Quickthink

For a while now, the news out of Washington has been beyond the pale. Not just silly, but beyond silly. Like when over 90% of the American people support universal background checks for weapons purchases and Congress can’t make it happen.

So what is going on? According to Larry Lessig, one problem is that US politics these days is not really about public opinion at all.  It is more about the opinions of those who fund politics. And by and large, those opinions are based on corporate interests - like those of the gun manufacturers.

Is it so? One might answer that it has always been so. Corporations have long played powerful behind the scenes roles in shaping US policy. From time to time, this became annoying and that power was trimmed back. Teddy Roosevelt seemed to see “trust busting” as a sort of sport. Here he is, courtesy of OSU

More recently we have seen similar trimming back in regulation of tobacco products, car safety, pollution and so on.  But in each case, it took a very hard push to make the change. And victory did not include stripping corporate interests of power .

Attacking corporate influence as a problem in itself has been less successful. Anyone remember the hopes that folks had for the FEC (Federal Election Commission) back in the late 1970’s? Well, the FEC is still around but no one talks about it very much and especially not as the hope for campaign finance reform. I don’t recall Larry mentioning it even one time in his passionate address.

So is Larry right that things must change now — or else? My guess is that things will not change in the foreseeable future. Even if the US gets reasonable gun regulation (finally), we are moving in a totally different direction when it comes to election reform. One party (guess who) sees their future inextricably tied to (1) more financing from the enfranchised (not less) and (2) reduced access to the vote for those who would disenfranchise them (minorities and the poor). And as Rachel Maddow has brought out again and again, these folks are in power at the state level and acting on their agenda where they can.

So where will the mandate for election reform emerge from? Not from the right (see above). It is against their political interests (as they see them). And most likely not from the left. The left is still too weak and self-absorbed to make this kind of agenda grabbing play for power. They will make a stink about fairness, but also will probably roll up their sleeves and play the political game as it is played now (see above) in order to get in power — rather than fight to change that system itself.

So if things will change, the impetus will have to come from outside of the political process. Speeches by Larry Lessig,  as moving as they are, will not do it alone. Nor will hand wringing and chest pounding over the internet. A scandal like Sandy Hook? Perhaps. But more likely — and I hope that I am wrong —  reform to balance the playing field between entrenched interests and everyone else will require a long and hard fought political  campaign that will take years.

BTW, this reminds me a bit about the election reform issues that were a recurrent theme of British politics in the early to mid 19th century. Reform came, but that took a long, long time and a lot of campaigning by whigs and liberals. Thinking back to Hogarth’s day, perhaps things are not quite so bad as they were back in the “good old days”

“Beyond the pale” is one of those old expressions that is used but not well understood. I didn’t understand it either until I looked it up.

The “pale” in this context is a wooden fence that encloses a home (or safe area). We don’t use the word much in this sense, though in Dracula movies one speaks of “impaling” the dude to stop his nipping at necks. So to be beyond the pale is to be outside the fence - in a place of danger.

Most often the “fence” here refers to standards. If you are “beyond the pale” you most likely have done something that not only breaches standards, but noticeably so. So that you are rejected.

Why this background? Well, according to a recent poll a majority of Americans think that the GOP as a party is beyond the pale. Too extreme. This is troubling not just if you are a republican. When one of the two great US political parties has lost its way this badly, the system is at risk.

Put it this way, US politics doesn’t work without the parties presenting reasonable alternatives to voters for governing the country. Can the GOP find its way back “within the pale”? It is one of the more interesting stories these days.

If you could choose, which would be more valuable to you? Your capacity to learn or your capacity to believe?

Of course we want both. Believing in something gives us strength, which in a turbulent life is badly needed. So we are constantly exhorted to “believe in ourselves” the way that Steve Jobs did. But as Fransisco Dao  writes, a craving for belief can blind us. Remember the great scene from the Wizard of Oz where the little dog pulls back the curtain and reveals the true identity of the “great and mighty Oz”?

I agree with Dao that the slide from open minded questioning and learning to closed minded adherence is a slippery one. Why? Pressures from the outside can overwhelm us.

After the horrendous events in Jonestown, Americans started calling this phenomenon “drinking the Kool-aid“.  The phrase resonates because there comes a moment when it is too late to wake up. Which, btw, takes me to politics. Rachel Maddow ran a show the other night about the events leading up to the US invasion of Iraq. Can you believe it! President Bush et al got the whole country to drink the kool-aid and invade Iraq. Oops.

But that is in the past, right? Well, consider the Italian elections. Who would have thought it possible that bunga bunga politics could make a comeback? And yet, as Paul Krugman writes, frustration with austerity policies imposed from Germany run deep. So where is the Kool-aid here? Well, some still cling to the belief that austerity is needed right now. Can you believe it?

