Democrats are sleepwalking into a Senate disaster

 Traditionally, the President’s party averages roughly 47.5% of the two-party vote in midterms. Right now, in FiveThirtyEight's average of public polls, Democrats are polling at 48.7%. However, the President’s party also tends to decline in standing as the midterms approach, as the graph below shows (you can read more about the historical evidence for this decline here). The one clear exception involved the 9/11 terrorist attacks and does not offer Joe Biden grounds for optimism.

Additionally, polls have been biased towards Democrats in two of the last three cycles, and there is reason to think this bias will persist. The current 48.7% polling average may well be an overestimation.

Between those two factors, it’s reasonable to assume that Democrats are looking at a vote share between 47% and 48.5% this cycle. This means Republicans will probably win the generic ballot by between three and six percent, and the median scenario is probably Republicans winning by around 4.5%. Since Joe Biden won by 4.5% in 2020, this would mean that the national environment has shifted 9 percentage points to the right.

Assume, for a moment, that there is zero ticket-splitting, and this swing is uniform across all elections. This would mean any Democrat in a state that Biden won by less than 9% will probably lose. That includes:

• Mark Kelly in Arizona (Biden +0.3)

• Raphael Warnock in Georgia (Biden +0.2)

• Catherine Cortez-Masto in Nevada (Biden +2.4)

• Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire (Biden +7.4)

Both zero ticket-splitting and literally uniform national swings are simplifying assumptions; reality will be a bit more complicated. Incumbency advantage, in particular, might help stem the bleeding a little. But take a look at the table below, courtesy of David Shor, head of Data Science at Blue Rose Research (where I work). Both ticket-splitting and incumbency advantage have declined precipitously in recent years, and are both now near zero:

Overall, the combination of decreasing incumbency advantage and a poor national environment for Democrats means we should probably expect Democrats to control between 46 and 47 Senate seats after 2022 — depending, essentially, on whether or not Maggie Hassan manages to hold her seat in New Hampshire. And indeed, that’s what betting markets like PredictIt seem to think will happen.

The 2024 map is much worse

Since the Reagan Era, Democrats have averaged roughly 51% of the two-party vote in Presidential elections. If Biden gets this percentage of the vote, and the correlation between the Senate and presidential vote stays at close to .95 (as it was in 2020), then basically every Democratic senator in a state Biden won by less than 2% who is up in 2024 is likely to lose. 

That includes:

• Jon Tester in Montana (Biden -16.3)

• Joe Manchin in West Virginia (Biden -29.9)

• Sherrod Brown in Ohio (Biden -8)

• Bob Casey in Pennsylvania (Biden +1.2)

• Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin (Biden +0.7)

• Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona (Biden +0.3)

In addition, Debbie Stabenow in Michigan (Biden +2.8) and Jackie Rosen in Nevada (Biden +2.4) would likely be in toss-up races.

Putting it all together

The above scenarios are designed to illustrate plausible outcomes, and they’re specific to certain assumptions about Democrats’ performance in the 2022 and 2024 elections. You might think these assumptions are wrong. So below is a “choose your own adventure” for Senate forecasts. Start on the left with the share of the vote you think Democrats will get in 2022, then pick your estimate of the Democratic vote share in 2024. The output in the right-most column is, according to David Shor’s modeling, the projected number of Senate seats Democrats will hold after the 2024 elections. 

As the table demonstrates, “normal” electoral results will likely result in the loss of a large share of the Democratic Senate Caucus — pessimism about the outlook here is not driven by any particular pessimism about Democrats’ share of the national popular vote. 

Instead, the issue is that the growing polarization of the electorate around educational attainment and the urban/rural divide has generated a Senate that is incredibly biased against the Democratic party.

Meanwhile, the Electoral College is more biased than ever:

If Joe Biden receives 51% of the vote in 2024 (again, this is the long-run average for Democratic presidential candidates), he will likely lose the Electoral College — and with it, the presidency.

“Business as usual” will result in President Trump or President DeSantis, with somewhere between 56 and 62 Senate seats. And this is actually worse than it might seem at first. In recent years, Republican senators who have retired (or announced that they are retiring) have skewed heavily toward those who were willing to occasionally stand up to Trump, like Jeff Flake, Lamar Alexander, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, and Richard Burr. If Trump returns to office, he will do so with a median Senator who is far more deferent to his wishes than the last time around. 

