A New Hat For America

By Jim McCraw

While it is maddening to know that President-elect Biden couldn’t get a really good start on 2021 between President Trump’s recalcitrance and COVID-19, there will eventually be a Biden administration, and it will be in trouble up to its hips from Day One.

Herewith, a suggestion for Biden/Harris I believe is important, and eminently doable. As Congress fights over both short- and long-term follow-up bills to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), which ends the day after Christmas, I think it might be time for something as ambitious (though relatively easy, considering the big funding levels already proposed) and quick to do as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), circa 1933. Let’s call the new one the American Reconstruction Corps (ARC).

Lord knows there are plenty of skilled and unskilled people out of work.  And there are plenty of American infrastructure projects, largely ignored by the previous administration, that need doing.

Biden is not FDR, and we do not have a modern Robert Moses, the mid-20th Century “master builder” of New York, Long Island, Rochester and Westchester counties (it’s certainly not Donald J. Trump).

We are not Frank Lloyd Wright, the Ford Motor Company Whiz Kids, nor the first seven astronauts. We are just Americans who recognize a need to get a lot of things done by a mass of people willing to work. There has got to be a way to do this.

With widespread distribution of COVID-19 vaccines likely coming with warmer weather next summer, why couldn’t we dispatch squadrons of out-of-work Americans to do road, tunnel and bridge repairs that have been waiting years for funding and final approvals?  And not just men, which is how the original CCC operated. Skilled and unskilled women need work, too. At, say, $20 per hour.

Why not send platoons of the willing into every one of the national parks to do repairs and cleaning?

While the original CCC troops had uniforms, meals and housing, I humbly suggest self-provided work clothing, bring-your-own meals, work near home, and ARC baseball caps in red, white and blue.

There will be periodic need for FEMA supplies and equipment after summer storms, so why not divert some FEMA funding, vehicles and materiel to help Americans fix the things that are already broken?

Yes, men and women working and sweating in close quarters for eight-hour days may be problematic from a health standpoint, but with masks, distancing and frequent washing and spraying, I think it could work. Let’s get some guys from Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Ford, Google and Tesla to volunteer, put them in a room and see if they can figure this out while Biden and Harris get on with the rest of the recovery.

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House, Senate Stumble Toward Interim Relief

By Todd Lassa

House and Senate Republicans and Democrats are hard at work negotiating an interim, $908-billion relief package that would extend the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act past its December 26 expiration, through March 2021. Holding back Capitol Hill passage, which both chambers want as quickly as possible so everyone can go home for the Holidays, are issues of employee liability and aid to state and local governments. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., seeks a moratorium on covid-related lawsuits through 2024 and wants to drop local and state aid for governments suffering severe shortages of tax revenues, while Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, has proposed a liability shield for the current year, and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., has countered with a six-month liability moratorium for employers, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. 

As it currently stands, the bill as originated by the bi-partisan, bi-cameral Capitol Hill Problem Solvers caucus, would send $600 in relief checks to certain Americans and would supplement unemployment checks with an additional $300 per week, according to the Journal. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is fighting to double the relief checks to $1,200. 

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has proposed a $916-billion bill that would include $320 billion for small businesses and $160 billion for state and local governments. No matter what happens, combined with the CARES Act from earlier this year, the federal government has suspended, if not reversed, nearly 40 years of supply-side economics with demand-side economics.

The Problem Solvers caucus, whose leaders include Sens. Romney, Joe Manchin III, D-WVa., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, developed the short-term package after the Nov. 3 election. Reps. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., are co-chairs. Their bill includes $300 billion for small businesses, $180 billion for the additional unemployment benefits, $82 billion for schools, $16 billion for vaccine development, $10 billion for child care providers, a 15-percent boost in food stamp benefits, and $25 billion for rent assistance, with a moratorium on evictions through January 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Leave it to the Free Market Instead

By Andrew Boyd

I have a B.A, in economics from the University of Maryland, whose only real value is in providing me with the pretext to imagine that I know more about how an economy functions than anyone else. Reagan not-so-famously said that an economist is someone who sees a thing working in practice and wonders if it can be made to work in theory. Food for thought.

