Silence, Signifying Much

On Monday night, President Trump sicced the US Army on peaceful, law-abiding citizens. Therefore, this is a critically important set of questions (asked pre-Mattis), whether rhetorical or otherwise:

Where is Congress? Where is the Supreme Court? Where are the mayors and governors? Living former presidents? Where are the university presidents, foundation heads, religious leaders, corporate leaders, union heads, editors and publishers? All must stand up to Trump’s madness.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) June 2, 2020

There are a few mayors, governors, and Episcopal leaders in the Washington, D.C. area speaking up, at least on CNN and MSNBC. And now there is former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who has issued a statement in which he remarked

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

A New York Times editorialist is hopeful:

One way to read the Mattis piece, and other recent criticism of the president, is that people are beginning to conclude that standing with Trump is a losing bet. If he stays down in the polls, we're going to see a lot of people rediscovering their principles in the coming months.

— Binyamin Appelbaum (@BCAppelbaum) June 4, 2020

That's not likely. After Donald Trump had served more than three years in the White House, 52 of 53 GOP senators voted not to convict him of abuse of power and 53 of 53 voted to acquit him of obstruction of justice. Even now, they are silent about the President's effort to ignore SARS-CoV-2 while destroying democratic institutions and American prestige abroad.

Betting the sunk-cost fallacy is itself a fallacy, they are all in on their leader, fearing that if he goes down, they do, also. But what excuse do Democrats have?

On Wednesday, former President Barack Obama gave a speech about the protests across the USA and said this about President Trump:

Nothing. He said nothing. In a speech with even less substance than most he has given since leaving office, Barack Obama said nothing.  Nothing.

Oh, there were words, 14 minutes and 50 minutes of them, well strung together as always. The evening before, his successor had threatened to send the military into American cities, decided to walk across Lafayette Park to stand in front of a  church to hold awkwardly a book he has never read. He then denied it was a photo-op. Still, Barack Obama did not mention the name "Trump." He did not utter the word "President." He did not even suggest that the presumptive nominee of his party, Joe Biden, would not have an Attorney General who would engineer....

President Obama did, amidst all evidence to the contrary, try to convince us that God is in his heaven and all is fine with the world, especially when he claimed

There is a change in mindset that’s taking place, a greater recognition that we can do better. That is not as a consequences speeches by politicians. That’s not the result of spotlights in news articles. That’s a direct result of the activities and organizing and mobilization and engagement of so many young people across the country who put themselves out on the line to make a difference.

Better than what, he did not enlighten us. However, the former President did seize the opportunity to take a dig at the news media, without which we wouldn't know about those young people he professes to admire. Yet, he assiduously avoided questioning the leadership of President Trump. It's almost as if the speech was not about the protests roiling the nation but about Barack Obama and avoiding angry tweets from the incumbent.

When Obama speaks, liberal pundits and establishment media swoon.  Practically no one questions the brilliance of his vision (an exception, here). When Robert Reich and Binyamin Applebaum and so many others- justifiably- lament the failure of Republicans to question President Trump, we need to acknowledge that Democrats also know how to give blind allegiance.

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Free Speech, Maybe

Signs are everywhere.

Politico'a Rachel Blade has found "that Capitol Hill Republicans have papered over their not-insignificant policy differences with Trump, shying away from any statement about the president-elect that might possibly be construed as critical." One example she cites is how

In early December, Rep. Bill Flores made what seemed like an obvious observation to a roomful of conservatives at a conference in Washington. Some of Donald Trump’s proposals, the Texas Republican cautioned, “are not going to line up very well with our conservative policies," though he quickly added that there was plenty the incoming president and GOP Congress could accomplish together.

Little did Flores realize the hell that would soon rain down from Trump's throng of enforcers.

Breitbart seized on Flores' remarks a few days later, calling them proof that House Republicans planned to “isolate and block President Donald Trump’s populist campaign promises.” A conservative populist blogger for the site TruthFeed then warned Flores on Twitter to "get ready for a shit storm," and posted a headline that read: “BREAKING: Rep. Bill Flores Has CRAFTED a PLAN to BLOCK Trump’s Immigration Reform.”

Sean Hannity jumped in, too, featuring the Breitbart post on his syndicated radio show. That only further riled the impromptu anti-Flores mob.

"@RepBillFlores get in @realDonaldTrump way & we will burn your career down until you are reduced to selling life insurance,” tweeted one person. "@RepBillFlores you can go hang yourself!!" another wrote.

Most Republicans understand what they're dealing with in Trump and his supporters:

It's a novel form of party message discipline that stems from Trump but doesn't necessarily require the president-elect to speak or tweet himself. Plenty of others are willing to do it for him.

Evidently, many cautious Republicans have taken out a kind of inexpensive life insurance policy in which

Since the election, numerous congressional Republicans have refused to publicly weigh in on any Trump proposal at odds with Republican orthodoxy, from his border wall to his massive infrastructure package. The most common reason, stated repeatedly but always privately: They're afraid of being attacked by Breitbart or other big-name Trump supporters.

Little seems to have changed from early in the campaign, when at a rally in Texas the future President stated

I have respect for Jeff Bezos, but he uses the Washington Post to have political influence and I got to tell you, we have a different country than we used to have. He owns Amazon, he wants political influence so that Amazon will benefit from it. That’s not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems, they are going to have such problems.

Trump probably can take little anti-trust action against Amazon, and most likely has little interest in doing so. But he already has signaled that he's going after the press. Robert Reich on Democracy Now! recently explained

There is no reason to believe that the Post's reporting turns upon Jeff Bezos's concern about Amazon and any antitrust issues. But, you see, by creating this kind of conspiracy theory or this kind of paranoid notion about the press and planting it in the public’s mind, the public, or at least a portion of the public, is led to think that anything that The Washington Post, or another paper whose credibility the president-elect tries to undermine, says is [not] justified or is [not] true. And again, that is terribly dangerous in a democracy....

He’s signaling to the press that he also has the power, whether it’s antitrust or it is the IRS or the FBI or whatever, whatever he is going to be directly or indirectly in command of, he is also signaling to the press that he has that kind of power.













President Trump will have the armies to do it. What the Secret Service is unable, unwilling, and legally barred from doing, the President may be able  to accomplish with his

private security and intelligence team at his victory rallies, and he is expected to keep at least some members of the team after he becomes president, according to people familiar with the plans.

The arrangement represents a major break from tradition. All modern presidents and presidents-elect have entrusted their personal security entirely to the Secret Service, and their event security mostly to local law enforcement, according to presidential security experts and Secret Service sources.

