Podcasts Are Changing Politics Now the Way that Talk Radio Changed Politics in the 1990s

I visited Reagan's Presidential Library about a year ago. I was so struck by the obvious: Reagan had mastered radio and TV before he entered politics. He'd been an radio announcer, then movie star, and then had a radio commentary program before running for office. He was an incredibly effective politician in large part because he had mastered mass media. (He won re-election with nearly 60% of the popular vote and with 98% of the electoral vote.)

He left office with early onset dementia and talk radio came in to fill the gap that this communicator had left. Reagan left office in 1989, the year that Rush Limbaugh's radio career took off.

What talk radio did for politics after Reagan's presidency, podcasts are now doing for politics in the years after Obama's presidency.

Radio fractures attention with lots of ads and artificial deadlines (news at the top of the hour, traffic reports every 15 minutes, etc.). To keep you tuned in, it has to provoke. To get callers, it has to create controversy.

By contrast, podcasts don't have to fit any time slot. The same podcast could be 26 minutes one week and 66 minutes the next, depending on the guest and conversation. No one calls in, so they can explore ideas without feeling the need to make them argumentative. People have time to explain nuance, explore causes, and talk about possibilities. Concise is nice but inadequate for some conversations. Conservatives on talk radio simply have to defend the past and that lends itself to concision; progressives on podcasts are trying to define a new future and that process lends itself to long digressions rather than quick quips. Some issues have taken a long time to develop, will probably take a long time to resolve, and might - just might - take more than 3 minutes to discuss. Oh, and some topics have more than two sides, more than two options for moving forward. Podcasts lend themselves to exploration and not just advocacy and I think they were a big influence on what happened in the 2018 election and what will happen in this year's election.

I enjoy Ezra Klein's podcasts. This conversation of his with Ta-Nehisi Coates is really timely and also a good example of what is possible in a longer conversation that isn't perpetually interrupted by ads and is more intent on manufacturing possibilities than dissent. You may enjoy it.

The Ezra Klein Show: Why Ta-Nehisi Coates is hopeful

A Pandemic of Conspiracy Theories: Why Trump's Followers Feel Like They're Stars in the Truman Show

Ideology lowers IQ about as much as a blow to the head. ISIS, the Nazi Party, the Medieval Church, Stalinist apparatchik, Trump supporters .... every group has people of varying intelligence. But their intelligence is subordinate to the larger group and that means intelligence is channeled into loyalty, not understanding.
There is a stunning number of conspiracy theories running a muck among Trump supporters. All are variants on "MIT, WHO, Gates Foundation, CDC, New York Times, CNN, BBC, the EU, China, (etc., etc.,) are in collusion to control you or profit from you and here is what is really going on ..." First, just from a logistic perspective, getting all of the folks in all of these organizations (these are really, really smart people who really, really pride themselves on original thinking) to agree to fake a global pandemic is inane. In this country alone we can't muster agreement to rebuild crumbling bridges. Second, the conspiracy theories all have the same purpose: undermine the authority of anyone who makes Trump look like the fool he is.
Occam's razor can be explained this way: if you hear hoofbeats, assume it is horses and not unicorns. Go for the simplest explanation. Could it be that experts throughout the world - even the doctors in your local hospital - are conspiring to fake a global pandemic in order to put a microchip in your body so they can track your location? (A conspiracy theory propagated by folks on smart phones with microchips that never leave their person.) Is that possible? I actually think that it's practically impossible given a million things that all have to be aligned to make this true, but let's say, sure, It could be a unicorn.
What's a simpler explanation? Trump has bumbled handling this pandemic from the start and unless he can find a way to discount every expert who might be able to shed light on that fact, he has to take responsibility. He's already done a great job of inoculating his followers from facts by insisting that they stop trusting the mainstream media or twitter or libtard friends and trust only his interpretations. Trump loyalty - as with any true love - demands a level of abstinence from all others, particularly those investigative journalists and so-called experts.
Is the whole world conspiring to make up a pandemic? Are you caught in the Truman show? Or is Trump just a con man? Occam's razor suggests that it's one con man fumbling with a global pandemic rather than a global conspiracy intent on killing millions just to make this one con man look bad.
Are the people who believe these conspiracy theories stupid? Not necessarily. Some of them just want desperately for there to be unicorns. For them this is all a loyalty test. Their revelation won't come from increasing their intelligence. It will come from them simply deciding that its better to be led by simple truths than simpletons.