Let’s cut the crap here. Government spending and fiscal policy is a really, really, really poor substitute for the allocation of resources by free markets made up of millions of individuals pursuing their own self interests. There are circumstances, be they few, where externalities to free-market mechanics, constrained by constitutionally founded legal principles, provide some rationale for big government intervention and management of resource, such as national security and environmental protection, where the benefits do not accrue to the individual in such a manner that markets can effectively account for the opportunity cost. 

There’s a concept worth ruminating on, opportunity cost, which you might otherwise think of simply as tradeoffs. Everything is thus, and every dollar the government collects and attempts to redistribute wisely, while lacking any real wisdom, is economic drag being traded against some espoused social or political priority that tends toward political cronyism, politicians at large being the most wretched and craven among us. Devils stomping about where angels fear to tread.

All that said, is COVID-19 an externality? Yes. Does it require government intervention? I'd say yes there as well. Now, who gets the money? Everyone in accordance with what they put in, IMHO. Enough of this picking winners and losers, capital vs. labor, essential vs. non-essential. It’s a damned dumpster fire and, oh by the way, immoral. It wasn’t their labor, their ingenuity, their value to society to begin with! Pick a number, they’re equally arbitrary, ratio it according to individuals' or households' federal income tax rate and cut the checks. And then someone grow a pair and own up to the fact that modern monetary policy is a train wreck whose destructive energy just hasn’t made it back to our particular car yet (car being a stand-in for time, here).

None of this is really economic policy, by the way. It’s triage. What we're calling stimulus is more like an economic inertial damper, spreading impact over time to presumably slowing the spread of fear that left unchecked will overwhelm our economic immune system. If we want to talk Supply vs. Demand fiscal policy, we need to decouple the conversation from COVID. They’re apples and oranges. But if I must, I’ll argue it this way: Government, you have no good goddamn idea what you’re doing. Get out of the business of managing the economy. You suck at it, completely. Get off people’s necks and let them pursue what ends seem best to them, with one and only one real caveat -- your rights end at the top of my nose and visa versa.  That’s a little thing called freedom, and it’s so much more delicate a thing than we can possibly fathom.

And, oh yeah, flat tax.

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I am Just Over It

By Michelle Naranjo

I have two different friends of different generations: one millennial and one boomer, and both are consistently two to three days behind the news cycle. The former has a penchant for sending texts with screenshots of the circus that has become the Trump campaign post-election, have typically been passed around Twitter for at least 24 hours, and have already expired like a dad joke. The latter takes to Facebook to announce political news that is often so dated, the accompanying commentary/rant is out of touch with current events.

It shouldn’t bother me as much as it does, but it’s so annoying. They get outraged and amused at stuff I’m way over. And that is because the stream of idiocy feels endless one month after election day.

This brand of annoyance also has become the general reaction to the seemingly never-ending string of failed lawsuits, hearings, and press conferences led by Trump lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. 

President Trump’s Twitter account has become a string of outrage about a rigged election (a false claim, as Twitter is quick to annotate). Followers are leaving the spectacle in droves since the sole focus appears to be on overturning an election that was conducted legally and not on the exploding pandemic. 

In an attempt to get more airtime, Trump traveled to Georgia Saturday night to lead a rally under the auspices of supporting the Republican senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. What actually happened was an appearance by the two candidates drowned out to chants of “four more years” and Trump delivering his usual level of speech that is wearing out the fact-checkers. 

And we learned that he likes cucumbers.

After four years of this presidency and an especially difficult 2020, a general air of exhaustion fills the atmosphere. The people complicit in this, from the Republican politicians refusing to acknowledge Biden won, to the rabid supporters who don’t appear to understand math, let alone how a democratic election works, only reveal deeper and deeper levels of racism, ignorance, and greed. 

And it is annoying. I am way over it all. Trump doesn’t need to concede. He needs to get out of the way and let us all get on with healing and recovery. 

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Get out of the way, President Trump.

When Will the Whining Stop?

By Stephen Macaulay

In 1997 Frank Costanza brought his holiday to the attention of the world: Festivus. The airing of grievances. And a demonstration of feats of strength.

Festivus occurs on December 23, thereby getting a jump on Christmas.

On December 2, Donald Trump held his own Festivus. But there was no un-decorated pole. Rather, there were the trappings of the Office of the President of the United States.