But Trump — who puts a premium on loyalty and has demonstrated great interest in having forceful security at his events — has opted to maintain an aggressive and unprecedented private security force, led by Keith Schiller, a retired New York City cop and Navy veteran who started working for Trump in 1999 as a part-time bodyguard, eventually rising to become his head of security.

A President with his own private security force? That can be especially effective when you've claimed the media "poisons the mind of the American voter" and your rallies have been characterized by supporters who have "flipped middle fingers and lashed out in tirades often laced with profanity" at journalists who are present.  Not yet in power, he has merely asked for "equal time" because he was ridiculed in a comedy skit; significantly, not for himself but "for us," as if all his supporters had been maligned.

As a candidate, he developed a blacklist of news outlets and accused The New York Times and The Washington Post of being "dishonest." "They're going to have a lot of problems," he promised, and stated he would "open up our libel laws" so "we can sue them and win lots of money."

Fortunately, Trump's series of Nuremberg rallies- uh, er, "Thank You Tour"- has ended. However, as U.S. Representative Mark Sanford, wary of the President-elect's propensity to demand unquestioning fealty, has said, "Free speech is one of the hallmarks of our republic. If people are afraid to say what they think based on fear of reprisal.... that's not free speech."

Giving A Leg Up To Trump

The Orlando Sentinel reports  

Frustrated supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders were dealt a series of defeats as they made their last stand Saturday inside an Orlando hotel, where fellow Democrats refused to adopt several of their candidate’s progressive policies into the party’s platform.

Though they reached some compromises, the ongoing tension between the party’s progressive wing and supporters of presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton was clear throughout the two-day meeting of the Democratic National Platform Committee at the DoubleTree at Universal Orlando.

Early in the day, the committee refused to add language rejecting the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which left Clinton-backers applauding and some Sanders supporters streaming for the exits.

US News explains

The panel, which is developing the party's platform ahead of next month's Philadelphia convention, instead backed a measure that said "there are a diversity of views in the party" on the TPP and reaffirmed that Democrats contend any trade deal "must protect workers and the environment."

Given that Bernie Sanders is a staunch, outspoken opponent of the TPP and Hillary Clinton a few months earlier finally was shamed into coming out against the deal (as it stands), this is stunningly vague- and self-defeating.

Monday evening on Hardball, Sam Stein reported that the primary opposition to the anti-TPP plank came not from representatives of Hillary Clinton but from Obama supporters.  That is quite plausible because

On trade, Obama has promoted the TPP despite opposition from rank-and-file Democrats. Members of the panel said it would be wrong to undercut the outgoing president in the platform.

"What I don't want to do is leave this place disregarding the position of the President of the United States," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a Clinton supporter who noted his opposition to trade deals.

President Obama's position shouldn't be disregarded or ignored; only repudiated.








Donald Trump, who has denounced the agreement (without specifying his reason for opposition) no doubt is pleased that the Democratic Party has served him a big, hanging curve.The Party's tepid, meaningless plank (if approved in Philadelphia) will be no match for the vociferous criticism the Republican presidential nominee has leveled. He will be at his demagogic best when he not only rebukes Mrs. Clinton, but blames her for the Trans-Pacific Partnership itself.  The phrase "national sovereignty" may become as familiar as "terrorism."

Barack Obama is not on any ballot this November, and he will be unscathed. It will be left to Hillary Clinton and her surrogates to defend the nearly indefensible

That will not be helpful, and could prove the decisive factor in Ohio, Michigan, and/or Pennsylvania. The Sanders camp was right both on the policy and the politics. The platform committee, however, seems less interested in keeping the presidency and retaking the Senate than in sparing Barack Obama's feelings (video below from 6/15).

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Economically Homogeneous Diversity

Politico was not invented to infuriate, but it does so with regularity. And so it was that one of its reporters, Rachel Bade, would unironically write

Ryan's choice of words — that there are "lots of questions" about Trump that conservatives want answered, "myself included" — suggests that his stand might be partly or even mostly a calculated attempt to try to mold the unwieldy nominee into one who thinks and acts more like the speaker.

Trump, for instance, has pitched banning Muslims from the country — an idea Ryan says is the antithesis of America’s founding. Trump is anti-trade, while the speaker thinks free markets are simply good economics. And then there were those quips about Hispanics and his initial refusal to reject white supremacist David Duke’s support of his candidacy — which flew in the face of Ryan’s efforts to diversify the GOP base.

Implicit in this analysis is that Donald Trump should not only adjust his speech to the more respectable tone characterized by the Speaker of the House, but his politics to that of the conservative mainstream.

Paul Ryan, it is assumed, wants "to diversify the GOP base," though besides a few kind words about Muslims, evidence of  this intent is lacking. Dean Baker explains that the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of Speaker Ryan's latest budget proposal

shows Ryan's budget shrinking everything other than Social Security and Medicare and other health care programs to 3.5 percent of GDP by 2050. This is roughly the current size of the military budget, which Ryan has indicated he wants to increase. That leaves zero for everything else.

Included in everything else is the Justice Department, the National Park System, the State Department, the Department of Education, the Food and Drug Administration, Food Stamps, the National Institutes of Health, and just about everything else that the government does. Just to be clear, CBO did this analysis under Ryan's supervision. He never indicated any displeasure with its assessment. In fact he boasted about the fact that CBO showed his budget paying off the national debt.

In a speech in late March, Ryan remarked "in a confident America" people "don't question each other's motives." "Yet," Paul Waldman observed, "for some reason it always turns out that the first thing on the GOP's priority list is tax calls for the welathy, followed closely by lightening the regulatory load on corporations and undermining collective bargaining."

"We should compliment Paul Ryan for  seeking a kindler, gentle debate," Waldman acknowledged, and the Speaker's recent statements refusing to endorse Donald Trump enthusiastically or immediately reflect his interest in a national debate free of  the bombastic vitriol characterizing the presumptive candidate's rhetoric. Still, whether it be his tax and spending policy, regulatory notions, or faith in the free trade which has destroyed a multitude of jobs, the only diversity Paul Ryan is looking for is a kindler, gentler face on the 1%.

