"One of the things that drew me to Biden is that he's incapable of creating a cult of personality."
Hard same. I am deeply uncomfortable with cults of personality and with anyone who's looking for a political messiah. It just strikes me as so childish. Elections are a hiring process. You don't need someone who gives you a "tingle up the leg," just someone who can get the job done. Frankly, I think the traits necessary to govern well have little overlap with the traits necessary to campaign well, and the fact that our system selects more for the latter than the former is probably a major cause of our problems.
If Josh (or anyone) has theories about what drives people to look for the Great Leader, I'd be fascinated to read them.
It’s also why so many Trump supporters can’t believe Biden won. They see Trump as their “Great Leader” and can see that most Dems don’t see Biden that way. So they can’t fathom why someone would vote for a candidate that doesn’t elicit the response trump does in themselves.
I also wonder about the ongoing optics of abortion for Republicans. These stories of teenage girls being forced to carry a dead fetus, or their rapist's baby--however rare--are pretty visceral and relatable in a way that an avoided abortion (because it's now illegal) isn't. Maybe some states get that addressed but I'm guessing there will be at least a few states where abortion remains banned without exceptions. That's because of countervailing pressure from the next goal of the pro-life movement: fetal person-hood. It feels like Republicans will be defending unpopular turf for the foreseeable future with pressure from the inside to adopt positions even further from the mainstream.
For Republicans to agree to a tax hike ... that undermines the bait and switch of the whole process - vote pro life, get tax reductions and deregulation is the plan, not?
That said I think they have dug their heels too far in regarding lowering taxes and abortion to change their mind over anything. They'll instead try to pivot to dismantling the federal government and claim that is why people aren't doing better economically.
I think it’s interesting that people are so surprised that Democratic enthusiasm his higher than the polls. As a left-leaning independent who was totally exhausted after 4 years of constant “WTF” over Trump and who ranked Biden as 6th or 7th choice in the 2020 Dem primary, this is basically what I thought would happen. People taking a break from fever pitch politics for a while but ready to ramp up for an actual election. Also, I am genuinely not sure that there is a post-Obama candidate that a large majority of Dems and lefty independents would be enthusiastic about (vote for, yes, all be fanatical about, no). The post-Dobbs intensity boost is a bit surprising, but in hindsight it makes things more local and less about Biden.
Anyway, point of all this is to say I do think people got caught up in the self-fulfilling Dems-in-Disarray cycle, esp, with inflation rising, but I think people still see the stakes as too high in politics to sit by and not vote, even if candidates or parties are not everything they hoped.
Josh, for what it’s worth the prospectuses being used by banks for projecting home loan interest rates think that interest rates will fall back down under 3% by late 2023-2024. I think that is too optimistic. 4-5% with maybe some continued uncertainty on global supply chains for energy and goods. China is still trying to do zero covid. Europe can still face an energy crunch in the winter. And Russia is still an agent of chaos. All of those could push inflation back up again beyond the fact that there’s too much money chasing too few goods.
Hmm, if Zero COVID in China means the efforts the government/party are taking to keep spread down, I'm not sure about the effect on aggregate fuel demand. (If not, what does it mean?)
I assume you mostly mean petroleum or natural gas based demand- is coal really that fungible on a world scale?,
I tend to disagree that it's dovish on inflation because of all the worldwide supply chain disruption those policies cause, which in turn causes downstream customers burn up all kinds of fuel trying to deal with a manufacturing system (or more precisely, the management decision driving metrics) that thinks it can be JIT for inventory.
But that might be availability bias on my part - my company (which makes industrial electromechanical thingies with a moderately high content of individually cheap semiconductors) is constantly being scrod by supply chain disruption that ultimately traces to China, even though our key wafers are fabbed in Taiwan and most of the assembly and test is in places like the Philippines, Malaysia, etc.
This is one of the most simple but best write ups I've seen recently regarding polling and issues that are top of mind right now and how they may realistically play out. I agree with you on all points Mr. Barro. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the recent news though regarding the following items if you can...
1 - In Michigan, Republicans are attempting to keep an initiative off the November ballot that would inscribe reproductive liberty in the state’s constitution. They are claiming that the font size and typographical spacing of the initiative disqualifies consideration of an initiative signed by more than 750,000 voters in Michigan. This is subverting the will of the people in my opinion.
2- Schumer trying to get the Respect for Marriage Act on the Senate floor and how likely it is to pass.
3 - The recent news that Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the Affordable Care Act requirement that employers cover the HIV prevention medication known as PrEP violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
It seems like the conservatives seem to keep playing the culture wars, and I still haven't' heard anything from them on how they would actually solve the problems the country immediately faces now, and will face in 10 or 20 years. The only thing they seem to be running on recently is Christian Nationalism, Lower Taxes, Banning Abortion and "winning" against Democrats.
"One of the things that drew me to Biden is that he's incapable of creating a cult of personality."