To be sure, Trump is still the president. But the clock is running on his occupancy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And he doesn’t like it.

Trump’s airing of grievances took the form of a 46-minute video shot in the Diplomatic Reception Room. Diplomats are supposed to be deft handlers of situations. There was nothing particular deft about his Facebook rant about the “rigged election”

Christopher Krebs was the director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency until Trump fired him by tweet (the new diplomatic channel?), because Krebs said that the election was not at all rigged or otherwise unduly influenced by dead Venezuelan politicians or whatever the conspiracy of the day might be.

Right now, William Barr, the attorney general whose actions over the past several months show that he would probably be more than glad to pick up Trump’s dry cleaning and shave his back, is reportedly on the edge of losing his job because he said the Department of Justice has uncovered nothing that would be voter fraud of the magnitude to change the outcome of the election.

The “Seinfeld” show broadcast on December 18, 1997, was and remains funny.

There is nothing amusing about the man who should be representative of all that is good and noble in this great country making it sound as though the United States is some third-world dictatorship.

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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An airing of grievances before Festivus.

Georgia and the GOP Need Trump’s Support

By Bryan Williams

During our four years with President Trump, I had a rule of thumb: Pay attention to what he does, not what he says (or tweets).

I would check his twitter feed every once in a while for a laugh, but I would pay close attention to his official actions from the (supposedly) unbiased media reports, or from news broadcasts of his impromptu Q&A time with the media on his way to Marine One.

Since the election last month things have gotten weird. During my time in politics, we knew there was some shenanigans going on, but it was always so difficult to prove, and the local district attorney could not prove any fraud. So, I believe there may have been some election fraud last month in all the battleground states, but even I don’t buy the Trump campaign argument that it’s on the scale of thousands of votes, or part of some strange international conspiracy.

Now the Trump camp is telling Republicans in Georgia to not vote because of the rigged nature of the election as a way to boycott the "corrupt" system down there. 

Say what? I'm sorry but if I was registered to vote in Georgia, no one would tell me not to return to the polls. Corrupt or not, fraud or not, you need to show up and vote. Elections are a numbers game. If you don't vote, you will only hurt your candidates, ideals, and party. It's not like a business that will lose profits from a well-organized boycott.

If any Republican in Georgia is reading this, please vote. Do you really want the Democratic Party to control both houses of Congress and the White House? And to President Trump: Use your popularity to rally folks to vote. People love you, and the GOP needs your energy one more time.

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Georgia Republican Party needs you to vote.

The Decline in Standards

By Stephen Macaulay

Marco Rubio did not attend an Ivy League school. After graduating from South Miami Senior High School, he went northwest, to Missouri, where he spent a year at Tarkio College, as he received a football scholarship. Then it was back to Florida, Gainesville, where he attended what was then Santa Fe Community College. That was followed by attendance at the University of Florida, where he received a BA in political science in 1993. Then he attended the University of Miami School of Law in 1996.

Using what seems to be the communication tool of choice for Trump wannabes, Twitter, Rubio tweeted out that Joe Biden’s cabinet nominees “went to Ivy League schools, have strong resumes, attend all the right conferences & will be polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline.”

There’s a lot to break down there. And we’ll give Rubio the benefit of the doubt that he’s not simply annoyed that he didn’t make that league.

But let’s start with the conclusion. That America is in decline. And who has been the president for the past four years? Who has failed to rally the American public to do the right things to stop the coronavirus in the way that a leader who has lost more than a quarter million of his people would? Whose lack of response has led to not only high rates of unemployment right now, but what is likely to get worse as the fall turns to winter. . .and the funding and restrictions against evictions run out?

Oh, and who had control of the Senate?

If America is declining, we can see where it started. And would it have been better to reinforce that decline by re-electing the person who has gotten the proverbial ball rolling?

Are manners now a thing of the past, politeness something that is to be demeaned?

If you are a parent and have a high school student, odds are it would be your fondest dream for them to attend an Ivy League school. You would be so very proud if they can achieve a strong resume. It would be something to brag about if they were able to attend the right conferences. And regardless of all of that, you want them to be polite and orderly.

When people start calling out other people for being smart and good mannered, there is evidently decline.

A decline in standards.

And we can clearly identify when that started: June 16, 2015.

