Month: December 2024

The discourse is suddenly alive with revived talk of how the public turned against Joe Biden because of his mental incapacity. In particular, they hated being gaslit: told he was fine when the evidence of our eyes told us otherwise. However, there are some problems with this theory. Here's the first one:

Biden's approval rating dropped to under 40% by the end of 2021 and never budged by more than a couple of points after that. But that was long before serious concerns about his fitness began to stir. The evidence suggests the public turned against him because of inflation and Afghanistan and not much else.

Other polls had long showed slight unease with Biden's age, but again, that barely changed during his entire presidency. It was there from the start and never got worse until the very end.

Second, all the inside dope we're aware of suggests Biden was mentally fine all the way through the start of 2024. Only at that point did insiders start to notice deterioration, and Biden put their doubts temporarily to rest with his strong State of the Union address in February.

Only the next few months were dicey, finally ending with a decisive vote of no-confidence only after Biden's disastrous debate performance in late June. Biden's approval did drop a bit during this period, but then rebounded when he pulled out of the race. This is a little hard to parse. Did voters continue to harbor a small amount of resentment over the "Biden charade" or was everything forgiven and forgotten after Kamala Harris took over the reins?

It's hard to say with any precision, but the evidence suggests that Biden's fitness had, at most, only a tiny impact on the race.

Another one of the sand dunes near sunset at the Cadiz Dunes Wilderness in the Mojave Desert.

The Washington Post says people are "scrambling" to buy cars, appliances and other big-ticket imports before Donald Trump takes office and puts tariffs on everything. These kinds of stories are usually based on super thin anecdotal data, but maybe there's something to this one:

There's no telling what's really driving this, but auto sales started to rise in October and are now about a million units above their recent average. As it happens, though, this is mostly due to seasonal adjustments: dealers aren't really selling more cars, but they're selling more than they usually do in November. But I guess that counts.

There's trouble brewing for Pete Hegseth. Apparently the Armed Services Committee takes seriously the nomination of someone to head up our armed services:

At least a dozen senators are pushing to see the FBI’s background check on Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s embattled pick for Pentagon chief — a rare move for the committee that oversees his confirmation and a sign the former Fox News host still faces hurdles in the Senate.

....Senators have various motives for seeking the report. Some Republicans, such as Collins and North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, say the claims are serious enough to warrant greater access to the findings. While it’s unlikely the FBI findings would be made public, they could still give Republican senators political cover to vote against Hegseth or support his defense.

....Hegseth’s background check, which was delayed by Trump’s initial reluctance to sign agreements with the FBI, would likely move forward on an expedited timeline. The investigations, which usually take weeks, could get fast-tracked to finish before Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, expected on Jan. 14.

There are certain committees that take their jobs a little more seriously—and less politically—than others. Armed Services is one; Intelligence is another. I'm not making any predictions, but I wouldn't be surprised if Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard have a tougher time in their hearings than most of Trump's other nominees.

I'm not sure if this is surprising or not:

The most vaccine skeptical folks are independents, not Republicans. And skepticism is highest among the middle-aged. Worth a ponder.

From Rep. Blake Moore, asked why Democrats would vote for a spending bill that had killed off all of their priorities:

Great question.

Republicans can't pass anything by themselves because they're in such violent disarray. They know this perfectly well. They need Democratic votes. But Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to think they can remove everything Democrats want and still get their votes anyway. Those must be some good drugs they're taking.

On related lines, I continue to be astonished at how openly Trump is absolutely petrified of having to raise the debt limit while he's in office. "Everything should be done, and fully negotiated, prior to my taking office on January 20th, 2025," he demanded.

Sure, Donald. Any other routine parts of governing you'd like taken care of before you move in? Just let us know.

Of course, for my money Trump should invoke the 14th Amendment and simply insist the debt ceiling has no validity. Neither Obama nor Biden ever had the stones to pull this off, but I expect better from Trump. He's not afraid of a little whining from disloyal Republicans, is he?

More weirdness from Donald Trump, insisting that a CLEAN spending bill has to include farm aid, hurricane relief, and a debt ceiling increase:

Can anyone imagine passing it without either terminating, or extending, the Debt Ceiling guillotine coming up in June? Unless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend Debt Ceiling now, I will fight ‘till the end. This is a nasty TRAP set in place by the Radical Left Democrats! They are looking to embarrass us in June when it comes up for a Vote. The people that extended it, from September 28th to June 1st, should be ashamed of themselves. It was political malpractice!

I get that no one cares anymore when Trump makes stupid mistakes, but doesn't he have a staff? The debt ceiling suspension was signed on June 3, 2023, and goes through December 31, 2024. It was a compromise between Democrats who wanted a longer deal and Republican budget hawks who wanted a shorter one. But it was always going to extend beyond the election, which no one wanted to bollix up with another debt ceiling fight.

In any case, next year Republicans will have complete control of the government. All they have to do is hold together and they can pass an increase with no chance for Democrats to say a word about it. If they end up embarrassed about it, that's entirely on them.

After Elon Musk had already coordinated a Republican revolt against the CR, Donald Trump jumped in to take credit:

Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling. Anything else is a betrayal of our country.

Hmmm. I wonder if Trump even realizes that farm aid and hurricane relief account for about 95% of the extra money in the bill? That's practically all there is to it.

Of course, I've also often wondered if Republicans realize they could probably cut spending by just negotiating a budget with a few concessions instead of delaying endlessly and allowing automatic increases to take effect? I dunno. They're all kind of crazy.

I see that the CR is dead again, thanks to right-wing Republican opposition. Ah well. Who needs farm aid in the Midwest and hurricane relief in the South?

But just to show what we're arguing about, here's yet another chart showing domestic spending by the federal government. This includes everything: discretionary spending, welfare entitlements, even stuff that's not strictly speaking domestic, like the State Department and Veterans Affairs. The trendline is for all years outside of recessions, since that's where we should be now:

This is actually kind of remarkable. Even including means-tested welfare, domestic spending has barely increased since the Reagan era. The trendline goes from 7.1% of GDP to 7.5% of GDP.

At the moment, we do still have a lump of COVID-era health spending that hasn't wound down yet. I've removed it to get an apples-to-apples comparison. We'll see how much of it, if any, is left in a few years.

David Dayen says Democrats are adrift because they have no widely accepted leaders. That's true. Nancy Pelosi was a strong Speaker but she retired. Joe Biden is now a widely-derided lame duck. Kamala Harris lost, and losers never wield much influence. Chuck Schumer spends most of his time on legislative blocking-and-tackling. Young up-and-comers like AOC are still struggling for seats at the table.

But Republicans are almost as bad. Mitch McConnell led the Senate for years, but he retired and John Thune doesn't yet have a lot of leadership chops. Mike Johnson is beset by strife on all sides and survives only thanks to occasional alms from Democrats. The young guns of years past have all flamed out. Gadflies like Elon Musk and MTG keep the party in a dizzy spin.

The one big difference, of course, is Donald Trump. Republicans have a president-elect that gives them the illusion of control even though he's famously disordered and nobody really knows what he's going to end up doing.

So don't take any of this too seriously. The party that wins the presidency always has a leader and the party that loses is always in disarray for a while. It'll sort itself out soon enough.