Hope is not a plan

Of course, these dire predictions may not come to pass. Maybe Democrats will get 50% of the vote in 2022 (though this is looking more and more like a lost cause), and maybe they’ll follow that up with 54% of the vote in 2024. Then Biden will stay President, and Republicans will only have a slim Senate majority in 2024 — 53 seats instead of 58 or so.

This “optimistic” scenario is possible; Presidents have won re-election by more than 8% before. The bias of the maps is also not a law of nature. While it didn’t impact election outcomes, 2004, 2008, and 2012 all featured a modest Electoral College bias in favor of the Democratic Party coalition, offset by a modest Senate bias in favor of the GOP. In theory, Biden could shift back to Obama’s less-educated, more-rural pattern of support, reducing the Democratic party’s electoral disadvantage. 

But it’s important to stress that this is not the business as usual case. The way-too-early 2024 polling has Biden and Trump tied in a hypothetical rematch. Betting markets have Republicans favored to retake the presidency. Democrats drawing even with Republicans in the popular vote in 2022 would be surprising, as would Biden winning reelection by more in 2024 than he did in 2020. A large realignment of demographic voting patterns, with rural and working-class voters returning to the Democratic party, seems even more improbable given the party’s current trajectory. 

And neither an 8% landslide in 2024 nor a reshaping of electoral coalitions will happen by chance. The administration and the reelection campaign would have to make different tactical choices than the ones they’ve been making.

What tactical choices should they make? That’s a hard question, and it’s one I’ll be writing a lot more about in the months to come. But before you can solve a problem, you have to acknowledge that you have one. Aiming for 51-52% of the vote under the current coalitional pattern won’t cut it. Democrats need to wake up, because right now they’re sleepwalking into disaster, with no plan to avert it. 

Simon Bazelon

https://www.slowboring.com/p/democrats-are-sleepwalking-into-a?s=r

Democrats' worst Trump nightmare

 There's something much worse than losing the House, and possibly the Senate, that's rattling top Democrats who are studying polling and election trends:

The big picture: It's the possibility of a re-elected President Trump with a compliant, veto-proof Senate majority in January 2025.

Why it matters: It's impossible to forecast elections. But you can look at the states with Senate elections in 2024 and see why some Democrats are sounding the alarm.

"Democrats are sleepwalking into a Senate disaster," Yale's Simon Bazelon wrote last week on Matt Yglesias' Substack, Slow Boring

• "The 2024 map is much worse," Bazelon added.
• A close presidential election, he wrote, could doom Democratic Sens. Jon Tester in Montana ... Joe Manchin in West Virginia ... Sherrod Brown in Ohio ... Bob Casey in Pennsylvania ... Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin ... Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona.
• Plus toss-ups could threaten Sens. Debbie Stabenow in Michigan and Jackie Rosen in Nevada.
• In all those states, hardcore liberalism is a tough sell.

Then factor in that most of the GOP senators who stood up to Trump and his brand of politics will be gone: Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who are retiring after this term, and former Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona.

• Now toss in the widespread belief in both parties that the House majority will be lost by Democrats in 2022 — and maintained, if not expanded, in 2024.
• Plus perhaps the most worrisome indicator for Democrats on the political dashboard: The party's edge with Hispanic voters has shrunk.

So you see why John Anzalone, President Biden's campaign pollster, recently told a Politico podcast this is "the worst political environment that I’ve lived through in 30 years of being a political consultant."

There are several ways Democrats could overcome the GOP’s decisive map edge:

• Dems could nominate a presidential candidate who wins decisively — with a clear majority. That typically lifts party candidates in close races.
• Or the GOP could nominate a presidential candidate who can't command a majority, or unelectable Senate candidates. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warns anyone who'll listen that if the GOP keeps putting up fringe candidates, the party will blow an epic opportunity.

The bottom line: David Shor, one of Democrats' most respected data scientists, has been sounding the alarm for months. "Unless we see big structural changes in the Democratic party's coalition," he tweeted, the 2024 outcome could be "Donald Trump winning a *filibuster-proof trifecta* [House, Senate, White House] with a minority of the vote."

https://www.axios.com/democrat-senate-trump-republicans-ce402871-8dd3-4a52-8843-0673377b78df.html

The moral rot inherent in the human condition

God is on Russia's side against the evil Ukrainians

The Washington Post writes on the Russian Orthodox church backing for Putin's war on Ukraine:

Whether warning about the “external enemies” attempting to divide the “united people” of Russia and Ukraine, or very publicly blessing the generals leading soldiers in the field, Patriarch Kirill has become one of the war’s most prominent backers. His sermons echo, and in some cases even supply, the rhetoric that President Vladimir Putin has used to justify the assault on cities and civilians.

