Look to the issues...

I'm always hesitant to read the news these days. It seems like on policy proposal after another comes out from the Trump administration, doomed from the get-go, with little coordination or marketing behind the individual pieces of legislation. Because of the lack of organization, it's not that I'm worried these laws will pass, but it still hurts to see them be offered. Every time.

But I'm going to suggest that there is actually a strategy that underlies the entirety of the recent set of policy proposals, including Scarmucci's dismissal (not really a policy thing, but still), the Russia sanctions, the transgender ban, and today's new rules on immigration.

That strategy is distraction.

This, of course, is not at all new within the Trump administration. Nor is the "distraction" idea a new one. But, with this series of legislative issues (including health-care), most of which are non-starters in Congress, I think we've got a window into what the President is distracting us from.

His failing Presidency.

How might further legislative failures distract from Trump's own failures, you might ask? Because he wants to swing the story to Congress - and Congressional Republicans should be wary. If you read most of Trump's recent statements, including the statement regarding the sanctions on Russia, you can see the growing anger that Congress simply wont just roll over and do what the President wants.

While Trump usually reserves his ire for Democrats in Congress (along with specific Republicans who vote against him), the recent statements demonstrate that he now needs someone else to blame, because along with the Russia distraction (which, so far, is what it has been politically speaking), it's tough to blame the team with fewer players for continually upsetting your plans. It makes you look weak.

Perhaps more importantly, however, Congress is finally signaling some independence. They have created a bi-partisan commission to examine how Obamacare can be supported until (and if) the GOP can finally come up with something else that can make it through Congress. They sent him the sanctions against Russia with a veto-proof majority. They are already staking out ground on immigration that doesn't fall lock-step with the President's position. They told him what would happen if he fired Mueller.

These are not trivial, particularly for a President who views any dissent as a betrayal.

So why these issues now? Why the trans-ban and immigration despite their likely failure?

Because Trump himself is failing, and his only hope is to stir his base - a base largely motivated by various prejudices - into enough of a frenzy that they scare the moderate Republicans in line. It's basically the same move that the Freedom Caucus made 2 cycles ago, but less likely to work because Trump's brand of populism is based solely on a cult of personality, which is itself based around success. As Turmp fails, so will his populism.

So, prediction time: Trump will continue to push doomed legislation in order to show that Congress is the "real" failure, and these will be increasingly divisive, hot-button, issues, but they will continue to fail. This, in turn, will motivate the die-hards, but will be an overall losing strategy, because he will continue to own the failures.

Let's see if I'm right!

The Inside-Outer

I'm liking Chris Christie better and better these days. First, it was reaching across the isle with Obama during "Superstorm" Sandy. Now he's chewing out his own national party leadership. Soon he'll be forming his exploratory committee...

It's an interesting thought, Christie running for President. He's brash, loud, straightforward (seemingly) - things people tend to like about "Washington outsiders." Perhaps his best characteristic, however, is his willingness to call out his own party when it's appropriate - as I believe it was when he called Boehner out on not bringing the relief vote to the floor.

The question, however, is whether this is posturing or if it's genuine. If it's posturing, not an unreasonable thought when it comes to politicians considering national office, it's interesting to consider how he would act once he can no longer be the "outsider." If it's not, his personality seems like it might be abrasive enough to hurt him in an actual run for President - not to mention the establishment might not be willing to go out on a limb for someone who consistently defies them.

In any event, I'm predicting a run for office in 2016. He's got pretty good conservative credentials and can position himself as a maverick, a la McCain, only with the added benefit of not being inside the beltway (recently, anyway). He'll not have my vote, but if he's not just full of hot air, he might be good for the Republican party by making the recognize that governing is still - despite their best effort - the responsibility of the government.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

IT'S FISCAL CLIFFSANITY!!

Really, no. It's not. Insanity, by definition, doesn't make sense.

Our situation, on the other hand, makes perfect sense given some things that have changed over the course of the past 10 years (and before) in Washington. Not only is brinksmanship now rewarded, but there is also good reason to believe that the power of the President in terms of effecting public opinion is waning. This, coupled with the fact that districts are becoming more and more "safe" for their (increasingly radical) representatives in the House, means that we should expect many more "fiscal cliffs." In total there are 4 reasons why we should expect an increasing number of games of Russian roulette with the American economy: Decreasing presidential power, "safe" redistricting, the utility of futility, and a the burden of language.

