Remember the Debt Ceiling?

 Remember the debt ceiling?  You know, the thing that could have catastrophic results if we don't raise it?  So why aren't Democrats focused like a laser on raising it?  Why are they so dead set against using reconciliation to pass it by a simple majority?

Personally, I would favor introducing a bill to abolish the debt ceiling altogether.  The Republicans would call he filibuster.  Democrats would take vote to determine that the filibuster does not apply to abolishing the debt ceiling.  The vote would be 50-50 and Kamala Harris would cast the deciding vote.  And that would be it, end of any games of chicken over the debt ceiling.  Since abolishing the debt ceiling would be a one-time event, there would be no effect on the filibuster for anything else.  Most Congressional Republicans would probably be secretly relieved not to have to face any more games of chicken.  Granted, Republicans would denounce this at outrageous fiscal irresponsibility and make a lot of ads on it, but it it would end holding the debt ceiling hostage it would be worth it.

Unfortunately, is not going to happen.  Joe Manchin would not agree.  So the Democrats will once again have to raise the debt ceiling.

I would prefer to see them do it by simple majority for a simple reason.  Acting alone, Democrats can raise the debt ceiling high enough to postpone any further showdowns until after the 2024 election.  Enlisting Republican will undoubtedly mean Republicans will set the debt ceiling up for further confrontations after they take control of Congress in 2022.  And if the next Congress plays chicken with the debt ceiling, they just might be crazy enough not to swerve.

Addressed to Repubicans

 

Conventional wisdom has it, not just that Republicans will win by sweeping landslides in 2022 and probably retake the White House in 2024, but that they are poised to dominate for the next generation. Democrats are hemorrhaging Hispanic voters and leaking Black voters at an alarming rate, while making no headway whatever in rural areas.  The latest election shows that Republicans can fire up the base with crazy while still winning swing voters by acting sane, and that Democrats are getting nowhere in pointing out the contradiction.  Racial polarization is declining while educational polarizing is rising.  Soon Republicans will dominate non-college voters everywhere while Democrats are relegated to a few upscale college enclaves.

That being the case, why are Republicans acting like a party on the run and running scared?  Why are they working at making it harder to vote and easier to overturn elections they don't like, when chances are good that they will be highly successful anyway?

And so far as I can tell from listening to the Republicans at work, the answer seems to be that our country is in such dire straits since Biden came to power that clearly Democrats are simply a disaster we cannot risk. Comparisons to Jimmy Carter and the 1970's are common.  Implied but not quite stated is that Democrats are so disastrous that we can no longer afford the luxury of competitive elections and will have to institute a one-party state, and all will be well.

I will start by conceding that yes, we have problems. There is no denying that 2021 has been a bad year -- not as bad as 2020, but definitely bad.  But guess what.  We have had problems in the past, and bad years. Somehow we managed to come through them without ending democracy and instituting a one-party state.

So let us compare our present-day situation with the 1970's.  Doubtless the 1970's were a troubled time. (Some of the troubles happened under the Republican Nixon and Ford Administrations, but we can ignore that detail). The mass riots and leftwing terrorism of the 1960's had ended, but remained a troublingly recent memory.  The US was newly extricated from a prolonged and highly unpopular war in Vietnam, weakened.  Withdrawal was chaotic, with Vietnamese desperately clinging to US helicopter, and the country was spiraling into disaster.  Communism seemed on the march everywhere.  Crime was surging at home. Inflation was in the double digits, despite high unemployment and sluggish economic growth. Gas prices were soaring and long lines forming outside filling stations.  

So it should not come as a surprise that Democratic President Jimmy Carter lost the 1980 election, and that in the 1980's Republicans won the presidency by three successive landslides.  But no one concluded from that that Democrats were intolerable and must never hold office again. In fact, they continued to dominate Congress throughout the 1980's and to be competitive at the state level in numerous states.

The 1980's saw many of the problems of the 1970's resolved.  Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker slammed on the brakes and broke the inflationary spiral at the cost of a severe recession.  Recovery was rapid once the spiral was broken, and prosperous times ensued. Gas prices fell.  Communism fell apart as unworkable, including in Vietnam.

