Which Value Will Capture Middle America?

Aug. 18, 2024

The two candidates for vice president were selected in part because they represent, and are hoped to attract, Middle America.

On the surface, this would seem a gross miscalculation on someone’s part.  How could two men who are so different in their worldviews and their politics be considered worthy of consideration by the same basic constituency?

The answer is they can be, albeit in contrasting ways.  How this plays out in the next few months not only could have a major bearing on the election but will serve as still another litmus test of where we are as a nation.

Democrat Tim Walz and Republican J.D. Vance wasted no time in trading barbs over whom is more authentic.  Their posturing about “camo-hats” and the like is good fun but, beyond the fact that neither Walz or Vance hail from New York or California, their backgrounds really aren’t that comparable.

Walz is drawing plenty of attention for growing up in remote farming communities of northern Nebraska.  To Democrats, who long ago wrote off the heartland, he is the best thing going.  Vance, who well chronicled his troubled upbringing in Hillbilly Elegy, grew up in the shadow of a struggling steel mill in a densely populated corridor between Cincinnati and Dayton.

Of much more significance, they place differing emphasis on two values that are core to Middle America.

While I don’t pretend to speak for the heartland, my conversations five years ago with community leaders of another Nebraska farming community contributed greatly to Our Common Purpose’s 10 core principles for America.

Many topics were covered in those lengthy discussions in Superior, Neb., located just 225 miles to the south of where Walz grew up, but two overriding impressions endure:

• Hard-working townspeople willingly contribute to their communities every way they can. This is the blessing, and the curse, of living in a small town.  When there are only so many to do it all, everyone has to do their share.
• Correspondingly, they have little patience for able-bodied individuals who aren’t pulling their weight. Small towns offer no place to hide for those they see as living off the system.  Complaints about locals they believe abuse the food stamp program quickly turn into disparaging references to welfare queens in New York City.  They expect people to take responsibility for themselves.

The two vice presidential candidates are different manifestations of that culture.

Walz likely would place the accent on the first of the values, beginning probably from boyhood.  While much has been made of his football background, small schools can field a team only if every kid turns out to play.  Teacher, coach, National Guardsman, all that stuff, Walz seems to have been a contributor to his local community.  I haven’t heard him express himself on those who don’t but he likely takes a gentler position than his opponent.

The second value is a long-standing viewpoint of conservatives, and Vance eagerly takes it up.  He has been hammering the “lazy poor” ever since Hillbilly Elegy.  On the other hand, given the dysfunction of his childhood, I don’t know he would have been exposed to much of a community-minded commitment in his youth.

The two men offer a choice between honoring the way people have tried to live their own lives versus the impatience they feel toward those who don’t work so hard.  I suspect many Middle America voters identify to varying degrees with each of those perspectives. Which will speak loudest to them over the next couple of months is yet to be determined.

Either way, Middle America has been given a boost.

The political theorist Isaiah Berlin, about whom you will be hearing a lot more from me in the coming months, has conjectured that large groups are just like individuals.  They hanker for status and recognition.

Middle America obviously is an amalgam of many such groups.  Between small towns and big cities, there is as much diversity as one would find anywhere else.   At the core, however, they all identify themselves as being part and parcel of flyover country, which to them is long overdue for a little recognition and respect.  Now with the brain trusts of both political parties reaching into their midst for VP candidates, they find themselves in an enviable position.  But what will they choose to do with that?

The answer to the question “who shall govern me?” is, according to Berlin, somebody or something who “I can represent as ‘my own’, as something which belongs to me, or to whom I belong.”

Many of these are red states, and that isn’t about to change, but which vice president candidate would these voters choose if that were a separate ballot question?  Who are they going to feel most comfortable in representing as their own?  Walz or Vance?

This is a true test of how midwestern sensibilities fit today’s political landscape.  In flyover country, I’d guess it’s very much up in the air at the moment where they will land.

— Richard Gilman

Olympics Offer Chance to Pull Together

Aug. 8, 2024

Good ‘ol Team USA is once again piling up the medals at the Olympics.  Across the country we’re cheering.

Cole Hocker Wins the 1,500
Steph Chambers / Getty Images

We exalted as swimmer Bobby Finke valiantly led the grueling 1,500-meter freestyle from start to finish in world-record time.  Familiar faces Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky again came through in the clutch, adding to their story tale careers.  Cyclist Kristen Faulkner surprised everyone by suddenly breaking away from more seasoned competitors as they raced toward the Eiffel Tower.  On the track, it seems like every day another USA runner is sprinting from behind to win.  Gold, silver, bronze, at last look the medal count is approaching 100.

