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“Joe Biden’s Inflation” – and Other Idiocy

Election Day marks the merciful end of a silly season in the US that starts around Labor Day. It’s a time when we watch television at our mental-health peril. The years of presidential elections are the worst; mid-terms, like 2022, are the next worst.

Bombarded with screeched messages, we develop coping mechanisms. We may wear out the “mute” button , or record everything on a DVR to fast forward through political ads. Perhaps we simply try to tune out most of the noise. Unless we stop watching or listening altogether, though, some particularly obnoxious idiocy breaks through to our beleaguered consciousness.

For me, the worst has been the notion that we’re experiencing “Joe Biden’s inflation”.

Too Much Credit or Blame

Let’s start with a fairly obvious general point: Presidents usually get too much credit for good current economies and too much blame for bad ones. Determinants of the state of an economy are numerous and complex. Policies emanating from a president vie with those from other forces, especially the markets and Congress.  Those market forces at work are increasingly international in scope. Any big event anywhere affects everything, everywhere.

While it’s not impossible for an announced policy to have some immediate impact on the economy, it takes months and even years for most initiatives to move the economic needle significantly.

In this case, the foolishness of “Joe Biden’s inflation” goes well beyond merely overstating a president’s immediate impact on the current economy, however. The reasons could hardly be clearer; there are two major factors and two subtler ones, in place before the major factors, that set the table for inevitable inflation, or worse.

Obvious Cause #1: Covid-19

In General

Who thought we were going to get out of the worst pandemic in a hundred years without significant inflation, at the very least? Preventing financial collapse was the goal; inflation was inevitable. (As an aside, complaints about stimulus programs are rich, aren’t they? First, almost everyone supported them and lined up to take credit. New designs were required when a certain president’s name had to appear on the check. It wasn’t Biden’s. Second, stimulus checks deserved support. Third, the notion of Biden’s predecessor being a financially responsible conservative is hilarious.)

Consider fuel as one example. (It’s the best single factor to discuss because it affects the price of everything, like food, it is used to transport.) One of the very few advantages of the pandemic was that traffic disappeared overnight. There was no such thing as rush hour. Anyone with a reason to drive reached their destination in record time. Millions discovered stars in their night sky.

With the collapse of demand for fuel, prices dropped. Producers had to cut back production dramatically to avoid ruin. Emerging from the crisis brought not only restoration of more normal demand, but also two to three years of pent-up demand. Ramping up production involves far more than flipping a switch. Such high demand and low supply meant prices could do nothing but skyrocket.

As prices begin to settle back down, in fits and starts, should that be attributed to Joe Biden’s taming of inflation? If so, we’ll be re-assessing that every minute as the market for crude shifts. In a recent trip through parts of Europe, gas ranged from 1.90 to 2.20 Euros/liter. That’s $7.18 to $8.32 per gallon. Boy, that Joe Biden has enormous influence on global markets! Since it’s up again since I got home, it’s undoubtedly higher yet in Europe.

An intelligent discussion on the merits of Biden’s action on the Keystone Pipeline is possible, if anyone is interested, but it had nothing to do with the prices we’ve been paying at the pumps.

Handling of the Pandemic

First there was portrayal of Covid as a liberal hoax. When its existence became undeniable, next came denial of its severity – just another flu, if that. Keeping a safe distance was for sissies, even though experts had determined that the virus spread by people breathing on one another. It was somehow unpatriotic (?!) to wear a mask. Doing so to protect others was for losers.

In The Infodemic (Columbia Global Reports, 2022), Joel Simon and Robert Mahoney examine the ruinous approaches to Covid employed in two groupings of countries. The subtitle serves as a summary: How Censorship and Lies Made the World Sicker and Less Free. The first group was of authoritarian states like China, Iran and Russia, where censorship of truth is a blunt instrument. Those telling the truth about the virus were silenced by any means necessary.

In the second grouping, referred to as populist-led democracies, the authors say “governments relied on a more sophisticated and increasingly effective means of censorship, drowning the truth in a sea of lies.” (11) This they dub “censorship by noise”. Thus, “alongside the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an infodemic, a deluge of lies, distortions and bungled communication that obliterated the truth”, (10) with catastrophic consequences for public health and genuine freedom.

The three countries in the group of democracies whose similarly terrible handling of the crisis is described in detail are Bolsonaro’s Brazil, PM Modi’s India, and Trump’s USA. While aspects of Brazil and America’s responses were so similar as to suggest some coordination between Trump and Bolsonaro (sloughing off responsibility to more local officials being one example), some of the most bizarre behavior of any of the three countries came out of the White House. Historical analysis of American behavior for the years 2016 – 2020 will place us in relentlessly unflattering company.