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President Obama Does Something Right

It was back in November on his Facebook page that Clinton 42 Labor Secretary Robert Reich credited business owner Nick Hannauer with the idea that

By executive order the President could raise the salary level at which employers are required to pay employees time-and-a-half for every hour worked beyond 40 hours a week. In 1975, more than 65 percent of salaried workers qualified for such overtime pay, and the threshold for receiving it was $69,000 in today’s dollars. But since then the value of the threshold has eroded to $23,660, so just 11 percent of salaried workers now qualify. If Obama raised the threshold back to the same standard we had in 1975, and everyone earning up to $69,000 got overtime pay, 

President Obama might as well have been listening because on Tuesday good news came when we learned

a long-awaited overtime rule from the US labor department would more than double the threshold at which employers can avoid paying overtime, from $455 a week to $970 a week by 2016. That would mean salaried employees earning less than $50,440 a year would be assured overtime if they worked more than 40 hours per week, up from the current $23,660 a year....

To keep up with future inflation and wage growth the proposal would peg the salary threshold at the 40th percentile of income, individuals familiar with the plan said. They requested anonymity in return for discussing the proposal ahead of the official announcement. The president has been scheduled to promote the proposal during a visit on Thursday to La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Obama’s proposal aims to narrow a loophole that the president has long said some employers exploit to avoid paying overtime.

Employees who make above the salary threshold can be denied overtime if they are deemed managers. Some work grueling schedules at fast food chains and retail stores, but with no overtime eligibility their pay may be lower per hour than many workers they supervise.

The existing salary cap, established in 2004 under George Bush, has been eroded by inflation and now relegates a family of four making just above the cap into poverty territory. Obama has long charged that the level is too low and undercuts the intent of the overtime law.  

"In this country, a hard day's work deserves a fair day's pay. That's at the heart of what it means to be middle class in America," wrote the President Monday for the Huffington Post. Thanks to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (and especially to fast-track, which will assure the TPP and future trade deals will be bad for American workers), fewer Americans will experience that middle class feeling. But for today at least, the President, with the new overtime rule he prompted, has given the middle class a major break or as Reich (his video from May, below) put it Tuesday, "a bit of good news for hard-working Americans."










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Ask Trump, And Everybody

Donald Trump wouldn't like Robert Reich's suggestion.  Among the reforms former President Clinton's labor secretary advocates for reducing income and wealth inequality is lowering the threshold for estate taxation (video below).  He explains

Today the estate tax reaches only the richest two-tenths of one percent, and applies only to dollars in excess of $10.86 million for married couples or $5.43 million for individuals. 

That means if a couple leaves to their heirs $10,860,001, they now pay the estate tax on $1. The current estate tax rate is 40%, so that would be 40 cents.

Yet according to these members of Congress, that’s still too much. 

Abolishing the estate tax would give each of the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent of American households an average tax cut of $3 million, and the 318 largest estates would get an average tax cut of $20 million.

It would also reduce tax revenues by $269 billion over ten years. The result would be either larger federal deficits or higher taxes on the rest of us to fill the gap.

This is nuts. The richest 1 percent of Americans now have 42 percent of the nation’s entire wealth, while the bottom 90 percent has just 23 percent. ...

Adjusted for inflation, the estate tax restored to its level in 1998 would begin to touch estates valued at $1,748,000 per couple.

That would yield approximately $448 billion over the next ten years – way more than enough to finance ten years of universal preschool and two free years of community college for all eligible students.









Yesterday, Donald Trump essentially invited questions about his position on the estate tax, given that he emphasized

And I have assets -- big accounting firm, one of the most highly respected -- 9 billion 240 million dollars....

And I have liabilities of about $500 million (ph). That's long-term debt, very low interest rates.

In fact, one of the big banks came to me and said, "Donald, you don't have enough borrowings. Could we loan you $4 billion"? I said, "I don't need it. I don't want it. And I've been there. I don't want it."

But in two seconds, they give me whatever I wanted. So I have a total net worth, and now with the increase, it'll be well-over $10 billion. But here, a total net worth of -- net worth, not assets, not -- a net worth, after all debt, after all expenses, the greatest assets -- Trump Tower, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Bank of America building in San Francisco, 40 Wall Street, sometimes referred to as the Trump building right opposite the New York -- many other places all over the world.

So the total is $8,737,540,00.

He wasn't bragging, please understand, because he added "Now I'm not doing that... I'm not doing that to brag, because you know what? I don't have to brag. I don't have to, believe it or not."

Each candidate, Democratic or Republican, should be asked about the estate tax and (in one form or another) the other nine ideas Reich has.  No Repub genuinely interested in being nominated would support raising the estate tax, which would be instructive, as it would be if any Democrat were to oppose increasing the levy.





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Globalization On Steroids

Politico reports the Obama Administration is pushing hard for trade promotion authority, which would

would expedite the passage of trade deals by letting Obama submit the final agreements to Congress for an up-or-down vote, without amendments. That authority is viewed as key to wrapping up two giant agreements — the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 11 Asia-Pacific countries, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the 28 nations of the European Union — because other nations would have the assurance that Congress won’t undo any concessions included in the deals....

“We share same values and are looking out for the same people,” Obama said in response to a question from Washington Rep. Derek Kilmer, who said he was still undecided despite his state’s dependence on trade.   

If Kilmer's votes on Keystone XL are any indication, there is little indication who the people are the congressman is looking out for. But we can figure out who the President is looking out for and what his values are.   The TPP has been negotiated in secret, but Robert Reich (his video, below) explains

What’s been leaked about it so far reveals, for example, that the pharmaceutical industry gets stronger patent protections, delaying cheaper generic versions of drugs. That will be a good deal for Big Pharma but not necessarily for the inhabitants of developing nations who won’t get certain life-saving drugs at a cost they can afford.

Similarly, Dean Baker finds "stronger patent protection is also likely to further disadvantage US workers as increased royalty payments for patents will crowd out exports of goods, reducing manufacturing employment in the United States."

The Trans-Pacific Partnership harms not only healthcare consumers but also American taxpayers, with Reich continuing

The TPP also gives global corporations an international tribunal of private attorneys, outside any nation’s legal system, who can order compensation for any “unjust expropriation” of foreign assets.  

Even better for global companies, the tribunal can order compensation for any lost profits found to result from a nation’s regulations. Philip Morris is using a similar provision against Uruguay (the provision appears in a bilateral trade treaty between Uruguay and Switzerland), claiming that Uruguay’s strong anti-smoking regulations unfairly diminish the company’s profits. 

Baker notes "most of the deal is devoted to creating a uniform and largely business friendly regulatory structure. It creates special courts for businesses to sue governments outside of the normal judicial process."

Growth will slow and purchasing power decline with the higher prices for prescription drugs and other protected products., Baker adds.

It is disappointing and unsettling that the Obama Administration has negotiated with little transparency a deal jeopardizing employment, consumers, taxpayers, and national sovereignty. Joseph Stiglitz points out that the agreement (its parties displayed in map below) is "a race to the bottom" which is "only one aspect of a larger problem: our gross mismanagement of globalization." Of course, most Republicans, disposed to oppose everything Obama, are on board.

