Fighting Adaptation to Reality

By Mike Koetting August 18, 2026

My last post argued that since serious environmental mitigation was politically implausible (at least for the time being), we needed to step up our efforts to adapt to changing environmental conditions. I am not talking about projections of what might happen. I am talking about responding to realities that are facing us here and now.

This post expands on that theme. I start with a few micro-case studies that illustrate some of the challenges. Then I try to place that in a larger focus.

Water: Too Little and Too Much

As I am writing, Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country, is at its lowest level ever. There is serious concern that if the water falls any further, it will no longer be able to support the turbines that provide electric power to a large chunk of the Southwest.

This is part of a bigger water shortage that threatens major impacts on American lifestyle. The Colorado watershed system provides water for about 15% of the nation’s food supply. The water rights in this region are covered by a complex, and outdated, series of water covenants. These need to be renegotiated, which will require major concessions because all the easy cuts have already been made. Federal leadership is desperately needed.

Citizens are starting to encounter a growing number of adverse environmental impacts. A small taste of what’s ahead can be seen in Denver, where neighborhood fights are breaking out between those who are following rules for watering their lawns and those who are flouting them. And this is the easy stuff. What happens when people figure out how much water golf courses are using. Who will decide which is more important to the country, agriculture or golf?

At the other end of the spectrum is the flooding. For instance, the overflow storm reservoirs for Chicago—built not that many years ago with the promise they could accommodate the most extreme situations—have flirted with capacity limits several times this year. While the overall level of rain has not increased that much, the way rain falls has changed. Flooding, in most cases, turns out to be less a function of how much rain falls and more a function of how fast it falls. The torrential nature of the rain in Texas led to 130 deaths from flash flooding on the Fourth of July

The change in rain fall patterns is related to planet warming. The physics of this have been known for two centuries: higher temperatures make climates less stable because even small changes in temperature can exponentially increase the concentration of rainfall. Adapting to this reality will require new (and in some cases very expensive) approaches to managing hitherto unimaginable bouts of heavy rain.

Heat: Fire and Grid

It is well beyond dispute that the world continues to warm. And, to the surprise of no climate scientist, this has led to increased wildfires. Everywhere. There is enormous loss of property and threats to both immediate mortality and longer run increases due to failing air quality.

There are some short-term fixes—better warning systems and better regulation of where and how people can build. (If the latter can be politically feasible; if not, we will certainly be put in a position where taxpayers will have to bail out people who ignored recommendations.)

What really needs to be done is back off temperature. While this is part prevention, there is an immediate problem. If we can stabilize or reduce temperature, it will reduce the current threats from higher temperatures. It seems we have missed the window to hold global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, but we might be able to keep it from rising all the way to 2.0. We might even be able to push back some of the extreme effects we are seeing now.

This will require a number of different actions but one thing that clearly improves the possibilities is reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The most obvious big step is to increase the electrification of the economy, particularly from cleaner energy sources such as wind and solar. We need to continue battery development and deployment and improve the grid to carry electricity from where it can be safely produced to where it is needed. We need also to support the conversion of American transportation, which is responsible for about 28% of all the country’s emissions, to electric vehicles.

Microbes

A recent New Yorker article illustrates how current global warming has caused changes in the world’s microbe communities for which we are not prepared. Vibrio vulnificus, popularly known as flesh-eating bacteria, has flourished in the warmer ocean. It has been responsible for five deaths so far this summer in Louisiana.

What is called for is closer monitoring, more research into specifics (including antidotes to rare infections) and a strong system of increased surveillance and warning. Communication among specialists working in this area is essential.

Climate Migration

This is a qualitatively different problem than the previous as it is more an issue of moral adaption rather than material adaptation. Climate changes are forcing a substantial amount of migration, most within countries, but also enough across countries to upset politics within developed countries, including ours.

It is hard to know what obligation developed countries face. On the one hand, advanced countries have contributed disproportionately to climate problems. On the other hand, as a political matter, if not a practical matter, no country is going to provide open-ended resources to climate migrants, who, in any event, are hard to distinguish from people who want to migrate for a whole host of reasons.

It will be hard to make this problem go away simply by making it harder to immigrate (legally or otherwise) to developed countries. People will continue to find ways in, particularly in large countries like the U.S. It may also be hard to morally justify the horrible conditions created as climate-related issues wipe out means of livelihood and, indeed, make areas uninhabitable. So, while this doesn’t pose the same physical dangers as the above threats, ignoring it carries its own perils. One, for sure, is a loss of international respect that the U.S. once had. It will also lead to more local violence, which inevitably will increase our defense budget. There is also the corrosive impact on our society of actively ignoring the well-being of people who are suffering through no fault of their own.

Overview

Even a casual reader will notice that the current administration’s attitude toward these necessary adaptations ranges from indifference to, more often, hostility.

The Trump administration has actively hindered alternative energy sources and openly encouraged fossil fuels. They have dissolved the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods, which was set up under President Reagan in 1988 to provide scientific advice and coordinate best practices for defending against dangerous microbes at all levels of government. They have gleefully dismantled foreign aid efforts.

There is not sufficient appreciation for how awful this is. It gets swept into the big “What did you expect from this horrible administration.” But failing to adapt, often even opposing, potential adaptations to threats across a broad range of issues is specifically harmful to the country. Ask the people in Spokane whose houses burned down, the people of Chicago with asthma, the victims of flesh-eating bacteria where it never occurred before, the town in Arizona going out of existence for lack of water, and so forth.  These are not future problems. These are real problems today.

I think the explanation that Trump and supporters are simply giving into the grift from big corporations is not sufficient. That is surely a factor, but not complete. After all, how much grift is necessary?

Of course, having gotten this far into “climate change is a hoax” it is hard to back down without having to admit the entire framework is bogus. Which would obviously be detrimental to the brand. So that keeps a large portion of Republicans officeholders who presumably know better pretending that everything is okay.

But there is something else at work, which I think is an unfortunate combination of Trump’s personality and some larger disfunctions in our society.

Trump personality has been amply dissected in the media. The degree of narcissism simply doesn’t allow him to accept that there are others whose expertise overrules his gut instincts. And he has been able to turn what is in fact a dangerous impulse into the basis for amassing power…and ego satisfaction.

What’s more interesting to me is why so many people, many of whom are most directly in harm’s way, seem to be anxious to hang onto the self-destructive impulses to avoid adaptation measures. My guess is that there enough people who feel their life is out of control and, taking cues from Trump and others, blame that on science, which they see as part of the “liberal elite”. I can’t possibly know what is really going on with these people; my life is too removed. But I can imagine the attitude that scientists, who are after all part of the educated class that has not only been doing much better than they have, but keeps advocating for things that either seem irrelevant or require changes that they don’t really want to make or that in some cases are specifically against their interests. So when Trump (and ilk) offer an alternative view of the world, they are happy to jump on it.

This group is large enough that it becomes key to a larger Republican agenda that is otherwise unsalable. Thus, we get a situation where government is steadfastly refusing measures necessary to adapt to existing climate conditions. To be sure, I am not implying that what needs to be done is easy or even always clear. But it is abjectly wrong to try to pretend the clear and present dangers of environmental change do not demand response.

No amount of threat and bluster were able to make the sun revolve around the earth. Apparently, the current Republicans are willing to be remembered as equally fatuous—and more dangerous to their own citizens.

Fifty Years of Environmental Avoidance

By Mike Koetting August 4, 2026

I recently ran across an article contending that the 1972 Limits to Growth projections about environmental threats were on track. That reminded me that when these were first published, my friend Rick Casey, then at the National Catholic Reporter, commissioned me to write a review. Although long since moved on, he was able to track down the review for me.

Turns out, it held up fairly well. But, before that….

