Welcome to 1968

Those readers of a certain age will recall that 1968 was a tumultuous year. There were anti-war protests on campuses across the country, a Kennedy running for president, and a riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Well, here we go again. Donald Trump was 22 and a student at the University of Pennsylvania then. On April 26, 1968, one of his fellow Penn Quakers, Kiyoshi Kuromiya, announced that he was going to burn a dog alive using napalm to show the students what napalm is like. Thousands of students showed up. They were handed a leaflet reading: "Congratulations on your anti-napalm protest. You saved the life of a dog. Now, how about saving the lives of tens of thousands of people in Vietnam." Trump graduated in June 1968 and was undoubtedly very aware of all the unrest at Penn and nationally. He is surely aware that the campus turmoil and Chicago riot helped defeat Democrat Hubert Humphrey.

Now Trump is trying to put to use his knowledge that many Americans tend to regard college students who are busy protesting, rather than studying, as spoiled brats, rather than as citizens exercising their First Amendment rights (although setting up tent cities and camping out on campus is probably not covered by the First Amendment the way a march would be). He is seizing on the protests to gin up his base, get them good and angry, and make sure they vote. The pro-Palestinian protests on many campuses, including Columbia, Emory, MIT, Texas at Austin, USC and Yale, are inadvertently helping him, just as the anti-war protests helped Richard Nixon in 1968. In addition, Trump is claiming that some of the slogans the protesters are chanting (e.g., "From the river to the sea, Palestine must be free") are blatantly antisemitic since they are effectively calling for the destruction of Israel. This gives him a patina of moral superiority. The students seem to be unaware that Trump's Middle East policy ("What Bibi wants, Bibi gets") would be far harsher for the Gazans than Joe Biden's.

Trump is arguing that Biden is unable to maintain order or quash lawlessness, so the protests are his fault. Of course, dealing with campus protests is not one of the powers listed in Art. II. Handling them is up to college administrators, campus police and, if called in by the college president, local cops. But many voters don't really grasp the concept of federalism very well.

Other Republicans are also trying to make hay out of the encampments and protests. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) sent 100 state troopers to clear out pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Texas at Austin, resulting in dozens of arrests. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) have demanded that Biden mobilize the National Guard to protect Jewish students. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who would dearly love to be Trump's running mate, said that the protesters are mentally unstable. He tweeted: "You don't get to turn our public places into a garbage dump. No civilization should tolerate these encampments. Get rid of them."

The campus protests have deeply fractured the Democratic Party while uniting the Republican Party, just as in 1968. Being the "out party" is a luxury. You don't have to take any action and are free to whine about what the president is doing (or not doing).

What some of the protesters are demanding is "divestment." This means they are demanding that universities rid their endowments of stock in defense contractors who make weapons being sent to Israel. This is something that feels like a substantive action, but in practice is fairly hollow. The portfolio managers that handle university endowments rarely buy individual stocks these days. They buy index funds that track the S&P 500 and similar ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). These are far less risky and are much cheaper, as well. So in practice, there is no practical way for a university to divest itself of defense companies (or tobacco companies or oil companies). Broad-based index funds cover the entire economy, by design. In addition, even if a university did own some stock in a defense contractor, selling it just means somebody else gets to own it. It doesn't really matter to Boeing if Yale owns a bit of it or BlackRock owns a bit of it. They are still going to sell fighter planes to Israel if the Israelis can pay for them. If they turned away paying customers for political reasons, the stockholders would revolt and management would be cashiered. In fact, if a university does own some stock in a defense contractor, it can send someone to the annual stockholders meeting and make a fuss. Not so if they're not invested in the company.

The only substantive way to change Israel's behavior is to change U.S. policies toward Israel. That means convincing the average voter that policy should change. The median voter is a 50-ish white person who didn't go to college. Are protests on campus likely to change that person's mind in the direction the protesters want? Or will they backfire? We may find out in about 6 months. (V)

Trump Is Worried about a Lake in Arizona

No, he is not concerned about what climate change is doing to Lake Powell or Lake Mead. He is worried that Kari Lake is going to lose her Senate race and drag him down in the process. He is annoyed that she is spending so much time at Mar-a-Lago instead of campaigning in Phoenix. He is constantly asking aides if she can win her race. In addition, he sees her loss as a gubernatorial candidate in 2022 as a weakness, and if there is anything he dislikes, more than being weak... well, we don't know what it might be. She is definitely off his short list of potential veep candidates.

