In Brief
- Major tax reform nears. The Senate tax bill passed 51-49 with no Democratic votes. As the houses of Congress passed different bills, a Conference Committee will resolve the differences but is also almost sure to make substantial further changes. So, stay tuned…be prepared to be surprised…much can and will change. Passage by Christmas now looks likely.
- Fake news from ABC on Friday about the implications of General Flynn’s guilty plea gets their reporter suspended without pay after causing billions in worldwide financial market losses.
- The partisan coalitions of groups that make up our two parties have changed markedly with the Republicans becoming the white working-class and middle-class party and the Democrats—a bi-modal party of both the rich and of minorities and the poor. These changes have caused a dramatic shift in which states are safe Republican states and which are safe Democratic states. This week’s issue continues a 4-PART series about our changing political geography with a focus on substantive change in the Great Lakes and Midwest states of PA…OH…MI…WI…and IA.
- The sins of sex abuse and sexual harassment just keep on confronting the land…and many more of the guilty will fall…but which ones? Likely next targets are the protectors and enablers of the guilty.
- North Korea launches its heaviest, most threatening missile.
- China becomes more and more authoritarian requiring its tech companies and US tech companies to help it monitor its people in Big Brother fashion. The US and Europe push back against Chinese abuse of its World Trade Organization privileges.
In-Depth
What’s Important
Sex, Politics and Morality
This crisis is not going away anytime soon and will have widespread political, social, legal and moral consequences. Last week Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor, two US Republican House members and one Democratic House member as well as many others were claimed.
Soon, protectors and enablers of the guilty will also be identified and some will be punished with ruined careers.
Criminal courts…civil courts…kangaroo courts… and the court of public opinion are all going to come into play.
Tens of thousands of girls, boys and women who were sexually abused or harassed are consulting with friends, relatives and lawyers.
MORAL CONSEQUENCES? For over two generations moral standards have gotten looser and looser. Contraceptives weakened sexual morals markedly as did court and societal acceptance of various new rights.
Feminists and liberals demanded those changes, and while not directly approving sexual harassment, also often ignored or enabled illegality when the offenders were of the correct political stripe…such as Bill Clinton.
NO LONGER?
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
I don’t have clear answers but suggest we may be at an important societal turning point.
I’M ASKING MYSELF THE QUESTION…WHY IS THIS BLOWING UP NOW?
MAYBE IT WILL JUST BLOW-OVER BUT IT DOESN’T FEEL LIKE THAT.
An Alabama test
On Dec. 12, in an interesting test, the voters of Alabama will have to sort things out enough to choose a US Senator. Who will the voters believe? Roy Moore or his accusers? Who should they believe? Evidence supporting both sides exists. Some of the women’s accusatory evidence looks highly questionable but Roy Moore’s lawyers parse words as well as Bill and Hillary…neither good signs of truthfulness.
Donald Trump’s election strategy appears to be to imply Alabama Republicans need not vote for Moore but do not need to vote for Democrat Jones either.
It appears that all potential statutes of limitations on Moore ran out decades ago, and that the voters of Alabama will now be prosecutor, judge and jury in what has become a political trial.
I’ll make no predictions now, as the situation is still highly fluid, but Moore is again tied in the polls after slipping behind in recent weeks.
Stay tuned…
Elections
Our Shifting Democratic and Republican States
Part III of IV: Great lakes & midwestern states
Three weeks ago, we listed the 15 states that switched between the parties, in either direction, since the 1996 Clinton-Dole battle. Two weeks ago, the focus was on CO and VA with their firm move to the Democrats. Last week the subject was the six South Central states that have swung dramatically to the Republicans.
Conventional political analysis said Donald Trump wasn’t supposed to come close to winning the Presidency in 2016. Hillary Clinton was predicted to win the national popular vote easily as well as majorities in PA and the upper Great Lakes states, cruising to a comfortable electoral college victory.
It didn’t turn out that way but, it is important to note, that had PA, MI and WI all shifted by a point or two she would have won.
The two previous articles in this series highlighted geographic political change around the country with the strong movement of CO and VA to the Ds and the counter flow of six South Central states even more completely to the Rs.