The Limits to Growth

The publication, Limits to Growth, was the outgrowth of computer-generated models by a group of MIT scientists. It attracted considerable attention because both the technology and the findings were then novel. (Hard as it is to imagine, there was a time in my life when computer modeling was a novelty.)

The model made projections of five systems—agricultural production, industrial output, population, non-renewable resource consumption and pollution—and their interaction effects. The conclusions were dismal. They predicted the net effects of these trends unmoderated from then current trends would result in some kind of system breakdown around 2050. They specifically warned, however, there would be a long run up that looked like everything was under control, but as we got closer to one crisis or another, it would be more difficult to moderate trends because the phases leading up to crisis would accelerate exponentially. It was the scientific equivalent of Hemmingway’s observation on how you go bankrupt. “Gradually. Then suddenly.”

The slow-motion approach to collapse complicates evaluating the models’ accuracy since the key-point is when the trends change direction. Over the years since then, the trends continued close to the original projections. (Renewable resources have depleted more slowly than modeled through the development of new technologies—such as fracking—allowing more extraction. The authors of the original study had acknowledged this was a possibility, but observed this would create different problems, which they in fact have.) However, none of this “proves” the trends will turn when the models say they will, although, in truth, the original authors never claimed these were exact dates but more illustrative of what would happen if trends continued.

The most recent re-running of the data points suggests that the worst scenario has been avoided but the more central timelines for a crisis are pretty much unchanged. Additional research has pointed to some other factors that might be included in the model—for instance, global temperature—but all agree on a central thesis: human welfare depends on several interacting factors and the current trends cannot be carried on indefinitely without a major problem.

My 1972 Review: Back to the Future

It is slightly amusing that I thought the argument over the environment was already old hat, complaining it had been going on “for three or four years now.” I said then the world was divided into ”environmentalists threatening doom at every turn and their critics promising technological salvation just around the corner.” From my perspective, this description hasn’t changed much. It’s like the last 50 years never happened. Apparently, no amount of accumulating data makes a difference.

This outcome is not at all inconsistent with my overall assessment in 1972:

I outlined the reasons then and the intervening years have not moderated those concerns.

Why We Can’t Address

The major problem remains there is no economic or political structure in which addressing global environmental issues is compelling. These problems are enormously complicated and are international in scope. Every one is responsible for the environment which, in real world terms, means no one is responsible. No unilateral action by a single country, or even a group of countries, will by itself make a difference at scale. We can argue if all joined hands and made the plunge, we could change the future. Possibly. The success of the Montreal Accord on chlorofluorocarbons shows it can be done. But how many of us can really imagine that happening on some as ubiquitous as fossil fuel? In the sphere of what needs to be done, the Paris Climate Accords were moderate and the world is well short of meeting its goals, whether measured by country or overall. (Or in the case of the United States simply refusing to participate, its idiot president insisting there is no climate danger.)

We all assume that among the world’s leaders, there will always be some who feel they can free ride on the efforts of others. And among the world’s citizens, the political lift will be much greater in developed countries because they will have to give more. One can argue that would be fair because developed countries have used more of the world’s resources and contributed more to the environmental problems as a function of their development. Undoubtedly true. But most of the people who would vote for that do not live in developed countries.

Some people understand the reality of the threat and figure they can make money now and leave the future to others. As early as 1977 Exxon executives knew with relative precision the impact of fossil fuels on global temperatures. Their response: obfuscate and sow endless doubt. They, and similar corporations, knew the score; they chose to not simply hide it, but deny it. More recently, the corporate titans haven’t even bothered to hide the facts. Turns out it is much easier to simply bribe the Republican party (and Democrats if necessary) to ignore the reality.

Another response, think Donald Trump, is to use the issue to divide and deflect. I don’t know what Trump really knows about the environment, but I know he has used environmental issues to attack Democrats and blame economic woes in certain working class areas on Democratic concerns about the environment. It is true that some of the needed environmental steps will erode jobs in some sectors. On the other hand, they will create new jobs. Trump has never understood, never wanted to understand because it doesn’t help him, that the role of a leader is to help a nation resolve the tradeoffs that are necessary for its long-term welfare.

Most people don’t think about environmental issues much. It’s simply too overwhelming. Faced with a problem that seemingly has no straightforward solution—and the effects of which seem some time off in the distance—people with lives to live simply tune out. They may, at some level, connect the extreme weather the country is experiencing with environmental problems, but they can’t draw a straight line (or even a crooked one) between anything they could do and the bad effects they are experiencing.

So What Now?

Assuming the Limits to Growth assessments are anywhere near correct—and all available evidence suggests they are–I don’t see any way to avoid stepping in some really nasty stuff.

Consequently, I think the most realistic imperative is to make sure we are investing enough in adaptation. I am not suggesting we give up on preventing environmental degradation. But I suspect by the time things get sufficiently bad that a critical mass of people stop fighting the issue, it will be very hard to stop the downward trends. What could have been done 50 years ago with modest pain will require Herculean efforts.

Since we are unable to commit to preventing the problem, we should at least be realistic about its nature. For functional purposes, the world has already blown past the 1.5 degree mark of the Paris Accords and we’re on our way to a global temperature increase of at least 2.0 degrees. We have seen the problems this causes. (While I was writing this, the air quality here in Chicago was well beyond hazardous due to smoke from record numbers of wildfires.) The is no reason to expect the future will not get worse.

Adapting to the changes already happening—actual, not forecast—will entail international, national, and regional efforts to respond to specific problems. I anticipate a subsequent post to further consider the issue of adaption.

In the meantime, just starting to address this will be politically complicated because it would require admitting that it is happening. It would also require rethinking revenue sources and reprioritizing expenses.

To the extent polls can be trusted, an overwhelming majority of the public would be fine with that. But there is a powerful group of people who don’t want to see that happening, in part because they think their wealth can buy them out of environmental issues.

The question is whether there are politicians with the skill and courage to capitalize on what the majority want, or are we going to continue to be ruled by leaders who have figured out how to profit from denying inconvenient truths.

Trump’s Last Speech Was More Telling Than We Are Recognizing

By Mike Koetting July 21, 2026

In the Sixties, there was a bumper-strip that said: “What if they had a war and nobody came?” Donald Trump’s address to the country last week was like that. Half of the major networks didn’t even bother to carry this windbag of previously debunked claims. The next day, virtually the entire country shrugged at the old recitations. There is a temptation to leave it there.

But there was actually something so unusual about this address that it demands more attention than what the country gave it. The speech was built around, and enthusiastically pointed to, a large stack of declassified analyses of possible election fraud. But that “evidence,” claims notwithstanding, showed that our elections were remarkably safe. Some foreign actors fiddling around the edges and a handful of potentially ineligible immigrants voting but mostly a long and careful summary that shows our elections have not been threatened.

In other words, he posted and called attention to his own speech’s rebuttal. This is so beyond normal, had we not been anesthetized by the endless stream of lies and absurd claims, we might have paid more attention.

Perhaps we should pause a moment to reconsider this performance.

Does He Really Know He Lost

That we have to ask this question is, in itself, so remarkable as to boggle the mind. But we do need to ask whether he knows that he actually lost the 2020 election.

Let’s suppose he really doesn’t know the difference between what actually happened and his beliefs about what happened. Several possibilities—dementia, psychosis, some combination. I am not in a position to make a clinical diagnosis as to what’s going on if that’s the case. But none of these are consistent with having access to the nuclear codes.

There is a related concern at work. He not only has a reality problem, he is unable to perceive that the “evidence” to which he pointed proved pretty much the opposite. This disconnect between what he says and the manifest reality of the referenced information is stark and obvious.

