horrific injuries sustained by American student Otto Warmbier, who died shortly after being released from 17 months of detention in North Korea, President Donald Trump said Thursday.

“Some really bad things happened to Otto — some really, really bad things. But he tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word,” Trump said, referring to the North Korean dictator.

The president added that Kim told him that he “felt very badly about it.”

There’s no way to spin this: that was utterly nonsensical and offensive to the Warmbier family – who made their feelings clear afterwards (NBC).

“We have been respectful during this summit process. Now we must speak out. Kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son Otto,” Fred and Cindy Warmbier said in a statement. “Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity. No excuses or lavish praise can change that.”

The concessions and “lavish praise” were not followed by a codification of surrender, although Trump did cancel a military exercise with South Korea (Fox News via Twitter), likely to make Kim happy.

So while the summit was not the failure it could have been it certainly wasn’t a success. Avoiding a bad deal can be done without any meetings. All one has to do is look at the disastrous proposal from the other side and turn it down. Instead, we got … well, we got the aforementioned – with some added “likes,” if you will, afterwards (Fox News via Matt Gertz).

A few years back, the UN Human Rights Commissionerreported on the regime led by the fellow Trump “likes.” Now, I get the “UN” and “Human Rights” have been hard to say in the same breath sometimes, but this paragraph in the report says it all.

“These crimes against humanity entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation,” the report says, adding that “Crimes against humanity are ongoing in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea because the policies, institutions and patterns of impunity that lie at their heart remain in place.”

Oh, and they developed and produced nuclear weapons despite promising not to do so in 1985 … and in 1994 … and in 2007.

Donald Trump has a horrible blind spot when it comes to tyrants: from Vladimir Putin to Kim Jong-un. The only nice thing to say about his meeting with the latter is that it could have been a lot worse …

… but that was a reason not to have the summit in the first place.

D.J. McGuire – a self-described progressive conservative – has been part of the More Perfect Union Podcast since 2015. He is also a contributor to Bearing Drift.

Primary Colors 2020

by Kevin Kelton

Democrats, forget left vs. moderate for a moment and talk raw primary politics. Because ultimately primary races are a battle of personalities, not political purity. Once Joe Biden and Beto O’Roarke jump into the 2020 race, the field will be set.* Now the game is primary chess. So let’s look at the board.

Bernie Sanders is likely to win or do very well in his neighboring New Hampshire, the second big prize, a place where an old school candidate like Biden is not likely to run well. (Granite staters tend toward newer flavors.) And South Carolina will be tough for both Joe and Bernie, two guys not known for playing to the grits crowd.

That means Joe must win Iowa. Otherwise he’ll be 0 for 3 in the first three contests⁺ and no one comes back from that except the ’04 Red Sox.

If Beto or Kamala Harris can knock off Sanders in New Hampshire, that could douse The Bern for good. Harris seems positioned to do well in minority-heavy South Carolina. But neither of them is likely to break free if they don’t win Iowa. At best, one might emerge as the fresh-face candidate who will still have to fend off the old guard to prove their mettle.

So once again Iowa is key, even more so this time than normally. (How do a few hundred thousand caucus voters kidnap the nation every four years?) Should Biden somehow win there, it’s probably a Biden-Bernie or Biden-Beto or Biden-Harris race.⁺⁺

That would set up yet another epic battle for the ideological soul of the party, with pragmatists behind Biden and ideologues splintering between Bernie and Beto or Harris. There’s only one lane out of that bowling alley, while Biden would be free to play to the pragmatist, anti-Trump crowd.

But for Joe to get there, it’s Iowa Iowa Iowa. Can he out-caucus Sanders in the heartland? Or will a smooth-talking Music Man (or Woman) from out west come in and steal their swooning Iowan hearts?

If Biden stalls in Iowa, NH and SC become the game. The party will lurch left. Everyone will be touting Medicare For All and play some version of a Green New Deal hand. “I’ll see your carbon tax and raise you a solar jobs bill.” Each will have their own version of a Robin Hood wealth tax, turning the debates into a giant Mathletes club. “Is 70% of an eight figure salary greater than 2% of a nine figure estate? Please show your work.”

And Trump will run against socialism, no matter who tops the ticket. Meaning the world may finally learn what would’ve happened if a Democratic Socialist had secured the 2016 nomination and ran against Trumpism.

There. I just spared you the next year of your life. Now, who do you like for 2024?

Kevin Kelton is a cohost of The More Perfect Union podcast. He also runs the Facebook political group, Open Fire Politics.

