In Brief
- President Trump’s UN speech on Tuesday is widely anticipated and likely to be a major event. It will touch on numerous topics and signal many American priorities. Expect it to be controversial…but what else is new…
- N Korea’s test of an H-bomb as well as ballistic missiles has created an international crisis. For 25 years this crisis has been brewing but a real solution was always kicked down the road with diplomatic nonsense. It is not likely to be allowed to fester much longer this time by either the US or China. Trump will certainly address the issue in his first speech to the UN General Assembly this week. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has suggested that UN sanctions have done about as much as they can, meaning the ball is now in the hands of China. Next in line after China is a military solution.
- A new poll by Reuters-Ipsos shows only 26% of Americans think memorials to Confederate leaders should be removed from public places. Most Democrats and African-Americans think they should be removed but the vast majority of Republicans and Independents disagree.
- A Gallup report out today shows 70% of American dissatisfied with how the US is being governed. That number has changed little under Bush, Obama or Trump since the Great Recession began in 2008. The widespread dissatisfaction lays blame on many of our institutions including both political parties and DC in general.
- The latest bombing in Britain, on London’s subway system, once again appears to be Islamic terrorism.
In-Depth
Long-term
The Democrat’s Strategic Error.
I don’t usually recommend articles in left-wing or right-wing magazines but do recommend two recent ones in the New Republic, a left-leaning magazine, by the same author. John Judis is a scholar and advocate of what he calls liberal-socialism. It is, in effect, best described as Scandinavian style socialism with private property maintained, a heavily regulated form of market capitalism, coupled with high taxes and the state involved extensively in all aspect of economic, social and personal life—a nanny state in many ways.
In 2002, Judis and Ruy Teixeira published an enormously influential book titled,” The Emerging Democratic Majority”. I have repeatedly argued that it helped begin the destruction of the then extant Democratic party as well as the Party’s long-term prospects for political dominance.
The book explicitly and implicitly embraced a strategy that has subsequently become known as the “Coalition of the Ascendant”. Simply put it says two things:
- The poor, minorities, the LGBTQ and Jewish communities, some union members and upscale liberals will provide enough votes for a dominant, long-term Democratic Party majority.
- The white working class and downscale evangelical Christians are no longer needed in such a coalition even though they were the historic core of the Party.
That strategy worked reasonably well, or so it seemed, in the elections of 2006, 2008 and 2012. Unpopular wars and Bush fatigue elected numerous Ds in 2006. In 2008, the Great Recession assured Obama’s and Democratic dominance. In 2012, incumbency and Obama’s uniqueness in various forms assured his re-election with high minority turnout leading the way.
But, 2004, 2010,2014 and especially 2016 have been Democratic disasters. Now Trump is President and the Republicans control the House and Senate. More ominously, but less widely recognized, the Republicans control more state governorships and legislatures than in almost a century.
And, more bad news is coming for the Democrats in many [not all] future elections as I’ll explain and predict in future blogs.
Back to Judis…
In his September 14, 2017 New Republic article, “Redoing the Electoral Math”, he explicitly and strongly repudiates his own “Emerging Democratic Majority” theory. The Coalition of the Ascendant is self-defeating identity politics that fractures itself into guaranteed minority status.
He now argues, in a break with his co-author, that the assumption that people of color will always vote Democratic is questionable. And, he notes that an identity politics/” progressive” party that doesn’t include the working class is in serious jeopardy.
[Recall that all successful socialist politics in history has be based on the working class providing the votes. But, the Democrats purposely drove away the white working class, a large majority of the working class.]
He also recognizes that throughout American history minorities have become more conservative as they became successful—that usually begins during the 3rd generation the immigrant families are in the US.
Thinking back through American history Judis recognizes that the “minority” outsiders in the late 1800s and early 1900s were the Irish, Italians, eastern Europeans and others. They are now insiders, quite successful and mostly Republicans. [I’ll echo his point with my own that 3rd generation Asian-Americans and Hispanic-Americans in a decade or so will NOT be looking for a leftist, re-distributional [socialist] party.]
He also now decries the abandonment of the white working class, recognizing that they are the essential swing group in American politics.
Judis’ 2nd article of recent note is entitled, “The Socialism America Needs Now” is in the 9/24 New Republic. Without intending to do so, I expect, he points to the near impossibility of Democratic progressives being able to craft an American socialism that would either work in practice or produce an electoral majority.
The risk of authoritarianism and anti-enlightenment liberalism in socialists is already obvious in the Antifa and Black Lives Matter movements. —both are within the Democratic Party, not independent of it.