How can the leaders of the Republican Party allow this to go on. It seems to me this demonstration on national TV should call the question. Perhaps he is not “out of it” in the same foggy way as Biden was in the 2024 debate. On the other hand, it was so ill-conceived, I can’t imagine how they are not as concerned as were the Democrats last June. This is not even remotely an ideological issue. If Trump really believes he won the 2020 election, we are dealing with a 6-alarm mental health problem. Trump’s action here is so patently self-defeating, even within the narrow orbit that he was discussing, there is little room for interpretation. To shrug it off as “Trump being Trump” and let it fade into the background is skipping over that the man is so into his version of history that he can’t tell the difference between a plausibly coherent argument and one that acknowledges its opposite. The country is at risk when such a man is at the helm.

One other thing that should give Republican leaders pause. Apparently there is no one in Trump’s inner circle who has the ability to tell him that his actions are not that dissimilar from a man going to a dinner party and forgetting to put on pants. If you were John Thune, you should be scared out of your wits. Even if you were Mike Johnson, wouldn’t you be worried about going down in history as the Speaker of the House who ignored the fact that President was nuts? And what about the Cornyn-Cassidy-Tillis wing of the party? If they go off into the sunset having ignored this, history won’t even bother to ignore them.

He Knows This Is Wrong

Okay. Let’s consider the opposite hypothesis: he is compos mentis and knows that he lost the 2020 election. I am not sure this should make us feel better. To be selling things you don’t believe is simply a con game. While people have been calling Trump a “con” for a while, it doesn’t shed light on the sheer incompetence of this speech. Since, in this version of the analysis he knew better, why would he make such a big deal about “evidence” that is so far off the mark. Even Fox News was not willing to accept it as proving what he said. The best they could come up with was a cautious: “Fox News has not seen that documentation yet and is not in a position to assess the accuracy of the president’s statements.” Everything to the left of Fox was withering in their ridicule at the disjunction between his claims and the “evidence” that was provided.

Surely he knew this would happen. Did he think the media wouldn’t actually read the material he put out?

The only explanation I can imagine is that he supposed if he threw enough stuff at the fan, it would create a storm to build up support for the Save America Act.

That level of cynicism, to assume that supporters either didn’t care or weren’t able to tell the difference between information that supports and information that contradicts, should be deeply offensive to his voters, even if they want to believe. Those who have criticized Democrats for “looking down on people” must surely realize that Trump’s attitude is simply a different form, to use an old rural phrase, of “pissing on their boots and telling them its raining.”

Perhaps more tellingly, it exposes someone so caught up in his own schemes that he is utterly unable to read the room at even an operational level. Yes, a few hard core MAGA types might get whipped up. But most Republicans not only know this is wrong (although that in itself doesn’t seem to bother them) but more relevantly, know this is not a winning issue, which may concern them more than truth. They don’t want to have to run on this. They are aware the vast majority of the country has moved on. Does Trump not care or is he so confident of his own powers that he believes these folks will come around? If he believes the latter, he is totally cut off from the actual sentiments of the rest of his party, let alone the general population.

I have no sympathy for Republicans who find themselves trying to put some distance between themselves and Trump. They have had numerous opportunities to keep themselves out of this mess and have steadfastly declined. But I really want to believe there is decency and inherent attachment to the values of the Constitution—not just the Bill of Rights but all the machinery of checks and balances meant to guard against political extremism and to keep a President from going off the rails.

Last week’s speech makes it inescapably clear. The President either doesn’t know fact from fiction or he is a hypocrite desperate to gratify his ego without regard to either the nation or his own party. How long are the rest of the Republicans going to sit on their hands?

Deterioration in Political Discourse Leads to Deteriorated Thinking

By Mike Koetting July 7, 2026

A recent Pew Center poll found Republicans were much more skeptical of emerging climate problems than Democrats. I wasn’t at all surprised—and I’ll bet you’re not either.

My second thought was to wonder why this should be. After all, if I asked a random sample of Chicagoans whether the White Sox will make the playoffs this year, I would not expect to see a marked difference in response by political parties. And while there are no end of uncertainties, the factual bases for arguments about environmental predictions are much stronger than predicting baseball outcomes. But here we are with political leaning outstripping other considerations.

Wasn’t Always So

In the 1970’s, as we first started to understand the problems we had unleased, the environment was a totally bi-partisan concern. Richard Nixon enthusiastically presided over the creation of the EPA. By 1997, there was starting to be a spread between Democrats and Republicans on core climate issues—whether climate warming was happening and whether it was caused by humans—but it was only a modest 8%. By 2024, that gap had climbed to 35%.

It’s hard to imagine a completely rational explanation for this sea change. It’s not like there has been news of substantially improving conditions.

It is true that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN-sponsored collection of scientists for assessing the climate situation, eliminated the worst scenario that previous projection models had included. But if there is any celebration there, it should be extremely modest. The “worst scenario” was exactly that. It assumed everything went as bad as could possibly be imagined. It was never considered particularly likely and even scientists who were concerned about where we are going have been pointing to its irrelevance for a number of years now. That is not to say, as Donald Trump has claimed, that the “IPCC admitted its own projections were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!” Rather, in the context of updating model parameters, that are part of all sensible predictions, they acknowledged that not all the bad things that could possibly be imagined were happening. (They also acknowledged that not all the good things they had hoped for happened either.) Their overall conclusion remains quite troubling, and the most likely projected outcome is not far from the most likely outcome in the last model. In short, exactly opposite Trump’s assertion, they argue we are still on a path to a warmer world than can currently be imagined as sustainable.

More specific evidence of problems continues to mount. Icebergs are melting more quickly than predicted, ocean temperatures are rising, and heat waves are killing more and more people. These are measurements, not subjective opinions.

But that information seems less likely to reach Republicans. Take one of the most fundamentally objective measures—the actual temperature. The ten warmest years in the historic record are the last ten years. Only one year prior to 2004 was warmer than the coolest year in the following twenty-one years. There is an indisputable, steady climb in temperatures since 1850 and the rate of warming since 1982 is three times as fast as the previous 130 years.

The majority of Republicans simply deny this. In one 2024 poll, only 43% of people who identified themselves as Republican believed the world’s temperature has been increasing over the last 100 years. This is a decline from 76% of Republicans who in 2006 believed that temperatures were rising, despite the intervening twenty years including the largest rise in temperatures since we’ve been keeping detailed records.

How Does This Happen

The simple answer is the increased nature of tribalism in American politics, both in the general sense and as it specifically relates to environmental issues. On an issue-by-issue basis, there are specific factors that can be identified. In environmental issues, the fact that the non-elite media provide virtually no coverage of environmental issues, the fact that that the major media provide dramatically different coverage by general political leaning, or the fact that more than half of Americans get some or all of their news from social media, which is subject to no meaningful standard of accuracy, all make it easier for Republicans to tout memes removed from reality.

It is also the case that as a business decision, extractive industries have put their support behind the Republican party, Republicans, in turn, have reciprocated by obfuscating or simply denying scientific evidence. Republicans have also contributed significantly to the bottom lines of these companies by supporting policies to enrich them—either directly through various mechanisms or by weakening or eliminating regulations that would impact their business.

It is hard to overstate the role Donald Trump has played in accelerating this tribalism. It is particularly true for environmental issues—his ranting that climate change is a hoax, his open willingness to tailor policies to oil (even coal) for contributions and his relentless attack on instruments of government meant to address environmental issues.

But, as awful as he has been, I think it would be a mistake to blame it all on Trump. These issues are also structural. The increase in tribalism started much earlier. For instance, Republican desertion of climate issues has been a long, continual decline since Reagan removed the solar panels from the White House after defeating Carter. The direction became obvious in the 90’s when Newt Gingrich replaced substantive legislative staff with people devoted to the party and to “messaging”. Parties became national in scope and the cost of running for office virtually required more fealty to the central party brand, which in turn sharpened the divide between the two parties. All this is amplified by the Internet, making each party appear more extreme to their rivals. Leaders find it harder and harder to have discussions on complex issues. Polling suggests strongly that on the fundamentals of most issues, there is typically a core sentiment around some non-extreme solution. It has become too hard to get to that because statesmanship has been abandoned in favor of ever louder attempts to engage the base by demonizing the other side and carefully crafted messages to get a few more swing voters.