The first reason is explained very well in a recent article by Ezra Klein in the New Yorker. Essentially, the idea is that, while we've historically overestimated the importance of presidential rhetoric, it has become even less effective in recent years. In fact, it appears as if a good presidential speech can negatively affect the outcome the President is looking for by clarifying the issue for the opposition. This, to me anyway, is doubly interesting because it's supported indirectly by some of my own research (though some of my other research seems to disagree.) In any event, it does make sense that in an increasingly polarized electorate - or an electorate that at least feels more strongly about the issues on which they disagree - would incite politicians to fever pitch anytime someone says something that they can actively disagree with, thus potentially negating the positive effect of the rhetoric used to promote the issue. The President, being the most visible politician, is perhaps more subject to this effect than others and he has very little control over what people view as the most important problem facing the nation, the economy to begin with (though the fiscal cliff might be an exception to this rule).

The second reason "fiscal cliffs" will likely become regular occurrences is because of the safety of house districts combined with the increased polarization mentioned above. After all, if I know I'm safe, and in fact it will upset a significant portion of my (now very important) base if I vote with the other party, there is little or no incentive to compromise - at least until there is no other plausible alternative. This, by itself, would indicate that my best position is continuous opposition to the other party, but given that people are more upset than ever, it seems that compromise would be even less likely than ever. Perhaps that's why this is the worst congress ever.

If that wasn't enough, there's also something a little more subtle going on. A great article from Politico points out that because of the increasing lack of down-time between campaigns, and the desire of politicians to be re-elected, there is actually an incentive to do nothing until the last possible moment. If I make a statement - or worse still, cast a vote - that goes against the perceived interests of my constituency which is now, as mentioned above, defined primarily as against my opposition, then that statement will almost certainly be used by someone against me during my next campaign. And, because of the increasing loss of swing-districts, the person who runs against me is likely to run from my right if I'm conservative or from my left if I'm liberal. There is almost no room for moderates left in politics, and in particular the House of Representatives because of the safe-districts problem.

Finally, the last reason is because of the weird power of language in D.C. The best example of this is the perception that it is easier for Republicans to vote yes after going over the cliff because then they would be voting for a tax-cut, rather than an increase in taxes. Think about what this is actually saying. We will potentially screw up the economy (see the Debt Ceiling Debacle for another example of this behavior), lose increasingly scarce trust of the American people, and potentially do things like further hurt unemployment because we're afraid of our base ousting us for someone more radical. And keep in mind, nothing changed when we went over the cliff - not really. But Republicans (this time - it could be Dems another time) couldn't vote for a good bill, even if there was one on the table, because they're afraid of the word tax-increase.

In short, these four issues are why we'll continue to see crazy brinksmanship in Congress over the foreseeable future. The theory will be put to the test pretty soon, too, with the debt ceiling talks and sequestration looming. In any case, it seems likely that this will get worse before it gets better.

You Are What You Watch (?)

I'm not really one of those people who believe that children somehow ingest whatever they see on TV and have it dictate how they live their lives. Research does demonstrate that media influences children's behavior, but it tends to do so to a minor degree. In other words, if a child watches a violent cartoon, he or she might act more aggressively, but is unlikely to emulate the behavior directly - children can tell the difference between fantasy and reality and act accordingly.

What's interesting is that this is apparently not the case with adults. We, seemingly, cannot tell the difference between TV shows and our real life. Frighteningly, the places where we can't tell the difference seem to be right at the point where reality and fantasy shouldn't collide. A place where guns, torture, and phobias meet. 

Three examples of this scariness: "24", Zero Dark Thirty, and Homeland

I'll begin with the show 24 because it's the most egregious of the three, and because it kind of sets up what I mean about the other two. I'm not going to go into a full scale explanation of the show, because pretty much everyone knows what it's about, but suffice to say the "anything it takes" philosophy dominates the main character, Jack Bauer's, personality - up to and including the torture of potential terrorists.

So let's start with the practical reasons why this is bad.

First, torture like that shown in 24 doesn't work. Folks like John McCain are living proof that you can be tortured and never give up an ounce of valuable information. Even if you give up information, you could lie to get the torture to stop or because you don't like the people who are torturing you. You could also give up information and have it be of no use whatsoever. You could accidentally (or not so accidentally) die.

But who cares, right? It's just a TV show. 