Still, it would be a mistake to view the 1980's era of Republican hegemony in the presidency as problem-free. Unemployment remained steadily above 5% in prosperous times. Crime continued to surge, not starting to fall until the 1990's.  Many of our inner cities were little better than war zones as rival drug gangs fought for control.  If one counts the years 1990-1992 (still part of the Republican hegemony in presidential politics), riots returned -- anti-Semitic riots in Crown Heights (an unheard-of thing in the US), and severe riots in Los Angeles in 1992. 

Gay communities, IV drug users, and hemophilics were devastated by AIDS -- both the disease and the stigma. Employers fired infected workers, landlords evicted them, families cast them out, healthcare workers refused service. Much of conservative opinion saw this as appropriate punishment and considered any research to treat AIDS as immoral because it encouraged the gay lifestyle.  And many of the problems that led to Donald Trump coming to power -- out of control deficits, good paying blue collar jobs going overseas, the decline of family farms and rural community, rampant homelessness -- got started in that era.  

So putting Republicans in charge is hardly a panacea. 

So, What Should Democrats Do?

 

So, given my fears that US democracy is doomed, what can Democrats do about it? Given that the survival our our democracy may depend on who controls the votes in 2024, what can Democrats do within the next year?

Democrats are at a major disadvantage, being up against 30 years of talk radio, 20 years of Fox News, the complete atrophy of their party in rural areas, gerrymandering, and a system weighted to favor rural areas.  These disadvantages will not be overcome in one year.  

Nonetheless, these would be my short term suggestions:

Make the best use of limited resources.  Election counters will be the absolutely most important offices in the next election.  Republicans are certainly focusing on election officials.  We need to do the same. Recruit, recruit, recruit.  Everywhere.  If we can't defend anything else, defend that.  We need to beat them over the head again and again by asking whether they will certify the result regardless of outcome.  Maybe I am being hopelessly optimistic here, but I believe an open pledge to disregard election results is still a loser.

It's the economy, stupid.  In the third quarter, growth slumped while inflation surged.  Inflation is eroding people's paychecks.  Biden's popularity slumped about the same time.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.  So focus on clearing up bottlenecks and supply chain snags, let the Fed fight inflation, and push to open up the world economy by getting out vaccines, tests, and treatment to fight COVID.

Listen to Ziblatt.  He gives two useful pieces of advice.  His advice from How Democracies Die is to build the broadest possible coalition with as many swing voters as possible.  How to do that?  He gives a hint in his other work, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy.  In defining a strong center-right party, he says it should have strong enough ties to the voters to know what appeals to them, enough flexibility to adopt to what is a winning platform, and an institutional interest in the survival of democracy.  The same applies no less to a strong center-left party.  In other words, we need to be better attuned to what actual voters want and less to what party wonks want.  (The wonks still have an important role in figuring out what is practical and how to implement it).  

And yes, in case you don't get the hint, that does mean moderating our stance in order to get votes.  It means not falling victim to what Ruy Teixeira calls the Fox News Fallacy.

This is the idea that if Fox News (substitute here the conservative bête noire of your choice if you prefer) criticizes the Democrats for X then there must be absolutely nothing to X and the job of Democrats is to assert that loudly and often. The problem is that an issue is not necessarily completely invalid just because Fox News mentions it. That depends on the issue. If there is something to the issue and persuadable voters have real concerns, you will not allay those concerns by embracing the Fox News Fallacy. In fact, you'll probably intensify them by giving such voters the impression that Democrats simply don't care about their concerns and will do nothing to address them.

Teixeira offers crime, the border, and education as examples.  Inflation is another.  

