The Biden White House's initial mocking of inflation is going to make great campaign ads, the same way that Trump's "covid will all go away" and "their latest hoax" lines were.
There should be a pretty big coalition you can put together that says "we're gonna build more solar and wind; and we're gonna build more nuclear; and we're gonna pump more oil."
There will be people outside of the coalition who are mad. Okay.
Here's where I think replacing Biden might make a difference.
My perception (which may not be incorrect) is that what we have is essentially a shadow Warren Administration. That the Biden Administration is staffed by Warren voters, and Biden is being led by his staff rather than vice versa. So, it is unlikely that Biden will take the steps Josh lays out above, because that would piss off liberal Twitter, which would make the lives of his staff unpleasant. And he's not willing to do that.
Now, it doesn't seem like any of the names floated as replacements would necessarily be an improvement in that regard. And if Biden were to take some stand like Josh outlines above, that could defuse this perception. But it's possible to imagine a candidate who would lead his or her staff in a direction more aligned with the general public than liberal Twitter.
It's possible to imagine that, but I don't think it's where a Democratic primary would actually lead. You'd get a repeat of a lot of the nonsense from 2020, trying to out-left each other.
No they didn’t, esp Amy. And it’s a good counterpoint to prevailing narrative abt 2020 primary. Not only did Biden win, but Pete tied Bernie in Iowa, and Amy performed respectably for a candidate who had no chance
Yeah I voted for Biden in the primary because (out of the four serious choices at the time) it seemed like his go-along-to-get-along personality made him stand out in the field. Just see what people actually want and try to help them get it.
But something has gotten short-circuited. His administration is responsive, but it’s responsive to the staffer/group/Twitter nexus that it actually interacts with.
I am trying to imagine a candidate who:
1) Is very responsive to public pressure.
2) Is not very responsive to the white urban college grads whom he sees every day.
3) Could win a Democratic primary.
It seems so simple. Lots of people fulfill two of those conditions, but I don’t think anybody can fulfill all three.
I hear all this stuff about Biden being led around by the nose by his leftwing, Warren/Sanders staffers who spend all their time on Twitter. Who are these people? I'd like to see their names.
When I think of Biden staffers on Twitter, I think primarily of his Chief of Staff Ron Klain, who is on Twitter big time (https://twitter.com/whcos). He's not pulling Biden to the Left. So who in the White House is?
I think the biggest thing when it comes to gas and fossil fuels is the climate office, which the administration touted to great fanfare in the beginning, plus a layer of the dynamic you mention. Gina McCarthy and Ali Zaidi definitely aren’t Warren staffers but they are true believers in the “lower production, raise prices, accelerate transition” mantra that Josh points out isn’t even effective from a climate point of view AND is now a massive political liability.
Unless someone, which would likely mean the President himself, overrides them on these things I think the policies are here to stay and we won’t see any change.
Good point on staffing issues. I hope that after the midterm bloodbath Biden will use that as justification for firing numerous people in both senior and frontline roles. That will hopefully rescue our changes in 2024.
While I don't think replacing Biden would at all improve our odds, I do think he could change his publicly associated allies. E.g., distance himself from Bernie and forge a very public alliance with Joe Manchin. Biden could praise Manchin for his hesitancy on BBB due his premonitions about inflation, which were subsequently proven true. Further, he could celebrate Manchin's more holistic approach to our domestic energy sector, including a healthy respect for our domestic fossil fuel industry to stabilize energy prices while we go through the green transition.
Maybe that's my own Jed Bartlett fantasy from a less liberal point of view.
The Administration staffers spend the first 50 minutes arguing amongst themselves over which blue-check approved policy and message they should go with, then at the 50 minute mark, Jed appears with an anecdote from an actual member of a group that's hurting, declares they're going to go with a policy that helps that person, and the staff gets in line.
