RATE, RISES AND REPARATIONS

You know the nearer your destination the more you're slip slidin' away. ~ Paul Simon    

What could be better? Schools are out for summer, the debt ceiling circus has departed until New Years Day 2025, roughly 3 weeks before the newly-elected president takes his/her oath of office, and the summer solstice will soon shine longest for all us North Hemispherians on June 21st when it will be directly overhead at the Tropic of Cancer.

Unfortunately, not everything is hunky dory. There are several remaining issues. First, the Federal Reserve Bank’s target interest rate; next, the proposed, fundamentally-different rises in California electricity rates; and lastly, the impending submission of an official report on reparations by the California Reparations Task Force.

Interesting.  From center field of the macroeconomics policy ballpark, I hope the Federal Reserve will increase its inflation target rate from 2% to 3% at its September 20 meetings. Through thick and thin, the Fed’s 2% target rate has been in effect for the last 11 years. Despite the Fed’s solipsistic concerns about its credibility, the target rate should be modified soon. It’s both overdue and utterly independent from how the markets and certainly the public view its credibility.

On the contrary, I believe its credibility will be strengthened when it raises the target to a more realistic 3%. Even at 3%, the Fed still has its anti-inflationary work cut out for itself. The current core PCE Price Index that the Fed uses to measure inflation is 4.7%, which thankfully has been declining, but is still elevated.

In the roster of international central banks, the Fed was an inflation target dawdler. The Central Bank of New Zealand pioneered its 2% inflation target in 1989. By 2012, when the Fed finally adopted a 2% target rate, 27 other national central banks had already set inflation targets, usually 2%.

Come on Fed Board members, get with inflation’s new milieu. It’s no longer 2012, the economy has changed a lot; 2% is no longer a solution. Rolling back inflation down to 2% isn’t going to happen without markedly increasing unemployment, which is always a bad call, especially during presidential campaign season. Imagine what the media will do for the Fed’s credibility as unemployment keeps rising, and the dozen or so presidential wannabes screech about the impending recession. Times change, so should the Fed and its rate. Raise the target rate to 3% at your Autumnal equinox meetings and call it a macroeconomic victory.

Zapping electricity rates.  The State of California and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) apparently were not completely satisfied after the CPUC issued its anti-solar Dec. 2022 rate decision in the name of equity that crushed incentives for Californians who were planning to conserve electricity by installing very green rooftop solar panels. The CPUC solar decision adopted the interests of California’s investor-owned utilities that see solar as a threat. The new solar rate schedule, implemented on Apr 15th, will reduce solar-generated payments to new customers by up to 80%. I previously blogged about this fraught decision here.

The CPUC is now considering linking a customer’s income level with their electric bills to promote more equitable rates. This linkage between electric rates and income was authorized by California’s 2022 Legislature which passed an energy bill stating in part that electric rates need to be related to customer income levels. This rate-income linkage never has been considered previously, certainly not for equity reasons. California once again may be on the bleeding edge of over-innovative potential equity enhancement.

The legislative and now CPUC equityists believe electric and gas bills are one means of correcting systemic inequity. It is a narrowly shared belief that’s already created a fair amount of blowback beyond the sizeable additional multi-million dollar expenses that will be required to track electric customers’ income over time and be integrated into the utilities’ billing systems. The utilities and CPUC are aware of these sizeable additional expenses, and have suggested kicking this nasty fiscal can onto a separate road. They want the added mega-dollars to be paid by California’s taxpayers, not electricity ratepayers. That’s faulty but impressive hutzpah.

The CPUC is now considering electric rates that include an Income-Graduated Fixed Charge (IGFC). How’s that for bureaucratic clarity. In plainer English, the greater your income, the more you’ll be paying no matter how much electricity (kWh) you use, because your income has been “graduated” into your rates. It’s labeled a fixed charge, because it is not related to how many kWh a customer has used.

If you’re a PG&E customer in the highest income bracket (>$100k/yr.) you’ll pay $36.69/mo., 13% more than the middle-incomers. The lowest bracket (<$50k/yr.) customers would probably pay no fixed charge, only a “volumetric charge,” meaning their bill would just be based on how many kWh they have consumed. Other utility IGFC rates would assess fixed fees as high as $128/mo.

This new rate policy is likely to work against the goals of needed additional energy efficiency because IGFC rates may increase the bills for lower-usage, non-low income customers. For customers like these the IGFC will likely be the largest portion of their monthly bill; it’s definitely likely for us as veteran solar kWh producers.

Critics of IGFC rates argue that they will deter progress on energy efficiency and energy conservation efforts. Such folks include those who have already or are considering installation of solar or other energy-savings kit. Inappropriately, with these IGFC rates higher-usage customers will receive relatively more savings. Other critics say using electric rates to correct inequality will offer, at best, minor benefits and large costs. Such annual costs include an estimated $2.8M of added “internal labor costs” by the utilities over the first 4 years, plus the expected multi-million dollar expenses of contracting with the single Third-Party Entity (a large, private contractor) to be hired by the CPUC who will be responsible to conduct the on-going customer income verification process. But, hey it’s true cobalt blue California where the ever-increasing varieties of inequality that surround us must be annihilated.