I realize hardcore activists might protest here and complain that we are asking them to give up their last chance to pass their program.  To which I say, save democracy, and there will be another chance.  Let the Republicans destroy it and there will not. I recall a Republican making the same error during the Obama Administration, saying that usually he agreed with William F. Buckley that conservatives should pick the most conservative candidate electable, but this emergency was an exception.  He argued that Democrats had completely run off the rails and the Republicans should therefore stick to the most conservative candidate and not worry about electability.  Need I point out the error there?  If you truly believe that the other party has run off the rails and poses an intolerable threat, the goal has to be to stop them immediately, at all cost, even the cost of some ideological purity.  Well, the same applies to us, too.  If you believe that Republicans have run completely off the rails and must be stopped at all costs (and I do), then all costs include ideological purity.*

Or look at it another way.  Do we believe ourselves to be the party of oppressed Black and Latino populations?  Then maybe we should listen to real, live oppressed Black and Latino populations and respond to what they actually want as opposed to what some white ivory tower theorist thinks they should want.  As it happens, most Black and Latino voters are considerably more moderate that upscale white liberals. (This may be why many Latino and some Black voters are starting to defect to the Republicans).  And the good news here is that maybe we don't have to choose between representing the wishes of Black and Latino population and reaching out to white swing voters in the suburbs.  Maybe what the two groups want isn't so different after all.

What else can we do?  We are at an immense disadvantage dealing with the Right Wing Noise Machine, its pervasiveness in rural areas, and its relentless message discipline.  We are also at an immense disadvantage with large-scale Republican donors and their capacity to organize mass movements. So what can we do?  Well, we can exercise more message discipline among Democrats giving interviews and be more proactive in getting our viewpoints out, but I don't think there is any hunger on our side for the sort of noise machine the right wing has.  We can also seek to involve big donors more in party building.  

But remember two words -- George Soros.  To the extent that Democrats have a major donor, it is George Soros.  Soros donates to liberal candidates, causes, and publications.  He has a Political Action Committee.  In that he is no different than countless conservative donors.  I know of no evidence that he exercises anything close the the influence of, say, Charles Koch or other leading Republican donors.  But the degree of Republican freakout that a Democrat dares play their money game is extraordinary.  

I could make a few other suggestions that can only go so far in the short run, but may be useful in the medium run if our democracy survives.

Don't Rely on the Lincoln Project.  Yes, after being targets of Republican nastiness all these years it is good to see somebody really nasty on our side for a change.  But I see no evidence that it actually changes votes. The rage addicts have already made up their minds and are going to vote.  The swing voters we are trying to reach are not rage addicts.  

Do Rely on Person-to Person Work.  That is how underdogs do it every time.  After the 2020 election, moderate Democrats said our failures to expand were the result of moving too far to the left, while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it was the result of not doing enough personal outreach.  I say both are right. AOC, by all accounts, is not just a leftwing ideologue, but also a first-rate old-style machine politician.  We need to start rebuilding that old-style political machine  Remember, if there is one thing that can blunt right-wing demonization, it is showing them that we are people too.

Don't Over Centralize.  In 2018, Democrats won by the glories of message indiscipline.  Each candidate had their own personally-crafted message, and the right wing noise machine didn't know how to counter all of them at once.  Stacey Abrams undertook a major expansion of the Georgia Democratic Party, and it has paid off.  Sure, Republicans hate her, but hardly on a par with their hatred for George Soros.  Now imagine if there were 50 Stacey Abrams.  Where would Republicans focus their hate?

Compete Everywhere.  Because our system is inherently stacked to favor rural areas.  If Democrats can't find some sort of rural outreach they are doomed.

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*This is why some on the farther left resist the idea that Trump posed or poses a unique threat.  They prefer to treat him as just another candidate so they don't have to sacrifice ideological purity to stop him. 

Why I am Not Optimistic About the Prospects of American Democracy

I do not believe that the recent elections in Virginia, New Jersey, etc. are a must-win for Democrats.  I do believe that the 2022 are a must-win for democracy.  And I see no evidence whatever that democracy will survive the 2022 elections, when MAGA candidates seek to take over the election machinery and Republican candidates run for Congress on a pledge not to certify a Democrat as president.. The 2021 elections showed that accepting election results is a deal breaker for the Republican base, and that refusal to accept result is not a deal breaker for swing voters.  