* No one is waiting to see what Jeff Merkley or Michael Bennett will be doing. And Sherrod Brown doesn’t have the fire to catch fire.

⁺ The Nevada caucus actually comes before SC this time, but I don’t see that traditionally blue state being much of a factor. Considering it’s so far west compared to the others and what that entails in travel time, it may not get much candidate play at all.

⁺⁺ At this point I don’t give Amy Klobuchar much of a shot, but we can’t rule her out, since “Midwestern nice” plays well in Iowa. And though I personally like Elizabeth Warren, I doubt she can compete in this field. She has no lane that I can see, and I get no sense of traction for her in Open Fire, my Facebook focus group. 

The Kim Summit: Is Trump Caving?

by D.J. McGuire

From The Art of the Dealapparently to the Art of the Cave (CNN):

As President Donald Trump prepares to meet face-to-face with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un for a second time, his administration is weighing backing off an earlier demand that North Korea agree during the upcoming summit to make a full accounting of its nuclear and missile programs as a prerequisite for US concessions, multiple administration officials tell CNN.

Keep in mind, without a full accounting, we will have no idea if the Kim regime will have stopped its nuclear weapons production, let alone whether it will have truly denuclearized — as every Administration has demanded since Reagan.

Then again, it’s quite possible the regime could get what it wants (an end to economic sanctions) without even pretendingpromising to denuclearize (same link):

On NBC News this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that some US sanctions would be removed when “We’re confident we’ve substantially reduced that risk” from North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. In June of last year, at the time of the first Trump-Kim summit, Secretary Pompeo tied sanctions relief to full denuclearization.
“We are going to get complete denuclearization; only then will there be relief from the sanctions,” Pompeo said in June.

Last summit, of course, Trump “shocked top advisers by agreeing to cancel joint U.S.-South Korea war exercises, which was seen as a major concession to Pyongyang.” This time, they clearly won’t be very surprised, as Pompeo et al are already preparing the ground for a cave … in particular Stephen Biegun, who already hinted that some sanctions could be dropped soon (Washington Post).

Add to that all of the whispers of Trump looking to pull American troops out of South Korea (although, to be fair they are only whispers), and it looks like Trump will be the most dovish American president in history regarding North Korea.

Given the regime’s close ties to Beijing and Moscow, appeasing it at the expense of our allies in South Korea and Japan would be a terrible mistake.

D.J. McGuire – a self-described progressive conservative – has been part of the More Perfect Union Podcast since 2015. He is also a contributor to Bearing Drift.

Meanwhile, in Canada…

by D.J. McGuire

As America careens into its Article 48 moment, a near-universal sentiment among the center-left — that at least democracy was functioning well north of us, in Canada — was shattered by the very man who fueled it for over three years: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

I’ll admit that I have never been a fan of Trudeau, so watching his political star fall dramatically just as an election is on the horizon (October) heartened me more than most — if not all — American Trump critics. That doesn’t change the fact that the Trudeau persona has been badly damaged.

It all started about a week ago, when the Globe and Maildropped a huge accusation regarding the Prime Minister and his former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould (via Paul Wells of Macleans, still my favorite columnist in North America):

The story asserts, on the basis of unnamed sources, that Wilson-Raybould “came under heavy pressure to persuade the Public Prosecution Service of Canada” to cut a “deferred prosecution arrangement” with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the mammoth Montreal engineering and construction firm, to forestall a trial over corruption and fraud charges.

For the uninitiated, SNC-Lavalin is a major government contractor in Canada, headquartered in the province of Quebec, and under the legal microscope for bribing Qaddafi regime officials in Libya. Wells described the actions of the firm’s ex-CEO thusly: “If I may paraphrase, spraying money in every direction to grease whatever wheels needed greasing.”

When caught, SNC faced (Wells again) “the threat of never getting another federal contract again if the company continued to stink like a polecat.” Naturally, it loudly made sure everyone within range of its voices and donations would know that it would change its tune. Of course, those donations themselves also created trouble – to the tune of over $100,000 in campaign contributions that were illegal (most to the Liberals, the very party Trudeau leads).

Legalities aside, SNC still had friends in the Liberal Party, friends who were more than willing to go back on their word about putting an end to what we would call logrolling (and they call omnibus budget bills) for the purpose of putting “deferred prosecution arrangements” on the books as a potential out for the firm  …

… except that the Director of Public Prosecutions (the civil servant in charge of this sort of thing) refused to let SNC have one of those (Wells).

