Public Policy and Governance – Page 11

The Depressing Truth

Yesterday, I wrote about my swings between optimism and pessimism as we approach November. I’ve now read a depressing article suggesting that even a “best-case” election result will not erase America’s Trumpist plague.

An article from The Bulwark began with the following quote from Philip Bump:

The Trump era is about Trump in the way that the War of 1812 was about 1812: a critically important component and a useful touchstone but not all-encompassing. Turning the page on the era requires more than Trump failing to get an electoral vote majority.

Perhaps a more accurate time span to consider is something like 15 years. The election of Barack Obama as president in 2008 was hailed as a signal moment in the evolution of American politics and demography, but it also triggered a remarkable backlash. Ostensibly rooted in concerns about government spending, it was largely centered on the disruption of the economic crisis (which triggered an increase in spending) and that overlapping awareness of how America was changing.

The author went on to agree. As he recounted, he’d originally viewed Trump as an aberration–after all, he’d gotten through the Republican primaries with pluralities, not majorities, of Republican votes, and he’d underperformed his poll numbers in virtually every primary. Large numbers of Republican voters hated him. He trailed Hillary Clinton in all of the polling. All of these data points led him to conclude that Trump would lose the 2016 general election, that in the wake of that loss the GOP establishment would take measures against those who’d supported him, and the Party would go back to being the Party of Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Marco Rubio.

As the author candidly admits, he was wrong on all counts.

My first mistake was not understanding that Trump had turned the mild tilt of the Electoral College into an enduring 3-point advantage.

By trading suburban, college-educated voters for rural, high-school educated voters, Trump maximized the GOP’s Electoral College efficiency. This trade turned the GOP into a permanent minority party, making it extraordinarily difficult for it to win a national popular majority. But it tilted the Electoral College system to Republicans by a minimum of 3 points in every election.

This was a true innovation. Prior to Trump, no one had viewed minority rule as a viable electoral strategy.

His second mistake was his belief that party elders would expel or neuter those who had supported Trump. As he now recognizes, that mistake wasn’t simply because Trump won. “It was wrong because the real war was not the general election, but a Republican civil war between traditional Republicans and those who wanted “grievance-based political violence.”

The grievance aspect was important because it meant that Trump could deliver to his voters even if he lost. Trump understood that Republican voters now existed in a post-policy space in which they viewed politics as a lifestyle brand. And this lifestyle brand did not require holding electoral office…

So no, there were never going to be recriminations against conservatives and Republicans who had collaborated with Trump. The recriminations would run in the opposite direction: The forces of Trumpism would continue to own the Republican party and anti-Trumpers would continue to be driven out. (Unless they chose to convert.)

That led to a third mistake: believing that the Republican Party would revert to its previous identity as a normal, center-Right political party. He now believes there is no going back.

If anything, the dynamics inside the party—the self-selection making the party whiter, more rural, and less-educated; the desire for minority rule; the eagerness for political violence; the disinterest in governing—seem likely to push the party further away from what it was.

We can’t control the future. And we can’t control the Republican party. All we can control is ourselves.

Which starts with being clear-eyed about reality and the work ahead.

The essay confirmed my reluctant realization that far more of the American electorate falls into that “grievance-based” category than I want to believe. Americans aren’t simply engaged in a Presidential campaign, but a much longer, more protracted struggle for the soul of the nation.

Even if Kamala Harris and Tim Walz win in November, those of us who define patriotism as allegiance to the philosophy of our founding principles will have to contend with the White “Christian” Nationalists who want to abandon those principles in favor of an autocratic, theocratic vision that accords them social and cultural dominance. (If you don’t believe me about that “vision,” take a look at Project 2025. Or–if you live in Indiana– read statements from Micah Beckwith or Jim Banks.)

November is just Round One. That said, winning it decisively is an absolutely essential first step.

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Project 2025 And Health Care

As we all know, the United States is the only first-world country without a national health-care program. While the approaches differ, most advanced countries consider access to healthcare a human right–not a consumer product. Here in the US, efforts to extend that access–Medicare, Medicaid, and more recently the Affordable Care Act–have been met with hysterical claims that such programs are “socialism” and incompatible with freedom.

I’m not the first person to note that these critics don’t seem nearly as upset by programs that can accurately be labeled “socialism for the rich.” Increasingly, American economic policy, with its generous tax advantages and outright subsidies, seems to be socialism for the rich and brutal capitalism for the poor. But a dissertation on that topic is for another day.

The scolds who resent any effort to make health insurance more affordable or accessible are among those who have produced the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, so we shouldn’t be surprised by the Project’s health care proposals. Neither should we con ourselves into believing that Project 2025 isn’t an outline that Trump will follow if elected–there is ample evidence to the contrary.