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Culture Wars Go to College

By Todd Lassa

A bit like an NCAA football rivalry, the Culture Wars have stumbled onto the battlefield of the college and university alumni of presidential candidates’ staff and cabinet. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., fired an early shot as the former vice president began announcing his choices to staff the White House. Rubio expressed concern about people who received degrees from Ivy League schools, presumably in an effort to appeal to the Trump wing, as one of Trump’s biggest demographic constituencies consisted of non-college educated white males.*

Then the Biden transition team launched a trial balloon, or canary in the Senate coalmine if you will with Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, nominated to become director of the Office of Management and Budget. Tanden was a longtime confidant of Hillary Clinton tipped to potentially be her chief of staff, background that has drawn some opposition from supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who believe she helped torpedo his 2016 Democratic nomination bid. When Trump won instead, she took to Twitter with the “#Resistance” hashtag. Since Biden announced his intention to nominate her, she has deleted more than 1,000 tweets from over the last four years, according to the New York Post.

Her tweets’ alleged nastiness has drawn the ire of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, both Republicans, though one might presume that as far as Rubio is concerned, she won’t be among the “polite & orderly caretakers” of the nation’s decline. 

What’s more, Tanden has a law degree from Yale.

The other intended cabinet are mostly ivy leaguers. They include Ron Klain (chief of staff; Georgetown University and Harvard Law), Janet Yellen (Treasury; Pembroke College of Brown University and Yale), Antony Blinken (State; Harvard and Columbia), John Kerry (special envoy for climate; Yale, though he had “low grades”), Alejandro Mayorkas (Homeland Security; University of California-Berkeley and Loyola Law), Linda Thomas-Greenfield (United Nations ambassador; Louisiana State and University of Wisconsin-Madison, a “public ivy”) and Jake Sullivan (national security advisor; Yale). [Hat tip to Wikipedia and New York magazine’s Intelligencer.]

Biden will be the first non-Ivy grad to take the White House since Ronald Reagan in 1980 and ’84. He attended the University of Delaware and Syracuse University for law. Trump is an Ivy League grad with an economics degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Reagan? Eureka College. According to Lou Cannon writing in a piece for the UVA Miller Center (https://millercenter.org/president/reagan/life-before-the-presidency) “He majored in economics but was an indifferent student, graduating with a "C" average in 1932.”

Sounds like Rubio’s kind of guy.

*It should be noted that Rubio (along with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson) is considered a lead Republican candidate for president in 2024, assuming the party remains centered on its Trump populist wing and that no members of the outgoing president’s family—Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and son-in-law Jared Kushner—announce they’re running (which could explain the rumored pre-emptive pardons). To say nothing of Trump himself announcing another run in ’24 (which could also explain the rumored self-pardon).

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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Biden Gets Hilary Clinton’s Cabinet

By Bryan Williams

One of my favorite pastimes is watching a leader assemble his or her team. I know that sounds super-nerdy, but I wear the nerd badge proudly. Whether it is a starship captain like my hero Jean-Luc Picard assembling his senior staff for the USS Enterprise, or the President of the United States choosing the men and women who will help carry out his vision, this is sport to me. I was once part of a politician’s staff myself, so I know how important and gratifying this can be. While the president, like the captain, always has the final word, those who serve under the leader make it happen and bring unique qualifications and baggage with them.

Our outgoing President chose some controversial figures that I didn't always like or trust. He also chose some great people that I felt did a good job, most of them not from "the swamp."  Contrast that to Joe Biden's picks for his cabinet and other "czar" positions and well...we see a bunch of establishment figures and reruns from the Clinton and Obama years. The National Review says Biden's early picks look a whole lot like Hillary Clinton’s intended team for 2017.