Why Handle a Pandemic So Badly?

Donald Trump always knew he could not beat Joe Biden in a fair election in 2020, and behaved accordingly. That’s why he was so furious with Elizabeth Warren for not bowing out earlier (after disappointing primary showings), and throwing her support to Bernie Sanders. Trump believed he had a chance to beat Sanders.

Similarly, Trump was at his projecting best when he declared so long before the election that someone would try to rig or steal it. He knew that because he was planning to rig or steal the election. Step one was to declare victory early election evening. He went ballistic when thwarted by Fox News correctly projecting Arizona for Biden.

To have any chance against Biden, Trump knew he had to have an economy going gangbusters. So, he tried to deny the virus away, then minimize it. Then he was desperate to push ridiculous miracle cures. He ordered a hundred million doses of the vaccine while it was being developed, considering it his chance at re-election. He lost all interest in vaccination when clear it would not be ready before the election, other than getting it quietly for himself.

Some of the most heartbreaking stories from the whole ordeal were from caregivers relating how patients used their dying breaths to deny the existence of the virus that killed them.

Obvious Cause #2: Putin’s murderous rampage in Ukraine

It’s often called a “war”, but, as conducted by Vladimir Putin, it seems more a series of war crimes. While Putin devises ways to kill civilians with the evident hope of persuading them to give up, it becomes more evident that most Ukrainians would rather die than re-subjugate themselves to Russia. Meanwhile, the lack of enthusiasm Russian soldiers exhibit for the conflict seems understandable.

In any event, the economic effect is to lessen or negate each country’s participation in various global markets. Either or both are major players in a number of important markets – from oil, to wheat, to neon. (Europeans are wondering how they’ll stay warm this winter.)That last one, neon, is interesting. Ukraine is, or was, the world’s largest supplier: 70% of neon gas and 90% of highly purified semiconductor-grade neon used in chip production. Guess what happens to prices when supply of oil, wheat, neon and other essentials goes down suddenly and drastically.

Now, there actually is a president who spent every day in office giving aid, support and encouragement to Vladimir Putin’s every interest in the world. At the top of that list was destruction of NATO. Putin’s fondest aspiration is to be The One who restores Russia to its USSR glory, at least. The Mueller Report documents in exquisite detail the extraordinary lengths Putin’s Russia went in support of Trump’s 2016 bid for the White House. No effort or expense was spared.

Meanwhile, amid the chaos of American policy for those years, the one objective Trump worked on effectively and consistently was the evisceration of NATO, which had managed to keep peace in Europe since the last World War. Not a day went by, seemingly, without doing something to further alienate one or more of our allies. The traitorous quid pro quo could not be clearer.

The American electorate scuttled Vladimir and Donald’s plans in 2020, leaving Putin to do it the hard way. Startled, and perhaps a bit unnerved, by the speed and effectiveness with which Biden was resurrecting NATO and re-establishing America’s stature in the world, Putin invaded. Disastrously. The results are death, destruction, and yes, massively inflationary market disruptions – all done with the fawning approval of Donald Trump for his favorite “genius”.

The Inflation Table Was Already Set – Tariffs and Worker Shortage

Having written about this before, and cited the full-blown analysis available in the December 2019 edition of Fortune magazine (“Why Trump Is Bad For Business”), we’ll keep this relatively brief. Before anyone had ever heard of Covid-19, there were clear signs the economy was headed for trouble due to two flawed policies.

The irony is that Covid might have provided cover for these missteps, by taking the blame for a broken economy. An honest and competent attempt by an average president to encourage people to distance themselves sensibly and mask up would have gotten us to the vaccines in much better shape. Then, vaccines and boosters taken by all (other than the hard core 1-2% anti-vaxxers) would have provided finishing touches on a course that saved hundreds of thousands of lives and greatly lessened the economic impact.

It’s doubtful that such an approach would even occur to Donald Trump.

Trump’s Tariff War With China

As many have said, “Somebody had to do something about China.” Yep, somebody did, and still does. That something is not a tariff war. What’s needed is something tied to China’s piracy of intellectual property.

Tariff wars serve mainly to increase prices across the board to consumers. To the buyers of raw materials and finished goods, tariffs function very much like an enormous sales tax. It’s not impossible but it is rare for tariffs to help a US manufacturer or industry, or to hurt a Chinese competitor. More often, tariffs hurt more American companies than they help.

