2:00PM Water Cooler 11/15/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary, Westchester, New York, United States. “Amazing repertoire of other species’ songs woven into this song.”

In Case You Might Miss…

1. New Covid charts: No bad news.
2. Adolph Reed makes another call.
3. Blame Cannons: The Democrat’s “leftward” turn.
4. Boeing puts a finance guy on the board, layoffs.

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Trump Transition

“Trump’s ‘Epic’ Deregulation Must Preserve Financial Stability” [Editorial Board, Bloomberg]. The deck: “The president-elect and Elon Musk want to blow up the federal rule book. Good luck, but please exercise some caution.” More: “A big reduction in regulation would indeed be welcome. Unfortunately, it’s a complicated task that requires prudence, diligence and sustained attention to detail, virtues that were not in evidence during Trump’s previous stint in office. Where the financial system is concerned, deregulation may be especially fraught. Last time around, Trump scaled back several major rules adopted after the global financial crisis, an effort that may have contributed to last year’s spate of bank failures. Weakening requirements further, without due discretion, could create needless risk. Whoever ends up leading this mission, they should keep four principles in mind. First, banks must be strong enough to weather turmoil…. Next, focus on transparency and accountability. Disclosures should be clear and fraud should be punished. … Third, size is not in itself the enemy. Allowing mergers between financial companies doesn’t automatically reduce competition and can in fact increase it.” lol. More: “Finally, regulation that defies common sense breeds cynicism. As one example among many, the Securities and Exchange Commission routinely extracts fines from financial companies for allowing their employees to converse on nonofficial channels, a practice that is all but unavoidable in the mobile communications era.” • Yes, what could possibly wrong with financial professionals conversing on secret channels…. Nevertheless, a warning shot for Trump

“Trump says Dimon won’t be part of administration” [The Hill]. • Dang. Though I suppose it could always be worse!

“Woman testified to House Ethics Committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17: Sources” [ABC]. “The woman who was at the center of a yearslong Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz testified to the House Ethics Committee that the now-former Florida congressman had sex with her when she was 17 years old, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News….. ‘Your correspondence of September 4 asks whether I have engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer to this question is unequivocally NO. You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum,’ Gaetz said in a statement posted to his social media account. ‘The Committee’s star witness, Joel Greenberg, is a felonious liar who involves others in his lies … Greenberg was initially indicted for attempting to falsely smear a teacher at a local high school as a pedophile,’ Gaetz added regarding former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty to falsely accusing a teacher, who was running for office against him, of a sex crime. The woman’s allegation regarding Gaetz became part of the investigation following claims by Greenberg, a former friend of Gaetz…” • Poor choice of friends. That said, I am so, so tired of Democrats ginning up sex scandals when they have no moral standing to do so. Revered and witty Democrat Barney Frank’s boyfriend ran a brothel out of the House they shared on Capitol Hill. Revered Democrat elder Bill Clinton was, at the very least, guilty of workplace abuse (and never apologized to her personally). Biden has a “skeevy” penchant for sniffing women’s hair, and kept swimming nude in front of female Secret Service agents after they protested. Then there’s Democrat First Gentleman Doug Emhoff. The Democrats are the party of grundyism, if Mrs. Grundy were, herself, a madame. Can’t we give it a rest?

“Trump’s Defense Secretary Pick Pete Hegseth Said to Face Previous Sexual Misconduct Allegation” [Vanity Fair]. “Donald Trump’s transition team scrambled Thursday after Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was presented with an allegation that former Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, had engaged in sexual misconduct. According to two sources, Wiles was briefed Wednesday night about an allegation that Hegseth had acted inappropriately with a woman. One of the sources said the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California in 2017. According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said. On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.” • Genocide, no problemo. Pandemic? What pandemic? But “allegations” of “sexual misconduct”? Oh my goodness!