Consequences Are Serious

In the realm of environment, the most obvious causality of this retreat from reality is climate action itself. With half the country opposing environmental action as unnecessary, it is virtually impossible to pass legislation that addresses the issue. It’s even worse than that. The issue has become so divisive that Democrats have become reticent to even mention environmental issues, what one advocacy group calls “climate hushing”. There is abundant evidence of widespread concern about environmental issues, even among Republicans. But they don’t want to engage on this concern. As a think tank founded by centrist Democratic strategist Adam Jentleson put it, voters all think it is someone else’s problem, and, correspondingly, anything that impinges on them—or might impinge on them–is anathema. Their advice to candidates is to never mention climate change.

This is deleterious not simply because refusing to address an issue of this magnitude is a dereliction of representative government, but also because discussing issues is an essential part of resolving them. No one—and I mean no one—has a complete answer on this one. Democrats have some specific policy solutions. I have great sympathy for these, particularly as opposed to the corrupt and stupid Republican policies. But the Democratic  policies are incomplete, frequently inconsistent, and typically overstate how much impact their solution will have. In effectively removing one of the greatest crises facing our society from the list of issues we can discuss, we are stoking the locomotive straight to hell. Literally.

Even more fatal, if such an expression is even possible, deciding that facts don’t matter and that honest discussion is impossible completely undercuts the idea of democracy as a way to run a government that will optimize the common good. It is probably true that the electorate has always been inclined toward simplistic answers. But the idea of representative democracy is that those who actually make decisions will foster an Enlightenment approach to problem solving, not throw that over for pandering. If facts, discussion, negotiation and compromise aren’t the basis of our government, then we are little better than primitive tribes yelling insults at each other across a big river.

This is not what the Founders risked lives and fortunes for.

The Impact of Government Is in the Details

By Mike Koetting June 23, 2026

As we approach the Fourth of July, there will be a great deal of celebration of the best ideals of democracy and the government that has sprung forth from our initial documents. Important as they are—particularly in these times when they are so severely threatened—I figure enough other people are writing about those. Instead, I use a particular case to illustrate how the broad policy visions of our democratic process get incorporated into specific policy choices and concrete decisions. The themes set direction; the specifics of these decisions determine the actual impact of government on people’s lives.

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Disposing of Coal Ash

Coal ash is the highly toxic residual product from burning lots of coal, mostly at the site of coal-burning utilities. I didn’t know what it was before an article in last week’s Chicago Tribune on the local impacts caught my attention. I assume most Americans know as little as I do. Turns out, coal ash is really nasty stuff. For a long time, no one paid any particular attention to it. Mostly it was simply spread around near where it was burned but a large amount was placed in specific dumps, often in pools to mitigate the toxicity. This came to public attention in 2008 when a retaining levee in Tennessee collapsed, releasing over one billion gallons of toxic sludge into nearby rivers.

Although regulations to address this issue were drafted within the year, numerous legal (and political) challenges delayed the actual adoption until 2015. However, within months of Trump taking office in 2017, the EPA moved to delay the enforcement of those rules. The pendulum swung the other way when Biden took office and, despite a blizzard of law suits, the EPA reversed the Trump 1-initiated delays in new rules–issued in April, 2024. Within the year, the EPA, now back under Trump, began backpedaling and, recently, proposed a substantial roll-back.

So what is the average citizen to make of this? On the one hand, concerns over high utility costs are widespread. It is true that requirements for remediation of coal ash dumps would require material costs and, in themselves, would add nothing to electric output. On the other hand, while I am by no means an expert on such things, I have not seen a single comment to the effect that coal ash is not as dangerous as described.

Who is best suited to determine what set of trade-offs yields the optimum results?

One theoretical construct is that within the administrative branch of government there are a core of experts relatively insulated from pollical influence who make such decisions. But that’s a very hard sell. In the first place, it is hard to get experts who understand the full set of implications and trade-offs. Environmental scientists who are well suited to decide how various levels of toxins in groundwater impact the surrounding population, may not be so good at determining the economic consequences of requiring various levels of clean-up. This leads to a sense, sometimes deserved, that the experts are so narrowly focused they can’t see the bigger picture.

From there, it is an easy hop to believe that elected officials, who have broader purviews, should make more of the decisions. The more democratic nature of such a process has appeal. Citizens don’t typically understand the pointillismic nature of governmental impacts on their lives and want elected officials to deal with broad sentiments. If they are feeling oppressed by rising costs, they want leaders to fix it. The details are not particularly important when they are casting votes.

However, in focusing on the “big picture,” political leaders can overlook details. But details are important. How concentrations of toxins from coal ash in the water supply impact the people using that water does make a difference. There is no way of avoiding the sisyphusian task of finding the best balance among competing goods, one policy at a time. At least in good faith efforts. If someone has decided that one goal or another should be allowed to run rough-shod over other goals, consequences be damned, decisions become easier, though rarely better in the long run.

The issue is further complicated in America by the role of the courts in determining administrative actions. The number and complexity of lawsuits on coal ash disposal is head spinning. Literally dozens of different courts have been involved in looking at one aspect or another of these regulations. It’s not at all clear whether courts are the best place to hash out such issues—most of the cases apparently get resolved on procedural issues (which are things lawyers and judges know a lot about) rather than substantive issues. And that’s before even considering the astounding amount of money involved—which leads to suspicions this approach tilts the process in the direction of those with more resources. With a large enough war chest you can keep most regulations at bay indefinitely, certainly long enough to get to a more friendly administration

What Is the Solution?

As usually the case, it’s easier to describe the problem than solve it.

In virtually every situation there will be competition among differing goals—in this case, safety for one group of people versus higher cost for a larger group. (There are those who like to skirt the zero-sumness by focusing on the earnings of the corporate owners. Fair enough, as far as it goes. Even in a perfectly socialist world, there would still be tension between production and safety. The entire history of industrialization provides graphic evidence.)

We like to think these issues are better settled “democratically”. But that is excruciatingly hard to put into practice. The idea of representative democracy gets strained when the number of technical decisions become so large—an inevitable consequence of greater population density and technological complexity. Elected representatives cannot be experts on the range of issues facing society, nor are their constituents particularly tolerant of complexities. Moreover, capital has apparently limitless funds for lobbying and we have allowed special interest groups to have an outsized role in elections. The voice of big money tends to paper over more nuanced technical expertise.

That said, there are two things that clearly help protect our society—a relatively independent civil service and a free, and local, media.

The Role of Civil Service

There is a strain of thought that wants to freely replace people administrating rules after elections. Their argument is that the election expressed the will of the people and therefore the elected should be allowed to put people in charge of all these rules who will carry out the promises they made in the campaign.

The argument is not without merit. As noted above, it is not uncommon for the unelected experts to become too narrowly focused or to become too entrenched in their ideas of how their particular piece of government should operate. Or they may have, consciously or unconsciously, become captured by special interests.

Nevertheless, I am of the strong opinion that the existence of an independent and largely permanent civil service is essential for a society to navigate, however imperfectly, between competing goals. It is appropriate that there are changes at the top of agencies after elections. But this will work better over the longer haul if supported by professionals who do not change with every election. Their experience and knowledge base will help avoid painful mistakes that someone with more ideology and less experience might make. (If DOGE had asked anyone, they might have known that cutting the portion of the Department of Agriculture devoted to preventing screwworms in our cattle wasn’t a great idea.)

I concede that creates a bias toward people who are more disposed to government intervention. Those who are more concerned about excess government interventions are less likely to choose a career in government. So be it. I believe in free enterprise and recognize that excessive regulation can impede good ideas. But I also know that capitalism trends toward common good only in the broadest sense…and only if is saved from its own impulses to maximize return at the expense of others. Politicizing civil service is a dangerous idea.