So–what health policies would another Trump Administration pursue?

A doctor writing in Time Magazine has recently explained why voters need to understand that agenda–especially when it comes to healthcare– and take it seriously.

Sponsored by the right-wing think tank, the Heritage Foundation, the Project 2025 policy agenda was written by more than 400 conservative experts and published in a book titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. While Trump has publicly disavowed the initiative, he has endorsed (and even tried to implement) many of its core proposals, several of which were penned by his former staffers.

The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has made life-saving drugs like insulin more affordable. Project 2025 calls for its repeal.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—signed into law by President Biden two years ago—capped insulin costs at $35 per month for people on Medicare. The data show that this cap increased the number of insulin prescriptions that were filled, ensuring more patients with diabetes got what they needed to stay healthy. The IRA will also cap annual out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs (not just insulin) for seniors starting next year. And despite aggressive lobbying and legal challenges from drugmakers, the law empowered Medicare to negotiate prices with Big Pharma for the first time in history, achieving significant discounts and saving billions. These are just a few of the many reasons more than 500 health professionals recently signed an open letter to protect the IRA.

Other provisions of Project 2025 would reduce access to Medicaid. Currently, more than 70 million low-income Americans rely on Medicaid for health care. The Project proposes lifetime caps on benefits and the addition of work requirements as a condition for coverage, among other onerous changes.

Unsurprisingly, Project 2025 would not only restrict abortion at the national level, it would also eliminate no-cost coverage for some contraception. (Those Right-wingers really want women to breed….) Of course, once children have been produced, concern for their welfare vanishes.

Project 2025 takes particular aim at the well-being of children. The authors seek to prevent public health agencies from requiring vaccination in school children, which could cause more outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles. They also propose invalidating state laws intended to stem gun violence, a leading cause of death for children in the U.S. Project 2025 would even eliminate Head Start, a critical program for early childhood development, especially in low-income and rural communities.

As the doctor writes, implementation of even a few of these proposed policies would set back decades of progress in medicine and public health.

The Harris/Walz ticket has used the slogan “We Won’t Go Back.” The usual interpretation of that phrase is that it refers to women’s reproductive liberty, but it actually–and accurately– describes what is really at stake in November’s election. MAGA is a movement entirely focused on taking America back–back to a time when women were property, Black and Brown people second-class citizens, LGBTQ+ people closeted, and adequate medical care a consumer good available only to those who could afford it.

I don’t know when opposition to vaccination and common-sense public health measures became part of the ideology of the Right. I don’t know why MAGA folks think the working poor aren’t entitled to health care. I don’t understand their evident belief that government should cater to White Christian males to the exclusion of other citizens.

But I do know they’re stuck in a past that I don’t want to return to. When people say this election poses an existential choice, they aren’t engaging in hyperbole.

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Good News On Guns?

There is so much about the world I inhabit that I don’t understand.

I’ve repeatedly posted about my inability to get my head around support for an ignorant, obviously deeply mentally-ill candidate for president, for example. I mean, what in the world do people see in a self-engrossed buffoon given to bizarre, nonsensical rants that makes them want to give him control of the nuclear codes?

There are other aspects of American life that I find equally incomprehensible, and one of them is Americans’ gun fetish, which has given us repeated, horrific mass and school shootings.

In some ways, the problem with gun ownership is the thornier of the two: we can get rid of Trump by electing his sane and intellectually superior opponent, but even if we changed gun laws tomorrow–outlawing, for example, the personal ownership of assault weapons–we would still be faced with the fact that millions of Americans already own millions of weapons.

Many of those weapons, to be sure, are in the hands of responsible people–sportsmen, adults aware of and compliant with safety measures–but research suggests that a vastly disproportionate number are in the possession of far-Right conspiracy theorists and looneys styling themselves as “militia” members.

We are never going to be able to get rid of those millions of weapons. Even those of us who marvel at the current, clearly ahistorical acceptance of a dramatically-enlarged application of the Second Amendment nevertheless recognize that the Amendment would not allow broad confiscation of guns.

It is a thorny problem, and as with so many difficult issues, progress will inevitably be incremental. That said, there are encouraging signs that at least some progress is being made. Back in April, Daily Kos reported on the woes of the NRA.

Early this year, Wayne LaPierre resigned ahead of a trial over his flagrant misuse of the organization’s funds to “treat himself to yacht trips, African safaris, and regular use of a private jet.’

In the wake of LaPierre’s resignation, the organization has reportedly descended into infighting. Finding a new leader has proven so difficult that not even Donald Trump Jr., who spent years talking himself up as the NRA’s next leader, is willing to take the job. Or at least, he says he wouldn’t, though no one has actually asked him to step in.