I would note that the Tea Party movement within the Republican party was not authoritarian or violent. Also, almost all Republicans reject the beliefs of the KKK and white supremacists as demonstrated by two polls recently conducted by liberal pollsters at Marist College and Reuters-UVA. There are a handful of conservative extremists who are racists and violent but they are rejected by the Republican Party, Trump and almost all members of the party. The Democrat’s and media’s insistence otherwise just drives Republicans and many Independents to distrust the media and Democrats more and more.
Judis’ dilemma is that he pines for a democratic-socialism less extreme than that of Bernie Sanders, one that also draws back the white working class vote to the Democrats. He knows he helped drive them away.
Trump now has that group “locked-up” as did Reagan in 1984. He has them for 4 to 8 years, probably 8 because a Democrat cannot win the Presidency without prying many of them away from Trump…not likely to happen.
After that, it will be up to a Republican Party that is different than the 2012 Romney Republican Party to keep them under that big tent.
A closing note…neither of our parties will look the same in 2024. More on that in future blogs.
Forecasts
… I see no cause to modify my political forecasts this week.
Current POLITICAL Forecasts
- 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 Ds lose two or more of their 48 Senate seats in ’18 is 85 to 90 percent.
- The chance that Donald Trump will be the 202o R nominee is 90 to 95 percent.
- The chance that Trump will win a 2nd term is 80 to 85 percent.
Media
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 soOnly seldom will it be so and you can usually ignore it.
2018
Another poll on Confederate monuments came out with similar results to the poll by Marist about which I previously reported. Reuters-Ipsos and UVA’s Crystal Ball newsletter/blog did the survey. The sample looks good but the questions are of mixed quality, many of them leading the respondents to answers desired by the researchers. For the most part, the leading questions failed to elicit the desired answers.
But, bottom line, the poll shows 57% of Americans think the monuments should stay and only 26% think they should be removed from public places.
Democrats and blacks favor their removal. Republicans strongly favor them staying put. Importantly, only 18% of political Independents, the critical swing vote, think they should be removed.
There is little support for any of the radical right groups like the KKK or white supremacists.
Few even know what Antifa, the violent radical leftist group, is. Black Lives Matter as a group gets 32% support.
Compare those facts to what you read or hear from the media.
Democrats
Imagine the reaction and tut-tutting if Romney had blamed black voters for going 93% for Obama in 2012 and causing his defeat.
Outrage and the sky is falling…
But Hillary blames white voters for giving her only 35,000,000 votes and there is hardly a peep.
Strange!
China’s Politics and Economy
China’s politics and economy are so important to the global economy and the general situation around the globe I am adding a regular section on it to the newsletter. The section will periodically include detailed articles on specific things but will also list each week evidence that suggest an economic soft landing for China—a controlled slowdown to “normal” economic growth levels—or a hard-landing—a more rapid, extended and dangerous bursting of China’s asset bubbles.
I WILL ADD AND DELETE ITEMS TO THIS SECTION AS RELEVANCE DICTATES. “NEW” ANALYSES WILL BE SO LABELLED AND REVISED SECTIONS WILL BE LABELLED “CHANGED”.
New or Major Evidence for Soft Landing
- The WSJ reports that Chinese regulators removed emergency measures they put on the Chinese stock exchanges in support of equities following crashes in 2015 and 2016. This is a sign of confidence and stability.
- The political leadership, including President Xi, and the financial regulators have promised to rein in excessive speculation and credit growth. [We’ve been promised that for many years and the debt has continued to sky.]
New or Major Evidence for Hard Landing
- NEW — Two quotes from separate stories in last week’s WSJ accurately describe where things are with China’s economy. “China’s economic mandarins are unlikely to permit an overly sharp slowdown in investment that could tank commodity markets right ahead of the twice-a decade Communist Party leadership shuffle kicking-off in mid-October.” “An all-powerful leadership can likely keep the forces of disruption at bay for some time. But they haven’t disappeared…”
- China is preparing for the start of its every five-year 19th Party Congress in the middle of October. At the meetings, General Secretary Xi will be re-elected as General Secretary, the Party’s official leader, and most of the ruling members of the Politburo will retire as they have reached the official retirement age of 68. Xi has been maneuvering for years to pack the new Politburo with his allies and will probably succeed setting himself up to continue his rule after his new 5-year term ends in 2022. Most experts think that is his goal and that he will set the stage for it at this fall’s Party Congress. This will also set the stage for major economic and financial reforms likely to slash China’s high growth rate which has been “bought” with a massive accumulation of debt. Such reforms are almost sure to be accompanied by a long, slow economic hard-landing and much social and political unrest. Thus, Xi feels he must have total control for himself and the country to get through the coming crisis. Stay tuned…
- A WSJ story reads— “…China has been reeling in some of its biggest deal makers on mounting concerns about capital leaving the country and debt loads posing a risk to its economy.”