An Independent Media

It is equally important that there be an independent media to spotlight where the conflict of goals has gotten too far out of balance. This is more than a series of slogans and the consolidation of the media under the control of a few very wealthy families raises many alarm bells. The nation will be much worse off if those in power are no longer terrified to hear that crews from” Sixty Minutes” are in their lobby.

Local media is where issues that are impacting specific situations or groups of people get identified. It was an article in The Chicago Tribune on coal ash disposal in a local community that got me looking at the entire issue. Without that, I would never have given coal ash a thought. In that context, the serious loss of local media is particularly concerning. Perhaps local blogs will pick up some of the burden. For instance A City that Works in Chicago and the Political Peach in Atlanta are local blogs that provide detailed news on specific policies and, as such, contribute to focusing government on the real needs of citizens. But these are both products of urban areas that still have decent local media. I don’t know if there are similar efforts outside urban areas, where the loss of local media is the greatest.

Conclusion

While it is obvious that the actual impact of government on our lives is expressed through a series of incremental decisions, in the rhetorical windstorms around elections it is easily forgotten that each of these decisions involves specific trade-offs among divergent goals. As society becomes ever more densely integrated, these choices have ripple effects beyond the most obvious consequences. It takes conscious effort to develop mechanisms for addressing these concrete decisions in a way that best serves the entire population, not merely the loudest.

Taxes: The Elite Aren’t Paying Their Share

By Mike Koetting June 9,2026

This post is the second of two on the American tax structure. The previous one focused on payroll taxes; today’s post addresses other taxes. Again, the material draws heavily from The Second Estate, a superb book by Ray Madoff, a law professor at Boston College. I highly recommend it if the topic interests you. It is short and a surprisingly easy read. An even shorter version of her thinking is available in an interview with Erza Klein. Today’s post is not trying to summarize what she said but to focus on the macro implications.

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The title of Ray Madoff’s book, The Second Estate, refers to the official distinctions in prerevolutionary France between the three strata of society—clergy, nobles and commoners. Members of the Second Estate, the nobility, enjoyed special privileges, which included freedom from taxes. She suggests that the wealthiest people in America have created a new form of the Second Estate.

It is common knowledge that today’s economy features an economic distribution as extreme, probably more extreme, than the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th Century. However, the difference between the top and the bottom is so large and the labels thrown around so much that it is easy to lose track of how great those differences are.

Madoff places it in perspective by using a time metaphor to help understand how wealthy today’s wealthy are. One million seems like a big number. One million seconds takes about 12 days. One billion seconds, however, takes 31 years and one trillion seconds requires 31,688 years. Today there are about 900 billionaires in the United States and their wealth grew by about 18% in 2025. There is currently one trillionaire and about half a dozen who could achieve that status in the near future. The difference between even the millionaires and the billionaires is almost unfathomable.

Like most people, I believe we are not taxing the richest sufficiently. Embodied in that statement are two suppositions. First, the current level of governmental deficits does not generally result from profligate spending but from insufficient taxes to meet the full range of the country’s needs. (Of course there is some inefficient spending and it should be addressed; but contrary to the palaver generated by the likes of Musk and Heritage Foundation, those issues are not at the root of the problem.)

Second, this shortfall in revenue should primarily be made up by those with the most resources. In part because their resources are so astounding as to cease making human sense and in part because doing so improves social cohesion. None of this suggests a complete flattening of the income distribution—which attempt would be deeply counterproductive. As is shown in an instructive infographic, the American people have a widespread sense that there should be demonstrable differences in the distribution of wealth. They recognize both that it creates incentives that can benefit all and that there is an underlying fairness in greater rewards for great contributions. However, there is wide and deep opposition to the extremes of the current distribution. Too much of a useful difference is too much.

We All Know How We Got Here

During the middle of the 20th Century, America had a social ethic that promoted sharing the benefits of productivity growth with the entire population. This included a broadly redistributive tax structure. But the titans of capital wanted more. (One should never forget John D. Rockefeller who, when asked “How much is enough?” said “Just a little more.”) From Ronald Reagan on, there has been a persistent, and largely successful, effort to reduce the relative burdens of taxation on the richest. At the same time, shifts in production functions have resulted in ever greater shares of the nation’s economic growth winding up in the hands of the owner of capital.

Madoff’s book outlines how the American tax system—despite its generally progressive structure–has pockets of inequity so great as to change the nature of the country. To oversimplify her story, what has happened is that Congress lost its nerve and allowed, in the fog of the tax code, the nature of income to be redefined in so many ways that if you have enough money, your income for tax purposes shrinks.

The below chart from the Brookings Institution on sources of income across the total distribution gives a flavor of the issue. As is readily apparent, for the bottom 98% of the income distribution, about 90% of income is from wages or retirement income and is subject to regular income taxes, which are progressive. But at the very top of the income distribution, wage income is a relatively negligible portion of income. To be clear: income not in the form of wages is not necessarily tax free. But it is subject to a variety of different taxes, almost all of them with lower impact than if the tax had been calculated at the nominal income tax rate.

And if a graph doesn’t make the point, how about a lurid ad hominem anecdote. Since the 1990’s, Jeff Bezos salary has been capped at $82,000. This salary is low enough to make him eligible to claim the child tax credit, which in fact he has. But from 2014 to 2018 his net worth climbed by $99 billion. (Remember, in time terms this is equivalent to about 3000 years when one million is only 12 days.) However, he paid less than one billion in taxes, or about 1%. Now a billion dollars is undoubtably a lot of money. But this percent is considerably lower than most middle-class families pay. Moreover, it is inconceivable that two, five, or even twenty times that amount would make any difference in his lifestyle. Nor would taxes at higher rates have any appreciable impact on the incentive to make lots of money…err…I meant, grow the economy.

Corporate Taxes

The literature on corporate taxes is particularly contentious. Many respectable economists are willing to consider the possibility that raising corporate taxes is a drag on business, particularly those that compete in global markets where other countries have lower corporate taxes.

Indisputable, however, is that American corporate tax rates have declined materially, most recently as a result of the reduction in the 2017 Trump tax cuts. From a mathematical perspective, that appears to have had a large adverse impact on the deficit. The question is whether giving corporations more money improves employment by greater than offsetting amounts, as apologists for the cuts contend.

Recent research suggests this did not happen for the 2017 cuts. While there was some positive business growth, it was not nearly enough to offset the increase in the deficit. Note, part of the issue is there were also a number of detailed changes in the tax code that, on balance, also gave more money to corporations. Nor did it stop in 2017. By executive order, Trump made it easier to attribute earnings to low tax countries, resulting in at least a $40 billion windfall for American multi-nationals.

Inheritance Taxes

Madoff has special scorn for the spinelessness Congress has shown in allowing the inheritance tax to be whittled down to the point that for many of the richest families, it is negligible. For years rich people sought loopholes to the inheritance tax. And, of course, loopholes were found. But Congress would periodically review the taxes and close loopholes. Now Congress has not only stopped closing loopholes, it has systematically lowered thresholds and created new loopholes.

I can’t imagine a policy rationale for this course of action. Some degree of leaving resources for your family is something a society should protect. But how much? In the 2023 Forbes list of the 400 richest people in America, more than 30% were on that list not because they started a business that benefited society, but because they had the good fortune to be born extremely rich. And, while surely many of these are using their wealth in beneficial ways, given the competing needs of society, how much headstart do we want to give to the offspring of the wealthiest? What evidence is there American society thinks creation of a class of virtual nobility is a good idea?