Except no. The head of the United States Military Academy had to go speak to the producers of 24 to say "cut this shit out because you're screwing up my recruits." Ok, that's not really a quote - but it does capture the gist of what he was getting at. U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, had to go to Hollywood to explain why the show was having a negative effect by telling people (and specifically soldiers) that it's OK to sacrifice American law if it means saving Americans. Let me repeat that for you slowly. 

He. Had. To. Go. And. Explain. It.

That's what's really scary to me. People don't "get" why this is a bad thing - especially those making the films and televisions shows. And if you think that it got solved after 24, think again. Just last week the Director of the CIA came out against the movie Zero Dark Thirty because of it's portrayal of "enhanced" interrogation techniques as the definitive mechanism by which they were able to find the intelligence which they used to track and kill Osama bin Laden - which, incidentally, is not the case. But that wont stop adults from either refusing to acknowledge this idea, or recognizing the fact that the movie took significant artistic license. And that, to me, is really scary.

The new show homeland is similarly framed (in some ways) but has an issue that is slightly different than problematic violence. Instead of demonstrating that breaking laws and using ineffective torture techniques is acceptable, the show uses stereotypes of Islam to imply that Muslims are a problem. And, at least in the most recent season, it tends to treat all different types of Muslims as potential threats. Of course, I don't think that the producers of the show are out to smear Islam or Muslims, at least I sincerely hope not, but this type of presentation, given the facts presented regarding the impact of both 24 and Zero Dark Thirty, is concerning.

I'm not sure what, if anything, we can or should do about this. Obviously many people found 24 entertaining, and I have many good friends who have recommended Homeland. I think that it's this, more than anything else, that's disturbing. There is no conversation - at least a truly public conversation - about what message these shows present and how we, as a society, can address the negative aspects. I'm certainly not suggesting censorship or even that the shows change their method or message, but I do think that they need to engage the conversation as much as the rest of us. After all, I don't believe that those who make shows that wish to dramatize the protection of our people want to jeopardize other aspects of the American lifestyle.

Guns R US

The Sandy Hook elementary school shooting has reignited the debate about gun control in a way that few other things could have. The tragedy of 20 children being killed is incredibly hard (especially as a parent) to comprehend, and so I'm at least a little sympathetic to the knee-jerk reaction of gun-enthusiasts suggesting that guns could have had a place in stopping something like a school shooting. I have, however, grown pretty tired of the overall argument that they're making which, when boiled down, essential is "more guns = more protection."

This argument is a poor one for a couple of reasons. The first is that it reduces to the absurd fairly quickly. It's like MAD theory writ small. So one of the easiest ways to combat it is to point out the fact that if everyone in the world had an ICBM with a nuclear warhead, we probably wouldn't be any more safe from nuclear war. And by probably I mean we'd all be ash by now. The second reason this argument fails is that, at least in one mass shooting (Arizona's, where Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot), there were people with guns present who were unable to stop the violence. In fact according to this article, one of the people carrying very nearly shot the wrong guy.

A slightly better (though only very slightly) version of this idea was just proposed by the NRA in their incredibly insensitive post-Sandy Hook press-conference (or demagogathaon). The basic idea is that if we 1) train school administrators to keep/use weapons and 2) have an armed guard (or police officer) in every school in America, we'd be safe.

This falls apart as an argument fairly quickly. As I pointed out to a friend-of-a-friend on Facebook, when I couldn't stand his inane gun-babble anymore, lots of places have armed guards and security and still experience violence fairly regularly. In 2011, for instance, there were over 1000 bank robberies, many of them in banks that had armed guards. Few people died (3), but this was primarily because people weren't going there to kill anyone. Had they been doing so, given the 1000 tries they had, I'm fairly certain they could have succeeded. Lest this seem like an "apples-to-oranges"  argument, I would also point out that the purpose of mass-shootings is rarely the specific people who are killed, but instead simply the mass-killing itself. This means that "target softness" is an important consideration (probably) to a would-be mass-murderer, but all that means is that if we put guards in a school, they'll go to the theater. So unless we're prepared to put a guard in every building in the country, this isn't really going to solve the problem. And really, if the buildings are guarded, but not every park, playground and basketball court, then the problem remains.