- The WSJ’s Heard on the Street [Sept 8] wrote…” This doesn’t mean China’s bad loan problem has gone away, it just has been swept under a convenient nearby rug.”
- If the US imposes major trade sanctions on all nations still trading with N Korea it will create a global trade war and send China into an economic tail-spin. Three numbers tell the tale. China exports about $600B to the US—about 5% of its total GDP. The US exports less than 1% of its GDP to China. China exports less than $3B to N Korea—1/200th of China’s exports to the US. A global trade war would be devastating for all and probably send the global economy into recession or at least stagnation. But, keep in mind the balance-of-power and magnitude of the economic and financial damage here and that General Secretary/President XI is up for re-election to those two posts this fall and next spring. MUCH MORE ON THIS IN COMING WEEKS.
- WSJ article points out that the yield curve in China has flattened—the prices of 3-year bonds are essentially the same as 10-year bonds. Such flattening is often, but not always, indicative of an economic slowdown on the horizon. The article also mentions the mantra that I have been preaching…that the government of President Xi is manipulating the economic and financial system to assure no major problems before he is re-elected as party leader this fall and President next spring.
- China’s UN vote for strong new sanctions on N Korea is an indication of at least two major things: [1] China wants the N Korea nuclear crisis resolved very soon and, [2] China fears President Trump will launch major trade sanctions bursting its asset and debt bubbles.
- Several weeks ago, the IMF raised its projections for Chinese growth but sternly warned that rapidly increasing Chinese debt will hit 300% by 2022. Others like the Institute for International Finance [IIF} asserted in June that Chinese debt already totaled over 300% of GDP, a high percentage for a developing country.
- China is now officially and publicly instructing its companies that they must stop foreign investments in areas like insurance, hotels, other real-estate, gambling facilities, etc. Foreign investments are to be directed to two areas. The first is into strategic areas, as defined by the government, such as technologies where the intellectual property gained fits with government plans for China to become a major, worldwide competitor in various fields. [Sound like Japan in the 1970s and 80s?] The second area is into investments consistent with China’s One Belt-One Road strategy to tie it more completely with all of Asia as well as Europe and Africa.
These all indicate concern that economic, financial and political risks are rising.
Opinion and commentary
Where do Conservatives and other Republicans go except Trump?
There have been, are and will be endless stories about conservatives and other Republicans abandoning Trump because he is not a strong enough conservative or a “real” Republican. Trump is NOT a staunch conservative. I’ve been writing about that for many months. He is a Republican, but not a doctrinaire or particularly partisan one. He is conservative on some issues and a moderate on others with more of an emphasis on getting things done rather than being ideological or partisan.
He sought the presidency to get things done…to do what he thinks is good for the people. He may or may not pull that off but that is what drives him. Washington’s ideologues and hyper-partisans just have not fully understood that yet and are highly unlikely to embrace that reality.
He is constantly pilloried by conservatives, the Never Trumpers and the press for a wide variety of things, including:
- Talking to the Democrats
- Wheeling and dealing
- Because he isn’t deporting the DACA “kids” or some other conservative litmus test
- Cutting taxes for the wealthy
- Saying or tweeting unseemly or destructive things
- Just being Trump
- Etc.
Ann Coulter and many other arch conservatives threaten to jettison him, but where are they going to go?
How about… to:
- Bernie Sanders
- Elizabeth Warren
- John Kasich
- Paul Ryan
- Steve Bannon
My point is fairly obvious. Trump is the President for 40 more months and probably 88 months. They and everyone else have nowhere to go.
Much more importantly, both the Trump base and Republican base– nearly indistinguishable from each other– are solidly with him. They are not going to desert him over a policy issue or two or three. They trust him to lead. They trust him to “drain the swamp”.
They do not trust the Republicans or Democrats in Congress, nor do they trust the press.
So, Trump it is…get used to it.
Tidbits and Insights
Menendez and McCain
Senators John McCain[R-AZ] and Robert Menendez [D-NJ] are wild cards in the Senate for the next few months in a way that may well influence crucial votes. McCain is being treated for brain cancer but still single-handedly and shockingly defeated the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. He is active now but the future is unknown.
Menendez is involved in a multi-month criminal trial over potential political corruption by him. The judge has ordered him to be in the courtroom which means he cannot be in the Senate participating on most votes.
With the partisan split in the Senate being 52R-48D even one vote can make the difference on a major issue. Stay tuned…
Until next week…
Al Tuchfarber
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Cincinnati