Where From Here

It is unlikely there is a bumper-sticker solution. The simplest ideas often have the greatest number of hidden effects. Madoff, for instance, is not a fan of wealth taxes—difficult to administer and potentially unfair because of fluctuating value of investments. But she is fully in favor of some mix of provisions that put investment income on a more equitable footing with other income and, particularly, that removes many of the tax benefits of inheritance. (One high priority for her would be removing the “step-up“ provision, which she calls the “Angel of Death Loophole.” This currently allows accumulated holdings to be transferred to heirs tax free. She argues that, as Canada does, wealth at a person’s death should be treated as realized gains and taxed accordingly before being passed on. According to the Congressional Budget Office, adopting something like the Canadian approach would generate about $200 billion over the next decade.)

Whether or not it gets adopted, the discussion of a “wealth tax’’ has put the issue squarely on the table. From my perspective, the issue now is to get beyond this as a slogan and have an honest discussion as a country as to what we want from our tax system and then how best to get there. There are plenty of specific provisions that would get us closer to where the vast majority of Americans think we should be—and which, cries and hysterics not withstanding, will not cripple the economy. It is certain that any specifics will have some drawbacks, but perfection is not necessary. What is necessary is a tax system that the bulk of Americans think is fair and that produces enough revenue for the things those same citizens want the government to provide.

Historically, we approximated that because the adult members of Congress would periodically dampen their partisan differences and hash out something that would work. At least for a while. Rinse and repeat. But for a variety of well-known reasons, that’s stopped working. The result has been general capitulation to the rich.

It has always been the case that the richest have the loudest voice. Surveying the damage of the Wall Street crash of 1929, 95 years ago, Drew Pearson, describing the leaders of Wall Street, said: “For them, the door of the White House, of every Cabinet member, is always open. But it is exactly this that makes their influence so powerful, their position so dangerous.” Citizens United has solidified the sway of the richest in a way that no historical precedent could have predicted. In the 2024 presidential election, 44% of the donations to Trump came from 10 people. Democrats also benefited from megadonors, just not as much. As Brooke Harrington, a Dartmouth professor has said, today’s billionaires have become noblesse without the oblige.

The results, however, are unstainable. If Congress does not find its missing backbone, either the rising deficit strangles the economy or we wind up, one way or the other, where the French Second Estate eventually ended.

Taxes: The Looming Social Security Mess

By Mike Koetting May 26, 2026

This and my next post are on the American tax structure. The material draws heavily from The Second Estate, a superb book by Ray Madoff, a law professor at Boston College. I highly recommend it if the topic interests you. It is short and a surprisingly easy read. Her discussion covers much more than the items I am highlighting.

Payroll Taxes

Today’s post focuses on payroll taxes, specifically Social Security and Medicare. I chose to start here because the problems of the income tax system often overshadow the issues around payroll taxes. To be honest, I had never given the matter more than a passing thought before reading her observations on the topic. I was surprised, for instance, that 67% of taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes. All told, payroll taxes are the second largest source of federal revenue, comprising more than a third of federal revenue.

Still, people get confused as to whether payroll taxes are “real” taxes. In 2012, candidate Romney described the 47% of the population who pay no income taxes as freeloaders. But that isn’t the case. Most of these pay payroll taxes. When you include payroll taxes, the number of people not paying some federal tax drops to 16%–and most of those are still paying state and local taxes of one sort or another. (Since 2012, the percentage of people not paying any income tax has dropped from 47% to 40%.)

Payroll tax is 15.3% of the wages or payment in lieu of wages. This amount is subdivided between support for Social Security (12.4%) and parts of Medicare (2.9%). The amount of payroll taxes rises directly with wages, sort of. Employed individuals pay only half this amount (7.65%) in the form of a deduction from their salary; the other half is paid by the employer. However, economists broadly agree that employer payment of these taxes holds wages down, so it’s not exactly “free”.

Self-employed people pay all 15.3% themselves. For gig workers and independent contractors, this means that, for example, of the first $60,000 they earn, more than $9000 will go for payroll taxes. Additionally, payroll taxes are calculated on the full amount of the earnings, even though some of those earnings will most likely be paid to the Federal government in the form of income tax.

Social Security taxes only apply to the first $168,600 of earnings. While $168,600 is a healthy income, about 6% of the population earn more and, since, by definition, those are high earners, about 17% of the nation’s wage earnings fall outside this limit and are, therefore, not subject to Social Security taxes. It is also the case that some types of income fall outside payroll taxes. For instance, limited partners and owners of S-corporations largely avoid payroll taxes on a significant share of their income. These exclusions are in addition to the 17% of wages that are not subject to Social Security taxes. To add insult to injury, many of the nation’s richest people do not get compensated by wages and do not even hit the $168,600 cap. Elon Musk and Bill Gates, for example, do not receive compensation through wages and pay nothing toward Social Security or Medicare, two of the nation’s top three expenditures. I doubt they are worried they will not be eligible for those benefits.

Moreover, because payroll taxes are less obvious to the public, Congress has been able to raise them with less outcry. Since 1970, payroll taxes have more than doubled while the top income tax rate has fallen from 70% to 40% and estate taxes, once 77%, have become immaterial in many cases because of lower rates and various loopholes that exempt funds from taxation. (More on that in the next post.)

Problems Ahead

On the other side of the equation, at any given time, about one in five Americans receive some form of Social Security benefits. These benefits help stabilize the economy by providing support for the retired and for people not capable of working. Without these benefits, not only would the recipients be hurt, but the decrease in expenditures made by or on behalf of recipients would adversely impact various sectors of the economy.

Unfortunately, the Social Security Trust Fund is steaming towards insolvency. This is currently projected to happen in the early 2030’s, just six or seven years from now. Under current law, this will require a material reduction of benefit levels for everyone. Although people are often confused on the point, there is no accounting link between money an individual puts into the fund and the benefits paid out. Social Security is a “pay-as-you-go” bucket. Each year taxes are paid in and benefits are paid out. Historically, this has worked well because increasing wages and population growth, the latter partially fueled by immigration, meant the fund has always been able to cover benefits and, typically, leave a surplus for future years.

But the world is changing. Older people are living longer and population has stopped growing—fewer children and kicking out immigrants. In 1960, there were 5.1 workers for every beneficiary. Today, it is 2.7 and that ratio will continue to decline. Without other changes, the surplus that has sustained the fund will be exhausted. The total pay-in is estimated to be about 83% of current benefit levels. Existing law mandates that if the pay-in sum falls short of the pay-out rate, all benefits should be reduced on a pro-rata basis to equal the pay-in sum. Reductions could, therefore, be larger if revenues decline faster than anticipated or additional benefits are paid out. (Trump’s Budget Bill, for instance, reduced revenues for the Trust Fund because in giving a tax break to some seniors, it curtailed revenue to the Trust Fund. This is not the biggest issue but is estimated to accelerate the insolvency of the Trust Fund by six or so months.)

One would think Congress would be all over this issue. More than 80 percent of Americans oppose any benefit cuts. Even among high income groups, those most likely to believe benefits should be cut, 73 percent oppose cuts. The current lack of serious Congressional discussion is huge cause for concern. This issue needs to be addressed much sooner than later. Any fix will require some time to negotiate and implement. As the American Academy of Actuaries points out, if reforms are left until the last moment, they might well require more drastic actions.

The lack of action is not from lack of alternatives. The problem is a lack of will in our constipated Congress. It is highly likely that whatever happens will cause someone to be unhappy. Generally, Democrats want more revenue and Republicans want to cut benefits. For better and worse, neither side has enough votes to impose its vision on the other side. The overall toxicity of the environment makes the kind of compromises necessary hard to the point of impossible. The problem is further acerbated by the fact there is a material group of Republicans who keep trying to find ways to privatize Social Security, despite an amazingly broad opposition to the idea.