Earlier this year, Lake released a recording of then-GOP-state-chairman Jeff DeWit urging her to stay out of the Senate race. She told him that if he didn't resign, she would release more recordings. He resigned. Trump's reaction to that was: "She tapes everything? That's good to know."

When running for governor in 2022, Lake asked a roomful of attendees if there were any supporters of John McCain present, and if so "get the hell out." Trump is no McCain fan, but his advisers are telling him that the late senator is still popular in Arizona, and without his supporters, she's dead in the water (even in the Arizona desert).

Privately, some GOP senators think that Lake is not a strong candidate against Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). Gallego has $10 million in the bank to her $2.5 million and is flooding the airwaves with ads talking about his military record (he served in the Marine Corps in Iraq). In a state full of veterans, his service to his country is a big plus. Gallego is also a Latino in a state where 32% of the population is Latino (his mother is from Colombia and his father is from Mexico). He is completely bilingual and sometimes holds entire town halls in Spanish.

Another sore point with Trump and many Republican senators is that Lake has made over a dozen trips out of state so far this year in support of other Republican candidates. She says she is a team player and trying to help other Republicans with her star power. Their retort is effectively: If you want to help the team, stay in Arizona and make sure you win your own race. They are far from convinced that she can pull it off.

Still another problem area is the border. Gallego has visited the border many more times than Lake has and has taken one of her key issues and turned it to his advantage. He is constantly attacking Congress for not beefing up the Border Patrol. If he is in Nogales talking about the border and she is off in Ohio campaigning for Bernie Moreno, what message does that send to the voters about their respective priorities? The most recent poll has Gallego up +2 on Lake. In short, Trump and other Republicans are worried that Lake is showboating too much and campaigning not enough. (V)

Where Are Minor Candidates on the Ballot?

Minor candidates, like Robert Kennedy, Jill Stein, and Cornel West, get a lot of attention, but if you can't vote for them, they don't really matter much. Consequently, ballot access is crucial for them. If they aren't on the ballot in the swing states, their effects will be minimal. So how are they doing? Here is a map showing where Robert Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein, and Cornel West will be on the ballot, as of today.

Getting on the ballot in all states is difficult, even for an established small party like the Green Party (GP), which has been around since 2001. Every state has its own laws and these are often different for formal political parties, like the GP, and for independent candidates, like Kennedy and West. In most states, if a party gets on the ballot and meets a specific vote threshold, commonly 2%, it is automatically on the next ballot. If it fails to hit the threshold, it has to start the process all over again. In some states the window allowed for signature gathering is quite short whereas in others it is longer.

Here is a table showing which candidates have actually met the access requirements for each of the swing(y) states. Maine and Nebraska are included since they each have one EV in play. Although the Libertarian Party (LP) is not included on the maps above, it is on the ballot in 37 states and is shown in column 5 below. The LP will select its candidate at its national convention May 24-26 in D.C.:

State	Kennedy	Stein	West	LP
Arizona		Yes		Yes
Georgia				Yes
Maine		Yes		Yes
Michigan	Yes	Yes		Yes
Nebraska				Yes
Nevada				Yes
New Hampshire
North Carolina		Yes		Yes
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin		Yes		Yes

Getting on the ballot is not cheap. Some candidates can rely on volunteers, but only if they have a lot of popular appeal. Kennedy, for example, doesn't have that and is relying largely on paid consultants and paid petition gatherers. He also has paid lawyers who are paid to fight off signature challenges. It has already cost millions and so far he has made it in only three states. This is where his invisible and unknown running mate comes in: She writes the checks.

Of course, this is just a snapshot as of today. All of the candidates are actively trying to get on the ballot in as many states as possible. (V)

Has MTG Been Neutered?

With the House now back in session, it's put-up-or-shut-up time for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). She introduced a motion to vacate the chair before the House went off on spring break, but she didn't make it a privileged motion, so it doesn't have to be acted on now. If she makes it a privileged motion, the House has to vote on it within 2 days. What will she do? Just threaten Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), or finally pull the trigger?

So far Greene and the Freedom Caucus have taken a hard-line stand on everything—and gotten basically nothing. Not on the budget, not on immigration, not on funding for Ukraine. Every time they have threatened to gum up the works, Johnson has made a deal with the Democrats and gotten the votes he needed. This has infuriated Greene and the FC. She has undoubtedly had enough of his dealing with the devil, but the big question is whether MTG has the votes for the MTV.