“Let this image inspire young soldiers who take the oath, who embark on the path of defending the fatherland,” Kirill intoned as he gave a gilded icon to Gen. Viktor Zolotov during a service at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral in mid-March. The precious gift, the general responded, would protect the troops in their battles against Ukrainian “Nazis.”

“Any war has to have guns and ideas,” said Cyril Hovorun, professor of ecclesiology, international relations and ecumenism at University College Stockholm. “In this war the Kremlin has provided the guns, and I believe the church is providing the ideas.”  

Orthodox priests in Ukraine have gone much further. In an open appeal last week, more than 320 of them accused the patriarch of preaching “heresy” and asked global church leaders to bring him before a tribunal to decide whether he should be deposed.

“Kirill committed moral crimes by blessing the war against Ukraine and fully supporting the aggressive actions of Russian troops on the Ukrainian territory,” they wrote. “It is impossible for us to remain in any form of canonical submission to the Patriarch of Moscow.”

Here, one can see how flexible morals and morality are. God tends to be on the side of whoever or whatever has the power. In the case of Russia, Putin has the power and Kirill knows it. Therefore, God is on Putin's side. When Putin goes, God will be on the side of the next murdering thug that gets to rule Russia.

Those poor priests who accused the patriarch of preaching heresy. In the name of righteous and just God, they're toast. God is gonna smite their sorry backsides in his righteous glory. 

Now, on to the moral rot in the American Christian nationalist movement . . . . 

The nature of fascism

In 1932 Benito Mussolini published an essay, The Doctrine of Fascism. There he describes what fascism is, what it stands for and what it opposes. Modern scholars tend to characterize fascism as a far right ideology. One commenter here has strenuously argued that fascism is not ideologically left or right, but instead it just stands on its own. Does it matter?

Mussolini wrote:

Fascism sees in the world not only those superficial, material aspects in which man appears as an individual, standing by himself, self-centered, subject to natural law, which instinctively urges him toward a life of selfish momentary pleasure; it sees not only the individual but the nation and the country; individuals and generations bound together by a moral law, with common traditions and a mission which suppressing the instinct for life closed in a brief circle of pleasure, builds up a higher life, founded on duty, a life free from the limitations of time and space, in which the individual, by self-sacrifice, the renunciation of self-interest, by death itself, can achieve that purely spiritual existence in which his value as a man consists.

It conceives of life as a struggle in which it behooves a man to win for himself a really worthy place, first of all by fitting himself (physically, morally, intellectually) to become the implement required for winning it. As for the individual, so for the nation, and so for mankind. Hence the high value of culture in all its forms (artistic, religious, scientific) and the outstanding importance of education.

This positive conception of life is obviously an ethical one. It invests the whole field of reality as well as the human activities which master it. No action is exempt from moral judgment; no activity can be despoiled of the value which a moral purpose confers on all things. Therefore life, as conceived of by the Fascist, is serious, austere, and religious; all its manifestations are poised in a world sustained by moral forces and subject to spiritual responsibilities. The Fascist disdains an “easy” life.

In the Fascist conception of history, man is man only by virtue of the spiritual process to which he contributes as a member of the family, the social group, the nation, and in function of history to which all nations bring their contribution. Hence the great value of tradition in records, in language, in customs, in the rules of social life. Outside history man is a nonentity. Fascism is therefore opposed to all individualistic abstractions based on eighteenth century materialism; and it is opposed to all Jacobinistic utopias and innovations. It does not believe in the possibility of “happiness” on earth as conceived by the economistic literature of the 18th century, and it therefore rejects the theological notion that at some future time the human family will secure a final settlement of all its difficulties.

Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity. It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual.

Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual. And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State. The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State — a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values — interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.

No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State. Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle. Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.

Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered as it should be from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and ending to express itself in the conscience and the will of the mass, of the whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing, as one conscience and one will, along the self same line of development and spiritual formation. Not a race, nor a geographically defined region, but a people, historically perpetuating itself; a multitude unified by an idea and imbued with the will to live, the will to power, self-consciousness, personality.

