Tom is back with the June, 2023 BTRTN Month in Review.
JUNE 2023
No, the oldest and greatest political sin is not
corruption, nor stealing elections, nor lying through one’s teeth as easily as
breathing. All of those have been endemic
across the centuries, readily committed by both the mightiest of rulers roaming
the continents and small town pols trying to extend the tiniest bit of turf,
and all levels in between.
While any politician may fall under the sway of their own
power, and succumb to overreach, demagogues and dictators are particularly
vulnerable to such impulses. They are utterly
convinced of their own invincibility, utterly assured of the justness of their cause,
and utterly contemptuous of advice, preferring to surround themselves with
sycophants. They have no self-discipline
and no sense of potential mortal danger. Like the shark endlessly seeking its
next prey, they move in one direction, relentlessly, and at only one pace, recklessly. There are only two possible outcomes for such
a beast: death or overreach. As long as they are breathing they march on inexorably until they finally push the overreach button and self-destruct.
We are now watching epic events unfold on the world stage
featuring two of the most powerful figures the 21st century. Not the two most powerful at this moment, for
they are Joe Biden and Xi Jinping.
Rather, we mean Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. One is a demagogue, the other a brutal
dictator, and both are beginning to suffer from their excesses. Both are being challenged by noteworthy
opponents with a power base of their own, and, at this juncture, their ultimate
fate is unclear. But both Trump and
Putin are damaged, to be sure, and, on some level, teetering. They may emerge from their troubles stronger
than ever, and achieve new heights of power – both face elections in 2024 -- or
they may finally fall victim to overreach, like so many before them.
It was less than two years ago when Putin began amassing
Russian forces along the Ukraine border, and U.S. intelligence concluded that
this show of force, while not the first of its kind, was not likely another
bluff. Putin, the KGB strongman who
watched the Gorbachev era and the demise of the Soviet Union with deep dismay
and disdain, seemed bent on restoring some semblance of the USSR. Having found the West’s resolve to be wanting
in facing down Russian aggression in both Georgia and Crimea in the last decade,
Putin set his sights on Ukraine, which at various times was part of the Russian
state (in various incarnations, including the USSR), but freed in 1991. Putin’s legacy was secure at the time, as the
man who had restored Russian pride, the Russian economy, and firmly held power for
more than two decades with no end in sight.
At age 69 (at the time of the buildup), he might have enjoyed at least
another decade of power or more, had he not pushed a whole stack of chips on
the table and crossed the Ukraine border.
Within days of the attack, it was clear that Putin had badly
miscalculated, underestimating, at first, the strength of Ukrainian firepower
and fortitude, embodied by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and then, the degree
of unified Western military support and resolve, embodied by President Biden. Far from overrunning Kyiv within a week, the
war, 16 months hence, has become one of attrition, the Russians at this point
trying to hold on to Russian-occupied territory in the east. Putin has continually tried to convince his people
of the righteousness of Russia’s “special military operation,” the strength of
its battle plan, and the capability of its military to execute that plan. But while he has an ironclad grip on state
media and a brutal track record in dealing with dissenters, he is finding that
he is still subject to forces beyond even his control. When, a month ago, drones started inflicting
life-threatening damage to tony Moscow suburbs, the oligarchs, perhaps privately
long skeptical about the Ukraine effort, began to grumble a bit more loudly.
Finally, the dam broke in June. It could have been pierced in any number of
ways – perhaps by a move by the oligarchs, or the Russian generals, or an
uprising of the people – but instead it came in a particularly dramatic form,
in the person of Wagner Group military entrepreneur Yevgeny Prighozin, who
founded and heads the most effective fighting troops at Putin’s disposal. Prighozin’s method was not subtle, and it was
particularly devastating, in that he first complained very loudly about the
state of the war and then marched his troops straight to Moscow, traversing a
large swath of land unimpeded, apparently with mutiny in mind. They were stopped not by the sword, but by a
deal, or so it seems, that allowed Prighozin safe harbor in Belarus with a
hefty check.