Tried to watch your Bill Maher appearance, but it was hard because Bill Maher just isn't very funny -- it's sad when I find myself thinking that he's being unfair to Trump -- the worst person in the world -- by making an incest joke about Ivanka -- and Cornel West is pretty tiresome with his neoliberals are ruining everything shtick and then I have to see Kellyanne Conway peddle her despicable wares complete with insane levels of disingenuousness like "the forgotten man and woman, that's my jam." I mostly concur that there is no clean way to replace Biden but I feel far less sanguine about his ability to make it through another campaign cycle. When Matthew McConaughey was at that press conference the other day I found myself wishing that he could be Biden's designated speaker -- like Biden would be the president and candidate, but McConaughey would do all the public appearances and debates (should there be any).
Agreement on McConaughey. Holy cats, his speech was powerful. Not that it indicates that he could do the job, but it's a testament to Reagan's belief that his experience as an actor offered him a skill critical to the office.
Yeah as a tax lawyer i agree Matt’s tax scheme is overly clever. What ultimately matters is effective rate. Marginal rates already partially address incentive problem since you can never make less $ by getting into higher bracket
While I enjoyed your appearance on Real Time, I had to skim through parts of Bill's monologue and couldn't tolerate much of Kellyanne's bloody minded refusal to acknowledge how damaging Trump is for the continuation of the USA. Cornel West is adorable, and makes good points, but I disagree with some of his statements about Biden. I thought you brought by far the most thoughtful substance to the show.
Biden is beset on every side with all kinds of trouble, and much of his rating is undeserved at this point. He is such a much better president than Trump that I can hardly stand all the complaints about him. I hope that Biden can straighten out the messaging and have it become consistent. I like the other commenter's suggestion to have someone like Matthew McConaughey become his champion spokesman, making appearances around the country to boost the administration and the Dems' image.
I think you are wishcasting. I haven't seen any evidence either Joe Biden or the Democratic Party is upset with high gas prices. Their policy proposals, campaign slogans and regulatory actions all point to the simple conclusion: they want high gas prices to force people to buy electric cars and clamor for mass transit solutions.
I don't disagree with your analysis about the political problems for Democrats regarding inflation in general and skyrocketing gas prices in particular. However, what I see every day is roads that are packed with vehicles, and many (many!) of those vehicles are giant trucks and SUVs which rarely have more than a driver or a driver and a single passenger. I tend to drive well over the speed limit, but lately I've been trying to slow down closer to (but still usually above) the posted speed limit to save a little gas. People are riding my ass all the time. So my observation is that while people may say they are very concerned or even upset about high gas prices, and at least some of these same people may choose Republicans over Democrats in upcoming elections as a result, I don't see many people actually doing the things now that could reduce their use of gasoline and thus lower their personal spending on the product. It seems that people are willing to take a pretty abstract action (voting for GOP candidates) rather than the concrete actions that could keep more money in their wallets right now. Furthermore, while I am also not in favor of the Biden administration cancelling student loan debt for a variety of reasons, I haven't seen anyone write about how removing the gas tax or taking other actions to lower gas prices also will not affect every citizen equally. Yes, most people drive an automobile of some kind, and everyone purchases goods that depend on some amount of fossil fuel-driven transportation, so this seems to provide more universal benefit than cancelling some portion of student loan debt. But when I think of my own situation, lowering gas prices won't do much for my household directly. My husband works from home and mostly walks, bikes, or takes the bus for errands and activities even though he owns a car. I usually drive to work (in my 10-year-old Japanese compact with a 4-cylinder engine) but it's only three miles from my house. I also can, and sometimes do, ride my bike there, and I could easily take the bus as well. I have made choices regarding the car I drive and where I live in relation to public transportation, bikeable streets, and distance to work, and these choices mean I don't need to buy much gas every month. Other folks in my city live in far-flung suburban neighborhoods and drive mammoth single-occupancy vehicles 10 to 30 miles round trip to work most days. These situations are also the results of choices they made themselves.