Establishing income-based electric rates like IGFC is a misdirected, oblique means of resolving inequality that will include unintended consequences as well as considerable distress by confused customers, especially when they receive their first notice asking us to confirm our income level for the CPUC’s mandate with others perhaps to follow annually.

Paying for bygone sins.  The last issue involves reducing inequality using the deep end of the public fiscal policy pool. I’m referring to California’s possible attempt to rectify the effects of abhorrent past racial policies by providing direct reparations payments to those harmed by these policies.

The California Reparations Task Force will submit its final report to the legislature on July 1st, after spending 2 years assessing what the state should do about reparations. Because California entered the nation as a free state in 1850, it never legally operated under slavery. Thus, reparations to Black Californians may be provided by the state to atone for the effects of discriminatory public policies that created “systemic disparities,” rather than recompense for slavery itself. The task force has focused on policies that have had inequitable effects on wealth, health, housing and education.

 Ben Franklins for Reparations? Many more will be needed.

 The task force has already stated it will recommend paying direct payment of reparations to qualifying Black Californians – those who can prove they are descended from slaves. These individuals may be entitled to as much as $1.2M per person. Such reparations might sum to $800B, which is twice as large as the state’s annual budget. The task force also states this compensation would merely be a “down payment” on reparations, not a final one.

Not to be bested by the state, and illustrating the nitty-gritty rivalry among the Golden State’s progressive politicians, San Francisco’s reparations committee suggests paying $5M to each eligible Black resident in the City. London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco – and the City’s first mayor of color – has declined so far to endorse her city’s proposal. Burrowing down into even smaller jurisdictions with shallower funding pools but outsized aspirations, the Berkeley Unified School District also is examining how much its Black students should receive as reparations.

The straightforward fact is these reparation efforts unavoidably include fantastical and unobtainable fiscal payments. Travelling further down the reparations road will be a perilous passage for Dems, especially progressive ones. They are headed into a very tight political and economic corner of their own making. For 3 reasons the Dems should be dissuaded from backing direct reparation payments.

First, no jurisdiction – be it a school district, city, county or state – has the financial ability to pay what task forces and committees are recommending for direct reparations. There aren’t even any large-enough slush funds available. Such reparation amounts would literally break their budgets. For reparations proponents, fiscal infeasibility is irrelevant; I don't agree. As mentioned below, reparations are well-liked with many Black Americans, but not with Whites. Despite this narrow popularity and an understandable moral foundation, requested reparations will be unfeasible to provide.

Perhaps the task forces and committees are adopting a first shoot for the stars bargaining strategy. They already know their requests are way beyond budget realities. The mayor, school board, county council or governor might first offer a compromise by providing a formal apology to Black constituents for these indisputably bad policies from the past. Then add a “symbolic payment” over a multi-year period of say one-tenth of the task force’s implausibly requested reparations amount. Will the task force accept such a two-part offer? As this is happening opponents of any compromise will have a field day publicly lambasting it, even if privately these opponents don’t disagree with the offer.

Second, direct reparations are unpopular. Simply put, the majority of Americans do not support reparations payments. Unsurprisingly, views of reparations vary widely by race and ethnicity. Two-thirds of surveyed White adults say descendants of slaves should not be given reparations. In stark contrast, about three-quarters of Black adults assert descendants of enslaved people should be paid reparations. In California, only 43% of surveyed adults said they support having the California Reparations Task Force seek reparations from the state.

Third, pro-reparations Dem politicians should remember the tale of California Prop 187, the 1994 “Save Our State” initiative. It’s now hard to believe, but in the dark past Repubs once enjoyed more power in the state’s political firmament. One of the several reasons they slipped was Prop 187.

Voters passed Prop 187 that would have established a state-run screening system to prohibit illegal immigrants – mostly crossing from Mexico into the state – from using non-emergency health care, public education, and other services in California. Outraged opponents promptly filed lawsuits challenging the new law. Four years later, after many anti-187 demonstrations and legal hearings, a Federal Court judged this proposition in to be unconstitutional. It was never put into action and became one of several contributing factors that eventually displaced Repubs as a force in California state politics.

If the California Legislature mistakenly passes a bill that institutionalizes paying the requested reparations directly to resident Black ancestors of slaves and Gov. Newsom signs it, they’ll bust the state’s piggy bank, which is already facing a $32B deficit; oh well, what’s $800B more. In addition, I bet the Dems’ reparations acceptance will create much political flack for themselves and perhaps allow the now-immobilized Repubs to “ride to the rescue” in denouncing this effort, perhaps even returning to some political power in California this fall. If Dems don’t agree to pay, they’ll confront many offended Black citizens.

Furthermore, if the legislature and governor sign-off on paying any amount of cash reparations for qualified Black Californians, there is no doubt that Hispanic and Indigenous/Native American Californians will rise to the occasion and demand their own reparations for systemic disparities they have faced. Currently, Blacks represent 6.4% of Californians; Hispanics represent 40%; Indigenous people represent 2.1%.

How California’s Dems in the legislature and governor’s office deal with the Task Force’s final report in 2 weeks will obviously be closely watched near and far. Expect them initially to say they need more time to study the requests in detail, even though they’ll know exactly what the task force is proposing.

Perhaps this study break will allow negotiations with the task force and other prominent members of the state’s Black community to discuss the worthiness of providing indirect benefits like reducing educational and/or health expenses rather than the fiscal impossibility of paying what’s been requested.

The Dems’ ultimate political decisions will reveal who they believe should be winners and losers in this zero-sum reparations arena. They would be wise to also remember Tuesday, Nov. 5th in each of their discussions. These Dem politicians will finally realize it was relatively facile and inexpensive to support studying reparations. However, on July 1st the tab will now be owed that everyone may have to pay for in more than just dollars.

 

 

CAVEAT EMPTOR POLITICO

In politics, absurdity is not a handicap. ~ Napoleon 

Promising a multitude of equality-filled rainbows when they’re elected, virtually all of the 23 fervent Democratic presidential candidates have been campaigning for a brighter future, come Nov 3, 2020. That’s a mere 529 days away. Given recent trends and Trump’s example (he formally began his reelection campaign on his Jan 20, 2017 inauguration); I expect the 2024 campaigns to begin just after we’ve finished 2020’s Thanksgiving stuffing. Oh, my.

As long as one anointed Dem is successful, a brighter future isn’t terribly hard to imagine, given our Drama-King president’s continuing record of fear-based ukases and misinformed, damaging policies covering all substantive issues.

What is hard now for every one of these candidates is first getting anyone to care what they are saying, including Iowans, where the earliest Democratic caucuses are but 255 days away. And second, for a specific candidate in the 22andMe throng, does anyone know I’m in the race and how can I distinguish my positions from everyone else’s, assuming somebody cares? At this point, it’s the very rare person outside of the political-media complex or the Washington DC beltway that cares at all.

Nevertheless, the media is overflowing with a plethora of “latest polls.” RealClear Politics lists 58 political polls being undertaken over just the past two weeks. At this neonatal state of the presidential campaign such polls hardly mean anything beyond whether the polled somebodies have ever heard of the candidate. Have you heard of Marianne Williamson or Wayne Messam? No matter who you now might possibly favor for president in 2020, there’s at least one extant poll that will support your choice in some fashion. Current polls about who’s winning the contest for the Dems’ candidate are essentially chaff, not kernels of worthwhile wheat. What else is excessive?

As of Apr 15, when there were only 15 announced candidates (not including Joe Biden), they had already raised $118.5 million. Bernie Sanders has the biggest war chest with $20.7M in his coffers (probably including the $6.1M left over from his 2016 campaign); Juan Castro was last at $1.1M. Naturally, the political-media complex has been reaping large sums of money from the candidates’ ads in this nascent stage of campaigning. According to the Federal Election Commission’s first-quarter filing, 12 of the Dem candidates spent $6.7 million on online advertising and assembling their digital strategy. Each and every Dem candidate is now in full, 24/7 primary voter acquisition mode. Realistically, the vast majority of these 23 candidates are at best competing for consideration as vice president, senator or governor in the Nov 2020 elections.  

These Dem candidates imply that ordinary people, together with their acolytes, won’t be paying any taxes for their plans, only the rich will be. Now they’re simply summarizing what their policies will somehow accomplish, like end inequality, perfect healthcare, put everyone back to work, pay reparations, provide debt- and tuition-free college education, reduce the voting age to 16 years and rapidly clean-up our environment. Such programs will require raising beaucoup government revenues, through increased taxes and public debt financing. Only a few candidates admit these fiscal consequences.

Meanwhile our strategy-free, solipsistic president persists in telling us that China has been paying for his tariffs (I’d give him 4 Pinocchios, adopting the Washington Post’s fact-checker icon) and that the Dems, especially these presidential candidates, are extreme socialists (another 4 Pinocchios), along with his ever-growing multitude of other fact-free fictions. His campaign now has $65.7M to spend, far exceeding that raised by any Dem. L

The Dem campaigns’ diminutive fiscal standing, together with our economy’s sustained strength (3.6% unemployment, 3.2% increase in average worker’s earnings, with 3.2% real GDP growth), represent ample challenges that any Dem will be facing to conquer #45. Defeating Trump will require victories in enough states beyond the coastal true blue ones so the winning Dem graduates triumphantly from the Electoral College, although probably not debt-free.

With rare exception, no candidate has revealed how their programs will specifically work or how they’ll be funded. However, Sen. Elizabeth Warren bravely stated in January that if elected, she would implement a new wealth tax imposed on the top 0.1% of income-earners and later added a new, larger corporate profits tax to finance several of her proposed pro-equality programs. Her policies would reduce student debt, provide free tuition and fees for students in public colleges and offer universal child care and early-childhood education. In making these and other definitive proposals she has positioned herself as the early race’s wonky, “I’ve got a plan” leader in the Dem candidate flock. Consequently, she has twice the number of paid campaign staff as Sen. Sanders. She needs such intellectual firepower to keep churning out thorough position/policy papers like no other candidate.

Actually implementing such wealth and profits taxes is far more problematic. Effecting such new taxes as federal statutes assumes the Dems keep control of the House, gain control of the Senate with her in the White House. Her proposed wealth tax will also need to overcome a number of legal and execution issues that have contributed to eight OECD nations getting rid of their existing wealth taxes. No matter; they are clever ideas that distinguish her from all other candidates. Successful politicians are rarely criticized for under-promising during their campaigns.

It’s quite safe for a progressive Dem like Sen. Warren to propose a wealth tax, because the people she’s casting votes for (progressives for sure, millennials and maybe folks who shower after, not before they work) rightly don’t consider themselves rich enough to be subject to her wealth tax. Her appeals for new government programs, like those of other Dem candidates, are portrayed as basically costless for their targeted potential primary voters. Other folks, the rich ones across the proverbial freeway or tracks will pick up the tax tab, not them. Each candidate knows a “free” program beats all others.

Progressive Dems are proposing momentous, major programs that, if enacted, will have substantial effects, including many unforeseen ones, on our economy and us. This is the “revolution” that Bernie et al. are focused on creating. Programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal will influence virtually every aspect of our lives. By voting for either Michael, Joe, Bill, Cory, Steve, Pete, Julian, John, Tulsi, Kirsten, Kamela, John, Jay, Amy, Wayne, Seth, Beto, Tim, Bernie, Eric, Elizabeth, Marianne, Andrew or even another Dem (are there any?), we expect our lives will be significantly improved and nirvana will move much closer to us.

At this point we consumers, taxpayers and eventual voters are mostly left in the dark about how these candidates’ policies and programs will actually affect our lives and what they will cost us. With such evidence we can make more knowledgeable decisions when we’re deciding who to vote for by also knowing how this person’s proposed programs will affect us. Such particulars can illuminate how a candidate’s policies will influence us individually and collectively.

As the Dems canter around their political race course and the field inevitably narrows, starting after the first debates on June 26 and 27, we will hopefully start receiving additional details so we can make more-informed judgements in the voting booth.

Knowing such details matters. Bernie’s single-payer Medicare for All Plan (M4A) has been endorsed by at least five other Dem candidates: Cory, Tulsi, Kirsten, Kamela and Elizabeth. When polls asking about his M4A state that it will eliminate all private health insurance and will increase individuals’ taxes, this program’s support drops dramatically to just 13%. Most published polls show a small majority of respondents favoring M4A; these polls never state the very likely (and unpopular) consequences in their questions.

Thus, we citizens should demand more details, the sooner the better, as well as abide by caveat emptor politico, denoting let the voter beware (my fractured alteration of the well-known 500-year old Latin phrase).

BLUE WAVE OR RIPPLE?

The waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators. ~ Edward Gibbon 

Praise be. The Democrats have managed to overcome their usual cacophonous campaigning and gained control of the House of Representatives, come January 3. They fielded enough interesting, empathetic, authoritative candidates to win 225 seats, with 13 still to be called. Alas, the same result couldn’t be duplicated in the Senate, where the Dems won only 46 seats, the Republicans 51, with 3 yet to be called. In these troubling times, the House’s half-a-loaf of legislative authority for the Dems is far, far better than the Dems living in the WOPPed (wholly out of political power) 115th Congress.

The media’s obsession about this election centered on how big the Blue Wave would be. Would our fractious population somehow collectively come together in voting booths? Nope, but a lot more folks voted than expected. Would millennials and people of color finally start voting? Probably yes and we won’t really know for several months. For the Dems, it’s been the year of non-traditional candidates, meaning folks who aren’t older, white men. Dem candidates included historic numbers of women, African Americans, LBGTQ, and even socialists. Some won, more lost as always.

Given the Dems’ victory in the House, they will elect a new Speaker. It’s not yet completely certain, but it’s also very hard to believe the new Speaker of the House won’t be San Francisco’s own Nancy Pelosi, and thus second in the line of presidential succession. Assuming she becomes Speaker in 2 months, it will be the second time she’s held this formidable job. She became the 60th Speaker of the House and the first female Speaker in American history in 2007 and held it until 2011.

I have a suggestion for Ms. Pelosi. She rightly deserves to be the 63rd Speaker of the House of Representatives. And in order to advance the Dems’ chances in the 2020 elections, I suggest she resign her speakership when the Congress convenes in January 2020. Like it or not, the Repubs have painted Nancy Pelosi as the “face” of Democrats. The Repubs, especially the president, always use her as their foil. In their eyes, she has more than enough baggage, simply by being female let alone from true blue San Francisco, to merit false overage charges that are displayed in multitudes of their campaign ads.

She’s ably served in Congress for 31 years. If she is Speaker during the 2020 campaign season, her alleged notoriety will be a hurdle that many Dem candidates will have to jump over, go around and through continuously. By nobly resigning her speakership, but not her House seat, she can cast aside that hurdle and further heighten her aura and Dems’ prospects.

After her one-year term as Speaker, her resignation will serve two purposes. She will no longer be as prime a foil for the Repubs and perhaps more importantly, it will force the current, elderly Dem Congressional leaders to find a younger leader, hopefully even several (like for the Majority Caucus Leader and Majority Whip). These new leaders can vigorously carry the Dems’ banner and state a clear, unwavering and convincing message as to why people should vote for Dems in 2020.

Unfortunately and not for the first time, the Dems’ messaging in this mid-term election was muddled and disjointed. What was the Dems’ message, beyond being anti-Trump? It wasn’t evident. What were the Dems actually for? It wasn’t clear. Enough of the Dems’ stronger, mostly moderate House candidates developed their own messages and succeeded. But senatorial candidates appeared more challenged and less effective. The Dems lost 3 seats, including 2 incumbent women. There was no elevating Blue Wave in the Senate, only a downward red-tinged swirl.

Even if the 2018 election wasn’t the “most important” ever – after all, every election is that, despite the media’s fixations – it was a much-needed, decent blue ripple. It assuredly was the most important election since 1920 by and for women. Women voters and women candidates created historic waves. The New York Times stated there were 257 women candidates for Congressional office, including 19 who identify as LGBTQ and 84 women of color. Election results so far (as of 11/10/18) indicate that a record 35 newly-elected women won House seats and 2 new women candidates won Senate seats. CNN projects that the new 116th Congress with have at least 102 newly-elected women in the House and 12 newly-elected in the Senate. Thus 44.4% of the female Congressional candidates won their elections. Batting 444 will get one into any Hall of Fame.

After 4 years meandering in the Congressional political desert, the Dems finally can exercise some political and legislative power in Washington, D.C. Their control of the House will provide some obligatory checks and balances on the Repubs’ and especially the president’s misguided, dangerous, misanthropic actions.

I believe the House Dems should now focus on 3 legislative priorities; first, provide DACA-recipients with a proscribed, legal path to citizenship. Second, increase public investment spending for our nation’s infrastructure (including rural areas), to be paid in no small part by revoking the Repubs’ “give the 1% more money, forget the rest” tax package. Third, and probably most importantly, improve health care.

As I’ve stated before, I’m not in favor of the progressive’s Medicare-for-all (M4A) mantra. Besides being a divisive strategy that appeals chiefly to left-leaning liberals, it’s fiscally budget-busting (not that that seems to matter anymore) and will require raising taxes. M4A has many important, powerful stakeholders strongly opposed to it, including doctors and hospitals. Instead, the Dems should strengthen and enhance the existing federal health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Like anything politically meaningful, this will be a challenging but worthy effort. Progressives won’t like it, but the mid-term election results didn’t reveal enough broad voter support either for Prog candidates (see Beto O’Rourke, Stacey Adams, or Andrew Gillum) or their talismanic programs like M4A. A majority of surveyed Dems stated that they prefer Congress to improve the ACA rather than create a new single-payer (e.g., M4A) national health care plan. 

The Dems should focus on 3 improvements to the ACA. First, allow the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare Part D beneficiaries and other public programs. This common sense approach to lowering America’s sky-high drug costs has been argued about for way too long. Amazingly, just before the election, the president said he wanted to lower prescription drug prices. Ta da, the Dems should take him up on his new-found interest. Second, increase funding of community health centers and provide incentives for more people to enter the primary care workforce. More community health centers should be established, including those in rural areas, as a focus for locally-provided, lower-cost, basic health care services. Third, the Dems should stabilize the health care marketplace that’s been sabotaged by the Repubs. As part of this needed effort, the Dems should indemnify folks with pre-existing medical conditions so their insurance costs will be non-discriminatory, just like they were when the ACA first became law.

If the Dems can effectively navigate the upcoming political waves created by the Repubs and use them advantageously, their political beachhead in the House can be expanded in 2 years. Here’s hoping.

FANTASY DEMOGRAPHICS

The future is keeping you out of the present time. ~ Van Morrison 

It’s now less than 100 days before the November 6 midterm elections. The media is keen to show its viewers and readers their prognostications about who the election winners and losers will be. Media doyens have been hyperbolically stating how our world suddenly will change after this the most important midterm election since 1066.

I exaggerate. William the Conqueror’s victory in September 1066 did change British history, but he wasn’t elected subsequently. He ascended to the British throne as William I on Christmas day after he, as a Norman, had laid waste to the Anglo Saxons at Hastings.
Maybe our upcoming midterm elections might possibly slip into the “top 10 historic midterm elections” listing, beginning with the one in 1858. Does anyone remember that top 10 election? However, the ephemeral nature of midterm election victories, like those in 1986, 1994 and 2010, means you shouldn’t get your hopes up beyond 93 days.

Nevertheless, it is notable that the Democrats are now confronting a within-ranks struggle for authority. Not too long ago it was the Republicans who were fighting internecine battles between extremist, hard-right factions, like the tea partiers and House Freedom Caucus, and the more “establishment” conservatives. But now Congressional Repubs are seemingly one all too big, content political family under the erratic and solipsistic leadership of the president.

In contrast, the Dems are having their own identity crisis, skirmishing between progressives and centrist “establishment” liberals. Several primary election victories by hard left candidates have blown leftish gusts into the Progressives’ sails. A widely-publicized example is the New York City primary victory of newly-coronated political prom queen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28 year old former campaign organizer for Bernie Sanders. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of American and unburdened by any previous government service.

Are Progs ascending in influence and dominance within the Democratic Party? It seems so, according to the liberal media. In the 2018 primary elections so far Progs represent 41.1% of all Dem candidates. Nevertheless, the Progs’ primary success rate (the number of Prog primary winners relative to the total number of Dem candidates) is just 11.9% to date. So far, more centrist Dem candidates are winning much more than Progs, but that’s apparently not really news. The news is all Progs.

In their move leftward the Dems have aimed at a set of assertive constituencies, including millennials, women and minorities. The Progs’ mantra emphasizes expansive government action in the name of socio-economic justice. Progs are heavily promoting policies like Medicare-for-all healthcare; abolish ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency); $15/hr federal minimum wage; preserve the Roe v. Wade decision; remedy income, wealth and evermore types of inequality; restore open internet (net neutrality); reestablish open borders; stop discrimination and promote equity based on gender, race, ethnic heritage, age and sexual preference; and support the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Community has become a significant new Blue identity word.

This mantra can be powerful and although individual pieces are eminently worthy, as a whole it’s divisive. It’s contentious because the Dems’ and Progs’ divergent “Big Tent” objectives attempt to juggle deviating racial/ethnic/social groups along with distinct socio-economic clusters of voters. Having this multi-faceted mantra often divides rather than unites their coalition of identity groups.

David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College, believes that many voters can simultaneously take a liberal position on one or more individual socio-cultural issues and may still believe more generally that the liberal vision, like the Progs’ mantra, requires changing the country too much and/or too quickly. Repubs no doubt will raise this issue in their campaigns, as well as how we can pay for all the federal government’s expansion. A recent cost estimate for favorite Prog programs is $42.5 trillion over the first ten years; that's almost equal to the federal government's total expected tax revenues ($44T) in the next decade. 

I believe this mantra, together with the media’s prominent airing of it, helps explain why the percentage of voters describing Democratic candidates as “in the mainstream” fell from 48% to only 33% from 2016 to 2018. The percentage describing Democratic candidates as “out of step with most Americans’ thinking” rose from 42% to 56%. In contrast, over the same two-year period the public assessment of Republican candidates somehow remained essentially unchanged, 59% “out of step” in 2016 and 56% in 2018; 31% “in the mainstream” in 2016, 33% in 2018. These alarming numbers do not bode well for the Dems’ political goal of returning to the majority in the House and the Senate.

Adding more challenge to the Dems’ difficult goal is the continuing issue of election participation for their crucial, targeted voters. In a word, it’s dreadful. Key constituencies of the Dems, like younger and minority voters, have disproportionately not shown high voter turnout in either presidential or midterm elections. This is not a new issue. Hispanic voters in the 2016 presidential election comprised only 9.2% of the electorate and 7.0% in the 2014 midterms. More concerning is that analysts have estimated between 11% and 28% of Hispanic voters cast their ballots for Trump. Black voters were 12.4% and 11.9% of the electorate in 2016 and 2014 respectively. Young voters, aged 18-29 years, were 15.7% and 10.0%.

In contrast, white voters in the 2016 presidential election comprised 73.3% of all voters; in the 2014 midterm election white voters represented 76.9% of the electorate. Citizens 60 years and older have cast ballots much more consistently than other voters. They accounted for 33.6% and 39.4% of the electorate in 2016 and 2014 respectively. The Progs and Dems ignore white and older voters at their own peril, as they learned in 2016.

Fervent progressive advocates, glowing from their 11.9% primary success rate, dismiss actual recent voter behavior as passé. Instead, they paint a set of fantasy demographics for this November (and in 2020) where expected future demographic changes miraculously appear now which magnify millennials’ and minority voters’ potential importance. In this invented vision, young and minority voters across the US (especially in non-urban areas) will shake off their ballot-filling lethargy and vote progressive Dems into political power.

This Dem, and now Prog, imagined vision has been created more than once, but has yet to produce electoral success. Could it happen in 93 days? Maybe, but to ensure victory I ardently hope the Dems’ promote a less divisive policy agenda that doesn’t cause more centered voters to jump the Democratic ship, or just sit out the midterm. The Progs and Dems need to remember Van Morrison’s apt song lyric, so the future doesn’t keep them out of the present. 

A Post-Election Addendum. It’s Wednesday, August 8, the day after the latest set of primary elections in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington. Oh yes, there also was a special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional district that the media obsessed about, even though the same two candidates will be campaigning against each other again for the “real” two-year House seat in just three months.

Once again, Democrat-Progressive candidates lost by big margins. In the Michigan gubernatorial race and in a Missouri House race Progs went down to defeat, despite much media play and personal appearances by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Neither election was close; each Prog candidate lost by about 20 points. The victorious Dem gubernatorial candidate, Ms. Gretchen Whitmer a former leader in the Michigan State Senate, said during her campaign she refused to support Medicare-for-all, and instead ran with the slogan “Fix the Damn Roads.” Ah, infrastructure.

The Ohio 12th Congressional district election remains “too close to call;” naturally, both candidates are declaring victory. The Repub candidate is leading by a slender 0.7 points, with provisional ballots still to be counted. Despite his apparent defeat, the Dem candidate’s run is being called a “triumph” in the liberal media. Nevertheless, elections aren’t played by horseshoes’ rules, being “close” to victory doesn’t provide any electoral benefit. In defeat, the Dems say this election will spur the Dems’ hopes and represents an ominous omen for Repubs in November. Why; because District 12 has been a true blue Repub stronghold for decades; their 2016 victory margin in the 12th exceeded 36 points. Today the Repubs are  pleased since their full-on Trumpist candidate is actually ahead of his Dem rival, and expects to be victorious after the remaining ballots are counted. So it goes… 

PROGRESSIVES HIT A BIG BUMP

Freedom is just a word for nothing left to lose. ~ Janis Joplin

At this point, the quadrennial task surrounding development of practicable political strategies to win presidential and Congressional elections in America is unmistakably facing the Democrats. Big time. Given the Trump administration’s astonishingly frenzied, disordered, tumultuous record so far, you might think it could be an easy task. I doubt it.

How bad is it now for Democrats? Let me count the ways. Republicans hold a 241-194 majority in the House of Representatives and a 52-48 majority in the Senate. The Democrats’ Congressional representation is very concentrated. More than 50% of the House Democratic caucus members come from just six (12%) of our states. One of every four House Democrats is from either California or New York. At the state level, Republican governors now exercise power in 33 states. Republicans now control 66 of the 98 legislative chambers in the country. Republicans control 32 state legislatures, including 17 with veto-proof majorities. Those 32 states account for 61% of the U.S. population. Republicans now have total political control over 25 states outright and another 2 where they can override a Democratic governor’s vetoes. The nation hasn’t seen this level of Republican dominance in our political process since Herbert Hoover was president.

Despite this unassailable Republican domination, during the past weeks much of the liberal media has been running stories about how Rex Tillerson, Betsy DeVos, Jeff Sessions and Steven Mnunchin could be denied the cabinet positions He Who Shall Be Named Micro-Man nominated them for. Hope springs eternal and all that, but the laws of Senatorial mathematics unsurprisingly crushed those less than faint Democratic hopes. As of Feb 14, each of these questionable, unfitting nominees has become a Senate-approved cabinet member, as expected. Oops, I wrote too soon. On Feb 15 Andrew Puzder, the president’s nominee for Labor Secretary, resigned after numerous Republican Senators expressed dissatisfaction with him. Micro-Man remains a laggard. So far he has barely filled his roster of senior administrative jobs; he has nominated just 35 people to fill the roughly 700 positions that require Senate confirmation. Are these the results of "a fine-tuned machine"? I think not. 

During the past year well-founded, “identity”-based issues raised by progressives were thrust into the nation’s social, legal and political limelight. These issues included “visibilzing” the 0.6% of the population who identify as transgender. [Yes, visibilizing doesn’t appear in the dictionary; the term is used by used by the LGBTQIA community.[1]]  This limelight engendered a diverse set of personal and political reactions across the nation, including support and outrage. What happened from these reactions? Among other things, the Nov 8, 2016 federal election happened with calamitous results for the Democrats’ social liberals, among others.

There are many ideas floating in the political ether about what contributed to this election’s surprising outcome, now that the Democrats are WOPPed – wholly out of political power – in Washington DC and many states. I think 3 of the reasons Democratic social liberals/progressives fared badly are: a lack of motivating, emotional connection of enough voters with Democratic candidates’ goals and priorities; geographically-concentrated, heavily urbanized backing; and fractionalizing minorities central to the Democrats’ base.