The Real Story Behind Trump's Adulation of Putin (and why golden showers is a generous explanation)

Trump has been critical - even dismissive - of Reagan and George W. Bush, Obama and Clinton. Meanwhile, he's had nothing but good to say about Vladimir Putin. Trump's Secretary of State nominee, former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, challenged China's claims on the South China Sea in a way that led China's state controlled media to warn that this would led to war between the US and China. War. Mexico's peso has dropped since Trump's election. Trump has never said anything good about the Chinese or Mexicans or tried to appease them. Trump has had only good things to say about Putin and the Russians. Only good. The contrast between how he talks about American leaders and Russia's leader, between how he deals with China and Mexico and how he deals with Russia, could not be more stark.

So why does this matter? Isn't it true that it would be good for the US to get along with Russia, as Trump says? And isn't it an asset that Putin likes Trump?

In fact, it is alarming that Trump is so enamored of Putin.

First of all, Trump has expressed envy for Putin's ability to jail and kill political opponents and critical journalists. You might argue that there is no way that Trump can imitate Putin's dictatorial actions here in the US and I'll say that the very fact that he leans in that direction guarantees that he'll do things no recent president has done. But there is a deeper reason to feel revulsion towards Trump's adulation of Putin.

This is most succinctly captured in the Ukraine's situation.

Eastern Ukraine shares a border with Russia and many of its values. People there watch TV, are fond of strong leaders who don't confuse them with debates and subtleties, they're afraid of the disruption of capitalism and foreign trade and they distrust liberal values that challenge their religion, homophobia and misogyny.

Western Ukrainians aspire to become more integrated with Western Europe, are on the internet, like grassroots movements with all their chaos, uncertainty and debates, yearn for open markets and trade, and prefer science and minority rights.

Putin clearly wants the whole of Ukraine to again be under his influence. He's already invaded the Crimea, claiming that he has a right to do that because people there like him better. In July, the same month in which he won the Republican nomination, Trump stated that he would recognize the Russian "annexation" of Crimea, leaving the invasion unchallenged. A month later, the Trump team made only one change to the Republican platform, leaving everything else untouched. Their only change? They removed a pledge from the Republican Party to provide military assistance to the Ukrainian government against the rebels in the East, rebels supported by Putin.

Trump is doing everything Putin would want while continuing to praise a man Marco Rubio recently suggested was a war criminal (citing not only the massive number of civilians Russian bombs have recently killed in Syria but the 300,000 citizens Putin killed in Chechnya years ago). I actually think the notion that he's doing all of this because the Russians are blackmailing him over sexually compromising videos is one of the more generous interpretations of why he's so enamored of Putin. For people who really like the West and its direction over the last 500 years, the idea that our new president shares their appreciation for Western values but doesn't want people to know about his sexual perversions is a better explanation than that he thinks more like Eastern Ukrainians than Western ones.

I don't know if the Russians are blackmailing Trump. I think it's scarier if they are not, if the real explanation is that Trump truly prefers Putin's model of governance to that of Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama's. He's already shown contempt for a free press that would challenge him and expressed an on again, off again desire to "lock up" the woman who dared to run against him. He's got a narcissistic personality and sense of himself as uniquely special; these two qualities alone make him more like dictators than the traditional American president.

Will we ever find out whether Trump's actually being handled by the Russians? That outcome would actually make me feel more relieved than what I currently suspect: Putin doesn't have to do anything but be Putin to win Trump's admiration and friendship.

There is a Japanese proverb that translates to, "When the character of a man is not clear, look at his friends." Out of 200+ world leaders, Trump has already made it clear which one he feels a special affinity for. That should scare everyone more than sexual perversion.

California vs. West Virginia: A Question About Which Direction the Country is Heading

Even some of my California friends had posted things like, "If you subtract California from the national vote, Trump won the popular vote." My counter to this is, "If you subtract the former confederacy from the national vote, Clinton won by 6.5 million votes."

Apparently there are folks threatening to boycott California because the state is out of sync with Trump nation. Such sentiments inspired this tweet:

Trump won by his biggest margin in West Virginia, by 42.2%. Clinton won by her biggest margin in California, by 30.4%. Let's compare those states and consider what it means to dismiss California as a place that is out of touch with the rest of the country.

California ranks third for median household income.

West Virginia ranks 49th.

California is the most populous state in the union. In 1950 it had 10.7 million and now it has about 40 million, nearly 4X as many. The simple fact that California has grown so rapidly is testament to its ability to create jobs.