Holding our breath in suspense as each event unfolds is another of those instances when we as a country are able to set aside our political differences to pull in the same direction.  The Games show we Americans are perfectly capable of coming together when we want to.

When asked in one of the Our Common Purpose polls to evaluate whether we are united or divided by each of a potpourri of 28 national institutions, values, services and events, “rooting for American athletes in the Olympics” was among the top finishers.

On the poll’s 201-point scale from minus 100 for divided, 0 for neutral, going up to plus 100 for united, there was no partisan difference on the Olympics.  Those who voted for Trump in 2020 rated it at plus 52, those who voted for Biden at plus 51.

The composite of plus 51 was just a couple of points behind Thanksgiving, liberty and our patriotic holidays, and a few points ahead of how we respond when the country is attacked, the opportunity to vote in regular elections, and national symbols such as the American flag.  Truly, an Olympian performance.

By comparison, politicians from both political parties finished far back in the pack at minus 25.

Not to say we’re totally together.  Our most-pressing differences have nothing to do with Republican versus Democrat but which Olympic sports we’re following.  Some of us stick with the tried and true.  Foil fencing, anyone?  Some are more inclined to experiment. Skateboarding?  Sport climbing?  Kayak cross?  Breaking?  To each his own.  That’s part of the beauty.  Athletes of all persuasions get their moment to excel. We can enjoy the competition on our own terms without anyone forcing their views upon us.

Too bad that the Olympics come along only every four years.

Court Creates False Equivalency

July 19, 2024

Forty years ago there was Nixon v. Fitzgerald.  Then this year along came Trump v. United States. The two proceedings are now linked forever, and not for the better.

In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Supreme Court granted the president absolute immunity from liability for civil damages arising from any official action taken while in office.

In Trump v. United States, the court extended the immunity to cover criminal charges for any official actions and a wide swath of unofficial actions as well.

The Roberts court of today references Nixon over and over in its ruling on Trump.  The two cases certainly have basic similarities. Both involve presidents.  Both involve actions they took, or at minimum tacitly approved.  Both landed on a Supreme Court anxious to uphold the separation of powers between branches of government.  And a court hell-bent on seeing to it that there be no further incursions on presidential prerogatives.

All this has obscured the fact that two cases differ markedly in the particulars. And it’s not just that one is a civil matter, and the other is criminal in nature. By using the logic of one as the primary precedent for its decision in the other, the court has made a legal leap to shield anything and everything that happens in the Oval Office.

Nixon v. Fitzgerald was decided in 1982 but it goes all the way back to 1968 when a whistleblower by the name of A. Ernest Fitzgerald, a civilian working for the Air Force, broke the news to Congress that there were cost overruns in the development of the C5A cargo plane.  Lyndon Johnson was president at the time but Richard Nixon was soon to take over.

It was on Nixon’s watch that Fitzgerald’s job was conveniently eliminated in an Air Force reorganization.  The facts are disputed as to whether Nixon himself was directly involved in the decision, although several of his aides certainly were.  One thing led to another, and Fitzgerald eventually sued.  Given his tangential role. Nixon’s name wasn’t added to the lawsuit until a full eight years later.

Even so, the court worried that the president could become “an easily identifiable target” of lawsuits filed by anyone harmed by a government action.  It suggested that “diversion of [the president’s] energies by concern with private lawsuits” would:

• “Raise unique risks to the effective functioning of government.”
• Impede “the maximum ability to deal fearlessly and impartially with” the duties of his office.
• “Frequently could distract [him] from his public duties.”

Those concerns resulted in immunity for the president in civil matters.  While Trump’s case is of course a criminal matter, the Roberts court quotes liberally although not always literally from Nixon.

For one example, one of the court’s stated objectives in Trump to ensure that “the president can undertake his constitutionally designated functions effectively, free from undue pressures or distortions” was said to have originated with the Nixon decision.  For some reason, however, that phraseology is nowhere to be found in Nixon.

Regardless of whether the words have been quoted properly in Trump, the use of them to justify immunity for Trump made sense to six justices but to a common man they are a drastic reach.  

Nixon was a disinterested party, or at most a barely interested party, when it came to Ernest Fitzgerald.  His aides thought they were acting in the best interests of the government, if not the public, in ousting someone they regarded as a disloyal employee.  They might not have made the best decision but regardless Nixon didn’t initiate the action and stood to gain nothing from it.