A few observations:

  1. Lots of women. Which isn't a problem for me at all. My mother was the breadwinner in my family growing up, and I campaigned for a female elected official and then joined her staff as my first foray into politics. Women should be at the table and a part of any team. It just feels like a bit of overcompensation, and let's hope the version of Uncle Joe who rubs shoulders and violates physical bubbles doesn’t show up during cabinet meetings.
  • Most people expect that Biden, at his age, will be a one term President. It is difficult to see him running again at age 81 for a term that will end when he is 86. This was his chance to name some interesting figures to his cabinet and really fulfill the dreams of the Left. But perhaps after four years of the Left/media hyperventilating over the Trump Administration, these boring picks may be a salve.
  • John Kerry. Really? John Kerry? His political career should have ended with his failed 2004 presidential bid, but like a whack-a-mole, Kerry just keeps popping up. Now he is going to be the climate czar. Oh good. I can see the CO2 clearing already. What authority does he have on climate? What has he done, ever? Why does he deserve to be on the government payroll yet again? If I were a young liberal who voted for Biden I would be severely let down and darn near close to writing off Biden's presidency before it has even started. With all the calls to name women and people of color to high profile jobs within the government, why not some people in their 30s and 40s?

At least Biden adopted a dog and we'll have a First Pet again. I like dogs. The future looks bright.

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GM is Dialing it in for the Dollars

By Michelle Naranjo

In 2008, then-President Barack Obama set a goal of 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015, but that goal was hardly met. Fewer than 400,000 EVs had been sold. Plug-in vehicles accounted for less than 1 percent of all vehicle sales, about the same as the number of convertibles sold in the nation annually.

Despite the looming warnings from climate scientists, car buyers were more concerned with range anxiety and the cost to buy an EV. 

General Motors joining other automakers to follow more progressive Biden-led goals is admirable, but it is truly nothing short of GM seeing dollars. 

The President-elect sees his climate change policy to be an opportunity to create more jobs for millions of Americans. His vision includes investments in infrastructure, the auto industry, transit, the power sector, buildings, housing, and agriculture. 

Setting sights on a national standard is the right thing to do. The challenge will be to unite consumers into understanding that it is the right thing to do and holding the automakers accountable. 

Case in point, several manufacturers - including GM - have made vehicles for years that, while not plug-ins, were an attempt at bettering emissions, but they absolutely failed in following up with any significant customer education or marketing. Take any PZEV (partial zero-emissions vehicle). Most car buyers aren’t aware of what they are buying. In GM’s case, they had a mild hybrid system in the Buick LaCrosse, for example, but were almost afraid to tell that story to car buyers. 

But those car models were not the bread and butter that supports a global company, so there wasn’t much effort from the marketing companies.

Globally, EV sales are on the rise. Chinese EV sales currently total more than every other country in the world, combined. More than 60 percent of vehicle sales in Norway are plug-ins. Numerous countries have set dates to end the sales of traditional internal combustion engines.  

“The cost of energy from wind power has dropped by a factor of 10,” energy analyst Ramez Naam said on the Orange and Outrageous podcast, by Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. “The cost of electricity from solar power has dropped by a factor of 30.” In an even more dramatic statistic about the future affordability of electric-powered cars, BloombergNEF, estimates the cost of lithium-ion battery packs has dropped 87 percent between 2010 and 2019. 

GM can’t afford to not side with Biden.

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Business Community Pivots from Trump

By Todd Lassa

General Motors CEO Mary Barra (pictured) has announced that by the end 2025 there will be some 20 electric vehicles available to customers in the U.S. — 40 percent of all products on offer in its showrooms — which will go a long way toward the automaker meeting strict 2026 California fuel economy standards. But Barra waited until Michigan certified its 16 Electoral College votes would go to President-elect Joe Biden, to announce the automaker would separate from President Trump’s three-year plus legal proceedings to end the state’s special waiver allowing its own emissions laws.  

The California standard eases the Obama administration’s federal 54.5-mpg average by 2025, to about 51-mpg by 2026, while the Trump administration has sought a 40-mpg standard instead. GM, Toyota Motor and Fiat Chrysler signed on with the administration. Toyota, which built a reputation for low emissions and high fuel efficiency with its Prius hybrids, had said it joined Trump’s legal efforts because it prefers a single federal standard, no matter what the level.

Historically, until now, the standard set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been tougher than the federal standard. California has had a waiver from the federal government to set its own rules since the late 1960s, and 16 high-population Eastern states long ago signed on. It must be noted that the corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) standards, whether 40 mpg or 54.5 mpg, do not literally mean automakers must meet those numbers – there are very complicated formulas for determining each car or truck models’ average. 