And, by the way: so cowed was China by this “getting tough” with them that they became more belligerent regarding Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the entire Pacific.

Trump’s Immigration Policies Choked Off Supply of Labor

Because he has employed so many of them over so many years, Donald Trump knows better than most that immigrant workers are as likely as anyone to work hard and behave well.  The “murderers and rapists” nonsense is the red meat upon which his base feeds, however. So, people seeking asylum are “illegals”. Immigrants are taking all these jobs from our college kids who were hoping to pick turnips in the hot sun all summer. And so forth.

The truth is that the number one thing holding back our economy is a lack of workers across the board. Help Wanted signs are everywhere. The labor shortage is a double whammy; not only is it stifling growth, but it’s also raising prices. Scarce workers cost more, obviously.

Meanwhile, we still await serious discussion, by adults, of whatever changes are needed to develop immigration policies we believe in enough to enforce.

In Short

There was a president who made the inflation we’re facing longer lasting and more severe than it had to be. It isn’t Joe Biden.

Other Idiocy

Out of all the other harmful and dangerous idiocy out there, let’s briefly address one more: Election denial.

I’ve seen estimates that over half of Republican candidates for office across the country in 2022 are election deniers, and that about 60% of American voters will have an election denier on the ballot. Recognizing there can be some divergence in how the term is defined, the point here is not to get mired in definitional disputes or statistics.

The point is that support for the notion that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump should be disqualifying from holding public office for any candidate by reasonable voters of any political persuasion. Yet an incredible number of such candidates are on the ballot.

There has never been any basis for such a belief. For those with lingering doubts, despite the loss of 64 cases and the absence of any evidence, there is Lost, Not Stolen (https://lostnotstolen.org/). A group of leading, life-long conservative Republicans produced this exhaustive, documented study of all the baseless allegations of a stolen election one might hear. They categorically obliterate every argument made about the results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They conclude: “In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct.”

Anyone arguing the 2020 election was stolen at this point is either (1) psychotic; (2) truly stupid; or (3) simply lying.

Let’s be clear on what’s at stake here. In many US jurisdictions, there are a number of Republicans hard at work to change the outcome the next time Donald Trump, or someone of his ilk, makes the call he made to Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger. In response to “Find me 11,780 votes!” they don’t want to hear “That’s not how we do things in America.” No, they want to ensure the answer next time is “Sure. In fact we’ll ‘find’ a few extra hundred to make it look better.”

Conclusion

I yearn for the good old days when “liberals” and “conservatives” argued about taxes, too much vs. too little regulation, big government vs. small, and the like. Indeed, I miss the day when one could have any discussion on the merits.

The argument now is whether basic American principles like checks and balances, the rule of law, and free and fair elections are worth preserving. Not content with “mere” voter suppression and grotesque gerrymandering, some now have voter nullification as the goal.

In a saner time, it would be safe to assume that anti-democracy, un-American cretins would be routed off to political oblivion. How we vote today, and perhaps in the next election or two, will determine whether our votes will continue to matter.

Ken Bossong

© 2022 Kenneth J. Bossong

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The Flores v. Barr Cringe Fest

A few days ago, on August 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit released its decision in the remarkable case of Flores v. Barr. I was not expecting to write on immigration again so soon (see “Immigration – Governing with Nods and Winks”, 5/10/19), but there are aspects of this case so cringe-worthy as to require mention. The good news is that a terrible argument lost. The bad news is that such an argument was made and by whom.

Background – the Flores Agreement

A 1987 class action lawsuit on behalf of minors detained by immigration authorities was litigated for years before being settled in 1997. The consent order settling the case became known as the Flores Agreement, or simply “the Agreement”. It required immigration agencies to hold minors in their custody “in facilities that are safe and sanitary.” Such facilities must also be “consistent with…concern for the particular vulnerability of minors.”

The Agreement gets into some specifics: “Facilities will provide access to toilets and sinks, drinking water and food as appropriate, medical assistance if the minor is in need of emergency services, adequate temperature control and ventilation, adequate supervision to protect minors from others, and contact with family members who were arrested with the minor.” There was no dispute that the Agreement remains in effect as a matter of law to this day.

This Case

In May 2016, the plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce the Agreement. They contended that the government continued to violate it by, among other things, detaining class members – that is, minors – in unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

In June 2017, Judge Gee of the U.S. District Court granted plaintiffs’ motion to enforce. The court found that the government was violating the Agreement’s express requirements to provide adequate access to appropriate food and water and “adequate temperature controls at a reasonable and comfortable range.”