Trump on the other hand is accused of being the initiator and would have been the obvious beneficiary if the 2020 election results had been overturned.  In contrast to Nixon, the self-interest and the stakes were huge.  Trump had four more years in the White House riding on the outcome.

His actions weren’t inhibited at all, as the court fears would happen, “by needless worry as to the possibility of damages.”  And it borders on laughable that the court should seek to protect him from undue pressures and distortions, when the central point of the indictment against him is that he was the perpetrator of the pressure and distortions.

While the court utilizes the similarities between Trump and Nixon to establish the distinction between the president’s official and unofficial acts, as was discussed in this space last week, it is not troubled a whit by the differences between the two cases.

We’ve now learned that it’s not beyond the law to use the language of one proceeding to permit much or all of what happened in the second, even when the circumstances and what’s at stake are so different.  Not beyond the law, and yet well short of reason.

Court Undoes Trump Sentencing Day

July 11, 2024

Donald Trump won’t be sentenced today for his criminal conviction, even if it was red-circled on the calendar. The Supreme Court took care of that.

The court’s six-member majority last week carved out a significant loophole in our nation’s overarching ideals by granting Trump substantial immunity in his election interference case. In so doing, the court wrote its own version of one of Our Common Purpose’s core principles. Its revision reads something like this: We Are A Nation Of Laws — Equally Applicable To All Except Those Who Occupy The Oval Office.

The decision focuses entirely on which if any presidential actions are subject to judicial review, and the answer is not much.  The court pays lip service to “the president is not above the law” then launches into a lengthy rendition of all the ways he is above the law. Trump and all other occupants of the Oval Office have:

 Absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct while performing their official duties.

 “Presumptive immunity” for actions taken within “the outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities so long as they are “not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.” As one important example, a “presumptive privilege” protects presidential communications because it “relates to the effective discharge of a president’s powers.”

 No immunity for “unofficial acts,” although the court couldn’t even leave that alone. Noting that there is not always a clear line between personal and official affairs, it warned that any claims that objectionable actions were unofficial in nature “must be fact specific and may prove to be challenging.”

This broad grant of immunity led the court to dismiss outright one of the election interference charges, to presume another also to be covered by immunity unless somehow it can be shown otherwise, and to leave the door cracked open on the other two. The case was sent back to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to sort through which actions were official versus unofficial, and ultimately whether there is enough left to even bother.

Whatever gets decided will surely make its way back to the Supreme Court, unless of course Trump is re-elected and puts a stop to the whole darn thing. The decision also left the other criminal cases against him in disarray.

His scheduled sentencing today didn’t escape, even though it involves crimes that pre-dated his presidency. Judgment day on this matter has now been postponed until Sept. 18, if it happens at all, while Judge Juan Merchan considers how the high court’s ruling affects the case.

That means we won’t learn, at least for now, whether the sentence to be handed down would have treated Trump like any other citizen convicted of similar wrongdoing. Read more on this. The question of whether we are, at this high exalted level, a nation of laws equally applicable to all has now been rendered largely moot by the Supreme Court’s landmark decision.

Trump’s motion dealt only with immunity.  The court’s expansive interest in setting apart his official versus unofficial acts all but forecloses weighing more relevant distinctions such as determining which presidential actions are taken in the interest of the public versus out of self -interest.  We’ll hold off looking at that subject until another day soon.

July 4: A Day of Unity

July 4, 2024

Happy Independence Day!

This seminal moment in our history gives us something to celebrate each year. In these fraught times, perhaps it’s a bit ironic that a celebration of “independence” serves to bring us together rather than split us apart.

And believe this or not, it does draw us together. Two-thirds of Americans strongly agree in poll after poll with the second core principle of Our Common Purpose that Even With Our Flaws, We Have Much to Cherish.

When asked in one of the Our Common Purpose polls to evaluate whether we are united or divided by each of a list of national institutions, values, services and events, our patriotic holidays of July 4th and Memorial Day finished right at the top. They rank with Thanksgiving and the broad aspiration of liberty as our most unifying traditions.

This assessment applies virtually equally among men and women, across educational levels and regions of the country.

True, the harmony isn’t entirely perfect. Consistent with what others have determined, the OCP poll shows Republicans have a slightly higher propensity toward patriotism. The difference though is relatively small. On the poll’s 201-point scale going up to +100 for united, 0 for neutral, and down to -100 for divided, our patriotic holidays scored an average of +63 among Republicans and +47 among Democrats.

Of more concern is that young voters aged 18-to-34 are less enthused about July 4th than are seniors.