Daniel Ziblatt argues that when authoritarian parties menace a democracy, the only way to stop them is by a grand coalition of the pro-democracy forces across the ideological spectrum.  His book (pp. 26-32) gives instances of how this has worked in multi-party, parliamentary systems.  In Belgium in 1936, Belgium's conservative Catholic Party expelled all supporters of fascist parties and formed an alliance with the Socialists (social democrats, not communists) and Liberals. This was a bitter pill, not just for the Catholics Party, but also for the Socialists, who had a plurality but not a majority in Parliament, yet had to accept the Catholic leader as prime minister.  Likewise in Finland mainstream parties initially tolerated the violent right so long as it targeted Communists, broke with it when it began kidnapping Social Democrats and attempted a putsch.  Conservative parties then allied with the Social Democrats to defeat the far right.*  More recent examples exist as well.  In Austria in 2016, conservative parties backed the Green candidate over the far-right candidate in a runoff election for president.  And, although Ziblatt does not mention it, mainstream German parties have held together in a frail coalition to keep out the Alternatives for Deutschland.

So what would that look like in the US, with our uniquely binary, first-past-the-post system?  Well in Louisiana 1990 and 1991, the Republican establishment threw its support behind the Democratic candidates for Senate and Governor respectively, rather than let David Duke win.  

But I suppose it is asking too much to expect the Republican Party to intentionally lose an election for President.  So the alternative would rely on Democrats making the broadest possible coalition, reaching out to swing voters, and seeking to isolate Republicans as extremist and undemocratic.  That did not work in the recent election.  In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin won swing voters by not embracing Trump too closely, but he also won the Republican base by not expressly repudiating the claim of a stolen election.  Ten participants in the "Stop the Steal" rally won, as opposed to only five who lost.**  Some 57 participants are up for election in 2022 and likely to win.  

Ziblatt's advice (pp. 214-220) is not to violate accepted institutional norms, but to fight within them, and to build the broadest possible coalition, including swing voters and pro-democracy conservatives.  It is the general advice one hears to treat Trump (and MAGA) as ordinary opponents. Ziblatt contrasts Hugo Chavez in Venezuela with Alvaro Urribe in Colombia, who showed similar autocratic tendencies.  Chavez' opponents attempted a coup against him, and thereby made themselves look anti-democratic and Chavez like the democrat.  This furnished the perfect opportunity for him to crack down. Something similar happened when Recep Erdogan's opponents attempted a coup.  In Colombia, by contrast, Urribe's opponents stuck to the legislature and the courts and preserved the democracy.

To the extent that Ziblatt means don't resort to illegal or extra-legal measures, I agree.  These are more likely to discredit Trump's opponents than to succeed, and even if they succeed, they simply destroy democracy in a different way.  But does it mean not pointing out what an intolerable threat Trump and MAGA pose to democracy?  Does it mean not proclaiming from the rooftops that the MAGA crowd is even now attempting to intimidate election officials and drive them from office with threats and harassment, and to install vote counters who will refuse to accept results regardless of the outcome? Democracy is under siege.  Is the only way to preserve it to refrain from saying so?

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*In both cases, the defeat of domestic fascists did not prevent the country from being overrun by foreign invaders, Nazi Germans in Belgium and Soviets in Finland.  But it paved the way for a democratic restoration afterward.

**It is at least mildly encouraging that all denied having actually breached the Capitol.
 

The Latest in Vote Flow Charts

All attempts to overturn the 2020 election having failed, Republicans appear to have decided to rely on a new tool not in their toolkit last time -- private election audits. Somewhere along the line the Cyber Ninja audit in Arizona went from a ridiculous search for bamboo fibers that was making Arizona a national laughing stock into something Republicans in every state wanted to copy -- even in states where Trump won by sweeping landslides.

The Cyber Ninja audit, it should be added, failed to overturn the result. (It actually added a handful of votes to the Biden column).  But that failure can be ignored because the audit came up with various (illegitimate) excuses to doubt the results and essentially declared the actual outcome to be an unknowable mystery. 