Hard same. I am deeply uncomfortable with cults of personality and with anyone who's looking for a political messiah. It just strikes me as so childish. Elections are a hiring process. You don't need someone who gives you a "tingle up the leg," just someone who can get the job done. Frankly, I think the traits necessary to govern well have little overlap with the traits necessary to campaign well, and the fact that our system selects more for the latter than the former is probably a major cause of our problems.
If Josh (or anyone) has theories about what drives people to look for the Great Leader, I'd be fascinated to read them.
It’s also why so many Trump supporters can’t believe Biden won. They see Trump as their “Great Leader” and can see that most Dems don’t see Biden that way. So they can’t fathom why someone would vote for a candidate that doesn’t elicit the response trump does in themselves.
A really good piece.
I also wonder about the ongoing optics of abortion for Republicans. These stories of teenage girls being forced to carry a dead fetus, or their rapist's baby--however rare--are pretty visceral and relatable in a way that an avoided abortion (because it's now illegal) isn't. Maybe some states get that addressed but I'm guessing there will be at least a few states where abortion remains banned without exceptions. That's because of countervailing pressure from the next goal of the pro-life movement: fetal person-hood. It feels like Republicans will be defending unpopular turf for the foreseeable future with pressure from the inside to adopt positions even further from the mainstream.
For Republicans to agree to a tax hike ... that undermines the bait and switch of the whole process - vote pro life, get tax reductions and deregulation is the plan, not?
The only thing consistent is their inconsistency lol. You already see them trying to switch their stances on abortion and scrubbing their websites. (e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/minnesota-gop-scott-jensen-abortion-ad-baby-2022-9)
That said I think they have dug their heels too far in regarding lowering taxes and abortion to change their mind over anything. They'll instead try to pivot to dismantling the federal government and claim that is why people aren't doing better economically.
I think it’s interesting that people are so surprised that Democratic enthusiasm his higher than the polls. As a left-leaning independent who was totally exhausted after 4 years of constant “WTF” over Trump and who ranked Biden as 6th or 7th choice in the 2020 Dem primary, this is basically what I thought would happen. People taking a break from fever pitch politics for a while but ready to ramp up for an actual election. Also, I am genuinely not sure that there is a post-Obama candidate that a large majority of Dems and lefty independents would be enthusiastic about (vote for, yes, all be fanatical about, no). The post-Dobbs intensity boost is a bit surprising, but in hindsight it makes things more local and less about Biden.
Anyway, point of all this is to say I do think people got caught up in the self-fulfilling Dems-in-Disarray cycle, esp, with inflation rising, but I think people still see the stakes as too high in politics to sit by and not vote, even if candidates or parties are not everything they hoped.
Josh, for what it’s worth the prospectuses being used by banks for projecting home loan interest rates think that interest rates will fall back down under 3% by late 2023-2024. I think that is too optimistic. 4-5% with maybe some continued uncertainty on global supply chains for energy and goods. China is still trying to do zero covid. Europe can still face an energy crunch in the winter. And Russia is still an agent of chaos. All of those could push inflation back up again beyond the fact that there’s too much money chasing too few goods.
At this point I think Zero COVID in China is dovish for inflation because it reduces demand for fuel.
Hmm, if Zero COVID in China means the efforts the government/party are taking to keep spread down, I'm not sure about the effect on aggregate fuel demand. (If not, what does it mean?)
I assume you mostly mean petroleum or natural gas based demand- is coal really that fungible on a world scale?,
I tend to disagree that it's dovish on inflation because of all the worldwide supply chain disruption those policies cause, which in turn causes downstream customers burn up all kinds of fuel trying to deal with a manufacturing system (or more precisely, the management decision driving metrics) that thinks it can be JIT for inventory.
But that might be availability bias on my part - my company (which makes industrial electromechanical thingies with a moderately high content of individually cheap semiconductors) is constantly being scrod by supply chain disruption that ultimately traces to China, even though our key wafers are fabbed in Taiwan and most of the assembly and test is in places like the Philippines, Malaysia, etc.
This is one of the most simple but best write ups I've seen recently regarding polling and issues that are top of mind right now and how they may realistically play out. I agree with you on all points Mr. Barro. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the recent news though regarding the following items if you can...
1 - In Michigan, Republicans are attempting to keep an initiative off the November ballot that would inscribe reproductive liberty in the state’s constitution. They are claiming that the font size and typographical spacing of the initiative disqualifies consideration of an initiative signed by more than 750,000 voters in Michigan. This is subverting the will of the people in my opinion.
2- Schumer trying to get the Respect for Marriage Act on the Senate floor and how likely it is to pass.
3 - The recent news that Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the Affordable Care Act requirement that employers cover the HIV prevention medication known as PrEP violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
It seems like the conservatives seem to keep playing the culture wars, and I still haven't' heard anything from them on how they would actually solve the problems the country immediately faces now, and will face in 10 or 20 years. The only thing they seem to be running on recently is Christian Nationalism, Lower Taxes, Banning Abortion and "winning" against Democrats.
Twitter is so weird. Josh wrote a post saying that Dems should not fret so much about Biden and polling and people are mad.