That’s where the Attorney General (the DPP’s boss) and the Prime Minister (the AG’s boss) come in …

… or not, if you believed the PM’s assertions last week that nothing untoward happened. Never mind that he couldn’t say what actually happened, just that it was all above board, and the former AG would certainly agree — if she were allowed to talk, that is. No matter, even silent, she was still in Cabinet (albeit demoted to Veterans Minister), a trusted — and trusting — member of the team. Trudeau calmly noted that, “In our system of governance, her presence in cabinet should speak for itself.” (National Post).

Jody Wilson-Raybould resigned less than 24 hours later — and noted on the way out that she had lawyered up with a retired Supreme Court Justice. That spoke for itself. In the days since, Trudeau has gone from insisting she never gave any hint at feeling pressured to … all but admitted she told him she was feeling pressure (National Post).

In one of the most bizarre off-shoots, a desperate Trudeau tried to hint Wilson-Raybould would still be AG if not for an unrelated resignation in cabinet that caused a reshuffle. Why Wilson-Raybould had to be part of said reshuffle was anyone’s guess, but social media had a field day (same link, emphasis added):

It’s never good for a politician when they’re being laughed at. Justin Trudeau’s claim that Jody Wilson-Raybould would still be justice minister if Scott Brison hadn’t resigned from politics quickly became a social media meme.

“If Scott Brison had not stepped down, Erik Karlsson would still be an Ottawa Senator,” wrote one hockey fan.

Brison’s spouse, Max St. Pierre, joined in the fun. “It’s ok, I usually blame my husband for everything too,” he tweeted.

The internet nearly blew up under the pressure of political nerds pointing out that Brison leaving his job as Treasury Board president did not necessarily mean Trudeau had to shuffle Wilson-Raybould. Rather, it offered him an opportunity to move a minister who was proving too independent for the prime minister’s liking.

Ouch.

Even in normal times, this would be both a serious crisis for Prime Minister Trudeau and an opportunity for his critics to enjoy laughs at his expense. However, these aren’t normal times. Canada has adopted a fixed-election law which mandates an election by October of this year. So far, only one poll has been in the field and reported out since the scandal blew … and it puts the opposition Conservatives up five points (Hill Times).

Before this year, the number of one-term majority governments tossed out by the voters was exactly one — and that was in the nineteenthcentury. Before last week, the idea that Trudeau would be turfed from power was nothing but a fevered Tory dream.

But as Harold Wilson supposedly said, a week is a long time in politics.

D.J. McGuire – a self-described progressive conservative – has been part of the More Perfect Union Podcast since 2015. He is also a contributor to Bearing Drift.

Do Lower Interest Rates Actually Make Income Inequality Worse?

by D.J. McGuire

Ever since John Maynard Keynes revolutionized the field of macroeconomics, left-wing and center-left politicians have included “expansionary monetary policy” – quoted because it’s the actual term – as part of their platform. Higher money supply and lower interest rates have been loudly endorsed by Democrats (and quietly cheered by many Republicans) since the Second World War at least.

President Trump himself has railed against the Federal Reserve’s recent (and paused) attempt to normalize interest rates from the period of extremely low levels following the Great Recession. Meanwhile, the left is also complaining loudly about income inequality, while recommending a radically expansionary monetary policy – known as Modern Monetary Theory – to “pay for it.”

The usual critique to “loose money” has been the threat of inflation. However, the lack of inflationary pressures during the past decade has eroded the power of that argument. Indeed, the lack of strength in the post-Great-Recession recovery has led many to wonder if quantitative easing was not expansionary enough.

A new paper from Ernest Liu (Princeton), Atif Mian (also Princeton), and Amir Sufi (University of Chicago) casts doubt on that theory. In fact, they propose that extremely low interest rates might have causedthe problems of slow growth and income inequality.

Liu, Mian, and Sufitheorize that excessively low interest rates – designed to encourage business investment – actually skew said investment towards larger and more dominant firms. This makes them moredominant in the process, turning more markets from competitive to monopolistic.

Now, microeconomic market structure normally isn’t considered a major factor in macroeconomic policies. In this case, however, Liu et al show that monopolistic markets lead to lower productivity and to slower growth. Moreover, while Liu et al don’t address income inequality per se, increased market power has been known to lead to suppressed wage growth and thus greater income inequality.

In short, Liu et al present an entirely different set of expected consequences for extremely low interest rates. Instead of faster growth, they lead to slower growth. Instead of higher productivity growth, the lead to lower productivity growth. While in theory enabling government to address income inequality, they actually exacerbate it by encouraging market concentration and monopolization.