The court further found that although the Agreement “makes no mention of the words ‘soap,’ ‘towels,’ ‘showers,’ ‘dry clothing,’ or ‘toothbrushes,’ . . . these hygiene products fall within the rubric of the Agreement’s language requiring ‘safe and sanitary’ conditions.”

Certain Border Patrol stations, the district court found, were violating paragraph 12A of the Agreement by failing to provide such sanitary necessities. Other facilities were depriving the children of adequate sleep. The government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Jurisdictional Quirk

Bear with me here, because it’s worth understanding this point. By federal statute, the Circuit Court of appeals has jurisdiction in this type of case over district court orders “granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions, or refusing to dissolve or modify injunctions.”

Since everyone agreed that Judge Gee did not grant, continue, refuse or dissolve the Agreement, the Court of Appeals can review her ruling only if it “modified” the Agreement. The Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal because the district court did not modify (change) the Agreement in its ruling, but simply interpreted it. Here’s why this matters.

The Crux

The Ninth Circuit’s recounting of the government’s position is as follows:

Specifically, the government contends that, by interpreting paragraph 12A in the body of its opinion to require that Border Patrol stations provide the most basic human necessities—accommodations that allow for adequate sleep, essential hygiene items, and adequate, clean food and water—the district court modified the Agreement’s requirement that minors be held in “safe and sanitary” conditions that comport with the “special concern for the particular vulnerability of minors.” We emphatically disagree. 

The government first suggests that the key phrases in paragraph 12A—“safe and sanitary” and “special concern for the particular vulnerability of minors”—add nothing to the enumerated specific requirements found in the next sentence of the Agreement (requiring “access to toilets and sinks, drinking water and food as appropriate,” and so on). The government’s brief maintains that as the enumerated conditions said nothing about, for example, allowing the children in government custody to sleep or to wash themselves with soap, reading the “safe and sanitary” requirement to cover those requirements is a modification of the Agreement rather than an interpretation of it.

Wait, What?

You read that correctly. The U.S. Department of Justice argued before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals that requiring a bar of soap, a toothbrush, and food that is edible “modified” a decades-old Agreement requiring safe and sanitary conditions.

That’s after arguing that “safe and sanitary” adds nothing to the requirements for toilets, sinks, water and food. Therefore, the toilets, sinks, water and food need not be safe and sanitary, even though the Agreement says they must.

The Circuit Court’s Decision

The Circuit Court goes on to demolish the argument as an untenable approach to contractual interpretation. It also dismisses the notion that the phrase “safe and sanitary” is so vague that either it cannot be enforced, or it leaves “the specifics of compliance [with the Agreement’s paragraph 12A] up to” the government. From the opinion:

The district court’s interpretation of the Agreement is consistent with the ordinary meaning of the language of paragraph 12A, which does provide a standard sufficiently clear to be enforced. The court found, among other things, that minors (1) were “not receiving hot, edible, or a sufficient number of meals during a given day,” (2) “had no adequate access to clean drinking water,” (3) experienced “unsanitary conditions with respect to the holding cells and bathroom facilities,” (4) lacked “access to clean bedding, and access to hygiene products (i.e., toothbrushes, soap, towels),” and (5) endured “sleep deprivation” as a result of “cold temperatures, overcrowding, lack of proper bedding (i.e., blankets, mats), [and] constant lighting.”

After so finding, the district court concluded that these conditions fall short of paragraph 12A’s requirement that facilities be “safe and sanitary,” especially given “the particular vulnerability of minors.” Those determinations reflect a commonsense understanding of what the quoted language requires… The district court properly construed the Agreement as requiring such conditions rather than allowing the government to decide whether to provide them.

There are other issues in the case, also decided against the government. The opinion is available at http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2019/08/15/17-56297.pdf.

An Aside

I am not going after the individual attorney from the Department of Justice who (apparently drew the short straw and) found herself handling the oral argument in this case. The lawyers standing before judges, or justices of the Supreme Court, are seldom the ones deciding which cases to appeal, and on what grounds.

Conclusion (at least for now)

Really, I ask you to pause for a moment to absorb this. A lawyer for the United States of America asked a federal court of appeals to rule that while the Flores Agreement requires detained children to be provided “drinking water and food as appropriate”, it says nothing about potable water or edible food.

This should be the stuff of satire, but I am making none of this up. Most of this post comes straight from the court’s recent opinion. A recording of the oral argument went “viral” – presumably for the equal parts incredulity and dismay with which the judges received such arguments. Consider whether the position taken is worse legally or morally.