As an Austalian I loved to see a reference to our politics. Of course the guy who replaced Abbott was removed as PM and replaced by a guy who went on holiday to Hawaii when there were fires burning out of control throughout the country and told people who lost their homes "I don't hold a house mate" and then forgot to order enough vaccines so half the country couldn't see a movie for six months after Europe and US were basically back to normal. Oops.
I’m kind of at a loss as to your tweet on tariffs. Tariffs are really dumb policy but they seem to be relatively popular. Your post here is about taking kind of stupid steps to make it look like your doing something on gas prices because you think they’d be popular. Do you think Biden undoing tariffs will do enough to combat inflation to overcome the fact that lots of people like tariffs?
Do a lot of people *actually* like tariffs though? Or so concentrated interests LOVE tariffs and most people vaguely like the idea of “helping American businesses”?
I think you’d find that the depth of pro-tariff support is extremely shallow even if it is broad - unfortunately for coalition reasons, labor unions all support them loudly and this is THE labor president so....
I think that a President (and administration) that wanted to make a case on tariffs really could do so with a simple story about sneakers or whatever, and making it clear that things are still coming in, just that Americans are paying more for stuff.
Time for a podcast segment with Scott Lincicome about tariffs and their (lack of positive) effects.
100% agreement that concentrated interests love tariffs because they amount to a de facto subsidy of their operations without actually leading them to increase production, expand in the market, etc. Meanwhile, plenty of consumers see a (facile) logical connection between tariffs and protecting good, local, American business from those nasty foreign competitors.
I'd even say that, if the Biden admin wanted to show they were still being tough on China or whatever, they could leave those tariffs in place (even though they're still stupid) and focus on lifting tariffs on our actual allies. Platitudinous "national security" can be upheld against China while we lower prices & support fellow democracies in a time where we're all feeling the pain.
Enjoyed you on Real time. But, honestly, Kellyanne is an annoying wind bag. Like, I can’t…… ( I know that’s not nice, but it’s true). Anyway, would love to see you on Joe Rogans show.
As always you are right on the $$ Mr.Barro, can you explain why these seemingly common sense positions are so tough to get through to people on the Biden administration or Biden himself? Political capital can't be saved, I tend to think they are waiting for the right moment, but I see no upside in waiting for these possible solutions to be implemented. Seems like a lot of "We haven't tried anything and nothing is working".
Absolutely agree that we need a shift in messaging around fossil fuels and the green transition. While attacking oil and gas producers may please climate activists, it is not an effective strategy for accelerating the green transition. If anything it is counterproductive as voters will reject a candidate that is not receptive to their concerns about energy prices. We could even end with yet another oilman Republican president (possibly even a third Bush!), elected by voters with a mandate to remake the US as a proper petrostate if that is their best option for cheap gasoline.
While we should remain committed to the green transition, we should be clear that this is a transition and during this process we need stable energy prices. And we should prefer that domestic fossil fuel extraction and refining satisfies a substantial share of the global demand because we can minimize their environmental harm beyond carbon emissions through stringent regulation that is not practiced in other countries.
Therefore what we need some sort of holistic energy plan that combines policies for accelerating the green transition with healthy respect for a robust domestic oil and gas industry that is necessary throughout this transition.
Democrats are screwed. Their strategy should be trying to boost the least palatable GOP candidate for President possible in hopes of giving Biden a better shot, assuming inflation doesn’t turn around. Eric Trump seems like a good bet. Maybe Newt Gingrich. Or talk Kevin Spacey into running.
The Biden White House's initial mocking of inflation is going to make great campaign ads, the same way that Trump's "covid will all go away" and "their latest hoax" lines were.
There should be a pretty big coalition you can put together that says "we're gonna build more solar and wind; and we're gonna build more nuclear; and we're gonna pump more oil."
There will be people outside of the coalition who are mad. Okay.