But on the whole, today provides an opportunity to put aside our differences to enjoy a moment of unity. Whether evoked by the fife-and-drum corps marching down our Main Streets, the sparkle of fireworks or hot dogs on the grill, or maybe by images of the courageous declaration of independence printed on parchment, today should remind of us of how the Founding Fathers stood together in the face of a formidable foe.

They concluded their revolutionary document with this vow:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor.”

July 4th, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving are just three days out of the year but we — regardless of persuasion, regardless of age — could use a good dose of that stick-togetherness now.

Trump Sentencing Tests Key Ideal

June 23, 2024

If someone mentions “July 11,” what pops into your head? Exactly right, it’s the day Donald Trump will be sentenced. The date doesn’t need to be entered on the calendar. It’s on our minds.

The Trump court proceedings have turned into a major test of one of the most widely accepted of Our Common Purpose’s 10 core principles: We Are a Nation of Laws – That Need to Be Equally Applicable to All.

The ideal draws high approval each time it is reviewed, getting strong agreement from a very consistent range of 77% to 79% of likely voters in one survey after another. Importantly, the support comes from near equal percentages of Republicans and Democrats. And of those who don’t strongly agree, almost all others somewhat agree.

From the get-go, the principle was regarded not as current reality but as an aspiration.  Our laws apply to everyone.  None of us should be excused, nor should any individual or class of individuals be treated more harshly than others.  Well before the heightened awareness brought on by the Black Lives Matter movement, the primary concern of the fine folks who participated in developing the principles were the legal inequities endured by people of color and of lesser means.  Read more about the principle.

That concern has not gone away but it has been overshadowed of late by a claim that comes totally out of right field.   All of a sudden, the principle has a political component to it.  Republicans are contending that Democrats have weaponized the legal system to go after them, Trump in particular. Even as he was losing in the New York courtroom, his claim of selective prosecution might have been winning in the court of public opinion.

Then along came Hunter Biden.  Put aside that a whole series of other Democrats are also facing criminal charges, among them Sen. Robert Menendez, Rep. Henry Cuellar, and this past week New Jersey Democratic power broker George Norcross. Biden is the son of the president, and his conviction was by itself enough to take much of the wind out of the Republicans’ claims.

Nonetheless, the nation’s judicial system is under intense scrutiny. The district attorney and prosecutor in Atlanta have been accused of impropriety. The federal judge in Florida has been under fire for her handling of the classified documents case.  By comparison, Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial in New York, has acquitted himself well.  However, he too is far from out of the woods.

While there is a standard process for determining sentencing that includes a recommendation from the probation officer and review by the attorneys, all eyes will be on the judge when he hands down the sentence.  Strike the right balance and there will be little grumbling. Too lenient and Democrats will howl. Too harsh and we’ll be right back to where we just were with Republicans crying persecution.  But in this case what is too harsh?  What is too lenient?

Merchan has huge latitude in the decision. What he needs is huge wisdom.

While New York defense attorneys not involved in the case have been quoted as saying it’s unheard of for a 77-year-old, first-time offender in this type of case to be jailed even for a day, theoretically Trump could be hit with prison time ranging from 16 months to four years for each of the 34 felony counts. Or the judge could allow the jail time for each of the counts to be served concurrently. He could also choose from other options, including a lighter sentence, house confinement, or a sentence of probation. Or he could give Trump a “conditional discharge” with some requirement such as community service.

On the other extreme, the judge could skip imprisonment altogether and focus entirely on levying a fine. The maximum in New York for a Class E felony is $5,000. The fine could run concurrently for all 34 counts, meaning it would total $5,000. Or it could run consecutively, meaning it would add up to $170,000.

The sentencing is complicated all the more by whether the penalty should be held in abeyance pending the outcome of Trump’s likely appeal of the conviction and to avoid the damage he and Republicans in general would suffer if his campaign activities were to be curtailed.

Fortunately for us, we are not Judge Juan Merchan. Most of us do not have his background and knowledge, nor the time he and his clerk have devoted to studying this.

There’s no getting around that Trump is a special case. The coverup helped along by the business fraud of which he has been found guilty could have altered the outcome of the 2016 presidential race. Perhaps he more than other individual has the chutzpah and the social media resources to criticize the court even as he is being tried. And any day now the Supreme Court will rule on his appeal that in effect would put him above the law in the separate election subversion case.  If he succeeds in that effort, he will put the lie to We Are a Nation of Laws — That Need to Be Equally Applicable to All.