Yet, those arguing there are no issues or problems at our borders are clearly wrong as well. Apparently, thousands of people daily find arrest in America preferable to what they face at home. The logistical issues, alone, of dealing with such numbers of people are daunting and must be addressed. According to a July 29 Time Magazine article, 363,300 people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have been arrested at borders since October. Assuming the number correct and including every day of October 2018, that’s 12,030 people per day for ten months.

Saying we should simply open our borders is almost as silly as saying that our country is “full”. Or that immigrants are a bunch of dangerous criminals. Or that we don’t want hard, honest work done inexpensively and well, when clearly we do. You know the drill.

So, again, we see us paying the price for governing with intellectual dishonesty in this area for many years. In this case, the price is the spectacle of our government taking foolish and despicable positions in formal litigation. Not to mention the suffering at the borders.

Are there folks we need to send home? Yep. Start with the elected members of the executive and legislative branches of our government who refuse to do their jobs. You know, the ones who are too busy pandering, grandstanding, and fear-mongering. Again, we must get adults in the room to hammer out immigration law and policy we can believe in enough to enforce.

Hot off the Press

As I publish this, I understand that the Trump Administration, predictably perhaps, has announced plans today to end the Flores Agreement. Without knowing the details, I’d like to be optimistic and think that’s to replace it with something better. It seems wise to gird oneself for the next outrage, however. Also, I’ll be interested to see how the executive branch would “end” a court order settling a federal class action lawsuit. Presumably there will be new rule-making, with litigation quickly to follow. [Sigh]

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Post Scripts 1

Other Aspects posts are generating interesting comments. Thank you to all who have written. Thinking it a shame to keep them to myself, I will periodically gather and share items of general interest in a post called “Post Scripts”.

The sub-headings give the name and date of the post being addressed (recognizing that some posts build upon previous ones). The comments are in italics; my replies are not. I will edit only in the interest of space and contextual consistency. Enjoy, and please keep sending your thoughts to KenBossong@gmail.com. Finally, if anyone does not wish to be quoted, even anonymously as I’ll be doing it, please just say so when you email me.

Otis Rush: An Appreciation (1/18/19)

There was considerable response to the Otis Rush tribute. While some were already fans, many said how rewarding a revelation listening to him had been:

I very much enjoyed the Otis Rush remembrance.  Nicely written and complete.  I viewed him as a minor figure until you talked to me about him a few years back and I started listening.

Great tribute to Otis Rush. I look forward to following your blog.

I am not much into jazz and blues–preferring classical, 60s rock and country–but your Otis Rush ode prompted me go to YouTube to watch and listen to what I could find regarding him. I chose the Live at Montreux concert from 1986. You may get me yet.

Good choice for something to watch, with Otis being joined on stage by admirers Eric Clapton and Luther Allison. This concert marked something of a comeback for Otis from some lean years. Make sure you get to hear the best of his Cobra recordings.

Thanks for sharing this. [We] enjoyed your tribute to Otis Rush; we were both struck by how well your voice comes across in your writing.

Your piece on Otis Rush was spot on, as I also think he was truly one of the greats. We all know where Mike Bloomfield got his inspiration from.

Doing the Limbo Inside the Beltway (1/25/19)

I enjoyed reading this and certainly agree with you on a need for no more “How Low can we go!”

Unfortunately, there is no end in sight for “How low can you go?” January, when the post was written, already seems a long time ago.

What Makes Jazz So Endearing and Enduring (3/4/19)

The one on what makes jazz was a nicely done, succinct statement that I printed out and saved for reference.

I really enjoyed the article about Jazz. I have always had a love for it, but had no idea about the depth of Jazz.

Life as a Zero Sum Game: It Ain’t Necessarily So (4/2/19)

I read your blog post and found it very interesting especially your view of the political landscape. One thing that you didn’t mention is that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but not the electoral college which is, I believe, one of the reasons there is so much discontent in the political scene. I have heard people say, so my vote really doesn’t count. I’m not a fan of labeling left vs right. I can identify with both because I have voted for both Republican and Democratic presidents in my lifetime. However, as you stated there is a vitriol and a need to categorize people as either all good or all bad politically lately which equals to your point, 0 Sum.

Another reader used bold to supplement my portrayal of how environmentalists see the other side of the debate:

These huge corporations are legally required to care only about maximizing profit and nothing about the environment beyond regulation. Since environmental damage is not monetarily accounted for in a company bottom line, the choice to befoul our common property is nearly always the one that shareholders require the company to make. There’s nothing they won’t befoul to make a buck, per design. If we leave them to their own devices, the planet will be unlivable before we know it. Therefore, absent correct financial accounting of the environmental damage done, strong environmental regulations are required to ensure that the needs of everyone are balanced with the greed of the shareholders.

