In the Atlantic today, Mitt Romney writes about our bipartisan refusal to address national (and global) crises:
Even as we watch the reservoirs and lakes of the West go dry, we keep watering our lawns, soaking our golf courses, and growing water-thirsty crops.
As inflation mounts and the national debt balloons, progressive politicians vote for ever more spending.
....When TV news outlets broadcast video after video of people illegally crossing the nation’s southern border, many of us change the channel.
And when a renowned conservative former federal appellate judge testifies that we are already in a war for our democracy and that January 6, 2021, was a genuine constitutional crisis, MAGA loyalists snicker that he speaks slowly and celebrate that most people weren’t watching.
What accounts for the blithe dismissal of potentially cataclysmic threats? The left thinks the right is at fault for ignoring climate change and the attacks on our political system. The right thinks the left is the problem for ignoring illegal immigration and the national debt. But wishful thinking happens across the political spectrum. More and more, we are a nation in denial.
I'm glad to see Romney write something like this, and I understand that he needs to pick on both sides in order to retain his conservative street cred. That makes me reluctant to nitpick his essay.
But I'm also really tired of people who try to retain a faux balance by desperately looking for bad behavior on both sides. I don't think it would be hard to find genuinely bad behavior by Democrats, but Romney's examples just aren't it. First off, here is recent national debt:
The national debt has gone up twice since 2000. The first spike was due to (a) Republican tax cuts, (b) deficit financed Republican spending for wars, national security, and Medicare, and (c) a housing bubble and bust that was egged on by a Republican Fed chair and made possible by light regulation of the financial sector. It had virtually nothing to do with Democrats.
The second spike was due to a global pandemic that was obviously nonpartisan. Again, Democrats had nothing to do with this aside from a single, smallish rescue component in March 2021.
The overall dynamic since the Reagan era has been for Republicans to cut taxes and raise spending when they're in office, and then for Democrats to pick up the pieces and try to rein things in when they assume power. Nor is this really controversial outside the confines of Fox News. Everyone knows it.
Now here's a look at immigration:
Romney is on firmer ground when he says that Democrats are softer on immigration than Republicans. Nevertheless, the five spikes in border crossings over the past two decades have been evenly split, three from Republican presidents and two from Democratic presidents. What's more, Democrats have twice been willing to sign up for comprehensive reform, but it's been scuttled by the extremist wing of the Republican Party. Democrats are considerably softer on immigration than Republicans today, but we only got here in the first place thanks to Republican intransigence.
And then there's one other thing. I appreciate Romney's vote to impeach Donald Trump. I am entirely sincere about that. But more generally, Romney continues to be a good foot soldier for the modern, Trumpized GOP. That just doesn't jibe with claiming to believe that we're going through a world historical crisis right now.
Politically, Romney is probably doing the right thing in his Atlantic essay. He comes off as cool and bipartisan while I come off as edgy and partisan. Naturally I regret that. But the facts are still on my side.
Guess what Romney's "solution" is? A new leader who can unite the nation! Apart from the sheer irrelevance of such a fatuous recommendation given the actual circumstances facing America, it feeds straight into the right's authoritarian mindset that democracy has failed.
The white horse is currently being prepared to ride.
https://www.reddit.com/r/cats/comments/7xeds6/behold_a_pale_horse/
"He comes off as cool and bipartisan while I come off as edgy and partisan. Naturally I regret that. But the facts are still on my side."
Romney comes off, as always, clueless, and reserving his candid opinion for "quiet rooms" full of plutocrats. You have ways to go before you can even approach "edgy and partisan." I regret that you see the need to apologize.
Lets note Ukrainian bulge this year. Makes data since March inflated.
Ever stop to consider why we think it is “bad” to come off as partisan on politics?
I think there is a lot of American political pathology wrapped up in that.
Americans desperately wish that their politics had no politics in it.
If only everyone would just agree to go with whatever a 60 year-old white, blue-collar worker in a diner in Ohio wanted, we would be so much better off....
J.D. ANTIVAXXX's Daddy Issues liked this.
"Partisanship" is only bad when Democrats do it. Journalism 102. (Journo 101 is "Both sides do it!", all evidence to the contrary.)
The only way for Biden to save his fraudulently elected regime is to implement Simpson-Bowles.
Ever stop to consider why we think it is “bad” to come off as partisan on politics?
Not really. Most voters are idiots. They hold all manner of daft opinions.
