Post 5th Blues

I waited nearly a month before commenting because…

One of the things difficult to do is think competently in the afterwash of disappointment and dismay. Had I commented within a couple of days of the election results, I would have directed my anger in the wrong direction. The initial tally of votes was very misleading. It showed Harris losing by close to six million votes. As ballots continued to be counted, that margin diminished until we can see now that she lost by something over two million, which leaves me with a very mixed feeling, but one less stark.

Let’s get something out of the way at the outset. None of this points to a monolith, but it would seem that the major issue driving voters to choose Trump over Harris is the economy. Prices and inflation. This suggests that the expectation is that Trump will Do Something that will bring prices down or halt inflation or some combination of the two. In any event, combined with the unrelenting rhetoric about immigration and China, this became the fulcrum.

The social issue grab-bag is far more mixed than we might have expected, since seven out of the ten states that had ballot initiatives to restore reproductive rights passed them, generally with high margins. My own state of Missouri passed a constitutional amendment to enshrine reproductive choice with something like 63% of the vote. So as far as that goes, the Harris campaign was right to see that as a driving issue, just not one that rose to the level of national leverage.

The economy. The price of eggs.

To me, this is the most depressing aspect. Depressing because it both makes sense and is nevertheless futile. The degree of misunderstanding involved is an indictment of the information ecology in which we live, from primary school to present-day news. The opacity of the components of the complaint for so many people is from so many infelicities with which we live, compounded by the requirements of daily life that leave too little time for reflection, for study, for the kind of analysis that would do the most good.

The pandemic choked supply chains, resulting in a shortage of goods (and services) which triggered a spike in prices that fed inflation. This was global and here did not quite reach 10%. The cost of living shot up. If we are to understand the electorate in these terms, then Biden’s win had more to do with the fact that people suffered sticker shock than it had to do with Trump’s many shortcomings as a president. Be that as it may, Biden’s administration set about addressing the problem. Results will inevitably vary depending on locality, but nationwide, in under four years inflation came down from its high to nearly what it was before the pandemic. By any measure, a remarkable success. Not only that, but because of his investment policies wages started rising to a level that outpaced inflation. People on average had more money in their pocket. Another remarkable success. And because the way the economy reopened under Biden, unemployment dropped to nearly a historic low. 

But prices were still high. All these accommodations came too slowly, it seemed, to beat down the impression that nothing had been fixed.

Which leaves us with a combination of folk-wisdom and perception to explain what happened.

For better or worse, the story to which people subscribe has more to do with such things than any reasoned assessment of situations of which we ever only have incomplete knowledge. All the irons in the fire, which have not yet reached the point of being pulled out to do what they are being prepared to do, matter little to what seems apparent at the moment.

All the shortcomings with which we contend manifest in unpredictable—or perhaps in annoyingly expected—ways, defying the sums of logic. Evidence too often leaves us feeling helpless in the face of a reality we prefer not to acknowledge.

One of the simplest of these realities is that solutions take time. More time than we in aggregate have patience to endure. One of the reasons we often re-elect an incumbent, though I wonder sometimes how consciously, is to give an administration time to see things through.

Biden was hectored into stepping aside. The perception was that he was succumbing to age. Of course, the man running against him suffered the same problem and more consistently exhibited the symptoms of it. So a rational choice between competencies was demonstrably beside the point. But the hectoring led to an unprecedented torch-passing, which appeared briefly to be a savvy move. It looked for all the world like Harris could pull it off. 

She came close. But this turned out to be another example of perception dominating thoughtful consideration. Up until election day, we heard nothing but praise for her “flawless” campaign. Not a day later, everyone was pointing out what she had done wrong.

To be clear, she did nothing wrong. What failed was what always fails. People saw their problems and felt they were not being addressed. One would think a little analysis would have proven that assessment wrong, but the growing inability of our electorate to objectively assess seems intractable. When you look at the achievements of the Biden administration it is reasonable to ask why didn’t more people see them?

And after that, it is reasonable to ask why anyone thought Trump’s proposals would change anything in their favor. This is simple arithmetic. One of his major promises is to impose huge tariffs on our major trading partners. How this is supposed to lower costs begs explanation. 