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The Man Of Bad Ideas Has Another One

It may be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Or it may be as Karoli of Crooks and Liars puts it, that "Robert Reich would know better than to call this a "serious proposal if it were actually Reich on that program. No, this was his evil twin Skippy..."

Robert Reich says he was "frankly very impressed" and Paul Ryan's proposal "deserves a careful look by Democrats"  It may be an evil twin, because otherwise we have to conclude it's the same Robert Reich who understands

simply having a job is no bulwark against poverty. In fact, across America the ranks of the working poor have been growing. Around one-fourth of all American workers are now in jobs paying below what a full-time, full-year worker needs in order to live above the federally defined poverty line for a family of four.

The Ryan plan would consolidate 11 federal anti-poverty programs into one program coordinated on a state-by-state basis. It also would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, in part by eliminating other programs of the social safety net,such as The Social Service Block Grant, the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Program, the Economic Development Administration, and the Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. 

More controversially than robbing Peter to pay Paul, each recipient of aid would sign a contract and 

each state will approve a list of certified providers that are held accountable for providing quality service and achieving results (such as moving people to work, out of poverty, and off of assistance).

Next, a person will select a provider, and the provider will conduct a comprehensive assessment of that person’s needs, abilities, and circumstances. 

Then, the two of them will develop a customized plan to address the recipient’s needs. The plan could take the form of a contract—with sanctions for failing and bonuses for exceeding expectations. The plan would offer financial assistance to address immediate needs, like food, clothing, child care, and housing. But it would also work on setting goals, learning skills, and developing a broader support system.

Slate's Jamelle Bouie, however recognizes 

the idea that life skills are necessary to climb out of poverty—that the poor are plagued by low income and bad habits—doesn’t jibe with the facts on the ground.

Mandatory life coaching makes sense if most poverty is persistent and generational. Even with federal assistance, adults with little-to-no market income—and little experience in the workforce—are at a long-term disadvantage and likely to pass those barriers on to their children. But poverty in America is fluid; depending on the season, the unstable nature of market work may force a period of personal retrenchment.

It's not surprising that the scheme hatched by the right-wing chairperson of the House Budget Committee is paternalistic, nor that it entails a major expansion of government bureaucracy, necessitated by the notions of a comprehensive assessment, customized plan, setting goals and "developing a broader social system."  But Ryan may be thinking long-term, strategizing to effect a radical reduction in assistance to the nation's increasingly large block of poor, and working-class, people. Max Sawicky explains

the common theme throughout the report is to convert Federal programs into block grants. A block grant is a fixed pot of money provided to a state or local government for broadly-defined purposes. Ryan’s report is at pains to assert that the conversion would not entail spending cuts. This could not be further from the truth.

The story goes back to the days of Richard Nixon. I told it here. I was not the first to figure out the deal. The short version is that a program or programs converted to a block grant is being set up to wither away. Block grants are designed through formulas to grow slowly or not at all, despite the likelihood that whatever the included programs were aimed at typically costs more to deal with every year. There are also two malignant political dynamics at work. One is that Congress doesn’t like to spend money without a say in what happens to the money. Block grants transfer control to state governments. They have the fun of spending the money, Congress has the fun of raising the taxes to pay for it. The other is that the more vague — “flexible” — the purposes of the grant, the less focused is its political support.

State officials are always happy to play this game because the money is front-loaded. In the initial years the grant is close to what they were getting before, and by the time the grant shrinks, they will be out of office anyway.

The transfer of program responsibility from the Federal government to the states is known as devolution. It is the standard way of attacking domestic spending for social purposes, going back to Richard Nixon’s dismantling of the original, more interesting War on Poverty launched by Lyndon Johnson.

Paul Ryan still believes most people are struggling because of their own faults, possibly their culture.  But this is a country whose largest employer (Wal-Mart) raked in $17 billion in profits two years ago while paying its typical worker, a sales associate, an average of $8.81 an hour, or approximately $18,300 per year. Or as Digby observes

Ryan wants to "help" the poor the same way conservative have always wanted to help them --- by giving them the "tough love" of making their lives even worse than they already are. If they want "help" they can go to a church and pray to their God and maybe they'll get a sandwich. 

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Junk Food Debacle


The broadcast media division of the Republican Party has wasted no time blaming unions for the closing of Hostess' factories and plans tosell of its brands and liquidate the company.   Media Matters noted

Martha MacCallum, co-host of Fox News' America's Newsroom, introduced a segment on the Hostess bankruptcy by saying the company is "blaming a worker's strike for crippling their ability to make and deliver their products." At the end of the report, co-host Bill Hemmer blamed the coming job losses at the company on "a labor dispute," suggesting that the union had put "18,000 jobs on the line." MacCallum said the employees were "paying dues to the union and then the union won't make a deal." 

Rush Limbaugh never misses an opportunity to blame workers and claimed

Yeah, I'm gonna talk about Hostess.  You know what, 18,500 people gone, Hostess Twinkies, Ding Dongs, shut down.  Some people might think it's a buy opportunity if you want to get in the Ding Dong business.  But folks, if you need an indication that the Democrats will never compromise on anything, look at this.  Hostess is going out of business because of unions.

While Rush deftly, without evidence or logic, simultaneously blames unions and the Democratic Party for corporate failure, Dean Baker sets us straight, explaining

Hostess has been relying on pretty much the same mix of products for decades. While other companies have sought to adjust to changing consumer tastes, Hostess still gets the vast majority of its revenue from a relatively small number of products that it has been selling in largely the same form since the sixties. This failure to innovate was the main reason that the company first went into bankruptcy in 2004.

Hostess remained in bankruptcy for five years until it was brought out of bankruptcy in February of 2009 by Ripplewood Holdings, a private equity company. Remarkably, it exited bankruptcy with nearly $670 million in debt, almost 50 percent more than the $450 million it owed when it went into bankruptcy.

Usually companies use bankruptcy to shed debt. With Hostess the opposite was true. This meant that Ripplewood was taking a heavily leveraged gamble. If the company survived, it would get a very high return on its investment. However there was a strong likelihood that the company would not be able to make it given its extraordinary debt burden and the weakness of the economy.

Ripplewood first asked workers for concessions in August of 2011. The workers refused since they had made substantial concessions in 2008 to facilitate the exit from bankruptcy. The concessions did not prevent layoffs of close to 20 percent of the workforce. The company also had stopped making payment to the pension fund in July of 2011 and is now more than $160 million in arrears.