Mussolini’s conception of fascism is definitely authoritarian, nationalist, anti-individualist and intolerant of political opposition. Power is concentrated in one or a few people and the nation is the heart of human existence. The essay seems to come off as neutral or maybe conflicted about racism. By 1938, Mussolini had become openly racist. Thus Italian fascism may not have started out as racist, it ended up that way.

Wikipedia describes fascism like this: 

Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy that rose to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries. Opposed to anarchism, democracy, liberalism, and Marxism, fascism is placed on the far-right wing within the traditional left–right spectrum.  

Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have long debated the exact nature of fascism. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that “trying to define ‘fascism’ is like trying to nail jelly to the wall.” Each different group described as fascist has at least some unique elements, and many definitions of fascism have been criticized as either too broad or too narrow. According to many scholars, fascism—especially once in power—has historically attacked communism, conservatism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the far right.  

The term fascist has been used as a pejorative, regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum. George Orwell wrote in 1944 that “the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist,’” and in 1946 that “...‘Fascism’ has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable.”

What prompted this post was a personal concern about whether terms like neo-fascist or American fascist are reasonably applicable to modern American conservatism, Christian nationalism and/or the current Republican Party.  

Given the ambiguity of what fascism is, one could argue that terms like neo-fascism are even more ambiguous. On the other hand, labelling something like the Republican Party or Christian nationalism as neo-fascist points out the anti-democratic authoritarianism that is undeniably prominent and eroding American democracy. 

A criticism of how America is dealing with the Ukraine war

A column in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) offers a criticism of the prevailing narrative in the US:

Ukraine has become a proxy war for the United States

Russia’s outright defeat is now paramount to Washington, rather than peace in Ukraine. Trouncing Putin will remove an old foe, undermine the alliance between Moscow and Beijing, and allow the US to refocus total hostility on China

It seems increasingly clear that, so far as the United States is concerned, there is a big difference in goal and method when it comes to “saving Ukraine” and “defeating Russia”. The two goals are not the same and may even be incompatible. Is Russia’s defeat now the unstated end game that the US is seeking?

It’s worth observing that war cries are coincidentally reaching a fever pitch as to drown out alternative voices in the US while its mainstream media offer non-stop coverage on a foreign war that involves no US troops on the ground.

According to a study by the Tyndall Report, an authoritative journalism newsletter which has been tracking and analyzing nightly newscasts since 1987, the three major TV networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, have spent more time together in their reporting on the Ukraine war than all other wars in the last 31 years, including those started by the US.

Of course, these are just three TV networks. Practically all other major news outlets in the US – and also in Europe – have been offering non-stop news coverage. For Europeans, though, it’s understandable because the war is right in their own backyard.

But for the US? Anyone who offers more nuanced analyses or explanations for the war now risks being denounced as “Putin’s American apologist”, “Putin’s pals”, “Russia’s stooges”, “Russian trolls”, “patsies” and “useful idiots”.

That’s what happens when the US media and political class are mobilised to promote and legitimate war efforts. President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly made peace overtures and even managed to kick off a few rounds of peace talks with Moscow. They were all met by silence from Washington.

When Kyiv said it was prepared to negotiate the status of Crimea and the Donbas coveted by Russia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken countered about the imperative to defend the “basic principle” that “one country cannot simply change the borders of another by force”.

It may be unspoken but it’s clear many in Washington, including those in the White House, think US interests lie with Russia’s defect, while peace in Ukraine is incidental.

In a recent interview on NPR (National Public Radio), [Hal Brands, Henry A. Kissinger distinguished professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies] offers a perfectly logical, if ruthless explanation behind the US strategy over the war in Ukraine.

“There’s long been a debate in the United States over whether we should prioritize competing with Russia or China or treat them as coequals. .... And that debate has flared up again in the context of this war. I think what the war indicates, though, is that the best way of putting pressure on China, which is the more dangerous and the more powerful of the two rivals, is actually to ensure that Russia is defeated, that it does not achieve its objectives in this war, because that will result in a weaker Russia, one that is less capable of putting pressure on the United States and its allies in Europe and thus less useful as a strategic partner for Beijing. .... The United States simply can’t avoid the reality that it has to contain both Russia and China simultaneously.” (emphasis added)

According to this rationale, the US is harming Ukraine by not doing all it can to support Zelensky's peace overtures to Putin. That does look plausible, assuming Putin would have been willing to negotiate a peace. 