Add “civil liability” to “regulation” here. When something goes wrong, environmental clean-up can be hugely expensive, greatly affecting a company’s bottom line. Companies that reflexively choose to befoul are probably making bad business decisions. Ensuring that such decisions are regretted is sound public policy; that one should clean up the mess one creates is axiomatic. The “us vs. them” chasm and the zero-sum game remain unnecessary and counterproductive.

[In response to my open letter to scientists:]

Is this a response to a perceived problem? My take is that the scientists are not the problem and are not the ones who make it political. The consensus on climate change, which has been overwhelmingly consistent on the topic of AGW, does not seem to be enough. Not all of us can “take it” when presented with scientific consensus, apparently.

I don’t demand complete consensus, but the propensity of some “scientific studies” to produce results their sponsors prefer is no coincidence.

It’s Not Too Late To Learn From 2016 (4/18/19)

One reader paired a line in this post with something by Vonnegut years ago, as follows:

“There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don’t know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.” -Kurt Vonnegut

“Perhaps we have made the job of President, or the process of attaining it, so distasteful that no one who would be ideal to serve is willing to seek it.”

I don’t remember reading Vonnegut’s piece “Cold Turkey” in the May 10, 2004 edition of In These Times, but I can’t swear I didn’t, either.

Referring to the portions of the post where I (a) say what voters like me seek in a president is “someone who is smart, sane, honorable, effective, and sensible” and (b) indicate that it should not be a given that the incumbent be the Republican nominee, a reader had this:

I’ll bet you $20 (or whatever alternate wager) that if he’s still in office come primary time, he’s the candidate. He demonstrated clear unfitness for office before 2016. The “enough is enough” moment should have happened a LONG time ago for any smart, sane, honorable, effective, and sensible republican. I have ZERO expectations that anything should change before 2020.

From another reader:

In 1968, Richard Nixon watched the crowds flock to George Wallace rallies and devised the brilliant if inherently evil “Southern Strategy,” an appeal to racism that was hugely successful. The Republican Party has been running on that and its evolutionary progeny ever since. Trump is the apotheosis of that reprehensible scheme. Liberals and what some call “socialists” (they have no idea what real socialism is) a la Bernie Sanders are way out there and thus unacceptable. However, they do not merit the same condemnation as today’s Republicans, who have abandoned the principles of rational conservatism for the crass electoral flavor of the moment. They deserve to be called out for their craven hypocrisy.

I expected plenty of feedback on this post. I was a bit surprised, however, not to hear from people with other reasons to believe the incumbent president should automatically be the nominee. Hopefully it’s clear that the point was not to predict an outcome, but to argue for a much-needed real discussion within the Republican Party.

Immigration – Governing With Nods and Winks (5/10/19)

The seasonal guest worker programs under which what we used to call “migrants” come here to help the harvest was something I grew up around. I visited several migrant camps out of curiosity and observed appalling living conditions. I also observed how hard they worked. Few native-born Americans could match them. [A relative] works in that county and has special responsibility for migrants. She says nothing has changed except a visceral fear among her clients about what Trump’s nativist, faux-hostility will do to their livelihoods.

Recalling a Great Little Sports Story (5/22)

Thanks Ken for making us aware of this story. It goes well beyond sports and sportsmanship, and many happenings in the pro sports world pale in comparison to it.

The Coarse in Our Discourse (6/28/19)

I just read your most recent blog post and your conjuring of [Richard Neustadt’s] Presidential Power struck a chord and brought up a memory that had been buried for decades…I disagree, however, that federalizing the Arkansas National Guard and sending them to Central High School in Little Rock was a sign of weakness. Rather, it was the measured and effective use of a powerful weapon that the Federalists included in their plan for the new country. I commend Eisenhower for doing it. Faubus needed to stand in the schoolhouse door for his own political survival. Words would never have persuaded him otherwise. When we visited the Central High School visitor center and museum that the National Park Service maintains across the street, we were surprised to learn that Faubus was somewhat sympathetic to integration. Sending in the Guard was a “win-win” for all sides, Faubus included.

This one motivated me to read more on Faubus. Sure enough, Orval was a more complex character than first appears. Every account seems to cast him in a different light. While his presentation as the outraged school-segregationist governor was beyond convincing, he had already desegregated public transportation in Arkansas. Was it simply that Orval could abide integration on buses but not for kids in schools, or was the whole thing with Ike and the 101st Airborne just a cleverly choreographed strategy for integrating schools without casualties?

