OK, Let's Review

On Election Day 2018, let’s review where we stand with our compatriots on the Right.

The Republican Party of November 2018:

Does not talk much about tax cuts, health care and the deficit—their thee biggest talking points during the Obama era—because their approaches have proven ineffective, unworkable and/or unpopular.

Demonizes immigrants as dangerous “invaders,” then refuses to take responsibility when an anti-semite murders Jews, inspired by this premise.

Does not condemn a GOP candidate in California for saying a Christian part-Arab running for office is attempting to “infiltrate” Congress.

Whips up anti-semitic hate aimed at a Jewish anti-Communist freedom fighter and Ronald Reagan admirer, who has worked tirelessly to fight corruption and support civil society around the world (that would be George Soros)…
 
 … while at the same time accepting PAC money from illiberal dictators like Viktor Orban and going soft on Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Mohammed bin Salman.

Actively works to undermine good government by leaving hundreds of jobs unfilled and elevating incompetent partisan hacks (such as Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke) to key posts.

Ignores science and a mounting climate crisis (reserving words like “crisis” to describe migrating bands of poor people), refusing to consider even bipartisan, market-based mitigation strategies like carbon pricing.

Actively undermines an investigation into Russian interference in American elections that has already produced enough credible evidence to ring up 32 indictments and guilty pleas—that’s 32 more than Whitewater, Benghazi, the Valerie Plame affair, the Torture Memos, the Bush White House “Lawyergate” mass email destruction and Hillary email controversies combined.

Has given up on addressing, much less prioritizing, a workable plan of resolution and exit strategy for the now 17-year war in Afghanistan, which has claimed the lives of over 2,370 U.S. military.

Has failed utterly to follow through on highly-touted infrastructure improvements necessary to maintain America’s economic competitiveness.

Passed a tax law designed to benefit the rich, with minimal tax benefits for the middle class (most of which sunset after a few years), which has exploded the deficit while generating little to no real wage growth—all while slashing IRS funds for rooting out tax fraud and corruption.

Controls a Congress that sits idly by as the executive branch attacks the free press, independent judiciary, electoral process and separation of powers, offering only a halfhearted defense of the right of legislators to defend the letter of the Constitution, while establishing new, damaging precedents for conduct in judicial appointments and supreme court nominations (remember Merrick Garland).

Refuses to take seriously ample evidence of vote suppression around the nation, some patently racially motivated, while touting unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. 

From Creationism to Trump: How to Explain the Frustrating Forty Percent?

Back in the early years of the Iraq war, I remember being struck by two polls. One found that around 40 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in 9/11. The other asked how many American believe the world was created in the last 6000 years—again, around 40 percent.

In a Washington Post piece on Tuesday, I encountered this not-so-magic number once again. This time, it was the percentage of Americans who approve of the job Donald J. Trump is doing.

What is the deal here? Why are such frustrating ideas shared by this large, stable slice of the populace?

It’s interesting that each of these positions seem to have been arrived at very differently. The Hussein opinion from crass manipulation and insinuation out of the mouths of George W. Bush and others in his administration, exploiting post-9/11 fear and patriotism to drum up support for the Iraq War. New Earth Creationism from long-standing fundamentalist tradition. And the belief in Trump from… what?

It’s easy to just say ignorance. After all, some of the people interviewed for the Post article have some pretty ignorant things to say about Barack Obama’s nuclear weapons treaty with Iran.

But one thing these voters are not ignorant about is their own hometowns.

“Everybody is in a holding pattern. We’re waiting for the factories to return, but I know they will,” says a Trump fan who grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio. “… For the first time in many, many years, I’m optimistic.”

They’re not wrong about the hollowing out of Middle America, exploding income equality and the ever-increasing concentration of wealth in just a few regions. They’re not wrong about the disruptive nature of globalization, which has brought plenty of good and bad to the country—just none of the good, it seems, to East Liverpool. They’re not wrong to mistrust Wall Street, or to yearn for something radically different than the status quo that has upended their world in the last half century.

And they aren’t bamboozled by GOP tax cuts. Yesterday, Democrat Conor Lamb defeated Republican Rick Saccone in a Western Pennsylvania district that went for Trump by a 20-point margin last November. Much of the selling point for Saccone revolved around the recently enacted tax cuts.

But the Tump supporters in this district don’t love laissez-faire Capitalism the way New York bankers do, and they don’t necessarily believe in Paul Ryan-esque small government. They know that most of the tax cuts benefit the rich. They would probably gladly trade them for a TVA-style investment in Greene County, if it meant lots of jobs.  

These are long-standing truths of American populism that neither party does a good job of tapping into anymore. Trump gives it more lip service than anyone else, and they love him for it. Yet his presidency so far has shown an unwillingness or inability to follow through on his economic populism in any meaningful sense. This could be a huge opportunity for bold liberals, if the terms and outcomes were framed correctly.

King of Prussia Rail Map: Here's What the Line Looks Like

SEPTA has announced a finalized route for the proposed Norristown High Speed Line extension to King of Prussia. Planners chose a route taking advantage of PECO (electric/gas utility) and Pennsylvania Turnpike right of ways, avoiding any close contact with residential areas, before skirting the King of Prussia Mall on the way to a terminus next to the Valley Forge Casino.

Nowhere in any of the news reports (or on SEPTA's website promoting the project) can one find a decent map illustrating the route, so I created one.

King of Prussia Rail: Click Map to Enlarge

In order to mitigate local opposition, the route relies heavily on the Turnpike right of way, which surely helps drive up the cost (estimated at 1.2 billion). At this price, the pros and cons of such a project need to be carefully reckoned.

King of Prussia Rail: Pros

As SEPTA points out, the line would link the region's three major economic hubs: Center City, University City and King of Prussia (not to mention the Main Line). It would alleviate traffic and pollution in one of the most congested road corridors in the Northeast and be an economic boon for the area, cutting travel times and enabling a one-seat ride for shoppers, employees and residents. In addition to the mall and casino complexes, the line would provide access to the Chester Valley Trail, one of the most important of the Philadelphia Circuit Trails

King of Prussia Rail: Cons

The price, obviously. As pointed out by a community group, the station locations do not easily benefit  local residents as none outside the immediate mall area are pedestrian-friendly. Construction on and along the Turnpike will be an extended headache while the line gets built, and the line may encourage even more intense development along the edge of Valley Forge National Historic Park. (While coming tantalizingly close, the line does not facilitate pedestrian/bike access to the park due to Gulph Road and Route 422.)

Another factor to consider is that elements of the existing Norristown High Speed Line could prove the weakest links in a very expensive chain. It was just four years ago SEPTA was doing emergency repairs on the century-old Bridgeport Viaduct to replace rotting timbers. As SEPTA notes, an extensive rehabilitation project is still needed on the bridge—just the most high-profile of a number of issues resulting from decades of deferred maintenance on the underfunded rail line.

For King of Prussia Rail to succeed, SEPTA as a whole must be healthy. Perhaps SEPTA hopes KOP rail would make the NHSL (and the system as a whole) too big to fail.

On Both Sides of the Abortion Debate, the Key Question is One of Rights

As the pro-life movement has evolved, it has undergone a paradigm shift from a morals-based argument against abortion to a rights-based one, arguing for protections for the unborn in language pioneered by progressives in the Civil Rights and anti-war eras and carried forward through organizations such as Amnesty International and the ACLU.

This is roughly the point made in a fascinating New York Times piece, How the Pro-Life movement Has Promoted Liberal Values.

Left unmentioned is the thorny question—for pro-life and pro-choice advocates alike—of when, exactly, the unborn acquire rights. This question has always been on the table and is indeed baked into the fabric or Roe v Wade, which established a sliding-scale rule for when the state’s interest in protecting a fetus trumped a woman’s right to privacy under the 14th Amendment.

Seeing the debate this way makes the pro- and anti- argument one of degree rather than fundamental difference. To a conservative Catholic, the human rights of an embryo become operative at the moment of conception; to liberal justice Harry Blackmun, author of Roe v Wade, they are operative at the point of viability; to some, they are operative at a baby’s first breath. But in all cases, there is the question of human rights, the appropriateness of their application, and their relationship to the rights of the mother—to privacy, to life (when continuing a pregnancy is life-threatening), to having a say over when and with whom to have a baby.

The rights question, while putting the debate on equal terms, underscores why there can never be universal consensus on abortion from a moral, ethical, religious or legal standpoint in the same way there has always been for, say, infanticide. This is why there should never be a constitutional amendment banning abortion, as it would enshrine in the Constitution the beliefs of some religious factions to the exclusion of others, which is itself inherently unconstitutional.