Leadership aside, the NRA now has only a fraction of the funds they had to sling around in past election seasons. They’ve declined from the $50 million they put into races in 2016 to only $11 million in their PAC and SuperPAC combined as of the last filing. Membership is also down by over a million, to around five million, which is half the goal LaPierre set for 2023 a decade ago.

And that’s not all that’s declined. So have gun sales. So what does that mean for the gun lobby?

The financial troubles (and thus the waning influence) of the NRA is very good news, because that organization was able to block reasonable firearms policies. As the article notes, other gun organizations aren’t able to exert the lobbying heft of the NRA.

With the NRA fading, there are other gun lobby groups working to gain more influence. However, none of them seem to have the level of influence, extensive finances, and highly effective lobbyists that the NRA had a few years ago. Those other organizations haven’t spent decades nurturing relationships with both politicians and deep-pocketed donors. The decline of the NRA seems like a genuine moment of weakness in the pro-gun lobby.

The article concludes with the hopeful proposition that–despite “stupid state laws”– “America may have passed ‘peak gun.” That’s probably too optimistic. On the other hand, it implicitly recognizes the importance of culture–and culture change– when dealing with issues that can seem intractable.

The reason the culture wars have flared so intensely these last few years is that frightened people have recognized the overwhelming threat to White Christian male dominance posed by the changes they are seeing in public opinion. America’s culture warriors are desperately trying to stop the growth of newly inclusive attitudes, evidenced by acceptance of women and gay folks and people of color, and the rejection of rules based solely upon the doctrines of favored religious denominations.

Those frightened “warriors” are the ones clinging to their “Second Amendment right” to own an AR-15. As their numbers diminish, so will the public safety danger posed by angry men (almost all mass killers are male) who want to stop the spinning of a world that is changing in ways that they believe disempower them.

It’s far from a perfect solution, but at least the culture change on guns seems to be heading in the right direction.

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Compelling Versus Repelling

The New Republic recently had a column by Michael Tomasky comparing the Trump campaign to a long-running television show. His point was that the shtick has gotten old and boring. He compared Trump’s performances to several sitcoms that had been enormously popular, and noted that few of them had sustained that popularity for nine years–the length of time that Trump has inflicted his buffoonery on the country. He also pointed to data that indicates Americans are tiring of him.

It was an interesting comparison, and obviously, I hope it’s a correct one. But what caught my attention was his conclusion to the following paragraphs:

But again, for now, let’s just judge him as an act. His act is way tired. It’s now nine years of “Fake news” and “You won’t have a country anymore” and all the rest. In 2015, all those Trumpisms were stupid and disgusting; but at least they were new. I actually laughed when he described Jeb Bush as a “low-energy person.” He was! I could imagine then how, for voters who didn’t hate him, he was interesting and possibly amusing as a species that American politics rarely produces: someone who threw the script in the air and said whatever the hell popped into his mind.

That was bound to be something people wanted to watch, for a while. And it was just as bound to be something that became less compelling over time. It’s an act. And this is a key difference between politics and show business that Trump can’t see. In showbiz, and on TV, it’s all about whether the production values can sell the act. In politics, it turns out, the act needs more than slick production. It still needs to show some connection to people’s lives and concerns. Harris is better at that than Trump is. And her act is a lot fresher, too. And Walz’s act versus Vance’s? Not remotely close. Yes—Walz is so compelling, and Vance so repelling, that this is one election where the veep choices may actually make two points’ worth of difference.

Tomasky’s characterization of Walz as “compelling” and Vance as “repelling” isn”t just an accurate description of the two vice-presidential candidates. It’s an accurate description of the great majority of current Democratic and Republican candidates.

I understand that I live in an urban bubble, but everyone I know finds Trump repellant–and those who watched the Democratic Convention found most of the speakers at that event compelling. That contrast isn’t limited to national figures, either. It’s really hard to look at the Indiana Republicans’ statewide ticket without being repelled. (When MAGA Mike Braun is the least offensive candidate of the four, the GOP has really outdone itself.)

In addition to MAGA Mike, an empty suit who just wants to be important, you have smarmy Micah Beckwith hating on LGBTQ folks, advocating censorship, and telling voters that God directed the disreputable and looney mob that invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. (Micah says he talks to God…)

You have equally-theocratic, anti-woman, anti-gay, wrong about pretty much everything, Jim Banks, who is evidently so personally unpleasant that even the Republicans in his current Congressional district dislike him.

And you have “no bar is so low that he can’t go lower” Todd Rokita, who has (mis)used the. office of Attorney General to wage interminable–and tiresome–culture wars as part of his incessant pandering to the most MAGA voters of the GOP base.

