Congressional Review Act Lives!

 Slate notes  that Warnock and Ossoff's victories mean the reviving of the Congressional Review Act.  

I've posted about it before--it briefly allows Congress to revoke regulations passed within the last 60 business days, and makes it more difficult to reinstate them later. That last bit hasn't been tested yet, while the Republicans made extensive use of it in 2017 to revoke Obama's last regulations.

I suspect lawyers will be interested to see how things play out. I know the papers have cited a number of different issues on which the Trump administration has been moving recently. One of the most recent was limiting the basis for regulatory action to research for which the data is publicly available, an issue of big concern on climate change. 

Thank You, Joe Manchin

As pointed out here, Joe Manchin won reelection in an incredibly adverse position and time. And his reelection is now key to Democrats winning control of the Senate.

Why Was Trump's Support Up in Rural Areas?

 I can think of two possible explanations I've not seen mentioned in discussions on this issue:

1. The billions of dollars Trump authorized paying farmers as compensation for losses from the trade war with China, along with the billions in food boxes under MFP.
2. More generally, I'm foolish enough to believe Trump got support because he was perceived as fighting for farmers and rural areas generally.  The facts may be that China won't fulfill their commitments under the agreement, at least not fully, but the drama of the tariff battles and the ensuing agreement would have been memorable.

Voter Turnout--Hate Versus Love

 Donald Trump boosted his total votes from 63 million in 2016 to 73 million in 2020. His opponent went from 65.8 to 78.9. (2020 totals are preliminary, still a bunch out esp in NY.)

By my calculations Trump's increase was about 16 percent, his opponent's almost 20 percent.  For fun let us attribute all of the Biden increase to people hating Trump (using "hate" as a blanket term) and all of Trump's increase as people loving him (using "love" as a blanket term).

Verdict: Hate is more motivating than love.

Thoughts on Trump's Appeal

 My first thoughts on Trump: 

I don't think commentators are giving Trump enough credit for attracting about 72 million votes. I'd like to see a spreadsheet comparing percentages of eligible voters won over recent history of presidential elections but I'd guess his support is higher than past losers.  (Trump is a loser--I love the sentence.)

It's also true his qualities are likely mostly responsible for Biden's record vote total.  I think I know most down ballot Republican candidates ran slightly ahead of Trump.  If I'd thought about that before Nov. 3 I think I'd have predicted a greater difference. 

Why does Trump have this appeal?  There's the policy issues, most of which I disagree with, but I think most of the appeal is personal.  First, he's a performer.  Ann Althouse persists in seeing him as a comic, as joking in many of his statements, statements which I regard as repulsive and evil.  I have to admit that many of his supporters enjoy his performance.  Second, he connects with the audience. Is that just another way of saying he's a performer?  Perhaps. But what I'm getting at is his ability to merge his persona and the audience together in a shared "we/us".  He's a demagogue, because much of the merging is based on attacking the "others".

{Added later: Just got an appeal from the Virginia Democratic Party noting that Trump increased the turnout in rural areas, which are critical for maintaining Democratic control of the Virginia legislature.]

And the Transition Starts

 I start and don't finish a good number of posts.  One I started before the election predicted how the transition would go.  Unfortunately it assumed Biden/Harris would win FL and NC so it doesn't really work.

I join the people who point to the relatively peaceful days since Nov. 3. There's been no significant violence.  I think part of it was how long it took for the election to be called--if it had been called on Tuesday night it would have been more likely for jubilant Biden supporters and/or upset Trump supporters to explode, or get into confrontations. Another part is just the machinery operating; we're used to the pageantry and operation of elections, and the familiarity of the usual routine dampens emotion. 

So far Trump is resisting the outcome, which is inevitable. The margins in the different states are small, but not small enough for recounts or court challenges to overturn the outcome in any state, much less in the multiple states which would be needed.

I think the Trump administration will gradually sputter out, with little grace and some noise.

Congratulations to Republicans

 Republicans made significant gains in House races, mostly it seems because they nominated and supported women candidates. For that they deserve congratulations, even though one of the successful candidates is an OAnon supporter.

This is one of the ways our politics works in the long run: one party comes up with an advance, like nominating women candidates or a fund-raising mechanism like ActBlue; the party gains an advantage; the other party then tries to catch up.

My Predictions: 0 for 2

 Once again the elections defied my predictions.  I'm assuming Joe Biden will be inaugurated on Jan 20, but that's about the only thing I got right this year (won't talk about 2016).