Here's where I think replacing Biden might make a difference.
My perception (which may not be incorrect) is that what we have is essentially a shadow Warren Administration. That the Biden Administration is staffed by Warren voters, and Biden is being led by his staff rather than vice versa. So, it is unlikely that Biden will take the steps Josh lays out above, because that would piss off liberal Twitter, which would make the lives of his staff unpleasant. And he's not willing to do that.
Now, it doesn't seem like any of the names floated as replacements would necessarily be an improvement in that regard. And if Biden were to take some stand like Josh outlines above, that could defuse this perception. But it's possible to imagine a candidate who would lead his or her staff in a direction more aligned with the general public than liberal Twitter.
It's possible to imagine that, but I don't think it's where a Democratic primary would actually lead. You'd get a repeat of a lot of the nonsense from 2020, trying to out-left each other.
No they didn’t, esp Amy. And it’s a good counterpoint to prevailing narrative abt 2020 primary. Not only did Biden win, but Pete tied Bernie in Iowa, and Amy performed respectably for a candidate who had no chance
Yeah I voted for Biden in the primary because (out of the four serious choices at the time) it seemed like his go-along-to-get-along personality made him stand out in the field. Just see what people actually want and try to help them get it.
But something has gotten short-circuited. His administration is responsive, but it’s responsive to the staffer/group/Twitter nexus that it actually interacts with.
I am trying to imagine a candidate who:
1) Is very responsive to public pressure.
2) Is not very responsive to the white urban college grads whom he sees every day.
3) Could win a Democratic primary.
It seems so simple. Lots of people fulfill two of those conditions, but I don’t think anybody can fulfill all three.
I liked that he's not on Twitter all day, but his staff being there instead has the same problems.
I hear all this stuff about Biden being led around by the nose by his leftwing, Warren/Sanders staffers who spend all their time on Twitter. Who are these people? I'd like to see their names.
When I think of Biden staffers on Twitter, I think primarily of his Chief of Staff Ron Klain, who is on Twitter big time (https://twitter.com/whcos). He's not pulling Biden to the Left. So who in the White House is?
I think the biggest thing when it comes to gas and fossil fuels is the climate office, which the administration touted to great fanfare in the beginning, plus a layer of the dynamic you mention. Gina McCarthy and Ali Zaidi definitely aren’t Warren staffers but they are true believers in the “lower production, raise prices, accelerate transition” mantra that Josh points out isn’t even effective from a climate point of view AND is now a massive political liability.
Unless someone, which would likely mean the President himself, overrides them on these things I think the policies are here to stay and we won’t see any change.
Good point on staffing issues. I hope that after the midterm bloodbath Biden will use that as justification for firing numerous people in both senior and frontline roles. That will hopefully rescue our changes in 2024.
While I don't think replacing Biden would at all improve our odds, I do think he could change his publicly associated allies. E.g., distance himself from Bernie and forge a very public alliance with Joe Manchin. Biden could praise Manchin for his hesitancy on BBB due his premonitions about inflation, which were subsequently proven true. Further, he could celebrate Manchin's more holistic approach to our domestic energy sector, including a healthy respect for our domestic fossil fuel industry to stabilize energy prices while we go through the green transition.
> forge a very public alliance with Joe Manchin
This is to Manchin's disadvantage. The feud is how Joe M gets re-elected in West Virginia.
Maybe that's my own Jed Bartlett fantasy from a less liberal point of view.
The Administration staffers spend the first 50 minutes arguing amongst themselves over which blue-check approved policy and message they should go with, then at the 50 minute mark, Jed appears with an anecdote from an actual member of a group that's hurting, declares they're going to go with a policy that helps that person, and the staff gets in line.