The truth was probably somewhere in between. After all, Orval himself had upped the ante by predicting “blood will run in the streets” if Brown v. Board were enforced, and later closed the integrated school for the ’58-’59 school year.

I, too, commend Eisenhower for doing what he had to do. Neustadt’s central point remains that the most important and impressive power is the power to persuade – even, perhaps especially, for the President of the United States.

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Immigration – Governing With Nods and Winks

Dichotic Listening

One of my memories from college days at Rutgers a long time ago is of occasional participation in studies for nominal pay. One in particular that I recall was conducted by the Psychology Department involving dichotic listening. Through headphones were piped audio tracks from two different sources. The content in the left and right channels had little or nothing to do with each other. I would listen for a while and then answer written questions about what I had retained. Then there’d be more. This went on for an hour or two. It was an interesting enough way to grab a little pizza money.

I mention this because it reminds me of what I experience when listening to the debate we are having, if you can call it that, about immigration. Immigrants are hordes of rapists, murderers and thieves. Turn them away and expel the ones already here.  No, no, they are virtuous, law-abiding, victimized saints. All must be welcomed unreservedly. What’s the problem? As someone with no ties either to the left or the right, as such, I don’t need this dichotic listening. You can’t pay me enough.

Meanwhile, the most important big-picture issue is not being addressed: the disaster that ensues when governing with nods and winks. Refusing to say what we mean and mean what we say when formulating and implementing public policy leads to major, if predictable, problems in this or any area of law.

Nods and Winks

The mess we are in is most attributable to the intellectual dishonesty with which we have approached immigration for decades. We have been governing in this field with a series of nods and winks, which is always a bad approach.

“So, the harvest is over. Before you go back home, do you think you could stick around for a little while? OF COURSE, we all believe in obeying the law [wink, wink] but you’re a good worker and I’ve got this other little project I’d like you to help me with. If you’ll do that for me [nod, nod], I’ll take care of you.”

Then there’s another little job, and another. The next thing you know, it’s harvest time again. Hey, the work got done well, inexpensively, and on time; the workers fed their families; and everyone behaved themselves. Where’s the harm? Let’s do it again.

It’s my understanding that the great majority of “illegal aliens” are people who entered legally but overstayed their visas, rather than those who sneak into the country. As a people, we are less than eager to enforce the letter of the law – until something embarrassing happens. (Those presenting themselves to seek asylum aren’t illegal anythings, by the way, unless they’re turned down and stay.)

One of America’s great contributions to the world is the Rule of Law encompassed in our Constitution. Saying one thing and meaning another in governance is inimical to the Rule of Law.

It is not easy to get a green card legally, and attaining citizenship is downright arduous. Indeed, one of the arguments against creating a shortened path to citizenship is “What about all these good people who took years to do it the hard, but legal, way?” This concern is far from frivolous. It needs to be part of a serious, detailed discussion on the Immigration Policy that is best for the United States.

The problem is that no one seems interested in having the debate we so badly need. Arguing the merits on the complexities of immigration policy is hard work. It is for adults. Expertise would help.

I am far from an expert on Immigration policy. Good arguments can be made on both sides of its many complex issues; that’s what makes it a tough area.

Honing in on Some Realities

General Principle

Like any country, America has a right to determine a policy on immigration in its own best interests, to secure its borders, and to enforce its laws. “Let ‘em in!” is not much of a policy.

Yet, I also agree that we are a nation of immigrants. I’m pretty sure there were no Bossongs on the Mayflower. And, by the way, those on the Mayflower were immigrants.

In truth, we have allowed people to stay because we want them to stay, kinda. We don’t really believe it’s in our best interest to kick these people out, regardless of our stated immigration policies – except when it’s convenient to pretend we do. Then, it’s Law ‘n’ Order, damn it. The nods and winks do not amount to precedent; they can be withdrawn at any time. That’s why they are the opposite of the Rule of Law. What makes nods and winks tempting is what makes them wrong. The phrase “arbitrary and capricious” comes to mind.

The Economy

Our actual collective opinion seems to be that immigrants are good for our economy. The cost of planting, harvesting, cleaning, preparing, and serving food has been considerably less for all of us than it might have been, for example. I gather that there are industries that would verge on collapse in the absence of undocumented workers. For years, I’ve heard people joke that if the (then) INS drove down the middle of Main Street in Anytown, USA with a bullhorn announcing their presence, the town’s restaurants, hotels, dry cleaners, and construction and landscaping businesses, among others, would empty out each business’s back door.