West Virginia had 2 million people in 1950. Today it has 1.8 million, a drop of 10%. West Virginia has not been able to create jobs or even a net gain in population.

If you believe that people just are who people are, you might think that it makes sense that West Virginia would register a protest vote against the status quo. It's had trouble in this new economy and of course those poor people will vote for change. But if you believe that people are who their institutions are - if you believe that we're defined by our culture, schools, media, government, policies, and prevailing norms - then it is a terrible thing to follow the lead of a place like West Virginia. Why? Because the policies and norms it has chosen has made its people less able to thrive in the modern economy. History shows us that it's not how hard people work or who they are genetically that determines how prosperous they are. It is, instead, the systems they work with and within. Incomes were 6 to 8X higher in 2000 than they were in 1900 in spite of the average workweek dropping from 60 hours to 40. Incomes weren't higher because people were "better." They were higher because people learned, worked in, and were able to use better systems. If you believe that people can't change, than West Virginia was right to vote for different policies and leaders than California; if you believe that people can change and there is no intrinsic reason that West Virginia can't be as prosperous as California than it's a terrible thing that the nation is now going to follow after policies West Virginia voters think sound great rather than the ones that Californian voters think would be great. West Virginia's thinking doesn't make its people as prosperous as California's.

Here are just a few fundamental issues that Californians would find alarming in Trump's policies that apparently comfort West Virginians: immigration, free trade, and free religion.

California has the largest share of foreign-
born people, West Virginia the lowest. 

Trump wants to limit immigration, both legal and illegal. California is a land of immigrants. About 40% of Silicon Valley startups have at least one foreign founder. On a personal note, I was working with a startup on Google's campus this year and one of the departments (robotic sensors) had five people from five countries: the US, Iran, Italy, Poland, and South Korea. It's a global economy and California doesn't just sell to customers from all over the world, it hires and partners with people from all over the world.

Trump has chastised Apple for manufacturing its iPhone in China. He doesn't really like free trade and has threatened to levy a 35% tariff against Mexico and a 45% tariff against China. This could easily start a trade war. (Does anyone believe that other countries will merely pay huge tariffs and allow the US to continue to sell into their markets without levying an offsetting tariff? How naive do you have to be to believe that?) But it also misses the point. 75% of iPhones are sold outside of the US. Apple is headquartered in the US but it is an international company with an international product, customers, suppliers and partners. This is true of most of the products coming out of Silicon Valley, from Intel's chips to Uber's app.

Finally, Trump wants to limit the immigration of Muslims. This is a special kind of exclusion that is not only anti-constitutional (read the first amendment to be reminded that Congress shall pass no law regarding religion) but shows a complete confusion about where creativity comes from. Trump knows which religion is right and which is not. Really creative people don't even know which process is best or which theory will hold up for a century or will be dis-proven tomorrow. Freedom of thought - freedom to question or challenge established "truths" is fundamental to creativity. It's no accident that the free speech movement began in Berkeley just as the computer revolution was beginning. Freedom of religion is elementary compared to the freedom of thought needed to create new scientific theories, new social paradigms, new technologies, new businesses and new business models.

California has given birth to blue jeans, the Hollywood that generates TV shows and blockbuster movies, and a music industry that gave us acts like the Grateful Dead and the Eagles. It's been the source of so many cultural and business trends.  The most defining "industry" in California is Silicon Valley, a place that gave us Apple, Facebook, Intel, HP, Twitter, the internet, and venture capitalism. The most defining business in West Virginia is coal mining.

To this day we revere the ancient Greeks yet their golden age was only a century or two. Socrates died in 399 BC and Aristotle died in 322 BC. It was during the century or so around their lives that so much of what we know of their inventions - from philosophy to math to theater and democracy - emerged. It was an incredible time that the Greeks experienced only for awhile even though the world has felt its impact for the thousands of years since.

If this move towards West Virginia and away from California proves defining of the country's future, the US will go the way of other great and defining communities in history. We will have had our time and so much of what has come out of the US in the last century in particular is likely to continue to define the world in the way that the Athens of 4th century BC continues to define the world to this day. Civilization continues to carry forward the great inventions like money and democracy, even if it fumbles and drops them from time to time. It builds on what came before. Evolution - biological and social - doesn't throw away so much as build on. In that sense, the US of the 20th century will likely be with civilization for millennia to come. What isn't certain, though, is whether it will - like modern Greece - become just another also-ran as some other community becomes the innovators who we all follow with some odd mix of envy, reluctance, and excited mimicry.