Ripplewood took the company back into bankruptcy in January of this year, owing close to $1 billion. It has used bankruptcy to impose new contract terms on workers. This is the immediate cause of the current impasse, with the bakery workers’ union refusing to accept the reductions in pay and benefits and changes in work rules demanded by management.

Workers had several important issues to consider beyond just the prospect of working for less pay and under worse conditions. First, and most importantly, there was little reason to have much confidence in the current management team. They had done nothing to turn the company around in the three years since the last bankruptcy and there was little reason to believe that they would do any better going forward.

Accepting new concessions would provide no guarantee of job security. In fact, management wanted the unions to agree to the closure of 10-12 plants (of its choosing) as part of a new contract. This means that many of the company’s 18,000 workers would soon have been laid off even if the workers had accepted management’s terms.

Second, management was not shy about rewarding itself in spite of the company’s poor financial condition. The CEO upped his annual pay to $2.25 million and other top executives got raises of 35-80 percent. This doesn’t seem like the behavior of management that puts the survival of the company first.

Third, the financial situation of the pension has to be a top concern for workers. While the pension is guaranteed by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, the guarantee for multi-employer plans like the one at Hostess is limited. If the plan were to become insolvent then many workers would see large cuts in benefits.

From this standpoint, if Hostess were to continue to put off contributions to the pension and allow it to become badly underfunded, then workers could be looking at sharply reduced pensions in retirement. Workers who are approaching retirement age may view this prospect as a far greater danger than the risk of losing their job at this stage in their career.

Limbaugh blames AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka for maintaining "What’s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what’s wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor.  Crony capitalism and consistently poor management drove Hostess into the ground, but its workers are paying the price."   After a campaign in which the Democratic candidate rarely criticized venture capitalism and his most effective (other than Chris Christie) surrogate, Bill Clinton, unsurprisingly completely avoided the issue, it's downright pleasing to hear someone defend unions and workers by highlighting the recklessness of "job creators."  Months ago, Robert Reich illustrated how it works in the world of venture capitalism:















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Ay, Tis The Rub



Politico's Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman are not alone in believing

The kickoff presidential debate Wednesday in Denver is shaping up as do-or-die time for Mitt Romney, with the pressure intensifying this week after a flurry of swing-state polls showed President Barack Obama opening up a sizable lead.

Republicans, fretting about dwindling days for Romney to turn around his campaign, fear that if their nominee doesn’t come away with a decisive first-debate victory, he’ll continue to spiral downward and lose his last, best shot for a comeback.

The fear among donors and strategists: a break-even or so-so performance would subject Romney to a self-reinforcing cycle of criticism and pessimism in his own party that will send other Republicans fleeing and make it difficult for Romney to project a closing argument against Obama over the drumbeat of why-are-you-losing questions.

So the Mile-High face-off has gone from merely important to critical for a challenger in need of a break.

“It went from being important to being life-sustaining,” said GOP pollster Steve Lombardo, who worked for Romney in 2008. “Both from a fundraising perspective, to keep the money coming, and just a political perspective it’s huge. Romney can’t just do well and hold his own — he has to win and win decisively. If he’s at parity with the president, I don’t think that’s enough.”

There is, however, evidence from the past and simple common sense to indicate instead that of the three presidential debates, the one with the most lasting impact is likely to be the last.   Blogging about presidential debates, TV critic Eric Thurm reminds us that in 1984

The first debate went uncharacteristically poorly for Reagan. The president flubbed answers to Mondale’s charges that he wanted to cut entitlement spending and seemed out of his element. He spoke softly and unconvincingly on questions about a “secret plan” to balance the budget by the end of his second term. The medium of television, which in 1980 made Reagan’s personable nature and overwhelming charisma deadly for Carter, took its toll as the president aged. Mondale was perceived to have won, though not effectively enough to seriously change the tide of the election. Reagan, however, was under pressure because of his age (73, older than any other sitting president before or since), which suddenly became an issue in the campaign.

Reagan delivered a rambling closing statement or, as described here,  "displayed some confusion over closing statements, reinforcing for many viewers questions about his advanced age and his ability to govern for four more years."   But that did little to close the gap between the two candidates and merely piqued voters' interests in the second debate.

At the following, and last, debate, Reagan was asked

Mr. President, I want to raise an issue that I think has been lurking out there for 2 or 3 weeks and cast it specifically in national security terms. You already are the oldest President in history. And some of your staff say you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall yet that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?

He famously responded

I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.

Game, set, match.  The initial debate had whetted the interest of individuals who had, and who had not, watched the face-off and suspected that the incumbent was suffering from dementia or was simply too old to continue in the job.   Voters tuned in to the second debate to determine if their concerns were real, decided (probably incorrectly) they were not, and the election turned into a rout.

If any of the debates has a lasting impact on the election, it is likely to be the last, in which the impression of the candidates will be freshest in the minds of the voters.  Still, none of the debates is likely to have as significant an impact on the election as have presidential debates past, in part because of the substantially greater knowledge of both candidates possessed by the electorate in an age in which news, analysis, and opinion, from the center, left, and the right,  from both traditional and non-traditional sources, is far more widespread than in the past.

The idea that Mitt Romney's only remaining shot at gaining the White House is in the debates reflects a misunderstanding within the mainstream media of the burden he bears.   The resistance to reality is even more prevalent on the Republican right, which refuses to understand that its radical ideas are being rejected, preferring to blame the impending loss on one individual whom it never has trusted.  As Robert Reich explains

The Republican primaries, and then the Republican convention, have shown America a party far removed from the “compassionate conservatism” the GOP tried to sell in 2000. Instead, we have a party that’s been taken over by Tea Partiers, nativists, social Darwinists, homophobes, right-wing evangelicals, and a few rich people whose only interest is to become even wealthier.

These regressives were there in 2000, to be sure. They lurked in the GOP in the 1990s, when Newt Gingrich took over the House. They were there in the 1980s, too, although Ronald Reagan’s sunny disposition gave them cover. In truth, they’ve been part of the GOP for more than half a century — but never before have they held so much sway in the party, never before have they called the shots.

The second view about Romney’s decline also explains the “negative coat-tail” effect — why so many Republicans around the country in Senate and House races are falling behind. Scott Brown, for example, is well-liked in Massachusetts. But his polls have been dropping in recent weeks because he’s had to carry the burden of the public’s increasing dislike of the Republican Party. The same is true with regard to Republican senate races in Florida, Virginia, and every other battleground state. 

Romney’s failing isn’t that he’s a bad candidate. To the contrary, he’s giving this GOP exactly what it wants in a candidate. And that’s exactly the problem for Romney — as it is for every other Republican candidate — because what the GOP wants is not at all what the rest of America wants. 

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Be Very Careful


Robert Reich notes

A half dozen fact-checking organizations and websites have refuted claims by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan that President Obama removed the work requirement from the welfare law and will cut Medicare benefits by $716 billion. The New York Times even reported that Romney has been "falsely charging" Obama with removing the work requirement.

The Romney camp, however, responded "We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers."   In the world of Randian free-enterprise fantasy, success is proof of virtue, and the GOP's brazenly dishonest campaign reportedly has proven effective among white voters.

Approximately one-third of the nation's children, as well as growing numbers of pregnant women, disabled individuals, and adults in nursing homes receive their health care through Medicaid.  Nevertheless, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, as reflected in his budget proposal as chairman of the House Budget Committee, and presidential nominee Romney both support converting Medicaid into a block grant program that would provide states a set amount of money to spend annually on health care services for poor.  Ezra Klein explains

Ryan cuts nearly $1.4 trillion from Medicaid over the next 10 years. That’s a 34 percent cut to the program’s expected spending over the next decade. Those cuts, unlike the cuts to Medicare, are specific, and they begin immediately. Estimates from the Urban Institute suggest that if those cuts are made, about 30 million people could lose their health insurance.

Oh, and Ryan repeals the Affordable Care Act. That’s where some of his Medicaid cuts come from, but that also knocks out all the subsidies for lower-income Americans to get health insurance. So that’s another 15 million people without health insurance. So under Ryan’s budget, about 45 million people would lose health insurance they otherwise would’ve gotten.

Ryan’s budget cuts $134 billion from food stamps, which is enough to kick 8-10 million people off the program.

Ryan cuts $166 billion from the portion of the budget that houses our education, training, employment and social services funding. We don’t know exactly how he’d apportion those cuts, but the documents he’s released suggest a big chunk of them are going to hit Pell grants.

Moreover, everything we know suggests Romney’s on the same page as his running mate.It’s important to remember that Romney’s budget is much, much more aggressive than Ryan’s. It’s less specific, so it gets less attention. But it’s much more aggressive. Ryan’s got about $5.3 trillion in cuts. Romney’s looking for $7 trillion. And he’s not keeping Ryan and Obama’s Medicare savings. And he’s increasing spending on defense by much more than Ryan does. So to pay for that defense spending and make up the Medicare cuts, he needs about $1.5 trillion more in cuts from the non-Medicare, non-defense side of the budget than Ryan has.

Last Wednesday, Bill Clinton emphasized the danger posed by the Medicaid plan to the middle class. While noting it is "going to really hurt a lot of poor kids," he added

But that's not all. Lot of folks don't know it, but nearly two-thirds of Medicaid is spent on nursing home care for Medicare seniors -- who are eligible for Medicaid.It's going to end Medicare as we know it. And a lot of that money is also spent to help people with disabilities, including -- a lot of middle-class families whose kids have Down's syndrome or autism or other severe conditions. And honestly, let's think about it, if that happens, I don't know what those families are going to do.

To Newt Gingrich, Obama is "the food stamp president."   To Mitt Romney, Obama is the fellow who wants to hand out welfare to people who don't want to work.   To Rush Limbaugh, his "entire economic program is reparations."

Not surprisingly, then, the evening after Bill Clinton slams the GOP for targeting a program providing health care for poor people (young and old a few in the middle), Barack Obama says this about Medicaid:




Nothing. In over 1300 days in office, a Democratic President refuses to mention the poor, or even his opponents' plan to undermine popular and successful government program serving their needs.  During this election cycle, and in an address to convention delegates touching on a wide range of issues, Medicaid is off-limits.

One does not, in polite company, say:   Barack Obama is black, and he is inadequate as President.   And if you are the first black President, you do not go around and defend Medicaid or the concept of welfare.  He tiptoes around the issue, as he must, and leaves it to a former (Caucasian) President to ask for a little compassion for poor children- but mostly for others.   We've come a long way, baby.



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Hold The Applause, Please


Last night, the Canadian-born former Michigan governor and current Current (yes, current Current) TV host Jennifer Granholm offered a commentary entitled "Obama, Thank You for Keeping the Golden Door Open."    She exhibited impressive shortsightedness when arguing that the decision addressing the opportunities of children of illegal immigrants the President announced (transcript, here) yesterday "addresses our nation's biggest dilemma, which is economic growth."

By contrast, on Tuesday, Robert Reich, rarely if ever right (wing) but invariably correct, had noted

Can I say this any more simply? The earnings of the great American middle class fueled the great American expansion for three decades after World War II. Their relative lack of earnings in more recent years set us up for the great American bust.

Starting around 1980, globalization and automation began exerting downward pressure on median wages. Employers began busting unions in order to make more profits. And increasingly deregulated financial markets began taking over the real economy.

You won't get any of this from the  leading liberal/progressive blogs or journalists today.     Not from Reich.   Nor Glenn Greenwald.    Nor Charles P. Pierce.   Nor Daily Kos, which even offers a petition to sign supporting the Administration's decision.   Nor, especially, the Center for American Progress, the de facto media arm of Organizing for America.

Today, they will not be writing about globalization or automation- or offshoring, outsourcing, privatization, or withering criticism of government employees.    They will not point out that (as did Robert Oaks a few months ago) there officially are 3.39 unemployed individuals seeking work for every job available, with a ratio of 6.07 to 1 if we use a broader definition of unemployment.     While they pause to praise the President's decision, they will, for the time being, also stop writing about Republican class warfare while the GOP continues its (largely successful) effort to pit the poor against the working and middle classes.

Nor will they remind us of the 2010 Survey Of Consumer Finances released this past week by the Federal Reserve Board, which "provides insights into changes in family income and net worth since the 2007 survey."   It found (as the chart below, from the Federal Reserve Board via the economicpoplist.org, indicates)

the median value of real (inflation-adjusted) family income before taxes fell 7.7 percent; median income had also fallen slightly in the preceding three year period (figure 1).    The decline in median income was widespread across demographic groups, with only a few groups experiencing stable or rising incomes.   Most noticeably, median incomes moved higher for retirees and other nonworking families.

Median net worth (chart from the Federal Reserve Board via economicpopulist.org) fell dramatically despite rising for retirees and other nonworking families- the Americans who derive their income from outside the employment sector.
    

  


Continuing a 30-35 year trend (interrupted periodically), median family income declined despite rising for retirees and other nonworking families- the Americans who derive their income from outside the employment sector.        For individuals competing for jobs, the trend is clear, and downward, as reflected in the decline of middle-income private sector jobs as a share of total employment, graphically depicted by the decline of the empire.com:

Admittedly, those factors- including "free" trade, automation, privatization, off-shoring, outsourcing,  privatization, a stagnant minimum wage, and union busting- usually celebrated by conservatives play a greater role in the destruction of the job market, downward pressure on wages, and subsequent decline of the middle class than does immigration, legal or illegal. And, today (June, 2012) as Granholm assumes, our biggest "dilemma" might in fact be economic growth.

Still, at some point the economic slump will be in our rear view mirror with politicians, pundits, and media all cheering a roaring economy.    All factors, including illegal immigration, will continue to take their toll on jobs and wages, with most ignored by the right, and illegal immigration by the left.  




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A Minor Objection From Obama


No doubt you've read about, or heard, President Obama's brutal attack on Bain Capital and the free enterprise system when he defended his campaign's comments about the aforementioned company.   Obama explained

The reason why this is relevant to the campaign is that my opponent, Governor Romney, his main calling card for why he thinks he should be president is his business experience. He's not going out there touting his experience in Massachusetts. He's saying, I'm a business guy, and I know how to fix it, and this is his business.

And when you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, your job is not simply to maximize profits. Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot. Your job is to think about those workers who get laid off, and how are we paying for their retraining. Your job is to think about how those communities can start creating new clusters so they can attract new businesses. Your job as president is to think about how do we set up an equitable tax system so that everybody's paying their fair share, that allows us then to invest in science, and technology, and infrastructure, all of which are going to help us grow.

And so if your main argument for how to grow the economy is "I knew how to make a lot of money for investors," then you're missing what this job is about. It doesn't mean you weren't good at private equity. But that's not what my job is as president.

My job is to take into account everybody, not just some. My job is to make sure the country is growing not just now, but 10 years from now, 20 years from now.

If that wasn't vicious enough, the Socialist-in-Chief later reiterated

My view of private equity is it is set up to maximize profits.   And that's a healthy part of the free market. That's part of the role of a lot of business people. That's not unique to private equity.      I think there are folks who do good work in that area, and there are times where they identify the capacity for the economy to create new jobs or new industries.

Democratic (the identification here used very loosely) Senator Mark Warner of Virginia echoed the President's statement, remarking (according to Talking Points Memo)

Bain Capital was a very successful business.     I think they got a good return for their investors. That is what they were supposed to do. I think when you’re in public life, though, what you’ve got is a different time horizon. The notion that everything in government is exactly the same way that it is in business, they’re different time horizons when you’ve got to invest for the long haul, when you actually do the kind of early stage investing, whether in preschool, whether it’s in K-12, whether infrastructure, that doesn’t pay back quarter to quarter.

Warner spokesman Kevin Hall told TPM there is, as the latter put it, "no daylight" on the issue between his boss and Obama.

Of course there isn't.   Warner, unoficially a Blue Dog Democrat, one thought to be interested in the 2016 presidential nomination, could hardly have been offended by the President's endorsement of rapacious corporate practices.

And endorse Bain Capital he did.    The problem, according to Obama, isn't the debt the private equity firm routinely created for the companies it took over.    Nor is it the individuals fired so as to finance the debt, nor the salaries reduced and the pensions often eliminated for the workers who remained.    And it certainly isn't the millions Mitt Romney and the Board of Directors scooped up as they were destroying companies.

No, none of that.    It is, well, simply not the place of a President to make millions.   That is better left to companies like Bain, which apparently provide a socially worthwhile service to the country.    Romney, in this framework is among those "folks who do good work in that area" who "identify the capacity for the economy to create new jobs or new industries.  

It was kind of President Obama to vouch for his opponent's efficiency and effectiveness.Obama differs only in noting that Mitt Romney and other heads of Bain perform a different function, assume a different role, than does the President of the United States.  

Still, Mitt Romney wasn't satisfied.   Responding to the President's remarks, the presumptive GOP nominee issued a statement maintaining

President Obama confirmed today that he will continue his attacks on the free enterprise system, which Mayor Booker and other leading Democrats have spoken out against....

So Barack Obama nods and winks at Wall Street, assuring the 1% that Mitt Romney and the type of firm he headed are (in 1960s lingo) just Swell.   Neat.    Cool.   We don't wish any offense- looting is merely not what a President does.    Then Romney accuses Obama of attacking the "free enterprise system," an odd description of marauders periodically destroying companies while reaping millions, assisted by government subsidy (video below).

Admittedly, it's a little difficult for President Obama to be terribly critical of Mitt Romney when he himself is raising dough from private equity executives.      Still, Romney's extreme response- slamming an opponent for "attack(ing)" free enterprise when the latter is defending it- suggests that mild, tepid questioning of the opposition will get the Obama campaign nowhere.    It must respond in kind, and slamming politicians who became multimillionaires on the carcasses of American companies would be a good place to start.







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Nothing Like Running Companies Into The Ground


Don't blame David Gregory, not for offering up the question that begged to be asked.    On yesterday's Meet The Press (segment here from Crooks and Liars), Gregory repeated a talking point of the GOP and especially of the Romney campaign, when he asked Vice President Biden "The argument is, "Why not give somebody who's got-- a real background in business to try to turn it around?"

The query gave Biden an opportunity to repeat Obama campaign talking points, which have the advantage of being accurate:       Obama upon taking office faced the nation's worst-ever recession; if the "jobs bill" had been passed, a lot more teachers, firefighters, and police officers would have been been (re-) hired; when Romney was governor, Massachusetts ranked 47th of 50 states in job creation; Romney saved companies only "by piling debt on them."

Whoa, let's go back to that one.    Accumulating debt and firing workers is Romney's specialty.    In the video below, Robert Reich describes how private equity firms feed at the public trough while amassing millions for their executives.    David Waldman applies this scheme to the Repub candidate by explaining

Romney borrows money to buy a majority stake in a company, takes over its board of directors, and uses that position to vote Bain a fat management contract, and take out the biggest loans possible from the company's bank. That money goes to pay back the people who put up the money for the purchase, as well as giant bonuses for Bain managers. But now the company has a huge debt to the bank (the interest on which is, of course, tax deductible), which the Bain managers sorta-kinda attempt to pay back by cutting payroll, benefits, investments in equipment, etc. Basically anything they can find to transfer the pain to anyone other than themselves.