Time enough for analysis when all the votes are in, but it seems the national polls once again were reasonably close, the state ones had their problems.

But the lesson for me, once again, is to warn that my picture of reality is warped by my desires for what reality should be. You'd think after almost 80 years I'd learn. 

What Dems Will Owe to Stacy Abrams and Beto O'Rourke

 As in my previous post, I'm confident of the election outcome.  Georgia and Texas might or might not vote for Biden/Harris, but it's clear that Democrats owe a lot to the efforts of Stacy Abrams in Georgia and Beto O'Rourke in Texas.

What We Will Owe to Arnon Mishkin

I'm confident that the Biden/Harris ticket will win, likely tonight.  In that confidence I want to link to this NYTimes article on perhaps the most important bureaucrat/nerd involved in the election: the man running the Fox decision desk.  

He's important because the media decision desks provide the data for analysts to call a state as having firm results. He's doubly important in my scenario because the Fox news people are the ones who have the credibility to persuade Trump supporters that their man has lost.  And he's triply important because of the big unknowns of this election: the impact of early voting, of the massive turnout, and of the pandemic. And he's quadruply important because of the uncertainty of Trump's reaction to a defeat.

A Bad Tuesday Evening- Unexpected Violence?

Some are worried by the possibility of  violence resulting from the 2020 election.  Their fears seem mostly to be that Trump supporters will be upset by a Biden victory and commit some violence.  The fear is of "sore losers" I suppose it's possible that some on the right have a similar "sore loser" fear of violence coming from Biden supporters if Trump pulls off another upset. 

As a general proposition I'm not that afraid of the scenario. But there is one which I just thought of which scares me.

I remember occasions, I think mostly when a college wins either the NCAA football or basketball championship where the students take to the streets and riot, destroying property, etc.  We normally dismiss such episodes, at least I dismiss them, as "boys will be boys".

But, there's a lot of emotion invested in the outcome of this election. Isn't it more likely that election violence will come from "exultant winners"?  I remember the election of 2008, when the winners exulted.  That was a victory of love, of belief in Obama, of the redemption of America, and I don't remember any particular violence, or animosity directed towards McCain supporters.

But a Biden victory on Tuesday would be a victory based on a lot of animosity towards Trump, and some of his supporters. 

I always like a metaphor, so think of the exultant winners and despondent losers as two masses of plutonium, back in the days of the Manhatten Project.  Keep them separate and everything is copasetic.  Bring them together and you get a nuclear explosion.

We Voted

My wife and I voted today, in Fairfax county's second day of widely available advance voting. A beautiful day, it wasn't too bad to spend 2 hours in line and voting.

 This is about 10 minutes after we got into line.

This is maybe an hour into the day.

This is the Democrats notice to voters--four languages (English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean). Because Fairfax is part of 3 Congressional districts, it got a bit complicated.

As the second day of voting at this site things went reasonably well but I'm glad we waited until day 2.  (Harshaw rule).

2020 Election Predictions

I screwed up my 2016 election prediction but that doesn't prevent me from predicting again.  Because I feel optimistic today I think Biden/Harris will win a solid victory, north of 350 electoral votes, the Democrats will control the Senate 52-48, and they'll gain 5 seats in the House. These results will come after all the votes are counted, maybe by the end of the month, but most importantly the presidential outcome will be apparent the evening of Nov. 3.

 Trump will bluster for a bit, but will find he's a lame duck and has no support in the Party to fight the outcome.

A Letter from the President

 USDA and the administration are catching flak because of this:

The Agriculture Department last week began mandating that millions of boxes of surplus food for needy families include a letter from President Donald Trump claiming credit for the program.

 I'm trying but failing to remember somewhat of a parallel. Secretary Bergland signed a letter which we sent out to farmers, perhaps to all active producers associated with a farm.  This was, I think, in 1980, an election year.  The subject was something related to crop insurance.  I don't remember whether it was base on legislation or a policy decision, perhaps an expansion of the insurance program..  I do remember ASCS had been running a test of selling crop insurance, because Roy Cozart, who became DASCO when the Reagan administration came in, was working on putting FCIC directives into the ASCS system. That test was a failure.

IIRC we career bureaucrats, and possibly Roy, who was career but with political pull, raised an eyebrow on it. The differences between then and now: Jimmy Carter didn't sign the letter and I remember the content as being more informative and less propagandistic than the current letter.