But with its fleet of zero-emission EVs on the way over the next few years, GM could reasonably have joined Ford Motor Company, BMW, Volvo, Volkswagen Group (which has aggressive plans for a fleet of its own EV models) and Honda (which is partnering with GM on EV projects) when they signed on with California on its 51-mpg average. 

Legal efforts to lower the future standard undoubtedly will end with Biden’s inauguration Jan. 20, when the president-elect will add a special envoy for climate to his cabinet. Biden has chosen John Kerry, Obama’s second secretary of state, who helped negotiate the Paris Agreement on climate change (another accomplishment that Trump reversed), for the post. 

Trump often attacked Biden as beholden to the Democratic Party’s progressive wing and a commitment to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal.” In the second presidential debate, held in late October, Trump predicted that Biden would lose Pennsylvania’s electoral votes for his commitment to turn the United States into a net-zero producer of climate-warming pollutants by 2035, and to cut total emissions to zero by 2050. For the time being, at least, Biden appears to be carving out a middle road between climate change activists and the fossil fuel industry.

Barra’s announcement Monday coincided with the administrator of the General Services Administration, Emily W. Murphy, acknowledging nearly two weeks after the fact that former Vice President Biden had won the election, which in turn allowed the transition process to commence. It also coincided with the efforts of  “160 top American executives” who signed a letter to the Trump asking him to acknowledge Biden’s victory and begin an orderly transition, The New York Times reported Nov. 24. Some of the signatories also threatened to withhold campaign contributions to Sens. Kelly Loefler and David Purdue, two incumbent Republicans seeking re-election in a January runoff in Georgia. If they both lose, the Democrats will gain majority control of the Senate. 

It seems fairly clear that the business world has moved on from Trump and his policies.

Please address comments to editors@thehustings.news

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PHOTO CREDIT: General Motors

GM Moves on to the Next Administation

By Bryan Williams

The news of General Motors retreating from the Trump Administration’s fight with the California Air Resources Board and joining Ford, BMW, VW, and Honda isn’t a surprise. President Trump was peculiarly involved in the auto industry. 

He berated the domestic brands for outsourcing assembly to other countries, especially Mexico. He also fought my home state of California over its stricter-than-federal fuel economy standards. Taking a hardline pro-business stance on the auto industry was supposed to win Trump votes in Michigan in 2020. We know how that turned out.

GM bailing out of Trump’s legal efforts against the California Air Resources Board (CARB), to me is just a business decision to curry favor with the next administration. That Detroit automakers have been based in otherwise deep-blue Michigan, complicit in union inefficiencies for decades, and receptive to government bailouts – three realities that follow the Yellow Brick Road to a preference for the Democratic Party -- is a story for another day.

But what about two sets of fuel economy standards? When President Obama abruptly dictated an astronomical increase in fuel efficiency, I thought there was no way the automakers could meet them by 2025. How do politicians expect a business with such long development time, such as the auto industry, to turn on a dime when platforms and engines are designed for seven- to 10-year product cycles? 

There should be one national standard, and it could be the California standard as long as the automakers are given enough time to implement them, without throwing mandates or lawsuits around in an attempt to appease the political base.

The auto industry will be able to meet the California fuel economy standard, which at 51 mpg by 2026 still reflects a bit of a break from the Obama administration’s 54.5 mpg by 2025. But let’s choose one national mandate and stick with it for a while. It would provide the regulatory stability businesses need.

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The Democratic Party Will Not Be a United Dinner Party

By Michelle Naranjo

My grandmother would always make Sunday dinner for my extended family, and she always made sure to cook specific dishes for every member of the family. Fried chicken for me, chicken fried steak for my brother, glazed green beans for my mother, and so on. Weekly, she spent hours in the kitchen, making all of these dishes, and in the end, we all ate together.

The Democratic Party, for the most part, appeared to unify behind Joe Biden for president. But in the days following Nov. 3, 2020, the cracks began to show. It would seem that the party was holding a collective breath to keep up appearances before exhaling the deep-seated division that has been grumbling under the seams for years. 

While former Democratic presidential candidates Michael Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang threw their weight behind the Biden/Harris ticket, hitting campaign rallies (many of which were on Zoom because of concerns about COVID-19), their supporters mostly followed along. They decided that unification mattered, and a career moderate politician was the direction that the Left needed to go to defeat President Trump.