Pete Kotz explains how Bain Capital eviscerated one company during the fifteen years Romney led the company:

James Sanderson had encountered a rare moment of industrial harmony. It was the early 1990s, and the 750 men and women at Georgetown Steel were pumping out wire rods at peak performance. They had an abiding trust in management's ability to run a smart company. That allegiance was rewarded with fat profit-sharing checks. In the basement-wage economy of Georgetown, South Carolina, Sanderson and his coworkers were blue-collar aristocracy.

"We were doing very good," says Sanderson, president of Steelworkers Local 7898. "The plant was making money, and we had good profit-sharing checks, and everything was going well."

But that was before Bain (figuratively) came to town because Romney's

specialty was flipping companies — or what he often calls "creative destruction." It's the age-old theory that the new must constantly attack the old to bring efficiency to the economy, even if some are destroyed along the way. In other words, people like Romney are the wolves, culling the herd of the weak and infirm.

His formula was simple: Bain would purchase a firm with little money down, then begin extracting huge management fees and paying Romney and his investors enormous dividends.

The result was that previously profitable companies were now burdened with debt. 

Georgetown Steel was about to run headlong into class warfare, GOP-style, as

Bain would slash costs, jettison workers, reposition product lines, and merge its new companies with other firms. With luck, they'd be able to dump the firm in a few years for millions more than they'd paid for it.

But the beauty of Romney's thesis was that it really didn't matter if the company succeeded. Since he was yanking out cash early and often, he would profit even if his targets collapsed.

Which was precisely the fate awaiting Georgetown Steel.

When Bain purchased the mill, Sanderson says, change was immediate. Equipment upgrades stopped. Maintenance became an afterthought. Managers were replaced by people who knew nothing of steel. The union's profit-sharing plan was sliced twice in the first year — then whacked altogether.

"When Bain Capital took over, it seemed like everything was being neglected in our plant," says Sanderson. "Nothing was being invested in our plant. We didn't have the necessary time to maintain our equipment. They had people here that didn't know what they were doing. It was like they were taking money from us and putting it somewhere else.

Hmm.    And where might that "somewhere else" have been?      Kotz notes

History would prove him correct. While Georgetown was beginning its descent to bankruptcy, Romney was helping himself to the company's treasury.

That's great, because as David Gregory says people are saying, what Washington really needs to restore a bustling economy with good-paying jobs is a businessman like Mitt Romney in charge.








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The Romney Vision


Reflecting on the upcoming Labor Day holiday, Robert Reich Reflecting on the upcoming Labor Day holiday, Robert Reich noticed "Big American corporations are making more money, and creating more jobs, outside the United States than in it" while CEO pay has "soared" and " the ratio of corporate profits to wages is now higher than at any time since just before the Great Depression." Soon afterward, Politifact grudgingly conceded "Reich's claim is essentially correct."

Little has changed in the succeeding five months, though private sector employment has risen, which no Republican dares admit.        President Obama has extended the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy and the struggling alike while the overall, combined tax rate of Americans is lower than at anytime in the past half century.

And so the leading GOP presidential contender continues to campaign sans substance, as Joe Scarborough noted this morning on the cleverly named Morning Joe ("powered by Starbucks!").            Earlier this month, Mitt Romney charged 

President Obama wants to make us a European style welfare state, where instead of being a merit society we're an entitlement society, where government's role is to take from some and give to others.     What I know is if they do that, they'll substitute envy for ambition,and they'll poison the very spirit of America and keep us from being one nation under God.

Romney was on message, having late last year boasted

Let me make this very clear.    As President of the United States, I will devote myself to an American Century.      And I will never, ever apologize for America....

I believe we are an exceptional country with a unique destiny and role in the world.      Not exceptional, as the President has derisively said, in the way that the British think Great Britain is exceptional or the Greeks think Greece is exceptional.    In Barack Obama's profoundly mistaken view, there is nothing unique about the United States.

There is little if no substance there, mostly generalities and platitudes, bereft of facts or figures and not even advancing a cogent argument.          Not surprisingly, columnist Eugene Robinson finds that Romney's "core message" seems to be "yes, I made a ton of money.      You got a problem with that."     (The second part would sound more natural, though, coming from Romney's prime surrogate, Chris Christie.)         

Robinson concedes that Romney may successfully adapt his message and defeat Obama.       But perhaps unaware that he has shifted his argument, he concludes of the candidate "what he doesn't seem to have is a compelling narrative about the kind of America he envisions and the road he will take to us there."   

There is no roadmap- winning candidates generally avoid specifics- but there is a compelling narrative about the kind of America the former governor envisions. Borrowing from the Pledge of Allegiance,  it's "one nation under God." Romney, unlike that acolyte of Jeremiah Wright, believes in God- however strange his religion may seem to many voters.         And practically every American professes to believe in God, however he or she may define, or defy, the deity. 

America is the best (exceptional) anywhere and deserving of an "American century"- us and us alone!        Romney hints at a nation based entirely on merit which, many non-minority citizens believe, once existed.  In a nod (which no one will recognize as such) to political correctness, Romney takes a swipe at Europe, which most Americans, including Donald Rumsfeld, don't especially like- and which is economically distressed currently.           

Blacks and Hispanics, roughly as patriotic as the rest of the country, may nonetheless may be less enthusiastic about claims of exceptionalism and uniqueness.      This is of little significance, however, given that the base of the G.O.P.  is white and the party's opportunity to tap into minority support is somewhat limited with Barack Obama on the ballot.       

This is not strictly, or even primarily, a racial appeal, though the reference to "take from some and give to others" is an echo- however subtle- of Newt Gingrich's "food-stamp president" knock on the first black Chief Executive.        Meanwhile, the Village might find in Romney's skepticism of an "entitlement society" a helpful skepticism about Medicare and Social Security.      To most Americans, who intuitively recognize those programs as earned benefits, "entitlement" has a different implication.        And that is especially so when when contrasted with "merit," which itself is considered in many minds incompatible with affirmative action, a bugaboo among many white Americans.

In a throwback to a theme adopted, and dropped, by the 2012 McCain campaign (video below), the objective is to paint the candidate himself as a traditional American patriot, godly, and even macho- never, ever apologizing for America.  (In Republican fantasy, Barack Obama always apologizes, never mind Osama bin Laden, Muammar Ghaddafi, and Somali pirates.)        In this formulation, Mitt Romney will be a conventional American president, like we used to have before this strange guy somehow got elected.         Romney doesn't have to say that he is white, was born and raised in the American heartland, and doesn't practice radical religion.         (A more overt message would be objectionable to the media and the vast majority of citizens.)       The voter understands- and little else matters.

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