For now, swing voters in the US have decided to follow the lead of a state that hasn't invented a new industry since coal mining in the 1740s rather than a state that is even now incubating industries as different as self-driving cars and genetic engineering. It's chosen to try going back to an earlier time when jobs were being created for coal miners rather than for entrepreneurs. If Trump is successful at creating such jobs it means that we'll be going in the direction of the 1700s rather than the late 2100s. That should be a sobering thought.

Confusing Business and Economics

After the USSR collapsed, a lot of American business people and economists went to Russia to help. My own impression was that the American business people were of little help because all of their experience came out of the American economy and the American economists were of little help because they could assume American business people.

There are a number of differences between economics and business but one is fairly simple.

A business person is successful if they rise to the top. They don't necessarily have to create anything but they can expand more rapidly or drive costs down by scaling up or whatever. If you are successful it doesn't matter whether your competition or suppliers or employees become wealthy as well or are crushed.

An economic policy is successful only if the community prospers. Not even everyone, necessarily, but certainly the median or average. If wages and wealth for 40 year olds in 2000 is double what they were in 1980, then the economy has done well.

The emphasis is very different.

Business success is for the individual. It's competitive. You want to do well and it's the rare person who can worry about the whole community or even industry and their place in it. You try to win market share. (I know. Some focus on creating markets and market share. That's wonderful but it isn't necessary for business success.) In business, you can succeed in a zero-sum game.

Economic success is for the whole. Good economic policy shows no regard for who ends up on the top or the bottom but instead just measures itself by how much better life is for those on the top and the bottom. Economics is variable sum; some policies create more for most people and some policies only benefit a few.

Which brings me to Trump. He came to fame with the Art of the Deal. What is that? It's an approach to negotiating that will get you more than the other guy. Your business practices leave suppliers short-changed? Force bankers and investors to accept pennies on the dollar for loans? Result in employees losing their jobs? Oh well. The only question is whether or not you got a good deal. Whether you - as the individual - came out ahead.

It's no wonder that Trump puts so much emphasis on trade with China and Mexico and other countries. He likes the idea of getting a better deal. By contrast, he says almost nothing about policies that would actually grow the economy. (Or, more precisely, nothing coherent or credible. For instance, his website has a healthcare plan. What is the plan? To "replace Obamacare with something terrific." That's the plan. In its entirety.)

Business and economics certainly overlap but they are not the same thing. Showing that you can come out on top of the group is not the same as showing that you can make things better for the group.

Today Trump asked of America's trade deficit, "Who negotiates these deals?" suggesting he doesn't understand trade deficits and expect to walk up to the "trade deficit" counter on day one of his presidency to demand a better deal. He's talked about getting the country's debt re-negotiated (as he has with his own debt), suggesting he doesn't understand triggers for international financial crises. No reputable economist has approved of his economic plan and many have claimed it's likely to trigger a recession.

It's perfectly consistent to say that Trump knows how to get rich and would be a disaster for the economy. His failure at economics seems as certain as his success at marketing.

Now That We've Convinced You That All Politicians Are Liars, We'd Like to Offer You the Best Liar - a Really Terrific Liar

Republicans: I'd like to borrow the country.
Democrats: Again? It didn't turn out so well last time when you borrowed it.
R: As if you're any better.
D: Well you did total the country, the global economy, and leave the Middle East in turmoil.
R: None of that was my fault.

Today - 26 September - Donald Trump leads in the polls.

I do think that one thing Republicans have succeeded in doing is in making cynicism about government seem like sophistication. "All politicians are liars" is a wonderful way to excuse the worst candidates from any responsibility. There is now an argument about whether it matters that a politician repeatedly lies. 

It is an odd place that we've come to. Trump lays out incoherent policy that thumbs its nose at the constitution, expert opinion, and common decency and gets a break because everyone says, "Well, he will never do that." Clinton lays out a coherent policy and gets criticized because, "She will never do that."

Good policy that comes from the same ideological (and literal) family tree as the policy that helped to make the 90s so prosperous is discounted because we can't trust what Clinton is saying. 

Why can't we trust Clinton? Because all politicians are liars.

Bad policy that is inspired by reaction to talk radio and Fox news is discounted because we can't trust what Trump is saying.

Why can't we trust Trump? Because all politicians are liars.

Given all politicians are liars, we don't have to do the hard work of actually thinking about the policy or so-called facts. Instead of using our brains we can just use our guts. 