A slippery slope indeed. Perhaps Descartes meant to say “I believe. Therefore I am.”

Just a few months ago, US voters sent the republican party a rude message - grow up. Apparently, memories fade fast. Instead of growing up, senate republicans seem to be doubling down on their scorched earth tactics.

Case in point: last week’s filibuster of Check Hagel’s nomination as defense secretary. Just to be clear, this is the first time in US history that the senate has refused to allow a vote on whether to confirm a president’s nomination for a cabinet position. Candidates have failed to gain approval - but never has the senate refused to vote.

And keep in mind, this is just a few weeks after the so called gentleman’s agreement where republican leaders in the senate promised to stop abusing the filibuster in order to avoid a vote on limiting that right.

And Senator Ted Cruz from Texas is leading the charge. Oh dear. I have a bad feeling about this.

I have a question for you.

After the 2oo8 financial meltdown, most people — at least those who didn’t work in the financial sector — thought financial reform was needed. And Congress passed Dodd-Frank to bring us financial reform. A key part of that was to create a new federal agency to combat financial fraud (like getting financially unsophisticated people to take out sub-prime mortgages). That agency was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Here is the question. So why don’t we have a working CFPB now? Paul Krugman tells us this not very pleasant story.

Back in 2008, Republicans were distressed that Barrack Obama won the presidency. They were even more distressed that the election was not that close. Perhaps one could blame John McCain or Sarah Palin for being “weak” candidates. But there is a problem with that argument. McCain sacrificed most if not all of his “maverick” status to get the republican nomination and he lost the race to Obama at least in part because of his policy positions that were orthodox republican positions. There was an inkling, even back then, that there was a problem with the republican brand.

One might have thought that inside the party elite, the loss would have challenged the sense of inner certainty that republican core issues were “in synch” with the majority of Americans. The script that electing a democrat to the presidency would bring hell on earth as well as higher taxes didn’t work. Voters went democratic and Obama was in.

So one wondered, would there be a strategic shift? Would republicans re-think how to broaden their coalition? Well, they didn’t go that way. Instead, republicans went in the opposite direction and got even angrier — mainly about the deficit. They were determined to prove that Obama was a big spender and political loser. And for a time, this appeared to have some traction. While there was little to no evidence that cutting the deficit during a recession is good policy, republican anger about the deficit got headline news. Pounding the table about the deficit made it look like the republicans were relevant again. It looked like they had something to say. Perhaps the brand had value after all! Perhaps anger worked!

And then suddenly, come election time, they weren’t that relevant again. As in 2008, the 2012 presidential election was not that close. Romney said all the right things (according to republican doctrine) but failed dismally. Nor did Paul Ryan excite the crowds. Worse still, republican anger is starting to look more like gamesmanship than genuine passion. Two examples - Is getting an “A” rating from the NRA because of a passion for the right to own assault rifles really something to be proud about? And is abortion so wrong that as a matter of law, victims of rape and incest must conceive?

So here is the big question after the 2012 election. Will republicans finally calm down and try to reach out to form broader coalitions? Or will they stay angry about the same old core issues and wait for the tide to turn in their favor? It is a pretty interesting question and we don’t really know which way the wind will blow. There are encouraging signs that republicans are starting to move on immigration reform and gun control. And they recently caved on the debt ceiling.

But we also have the Chuck Hagel confirmation hearings.  Before Mr. Hagel’s nomination to become Secretary of Defense, I was not aware that he was a lightning rod of discontent. But judging from the reception that Mr. Hagel got at his confirmation hearing, he surely is evil incarnate. What is the big deal? Well ok. Hagel did “cross the aisle”, moving from trusted political friend to opponent on a core republican foreign policy issue. So it is pay back time. I get that.

But I think something deeper is going on here. You might recall that Bush et al started two wars in order to end terrorism. Right or wrong, these wars went on for a long time and one (Afghanistan) still aint over yet. The other (Iraq) is over but the country sits right on the edge of a boiling kettle called Syria on one side and another boiling kettle called Iran on the other. Nor is it very stable itself.

Hagel — as a republican —  had the balls to question whether relying on the military option produced a strategic advantage. While few these days would argue that the wars have been a great success, it is still painful to admit that they were strategic over-reach. Put another way, accepting Hagel as a top foreign policy official means accepting that the Bush era of using war for strategic advantage is over. It would also signal that republican foreign policy (an area that republicans have claimed as a strong suit) is questionable. Something to get angry about? You bet! At least if you are John McCain.

But let’s talk politics. Polls show that US voters are fed up with permanent war. After a decade of fighting, US voters want to bring the troops home.In a recent poll, for example, respondents said that ending the war in Iraq was President Obama’s #1 foreign policy achievement (killing bin Laden was # 2).  That means — whether the republicans like it or not — a shift in policy making where the US no longer uses unilateral military intervention as a primary global problem solving tool. And the Obama administration has embraced this change. Hagel fits right into this policy thinking. So from a political perspective, the Hagel appointment is not that controversial. But it is yet another painful policy correction from the bad old days of republican rule.

Republicans can’t attack Obama directly on this. He is too powerful after the election. But they don’t want to stop being angry either. So Hagel looks like a convenient target for venting. Will a bunch of grumpy republican senators move public opinion? Or will voters just turn the channel?

Here is my take on this. Getting grumpy over Hagel, like holding onto a bunch of other old republican orthodoxies, is bad politics. It is a distraction from the main republican political challenge - getting back into the mainstream national political conversation. Can republicans meet that challenge? Of course they can. But that doesn’t mean that they will. As we see with Mr. Hagel’s confirmation hearings, it is very easy to get distracted.

The Hagel thing will blow over, but the fight over the republican brand is an important story to watch.

What to think about President Obama’s inaugural speech? Obama gave some interesting signals in that speech. Most important, he has the same focus that he has always had - emphasizing the need to find the “big tent” (where most Americans agree). But there was something new here as well. It was a stronger assertion that the middle of the road means more effective government.

In other words, Obama is saying that the Reagan revolution is over. Government is not the problem. Let’s see if the president expands on this theme as we go forward. If he does, his second term could be historic.

Macroeconomics is very abstract stuff. It studies aggregations of behavior and tries to draw some conclusions, using realistic assumptions. There is a real danger in this — in believing in the models we use. They are just models. Right.

But go ahead and try to persuade someone that the major problem facing US policy makers today is NOT the deficit. They look at you as if you are nuts. Isn’t a deficit per se a problem? Well, it may be in a household. But nation states are not households. Especially when they print their own money. And anyway, using the “household” analogy is just imposing a model on data, right?

So I have not be overly surprised that republicans in Congress have been successful in focusing attention on the deficit. It sounds like things are out of control. And it seems like we should be scared, right? And of course, entitlements have to go if we “cannot afford” to dole them out.

Well, Paul Krugman and others argue that this is nonsense. The recent growth of the deficit is normal in a recession. It should grow as government pays out more in recession benefits (like food stamps and unemployment) and takes in less taxes. The problem is that we are now in a “liquidity trap”. This means that the private sector needs a big “jolt” to kickstart its activity again — or we will just continue to flounder. But when the economy starts to grow again, tax receipts will go up and there will be some self correction. Meanwhile, high rates of long term unemployment will have far more negative effects over time.

By and large their arguments have been disregarded by the great and mighty. Especially revolting (please excuse the harsh word, but I do find this to be revolting) are commentators who couch this in moral terms. That we are “robbing our children” by not eliminating the deficit now. And yet … as Joe Weisenthal reports for BI, things may be changing a bit.  Some folks are starting to question conventional wisdom. They are starting to ask why the deficit is such a big deal at this point in time, especially when we can finance it at close to 0% interest? Why damage the US economy by not allowing the president to pay the bills that Congress has already voted for? This questioning may get more heated if and when the effects of Japan’s recent fiscal expansion start to be seen.

This would be a huge victory for learning. For seeing beyond the rhetoric. For de-anchoring public opinion in a rather abstract policy area. Things used to not be this way. It used to be easier to scare the crap out of everyone.

Interesting.

Nice video from naked capitalism of Bill Moyers interviewing Paul Krugman. Worth a look for a clear eyed view of the current state of the political/economic game.

Well, President Obama decided to give up part of his leverage before negotiations begin over the debt ceiling. In a major booboo, his Treasury Department said that it would not consider minting a trillion dollar platinum coin that would make the issue vanish like magic. Here is the history of the law that would have made this possible.

Why do I say “booboo”? It is not because I think that President Obama should have endorsed the idea. Not at all. But the president would have done better by simply keeping his mouth shut. There was no reason to take this off the table. And by doing so now, he is letting potential allies who back the idea “twist in the wind“. It also reduces the concerns of people sitting on the other side of the table. This was bad timing.

But there is a deeper issue here and Chris Hays puts his finger on it. President Obama has shown again and again that he has conservative instincts when it comes to institutional norms. He wants to be in the mainstream. This works when all sides respect those norms. But Congressional republicans have spat on them for years now and damaged the country in the process (remember the degrading of US debt?). I agree with Chris that it is more important that norms work than just bowing down to them whether they work or not. And at present, the country is saddled with norms that one side does not respect.

The key question then coming up in the debt ceiling brawl will be whether the democrats make this argument stick. That the issue itself should not be on the public agenda, but is simply an internal Congressional problem. That seems to be the White House strategy so far. Let’s see if they stick with it.