Category Archives: American Politics

Memoirs of the Addams Administration 4.

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In his second week in office, President Trump issued an executive order requiring that any new regulation must be accompanied by the removal of two existing regulations.[1]  Given the cumbersome mechanism for removing existing rules and regulations, this should put a stop to new rules and regulations for a year.[2]  (He allowed an exception for national security-related issues.)  A cost-benefit analysis of this issue is murky.  The Office of Management and Budget suggests that regulations drain-off $110 billion a year from the economy.  On the other hand, the same regulations may save the economy an estimated $872 billion a year.  The “benefits” of regulation actually are non-monetary and can be difficult to calculate in a conventional manner.[3]  In short, neither the “costs,” nor the “benefits” of regulation can be calculated.

President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created when Antonin Scalia augured-in.  Judge Gorsuch is a highly-regarded jurist, as was Judge Merrick Garland, who was denied even a hearing in a shameless piece of Republican obstructionism.[4]  He’s also 49 years-old and could sit on the Court for decades, short-circuiting every Democratic initiative launched by the turn of semi-annual or quadrennial elections.  Democrats demonstrated dismay.  “This is a stolen seat,” declared Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon); the “Republicans stole this seat from Obama” declared the Charlotte Observer (D-North Carolina); while the Atlantic (D-Massachusetts) denounced it as a “deal with the devil.”

Still, the Republicans controlled the Senate when President Obama nominated Judge Garland.  They weren’t going to approve a pro-Democratic Justice when the election tides had been running against the Democrats for three out of four successive elections.  Hearing followed by rejection isn’t any different than rejection through no hearings.  The assumption in the White House appears to have been that whichever party held the White House got to choose which ever justice it wanted for the Supreme Court.  If that’s true, then what about Robert Bork?[5]

[1] “Washington: Trump orders regulatory rollback,” The Week, 10 February 2017, p. 32.

[2] See Emmarie Huetteman, “How Republicans Will Try to Rescind Obama Regulations,” NYT, 31 January 2017.

[3] Perhaps not everything can be reduced to a balance sheet.  Still, do we want a flight into mysticism and “personal feelings” on behalf of people whose standard of living depends upon other people generating wealth?

[4] “Battle lines drawn over Supreme Court pick,” The Week, 10 February 2017, p. 5.

[5] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bork

Memoirs of the Addams Administration 3.

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Last week, a team of people from the Trump administration told a number of senior professionals at the State Department that their resignations had been accepted and that there would be no need for them to remain in their positions until the administration’s nominees for replacements had gotten up to speed.  (Is this the case in other Departments[1] or is it unique to the State Department?  If it is unique to the State Department, then was it the decision of President Trump or of his Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson or of someone else who shall remain nameless, but whose initials are Steven Bannon?  If the decision originated with Tillerson, did it reflect previous contact with the State Department while negotiating oil deals with foreign countries?)

Over the week-end, President Trump reconfigured the “principals committee” of the National Security Council.  While this has been characterized as, among other things, a diminution of the role of the professional military, both the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security are retired Marine Corps generals.  Thus, it could be construed—OK, misconstrued—as a shift from the Bureaucratasaurus to the Parrisasaurus Rex.

Currently, an estimated 90,000 people from radical-Islamist-ridden “countries” have received visas to enter the United States.[2]  On Friday, 27 January 2017 (one week after taking office) elected-President Donald Trump issued an executive order imposing a 90-day “pause” on immigrants from the seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.[3]  This disrupted the late-stage travel plans of about 700 people, who were prevented from boarding U.S.-bound planes.  An additional 300 were halted upon arrival in the United States.[4]

Critics quickly pointed out that no one from these countries had ever committed an act of terror in the United States.  Implicitly, this left liberals in the awkward position of defending Sudan, which has waged a war of aggression—that the left has been quick to denounce as “genocide–in western Sudan, and that Sudan provided a safe haven to Osama bin Laden until President Bill Clinton launched cruise missile attacks against suspected al-Qaeda terrorist sites inside Sudan.  In contrast, countries whose citizens have engaged in terrorism against the United States—Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia—escaped the ban.