“Trump’s team skips FBI background checks for some Cabinet picks” [CNN]. “President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs, people close to the transition planning say. Trump and his allies believe the FBI system is slow and plagued with issues that could stymie the president-elect’s plan to quickly begin the work of implementing his agenda, people briefed on the plans said. Critics say the intrusive background checks sometimes turn up embarrassing information used to inflict political damage. The discussions come as Trump has floated several controversial choices for high-level positions in the US government – including Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Ultimately, the president has the final authority on who he nominates and decides to share intelligence with, regardless of the established protocol set in the wake of World War II to make sure those selections don’t have unknown foreign ties or other issues that could raise national security concerns. But circumventing background checks would be bucking a long-established norm in Washington. It also reflects Trump’s deep mistrust of the national security establishment, which he derides as the Deep State. Sources say he has privately questioned the need for law enforcement background checks.” • I don’t understand this. Surely the organs of state security are completely apolitical?

“The Left should welcome Matt Gaetz as attorney general” [Unherd]. “His record speaks for itself. From his perch on the House Judiciary Committee, Gaetz has promoted a surprisingly consumer-friendly agenda, routinely breaking with his GOP colleagues on crucial votes. He previously supported legislative measures to break up Silicon Valley monopolies, sharply regulate the online data broker industry, ban noncompete employment contracts, and an end to the practice of forced arbitration, among other corporate accountability votes. He has also taken maverick positions on reducing FBI surveillance powers, cutting certain arms supplies to Saudi Arabia and legalising marijuana. In addition, Gaetz has staked a position at times to the Left of some establishment Democrats. In the fight over the Ending Platform Monopolies Act — a bill designed to curb anticompetitive practices by Amazon and Google — Gaetz ended up supporting the legislation, while California Democrats close to the tech industry, such as Zoe Lofgren and Eric Swalwell, voted against it. In an era of severe political polarisation, the Florida representative has found opportunities to support actions of the Biden administration. In August, Gaetz wrote a letter to Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai, urging him to “adhere fully” to the antitrust ruling against the company secured by the current Department of Justice.” • I believe the meme “Khanservatives” originated with Gaetz.

“Matt Gaetz, Trump’s uniquely unqualified pick for attorney general, explained” [Vox]. “As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein writes, Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz should be read as an effort to gauge whether Republican senators will permit him to take absurd and dangerous actions. “These aren’t just appointments,” Klein writes of Gaetz and Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, ‘They’re loyalty tests. The absurdity is the point.’” • But see above on anti-trust, which goes unmentioned at Vox, the avatar of “clear-eyed journalism,” as they say themselves.

“Trump Is About to Face the Choice That Dooms Many Presidencies” [Oren Cass, New York Times]. “[Trump] is an iconoclastic leader with a uniquely unfiltered relationship to the American people and a disdain for the chattering class of consultants. He is also the first president since Grover Cleveland to get a second shot at a first term…. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, he made a promise to “every citizen” that he would “fight for you, for your family and your future” and that “this will truly be the golden age of America.” Achieving that will require focusing on the challenges and respecting the values broadly shared by not only his voters, but also many others who might come to support him…. Focus on making it easier to speculate in cryptocurrency or on providing non-college pathways to building a decent life? Focus on whatever harebrained scheme Robert Kennedy Jr. or Vivek Ramaswamy might mention over lunch or on creating a more generous benefit for working families raising kids, as JD Vance and others have proposed? Any president finds himself surrounded by advisers pushing their personal and ideological agendas. There is a reason most lose sight of what matters to the people outside that bubble. But Mr. Trump has built his political career on taking the road less traveled. Returning to office, he has a last best first chance to get it right.”

2024 Post Mortem

Deploy the Blame Cannons!