Tried to watch your Bill Maher appearance, but it was hard because Bill Maher just isn't very funny -- it's sad when I find myself thinking that he's being unfair to Trump -- the worst person in the world -- by making an incest joke about Ivanka -- and Cornel West is pretty tiresome with his neoliberals are ruining everything shtick and then I have to see Kellyanne Conway peddle her despicable wares complete with insane levels of disingenuousness like "the forgotten man and woman, that's my jam." I mostly concur that there is no clean way to replace Biden but I feel far less sanguine about his ability to make it through another campaign cycle. When Matthew McConaughey was at that press conference the other day I found myself wishing that he could be Biden's designated speaker -- like Biden would be the president and candidate, but McConaughey would do all the public appearances and debates (should there be any).
Agreement on McConaughey. Holy cats, his speech was powerful. Not that it indicates that he could do the job, but it's a testament to Reagan's belief that his experience as an actor offered him a skill critical to the office.
Yeah as a tax lawyer i agree Matt’s tax scheme is overly clever. What ultimately matters is effective rate. Marginal rates already partially address incentive problem since you can never make less $ by getting into higher bracket
While I enjoyed your appearance on Real Time, I had to skim through parts of Bill's monologue and couldn't tolerate much of Kellyanne's bloody minded refusal to acknowledge how damaging Trump is for the continuation of the USA. Cornel West is adorable, and makes good points, but I disagree with some of his statements about Biden. I thought you brought by far the most thoughtful substance to the show.
Biden is beset on every side with all kinds of trouble, and much of his rating is undeserved at this point. He is such a much better president than Trump that I can hardly stand all the complaints about him. I hope that Biden can straighten out the messaging and have it become consistent. I like the other commenter's suggestion to have someone like Matthew McConaughey become his champion spokesman, making appearances around the country to boost the administration and the Dems' image.
I think you are wishcasting. I haven't seen any evidence either Joe Biden or the Democratic Party is upset with high gas prices. Their policy proposals, campaign slogans and regulatory actions all point to the simple conclusion: they want high gas prices to force people to buy electric cars and clamor for mass transit solutions.
But you can't really buy new cars, so there's that...
I don't disagree with your analysis about the political problems for Democrats regarding inflation in general and skyrocketing gas prices in particular. However, what I see every day is roads that are packed with vehicles, and many (many!) of those vehicles are giant trucks and SUVs which rarely have more than a driver or a driver and a single passenger. I tend to drive well over the speed limit, but lately I've been trying to slow down closer to (but still usually above) the posted speed limit to save a little gas. People are riding my ass all the time. So my observation is that while people may say they are very concerned or even upset about high gas prices, and at least some of these same people may choose Republicans over Democrats in upcoming elections as a result, I don't see many people actually doing the things now that could reduce their use of gasoline and thus lower their personal spending on the product. It seems that people are willing to take a pretty abstract action (voting for GOP candidates) rather than the concrete actions that could keep more money in their wallets right now. Furthermore, while I am also not in favor of the Biden administration cancelling student loan debt for a variety of reasons, I haven't seen anyone write about how removing the gas tax or taking other actions to lower gas prices also will not affect every citizen equally. Yes, most people drive an automobile of some kind, and everyone purchases goods that depend on some amount of fossil fuel-driven transportation, so this seems to provide more universal benefit than cancelling some portion of student loan debt. But when I think of my own situation, lowering gas prices won't do much for my household directly. My husband works from home and mostly walks, bikes, or takes the bus for errands and activities even though he owns a car. I usually drive to work (in my 10-year-old Japanese compact with a 4-cylinder engine) but it's only three miles from my house. I also can, and sometimes do, ride my bike there, and I could easily take the bus as well. I have made choices regarding the car I drive and where I live in relation to public transportation, bikeable streets, and distance to work, and these choices mean I don't need to buy much gas every month. Other folks in my city live in far-flung suburban neighborhoods and drive mammoth single-occupancy vehicles 10 to 30 miles round trip to work most days. These situations are also the results of choices they made themselves.
You're in a boat.
You identify 2 problems.