Most likely solutions—if any can be reached– will impose some mix of greater revenue and changes in benefits. The Brookings Institution has circulated a thoughtful proposal that in normal times could be the basis of a bipartisan appeal. As would be expected on issues this major, the proposal is complicated and resists easy summary. It includes about 15 separate elements and has proposals that raise revenue, including raising both the tax rate and the taxable ceiling, and working to increase legal immigration, but also increasing some benefits and shaving others. The specifics of this proposal aren’t necessary for this essay—not only are they very wonky, but there are surely other proposals with equally plausible specifics. The important point is that there are solutions that could avoid a catastrophe, should Congress choose to accept its role.

The situation with Medicare is similar to the problems in Social Security. Medicare’s financing structure is actually more varied than Social Security. Medicare has several different sources and funds. But the Medicare portion of the payroll taxes that supports Medicare inpatient care is heading for the same rocky shore as Social Security. It will also be broke in the early 2030’s for the same reasons, fewer people paying in and people living longer. It is further fighting a headwind of healthcare costs rising faster than overall wages, thereby making it harder for payroll taxes to keep up. A similar set of solutions is required on roughly the same timetable.

Inevitable Conclusion

There is little market in today’s American political scene for proposals with complicated moving parts. But any proposal that isn’t multifaceted is going to increase material problems elsewhere in society. Time is running out. Without Congressional leadership and a Chief Executive willing to support the kind of negotiation necessary, this problem will not be solved. In other words, we’re stuck till at least 2029. Those who depend on Social Security should be worried, very worried.

Deal, No Deal or Wimpy Deal

By Mike Koetting April 28, 2026 (Amended)

In a relatively recent post, I suggested that if Democrats won a majority in both houses in November, it might be possible to pass a bi-partisan immigration agreement. The Trumplicans have so badly overplayed their hand that the time might be ripe.

However, as I tried to sort through what such a deal might actually look like, I realized how many pockets of interest benefited from the ambiguity that had existed before Trump launched his crusade. His lizard brain could only see the electoral advantages. He didn’t recognize–or didn’t care–that upsetting this ambiguity would spin into a chaos of unanticipated consequences. (You would think he would have a better feel for the issue, since as a businessman, he benefited from hiring illegal workers. Of course, no one ever accused Trump of an overabundance of self-awareness.)

Benefits from Immigration Ambiguity

Most of these benefits were clear to all involved but, in the nature of deals that can exist only because of their ambiguity, could not be publicly acknowledged.

Probably the biggest benefit was that it allowed for a significant number of people willing to work at wages below what native born workers would demand or at jobs that the native born just didn’t want. Whole industries—farming and meat processing, for instance–are completely reliant on immigrants, many of dubious legal status. Healthcare, food service and construction are also heavily reliant, not to mention home service and childcare workers. Ending illegal immigration would have materially inflationary effects. It is not clear, in fact, it would be possible to find native workers for all these positions at any plausible wage.

In theory, all employers were already required to check the immigration status of workers. However, enforcement was lax and many of the dealings operated in cash transactions outside of usual channels. (The strenuous opposition of employers to recent attempts to actually enforce these rules underlines the reality.) Far and away, the most efficient way for society was to wink at the rules, with occasional enforcement for the most flagrant abuses, and let legal and illegal immigration run their course. That only works if the rules remain relatively stable, including vigorous and visible enforcement of border security. Biden’s change of asylum rules at the border was a different sort of destabilizing move. The resulting spike in border crossings exceeded the bounds of ambiguity and was decisively rejected at the polls. I do not expect that kind of overt change in the foreseeable future.

The immigrants themselves were often exploited relative to native workers, but that was not necessarily their frame of reference. They were better off than wherever they would have been. Or at least they could imagine a trajectory that was better. This was probably not universally true. Some people surely found conditions much worse than they anticipated and were bitter at the choice they made. But not enough to materially dampen the tide of immigration. I doubt we have reliable information, but I suspect that more people in other countries would prefer a world where immigration to America was theoretically possible, even if not certain, to one where the opportunities to get to America were virtually zero.

Both political parties were able to use the ambiguity to their advantage. For Republicans, whipping up anti-immigrant fever was a potent tool. This was obvious when Trump scuttled the bipartisan deal worked out in the spring of 2024 because he didn’t want to lose it as a campaign issue. Beyond the 2024 elections, Republican have such an active portion of their base obsessed about immigration, that making compromises on key issues, is politically treacherous, even though material parts of their constituency relies on immigration, legal or otherwise.

Democrats have a milder version of the same problem, just in the opposite direction. Key portions of their base are deeply committed to pro-immigrant provisions and would object to many of the concrete steps within the scope of what might realistically be negotiated.

Take a key example. Any comprehensive resolution around immigration should include establishing a road to citizenship for people who have been in the country for some time. There is strong public support for such a provision. But I don’t expect either party to agree on this because the consequences of actually making a decision would anger a significant number of activists in both parties. Some people would be furious that “illegals are getting away with it” and others that “we are turning our back on those good people outside the pathway.” Not to mention the practical problems of figuring out what to do with people in the country who haven’t met the threshold.

Immigration Issues Are Insoluble

Another factor against a clear deal is that it is not possible to actually “resolve” the immigration issue.

Given a world in which some places are demonstrably better places to live than others, people will want to move from the worse places to the better places. And as the worse places get even worse, the pressure to move will get greater. These are virtually laws of physics. Since all available evidence suggests a world that will continue to be starkly unequal with many uprooted by violence or increasingly unfavorable environmental conditions, people will continue coming, to some extent regardless of obstacles.

On the other hand, people in better off countries will want to put limits on sharing their own good fortune with others. If demand is virtually unlimited, even the best-intentioned country will eventually draw lines as to how much of their economy they will share with immigrants. As David Frum put it, even before Trump-2, “If liberals won’t control borders, fascists will.”

Moreover, in “receiving” countries, immigrants will remain a potent cultural issue. It’s easy for people like me to dismiss this as “xenophobia,” particularly since they have a racial overtone. For me, immigrants mean a budget analyst from Nigeria or a physician from Egypt or a cleaning lady from Poland. This a different situation from that experienced by close contact with a concentration of immigrants from one place sufficiently large enough to highlight the differences between their culture and more mainstream American culture. A Mexican community in Texas or a Haitian community in Ohio or an Arab community in Michigan should not be automatically alienating. But it is worth acknowledging this is a qualitatively different experience than mine, particularly once it starts to impact the schools.

There is also the economics of the matter. In general, it is pretty well beyond arguing that under current conditions, immigrants are a net contributor to the nation’s economy. Conversely, the kind of mass deportation that the Trumplicans have been implementing is a drag on the overall economy. The problem, however, is that what is true on average is not necessarily true in every particular circumstance. When a community gets a major influx of immigrants, it will experience disproportionate costs addressing the situation. The evidence also suggests that immigration by relatively low skill workers can adversely affect low skill native born workers. (But, as noted above, the very adverse effect on native-born workers, typically lower wages, is seen as a good thing by employers who may be more than willing to turn a blind eye.)

In all events, there will be portions of the electorate who have tangible reasons to be unhappy about immigration.

To further complicate matters, all this is played out in a situation of broader cultural/demographic uncertainty. Shrinking fertility rates are causing population declines among the native born. In recent years, these have been largely offset by immigration. But without immigration, American population will shrink. Historically, declining populations have created all manner of problems. The most immediate is the shifting balance between current workers and the nonworkers, mostly elderly, who need support. Maybe in the future if AI really does reduce the requirement for workers, absolute population size won’t be such a problem. This will create a host of other thorny problems, not least of which will be creating a functional system for connecting AI generated profits with nonworkers–without destroying the social fabric of the society. Demographic tends will continue to roil the conversation around immigration, even if people don’t acknowledge the connection.