But if we aspire to the ideal of “equally applicable to all,” a highly worthy standard in the eyes of a great majority of Americans, what would you say the sentence to be handed down on July 11 should be?

Oh No, Not My Cereal Too!

June 16, 2024

My wife just refreshed our supply of Kashi Go Original, for years my favorite cereal.

Old versus New

We were disappointed to find that the box she brought home doesn’t even come close to measuring up to the previous one.  Same name, same packaging, same height and width as the previous, but the new has one very noticeable difference.  Looked at from the side, the new box has only about two-thirds the bulk of the old.

It turns out the new contains 9.7 ounces of cereal, versus 13.1 in the old.  The new box discloses that it contains four servings of cereal.  The old held six.  Those amount to big servings but the proportionality would be the same at any size.

It means that I and every other Kashi Go lover will now be paying 50 percent more for the same number of breakfast servings than we did just weeks ago.

The opportunistic, one might say greedy, souls at WK Kellogg Co. have made my favorite cereal into a poster child for shrinkflation.  The price doesn’t go up.  The size goes down. And it doesn’t factor at all into the calculations of inflation.

A box of cereal is just one item in the market basket but multiply that experience across the grocery store and one can begin to understand why many say they are struggling.  It’s a perfect illustration of last week’s report on Why Economic Woe Won’t Go Away.  For those who haven’t done so already, please take a few minutes to give it a read.

Kashi Go isn’t the first or only cereal offender.  Sen. Bob Casey, the Democrat running for re-election in Pennsylvania, has trashed the entire industry in a television spot named “Shrinky Dink” that depicts CEO’s sneaking into a grocery store to trade out cereal boxes with smaller replacements.  Casey is ready to do battle.

By comparison, President Biden remains something of a reluctant warrior. In a new ad, he assures Americans that he feels our pain, saying he’s fighting to lower costs for food and rent. He stops short though of calling out the many companies, the makers of Kashi Go being but one example, that are propping up profits at the expense of consumers.

This additional levy is borne by everyone, but the biggest effect is on those who can afford it the least.

— Richard Gilman

Financial Insecurity Spurs Economic Issue

June 9, 2024

Stressed-out families on the wrong side of the wealth gap could put Donald Trump in the White House.

Concerns about the economy have been an ongoing bugaboo in the presidential race, to the great wonderment of liberal observers.  Inflation is behind us, they claim.  A slowdown was avoided.  We have nothing more than what they coined a “vibe-cession.”

They admit to being mystified by it all.

The answer to be presented here to their wonderment is logical enough, once it’s stated as such, and yet dismaying.  Exclusive research by Our Common Purpose shows a deep-seated anxiety is preying on a great many Americans.  Much of what is happening can be attributed to their angst over their own financial insecurity.

Price increases are the same for everyone but inflation is experienced very differently at the opposite extremes of the wealth gap, thereby creating a political gap of its very own.  This is not necessarily the political divide we know so well but at minimum an unexplored clash in perspective and priorities.  There’s a distinct difference between those who have a financial cushion and those who don’t, and it looks as if it will spill over onto the election.

These conclusions emerge from Our Common Purpose’s most recent public opinion survey. Among our many challenges as a nation, it is all the more difficult to be on the same page and of like mind if we are going in different directions financially.

The survey shows that virtually one-half of American households have less than $10,000 stashed away for a rainy day.  In round numbers, another one-quarter have between $10,000 and $100,000 in savings and investments, and the remaining one-quarter have something greater than $100,000.

The wealth gap isn’t anything new . . . but let it sink in for a moment.  One-half of Americans are living on the edge.  The ravages of inflation came along to further erode their precarious perch, and the comments they offer to the Our Common Purpose survey suggest that the alarms going off in their heads are not going away easily.

“ . . . My family is drowning and we aren’t alone,” a 45-year-old Democrat from well north of Phoenix.

“We’re broke,” a 36-year-old Republican from a rural town outside of St. Louis.

“We need help,” a 53-year-old Democrat from Clearwater, Fla.

If you think their pain wouldn’t have political fallout, think again. These folks are a disaster for Joe Biden.

In this particular survey, a nationwide poll of 1,800 likely voters conducted in February by SurveyUSA, Donald Trump had a lead of seven percentage points on the president.  Even so, Biden actually held an advantage in two of the three savings levels outlined above, the two representing higher savings.

He’s being cut off at the knees, however, by those with little or nothing in the bank.  They represent half of likely voters and Trump’s lead among them was monumental.

Upon deeper examination, we can begin to understand why.