But there are still echoes of “Me! Me! Me! Pick me!”, resounding among the diverse voters.

During an era when people choose to support by how a candidate’s platform appeals to the individual themselves as a voter -- which insinuates more of an emotional commitment to a candidate than one that is pragmatic for the greater good -- it is no surprise that “true feelings” built up to an almost explosive level post-election. 

Add to that equation the Republicans who came into the Biden fold through The Lincoln Project, and the fire gets even more fuel.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Squad immediately began to criticize the former Republican operatives that founded The Lincoln Project for collecting funds that supported their anti-Trump state-targeted advertising campaigns instead of funding their own Democratic campaigns. Many of The Lincoln Project supporters -- some of whom do not qualify as Republicans but tend to be voters who don’t vote party lines every election -- fought back that The Squad is anti-Semitic because of their human rights for Palestine stance.

Black allies don’t like Pete Buttigieg because of his hiring record. Progressives complained that there wasn’t enough recognition given to women, Black people, the Latinx, and Native American voters in Biden’s success. Moderates Democrats thought that the “abolish the police” slogan lost support for state and local candidates. And progressive parties like the Working Families Party are beginning to run their own candidates, sometimes as Democrats, and increasingly under their own party name.

As Chuck Rocha, a Texas-raised Democratic strategist who runs Nuestro PAC, a super PAC focused on Latino outreach, stated to NBC, “Biden won, and that’s great, but everything underneath Biden was a huge catastrophe.” [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/huge-catastrophe-democrats-grapple-congressional-state-election-losses-n1248529]

Will Joe Biden be able to pull together all of the disparity, especially when the Democratic party performed so poorly down-ballot? With so many trying to raise their individualized voices, it appears that Biden will have an ongoing struggle with pleasing all of the people all of the time. Is this going to be a family-style dinner with a seat for everyone?

Beyond a strategy to combat the coronavirus and affected economy, Biden’s top initiative is climate change. Despite the currently divided rhetoric about the yet to be announced presidential cabinet, issues like this will be the grounding displays that will surely win some unity. 

Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the three largest strategy consulting firms globally, sees Biden as capable of making headway in leading the shift required to address climate change. BCG states, “President-elect Biden campaigned on the most ambitious climate platform of any presidential candidate in history—and he has indicated that his administration will move quickly to pursue that policy. A transition to a low-carbon economy can have enormous benefits for U.S. businesses, creating thousands of jobs across the country while positioning the U.S. to be a driving force and innovation leader both domestically and abroad. Companies that are prepared to participate in the green recovery can reap substantial rewards.” [https://www.bcg.com/publications/2020/new-course-for-climate-in-united-states]

That’s possible only if Biden can successfully and positively affect special interest groups, even those across the aisle, with initiatives that address the plethora of issues at hand.  

Will this stop splinter groups from trying to build a new third party? Or even a fourth and fifth? Unlikely. 

But as a collective restaurant under a President Biden, multiple dinners for the many “party of one” at least gets everyone in the same room. 

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Can Biden Work with The Squad and Centrist Republicans?

By Todd Lassa

As moderates and traditionalists continue to wrestle the Republican Party from the hands of President Trump and his most faithful populist followers, the Democratic Party is mirroring its cross-aisle rivals with a similar struggle. President-elect Joe Biden and his transition team, though hobbled by Trump’s aversion to conceding the election, are working hard to take the middle road and avoid concessions to The Squad led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as well as voters who would rather have voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., as the Democratic Party’s nominee. 

Democrats this election season have been uncharacteristically low-key compared with the GOP about infighting between centrists and their respective hardline wings. Biden’s record 79-million-plus votes Nov. 3 certainly includes both an unknown number of centrist Republicans who never would have voted for Sanders, or for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), for that matter, as well as young Democrats who would have preferred Sanders.

But the 2020 “Blue Wave” never happened. Biden must govern from the White House with Republicans increasing their minority in the House of Representatives by at least six seats and with Senate leadership depending on Georgia’s special January runoff elections for both of its seats. Democratic candidates must win both runoffs for a 50-50 count in the Senate, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to serve as the tie-breaker. Even if that long-shot happens, Biden will face a recalcitrant Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who infamously vowed 12 years ago to make Barack Obama a one-term president and will undoubtedly lead his fellow Republican senators in key filibusters. 