Romney would do far more good leaving the Republican Party or becoming a Democrat. That actually might get people's attention. Not this drivel (Or, do you suppose he's thinking of running for the White House in '24?).
Please, not a Democrat. A third party or a real faction in the Republican party.
Imagine Utah having two Indie Senators.
Would make Vermont & Maine very jealous. (Well, Susan Collins would just be concerned.)
(Well, Susan Collins would just be concerned.)
Then she could say she was possibly mis-led
The disaster that is the immigration at the southern border is Trump's doing. It will take years to work out. Basically everything was broken. Aid to nations to minimize immigration--broken. The ability to process asylum claims, broken. The ability to deal with people coming across, broken. The ability to deal with illegal immigrants who are dangers to their communities, broken--agents were literally going after immigrants who came in to court to testify in criminal proceedings.
It's easy to break things. Much harder to build or restore.
Bush-43 only came into office not wanting to build nations.
El Jefe entered scene intent on reducing all nations (save the Russian Federation) to the state of the Trump Taj Mahal.
"When TV news outlets broadcast video after video of people illegally crossing the nation’s southern border, many of us change the channel."
I mean, yeah? I am a liberal and I am pretty soft on illegal immigration. But I don't really see what he expects. Illegal immigration is a persistent problem that has been around for ages and doesn't seem to be getting any worse. I don't see why he would expect people to react any differently than to homeless, poverty, gun violence, pollution. There are a lot of problems out there, and we need to keep chipping away at them. But I just don't understand the mindset of the person that sees the illegal immigration story and thinks "This is our biggest problem. This is the one we have to deal with."
I know Republicans care more about this issue. I've just never seen any of them give me a good reason for why I should care more about it. "It's illegal." Well, yeah, so is cheating on taxes, and you don't seem to have a problem with that, despite the fact that THAT actually hurts me.
And I understand that illegal immigration isn't good. It leads to exploitation that hurts the immigrants as well as homegrown workers. But most all of these problems would be solved by letting them come in and work legally.
+10!
Tax evasion is illegal, but that's a "you don't tell me what to do issue".
Border crossing for reason of seeking permanent relocation without official documentation is a "I tell you what to do" issue.
You nailed modern Republicanism....
"I get to tell you what to do, you don't get to tell me"
+1
Apparently you forgot that destructive lockdowns and school closings, worthless mask mandates and vaccine mandates were almost entirely by Democrats.
Apparently you forgot that attacks on life-saving lockdowns and school closings, proven mask mandates and vaccine mandates were almost entirely by Republicans.
FIFY
Are you seriously trying to defend school closings? I thought it's now pretty unanimous that school closings did much more harm than good.
Lockdowns saved no lives with respect to Covid and cost many in the U.S. as well as psychological suffering and around the world. Obviously, Democrats will never admit what over 70 studies have shown including the Johns Hopkins meta study on lockdowns.
Canada: 1,023 per million
USA: 2,999 per million
Largely because of pro-Covid idiots like this.
The Johns Hopkins study was by five septuagenarian economists, not public health researchers, & was a cherrypicked foofaraw to make Ronny D & the Kidz Table look good.
You got that one right. Although we might disagree how much time 'modern' encompasses.
The problem isn't the fact those poor people are crossing without those all important papers and permissions, the problem is that they feel there is no choice but to uproot everything they know and take a chance on the arbitrary physical barriers and mental numbness of America. And I bet there is well groomed, well nourished, highly articulate, well educated, well funded, handsome face sitting atop of the pyramid of Da Muny from where those folks walked, payed, or ran from bleating about economic disparities, debt, and taxes and weeping, oh but if it weren't for these laws that we must uphold, these values we hold dear, oh the suffering that I must cause because that's the way it is.
Well said!
I heard on Fox News recently, and I always take what they say with a giant grain of salt, that there are 11 million 700 thousand undocumented aliens in the US. It's a bit of a tell they said undocumented aliens. Their usual phrase would be illegals. I think that means they read it off a study. Kaiser Permanente?
So, if we go with this number that's interesting because there were 12 million undocumented aliens in the US during Clinton's first administration. This awful, awful problem that hasn't changed, except to get smaller, in 20 years needs our panic and a US network covering the Rio Grande 24x7.
What's the answer to the "crisis" at the border? First thing is to chill.
Later I might point out that if the entire population of the Northern Triangle came all at once they'd still be only 10% of this country. BTW a lot of us move down there. No context is ever given when this subject comes up. Romney didn't help it.
