Ready for America’s last peaceful transition of power

Last night I went down to the Detroit Film Theater to see the 2023 edition of the British Arrows. These are British television commercials given awards for high quality. Yeah, I paid money to sit through a big bunch of TV ads. What makes this fun instead of a dreary chore or something to avoid is the quirky (from the American perspective) sensibility of many of these ads. I see from the British Arrows website what I saw was not all of the bronze, silver, and gold winners. Since the show was only 75 minutes I think they could have included a few more. My favorites of what I did see: A taxidermy polar bear in bed with a woman and they talk “dirty” to each other – how much pollution she is responsible for. The two young men vying for the next dryer at a laundromat when the machine gets up and walks away. A woman scans two watermelons at a grocery store and the machine tells her to scan her own melons, for breast cancer awareness. Some young men encounter a woman and one begins to be aggressively polite and another has a word with himself to speak up and tell the first to stop it – stopping misogyny is a problem men need to fix. A Highland ox on a motorcycle zooming across the countryside, which turns out to be an ad for a WiFi company. An apartment leasing agent telling people how bad each place is, for an organization saying we all deserve good housing. A series of disabled people showing how an Apple iPhone can help them get around. The best commercial of the year was by Campaign Against Living Miserably. It showed a series of clips of happy and smiling people, then said these were the last videos the people took of themselves before committing suicide. Suicidal people don’t look suicidal. The purpose of the ad was to get people talking, and it did. The US suicide helpline is 988. In my previous post I mentioned that many people likely confuse inflation with a rise in prices and that inflation coming down means prices come down too. Daniel Donner of Daily Kos Elections explains precisely that in much more detail. He worked from a Daily Kos / Civiqs survey that asked people about their understanding of the economy. Some of the things he talked about (and does so in a very understandable way). Yes, the public does have an “inflation = prices up” understanding. That should be expected from the way media has been talking about it for the last three years. But people don’t get the message that inflation is the rate of increase, not the actual increase. They also don’t get the reverse message that dropping inflation does not equal dropping prices. People are good at keeping track of grocery prices, but not so good at remembering whether the lower price in their head was last year – or before the pandemic. They also prefer to see lower prices than a raise in pay, though the raise in pay could also mend their budget. 44% believe a healthy economy has slowly decreasing prices, though falling prices means a recession and comes with a great deal of economic pain. 70% believe that inflation means there is a fundamental flaw in the economy, rather than believing the economy can be healthy and have inflation. 37% believe this round of inflation was worse than the much stronger inflation of the 1980s. All this is why when Biden crows about how good the economy is doing a lot of people don’t believe him. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted David Wallace-Wells of the New York Times. His basic idea is that the pandemic still colors our view of the economy.

For decades, surveys about the economy were an accurate gauge of economic fundamentals that, practically speaking, there was little need to distinguish between the two.

And...

They are effectively responding to the therapist’s query: How are things? They answered that question according to one set of patterns, stretching back decades. And the pattern did not begin to shift only when inflation peaked in late spring 2022, or when pandemic relief was relaxed in fall 2021, or when supply-chain issues first arose earlier that year. They began answering differently in 2020, as the scale and duration of the pandemic came into view.

Laura Clawson of Kos watched the fourth Republican debate. Her view: None of those on stage did anything remotely enough to get close to the nasty guy’s popularity. And because of that the debate doesn’t mean anything. Charles Jay of the Kos community discussed the January/February 2024 issue of The Atlantic, yes the whole issue. Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg titled it “If Trump Wins” and filled it with 24 articles of what will happen if the nasty guy gets a second term. Each is based on what the nasty guy has publicly said or on the actions and words of Republicans or conservative organizations. Many of the individual articles are on the magazine’s website or soon will be. Even better, they won’t be behind the paywall and available to those who could use a bit of persuading (fully aware that many won’t be persuaded no matter who says what). The topics of individual articles (leaving out individual authors and article titles): The nasty guy understands the system’s vulnerabilities and has more willing enablers. He could use the Department of Justice to evade his own charges and punish enemies. He better understands how to corrupt the system to benefit his own wallet. In his first term there was lots of talk of adults in the room who might stay his hand and in a second term there won’t be any adults. He’ll appoint more judges who will do his bidding. There will be a zero-tolerance immigration policy. He’ll pull us out of NATO and hobble American influence around the world. He’ll ignore the environment and global warming. He could render the media irrelevant. Scientific inquiry will be a tribal belief. He’ll increase attacks on racial and sexual minorities and use us to stoke ongoing moral panic. He’ll use the federal government to impose conservative policies on liberal America. He’ll validate the violence of groups such as the Proud Boys. He’ll use the DoJ to criminalize abortion no matter what Congress says. The table of contents also lists such things as his plans for China, history, partisanship, the military, and freedom. Of course, the nasty guy and his children as well as some conservatives are already blasting the issue as a hoax and fake news. Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that in 2016 the nasty guy was surprised he won and was not prepared to staff a cabinet and government. Many important positions were never filled. Those that were got appointees more to annoy Democrats, though some had actual connection to the job they were hired to fill. Some were actual adults. Some damage was avoided through inexperience. In preparation for a possible second term there are teams already at work to staff the cabinet and government, to be ready as soon the votes are counted. I’ve mentioned that Project 2025 is one of those teams. There are really only a couple of qualifications for any job, no matter the task or department: (1) Loyalty to the nasty guy and his authoritarian agenda. (2) Willingness to ignore (break) existing law. As for Senate confirmation, he won’t bother. He’ll give everyone the title of “Acting...”

In 2016, Trump’s transition team was hastily assembled, and there were still some involved who tried to select staffers based on a perception of experience or skill. That won’t happen a second time around. There also won’t be any open slots or concerns about career employees trying to enforce the law. Everything will be filled, top to bottom, with the most frothing Trump loyalists with just one purpose: to make sure he never hears the word “no.” The 2025 Trump transition team is already engaged. Should Trump win, they will be ready for America’s last peaceful transition of power.

Laura Clawson of Kos reported that before the election the board of the Central Bucks School District in Pennsylvania was dominated by members of Moms for Liberty. They were swept out and replaced with Democrats. At the start of this week Karen Smith was sworn in as the new board president. She had been a part of the Democratic minority. At that swearing in she did not place her hand on a Bible or other religious book. Instead, she placed her hand on a stack of banned books. She chose Night by Elie Weisel, about the Holocaust; The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison; Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart, with a transgender main character; All Boys Aren’t Blue by George Johnson, about growing up black and LGBTQ; Flamer by Mike Curato; and Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin about being transgender. The new board took important immediate action, suspending policies from the previous board. The old policies were: making book removal easy, ban transgender girls from girl sports, ban the display of political – Pride – flags, a ban on teachers “indoctrinating students.” I like Smith and her colleagues! The students are in good hands.