Already, Capitol Hills pundits are talking about how Biden will have to rule by executive order, where he can, to reverse some of the policies that Trump is rushing to implement in his waning time as president, including efforts to begin the final process of leasing parts of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil companies. 

The future of the fossil fuel industry and potential for alternatives to gain prominence is central to both sides, of course, including traditional pro-business Republicans and Democrats like Ocasio-Cortez, who with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., unveiled the Green New Deal shortly after she took office in early 2019. 

At presstime, President-elect Biden’s cabinet picks were beginning to emerge and they are largely considered centrists. Anthony Blinken will be nominated for secretary of state according to Bloomberg, Linda Greenfield-Thomas will be tapped for United Nations ambassador and Jake Sullivan, former aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will be national security advisor. The Biden transition team already has confirmed that longtime advisor Ron Klain will be the 46th president’s chief of staff.

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Whither the Democrats? The Answer Doesn’t Matter

By Stephen Macaulay

The question of what does the Democratic Party do now is a rather premature one, I think, as Trump has yet (as of this writing) to admit that he didn’t win another landslide.

But let’s face it: Pundits have to write about something political because we like to think that nature abhors a vacuum of pithy observations.

The question is one that breaks down this way: Who runs the show? It would seem that the obvious answer to that is Joe Biden, based on his proclamation during the first debate with Trump: “I am the Democratic Party right now.” A centrist. An institutionalist. A regular Joe.

But then there is the counter to that, one that has it that the more progressive wing of the Party ought to take flight and lead efforts to create what they presume is a more equitable society, not one that gives, as the slogan has it with surprising accuracy, “tax breaks to the rich.”

This would include the likes of Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, and the members of The Squad—Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) —who aren’t going to take any guff from anyone. Biden, presumably, included.

That there was no “Blue Wave” is generally attributed to the idea that “Defund the Police” and the word socialism played so broadly in the campaign runup.

What I find to be rather remarkable is that for presumably being the party of smart, pointy-headed people (or so it is widely presumed in many places across the country, both rural and otherwise), a party where there are top-notch marketers and professorial linguists, the Democrats surely do a—dare I say?—crappy job when it comes to language. (Trump has used more extreme language, so I am hopeful this passes muster at The Hustings.)

Consider “Defund the Police.” That is a scary thought for many urbanites and suburbanites, especially the latter, who are afraid that there are going to be marauders coming into their cul de sacs. 

The term is the audible version of “bad optics.”

Why isn’t there some clever Democrat who comes up with an explanation that people might be able to understand? Like the Nathan Fillion TV show “Castle”, where a mystery writer partners with an NYPD detective and manages to solve cases. In the case of “Defund the Police,” it could be on calls where there are undoubtedly mental health issues, joining the police might be a mental health professional. The funding is shifted.

Seem like a stupid example? Maybe. But it is something that regular people can understand. Regardless of party affiliation. (“Hey, Dot, did you hear they’re pulling a ‘Castle’ at the police department? Now they’re getting somewhere.”)

As for the socialist* charge: Let’s face it, there are a whole lot of Boomers who might fondly remember their days in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s when they knew of people in the SDS but who have now 401Ks that they’re concerned with and the notion of wealth distribution is something that is now anathema to them. Given that there are Democrats who openly self-define as socialist, this is going to be a tough one to shift.

But here’s the thing: none of this may matter. If McConnell maintains control of the Senate, there is going to be very little happening that isn’t caused by executive order.

After all, as Biden might say (though in English): l'état c'est moi.

*One of the missed opportunities that the Democrats had was to brand Trump a “Stalinist.” Seriously. Stalin created a cult of personality. Check. Stalin wanted to concentrate power within the state, including the separation from other countries. Check.Stalin called those who weren’t with him “enemies of the people.” Check. Stalin purged high-ranking officials who didn’t hew to his line. Check. And there are several more examples. This is not to say that the real Donald Trump is a murderous thug who was responsible for the deaths of millions as Stalin was (although when history is written, there are going to be numbers of deaths from COVID-19 that will be ascribed to Trump’s behavior). It is to say that in a world that seems to be defined by unreality (“The election was rigged!”), simple labels can have consequences.

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