“(Mostly) Trump”?? But perhaps more perplexing, what’s the story with the blue bit balancing on Jan 2020, separating “Trump” from “(Mostly) Trump?”
With regards to the blue bit, I had red v blue on the brain I guess. Still wondering about “mostly” though.
i'll take republicans seriously on immigration when they propose a serious comprehensive plan to deal with it. they'd much rather have the issue to run than actually solve the problem. maybe romney is serious about a fix; his colleagues definitely are not.
It's much more fun and profitable to turn it into a culture war issue with scary hordes of brown people overrunning the southern border in order to "replace" white voters by voting illegally en masse. Or something. It's up there with Jewish space lasers causing climate change.
In one hundred years, the residents of the US will be speaking our own version of Papimento. Just with more English & Spanish, & some Haitian Kreyol & Mandarin mixed in.
Re "Romney is on firmer ground when he says that Democrats are softer on immigration than Republicans. Nevertheless, the five spikes in border crossings over the past decade have been evenly split, three from Republican presidents and two from Democratic presidents. [etc.]"
Illegal immigration (aka "border crossings") is not what separates Democrats and the (new) Republican party, so why is Kevin writing about it?
The great divide is over legal immigration, which has been rapid and massive, and substantially changed, and continues to change, the demographics of the country. [It is a hidden driver behind MAGA's complaint that "the country is not what it used to be".]
For 50 years, starry-eyed Democrats and business-friendly Republicans supported large legal inflows. Any review of history shows that pluralistic Democracies are rare and unstable. Liberals Steven Levitsky* and Yascha Mounk** hope this country can adjust, but they are pessimistic for the most part.
The demographic future of the U.S. cannot be changed, and few are interested in calling out those behind the policies which may result in the breakup of the nation. But it would be nice if more people understood the root causes of out present-day political friction.
* In over 50 years [U.S. demographics have] changed dramatically. That is deeply threatening. And that is fundamentally what I think is polarizing our country. There are very few societies - I can't name a single democracy in the world - that has undergone a transition in which a dominant ethnic group loses its majority and loses its dominant status. That's a major, major transformation and I think that ultimately that's what's fueling [it], exacerbated by social media, but if you want to get at the root causes, it's that transition.
** Today is the first time in the history of the world that we have a large number of ethnically and religiously diverse democracies that are trying to treat all of their citizens as genuine equals. We don't know whether it's going to work. We don't exactly know how to make it work, though we've ended up in this situation. ... Not only is it hard to build diverse societies, but in some ways, it’s especially hard to build diverse democracies.
The great divide is over legal immigration, which has been rapid and massive, and substantially changed, and continues to change, the demographics of the country.
It's highly debatable as to whether the country's recent levels of immigration have been "rapid and massive." The long term net rate of immigration to the US (going back to 1820) has been approximately .5%. We haven't seen such levels in many, many,years. Recent immigration inflows have tended to hover around half that. And this is in the context of a country whose natural rate of population growth is its lowest ever. There may indeed be reasons why a slowdown in population growth are desirable, but if so, we're currently getting that desirable outcome (indeed, US population growth could accurately be described as collapsing): why the pressing need to ratchet US population growth further sharply downwards? Not seeing the advantage.
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/03/american-population-growth-rate-slow/629392/
substantially changed, and continues to change, the demographics of the country.
Demographic change has been the story of America. Departing from this dynamic would be an experimental aberration.
You're right, though, about the MAGA/GOP's devotion to white ethnonationalism. This is indeed the fire that drives that party in our era.
How Republicans *used* to talk about immigration before they became a white, ethnonationalist fascist brigade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R8QxCD6ir8
+1
Similar to their pirouette on civil rights in the 60s.
Couldn't agree with Jasper_in_Boston more. I've put a lot of time in trying to understand the other nation that shares my country. I still have a lot of trouble figuring them out. But I think the change in America that is the main source of their fears comes from their kids. It's a generational thing. Hence all the panic over things like "CRT" and saying gay before a certain age. Plus, all the whinging over "Cancel Culture." Immigrants-- legal and refugee-- make us more like past America. I'm never prouder than watching someone who looks really different from me, with a weird name, speak in my language with my accent telling the same stories and jokes. They're not replacing us. America is replacing them.