In reply to the liberal commentators and economists who are at a loss to explain how anyone could complain about the state of the economy, The Atlantic’s Michael Powell has argued that the poor working class and lower middle class have legitimate reason to be upset.

The Our Common Purpose survey provides the direct correlation.  A person’s own financial security is, in fact, the heretofore unexplained link in explaining why the economy keeps popping up as the foremost issue in 2024.  The lower a person’s own wealth, the lower their opinion of:

• The national economy. Of those with savings under $10,000, 50 percent said the economy is doing poorly.  As savings go up, that percentage steadily diminishes, down to 28 percent for those with the most in the bank.
• Their local economy. Of those with the least savings, 54 percent characterized their local situation as weak.  As savings go up, the percentage again steadily declines to 25 percent for those with the most in the bank.
• Their own situation. Of those in the lowest savings level, 65 percent admitted they had serious financial difficulties, versus 9 percent of those at the highest level.

Strong as this correlation is, the result is not without some partisan coloring.

As the overall assessments of the national and local economies declined in lock step with respondents’ own financial prospects, at each step along the continuum Republicans had a dimmer view than Democrats.  For instance, the 28 percent of well-to-do shown above who rank the economy as poor?  Very heavily weighted to Republicans.  To lesser degrees, that pattern repeats itself.

And while the great many comments provided to the survey by the not-well-to-do are full of frustration and resignation, some turn to indignation.

The disgust and anger they express are most often directed at the president.  He is the arch-villain for some, a convenient scapegoat for others.  The criticisms are often coupled with concern about the swarm of immigrants they view as taking jobs and causing havoc, and less-frequent worries about the federal debt.

A number of these voters are no doubt a lost cause for Democrats even if the economy weren’t an issue.  Overall, the group tends a little more rural, more Southern, a little less educated.  By a few percentage points, they tilt more Republican, reflecting the flip that has occurred in the positioning of the two parties.  Nonetheless the gap is a small one, 41 percent Republicans to 38 percent Democrats, with the remainder being independents or no party preference.

The sobering part is that those living paycheck to paycheck are much too common to be confined to one demographic or another, or to one party or another.  They reside across the country, come in all age groups, with plenty of college grads in their number.  Significantly for Democrats, they also include disproportionate numbers of females and people of color.

The know-it-all reaction of liberal observers is to dismiss their concerns.  What’s the matter with these people?  What are they thinking?  How can they be so out of it?   But dismissing their concerns amounts to dismissing them entirely, and to write them all off is to write off the election.

Although they might be swayed by partisan influences on what to them are fairly abstract questions regarding the national and local economies, what they know for a fact is their own bank balance.

And when matters get close to home, there is very little partisan difference.  The 65 percent of the low-savings group who said in the last of the bullet points above that their immediate family is experiencing serious financial difficulties is made up of nearly equal percentages of Republicans (68 percent), Democrats (59 percent) and independents (also 68 percent).

The comments they offer are sometimes poignant and quite frequently worrisome.  Many are concerned, frustrated, scared.   Some express distress and even despair.

“It’s making me go under I really don’t know what I can do about it anymore,” a 53-year-old from Gary, Ind.

“I’m about to go bankrupt,” a 65-year-old from Albuquerque, NM.

“ . . . then those people become desperate and crime rates start to rise.  I’ve personally resorted to those extremes,” a 52-year-old from rural North Carolina.

“I am absolutely terrified about my financial circumstances . . . to the point suicide seems more realistic and promising,” a 42-year-old from Hawaii.

“Just feels like I can’t afford to live and, being elderly, this scares the hell out of me!” a 73-year-old from Bakersfield Calif.

Their reasons for being so financially vulnerable are probably as varied as they are.  It could be any combination of life circumstances, perhaps compounded in some cases by poor choices or bad luck.  Only six of ten consider themselves fully employed, the highest number in retail or wholesale trade.  On the other hand, a very small number make more than $150,000 a year with mortgages north of $300,000.  That subset appears to be living entirely for the moment, come what may.

Their lifestyles, how wise they are with their money, the decisions they make at the supermarket probably also vary widely.  But for a good many of them, there isn’t any wiggle room.  Getting by isn’t easy.  Life isn’t easy.

Hit first by the economic uncertainties of the pandemic, then the economic shocks of inflation and now of high interest rates, it is small wonder that those of lesser means are shell-shocked.  Price increases may be the same for everyone, but the pain they cause is anything but equal.