No Federal Money for Tobacco, Except in Pandemic

 In 2004 when Congress provided for the ending of the tobacco program, they included a blanket provision that no CCC money could go to tobacco growers.

That was fine, except when things change.  It's 2020, an election year, and North Carolina is a battleground state, and tobacco is still important to the state, and the pandemic hit.  So USDA will provide up to $100 million to tobacco growers from the second pandemic law (CARES Act), but they'll do it bypassing CCC.   All this from here.

USDA ended most of its tobacco reporting shortly after the program was ended, but I did find it in the crop report--NC grows about half the US acreage--150,000 acres in 2018.  (Got there from a hit on a CDC publication. ) That's about a third of what we grew in 2000 and about a tenth of what China grows now.

The Right Question for President Trump

Lots of stuff going around on whether the losers will accept the results of the fall election.  I don't think the question to the president yesterday was well-phrased.  I think the right question for the president is whether he has designated his transition team. (He has, actually, designated Chris Liddell as you can see if you spend some time googling. But my real question is: does he know this, or has Meadows made the designation without telling Trump for fear he'll erupt. Based on everything which has come out about how the administration operates, I suspect that his staff keeps lots of stuff from him.)

[Updated: Politico just put out this piece on Liddell's work.]

SCOTUS and the Albright Rule

In a NSC discussion over whether and how to intervene in the Balkans during the Clinton administration Madeliene Albright said something like: "what are your great armed forces if you never use them"?  I'll transmute that into a rule, named after her:

"if you have the power, use it".

That rule may be applying in the case of the Supreme Court.  Leader McConnell had the power to freeze Obama's nomination of Judge Garland to the Court.  President Trump has the power to nominate a young conservative woman to the Court.  The Republicans may, or may not, have the power to confirm her.  

After the election the Democrats may or may not have the power to expand the Supreme Court to allow a President Biden to nominate a young liberal black woman and others to the Court and the Senate to confirm them.

It's a game of tit for tat (I initially spelled "tick for tack") with no logical ending except greater polarization.  

Personally I would oppose the steps, but I think analytically down the road some sort of new compromise would evolve.  It's the same sort of dynamic which has created a bipartisan caucus in the House of Representative pushing a compromise pandemic bill. They may fail; the caucus may split; but at some point the center will reassert itself.   

RBG RIP

 My wife and I were fans of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, at least in the sense we saw the documentary and then the biipic made of her life.  She preceded me at Cornell by a few years, so I had that thread connecting me to her.

As liberal Democrats we feel badly; as humans we mourn her exemplary life.

What happens with the Court and the 2020 election now?  Lots of speculation, most of which will be wrong.

Will I Accept a Trump Victory?

 There's some worrying that liberals would not accept another Trump victory.  I can only speak for myself, a diehard Democrat.

If a "Trump victory" means an outcome like 2016--a loss in the popular vote but a clear plurality in one or more states sufficient to mean an electoral college victory--yes, I'll "accept" it.  By which I mean I'll recognize him as the person elected to be president according to our constitution. It doesn't mean I won't be as active, or more active, in opposition as I have been.

If the election goes to Congress, I'm not giving a promise of acceptance, although to the extent I understand the 1876 resolution I'd likely acceptance such an outcome in 2020.

More on Election/Mail Problems

 As is often the case, I'm not as alarmed as the media or others concerned about the decline of USPS capacity and its impact on the election.  These considerations:

• the media have done their job of crying the alarm (and exaggerating it.  One meme has been the need for USPS to deliver social security checks, but they've been direct deposit for years now.  It's true that rural areas in particular are dependent on USPS.  I agree with the mandate of universal service.  I agree with Kevin Drum that current charges for first class are too low when compared to other countries.  I agree with Charles Lane that charges for corporate mailings are too low, due to their lobby on Capitol Hill.  And it's likely true that many of the changes De Joy has instituted are "good management", if not wise politically.)
• leaders are responding to the alarm.  Michelle Obama urged in-person voting and/or voting early and ensuring that the ballot was received.  Gov. Northam is pushing changes in VA arrangements in a special session of the legislature.  We're 77 days out and given the publicity there will be a lot of changes across the country.
• Harshaw's rule says there will be glitches, widespread, but I'm predicting that the media around 10 pm on Nov. 3 will say the election has gone/is going better than the worse predictions.