Some House Republicans think that yet another speaker crisis—the third one this session of Congress—will mostly demonstrate to the country that Republicans can't govern. Others are willing to compromise to get some of their goals. Remember, the first Ukraine bill had a lot of money for border security and Trump ordered Republicans to kill it, which they did. In the end, Ukraine got the money and the Republicans got nothing. Basically, a total win for the Democrats. Rep. Blake Moore (R-UT), among others, is now arguing that getting some of their goals is better than getting none of their goals, but that viewpoint is extremely controversial among conservatives. Many other Republicans think that taking a hard-line stand and never giving in is what it will take to keep their majority.

Johnson is caught in the middle of this. There is simply no way to please Greene and keep the lights on. Any bill written by the Freedom Caucus, even if it passed the House, would die within a microsecond of hitting the Senate. But many members of the FC would be happy with that. They don't see their job as getting bills enacted into law. They see their job as getting on television as much as possible and raising as much money as possible. What's a speaker to do?

And what's Greene going to do? If she fails to pull the trigger and force a vote, she will become neutered. Nobody will take her threats seriously any more. But if she does force an MTV and it fails, she will become a paper tiger. Only if it passes will she retain her power to scare speakers. But given the reluctance of some Republicans to go through a third speak-a-thon this session, she is in a tough spot.

Another factor weighing against an MTV is that there is no speaker-in-waiting who could get the entire Republican conference behind him. Creating a vacancy isn't worth much if you can't fill it. The ball is in MTG's court now. (V)

Seniors Are Not Who They Used to Be

In recent years, seniors tended to vote Republican. Yet Joe Biden is doing well with seniors. What's going on? Have the seniors all forgotten who they are expected to vote for? Actually, no. It makes sense, really. Today's seniors are not yesterday's seniors. Some people's image of a senior is Archie Bunker, the bigoted protagonist of the 1970s hit sitcom All in the Family. Every week he would rage against some "injustice" to people like him or light into some ethnic group he dislikes.

But times change, even if Archie didn't like that. Someone who is now 80 turned 18 in 1962; someone who is now 75 turned 18 in 1967; someone who is now 65 turned 18 in 1977. Many seniors came of age during the Civil Rights movement and the war in Vietnam. Many of them were involved in demonstrations and protests then. Only people older than 83 came of age during the Eisenhower administration, and that is an increasingly small group. Archie Bunker is the wrong model here. Archie's daughter Gloria and his son-in-law Michael are the models for today's seniors.

There are plenty of studies that show once someone hits 30 or so, their political views typically don't change a lot over time unless something fairly radical happens. So it is not surprising that people who came of age during the Civil Rights movement are not going to be as conservative as their parents.

In all, Boomers will make up 70% of the seniors in Nov. 2024, and they are far more liberal than the Silent Generation, which came before them. World War II vets? Anyone who was 18 or older in 1945 would have been born in 1927 or earlier. The youngest ones would be 97. Not a big part of the electorate.

Republican strength among 65+ voters peaked in 2012, when Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama by 10 points. In 2020, Donald Trump beat Joe Biden by only 3 points among 65+ voters. This year, Biden is likely to win that group, in no small part because they want to support the idea that even at 80, a person can be a smart and vigorous leader. (V)

If He Wins, Trump Would Reverse at Least Five of Biden's Climate Policies

Donald Trump thinks climate change is hogwash and says that if elected he will do what he can to reverse many of Joe Biden's environmental policies. He's not kidding. When Trump took over from Barack Obama in 2017, he tried to reverse over 100 environmental protections Obama had put in place. However, due to sloppy legal work, court challenges to some of his plans were successful. Some of the most likely reversals in 2025 are these:

• Encourage fossil fuels: A quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions come from power plants. EPA regulations finalized last week would force coal plants to capture all the emissions or shut down. This will prevent 1.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted. This is what 328 million gasoline-powered cars would emit in the next 20 years. Trump has said he will reverse this and build hundreds of new fossil-fuel power plants. This may be more of a threat than reality. Executives at power companies know that a new plant has to last decades. Spending tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new coal-fired power plant in 2025 only to have President Newsom or President Whitmer shut it down in 2029 is not good business and they know it. It is also the case that coal plants are increasingly not cost-effective, as compared to greener alternatives like solar.
  