Massive protests followed at airports, in the streets, in Congress, and on editorial pages.  Not to mention that Iran launched a ballistic missile in a “test” shot: Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are Iranian-dominated countries, in the Iranian view.[5]  None the less, a snap poll revealed that almost half (49 percent) of Americans approved President Trump’s order, while 41 percent disapproved the order.  Various courts were quick to block the order.  All the same, neither refugees nor those foreigners seeking visas are protected by the Bill of Rights.  Indeed, that’s why so many people want to come to the United States.

The deep polarization of American politics continues into the post-election period.  However, neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton appeared to be much of a healer.  So,,,

[1] This leaves the estimable-I’m-instructed Sally Yates out of the discussion.

[2] The seven countries are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen.  To be picky, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian-born “underwear bomber” who tried to bring down an airliner headed to Detroit (why?) had been recruited, trained, and armed in Yemen; al-Shabab in Somalia has recruited a number of Somali-Americans from the upper Midwest.

[3] The temporary and limited ban easily could be extended and broadened.  But why would it have to be?  President Trump has already succeeded in scaring the be-Muhammad out of Muslims and potential immigrants.

[4] “Travel ban prompts chaos, protests,” The Week, 10 February 2017, p. 4.

[5] “How they see us: Trapped by Trump’s travel ban,” The Week, 10 February 2017, p. 15.

Memoirs of the Addams Administration 2.

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During his first week in office,[1] President Donald Trump ended American participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement[2]; took the first step toward re-negotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by arranging to meet the leaders of Canada and Mexico[3]; instructed the Department of Homeland Security to begin completion of the border wall; ordered that federal funds not go to any “sanctuary cities”[4]; indicated that he would lift President Obama’s blockage of the Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines; began the process of “repealing and replacing” the Affordable Care Act by instructing federal agencies waive regulations that [the presidentially-appointed head of the agency] regards as burdensome; ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) to pause in issuing grants and contracts; barred foreign aid funds from going to international agencies or groups that provide information on abortions[5]; and imposed a federal hiring freeze.[6]  All these steps appear to be reasonable efforts to fulfill promises that candidate Trump made during his campaign.

Furthermore, the president told a group of businessmen that he wanted to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to the 15-20 percent range,[7] and to cut back federal regulation of business by 75 percent.

More alarming—to many if not all—was President Trump’s renewed claim that millions—up to five millions–of people had voted illegally in November 2016.  He promised to launch an investigation.  In addition, he seems eager for a war against the press/media, and he swats aside predictions of conflict of interest.  In addition, the president and his spokespeople have attacked the press—America’s last large unregulated industry—while trumpeting “alternative facts.”[8]  A 500,000-strong Women’s March on Washington had a divided impact.  Supporters saw it as “resistance”; while critics saw it as resistance to a democratic election.[9]

So, a fast start to his first term as president.

[1] “President Trump makes his mark,” The Week, 3 February 2017, p. 4.

[2] The agreement already was Dead-on-Arrival, given the shift in position by both parties during the 2016 election campaign.  Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would have done the same thing.

[3] The two men signaled a willingness to negotiate.   Then came the whole personal spat.

[4] These are cities that refuse to co-operate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in searching for illegal immigrants.  They do, however, avidly pursue federal money for other projects.

[5] This does not prevent other countries from providing those funds.

[6] This freeze ensnared my son, a seasonal wildlands firefighter for the National Forest Service.  The freeze seems unlikely to last, especially once the West catches fire in July 2017.

[7] The nominal Canadian basic tax rate is 38 percent, but a “federal tax abatement” cuts it to 28 percent, and a general tax reduction cuts the effective tax rate to 15 percent.

[8] “’Alternative facts’: Is Trump at war with reality?” The Week, 3 February 2017, p. 6.

