Inflation and Politics

 

• I'm trying to get my head around the so-called surge in inflation. The reason for my skepticsim is that there seems to be little linkage between this and interest rates. Passbook savings rates are still essentially zero. You need to go out 3-5 years to get 1% on a bond or CD. My interpretation is that "the market" doesn't view the inflation issue as permanent. Or at least something that's in some sectors but not general or across the board.

• Things are always framed in the press in a way that blames the left when Democrats get their butts kicked in elections. In my lifetime, we got Nixon twice largely because a lot of centrist/conservative Dems (I refuse to use the word "moderate" in this context) voted for him. But the left was blamed for being too radical or something. (Back then most Dems were in favor of the Vietnam War, though most would deny it today.) It wasn't the left that put Nixon in power. Nor was it the left that voted overwhelmingly for Reagan. There is a good chance that Biden's agenda will be stymied because the conservative Dems are reneging on their deal, but I can see the press already framing it in a way that blames the left for demanding too much. If the centrist swing voters abandon the party every time it tries to do something worthwhile, perhaps the Dems should be trying to appeal to more reliable coalition partners.

• Jonathan Chait--no lefty there--has a pretty good article in New York magazine today, properly framing the peril of Build Back Better as a refusal of the conservative Democrats to negotiate in anything approaching good faith. On a Twitter thread today he further expanded on this. If the reconciliation bill fails to pass, then Biden left only with an  infrastructure bill that is mediocre all by itself. It is really a glorified highway bill, with lots of stuff for the fossil fuel industry, big telecoms, and other corporations. A pretty typical top-heavy spending bill. Chait then posits--correctly I think--that if that is all Biden gets, he is left with a failed presidency. While I think it is at least possible for the Dems to keep the House and Senate in 2022, it's better for them to act as if they won't. They have less that a year and a half to accomplish something (which may not be there again for ten years or more). If that happens, there might well be revolt of the left flank of the party. If the conservative Dems sabotage the Biden presidency, maybe a realignment will be a good thing. I am ready to give up on the Democratic Party as it is today.

Excerpt of the Day

For me, a very powerful excerpt from Rachel  Kushner's The Mars Room (referring to Button Sanchez, a young girl serving a life sentence for murder, from the point of view of Gordon, a teacher in the prison).

All these details in the newspaper article build a portrait, a set of impressions. Gordon had met Button on the other side, a lost little girl who looked twelve years old. Once, when Sanchez smiled as Gordon praised her in class, he saw her young essence. It was so wanting, and bright, he'd had to look away.

The word violence was depleted and generic from overuse and yet it still had power, still meant something, but multiple things. There were stark acts of it: beating a person to death. And there were more abtract forms, depriving people of jobs, safe housing, adequate schools. There were large-scale acts of it, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in a single year, for a specious war of lies and bungling, a war that might have no end, but according to prosecutors, the real monsters were teenagers like Button Sanchez. 

 

End of September Bullets

• I'm trying to remember an instance in my life when I ever thought or said, "Thank God for the filibuster. It just saved us from a terrible mistake."

• My recollection of the ACA and how it affected the 2010 midterms is different than the conventional wisdom I see in the media today. My memory is that the Dems passed the ACA and then acted like they were ashamed of it or had to explain it away, They didn't run on the idea that this was a great accomplishment that they were proud of. If people perceive that you don't think something you voted for is a good thing, how do you expect them to react?

• To restate the obvious: the Dems have the White House and both branches of Congress. If they can't get their agenda enacted, it is 100% on them. Nothing else.

• The lefties in Congress have been the real team players during Biden's first year. To pretend that the conservative Dems are the adults in the room is just objectively false.

• Why in world would NBC think that Meghan McCain has anything important enough to say that they actually have her on Meet the Press? What's the media world coming to? Certainly not better journalism.

Simple Things - Part 2

 Lest anyone think I am an apologist for all things Biden because of my last post, here are a few more simple things:

• American policy vis-a-vis Yemen: unchanged from Trump.
• American policy vis-a-vis Israel: unchanged from Trump.
• American policy vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia: unchanged from  Trump.
• American border policy: unchanged from Trump.
• American "trade war" policy: unchanged from Trump.
• America's Iran policy: unchanged from Trump.
• America's Cuban policy: unchanged from Trump.
• America's forever war: other than Afghanistan, the jury is still out.

Simple Things

I tend to like things short and simple. (Maybe it's a shortcoming of having a linear mind, but oh well.)

So here's something simple and linear:

• GW Bush had most of his eight years to end the war in Afghanistan and didn't.
• Obama had eight years to end the war in Afghanistan and didn't.
• Trump had four years to end the war in Afghanistan and didn't.
• Biden ended the war in Afghanistan in his eighth month.