“Trump broke the Democrats’ thermostat” [John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times]. “[T]he data shows Democrats taking a sharp turn leftward on social issues over the past decade. This has distanced them from the median voter, just as Wright’s cartoon depicted. We see this not only in Democratic voters’ self-reported ideology, but in their views on issues including immigration and whether or not minorities need extra help to succeed in society. Notably, the shift began in 2016.” I think the chart shows the change began in 2008, and accelerated in 2015. More: “This suggests that Trump’s election radicalised the left, not the right. Some counter that this is simply what progressive politics is, but the evidence suggests otherwise. America’s decades-long progress towards racial and sexual tolerance and equality has been a gradual shift, led by progressives with the centre and right quickly following. The pivots of the past decade, by contrast, have been abrupt and are leaving the majority behind. They are better characterised not as moves towards greater tolerance and equality but as shifts in rhetoric or proposed solutions for addressing disparities, where there is plenty of room for disagreement without bigotry. Many of these pivots originated with the activists and non-profit staffers that surround the Democratic party. In an invaluable piece of research carried out in 2021, political scientists Alexander Furnas and Timothy LaPira at the think-tank Data for Progress found that these “political elites” or tastemakers hold views often well to the left of the average voter — and even the average Democratic voter — on cultural issues.” • Handy chart:

One reason the 2020 Sanders campaign messaging changed to idpol. (Of course, “leftward,” as is usual in mainstream discourse, is a misnomer:; identity politics is just another flavor of liberalism. Leftism means putting the working class first; no serious Democrat believes in that, though of course lip service is occasionally paid.

Campaign Finance

“Clashes, confusion and secrecy consume the Harris campaign’s finances” [NBC]. “If Kamala Harris’ campaign was known for anything, it was its blockbuster fundraising. In just a matter of months, it crossed the $1 billion mark, in a stunning and record-breaking pace. Now, less than a week since the vice president conceded the contest, it not only has run out of money, it’s still asking for more. The campaign emails and texts, known for their ubiquity throughout the election, aren’t expected to stop anytime soon…. The overarching challenge at this point for what is left of Harris’ campaign is that the financial picture is shrouded in mystery — even for those within the organization. No one can — or will — spell out a clear status of its finances… Five sources with direct knowledge of the campaign’s internal finances confirmed to NBC News that it has indeed accrued debt. But none could point to a specific amount; several people threw out possibilities, with the lowest beginning at $6 million…. It isn’t unusual for a campaign to close out a contest carrying some debt. What is unusual is the pace of the expenditures after record-breaking fundraising, some senior officials said. What is even more unusual are the explosive clashes taking place in and around the Harris campaign universe. Interviews with more than a dozen campaign officials and allies reveal a deep distrust of leadership, questions over payments to consultants and celebrities, as well as anger over what they say was a pervasive lack of transparency over finances and analytics. The sources were granted anonymity to speak about internal campaign dynamics.” And then this: “Some aides expressed frustration in interviews, saying they had crafted language for ongoing requests for money but that they were intended for a prolonged counting effort post election night. ‘We had some emails pre-scripted for a long fight,’ a senior campaign official close to the strategy said.” • Hmm…..

Realignment and Legitimacy

“A Triumph for Trump’s Republicans” [Peggy Noonan]. “It is worth being moved that in our huge, restive, cynical and yearning nation we peacefully, and with complete public acceptance of the outcome, made a dramatic national judgment this week. Just about every adult citizen took part and took it seriously. All together they produced something we needed: a clear outcome, one delivered without charges of large-scale chicanery or even small-scale so far as we know. There will be a peaceful transfer of power. A lot of people had to do a lot of things right to make this happen.” Allow me to note that I (paraphrasing) always qualified “the Democrats cannot allow Trump to take office” with “if they believe what they say” (about “fascism”, “our democracy”, etc. As happens so often, no matter how hard I try, I’m never cynical enough; that Kamala’s 2024 Democrats would be as cynical about deploying “fascism” as Obama’s 2008 “Democrats”… .Well, doggone it. Back to Nooners, who concludes: “I like what Liz Cheney tweeted Wednesday: ‘Our nation’s democratic system functioned last night and we have a new President-elect. All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results.’ We also have a responsibility as members of ‘the greatest nation on earth’ to ‘support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years.’ She singled out the courts, the press, ‘and those serving in our federal, state and local governments’ to be ‘the guardrails of democracy.’” • That “guardrails” metaphor shows lazy thinking and lazy writing (the metaphor presumes we’re on the right road, there’s gas in the tank, there’s gas at the next gas station, as opposed to feral mobs with torches, etc.). I’m surprised to find it in Nooners’ peroration. Yet another sign of civilizational collapse; Nooners creates clichés for other people; she doesn’t retail them.