"In over 50 years [U.S. demographics have] changed dramatically. That is deeply threatening. And that is fundamentally what I think is polarizing our country. There are very few societies - I can't name a single democracy in the world - that has undergone a transition in which a dominant ethnic group loses its majority and loses its dominant status."
You could do some deep, deep research by, say, looking at thecountry next door to the north of you, but I guess that is too difficult.
Edgy sure but your partisanship is at 0%.
"Democrats are considerably softer on immigration than Republicans today,"
Sorry Kevin, but this is your typical "let me squint and pretend that the Republicans haven't gone batshit crazy and actually have a point" pablum that you so often use to appear balanced (which is the very same thing you sort of criticize from Romney).
Saying that Democrats are considerably softer on immigration than Republicans today is like saying that someone supporting everyone accused of a crime deserving their due process is softer on crime than a Duterte type of "execute suspects on sight" type of crime fighting.
When the default position of Republicans regarding immigration is to make immigrants suffer as much as possible (but only the darker skinned ones), and to treat them as inhumanely as you can get away with in hopes that others fear coming to the US, any position other than firing squads at the border will appear "softer" using your logic.
Democrats have become increasingly soft on immigration enforcement.
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/694804917/democrats-used-to-talk-about-criminal-immigrants-so-what-changed-the-party
The National Debt is a total red herring, only of interest to Republicans because it argues for their small government ideas. The National Debt since 1836 has never burdened anyone, their children or their grandchildren, and it never will.
Also, small government as an end in itself makes no more sense than large government as an end. Government should be big enough to do what it needs to do to establish justice, provide for the common defense, ensure domestic tranquility, promote the public welfare, and no bigger.
+1
+1
So, if Romney ran and won in 2024 he'd assume office at the age of 77 the same age that Joe Biden did
Would that make him sleepy Mitt?
No, Somromulant.
Wasn't VP Harris tapped to address the border crises and illegal immigration? What has she done? I literally haven't heard a single thing from her and from anyone about what actions she's taken. Did she forget? Did President Biden tell her in private to not worry about it?
Well, it has not risen any since March 2021. Yes, adjusting Ukrainians out of those numbers makes it flat yry.
Republicans are weaker on immigration due to business associations and religious missionaries. They smuggle and push these people to migrate. Capitalism's ponzi debt bubble has side effects. Let it die, reverse flows. Ditto trade deficits.
She has worked to ameliorate the causes of emigration from Central America, such as crime and poverty. One outcome is that several American companies have signed on to invest in the area, to provide more jobs. I believe there has also been some work to improve policing in the region through training. Things like that don’t get much play in the news, and the effect won’t be immediate, but, unlike “build the wall!”, they may actually help.
One cheer? Whatever for?
Mitt Romney knows all the points that Kevin makes perfectly well. Unlike almost all GOPers he is not a fool. In my opinion that makes it worse than cases like Ron Johnson or Jim Jordan. They are stupid ignoramuses. They can't be blamed for their lack of brain power (the blame is with their voters). Romney knows what he is doing--and does it anyway whenever he thinks it helps his career or election chances. I bet he is regretting his impeachment votes now (just like he was regretting the Massachusetts health reform back in the day). You can rely on this: At the time he thought those votes would help him. Even smart people misjudge a situation sometimes--many Democrats thought like him back in January 2021.
No cheers for any of them, not the fools and not the smart ones!
Republicans only worry about the deficit when a Democrat is in the White House.
Mitt Romney can be frustrating. At times, he almost seems like a reasonable person but he always succumbs to his "severe conservative" side.
This morning, there is an article in the WaPo about the efforts by Republican-led states to use covid stimulus money to fund more tax cuts. The GOP's benefactors get tax cuts, deregulation and rightwing judges; everyone else gets endless culture wars. And that's why the establishment wing of the GOP stands with the Trump Party -- they're getting what they want.
If they don't use the Plandemic relief funds for actual Plandemic relief, they should have to return it to the treasury, to draw down the debt. Then again, unused SNAP benefits are supposed to be returned to USDA by local authorities, but when I worked in Milwaukee County's food stamp office, then County Executive Scott Walker made a habit of skimming unused QUEST benefits for his pet projects at the end of the year instead of returning them. So, same old, same old...
Dems oughta respond to the scapegoating of immigrants by arguing if you work and pay taxes on your labor, then you should vote. If corporations are people and trust fund babies can control politics with huge donations, then people who do actual work oughta have a say in their societies (says the Englightenment...) Let the Republicans argue that people living on dividends should have more of a say than laborers.
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