More time and research is needed, of course, to see how much impact the market concentration effect truly has. More than a few economists will have questions about the paper, as it should be.

However, at the very least, advocates for looser money in general – and MMT in particular – might want to take into account the strong possibility that their methods are running contrary to their avowed policy goals.

D.J. McGuire – a self-described progressive conservative – has been part of the More Perfect Union Podcast since 2015. He is also a contributor to Bearing Drift.

Running Down The Impeachment Clock

What if Robert Mueller delivers a scathing criminal report against the Trump campaign, but it comes too late?

By Kevin Kelton

You may not realize it, but there is a very definite game clock on impeachment, and it is quickly winding down. 

Even if the special counsel delivers a searing critique of Trump campaign Russian collusion and criminal conduct backed by mounds of evidence, it will take time for that to be converted to articles of impeachment. First, the report may be held back at DOJ as long as the Trump side feels it can hide it from public consumption. Then hearings have to be scheduled and held, in which witnesses will have to repeat their testimony. Some of this may be forced into closed session, further delaying the facts from the American people.

But even once open hearings commence, there is a process and it will take time. The Senate Watergate Hearings opened on May 17, 1973, yet the Select Committee didn’t issue its 1,250-page report until June 27, 1974, thirteen months later. In the House, the investigation formally began on February 6, 1974, but the Judiciary Committee didn’t vote on articles of impeachment until June 27, almost six months later.

Similarly, the House began its impeachment inquiry into Bill Clinton in October of 1998, but didn’t vote on articles of impeachment for another two months, and the senate trial didn’t begin until a month after that. And that was a simple case, with very few witnesses and DNA evidence of the alleged crimes.

A modern-day House investigation into an international conspiracy to defraud the United States would likely move much slower. Let’s say Mueller delivers a report sometime in late March, and it is made public by late April. (Those dates seem highly optimistic at this point.) That would be nine months before the Iowa presidential caucuses. The House would have to digest the report, schedule hearings, and begin taking testimony. That could be a two to four month process, or longer. Remember, this is an international investigation with a lot of national security tentacles that may not be fit for public consumption. That will mean much of the hearings happening in closed session with very little of the results being made public until much later. 

Even if congress were to vote out articles of impeachment by mid summer or fall, it may be too late. There is nothing in the Constitution setting out a timeline for the impeachment process. So it’s very likely that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would delay, distract, and try to avoid his Constitutional responsibility. Remember, this is the man who denied Merrick Garland a hearing for ten months, rationalizing that the will of the people (in the form of the 2016 election) should decide who fills the empty SCOTUS seat. This flew in the face of conventional constitutional wisdom. McConnell did it anyway.

If articles of impeachment did not arrive at the Senate until mid-summer or early fall, McConnell could simply rule that the impeachment trial is coming too close to a presidential campaign, and it would be manifestly unfair to the GOP front-runner (Trump) to put him on trial during his re-election run. The Senate Majority Leader might argue that the American people should be able to decide who they want in the White House (as he argued during the Garland imbroglio). The Democratic establishment – and the public at large – could yell and scream and demand he relent (as they did during the Garland imbroglio). Legal experts on MSNBC and CNN could declare it a blatant abuse of the Majority Leader’s constitutional powers. But it’s Mitch McConnell. He’ll do whatever he damn well pleases.

And if Trump wins re-election, he would be virtually immune from any crimes committed during his first presidential campaign, even those in the articles of impeachment. The logic would be, he was re-elected by the American voters, who had the facts, made their own personal impeachment votes, and declared Trump not guilty. Any senate trial at that point would be moot.

That would mean four more years of a corrupt administration unbound by the constraints of congress and its own criminal misdeeds.

Look, I don’t know Robert Mueller, and neither do you. All we know is his reputation for diligence and fairness. Maybe these political calculations are simply not on his radar. Maybe he thinks it’s more important to do the job right than to meet a political deadline. But if he doesn’t deliver the goods in the next few weeks, it’s possible that all his diligent work will end in nothing more than a history report with no legal teeth.

Now is the time for Democratic leaders in congress to put a full-court press on Mueller to show his hand and let the chips fall where they may.

Because the closer we get to the primaries, the better the chances that Trump and his GOP teammates will play out the clock and make a mockery of justice.

Kevin Kelton is a cohost of The More Perfect Union podcast. He also runs the Facebook political group, Open Fire Politics.