So you'll probably notice that I've just been shooting down "solutions" and providing none of my own. The reason is that I'm not convinced there is a solution to be had. In reality, though obviously cognizant of the tragedy in Sandy Hook, I'm not convinced there is a real "problem" in the sense that this is something happening regularly enough, and in a systematic enough way, that it requires a major policy solution. Research suggests that homicides taking place at school are a very small percentage (2%) of the overall number of homicides against youth.

If, however, we collectively feel we need to address the problem of gun violence generally, I think reasonable standards of gun control are a good start, though some research suggests that gun control legislation only has mild effects (judging primarily by concealed carry requirements and the Brady Handgun Bill). In part, however, questions of what "works" are secondary to the question of what we want our country to be like. I, personally, don't think people should be able to walk into a gun show and buy an assault rifle with no background check, no mental health evaluation, no waiting period, etc. I know there are people out there who feel that we must have access to these weapons for "protection" from "them." By "them" they usually mean the government, which is silly because unless you have tanks and jets, the government pretty much has you outgunned. That said, in principle, I don't disagree that people should be able to have guns - I just don't see why we can't impose the same burdens that we do on drivers (at least) on gun owners.

Finally, I do agree with the idea of an assault weapons ban and a ban on things like high-capacity magazines. I don't know that this will do much to reduce violence, but I do know that I'm much more comfortable with fewer people having access to those military-type weapons and accessories. I think of the number of people with mental illness (26.2%) and the number of weapons-per-person (9 guns for 10 people) and then try to imagine a reasonable joint distribution and I don't like what I come up with. Given the fact that mass-shooters are generally mentally ill, the real issue seems to be the access these people have to weapons - their own or someone else's.

In short, while gun control may not be the "answer" to the problem, I think it's reasonable to not want to live in a place where so many people arm themselves with weapons of war. Additionally, I think a realistic look at the evidence suggests that while general levels of gun violence in America are high, the number of shootings (and violence in general) in schools is comparatively low. In any event, the solution to the problem, if a problem does indeed exist, is almost certainly not more guns - nor is it the posting of armed guards - which may do nothing to reduce the violence, just displace it. If everyone agrees that the people who carry out attacks like this have significant mental health problems (unlike terrorists, who generally are using the violence to send a political message and are sane), the real solution is to either assist with mental health in the US or to (at least) limit the ability of those with mental illness to access weapons.

The Fiscal Cliff

John Boehner has the hardest job in D.C. It doesn't help that he is also a self-serving prick, most concerned with maintaining his position as Speaker -  but really, his job is hard. He's got nutso people to his right (not that there's a whole lot of room to his right these days) and he's got a bunch of people with a substantial amount of political capital on his left. He's stuck between a rock (in the case, the fiscal cliff) and a hard place (loosing his speakership).

I'm not that sympathetic really. The Republicans, under Boehner's leadership, brought us to this point with their ridiculous obstructionism throughout the first four years of President Obama's administration. It's also hard to be sympathetic to a party that will only even talk about raising taxes on people making over a million dollars. It's also hard to be sympathetic to Boehner himself after 2 years of him refusing, as Speaker, to stand up to his party's own right-wing nuttery.

All this (though indisputably true in my opinion) doesn't answer the question of what to do about the "fiscal cliff" that the Republicans seem hell-bent on running off of.

Here's my answer:

Just jump off. Boehner first.

I know I'm not the first to make this argument, and I know that it risks another recession, downgrading our credit rating, etc. But we're talking politics, and politics is not about economics - it's about public perception. Yes, sometimes the two intersect, but generally speaking, politicians only care about the economy insofar as it affects their chances of reelection. Otherwise, nowhere near this much ink would have been spilled over something that is going to be so trivial as raising taxes on 1% of the population - or cutting funding for things like NPR.

There are benefits to be had by going over the cliff. First, we institute painful cuts from "outside." Neither party has to take responsibility for the cuts themselves so everyone saves face (they'll play "blame-the-other-side," which always works with your base). Second, everyone then gets to vote on a huge tax cut. Everyone loves a tax cut, especially the public, so that's good for politicians. Third, because the cuts mentioned above are already implemented, it's a hell of a lot easier to keep some of them. Fourth, we now have a "bank" of savings (that's totally fake, of course, but it'll look real on paper) that we can spend on something that we really need, like a large amount of stimulus for the economy (hopefully in the right areas like infrastructure).

And, just as a bonus, Boehner will probably loose his speakership meaning someone who can actually whip might get the position, meaning there might actually be a possibility for legislation next session.