Today’s article is especially key because we look at the states most likely to determine the winner of the next several presidential elections…five Great Lakes & Midwestern states.
Donald Trump’s victories in the Great Lakes and Midwestern region comprising PA, OH, MI, WI and IA were notable even in a year of political shocks. More important are the reasons for those wins. They go beyond the short-term and beyond Trump himself.
The chart below shows the presidential vote results 20 years ago in 1996, the 2012 results, the 2016 results as well as selected demographic data for the five states and US.
Great lakes & midwestern States Changing parties From R to D: 1996 to 2016 [Percent]
| State | ’96 D Vict. | ’12 D Vict. | ‘16 R Vict. | Chg ’12- ‘16 | ‘16 White | ’16 Hisp. & Asian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IA | +10D | +6D | +9R | +15R | 86% | 8% |
| MI | +41D | +9D | +1R | +10R | 75 | 8 |
| OH | +6D | +3D | +8R | +11R | 78 | 6 |
| PA | +9D | +5D | +1R | +6R | 78 | 11 |
| WI | +11D | +7D | +1R | +8R | 76 | 11 |
| US TOT. | +8D | +4D | +2D | +2R | 62 | 24 |
In 2012 Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in all five states by an average of 6%, more than Obama’s 4% national win. In 2016, Trump beat Clinton in these 5 states by an average of 4%. This was 6% more than her national win of 2%. Net, this is a shift of 10% in a critically important region.
Another way to display this dramatic change in political momentum is to look at the five states over the last six presidential elections– from 1996 to 2016.
1996 to 2016 Presidential Election Winning Parties—great lakes states
| PA | OH | MI | WI | IA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | D | D | D | D | D |
| 2000 | D | R | D | D | D |
| 2004 | D | R | D | D | R |
| 2008 | D | D | D | D | R |
| 2012 | D | D | D | D | D |
| 2016 | R | R | R | R | R |
In the five Presidential elections from 1996 to 2012, in the five Great lakes states noted here, the Democrats won 22 of 25 times. In 2016 the Ds lost all five. This in a year they won the national popular vote by 2.1 percent. This was no fluke in just one or two states. It is an important regional shift, offset, in part, by shifts in the opposite direction in other regions of the country
At a minimum it means the parties now know they are on roughly equal footing in the upper Midwest.
Much of the change from D to R was due to the dynamic interaction of the racial composition in the five states and for whom the ethnic groups there are now voting. So too, education, class and gender interacted in ways that caused change as we saw was also the case in CO, VA and the South-Central states.
These 5 Great Lakes and Midwestern states are 75 to 86 percent non-Hispanic white, much like the South-Central states. The US as a whole is now just 62% white.
Throughout the US, non-Hispanic whites without a 4-year college degree voted 66% for Trump and 29% for Clinton. That group is 34% of all the voters in the entire US and more like 40% in the five Great Lakes states analyzed here.
Increasingly heavy white working and middle class voting for Republicans is overwhelming minority voting for Democrats in key states. Where the white vote used to be split between the parties it is now becoming more polarized in the same way the black, Hispanic and Asian votes have been polarized for decades.
Also, important in these states and others are large percentages of white evangelical Christians who are now voting by huge margins for Rs over Ds. In 2016 Trump won the nation evangelical vote 80% to 16% against Clinton and that voter group comprised 26% of all the votes cast.
CO and VA are trending strongly D. The South-Central states are trending strongly R.
It MAY BE that the Great Lakes and Midwestern states are also trending R.
Next week, PART IV will look at how two new factors are hurting Democrats in an increasing number of elections— “surplus votes” and “moving-truck gerrymandering”. We will also look at two key states for 2018 and 2020…CA and MN. Both states are key indicators of where regions of the US are heading. This final segment of the series will also summarize what we have learned from the series.
Major Legislation and Policies
Tax Reform
The Senate passed its Tax Reform bill early Saturday, 51-49, with no Democratic votes, in the same way Obamacare was passed with no R votes in 2010.
The polarization and partisanship are extreme in BOTH PARTIES AND IN THE COUNTRY.
The two houses passed different bills and there will be a Conference Committee to work out the differences. Don’t assume, in this step, that the modus operandi will just be to just split the differences that exist. Some will just be split, but other compromises will go off in unexpected directions
Also, in this step, before final votes on what must be identical bills in both houses, new features not in either house’s version can be introduced.