“Going Forward from the Edge of the Abyss” [Adolph Reed, Nonsite]. Must-read. “Trump has no new coalition; he can’t because those “groups” aren’t real as groups, and people identify with them largely around thin identities more like consumer taste “communities” or partisan fans of sports teams. (Recall that some people got cues for what they should believe or how to line up on current issue positions from watching Archie Bunker.) That’s why so much of this politics reduces to “you say potAYto; I say potAHto.” This is not to say that the reified categories couldn’t become constituencies on the same principle as the Heisenberg effect; part of the beauty of interest-group politics is that tossing some resources around will produce constituencies—or at least people who claim to speak for them. And it’s not just the right; that’s also how the Democrats have been reinventing every four years under differing labels that magical constituency of “reasonable” upper-status, suburban, moderate Republican (white) women, which hasn’t materialized in thirty years or more, or their happy-face version of Passing of the Great Race in the simple-minded contention that changing racial demographics would provide yet another way to win without confronting capitalism’s contradictions. Indeed, constructing those taxonomies of identity configurations and reifying them into bodies of shared political interests is, ironically within a so self-consciously and performatively antiracist ‘left,’ quintessentially racist. Of course, those won’t be the takeaways.” No, they won’t. Crucially: “We have to face up to the fact—finally—that all we can expect from Dem success is kicking the can of confrontation with fascism down the road for four years. But for that approach to make sense someone, and only the labor-left can lead it or maybe even do it, has to spend another four years between elections organizing a real constituency for a different way of talking and thinking about and doing politics. To put it bluntly, we won’t be able to face up to the fascist juggernaut without working to build an actual popular constituency for a different, openly working-class-based politics. I’m not alone in noting that Trump/ism is not an anomaly; it’s now the point of the lance of what’s clearly a fascist international…. [W]e may be facing the equivalent of a T-intersection at which there are only two possible, totally opposite directions to take.” • If Reed is willing to make the call… Well, I’m gonna have to examine my priors by returning to Paxton; as readers know, Reed has an excellent track record, having called his shot on Obama in 1996. It would be so like the Democrats to so pollute the discourse on fascism that nobody could take it seriously (and certainly I veer in that direction, because I process so much of their output). My immediate reaction is that people should be thinking of that general strike on May Day, 2028, and not the next Presidential cycle, let alone the midterms…..

“Should the Democratic Party be listening to John Fetterman? [Politico]. “What did you make of Harris’ decision to call Trump a fascist? [FETTERMAN:] II love people that are absolutely going to vote for Trump. They’re not fascists. They’re not those things. I think if you go to the tickle switch, use those kinds of terms, then it’s kind of hard to walk back on those things. That’s kind of a word that really isn’t part of the vernacular for voters. Scolding harder or clutching the pearls harder, that’s never going to work for Democrats.” • It’s like everything with Democrats is “the tickle switch”….

“The Democrats’ problematic attitude toward voters of color hits a wall” [MSNBC], “Trump’s victory is shattering a common slogan and guiding principle in Democratic circles that ‘demographics is destiny.’ There has long been a belief in the party that Democrats were destined to hold a long-term majority in the country as the nation became more diverse. That belief was predicated on the idea that the party won ethnic minorities because it presented itself as the multicultural and socially inclusive party, and because it treated minorities as interest groups to cater to based on priorities specific to their ethnicity. That belief has always been problematic, and now it is collapsing. Trump’s playbook has thrown a grenade into the Democratic worldview, and the fallout among the left hasn’t been pretty.” dAs I keep saying, “demographics is destiny” has nothing to do with “the left” (except insofar as it was designed to destroy it). And: ‘But many liberals forget that those groups are never a monolith, and their members also have other identities that shape how they view the world, including class [dread word], gender, age and the countless subcultures they choose to associate with. ” • It’s not really useful to think of class as an idenity, or at least not an identity first. One does not, after all, “identify as” a wage worker. One is a wage worker.

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts