Blog

Monday, November 11, 2024

Why Harris Lost

Many others have offered myriad explanations for how Trump defeated Harris. Some think Harris lost because she didn't appeal enough to women. Some argue that Biden stayed in the race too long, and it doomed Harris because she didn't have enough time to win. Some say it was trans issues. Some say it was inflation. Some even say that Trump voters were duped by a disinformation bubble.

Here are a couple rundowns of reasons from Vox and AEI. I find this explanation closest to my own view, and below, I explain it more comprehensively.

I'm a long-time proponent of the median voter theorem. The concept is more simple than the name. The idea basically is that to win an election, a candidate needs to win a majority of the votes, and to win the majority of the votes, that candidate has to win the vote of the median voter--the voter exactly in the political center of all voters. The candidate who wins that voter, generally by staking positions closest to them, wins the election.

The story of 2020-2024 is that in 2019 Harris was pretty far to the left, and lost the primary. Biden was pretty close to the center and won it. In the general election, he campaigned as a perfect centrist. However, once he became president, he shifted to the left and stayed there. When Harris took over, she moved up to, but not beyond where Biden governed, which left Trump much closer to the center than Harris, so Trump won.

In 2020, Joe Biden ran as a moderate

The 2020 Democratic primary featured candidates spanning the entire Democratic party, from Sanders and Warren representing the far-left to Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar representing less far-left. And of them, Biden had the most experience, name recognition, and political power.

Once he won the nomination, he campaigned on ending the pandemic, but never said how. He was ambiguous on fracking. He thought Trump's immigration restrictions were too restrictive.

The Brookings Institute: "Joe Biden appealed to the center of the electorate across party lines. He did 10 points better than Hillary Clinton among Independents, and he doubled her showing among moderate and liberal Republicans...If the Democratic Party is regarded as going beyond what the center of the electorate expects and wants, Democrats' gains...could evaporate."

The BBC: "Biden stuck with a centrist strategy, refusing to back universal government-run healthcare, free college education, or a wealth tax. This allowed him maximise his appeal to moderates and disaffected Republicans during the general election campaign."

Biden won independents by 9 points--52 to 43, when Clinton had only won them by 1 point in 2016.

Joe Biden barely won his election

Even with all the benefits of running against one of the most singularly despised candidates in decades, a pandemic roiling the economy and the culture, civil unrest, record-setting fundraising, Biden only barely defeated Trump in the electoral college. Biden won three states by less than 1% of the vote--Georgia (0.23%), Arizona (0.30%), and Wisconsin (0.63%). Combined, Trump lost by a total 42,918 votes.1

Votes are still being counted in the 2024 election, but at the moment, Harris's easiest path would have needed to swing Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to have won the election. She would need to swing 255,000 votes. The differences in margin are 1.2% (PA), 1.4% (MI), and 0.8% (WI). Not quite as close as 2020.

Biden Moved Left

Once in office, President Biden swiftly moved left. He issued executive orders "at a record pace," signing more executive orders in his two days than any other president signed in his first 30. His executive orders were not just undoing President Trump's work, or meant to address the pandemic, but showed that he was "taking steps Democrats have long demanded on immigration, the environment and racial justice."

In his initial flurry of executive actions, Biden required masks on federal property, extended foreclosure and eviction moratoriums, froze student debt collection, revoked the permit for the Keystone Pipeline, cancelled other energy rules created under the Trump administration, and pulled back on immigration enforcement. While many of these were demanded by Democrats, even the ones that were arguably centrist positions at the time, came to represent a immoderate president.

In February, Biden indicated he was more beholden to the teachers' unions than science when he waffled on re-opening schools. The head of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky indicated it was safe to re-open schools, but teachers unions scoffed, and the Biden administration fell in line and called for more funds before they could re-open.

In March, Joe Biden nominated Lina Khan to be an FTC Commissioner, notably, not the chair. Lina Khan was notable for writing a very famous article calling into question the application of anti-trust law to the current slate of American tech companies, most prominently Amazon, because they served as platforms that gave their products away for free, so the conventional approach of using price increases to prevent monopolies wasn't reliable.

She went on to work for other Democrats, and was considered a talented but pretty far-left expert on anti-trust in the digital age. Many Senators thought being a commissioner was acceptable given it was the President's prerogative, and the FTC could have three Democrat-appointed commissioners. One of them being more progressive was unobjectionable. However, immediately after she was confirmed with bipartisan support, she won confirmation in a 69 to 28 bipartisan vote, President Biden named her the chair of the FTC.

"Her appointment was a victory for progressive activists" according to the New York Times and was "hailed by many Democratic lawmakers." Elizabeth Warren said "With Chair Khan at the helm, we have a huge opportunity to make big, structural change..." The Vice President of NetChoice said she would make the independent agency more political. In office only briefly, she embarked on a aggressive agenda to push the FTC firmly in the progressive direction.

This episode symbolized Biden's move from moderate campaigner to aggressively progressive president. No one expected he would put Lina Khan in change of the FTC, even when she was nominated for commissioner. The change was a shock not only because it was unexpected, but it was unprecedented for a President to have misled Senators and the public on his intentions. In addition, while the business world had strongly supported Biden's campaign, their support of him surely wavered with such an anti-business Democrat put in charge of the FTC.

These are just two early-on instances of his lurch to the left, especially as compared to how he campaigned. There were many more. There was Merrick Garland going after parents who were concerned about what their kids were being taught, labelling them as terrorists; there was the student debt relief which he had avoided during his campaign and steered clear of, but then decided to pursue unilaterally despite previous arguments that it was unconstitutional. He tried to require masks on planes and vaccines for workers. Both of which failed in court. Both of which he continued to pursue despite their unpopularity. He always sided with unions and decided he'd be the first president to stand in a picket line. He discontinued natural gas exports. He tried to apply the protections in Title IX, which was meant to prevent discrimination based on a person's sex, to trans students. Biden also moved to aggressively reduce the number of gas-powered cars and replace them with EVs and his administration briefly contemplated banning gas stoves before it went public.

Biden was so committed to not enforcing the border, he wouldn't enforce his vaccine mandate for illegal immigrants even though he did for travelers. He flew illegal immigrants all over the country though he did his best to keep it quiet. He created an app so that illegal immigrants could bypass the border altogether and schedule their entry via airplane. Lastly, when there was a misunderstood photo of the border patrol and a border crosser, he immediately sided with the immigrant and never apologized for his mistake.

Also remember that the Build, Back, Better agenda was originally another multi-trillion dollar package for which many Democrats tried to expand the definition of infrastructure to include their economic agenda.

The result of all of these individual items and moves was that Biden was perceived by many, on the left, and the right, and the center, to be the most left-wing president of the last fifty years. People compared him to FDR and he basked in it.

Biden's Approval Rating Suffered

Source: 538

The other, more significant, consequence of Biden's policy portfolio was an approval rating that danced around 40% for most of his presidency. It's well-known, that his approval rating plummeted after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal. It reached its lowest point in July of 2022, almost a year later, and just before the Chips and IRA bills passed in August. He enjoyed about six months of approval in the low 40s, before it started dropping again. From December 2023 up until his disastrous debate, his approval was slightly below 40%.

Harris Ran as Biden

While many people think Harris ran as a moderate, to be more precise, Harris ran at the exact point on the ideological spectrum that Biden governed. The illusion of being a moderate was created because she shifted her policy stances from where they were in 2019 (confiscating guns, in favor of trans surgeries, opposition to fracking, in favor of Medicare for All), up to but never beyond the positions Biden held in 2024. While she renounced her previous, left-wing positions, she often didn't provide a detailed policy proposal of her own, but when enough detail was provided, she it would perfectly match Biden's policy.

Her response to every question regarding immigration policy was to support the Lankford Immigration Bill which Biden had supported, but did not have support of enough Republicans to pass. She never proposed or accepted any measure that wasn't part of that bill. On Israel/Gaza, she used the same language and answers Biden gave, that there needed to be a cease-fire and the hostages needed to be returned. There was no daylight between her and Biden on any issue.

Despite many opportunities, Harris refused to stake a position closer to the center than Joe Biden on any issue. She famously told The View and Stephen Colbert that she wouldn't do anything differently than was done by Biden. She adamantly refused to move closer to the Center than Biden governed, and that put her to the left of the median voter.

Donald Trump Ran as a Pretty Moderate Republican

Meanwhile, President Trump ran pretty close to the center. It surely doesn't seem that way because of the parts of his campaign that the media chose to highlight, but he is the least conservative president in decades on abortion, saying he does not want a national ban and he's not sure about Florida's six week ban. On immigration, probably his rightest-leaning issue, he supports deportations, but so do 51% of Americans. It flew under the radar, but Trump also indicated that he wanted to give citizenship to any immigrant who gets a degree in the US, which is surely popular.

One can also consider the outcomes of the Senate elections. Which states flipped? West Virginia, where a Democratic Senator, while a thorn in Democrats' side, eventually agreed to the Inflation Reduction Act, which sealed his fate. Montana and Ohio's Senators lost resoundingly, both red states with moderate Democrats who had won before but voted with Biden on everything. Voters are tolerant of moderates to an extent, but that tolerance was exhausted by Biden's governance.

In the end, Trump ran much closer to the center than Harris, and Harris lost because of it.

Footnotes

1 This would have ended up an electoral tie, which Trump would have won in the House.

Friday, August 18, 2023

Let He with Reservations Cast the First Vote

Disclaimer: This is not intended to support or malign any specific candidate. It is general advice promoting voting when candidates are unlikeable. Any promotion of specific candidates is a result of current polling on race, not policies or characteristics of the candidates.

Dominic Pino said something interesting on the 8/15 edition of The Editors Podcast. He argued that while a majority of Republican primary voters may support Donald Trump, a majority of Republicans probably doesn't, and almost certainly, a majority of people who might consider voting Republican also wouldn't support Trump.

This is a unique election. In my lifetime, these are the two worst candidates ever. Arguably, both are unqualified to be president, but for very different reasons. In elections before 2020, many people would complain about the quality of candidates, and it's true that the two parties' nominees are typically pretty poor representatives of the greatest America has to offer, but to a large extent, that's what the system, as it is currently constituted, can produce. That's also a very complex topic.

The difference with the 2020 election and the two front-running candidates for 2024, is that they're not just sub-optimal people, neither of them should be in the White House with any power whatsoever to make decisions for the country. Many, many people detested Hillary Clinton, but the idea that she was unqualified is ludicrous. The same can't be said for Biden and Trump. It would be easy to make an argument for either one of them that they are unqualified from holding this office.

For Biden, there's not much that can be done in a primary election, when no viable candidate wants to challenge him. For Trump, however, there is an opportunity. This will make practically everyone angry, but the most American thing a person can do is to vote in the Republican primary, for the candidate who's most likely to beat Trump.

This will make practically everyone angry, but the most American thing a person can do is to vote in the Republican primary, for the candidate who's most likely to beat Trump.

Many moderate Republicans, who despise Trump, have also developed a strong aversion to DeSantis because of his stances and focus on cultural issues. Even if they don't think DeSantis should be president, they should still vote for him in the Republican primary, assuming he stands the best chance of beating Trump. It is un-American to believe that Trump is a mortal threat to democracy, but allow him to win the primary and have a chance at becoming president. Right now, polls are pretty close. In fact, Trump has a better chance at beating Biden than DeSantis. Anything can happen between today and the 2024 election, and if you truly believe Trump is unfit for office, doing nothing but hoping things work out is a dangerous gamble.

If you truly believe Trump is unfit for office, doing nothing but hoping things work out is a dangerous gamble.

But you don't like DeSantis, and you're afraid he might win the general and become president. If you're a pro-democracy patriot, you should be okay with that, even if it's not your ideal outcome. In fact, you should want a strong contest between qualified candidates, even if it doesn't go the way you want. Whether you're a full-blooded Democrat, an ambivalent moderate, or a disaffected Republican, the most civic-minded thing you can do is vote for the Republican who stands the best chance of beating Trump.

Perhaps you think DeSantis himself is unqualified, just like Trump, so why vote for him. Here's a great test as to whether you believe a candidate is qualified. Ask yourself, why shouldn't this person be president. Come up with as many answers as you like, but try to be honest with yourself as to why you don't think they should be in office. If the reasons are all policy-related, then the candidate is qualified, but just has different positions. Shouldn't voters make that decision? Don't you want an election where voters can talk about issues and choose who better represents them and not a "my guy's awful, but their guy will usher in Ragnarok" election?

Monday, July 17, 2023

Bidenomics Sleight of Hand

President Biden is claiming the positive economic news is the result of his economic policies but neglects to mention the less-popular aspects of "Bidenomics"

In late June, President Biden sparked a medium-term news cycle by packaging all of his economic policies into a single term--Bidenomics--in an attempt to take credit for the many positive aspects of economic performance the United States has been enjoying.

Before that speech, almost no one was talking about "Bidenomics", and after it, there was a slew of articles celebrating Bidenomics and ridiculing it. In the past week, as new inflation numbers have shown that the inflation spike is largely behind us even though employment numbers remain good, the Biden team is doubling down and taking a victory lap.

To be sure, employment in the US has been excellent, defying the expectations of both pessimists and apolitical analysts. This is Biden's best economic stat. Other primary measures of economic well-being have been more mixed. The economy overall, as measured by real GDP has grown at about a 2.2% annual rate since he took office, including two quarters where it shrank. Before Covid struck, President Trump was presiding over an economy growing at 2.6% per year. In addition, its growth rate has fallen the last two quarters from 3.24% annual rate in 2022 Q3, to 2.57% in 2022 Q4 to 2.2% in 2023 Q1, perhaps due to the Fed's monetary policy.

Then, there's inflation. After peaking in June of 2022, it's been slowly receding. It's still elevated from where the Federal Reserve would prefer it, but there's less chance of a doom spiral. However, even though inflation is ebbing, real wages are still down overall, meaning workers are earning less now than they were when President Biden assumed office.

With employment high and inflation low and signs pointing to the elusive soft landing, President Biden is declaring victory on the economy. And he's ascribing his success to his unique set of policies that got us through--which he calls Bidenomics.

What exactly is Bidenomics?

In His Own Words

In his speech, he gave several explanations, some of which are vague while others are more substantive policy:

• He referred to himself as being "the most pro-union president in American history"
• "Bidenomics is about building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up"
• "making smart investments in America"
• "educating and empowering American workers to grow the middle class"
• "promoting competition to lower costs to help small businesses."
• "targeted investments"
• "We're strengthening America's economic security, our national security, our energy security, and our climate security."
• Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
  • (broadband for rural areas
  • replacing lead pipes
  • fixing "crumbling" bridges
  • upgrading power grid
  • renovating airports and ports
  • union workers, American materials)
• "I believe every American willing to work hard should be able to say where they grew up and stay where they grew up. That's Bidenomics",
• American Rescue Plan
• Increased pell grants
• Increased registered apprenticeships
• No need for a four-year degree
• Universal pre-k
• Free community college
• Affordable child-care
• Easier to join unions,
• fighting to eliminate non-competes,
• pro-small business,
• Medicare drug price negotiation,
• more affordable insurance,
• fewer junk fees
• reducing deficit (both through Covid AND budget negotiation),
• higher taxes for billionaires, no loop holes (crypto, hedge fund investors, oil companies)

Many of the items he includes in Bidenomics are a smattering of policies that any president would probably support (pro-small business, "making smarter investments in America", "educating and empowering American workers to grow the middle class", replacing lead pipes). Many more are standard-issue Democratic policies (Increased pell grants, universal pre-k, affordable childcare, more empowered unions).

White House aides, not surprisingly, said basically the same thing. They "described the term as a broad collection of policies aimed at using government muscle to revive and reshape the economy to help the middle class. They pointed to a range of efforts, including bolstering manufacturing investments, expanding high speed internet access and cracking down on industries that charge so-called junk fees." --Politico

What has Biden actually done?

So what sets Bidenomics apart from previous Democratic presidents? To answer that, let's ignore what Biden himself says and look at the economic policies he's enacted.

The most significant aspects of Biden's economic policy, most would agree, come down to the Inflation Reduction Act, Chips, the infrastructure bill, and the American Rescue Plan. There have been many other things such as some student debt forgiveness and a slew of administrative actions taken, but these probably don't make a large enough difference to the entire economy to consider here.

The American Rescue Plan, most notably, sent checks to most Americans while also expanding subsidies for the ACA healthcare exchanges. The Chips and infrastructure bill doled out hundreds of billions of dollars for microchip production and infrastructure. Lastly, the Inflation Reduction Act spent hundreds of billions of dollars subsidizing green energy and electric cars.

Many Democrats and progressives are characterizing Bidenomics as industrial policy, government picking winners and losers. In this case, the winners are solar power, wind power, the electric car industry, and microchip producers. They say industrial policy works by pointing to the growth of tech production after Democrats decided to pay tech producers to expand production. Americans should keep in mind that getting more of something that you're paying to get more of is not a sign of success.

On the surface, industrial policy always looks like a winner. The reason is because with any government spending, the successes are always more apparent than the failures. Money spent on one industry won't be spent on another. We're not going to see what industries are harmed. We're not going to see them shrink because workers and investors are going to the government spigot. China, the primary example of the kind of industrial policy Biden is touting is stagnating. Industrial policy is a long-term loser with a few, widely touted short-term winners.

Industrial policy is a long-term loser with a few, widely-touted, short-term winners.

The Parts He'd Rather You Not Think About

Add to this, though, the pieces of the economy that Biden isn't taking credit for. Interest rates are higher than they've been since before the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, the fed funds discount rate was set at a high of 6.25% before being reduced for crisis. Today it has gone up to 5.25%, rising 4.75 percentage points in 14 months. As a result, the average interest rate on a mortgage is above 6%, the highest it's been in twenty years.

Additionally, real wages have fallen. Prices have gone up faster than people's earnings have so they are effectively making less than they were when President Biden came into office. Is this one of the components of Bidenomics? If we get high employment at the expense of lower wages, is that a great deal? Before Covid, unemployment was low and wages were high--the best of both worlds.

On top of this, there are elements of Bidenomics, that neoliberals probably aren't as keen about. The protectionism, the made-in-America focus, and the debt reduction that Biden takes credit for, even if it's illusory. Many left-of-center economists have complained about the stipulations in the CHIPs act, where the Biden administration has added unrelated Democratic policies, such as childcare, as requirements to receive the money.

Americans and the media should not let President Biden ignore the unpopular economic policies under his administration.

Like many political slogans, Bidenomics has no real meaning. But Americans and the media should not let President Biden pick and choose which of the policies he's pushed "count". If he wants to say he's responsible for the good economic news, he should be held responsible for the bad news, too. And he should be asked whether he intends to maintain the debt reduction, high interest rates, and high prices that have been part of his winning, as he claims, formula.

Friday, January 22, 2021

The Media, Then and Now

Several stories from President Biden's first two days in office really illustrate how differently the media treat President Biden from President Trump.

Pete Buttigieg's nomination to be Secretary of Transportation (compare to Trump's nominations) -

Try to imagine if any of these stories occurred during Trump's presidency and how the media would have covered them. Compare to how they're being covered now. Thinking about that, it's clear that the media's approach to the Trump years consisted of the following:

1. Ignore all context. Remember the spate of "racist" Cabinet nominees? The formula was simple, find one action they committed throughout their life, that could be interpreted as racist and then call them racist full stop. Ignore everything else about their life. If someone called them a racist in their past, then they are a racist full stop. Do not under any circumstances write a full story about the sum total of their life and the counter-examples. The press repeatedly ignored context in stories about Trump to paint everything as egregious. When he moved the embassy in Israel, there was scant mention that every president had promised to do so.

2. Interpret the story in the most negative way. For Cabinet nominees, if they only have private sector experience, lambast them for not having government experience. If they have government experience, criticize them for getting questions wrong. Ignore all the positive aspects. If one answer is wrong, then they are unqualified. The embassy story is another good example; how many people decried the move and said it meant the end of peace and imminent war? How many outlets pushed back?

3. Assume the most evil motivation. The press commonly attributed Trump's actions to evil intentions. They laid the groundwork for this by constantly claiming he was a racist and an authoritarian. Then when he would do something they didn't like or they misinterpreted, they would explain it by his being one or the other.

4. Assume that President Trump was responsible for anything bad that happened. This would apply to the story about the National Guard. There would be many stories about how awful this action was, and the assumption that Trump was directly responsible. Then they would talk about how he hates his base and he treats them like garbage.

How many on the left blame Trump for the Covid economy? Was Trump responsible for Covid? How does he compare to European leaders? Are other European leaders blamed for their Covid economy? There's no question that Trump could have handled Covid better, but the fact that several European countries did just as bad demonstrates that Trump wasn't uniquely bad. How often do you see comparisons of US to countries that are worse? A responsible media would show how US performance compares to countries better AND worse. Not just the countries that are better. The vaccination story is similar. The US is a top-5 vaccinating country, both in absolute terms and daily. Therefore, the media don't report on that, or if they do, they compare us to Israel, which is the best.

5. Repeat the same stories that the other outlets are reporting. This will serve to amplify the story. Notice how negative stories about Biden, where they exist, are extremely isolated.

6. Point out, amplify, and ridicule every hypocrisy and mistake. Imagine if Trump had issued an order that masks be worn on federal property and then was on federal property with a group of people unmasked. How many stories would be written about that? What would be the tone?

There's no question that the corporate media treat Biden differently than Trump. Since I can't fix it, and I doubt anyone can, it's vital that we illustrate this to as many people as possible so that they're aware of how they're being manipulated.

Thursday, January 21, 2021

The Resumption of the Unskeptical Press

President Biden has made it a goal of his to vaccinate 100 million people in the first 100 days of his first term. This, obviously, would require an average of 1 million people per day. Given the number of vaccinations that are occurring daily, however, this goal doesn't seem especially ambitious.

In the past week, the average daily doses were 939,973. In fact, more than 1 million doses have been administered five times already. The average so far for this business week (Monday was a national holiday) is 1.3 million.

In light of this, it doesn't seem like it would take much effort to achieve Biden's goal. This can never be proven, but I would bet it would be achieved simply by making no changes to the current personnel or plan, but that won't be done.

This all seems pretty straightforward. Perhaps the above analysis has a tinge of bias to it, but even many on the left wonder how ambitious this goal is, and any responsible journalist would surely point out that Trump left a system that was producing nearly 1 million per day, correct?

Doing a google search on "100 million vaccines" produced the following (in order)

All of these headlines at least imply that this is very ambitious. The first article though, to its credit, does explicitly say this isn't very ambitious, and goes even further to say, that that goal would itself waste tens of millions of vaccines. The Independent article makes no mention of the current state of vaccinations. NBC News explicitly calls it ambitious, then doesn't provide the current state of vaccinations, but does talk about the daily and total deaths so far. The KTLA story also mentions daily and total deaths but not vaccinations.

The WebMD story calls it "attainable" yet "extremely challenging." It calls a 1 million/day pace "somewhat of an increase over what we're already doing." Then does mention the total number of shots given and shipped since December 14th, which wouldn't provide the context of how difficult it would be for Biden's administration to build on where we are now.

The NYTimes Opinion piece goes an extra step, and provides the average number of vaccinations per day since mid-December--447,000. This is quite a misleading statement. Of course vaccinations were slower in the beginning days. Omitting the current pace of vaccinations should earn this opinion piece a "Misleading" label from the fact checkers.

Like several of the others, The Hill article includes the total number of Americans who have died, and the total number of doses distributed. It also quotes CNN claiming "Biden is 'inheriting a nonexistent vaccine plan' from the Trump administration." It's a good thing The Hill's readers aren't told that Trump's non-existent plan is producing the same number of vaccinations as Biden's "bold" goal.

The other indirect source of the poor reporting might be Google's search itself. Of the top ten stories returned, only one of them actually provided the context of the current daily vaccination rate, and no link to the information itself. These figures are not hard to find. Simply searching "vaccination progress" produces them. The only explanation for not including them is egregiously bad reporting or the lack of interest in actually informing the public for fear of making Biden look worse than Trump.

Again, kudos to the NY Times first article. They get today's good journalism award: Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland. Joseph Guzman wins the award for bad journalism. Thomas J. Kollyky, Jennifer B. Nuzzo and Prasith Baccam win the "Too Biased to be Informative Opinion" Award