“We can’t afford groceries anymore. You have to choose which bills to pay and sometimes you have to choose whether you’re going to pay the bills or buy groceries,” a 33-year-old from rural Kentucky.

“Makes getting groceries a tooth pulling miserably stressful task, knowing you’ll have to blow a ridiculous amount of money for far less groceries than you would even a year ago,” a 20-year-old from Midland, Mich.

“Utilities are up $110 from last year. Gas for the car is up. Insurance is up. Food prices way up on needed items. I just can’t keep up any more,” a 19-year-old from New Richmond, Wis.

“You cannot even afford to heat your home so you live in a house that’s 40° cold.  The economy’s better?  I don’t think so,” a 51-year-old from the mountains east of San Diego.

“The economy affected me emotionally and physically. A lot of prices went up and my rent went up so high and my job isn’t paying that well so it’s hard to pay all my bills,” a 23-year-old from Homestead, Fla.

It would be hard to read the hundreds of these reflections and conclude they are anything but genuine.  And please, don’t even try suggesting that inflation has been tamed.

“I keep seeing prices stable not going up but every time I go to the store prices have went up,” a 52-year-old from a small town north of Greensboro, N.C.

“I would like to add that inflation has not slowed down. I don’t know where that’s coming from but it hasn’t slowed down. It keeps getting worse,” a 41-year-old from rural West Virginia.

“Inflation has not gotten better, it has gotten worse . . . The question said it got better, but there is no evidence in my entire state to come close to believing that,” a 23-yard-old from a small town in western Pennsylvania.

Perhaps some are confusing the definition of inflation, but then again maybe not.  Prices have continued to rise, albeit more slowly, and the Fed is now worrying that it could take several years to get the rate down to 2 percent – due to what it is calling “intrinsic” inflationary forces.

Those living paycheck to paycheck are the ones most negatively affected by the higher prices.  Now they are the ones most heavily penalized by the antidote to further increases . . . higher interest rates.

Only one-fifth are able to pay their credit card bill in full each month.  Interest rates on the mounting unpaid balance have skyrocketed to upwards of 30 percent, a factor that unfortunately is not incorporated into inflation calculations.

“It is hard to make ends meet . . . Two years ago my credit cards were all paid off now I owe $26,000,” a 74-year-old from Anaheim, Calif.

“Everything costs so much that I’ve had to use credit cards more than I would have liked.  Now the interest rates are so high that I can’t keep up with the payments on my debt.  It’s killing me and millions of others,” a 53-year-old from southern Illinois.

“Interest rates on credit cards are killing me,” 49-year-old from Canon City, Colo.

Wages supposedly are increasing to cover the difference, and that may eventually happen, but for the moment 70 percent of those living paycheck to paycheck say in the Our Common Purpose survey that pay increases haven’t kept pace or haven’t come at all.  Cost-of-living adjustments for those living off Social Security are a whole other problem.

Bottom line, the survey shows 56 percent of this group, representing virtually half of the population of the country, assess their standard of living as worse today than it was three years ago.

Unfortunately, the wealth gap itself isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  The political gap attached to it is a little more open to attenuation, even if November is fast approaching.

Biden is faced with any number of challenges.  The Hispanic vote.  The Black vote.  Tackling the anxieties around financial insecurity would have the added benefit of regaining support on the other fronts.  Don’t tackle it, and the election will be lost.

He’s hoping the many billions being invested thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will trickle into many pockets.  This overall is the right approach, but it is a slow process and likely won’t have much of an impact on November.  Those who eventually benefit are unlikely to ever even recognize to whom credit is due.

When it comes to more directly dealing with inflation, Biden has seemed to be something of a reluctant warrior. His administration has chipped around the edges at the price of insulin, bank overdraft and credit fees, and the “junk fees” levied by airlines and others. Otherwise, however, he has made only halting attempts to hold big business accountable for what he terms “shrinkflation” and has resisted encouragement to more aggressively take on what others have criticized as “greedflation.”

In the absence of headline-grabbing actions to convince the masses he is on the case, some more obvious compassion would be in order.  Rather than questioning the legitimacy of the deep-seated anxieties of such a wide swath of the population, as some liberal observers seem so bent on doing, the better approach is to get out there and understand the immediate concerns, acknowledge the concerns, find short-term ways to address the concerns.

Instead of casting doubt and ridicule on so many, the least we need to do is recognize and acknowledge the stress they are under.

Farce Gives House a Big Opportunity

May 26, 2024

The funniest thing happened on the way to the farce.