I certainly find these men repellant. I also find the Democratic state ticket compelling–if you haven’t had the opportunity to hear Jennifer McCormick, Terry Goodin, Valerie McCray or Destiny Wells speak, you should try to do so. But even if you don’t find them as compelling or inspiring as I do, you’ll definitely notice that they are all sane, competent and –unlike their Republican opponents–actually qualified to do the jobs they’re running for.

I really hope that Tomasky’s comparison of political and television show popularity is correct. It would be great if the American voters who have been fascinated or intrigued (or sucked in) by the first few seasons of “Entitled White Faux Christian Guys” might be getting bored with the same-old, same-old, and ready for a different show.

How about a documentary? Say, for example, one titled “This is How Government Is Supposed to Work”?

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Ron DeSantis: Poster Child For Today’s GOP

In the wake of his pathetic performance in the presidential primaries, coverage of Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, has faded from the national media. A recent exception was an article last week in The Guardian, explaining how he’s lost the support of many Florida Republicans

Ironically, that support didn’t diminish due to his appalling and seemingly endless assaults on civil liberties– some of which were enumerated in the first two paragraphs of the article.

In the end, it wasn’t culture war feuding over restricting LGBTQ+ rights, thwarting Black voters or vilifying immigrants that finally broke Republicans’ DeSantis fever in Florida.

Nor was it his rightwing takeover of higher education, the banning of books from school libraries, his restriction of drag shows, or passive assent of neo-Nazis parading outside Disney World waving flags bearing the extremist governor’s name that caused them to finally stand up to him.

It wasn’t even his bill scrubbing the term “climate change” from all Florida state laws. Evidently, none of those things upset Florida’s Republicans. The step too far was DeSantis’ effort to pave over the state’s parks.

It was, instead, a love of vulnerable Florida scrub jays; a passion to preserve threatened gopher tortoises; and above all a unanimous desire to speak up for nature in defiance of Ron DeSantis’s mind-boggling plan to pave over thousands of unspoiled acres at nine state parks and erect 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.

Thousands of environmentalists, former allies and GOP elected officials denounced the plan. Even the Republican state legislators who have dutifully rubber-stamped anything DeSantis proposed, denounced the projects. Many pointed to the evidence of intended corruption, since the plans–devised in secret– contemplated “no-bid contracts destined for mysteriously pre-chosen developers outside the requirements of Florida law.”

Faced with that blowback, DeSantis copied Trump, pretending that he was unaware of the proposal.

Desperately trying to pin blame elsewhere for a misadventure that was very demonstrably his own, he continued: “This is something that was leaked. It was not approved by me, I never saw that. It was intentionally leaked to a leftwing group to try and create a narrative.”

Tsk tsk. Those pesky “left-wing” groups…..

The rest of the article details the fallout in Florida, and speculates that DeSantis is “losing his grip” on Florida’s voters. While that’s interesting (although not as interesting as the question “why did this awkward fascist ever have a grip”), the article was far more intriguing for its parallels with Donald Trump and the national GOP. The opening recitation of DeSantis’ priorities mimics the agenda of today’s Republican Party and Project 2025. His effort to distance himself when it became obvious that those priorities were unpopular (to say the least) mimics Trump’s insistence that he knows nothing about Projecct 2025.

Take a good look at those priorities.

DeSantis and Trump and today’s No-Longer-Grand Old Party are one big hate-fest. It isn’t simply the war on women’s autonomy. The party wants gays back in the closet. It wants Black Americans returned to a subservient status, and Brown immigrants deported. It exalts Hitler for his effort to eradicate Jewish people. And today’s GOP has an incredible, seething animosity to the life of the mind–seen in its determination to turn higher education into indoctrination, to dictate what can and cannot be taught in public schools, and its persistent efforts to prevent people from accessing books of which its White Christian Nationalists disapprove.

The devolution of the Republican Party into the party of racial grievance and nostalgia for a past that never existed has occurred gradually over a period of time. For that reason, a lot of people have failed to recognize the GOP’s transformation into a neo-fascist movement–a hodge-podge of chauvinist, xenophobic, theocratic, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and reactionary views.

What struck me about the opening paragraphs of the cited article was the enumeration of those very unAmerican goals as DeSantis has pursued them in his state–with the acquiescence (nay, the enthusiasm) of that state’s GOP.

It is telling that the break between DeSantis and the state’s Republicans came only when his authoritarianism threatened the parks they enjoy. Only then, evidently, did Florida’s “good Germans” recognize that an autocratic agenda eventually targets everyone.

A Martin Niemoller paraphrase seems apt–if a bit awkward and with a less tragic ending:

First they came for the intellectuals, and I did not speak out—because I was not an intellectual.

Then they came for the gays, and I did not speak out—because I was not gay.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for my parks—so I finally spoke up.

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