---------------

Politifact tracks statements made by the candidates, rating them from "pants on fire" to "true." 13% of Clinton's statements earn either a "pants on fire" rating or a simple "false." 13%. Trump? It's 53%. Over half the statements he makes can't be trusted. 

Will Hillary's Campaign Strategy Make the Country More Polarized?

Today's NY Times has an article about Hillary Clinton's probable strategy, written by Jonathon Martin and Maggie Haberman. Bill Clinton went after (and won) states like Kentucky whereas Barack Obama focused on fewer states with an agenda that had less broad-based appeal. It seems that Hillary will be more like Obama in this regards, focusing on rallying more liberal voters rather than appealing to more moderate swing voters. The fear is that Democrats in the neglected states will be less likely to win local elections and even the ones who do win a place in Congress are going to be less able to relate to the folks across the aisle. Which is to say, it could cause more gridlock, not less.

The quote that summarizes the thinking behind Hillary Clinton's strategy is here:

“The highest-premium voter in ’92 was a voter who would vote for one party some and for another party some,” said James Carville, Mr. Clinton’s chief strategist in 1992. “Now the highest-premium voter is somebody with a high probability to vote for you and low probability to turn out. That’s the golden list. And that’s a humongous change in basic strategic doctrine.”

The real question is whether this is a capitulation to the reality of a more polarized electorate or if it is just going to exacerbate this polarization. In either case, it seems like a reminder that Hillary is more pragmatic than idealistic, less about changing voters's minds than winning office.

Tax Rates in Perspective

Just a dose of reality, for those of you still in the mood for such things. In a list of 34 of the most economically developed countries in the world, the US has the fifth lowest tax rate. Three of the four lower are Mexico, Turkey, and Chile - with per capita incomes of about $15,000 or less. Those hardly seem like good models for what Americans aspire to. 

Metaphors are Like a Bad Idea and Stuff (or, why the Government is not like a household)

Metaphors are more like poems than mathematical equations. Love is like a heat wave is easy to rhyme, but it collapses under scrutiny.

Governments are like a household and have to live within their means is a metaphor and while it makes something complicated seem simple, it, too, collapses under scrutiny. (When do we reach the retirement phase of our government is like a household and all stop working? And why can't we be like other families and just sit down to a pleasant dinner some day without all this arguing?)

There are lots of dangers with this metaphor as a substitute for thought. The most obvious is that if a government behaves like a household, it just makes things worse.

Any household with good sense will spend lots when it is making good money and will act more frugal when times are tight. If mom gets laid off, we buy our clothes at Goodwill instead of the mall. If mom gets promoted, we travel to the Caribbean instead of Phoenix. This makes perfect sense.

Governments are different. Remember Joseph's first job out of prison, working for the Pharaoh in a role akin to Prime Minister? He got that job by interpreting the Pharaoh's dream and warning him that Egypt would have 7 years of prosperity and then 7 years of famine. His advice was to save a portion of the corn every one of the good years and then dispense it out in the bad. Joseph basically told the Pharaoh to act completely backwards from what a household should. When times were good, save and be frugal, Joseph said. When times were bad, raid the storehouse and spend more liberally. This works.

Now the opposite of Joseph's advice would be what we've seen in the advice of talk show hosts in the last 10 years or so. When employment rates were low and the economy was growing, they cheered government tax cuts and the onset of wars that increased spending. Like a household, it made sense to them that government would act flush when the economy was relatively flush. But this was not such a great thing. For one thing, the government stimulating an already growing economy helped to create one of the biggest housing bubble in history. Now, when times are bad, the radio talk show hosts are saying that the government should tighten its belt. Most states have already done that and eliminated government jobs, adding to job market woes. We might yet escape a double-dip recession, but it will - best case - be one of the slowest and weakest recoveries on record. By contrast, China and South Korea engaged in far bigger stimulus (as a percentage of GDP) and came off of a far more fiscally conservative period before the global recession and already those economies are growing at a multiple of ours. A recession is no time to be worrying about a deficit.

So, when government is run like a household and ignores Joseph's advice, boom times become bubbles and bad times become busts. (Every depression in the US followed a time of paying down federal debt. Read more in this great article by Jim Luke.) When the private sector is again thriving, it would (contrary to intuition) be a good time to raise taxes and cut government spending, reducing the deficit. For now, though, the deficit is an abstract problem that can be deferred for a year or two. Sure, we're spending down the storehouse of corn now but you do that in bad years.

The government is no more like a household than love is like a heat wave. But still, it is your turn to do the dishes.