So the current Republican model for elections appears to be as follows:

This looks distinctly messy and unsatisfactory, not to mention the fact that it failed to get the result they wanted.  But fear not, Republicans can now make Cyber Ninjas the first tool in their kit.  Given the group's performance in Arizona, it should be an easy matter to delay certification past the deadline.  This will allow the (Republican, thoroughly gerrymandered) legislature to choose an alternative slate of electors.  The Cyber Ninjas model in swing states will look like this:

This is simple and straightforward and can guarantee a Republican victory in every swing state.  It might run into problem, though -- Democrats in Congress.  Up until 2020, it had been assumed that Congress's role in certifying an election is purely ceremonial unless their was no Electoral College majority (something that has happened only twice).  But now the unthinkable has become thinkable. Can Congress refuse to certify a state's electoral vote.  Certainly we can imagine that a state legislature overrode the popular vote, Congressional Democrats would refuse to certify.  Republicans would naturally be outraged at their dirty dealing.  The model would look something like this:

In fact, I could almost see this being made to work.  It is generally assumed that our system of government depends on upholding unofficial norms.  If the norms are kept, constitutional government thrives; if norms fail, the rule of law is trampled.  FDR's failed attempt at court packing is given as the classic example.  But sometimes norms fail and new norms simply take their place, leaving democracy and the rule of law none the worse for it.  Classic example: Andrew Jackson's veto of the Bank of the United States.  Up till then it was assumed that the President should veto only unconstitutional legislation.  The Supreme Court had found the Bank constitutional, so Jackson would have no choice but to sign. Instead, he vetoed and set a new norm that the President can veto legislation for purely policy or partisan reasons.  Democracy seems to have survived.

So I suppose we could adopt a system in which the electoral college is purely a formality and Congress makes the choice, with each member voting for the candidate of their own party.  It would move us more in the direction of a parliamentary system.  It would also make control of Congress paramount and have the effect of being a complete end to ticket splitting and making gerrymanders all the more important.  It do not favor such a system, but I could see democracy possibly surviving it.*

Clearly the Cyber Ninjas model has two disadvantages.  One is that Congress can thwart it if Democrats hold a majority.  (Does anyone doubt the next certification will take place under martial law with the National Guard lined up all around Congress?).  The other disadvantage is that it applies to Presidential elections only and still allows Democrats to hold other offices.  But Republicans are working on another model that is more reliable -- simply put people in charge of vote counting who will not certify Democrats as winning any office.  It will look something like this:

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*For democracy to survive, we would need the following sequence.  Democrats win the presidency and Congress.  Congressional Republicans then unanimously refuse to certify the outcome but Democrats, as the majority party, override them.  Perhaps there is a repeat performance with Democrats again holding both branches in the next election.  After that, a Republican wins both branches and Democrats see little choice but to retaliate, and the new norm is born.

Comments on Biden

Some accounts have suggested that Democrats did badly because Joe Biden is unpopular and is dragging them down.  I am inclined to this that over personalizes it.  Biden is unpopular because people are generally unhappy with how things are going -- whether COVID restrictions, gas prices, general inflation, crime, etc.  Interesting note: Quarterly growth fell to 2% annualized for the third quarter of 2021.  Joe Biden's popularity fell at about the same time.  Coincidence?  Possible, but it seems unlikely.

Will he get a boost from passing legislation in Congress?  Who knows?  Republicans are getting hysterical and calling it communism, but they never managed to build up the same sort of all-out outrage over the infrastructure bill or Build Back Better that they did over Obamacare.  My guess is the legislation will not have much effect one way or the other.  What will make a difference in improvement in overall conditions.

My assessment of Biden now is that is showing the strengths and weaknesses of a longtime Senator serving as President.

The strengths:  He is really good at the horse trading and wheeling and dealing to get complex legislation passed a deeply divided legislature.  After all, that is what me made a thirty-plus year career in doing.

The weaknesses:  He hasn't shown much executive competence, despite serving eight years as Vice President.  It is my understanding that his main role as Vice President was serving as liaison with the Senate in negotiating legislation. 