Tariffs only work in a trading environment in which the country imposing them produces exports that are by their nature less expensive than the same products in other countries. It is protectionism, yes, but it makes the manufactures of the tariff-imposing country marketable in foreign markets in such a way that establishes grounds for negotiation. There was a time the United States offered such an economy. No more. We have high imports because we do not make that much or at such costs anymore and rely on less expensive imports. Imposing tariffs as a way to force American manufactures to build new plants and make Americans buy fewer imports by definition raises costs. Tariffs are an outdated means of managing disparities in value between countries. 

What Trump suggests is the countries being hit with tariffs will pay the difference. That is not what will happen. When he did it the first time, costs rose, companies here went under, China didn’t respond the way we expected, it did not do what was promised.

This does make sense for one class of people and in one way. Multinationals will benefit over time by playing the currency market, where the fluctuating values of different currencies can be turned into profit. Trump is doing this for his cronies. Our tariffs will increase the value of foreign products within their own countries. 

All this is the case because things have changed since the days we were the major manufacturing giant of the world. Things today don’t work the same way anymore.

But someone will make a lot of money.

Similarly, immigration. This is a nonsense issue. On the off chance he can deliver, deporting ten million people who are by and large here working will levy a huge cost on us because then we have to replace all that labor. Part of the reason we don’t now is because too few so-called native-born show up for those jobs. Immigrants are filling positions employers cannot fill any other way. Extracting them to showcase your America First creds will hobble many industries and subsequently raise costs.

Just from these two policies it will turn out that the main reason people voted for him, if we are to believe the exit polls, namely that inflation is too high and goods too expensive will not be addressed. In fact, the opposite will happen.

And then unemployment will rise, because businesses will have to cut costs. Wage growth will slow or stop or, in some instances, regress (because if the job market turns around, suddenly employers will dictate wages) and the economy will falter. 

If he manages to convince congress to cut the Inflation Reduction Act and the Build Back Better programs, capital will dry up and the expansion of American industry will stutter to a halt. The result? Higher unemployment, higher costs, a worse economy.

None of this is hand-wavy mystical what-ifs, this is fairly simple ledger fact. What people presumably voted for will not be forthcoming from Trump.

So the only question remaining is, why was this not obvious to enough people? 

That I have no answer for.

The list of negatives is long. He demonstrated in his first term that he has no grasp of science, he is a climate change denier, he wants to retract our global involvement into a nativist isolationism. He admires strong man politicians. His boast that he got us into no wars rings hollow in the face of the conclusion that he would like the same power as a Putin, so letting them do what they want is only reasonable.

Normally, this might be less fraught, because presidents have been in the past surrounded by people smart enough (or independent enough) to mitigate their worst impulses or bad calls, but he is choosing people now notable for their sycophancy and incompetence. (There have been some surprisingly good picks, but I suspect those were accidents, and as soon as they try to block him they will be gone.) 

It’s possible I could be wrong and all this will come out differently, but I doubt it. This is too obvious. 

So I suspect that the rejection of Harris comes down to a set of simple optics. Too many people cannot support a woman in that job. Among them, many will not support a non-white candidate. There are the hardcore GOP voters who as a matter of faith will never vote for a Democrat. And then there are those who treat politics like a football game. They follow the cheers and the bluster. 

On a personal note, I waited this long to write about the election because I did not trust my immediate reactions. The day after, the vote tallies told a depressing story. It looked like too many people had stayed home. There was a six million vote gap. Worse, Biden had received 80 million votes and Harris apparently only 66 million. I wanted to know where those 14 million voters went? But as the count continued, the gap narrowed, and it appears a bit more than 2 million votes separated them. On the one hand, I felt better. On the other, that means half the country bought into the bullshit. In other words, Trump will eventually be gone. Not sure about my neighbors.

I have just read Stacy Schiff’s account of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Oddly appropriate reading just now as it details the insanity that seized all those people and allowed them to be the worst kinds of humans and do horrible things to their neighbors. It’s a useful reminder that we too easily give in to nonsense when we feel threatened, even if the threat is mundane or, in too many instances, completely made up. We have been laboring under a political narrative that requires a threat to bring cohesion. Solving these threats has become…inexpedient…for the people running for office. Stoking the fires of paranoia is a cheap but effective path to power. Until we stop yielding to the devil of division, falsely empowered by prejudice and a fundamental lack of solid understanding, we will keep stabbing ourselves in the eye.