[9] “Women’s March: The progressive backlash against Trump,” The Week, 3 February 2017, p.16.

Memoirs of the Addams Administration 1.

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From 1945 to the very recent past, the United States led the capitalist world toward negotiation of an open world economy.  In recent decades, that policy has come back to bite the United States as Asian countries became ferocious competitors.  Eighty percent of trade-related job losses can be attributed to Asian countries (China, Japan, South Korea).  However, public hostility has focused on the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the least offending agreement.

In 1992, President George H. W. Bush completed the negotiations for NAFTA.[1]  The agreement ended tariffs and non-tariff barriers between Mexico, Canada, and the United States.  This would allow the free flow of assets across national borders.  Soon afterward, President Bill Clinton got the treaty passed by Congress.

“Comparative advantage” (a term in economics) suggests that low-wage, low-skill Mexican workers will manufacture one sort of product,[2] and high-wage, high-skill Canadian workers will manufacture another sort of product.  This seems to be the case under NAFTA, as Mexicans produce dashboards and Canadians produce transmissions for final assembly by Americans.  There’s nothing innovative about this.  Asian manufacturers have been doing the same diversification of the supply-chain thing for a while.  American manufacturers had to adapt to stay competitive.

Was NAFTA good deal for Americans?  Well, the United States now exports to Mexico goods worth 3.5 times as much as in 1993, even allowing for inflation.  On the other hand, Mexico still has run a trade surplus against the United States that amounts to $60 billion a year.  How many jobs—if any—did that amount to?  In the eyes of economists, NAFTA encouraged a migration of American “jobs” from lower-skilled and lower-paid to higher-skilled and higher-paid.  The political problem is that “jobs” are not the same thing as “workers.”  The “workers” who lost “jobs” didn’t shift into the new “jobs” that needed “workers.”  Instead, it seems somebody else—within the United States—got those new jobs.  This shift is not much discussed by political figures and media analysts.

So, trade experts and displaced American workers agree that it was a flawed deal.  It could be improved.  How and at what cost?  First, as is the case with “Brexit,” any country can withdraw from NAFTA by giving notice six months in advance.  Then further negotiations would define the new relationships between Canada, the United States, and Mexico.  However, what the Trump administration may be aiming at is a simple re-negotiation of terms.  Now Canada and Mexico have begun to establish positions for such talks.

The exact issues to be dealt with in any re-negotiation are complex, even if they become household words—in a small number of households—over the next several years.  “Country of origins,” “de minimus” exports, and Value Added Tax (VAT) rebates are all issues on which the Trump administration’s trade negotiators seek accommodation.  Conversely, the Mexican negotiators are going to claim equality-of-status with Canada when it comes to things like easy access to the United States for Mexican truckers and Mexican workers.

None of this is going to be painless.  Anything that comes out of the negotiations will be disruptive.  NAFTA itself has been painful and disruptive.  Then come the Asian economies.

[1] Neil Irwin, “Will NAFTA Be Attacked With Tweezers or a Hammer?” NYT, 26 January 2017.

[2] To further complicate matters, the basic components of the dash might have been manufactured in really-low-wage China (outside NAFTA), then exported to Mexico (inside NAFTA) for assembly for export to the United States for final assembly.  Thus, both Mexico and Canada serve as pass-throughs for counties not party to NAFTA.

City Lights.

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The “Baby Boom” (b. 1945-1963) formed the first memorable demographic mouse to pass through the institutional-cultural snake of American society.  Then “Gen X” (b. 1977-1987) marked a low-birth saddle between the high-birth “Baby Boom” and “Millennial” generations.  .  The “Millennial” generation (b. 1980-2005) has stretched the snake even farther than their predecessors.  Neither big generation has fully run its course so far.  Yet both have had profound impacts.[1]

One feature of the “Baby Boom” appeared in the flood tide toward the suburbs.  In a sense, the children of the “Boomers” motivated this migration.  The “Boomers” wanted bigger, newer houses with yards to play in and good schools.[2]  The life-blood drained out of older American cities as a result.

The “Millennials” reversed this course to some extent by moving back to urban cores in search of a more cosmopolitan life style.  They wanted walkable neighborhoods, other young people who shared their own culture, and—for people on the far side of many rights movements–diverse communities.

Moreover, a sharp fall in the violent crime rate made cities seem much safer than when their parents fled in previous decades.  Violent crimes—and not just homicide—has been falling since 1991.[3]  Studies have begun to reveal that people with higher incomes and more education are alert to changing crime rates.  They have shown a greater willingness than other groups to “gentrify” re-claimed areas.[4]

Apartment houses, starter houses, and many services thrived as a result.  City governments that benefitted from this population movement crowed over their present revival and contemplated their future prosperity.

Now, however, there are signs that this process may be cresting.[5]  Two factors may be at work.  First the number of “Millennials” moving into cities has fallen short of rose-tinted projections.  Second, the in-flow of younger “Millennials” is being off-set by the out-flow of older “Millennials”—those who are married with children and in their Thirties.  Many “Millennials” entered the job market during the “Great Recession.”  They’ve faced slow income growth and tight competition for affordable housing.  Many of them may have delayed starting families.  As they do, however, they may well hear the siren-song of more affordable housing and better schools in the suburbs.  Piling on to these forces, at least in some cities like San Francisco, are sharp rises in rents as the very well-off crowd out the only moderately well-off and everyone lower on the income ladder.[6]

It remains to be seen whether the urban renaissance of the early 21st Century will be sustained or will begin to retreat.  Sustaining the renaissance probably will require a complicated mix of school funding coupled with school reform, effective policing that keeps crime rates down without alienating people predisposed to see the police as a problem, and a thoughtful approach to keeping housing prices within reach of ordinary people.

[1] Conor Dougherty, “Cities May Be Starting to Run Out Of Millennials,” NYT, 24 January 2017.

[2] It seems foolish, if indelicate, to ignore the reality of “white flight” as an important factor.  See: https://waroftheworldblog.com/2015/05/21/white-flight-from-baltimore/

[3] See: https://waroftheworldblog.com/2015/01/16/legacies-of-the-violent-decades/

[4] Emily Badger, “To Predict Gentrification, Look for Falling Crime,” NYT, 6 January 2017.

[5] Still, nothing’s set in cement except Bo Weinberg.  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Weinberg

[6] See: What Government Can Accomplish 1.  https://waroftheworldblog.com/2016/12/29/what-government-can-accomplish-1/

What government can accomplish 1.

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People want to live in San Francisco.[1]  However, the price of housing is really, really high.  So, people want to live in Oakland as a fallback.  Here the price of housing is merely really high.  Even so, Oakland rents have spiked by 70 percent over the last five years.  Oakland rents for a one bedroom apartment now average $2,500 a month, or $36,000 a year.  However, many of the potential tenants are “artsy”—musicians and artists–so they don’t have any money.  (I suppose they could live in North Richmond.[2]  However, North Richmond lacks panache, in addition to other deficiencies.[3])  How to square this circle?

The Fruitvale[4] section of Oakland provided an alternative solution.  Chor Nar Su Ng had bought an old warehouse in 1988; in 2013, she rented the building to Derick Almena.  Almena then sub-let space in the warehouse at a really low rate of $600 a head.  This became the now-gruesomely-named “Ghost Ship” warehouse/art space/residence.

On 2 December 2016, a fast-moving, smoky fire broke out during a concert and party at the “Ghost Ship.”  In the end, 36 people died.  Now, people want to know why.

The state of California requires that certain buildings be inspected on a regular basis, but most other buildings are inspected on local initiative.  Oakland’s Fire Department compiled a database of buildings to inspect in about 2000.  According to Oakland authorities, the Fire Department’s database had become outdated.  Oakland’s Fire Department had been without a Fire Marshall for three years before Teresa Deloach Reed won the position in Spring 2016.  Oakland’s Fire Department still is 62 people under complement, in spite of adequate funding.

Reed had a lot of ground to make up.  Neither the Oakland Fire Department nor the Building Department had inspected the warehouse that came to house the “Ghost Ship” in thirty years.  However, several near-by businesses said that they had been inspected on an annual basis.  The warehouse had been inhabited for several years, but the men in the firehouse 200 yards down the street had never noticed people—rather than trucks—going in and out of the “warehouse” at all hours.  From 2014 to 2016, someone filed five complaints about the “Ghost Ship” building and an adjoining lot with the Building Department.  The complainants alleged “unsafe conditions.”  So, why didn’t anyone inspect the “Ghost Ship”?  Well, building inspectors needed the approval of the owner to enter the building.  Apparently, no such approval was forthcoming, so no inspectors entered the building.   Finally, the concert, during which the fire broke out, was required to be registered with the city.  No one registered it.

It turns out that the “Ghost Ship” is but one of at least a dozen similar arrangements.  There are hints that the city gave them a conscious pass on safety regulations. According to the New York Times, “Oakland is trying to strike a difficult balance: keeping residents safe without making them homeless.”

It is worth asking if there are limits to what government regulation can achieve.   This isn’t a libertarian tirade against all regulation.  Regulations have to be enforced to be effective.  Enforcement depends on adequate human and financial resources.   Those aren’t always available.  Regulations can increase faster than do resources.  Then, social and political circumstances can change, as when Oakland became home to an arts community.

To some—uncertain—degree, personal judgment and responsibility are essential.

[1] Thomas Fuller et al, “A ‘Ghost Ship’ All but Unseen, Until 36 Died,” NYT, 23 December 2016.

[2] See: https://www.roadsnacks.net/these-are-the-10-worst-bay-area-suburbs/

[3] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Richmond,_California

[4] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruitvale,_Oakland,_California

American public opinion in 2016.

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Most Americans thought that the country is in trouble.[1]  Better than four fifths (82 percent) said that the people in Washington don’t care about ordinary people; more than three-quarters (77 percent) saw the country as deeply divided over core values; more than three-quarters (76 percent) disapproved of Congress; almost three-quarters (74 percent) believed that the country is headed in the wrong direction; better than two-thirds (70 percent) thought that the presidential election brought out the worst in people; two-thirds thought that the tax system favors the wealthy; almost two-thirds (63 percent) thought that race relations are poor and over half (55 percent) expect them to get worse; and half (50 percent) thought that America’s best days had passed.

All those are opinions.  Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts.  Therefore, it has alarmed some people that many Trump voters believe things that are demonstrably not true.  Two-thirds of Trump voters believe that unemployment has increased during President Obama’s two terms; 60 percent believe that millions of illegal aliens voted I the election; and 40 percent believe that Trump won the popular vote.[2]

So, liberals are right to tout the achievement of the Obama administration in the area of employment?  Well, not exactly.  Almost all (94 percent) of the new 10 million jobs created from 2005 to 2015 are not traditional jobs.  They were either temporary jobs or contract-based jobs.[3]  In 2012, Hostess sold its snack-cake brands to a private equity firm.  Those brands then employed 8,000 people.  The investors paid $186 million for the troubled firm.  In 2016, the investors sold the revived firm for $2.3 billion.  At this point, Hostess employed only 1,200 people.[4]  Perhaps this explains some of the belief that the economic recovery is a fraud.

Under these circumstances, it should surprise no one that one-sixth (so, 16+ percent) of Americans are taking medication for depression, anxiety, or some other psychiatric ill.[5]  It would probably be higher if doctors weren’t so starchy.  Not everyone can get or thinks to ask for a script.  Two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans deal with stress by self-medicating with comfort foods.  Astonishingly for me, a mere 15 percent name pizza as their drug of choice.  In any event, two-thirds (66 percent) claim that they feel no guilt about bellying-up to the pasta bar.  As a result, in part, of consuming more in dark times, better than a third (36 percent) of Americans are merely overweight, while better than an additional quarter (28 percent) are actually obese.[6]  Must have been a lot of stress over the years.