One has to wonder about what it means to “contain” Russia and China. China is aggressively weaponizing the South China Sea, all of which it claims as China’s territorial waters. The Global Conflict Tracker comments:

Tensions between China and both the Philippines and Vietnam have recently cooled, even as China increased its military activity in the South China Sea by conducting a series of naval maneuvers and exercises in March and April 2018. Meanwhile, China continues to construct military and industrial outposts on artificial islands it has built in disputed waters.

The United States has also stepped up its military activity and naval presence in the region in recent years, including freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in January and March 2018. In a speech during his November 2017 visit to Southeast Asia, President Donald J. Trump emphasized the importance of such operations, and of ensuring free and open access to the South China Sea. Since May 2017, the United States has conducted six FONOPs in the region.  

China’s sweeping claims of sovereignty over the sea—and the sea’s estimated 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas—have antagonized competing claimants Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. As early as the 1970s, countries began to claim islands and various zones in the South China Sea, such as the Spratly Islands, which possess rich natural resources and fishing areas.

China maintains [PDF] that, under international law, foreign militaries are not able to conduct intelligence-gathering activities, such as reconnaissance flights, in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). According to the United States, claimant countries, under UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), should have freedom of navigation through EEZs in the sea and are not required to notify claimants of military activities. In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague issued its ruling on a claim brought against China by the Philippines under UNCLOS, ruling in favor of the Philippines on almost every count. While China is a signatory to the treaty, which established the tribunal, it refuses to accept the court’s authority.

Military conflict with China is possible. Assuming it is not already too late, a more robust US effort to foster a peace agreement between the Ukraine and Russia might be a better strategy.  It is not clear that the US and Europe can “contain” Russia or China, whatever containment means. It sounds like military conflict, either directly or through proxies.

Chinese aircraft carrier battle group

in the South China Sea

The basis for war with China

Acknowledgement: Thanks to PD for bringing the SCMP article to my attention.

Creative capitalism: Collusion to reduce employee pay

The New York Times writes:

A New Legal Tactic to Protect Workers’ Pay

The Justice Department is using antitrust law to charge employers with colluding to hold down wages. The move adds to a barrage of civil challenges.

Antitrust suits have long been part of the federal government’s arsenal to keep corporations from colluding or combining in ways that raise prices and hurt the consumer. Now the government is deploying the same weapon in another cause: protecting workers’ pay.

In a first, the Justice Department has brought a series of criminal cases against employers for colluding to suppress wages. The push started in December 2020, under the Trump administration, with an indictment accusing a staffing agency in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of agreeing with rivals to suppress the pay of physical therapists. The department has now filed six criminal cases under the pillar of antitrust law, the Sherman Act, including prosecutions of employers of home health aides, nurses and aerospace engineers.

“Labor market collusion dots the entirety of the U.S. economy,” said Doha Mekki, principal deputy assistant attorney general in the department’s antitrust division. “We’ve seen it in sectors across the board.”

“The expansion of Sherman Act criminal violations changes the ballgame when it comes to how companies engage with their workers,” noted an analysis by lawyers at White & Case, including J. Mark Gidley, chair of the firm’s global antitrust and competition practice. “Executives and managers could face jail time for proven horizontal wage-fixing conspiracies.” In addition to fines for corporations or individuals, the Sherman Act provides for prison terms of up to 10 years.  

And yet the Justice Department’s push builds on a rationale for criminal antitrust enforcement articulated since the Obama administration. “Colluding to fix wages is no different than colluding to suppress the prices of auto parts or homes sold at auction,” said Renata Hesse, acting assistant attorney general for antitrust, in November 2016. “Naked wage-fixing or no-poach agreements eliminate competition in the same irredeemable way as per se unlawful price-fixing and customer-allocation agreements do.” 

It will be interesting to see what the courts do with this. Pro-corporate judges will probably frown on expansion of the Sherman Act and protect the corporations ability to conspire to keep wages low. That would be in accord the the generally pro-business stance that conservative Republican judges tend to take. It is not clear how neoliberal Democratic judges will react to this, maybe about like the Republicans.

Predictably, Corporate America is alarmed. A U.S. Chamber of Commerce official commented: “In their minds, everything is an antitrust issue. But it is a limited one.” That indicates there is at least some basis in the law for concern by the business community. This will probably eventually wind up in the Supreme Court with the Republicans siding with the companies.