The optics were crushing to Putin – the all-too-resonating critiques,
the abandonment of his cause by his best fighting soldiers, his exposed inability
to defend the Russian people, the confusion over whether Prighozin would even
be prosecuted for clearly treasonous behavior.
Putin’s Folly in Ukraine, a textbook case of overreach, had finally come
home to roost. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess, but Putin is certainly
weaker even as he carries on with strongman propaganda.
As for Trump, one of the truly stunning aspects of his
current troubles is that not one of
the actions he is under criminal investigation for fell between his Election Day
victory in November, 2016 and defeat in November, 2020. Think about that. His behavior in the four years between those two dates have been endlessly
catalogued and reviled. Lists have been
compiled (including by BTRTN) itemizing the myriad of ways Trump diminished the
presidency while he held it, beginning with his nearly insane Inaugural address
(“weird shit,” according to George W. Bush), the madness about the size of the
crowd that showed up to hear it, and the introduction of “alternate facts” into
the national parlance. But none of the
events on that long list are at issue now.
What is at issue is his behavior in attempting to overturn
the 2020 election results, the subject at hand in Georgia and the Department of
Justice’s January 6th-related investigations, and the taking of
documents after his presidency and his obstruction of their return, for which
he was indicted by the DOJ in June. (He
has also been indicted in New York for bribing a porn star into silence about
their decade-old affair just weeks before
the 2016 election.)
Just think if Trump had accepted his 2020 defeat with grace
and moved out of the White House in conventional fashion. Certainly there was precedent. Both Richard Nixon in 1960 and Al Gore in
2000, sitting Vice Presidents, had ample cause (far more than Trump) to protest
their election outcomes and defy the peaceful transition. Nixon decided – literally for the good of the
country – to forego challenging JFK’s razor-thin win despite reports of
irregular voting bought by Joe Kennedy’s money.
Gore pursued the bizarre 2000 election (remember those “hanging chads”?)
to the Supreme Court, but accepted the Supreme Court’s verdict and moved
on. Both Nixon and Gore presided over
the very certification process -- formally anointed their rivals -- that Trump
attempted to coerce Pence to defy. Had
Trump followed their example, and, like all of his predecessors, packed up his
boxes for the National Archives properly (save a few errors, quickly rectified,
by Joe Biden and Mike Pence), where would he be? Doubtless in a stronger position to challenge
Biden in 2024 than he is now, with indictments, current and future, hanging
over him like the sword of Damocles.
But instead Trump overreached in trying to undermine the
election – and, by extension, democracy -- through the Big Lie, and then by
taking government documents that belong to us, not him, and willfully
obstructing their return. He was correct
in assuming he could convince his base of, well, anything, but beyond that, the
Big Lie has proven to be political poison, and the document theft also appears
to be a political loser. Trump is losing
the middle and a material chunk of his own party, groups he needs behind him to
have any hope in 2024.
Trump once famously said that he could shoot someone on 5th
Avenue in New York City and his faithful would still support him. That statement, uttered in January, 2016,
shortly before the Iowa caucuses, revealed a man who thinks he can literally
get away with murder, a state of affairs that he has been proving quite
convincingly ever since. Figures like
Trump and Putin do not really explore the edge of the envelope – for them there
is no envelope, no edge, no act that
they cannot explain away, deny and emerge from all the stronger for having
survived. They simply keep going, in a
space not defined by envelopes to be tested but more akin to traveling the
universe, a space of infinite elasticity.
Until, that is, they are done in by overreach, and they find – usually
in rude fashion – that there was a boundary to their behavior after all. This is what happened to Adolf Hitler in
Russia and the Ardennes. It is what
happened to Joe McCarthy in taking on the Army.
And it may be what both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are experiencing
now – time will tell.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden has clearly decided that the best path
to remaining in power is simply to hold himself up as a counterweight to both
Putin and Trump. He does not talk much
about either, preferring instead to act in traditional presidential fashion,
forging deals, supporting allies, projecting calmness and the stability borne
of experience, and hopes the contrast is clear.