Perhaps the solution to these problems would be to ignore the news.  In spite of their gloom over the state of the union, most Americans take a sunnier view of their own circumstances.  Over half (51 percent) think that the economy is improving; almost two-thirds (64 percent) are happy with their financial situation; better than three-quarters (77 percent) are happy with their jobs (or perhaps just happy to have one); and the vast majority (84 percent) are happy with their family and friends.  (Christmas should take care of that.)  So, apparently, it is awareness of the difficulties and deficiencies of others that inspires the pessimism about larger matters.  Empathy kills.

[1] “Poll Watch: The way we were in 2016,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 24.

[2] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 17.

[3] “The bottom line,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 46.

[4] “The bottom line,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 46.

[5] “Noted,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 16.

[6] “Poll Watch: The way we were in 2016,” The Week, 23 December/30 December 2016, p. 24.

Semi Automated Weapons.

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Machines want your job!  Well, they would if they could feel desire.[1]  I guess I really mean that your employer wants your job.  Not for him/her self, or even for some idiot nephew/niece.  S/he wants it for a machine.  Liable to get it too.  Only about 13 percent (1/8-1/7) of job losses are the result of foreign competition.  The rest are the result of automation cutting the need for workers.[2]

Thus, in 1962, about 530,000 people worked in the American steel industry.  In 2005, about 130,000 people worked in the American steel industry.  That’s a 75 percent drop in employment.  However, steel production did not fall.  New technology of steel production just cut the need for workers.  More recently, computer and electronics manufacturing shed jobs thanks to automation.

However, in spite of the headlines in the New York Times, foreign competition really has taken away a lot of jobs from Americans.  China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) led to the loss of 2-2.4 million American jobs since 2000.  Apparel and textiles—the most basic products of any early-industrializing country—have suffered heavy inroads from foreign competition.

It isn’t likely to stop with manufacturing jobs, nor is it isolated to the United States.  In January 2016, one of those “we’re here to help” groups, the World Economic Forum, predicted that 5 million jobs in the top 15 economies world-wide will be lost to computer systems and robots by the end of 2020.  Two-thirds of the lost jobs will be in “office and administrative jobs.”  Already existing technologies could allow machines to do 45 percent of current work activities.  [NB: I don’t think that means 45 percent of jobs, just 45 percent of the work that many people do.  It wouldn’t be difficult to sell this as an improvement for anyone whose work includes a lot of drudgery that prevents them from doing higher-order work.]  “Work that requires creativity, management of people, and caregiving is least at risk.”

What are some of the implications of these changes?  They are both social and political.

Workers cast aside as a result of Chinese competition have had a difficult time adjusting.  As a group, they have a higher unemployment rate and reduced real income for the rest of their lives.  Also, apparently, they feel an impulse to vote for Donald Trump so as to send a wake-up call to the two mainstream political parties.  Trump and others have pandered to this by blaming immigration, and out-sourcing, and foreign competition for huge job losses.

In the past, workers flowed from declining sectors to growing sectors.  This didn’t go seamlessly: new workers who saw their parents displaced chose other lines of work, but the displaced parents had a hard time getting jobs in the “new” economy of that era.  In the past, economic change created new forms of manual labor for those without a lot of education.  This time, however, new jobs for men without college degrees have not arrived to help those displaced by change.