#1 Someone left the lid on the beer cooler open and #2 there is water coming into the boat from a hole in its bottom.
Which one to address first????
They are both water problems.
As an Austalian I loved to see a reference to our politics. Of course the guy who replaced Abbott was removed as PM and replaced by a guy who went on holiday to Hawaii when there were fires burning out of control throughout the country and told people who lost their homes "I don't hold a house mate" and then forgot to order enough vaccines so half the country couldn't see a movie for six months after Europe and US were basically back to normal. Oops.
Josh,
I’m kind of at a loss as to your tweet on tariffs. Tariffs are really dumb policy but they seem to be relatively popular. Your post here is about taking kind of stupid steps to make it look like your doing something on gas prices because you think they’d be popular. Do you think Biden undoing tariffs will do enough to combat inflation to overcome the fact that lots of people like tariffs?
Do a lot of people *actually* like tariffs though? Or so concentrated interests LOVE tariffs and most people vaguely like the idea of “helping American businesses”?
I think you’d find that the depth of pro-tariff support is extremely shallow even if it is broad - unfortunately for coalition reasons, labor unions all support them loudly and this is THE labor president so....
I think that a President (and administration) that wanted to make a case on tariffs really could do so with a simple story about sneakers or whatever, and making it clear that things are still coming in, just that Americans are paying more for stuff.
Time for a podcast segment with Scott Lincicome about tariffs and their (lack of positive) effects.
100% agreement that concentrated interests love tariffs because they amount to a de facto subsidy of their operations without actually leading them to increase production, expand in the market, etc. Meanwhile, plenty of consumers see a (facile) logical connection between tariffs and protecting good, local, American business from those nasty foreign competitors.
I'd even say that, if the Biden admin wanted to show they were still being tough on China or whatever, they could leave those tariffs in place (even though they're still stupid) and focus on lifting tariffs on our actual allies. Platitudinous "national security" can be upheld against China while we lower prices & support fellow democracies in a time where we're all feeling the pain.
Enjoyed you on Real time. But, honestly, Kellyanne is an annoying wind bag. Like, I can’t…… ( I know that’s not nice, but it’s true). Anyway, would love to see you on Joe Rogans show.
As always you are right on the $$ Mr.Barro, can you explain why these seemingly common sense positions are so tough to get through to people on the Biden administration or Biden himself? Political capital can't be saved, I tend to think they are waiting for the right moment, but I see no upside in waiting for these possible solutions to be implemented. Seems like a lot of "We haven't tried anything and nothing is working".
It’s Time for Tester.
Absolutely agree that we need a shift in messaging around fossil fuels and the green transition. While attacking oil and gas producers may please climate activists, it is not an effective strategy for accelerating the green transition. If anything it is counterproductive as voters will reject a candidate that is not receptive to their concerns about energy prices. We could even end with yet another oilman Republican president (possibly even a third Bush!), elected by voters with a mandate to remake the US as a proper petrostate if that is their best option for cheap gasoline.
While we should remain committed to the green transition, we should be clear that this is a transition and during this process we need stable energy prices. And we should prefer that domestic fossil fuel extraction and refining satisfies a substantial share of the global demand because we can minimize their environmental harm beyond carbon emissions through stringent regulation that is not practiced in other countries.
Therefore what we need some sort of holistic energy plan that combines policies for accelerating the green transition with healthy respect for a robust domestic oil and gas industry that is necessary throughout this transition.
Democrats are screwed. Their strategy should be trying to boost the least palatable GOP candidate for President possible in hopes of giving Biden a better shot, assuming inflation doesn’t turn around. Eric Trump seems like a good bet. Maybe Newt Gingrich. Or talk Kevin Spacey into running.
> Their strategy should be trying to boost the least palatable GOP candidate for President possible
Oh, hey, I know this one! This is a classic!
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
Wow. Thank you for the excellent information on the causes and potential solutions on this topic. I learned a whole lot.