THERE WILL BE SURPRISES.
An example is the earlier insertion in the Senate bill of a provision to eliminate the Obamacare mandate that all purchase or have health insurance. That frees up over $300 billion more for tax cuts or paying for specific further tax breaks previously not in either bill because they were unaffordable given Senate rules on budgeting. That provision may or may not stay in any final bill that gets passed by both houses and sent to the President.
There are many…many…moving parts. Taking ANY single change in isolation is unwise when you think about your own tax bill.
Passage of tax reform is likely but not guaranteed before Christmas.
Stay tuned but don’t hold your breath as drama and changes will come for at least another week or two.
Predictions
Changes this week
Political Predictions – Elections
- The chance the Rs will lose at least a few seats in the 2018 House elections is 80 to 90 percent.
- The chance the Rs will lose their 241-194 House majority in 2018 is 10 to 20 percent.
- The chance the Republicans will still control the Senate after next year’s elections is 90 to 95%.
- The chance the Ds lose three or more of their 48 Senate seats in ’18 is 85 to 90 percent.
- The chance that Donald Trump will be the 2020 R nominee is 90 to 95 percent.
- The chance that Trump will win a 2nd term is 80 to 85 percent.
Policy and Legislative Predictions
- CHANGE – There is an 90-95% probability the Congress will pass and Trump sign major tax reform and tax cuts for most by early 2018. [Change from 80-90%.]
- CHANGE – There is a high probability that Obamacare will be very substantially changed by the tax reform bill under consideration and other legislation that will follow in the next month or so. [Change from 50-50 chance.]
Democrats
Political Mistake?
Did the Democrats make an astute bet in across-the-board resistance to tax reform or was it a grievous political error? We’ll find out next year.
Media
Fake News and Totally Incorrect Reporting
The complete untruths and errant reporting about the guilty plea by General Flynn of Friday was staggering. It roiled the world’s financial markets and cost many billions of dollars at a minimum.
Facts and accuracy were sacrificed to made up stories, hyperbole, bias and sheer incompetence. ABC News has suspended, without pay, its chief investigative reporter, Brian Ross, because of his egregiously inaccurate reporting on Friday about the Flynn guilty plea.
Flynn plead guilty to a felony…lying to the FBI.
Because he lied about the same things to VP Pence, President Trump fired him ten months ago.
Beyond that we know little or nothing new of real substance from the General’s actions on Friday.
We are still waiting for a “there-there” of real facts demonstrating Trump-Russia collusion or other major offenses by senior administration officials.
The Media Dilemma about sexual harassment continues and expands
IN OUR NEW AND LIKELY LONG-TERM FRENZY OF CALLING OUT AND PUNISHING SEX ABUSERS AND HARASSERS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA HAS A REAL DILEMMA…
Who do they want to destroy… and who to save?
What are the standards and the rules?
Don’t forget the Tuchfarber 30 Day test—when you get upset about something in the news, ask if it is likely to be IMPORTANT IN 30 days or so. Only seldom will it be so and you can usually ignore it.
Global Politics
North Korean Missile Test
North Korea tested its biggest and longest range ballistic missile last week. It’s range clearly now includes the US mainland. It broke up on re-entry indicating work still to do but the threat to all of the US, China and Europe is now clear.
China’s Politics and Economy
China Watch
- China is becoming more and more authoritarian, forcing its tech companies and US tech companies to monitor Chinese citizens and make the results available to the government.
- The US and Europe are increasingly unwilling to let China flout the World Trade Organization rules it pledged to abide by when admitted is 2001.
- China is trying to get more serious about regulating its shadow banking industry, and especially investments known as “wealth management products”. These are sold by financial institutions, including many banks, as investments. Technically they are NOT guaranteed by the seller or the government, but Chinese investors have assumed they are. The government is now making clear these products are not guaranteed by the government or major banks owned by the government. Such reform is essential but will inevitably substantially slow economic growth as less credit will be available to spur economic activity. And, credit has been the main fuel for Chinese growth since 2009.
Until next week…
Al Tuchfarber
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Cincinnati