This raises an important question.  Is it, after all, a mistake to elect so many Senators as President.  Might it be better to choose state governors, who have more executive experience, and tend to be pragmatic and focused on getting things done.  A governor turned president could have a Senator as Vice-President to do the negotiating with Congress.*  An obvious objection might be that Democratic governors then to be blue-state governors who would seem too liberal for swing voters.  But there are other options like John Bel Edwards (Louisiana) or Tom Wolf (Pennsylvania).

What will make a difference is an improvement in overall conditions, meaning, primarily, the economy. 

The two main drags on the economy are COVID and supply chain issues.  Supply bottlenecks are also an important factor in inflation, which is a major source of discontentment.  

As for COVID, while everyone is fighting over vaccines, an effective treatment is now in the pipeline.  Biden should mobilize the same resources for manufacture and distribution of treatment that he did with vaccines.  Also testing.  Free home test kits from the FDA and reclassify them as public health.

There has been some improvement on the front, by the way.  Just a few weeks ago, when I went to order a home test kit online they were nowhere to be found.  Home tests can now be ordered, but they are still expensive and not widely available in stores.  We need home test kits to be plentiful as toothpaste.  I am hoping that test kits will be like hand sanitizer, gloves, masks, and other medical supplies -- nowhere to be found until suddenly they were everywhere.

Incidentally, Biden faces a dilemma here. Right now, widespread availability of testing is widely popular and has not become a culture war issue.  If he keeps quiet about ramping them up, he will not get credit.  But if he makes a big announcement, COVID testing will become yet another culture war issue that right wingers must resist at all costs.  And I have to wonder even in the absence of widespread announcements, if test kits become widely used, how long will people who see vaccine passes and masks as intolerable tyranny submit to testing.  My advice is to keep quiet.  If every drugstore has test kits, people will find them and use them, if only to know when they need treatment.

As for supply chains, I don't pretend to know, but Biden needs to focus like a laser on clearing them up.

And, of course, deal with any other crises that may come up, whatever they may be.

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*Other options:  Someone who has done both. Or someone who has served in Congress and held a Cabinet post.

Can US Democracy be Saved?

I am really beginning to despair for the future of US

The Republican base is quite clear.  The 2020 election was stolen.  Any acknowledgement that it was legitimate is a deal breaker.  Swing voters, by contrast, don't see a party that refuses to accept elections it loses and appears to condone violent insurrections as a deal-breaker. They appear to see the insurrection as ancient history and recognizing election results as the sort of insider baseball that no normal person actually cares about.

This election is not a must-win, merely a testing of the waters and a harbinger of things to come.  But the next election truly is a must-win. We have to face the real possibility that Republicans will elect election officials who will refuse to recognize election results they don't like.  Or state legislatures who overrule results they don't like.  Or a congressional delegation that will certify Donald Trump as winning regardless of the actual outcome.

The Republican base will demand this as a basic qualification for office.  Democrats don't seem to be able to convey the importance of the issue.  And swing voters just don't care and are more interested in gas prices.

That being said, I do see two hopeful developments. First, a Republican winning a high profile election should give some reassurance to the Republican base, who see elections as hopelessly rigged against them.

Second, a Republican lost the election for governor in New Jersey by a narrow margin.

Since the 2020 election, two Democrats won by a narrow margin in Georgia and went unchallenged, other than a short and appropriate delay for a recount.  But the basic idea that Republicans should never  recognize a Democrat as winning was not fully established at the time.  Since then Democrats have won a seat in Congress in New Mexico and the recall in California.  Republicans conceded, but the margin was so broad as to make a challenge hopeless.  So far, the New Jersey candidate has not conceded, but neither has he gone full-on Trump. So we may see whether Republicans are willing to concede narrow losses.

Update:  After two weeks, Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli has finally conceded defeat and urged his supporters to accept the results and live to fight another day.  So, since Trump's unprecedented attempt to overturn the election, Republicans have lost by margins ranging from narrow to wide and conceded in all cases.  They have also won a high-profile election in Virginia and other elections elsewhere, all without the results being challenged.  All of this is to the good and shows the election process working normally.  The question is whether it will continue to work normally if and when MAGA candidates take over election counting offices after the 2022 election.