The ultra-right wingers got laughed out of their position of power in the U.S House of Representatives, and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Last year at this time the House was paralyzed. The Republicans had only a paper-thin majority, and with a tiny band of extremists objecting to necessary decisions at every turn, nothing was getting done.

Under pressure from everyone else, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy finally took it upon himself to negotiate a bipartisan accord to raise the debt ceiling. It was the right thing to do, the responsible thing to do. But he paid for it dearly.

The ultra-right retaliated by blocking any measures from coming to the House floor and ultimately handed McCarthy his head. The hardliners then proceeded to make a mockery of the process to select his successor, eventually settling on Mike Johnson. Since then, they have objected and obstructed at every turn.

In so doing, they totally overplayed their hand. While they stymied their colleagues and huffed and puffed for the media, other members of Congress chafed at the farce of it. The hardliners managed not only to outrage Democrats but to alienate the more moderate minds within their own caucus. It didn’t take long for their antics to backfire.

The outsized power they briefly held was completely undone thanks to an accommodation reached by frustrated members of the Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — who tacitly agreed they were going to have to work together if anything was to get done. The hardliners broke the mold, alright, but not at all in the way they intended. The extreme partisanship in the House gave way – in a complete turnabout – to bipartisanship.

Step #1 was Johnson moving forward with funding for Ukraine, everyone knowing this would outrage the ultraconservatives and the only recourse would be if Democrats broke with tradition and went along with the rules to bring it to the House floor.

Step #2 was Democrats again joining with Republicans to toss aside the grandstanding attempt by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia flamethrower, to oust Johnson. Democrats carried through on the guarded assurances they had been making that they would jump in to protect the Speaker for “doing the right thing” on Ukraine. Notably, they hadn’t done the same for McCarthy last summer.

Step #3 came a week ago when a group of mainstream Republicans, again with necessary help from many Democrats, maneuvered around the Speaker to bring a disaster relief bill to the House floor. It was the first time the maneuver, known as a discharge petition, has been used since 2015.

None of the above fits with the rules and expectations by which the House normally operates. In fact, that is the tradeoff that has emerged. In order to get rid of the “dys” in its dysfunction, the House has had to put aside hidebound traditions that allowed a small minority to block the wishes of the majority.

The excesses of the ultraconservatives have forced the House, and given cover to its members, to adopt a “better way” of operating that was advocated in this space last August. It boils down simply to lawmakers with a common-sense approach putting aside partisanship to do what needs to be done. The arrangement is dominated neither by Democrats or Republicans wildly swinging policy to one side or the other, but of necessity finding consensus.

Freed up from being forced to vote along party lines, a large majority of the House is ready to go along. The debt ceiling compromise passed last summer, 314-117. Aid for Ukraine passed 311-112. Aid for Israel, 366-58. Aid for Taiwan, 385-34. The roll call to block the motion to remove Johnson, 359-43.

The House is showing it can be a lot less divided than otherwise it seemed. The extremists from both sides can revert at any moment to making outlandish statements and proposing partisan legislation. But when it comes to must-pass legislation, the House has found the strength of conviction and the methods to do what is needed.

The suddenly powerless ultraconservatives like to deride the cooperation as the work of the imaginary Uniparty, a sinister-sounding “Liberal World Order” they claim has co-opted both parties into doing its bidding.

The many legislators who are doing the right thing don’t identify with such aspersions. They refer to what they’re doing as the “two-party solution.” And that’s exactly what America needs.

Where do we go from here? It would be nice to predict that this novel condition is the wave of the future. The ultra-right took us to the brink, the House has seen the light and reformed its ways.

Maybe this is what Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, the North Carolina Republican who was McCarthy’s chosen representative last summer in the bipartisan negotiations on debt ceiling relief and then went on to serve as interim speaker after McCarthy was ousted, had in mind when he said the House “is on the verge of the next great turn.”

However, McHenry won’t be around to see it. He’s not seeking re-election. Neither is Ann Kuster, the New Hampshire representative who as chair of the centrist New Democrat Coalition became one of the foremost champions of bipartisan legislation, nor five other members of that coalition.

Kuster and McHenry take the high road in explaining why they are stepping down, saying it is time for them to go. But it is hard to dispute that the last two years have taken a toll.

Even though a number of strong bipartisan leaders will remain, the reality is that the 119th Congress to be elected this fall will not be the same as the current iteration. Yet to be determined is which party will have control and by how much, and the lengths it will need to go to pass critical legislation. Depending on how all that works out, we could go right back to the way things were.

We may end up laughing, or crying, all over again.