Pop Goes The Political Culture, January 26, 2019

 

By Rebekah Kuschmider, MPU Co-host

Well, this week was a roller coaster, MPU-iverse! If you were looking for tension, drama, suspense, and sharp wit, you could get it all! And that was just the exchange between the White House and the Speaker’s office about when Trump was allowed to come give the State of the Union.

I haven’t even started to touch on the arrest of Roger Stone, Michael Cohen’s announcement that he, a witness, had been tampered with by Trump, the sudden end of the government shutdown, and a coup brewing in Venezuela.

The rest of the gang and I will get to all of that when we gather to record, but for now, here’s all the news that’s not fit to ‘cast!

No Day But Today: Last week, CBS news popped up a graphic that was supposed to lay out descriptions of all the living generational cohorts in America. They defined the Silent Generation, the Boomers, Millennials, Post Millennials. What no one except people who once had posters of Cobain on their walls noticed was that Generation X was completely left off.

WE ARE THE GENERATION THAT PERFECTED INTERNET PORN! The least we deserve is a mention.

We’re a tiny slice of the population, and we’ve been ignored before. But if you want pay attention to us for once, you can get a look at the heart and soul of GenX on Sunday night. Fox is presenting a live performance of Rent, the musical that shocked Broadway out of its torpor and gave voice to the struggles of a generation living through the the age of AIDS and the rise of corporate co-opting of every creative impulse Americans have. A musical, I might add, that is the one shining jewel in the crown of its creator Jonathon Larson, who died before he ever saw his masterwork become a part of the fabric of our culture.

I have been having a love affair with Rent since I saw it on Broadway in 1996, shortly after Larson died and before the show exploded into the collective consciousness. It has been the soundtrack of my life as a person who has always wanted to speak with a unique voice in a country that fights diversity in all its forms.

The music of Rent, the experience of people of all colors, all genders, all sexualities, the sick and the healthy, the dreamers, the crusaders, and the sell-outs, that story looked like the life my generation led in America at the end of the millennium.

Take the time to watch this production of Rent if you can. Listen to the sound of a generation afraid that there was no hope of surviving in a world where sex killed us and corporations numbed us and the opportunity to succeed meant giving up parts of our souls. Come meet GenerationX.

And afterward you can thank us for the internet porn.

Vaccines: I can’t believe I have to write this today but vaccines are a proven scientific advancement that. through widespread use, have nearly eradicated multiple diseases that once maimed and killed thousands of people every year.

This is a fact and anyone saying otherwise is being a dickhead.

No, I’m not sorry for saying that.

You see, some people really can’t have vaccines and therefore do not have immunity to diseases like measles. These people tend to have underlying health issues such as, say, cancer, and are immunocompromised to a degree that vaccines would be harmful. Their risk of acquired infection, therefore, is higher than normal people and their ability to fight off infections is diminished.

Which is why I want to spit nails at every smug hipster who says “Vaccinating my child is my choice and I don’t have to put toxins in their body if I don’t want to.”

You know what? Your kid is inhaling toxins with every breath so shut your bearded yap.

Washington State has had to declare a state of emergency because of a growing outbreak of measles. Measles can kill otherwise healthy people, never mind how risky it is for unvaccinated babies or people with immune issues. Which is why it’s so terrifying that people are doing things like getting measles, going to basketball games during the incubation period, spreading their germs willy-nilly and risking the lives of other people like it ain’t no thing.

If you are a person witholding vaccines from your kids because you read some bullshit from Jenny McCarthy or the Natural News website, you are part of the problem.

Vaccinate your family. Check your titers if you’re unsure of your vaccination status and update vaccines if you need to. Be a part of the solution.

Character Counts: We are now up to something like 37 from the Mueller investigation and I’ve noticed something. Whenever the FBI shows up with a warrant or an indictment, there’s no one rushing to be on tv and defend the character of the accused.

Just this week, when Roger Stone was arrested in the pre-dawn hours, there was no one to say “Roger? Really? He’s such a great guy. I can’t believe he was shady all this time.” Instead, all the Trump-world apologists can pull out is quibbling about the propriety of arrest protocols.

Every arrest just proves that these people are crooks, they were always crooks and everyone knew they were crooks. They never even pretended to be anything else.

60 million Americans voted affirmatively for a criminal cabal to run our country. And they might do it again, just to own the libs. That’s pretty damn sad.

That’s all I have for now, friends. The guys and I will be missing the live production of Rent to record the show tonight but you should really watch it to fill the empty hours before our new podcast drops!