Perhaps more importantly, it isn’t clear that displaced workers want to adapt to new conditions and there is a policy interest in some quarters that wants to facilitate not adapting.  Thus, a story in the NYT says of one displaced worker that      “Many of the new jobs at factories require technical skills, but he doesn’t own a computer and doesn’t want to.”  [NB: That is, he doesn’t want to adapt.]  The policy proposals of many labor economists would accommodate this resistance to adaptation: strengthen unions (so that they can obstruct employer efforts to modernize production until foreign competition does what automation was not allowed to do); create more public-sector jobs (regardless of need); raise the minimum-wage (although this seems to contribute to the search for more automation); and increase the earned-income tax credit (essentially a form of welfare for the unadaptive).  Basically pay people to be unadaptive.  That is, create a market for people who resist change.  “If you build it, they will come.”

[1] “The bottom line,” The Week, 29 January 2016, p. 32.

[2] Claire Cain Miller, “What’s Really Killing Jobs?  It’s Automation, Not China,” NYT, 22 December 2016.

The hacked election.

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In 2015 and again in Spring 2016, Soviet–sorry, Russian—intelligence agencies “hacked” into the e-mail servers of the Democratic National Committee.[1]  In addition, they gained access to the e-mail account of John Podesta.  Furthermore, they hacked into the e-mails servers of the Republican National Committee.  In Summer 2016, they passed these ill-gotten gains to WikiLeaks and to a blog called Guccifer 2.0.

Before the presidential election, the consensus seems to have been that the Russians were just trying to sap Americans’ confidence in their democracy.  Immediately after Donald Trump’s up-set win over Hillary Clinton, however, the Central Intelligence Agency immediately concluded that the Russians had been attempting to shift the election in Trump’s favor.[2]  Part of the reason for this analysis lies in the fact that the Russians released only material that cast an unfavorable light on Clinton, while not releasing anything gleaned from the Republican servers.[3]

Did the e-mails stolen by the Russians harm Hillary Clinton’s chances of being elected president?  The stolen e-mails showed that the Clinton campaign considered taking contributions from foreign governments; that Clinton told a Wall Street audience that politicians “need both a public and a private position”; that the campaign had friendly contacts in the media; that the Democratic National committee had, contrary to its public professions, sought to obstruct the campaign of Bernie Sanders and to favor that of Clinton; and that the fire-wall between Secretary of State Clinton and the Clinton Foundation had not been so tight as had been promised.[4]

Since the election much attention has focused on so-called “fake news” that favored Trump.  However, there is little evidence of any attempt to use “fake news” to favor Trump or harm Clinton.  The bulk of “fake news” stories appear to have been generated in non-Russian Eastern European countries where entrepreneurs were pursuing profits, rather than a political agenda.  Apparently, the Russkies believed that “real news” would do enough damage.

Why would the Russians want to affect the outcome of the election?  Possibly, they wanted to see Trump in the White House.  Possibly the Russians hoped for someone more tractable in the White House.  Possibly they wanted to erode American confidence in democracy over the long run.[5]

Possibly Vladimir Putin doesn’t care who is President of the United States so long as it isn’t Hillary Clinton.  It’s only conjecture, but while Clinton served as Secretary of State, she had participated in a “re-set” of relations with Russia.  However, part of this effort took the form of an effort by President Obama to slime-up to Putin’s assistant, Dmitry Medvedev, in the ill-conceived expectation that he could supplant Putin.  Furthermore, while Clinton served as Secretary of State, the United States won Russian assent in the U.N. Security Council for the use air power to defend anti-government rebels in Libya.  The Russian price had been an American promise not to overthrow the Libyan government itself.[6]  Finally, Putin saw the work in Russia by the U.S. government-funded National Endowment for Democracy as foreign meddling.[7]  After the December 2011 parliamentary elections in Russia were “won” by Putin’s party, substantial anti-Putin protests took place.  Immediately, Clinton publicly endorsed the position of the protestors by describing the elections as “neither free, nor fair.”[8]  Pay-back.

[1] Max Fisher, “Russia and the U.S. Election: What’s Known and What Isn’t,” NYT, 13 December 2016.

[2] “[N]ot all intelligence agencies share the C.I.A.’s view.”  Ibid.

[3] Perhaps nothing embarrassing could be found on the Republican servers.  Perhaps pigs have wings.

[4] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podesta_emails#Contents;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Committee_email_leak#Contents; https://waroftheworldblog.com/2016/12/04/the-e-mails/

[5] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtparSnQhFc

[6] See: https://waroftheworldblog.com/2014/09/28/obama-versus-putin/

[7] On the NED, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Endowment_for_Democracy#Russia

[8] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_legislative_election,_2011#Alleged_foreign_involvement

Control-Alt-Right.

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Multi-Culti Political Correctness is on the March!  It targets whitemales!  So say the mainstream media and the liberal hate groups (whose stock-in-trade is panic) when describing the “alt-right.”[1]  Still, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.[2]

Is that the case with the “alt-right”?  The movement that called itself the “Alternative Right” sprang from disillusionment with mainstream conservatism in the 2000s.  Mainstream conservatism seemed to some people to be nothing more than compromise with liberal fascism.  Richard Spencer (1978- )[3] became the champion/lightning-rod of the movement.  In 2008, Spencer founded a magazine called Alternative Right to criticize mainstream conservatism.

Once upon a time, Jeffrey Herf wrote a fascinating book about the Nazis called Reactionary Modernism.[4]  According to Herf, German reactionaries combined a “great enthusiasm for modern technology with a rejection of the Enlightenment and the values and institutions of liberal democracy.”  Perhaps the same analysis applies to the Alternative Right: Rebranded as the “alt-right,” the movement’s members are particularly adept at using modern social media and on-line sites to propound its message.  Breitbart.com is the leader of the pack,[5] backed up by postings on Reddit and 4chan.

It appears that many conservatives are fed-up with the sacred cows created by orthodox liberalism.  Hillary Clinton’s notion that “half” of Donald Trump’s followers fall into the category of “deplorables” wildly over-states their numbers.[6]  However, some of the people who are fed-up also really are repellant: anti-Semites, white supremacists, and Islamophobes.  As a result, racist and anti-Muslim incidents occurred.  Donald Trump told one television interviewer who asked about offenses committed by his supporters, “If it helps, I will say right here to the cameras: Stop it.”[7]

Meanwhile, liberal hate speech continued to pour forth after the election just as it had before.[8]  Trump is “openly contemptuous of democratic norms”; he’s a “misogynist, xenophobic bully.”[9]  Some post-election anti-Trump demonstrations turned violent.  One poll reported that 23 percent of those who voted for Hillary Clinton did not accept Donald Trump as the president.[10]  One accused Trump supporter was beaten by some enraged citizens of the “Windy City.”  It’s worth pointing out that such extremists are only a tiny, loud, fringe of Hillary Clinton’s supporters.  (Indeed, apparently some of them didn’t even vote in the election whose results they now protested.)

[1] Why is ISIS the “so-called Islamic State,” while “alt-right” is just “alt-right”?

[2] “The rise of the alt-right,” The Week, 7 October 2016, p. 11.

[3] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Spencer

[4] Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (1984).

[5] God, I’m old!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO_brEreGLw

[6] Her denunciations of Trump and those in the media (where journalists tilt overwhelmingly toward Clinton), may have fed into a nervous panic by liberals.  A story in Slate.com reported anecdotal evidence that the prospect of a Trump victory had sent many people to therapists.  See: Michelle Goldberg, “A nervous breakdown over Trump,” The Week, 7 October 2016, p. 12.

[7] “After election, protests and a spike in hate crimes,” The Week, 25 November 2016, p. 5.

[8] Trump is a “crude, shallow, sneering dissembler” and a “showboating huckster.”  “Driving away young voters for decades,” The Week, 2 September 2016, p. 12.  Media coverage of Trump’s many scandals is “not having the predicted effect” because “we’re a nation of idiots,” “The media: guilty of ‘false equivalence’?,” The Week, 30 September 2016, p. 16.

[9] “After election, protests and a spike in hate crimes,” The Week, 25 November 2016, p. 5.

[10] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 25 November 2016, p. 17.