The Democratic coalition that twice elected Barack Obama nosedived this time around. During the campaign there was much talk about the increased prominence of minority voters and their amplified importance for Sec. Clinton’s success. Demographically, that was true for her campaign, but not the nation. According to Census projections, no one racial group will be a majority of the country by the year 2044, which is 27 years in the future. But right now, non-Hispanic whites represent 70% of eligible voters and they vote more reliably than any ethnic or racial group. The Democratic campaign tactics seemingly forgot this; the election’s actual vote count reflects this gross oversight. Micro-Man won 58% of the total white vote and 63% of the white male votes.

Despite being unwaveringly tooted by Democrats, Hillary Clinton failed to win a majority of white women voters. Also, Millennial, Hispanic and African-American voters failed to vote for Sec. Clinton in sufficient numbers in enough states to ensure her victory. Critics mention that Sec. Clinton’s campaign emphasized far more why voters should not cast their ballots for Micro-Man, and not a strong or alluring enough message to voters about why she deserved their votes. There was too much pessimista and not enough optimista in her campaign. It seemed like her campaign forgot, in a stunning error, about the primacy of our outdated Electoral College mechanism. An example of this misguided bungle was her spending campaign effort in Arizona and Texas (among the reddest of all states), rather than Michigan and Wisconsin. OMG.

Here’s a personal example attesting to why Democrats now inhabit such a dark political space. Recently my wife and I had dinner with some friends and inevitably talked about the despairing situation we and our nation are facing because of He Who Shall Be Named Micro-Man is president. Recalling former times when progressives were actively headlining the news, one of us asked “What was the name of that group who was protesting Wall Street.” It took us a while to remember the answer: Occupy Wall Street.

The Occupy movement was formed in late 2011 to demonstrate against inequality and the deluge of financial disruption for millions of Americans during the Great Recession. It popularized the phrase “we are the 99%,” reflecting the continuing struggles inequality poses on people who are neither wealthy nor rich (the 1%). In 2011 at the height of its influence, the Occupy movement had palpable difficulty stating its principal objectives because of its commitment to “participatory democracy.” Perhaps as a consequence, its legacy does not include demonstrable electoral political success.

In contrast, it takes much less time to remember the Tea Party, and its movement’s widespread (and all too successful) influence on American politics since 2009. In 2010 the Tea Party Caucus (that has since morphed into the Freedom Caucus) in the House of Representatives was formed after conservative candidates it directly supported had won 48 seats in the House. In a real sense the Tea Party’s legacy includes the populist ground-roots political activism that helped elect the current president as well as very conservative members of the House and Senate.

The Democrats have had no counter to the well-organized political movement that has provided total control of Congress and the Presidency to the Republicans. In a sense, now that the Democrats have virtually nothing left to lose, they have the freedom to create a fresh, new strategy and tactics for future success.

The average age of the 4 Democrats’ Congressional minority leaders is 73 years. The Democrats are now electing much-needed, new leadership of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The DNC, like Democrats in the majority of states, has no unified political power base. Creating such unification will be imperative.

Notable exceptions to the Democrats lack of power include their 5 state trifectas (states where one political party controls both legislative houses and the governorship): California, Oregon, Hawaii, Connecticut and Maryland. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, Republicans enjoy having 25 state trifectas, as well as the all-important federal trifecta. As one journalist put it, Democrats and the DNC are “leading from behind.”

In effect, the DNC is now searching for relevance as well as a plan for 2018 and beyond. They would do well to learn from the successful efforts of the Tea Party and other political crusades. In the short time available for next year’s House elections, this plan needs to entice majorities of voters to elect Democratic candidates in local, state and Congressional elections. Creating such a plan will require discipline and focus – something Democrats have found difficult in the past to master. The DNC will need to finally acknowledge the obvious; that the world beyond the Washington DC beltway is a much different place than they thought it was.

The Democrat’s plan for success also should include direct financial and political support for the growing number of grass-root organizations that already have empowered thousands of people’s “resistance” to Micro-Man’s chaotic, painful changes. The DNC and Democrats will need to build upon the initial successes connected with the Women’s March, the airport demonstrations and town-hall meetings to form a viable, enduring movement founded on a new, expanded, easily-repeatable message that emphasizes inclusion, human rights, safety and opportunity.

In fact after being WOPPed 4 months ago, messaging is the only leverage Democrats now have at the federal level. If successful, such communication – from strong, distinctive and broadly empathetic candidates – coupled with resistance and other action, can induce more people to actually vote for Democrats. Only then may there be a sparkle of light at the end of the dark tunnel Democrats now find themselves in. What do we now have left to lose?  

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[1] The better-known abbreviation for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community has been amended to LGBTQIA as a term used to refer to the now more multi-faceted community by explicitly adding the Queer, Intersex and Asexual communities.