  
• Electric cars: Another quarter of emissions comes from transportation. Biden has imposed limits on tailpipe emissions that will ensure the majority of new cars and trucks sold in 2032 will be electric or hybrid. Trump wants to reverse this. Go Gas!
  
  
• The Inflation Reduction Act: Biden got the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars for fighting climate change, passed. It provides many incentives and subsidies for electric vehicles, solar panels, and heat pumps for houses. Trump wants to gut the law. However, that would require an act of Congress, and if the Democrats can hang onto at least one chamber of Congress, they can largely thwart this plan. Another problem is that a lot of solar and wind energy is produced in the Great Plains and West. The states that have benefited from this money may not be keen on losing it.
  
  
• Drill, baby, drill: Biden has approved some oil projects, like the Willow oil development on the North Slope of Alaska, but he has tried to curb offshore oil drilling. He has also protected millions of acres of wilderness from drilling and mining. Trump is sure to reverse that and drill and mine everywhere fossil fuels can be found.
  
  
• Global climate negotiations: As president, Trump withdrew from the Paris Accord. On his first day in office, Biden rejoined the Accord. Trump will certainly withdraw again. This will give the U.S. a reputation as an unreliable partner. If the U.S. kills policies that contribute to fighting climate change, then other countries are likely to do the same.
  

These are just a few of the ways Trump will try to stimulate the use of fossil fuels. The Heritage Foundation is working on a more comprehensive list. Unlike in his first term, when Trump didn't know what to do, in a second term he will hit the ground running. (V)

The Words That Unite and Divide Americans

The pollster Ipsos tested how many Democrats and Republicans have a favorable opinion of various words. On words like "honesty" and "national parks," Democrats and Republicans are largely on the same page. But on words like "billionaires" and "capitalism," there are huge partisan gaps. Here are the results:

The fact that different groups see the same words differently isn't just an interesting tidbit. Political operatives know how to use words to trigger certain voting groups. So a Democratic candidate running against an out-of-state billionaire might emphasize "billionaire" over "carpetbagger." Given a larger list of words and how Democrats and Republicans react to them, it is possible to put together a stump speech that is somewhat manipulative.

It shouldn't be surprising, but a new NBC News poll shows another difference along partisan lines: media consumption. Among consumers of traditional media (newspapers, national networks and cable news networks), Joe Biden leads 52% to 41%. Among people who get their news from social media, Google, and other digital sources, it's Donald Trump 47% and Biden 44%. Among people who don't get any political news, Trump leads 53% to 27%. Also, the less well-informed you are, the more likely you are to support Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (V)

Can the U.S. Be Saved?

A new study from the Rand Corp. suggests that the U.S. is tumbling toward a national decline of the type from which few previous superpowers have ever recovered. The American position is being threatened from both within and without and the decline is accelerating. The left and the right actually agree on this, but they differ completely on the nature of the problem and the nature of a potential solution. That is actually the problem. Throw in an aging population, slowing productivity growth, and the growth of misinformation about everything and you have a toxic soup.

The external threats come from a rising China and a declining respect for the U.S. from dozens of other countries, in part because U.S. policies around the world change with each new administration.

The report cites the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Soviet Union as case studies of dominant powers that failed. Among triggers for failure are luxury, decadence, ossified bureaucracies, military overreach, warring elites and unsustainable environmental practices. Does any of that ring a bell?

Possible solutions would include adopting a problem-solving attitude rather than an ideological one, having good governing structures, and maintaining an elite that looks out for the common good.

It is not hopeless. The report cites two examples where a dominant power did recover. Britain in the mid-1700s was enormously successful. It had built a global empire the envy of every other country. By the middle of the 19th century it was rotting from within. This included the environmental toll of industrialization, the control of politics by a small land-owning elite, and rising inequality. But reform happened, spurred on by people like Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle. That bought another hundred years of greatness.

The second example is the United States after the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. The industrial boom created poisonous inequalities, social and environmental damage, and gross corruption. Then Teddy Roosevelt rode to the rescue on his horse with his progressive politics. That eventually led to women's right to vote, winning two World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement, and a booming economy measured over a period of decades.

The message of the study is that America has the tools to stop the decline but it has to use them. If the only thing we are going to do is fight about wokeness, that is not going to do the job and more decline is inevitable. (V)

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