His main problems are his age and that he cannot seem to convince voters,
even some in his own party, of the fact of his myriad accomplishments. His campaign focus will be on the economy,
the very real improvements that have been made in GDP growth, unemployment and,
of late, inflation, and the better days ahead, in part enabled by his
investments in infrastructure and alternative energy. Biden will contrast these proactive
investments in the economy with the “trickle down” orthodoxy that still guides
GOP economic orthodoxy, despite the numerous failures of tax cuts to grow
anything except the wealth gap and the size of the federal debt.
His best campaign calling card is actually the GOP
“platform” -- in quotes because there is no such formal plan, only a set of
stances, votes and Supreme Court decisions on key issues. The GOP has committed legislative and
judicial overreach of its own, in their zeal to wipe abortion off the face of
the country, a plan that is antipathy to of the majority of Americans. Abortion alone will drive Democrats and the
persuadable middle to the polls in droves, agitating suburban women and younger
voters alike. The GOP’s inability to
keep their hands off the third rail of Medicare and Social Security reform will
drive away the seniors, while their pro-gun and climate change policies also infuriate
the majority of voters who can plainly see the human tragedies resultant from
GOP neglect. With issues like these, and
a steadily improving economy, Biden can withstand whomever the GOP runs, as
long as he does not suffer a sharp, sudden physical or mental decline.
The GOP agenda is aided and abetted by a Trump-driven
Supreme Court that is simply not aligned with the views of the majority of
Americans. The Roberts Court (though it
is not his anymore, by any stretch) offered a few positive June surprises on
immigration and the burial of the so-called “independent state legislature
theory,” but the trio of opinions released in the last few days of June --
banning of affirmative action in college admissions, refusing to defend LGBTQ
rights, and denying Biden’s attempts to ease the crushing burden of student
debt burden -- will further inflame Democrats.
Biden’s overall strategy of standing tall while Putin
weakens and the GOP implodes – a modern day version of the Rose Garden strategy
– is clearly the correct path, especially for a gaffe-prone 80-year-old who has
never been a particularly inspiring orator or force. Whether it is enough to prevail in 2024 is,
of course, and open question, but there is no doubt that his opponents are
awash in overreach and cannot stop themselves from offering a very dark vision
of their alternative world of criminal behavior, unpopular policies, and
botched invasions.
KEY METRICS
Biden's approval rating
remained at 41% in June, but there was slippage on his performance on some key
issues. The "Bidenometer"
improved significantly from 32 to 37, driven by increases in the Dow, consumer
confidence and the last GDP estimate for Q1.
Gas prices were flat for the month and unemployment ticked up.
BIDENOMETER
The Bidenometer is a BTRTN proprietary economic measure that was
designed to provide an objective answer to the legendary economically-driven
question at the heart of the 1980 Reagan campaign: “Are you better
off than you were four years ago?” We reset the Bidenometer at this
Inaugural to zero, so that we better demonstrate whether the economy performs
better (a positive number) or worse (a negative number) under Biden than what
he inherited from the Trump Administration.
The Bidenometer measure is comprised of five indicative data
points: the unemployment rate, Consumer Confidence, the price of
gasoline, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average and the U.S. GDP. The
measure is calculated by averaging the percentage change in each measure from
the inaugural to the present time.
The +37 for jUNE, 2023 means that, on average, the five measures
are 37% higher than they were when Biden was inaugurated (see the chart
below). With a Bidenometer of +37,
the economy is performing markedly better under Biden compared to its condition
when Trump left office. Unemployment is much lower,
consumer confidence is higher, the Dow is higher and the GDP is
stronger. On the flip side, gas prices are higher, as is overall
inflation, of which gas prices are a primary component.
Using January 20, 2021 as a baseline measure of zero, under
Clinton the measure ended at +55. It declined from +55 to +8 under
Bush, who presided over the Great Recession at the end of his term, then rose
from +8 to +33 under Obama’s recovery. Under Trump, it fell again,
from +33 to 0, driven by the shock of COVID-19 and Trump’s mismanagement of
it. Now we have seen a recovery under Biden from 0 to +37.
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