It’s hard not to notice that the President’s business holdings are in industries particularly dependent on such labor for both construction and ongoing operation: hotels, country clubs, restaurants, etc. He is not alone.

While there may be some jobs for which the undocumented provide unwanted competition, the notion of Americans clamoring for the chance to, say, pick fruits and vegetables in the hot sun strikes me as far-fetched in an amusing sort of way. [How’s your son? He’s home from college for the summer, but he couldn’t get that job picking turnips that he wanted.] The job market is generally not the zero-sum game (see post of April 2) presumed to exist at times.

Interestingly, two different columnists in the April 14 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, one conservative and one liberal, made the same point: Our economy is being held back right now by a scarcity of labor at all levels of skill that, given our birthrate over the last few decades, can be satisfied only by immigrants. Trudy Rubin and Marc Thiessen would not agree on much, and they wrote their columns that day for very different purposes, but they agreed completely that the country is not “full”.

Crime

Then there is the criminal behavior issue. Most studies indicate that immigrants are somewhat more law-abiding on average than American citizens. This is hardly surprising, if for no other reason than immigrants are looking to avoid deportation. “Tell that to the family of a person slain by an undocumented immigrant” goes the argument. “Any crime by an illegal alien should not have happened because the perpetrator should not have been here.”

One problem with such argument is that it begs the question of whose presence in the country should be legal. My thesis is the need for policy we believe in enough to enforce. Illegal status is a relatively minor count in the indictment of a murderer – in a minuscule percentage of our senseless murders.

The Discussion We Really Need

Give all interests a seat at the table. Invite the best and the brightest, not the most extreme. Hammer out an Immigration Policy we can enforce with a straight face. It won’t be perfect, and not everyone is going to love it. If it is fundamentally fair and (can I dream?) even a bit wise, we’ll all be better off.

Here’s a proposed outline for an agenda:

  • In general, turn what we really believe and really want into fair, clear, coherent, and enforceable laws and public policies. Sweat the details.
  • Arrive at some reasonable level of consensus on the following: How many new people can this country do a good job of absorbing? Are the categories and priorities of persons considered for admission to the US in the best interests of this country? [Same questions for staying and for ultimately attaining citizenship] What is a fair, humane, and appropriate approach to considering requests for asylum? How arduous should the conditions and process of attaining citizenship be? What are the facts about the danger posed by criminal behavior of immigrants? Is there any reason not to deport or deny admission to genuinely bad actors? (Where do we draw the line between significant and trivial misbehavior?)
  • (Assuming we change laws substantively) create a smooth and rational transition from the old ways (the nods and winks) into the new laws
  • Anticipate, prevent, and solve problems inherent in enforcing the law.
  • Effectively address any genuine security concerns at the borders, or anywhere.
  • Determine if there is ever a reason to separate families. Indeed, is there reason to insist we deal only with entire families when possible?
  • How can we assist newcomers with assimilation (which, notwithstanding the rough ride given to Joe Biden on this subject, remains desirable for all)?

The Discussion We Really Don’t Need

See “Dichotic Listening”, above.

Worth the Effort

If the policies inherent in our current Immigration laws are found to be the best for our country after careful expert consideration, so be it. Let’s set about enforcing them in a fair, even-handed way. That result would be surprising, though, given that our collective behavior has evinced a need for immigration reform for years.

There have been some bad episodes in America’s past regarding immigration. Two immediately come to mind:

  • Being, inarguably and inexcusably, insufficiently open to European Jews seeking asylum from certain death in the 1930s and 40s; and
  • Our mad scramble to handle the Mariel Boatlift in 1980, when Castro unexpectedly announced that any Cuban who wanted to leave could do so. The perception that Cuba emptied its prisons and mental health facilities may have been overstated, but the impression persists that Castro badly outmaneuvered President Carter.

If doing the right thing for its own sake is not enough to motivate us, at least we should look to avoid deep future regret.

We have behaved as if we do not believe in our own Immigration laws for decades. Perhaps we’ve been too busy enjoying the benefits of inexpensive, reliable labor to worry about the niceties of governing with integrity. Or maybe we just haven’t gotten around to fixing this mess we’ve created. Make no mistake, though: the real issue is whether we are going to govern with integrity. However irresistible the posturing may feel, we need to stop this “Us vs. Them” nonsense (February 19 post). Now.

There’s too much at stake.

Ken Bossong

© 2019 Kenneth J. Bossong