Not with a Bang, but a Wimper

In short, I doubt a truly substantial deal is possible. I suspect there will be some deal. At this point, all but the hardcore MAGA want a détente. Anything that rebukes the Trump overt attack on immigration will be welcome, but I suspect what does emerge will leave a lot unresolved. Too much specificity, let alone purity, is impossible on this issue. That might, however, not be the worst thing. In some circumstances, an imperfect deal is better than the alternatives. Maybe a lot better.

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Note: This updated post clarifies that the benefits of ambiguity require maintaining consistency in rules around the implicitly agreed upon status quo. I left that out of the earlier version.

Voting Miasmas and Ranked Choice Alternatives

By Mike Koetting April 14, 2026

I’ve written before about how I think the American voting systems are deeply flawed. Current events provide new data to strengthen the case.

The Illinois Primary

The Illinois primary election was held last month. In two of the Representative races that I was watching, the winners had 24 percent and 29 percent respectively. As it happened, my preferred candidate won each, but still the results were not entirely satisfying. These are both districts with overwhelmingly Democratic majorities, so these two candidates are virtually assured of going to Congress. As much as I was happy it was these two, I am uncomfortable with the idea that someone can get elected with less than thirty percent of the primary voters of one party, particularly given that primary participation is lower than in the general election.

This happened because there were large numbers of candidates in both districts. There was a candidate with roughly any shade of nuance a voter might want. The rub is that if a preferred candidate lost, any “information” carried in that vote was also lost. Thus, voters had to consider whether a vote for their favored position opened the door to someone they really didn’t want. A run-off election among the top two finishers would probably be an improvement, but this is extra expense and, in all likelihood, have an even smaller turnout.

The California Quandary

This same dynamic is playing out in California in a different, and possibly even more distorting, way.

In an effort to avoid the kind of situation described above, in 2011 California adopted a different approach to primaries for state office. All candidates run against each other, not just against people in their own party. (Colloquially known as a “jungle primary.”) The top two candidates proceed to the final; those are the only candidates who can run in the final. This guarantees that the eventual winner will have a majority.

While this solves one problem, there is now a real chance it could have a very unexpected outcome in the June election, just six weeks away. Going into last week, there were ten candidates in the race for governor, eight of them Democrats and only two Republicans. With the Democrats splitting up the vote so many ways, last week’s poll showed the two Republicans were the leaders, each with a projected 14% of the vote. The leading Democrat polled only 11% of the vote—although the top three Democrats together had 29%. Altogether, Democratic candidates in this poll were favored by 70% of the respondents, but the Democrats could hypothetically have been shut out of November’s election.

Reality, of course, remains in flux. Since that poll was taken, Eric Swalwell, one of the previously leading candidates, was forced to drop out. It remains to see how this reverberates. A California analyst who has run several thousand simulations says his model estimates the odds of two Republicans in the final at something like 1 in 5, and that was before Swalwell’s exit. While this is not a high likelihood, the reality is still a bit disconcerting. Some people might be cheered by a situation in which any Democrat was barred from being in the election for governor, but this could hardly be considered a blow for democracy. It seems that the desire to weaken the power of parties in the primary process has been so effective there are fewer gatekeepers and no effective way for “the Party” to avoid a train wreck.  

One Way Out

Both these situations would be ameliorated with the use of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV).

I assume, by now, most readers of this blog know what is meant by RCV. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one garners a majority by means of highest rank votes, the lowest scoring candidate is eliminated and the second choice of voters for the eliminated candidate are added to the vote totals of the remaining candidates. And so on, until one candidate gets a majority.

RVC, while not widely used, is also not unknown. Fifteen states use it or allow it in some circumstances. Forty-seven cities use it for municipal elections, most notably New York City, but also Seattle and Salt Lake City. Almost all of the states where RVC is used are Blue states. On the other hand, 19 states have banned its use, virtually all of which are Red states.

There have been some studies of the impact of RVC, although, since the actual number of elections using it is relatively small, all results to date are tentative. It appears that voters generally like it and there is a modest increase in turnout. On the other hand, it is not clear how many of the assumed benefits will play out longer term. Importantly, there is no strong evidence it reduces polarization.

But neither are there any clear warning signs. While it is more complicated, voters seem to adapt relatively easily, especially younger voters. It takes somewhat more time to compute results this way, but as systems for making these calculations get more familiar, this should be a smaller factor, particularly when compared to other factors (e.g. how a given entity handles mail-in ballots).

I find the antipathy to RVC in Red states interesting. One theory is that whichever party is winning assumes the existing systems are fair and, therefore, are reluctant to change the status quo. I note there seems to be a preference for maintaining the status quo among the current political leadership of both parties. Here in Illinois, for instance, several suburban communities are trying to enact RVC and are being opposed by the Cook County Clerk.

Impact on Polarization

Advocates of RVC stress its ability to reduce polarization. I certainly agree with Lee Drutman, a major advocate for RVC, that America is now snared in a “two party doom loop.” I am hopeful RVS will be able to help break out, but we will need more evidence.

Americans have come to take for granted that the country is immutably divided between two parties, each with profoundly different agendas. While this is nominally correct–America has been separated into Republicans and Democrats since the Civil War— it misses the extent to which each of these parties were, for most of this period, more a coalition of groups who agreed on some things and differed on others. This allowed for a fair amount of latitude on positions by any given politician, regardless of what overall label they wore.

In more recent times, however, the two parties sharpened their differences into two “national parties”—each with a distinct, and mutually exclusive, identity. The rise of social media and the coalescence of each party around different attitudes to civil rights cemented these distinctions and greased the way for a more rigorous separation of parties. As the differences hardened, party identities became increasingly existential. People were encouraged to believe that members of the other party were immoral. Which further reinforces the polarization, the essence of a doom-loop.

The question now facing the country is how can we back off this polarization. I don’t see an easy answer. We need to reverse the direction of economic concentration and create cultural moderation in social media. These are big lifts. RCV might be more doable.

Advocates suggest it would create an opportunity for moderate Republicans to have a lane for themselves that breaks out of the stranglehold MAGA extremists have on their party. This might be particularly useful in districts with overwhelming majorities of Republicans (although the dynamic could be the same in Democratic districts). At present, more than half of the Republican Congressional representatives were elected in districts with margins greater than 25%. This means that for all practical purposes, the only meaningful election is the primary which is often dominated by the more extreme elements of the party. Moreover, in most cases this completely shuts out Democrats, who could compose as much as a third of the electorate. Making the primary and the final the same election would increase turnout and potentially open the door for more moderate candidates.

Support RCV

It’s hard to be optimistic about major changes in the American voting system. There is marked lack of support among the established political order for changes such as RCV and they would be vigorously opposed in those places where its advocates suggest it might have the biggest impact.

All that being said, more adoption of RCV would address problems such as described in the Illinois and California primaries and might mitigate some of the polarization. If nothing else, the jolt to the status quo might unleash some different energy. I hope there will be more experimentation with this and similar systems going forward.

People Over Corporate Excess and Excessive Wealth (Seriously)

By Mike Koetting March 31, 2026

In my last blog, I argued that people voted for Donald Trump because they despaired the mainstream of either party were effectively addressing the devolving life situation of the bottom two-thirds of the economy.

There is no surprise about the traditional Republican Party. For the last century or so, it has made the primacy of capital as its raison d’etre. Trump disguised that with populist talk that sounded different from traditional Republicans and tapped into the voter resentment about both economic and cultural issues. Democrats, on the other hand, have talked more about looking out for the middle class and have passed some useful measures, but they have been unable to project a coherent and sustained strategy for changing the fundamentals of the economic structure. Wealth has continued to concentrate and big corporations are running roughshod over the bottom two-thirds of the economy.

The Path Forward

I believe Democrats can break through the fog of division created by the Trumplicans and solidify for themselves the kind of mandate that FDR created with a concerted strategy that unapologetically commits to reining in excesses by corporations and billionaires and to promoting the welfare of the entire economy, not just the 1% on whom the Republicans are currently showering give-aways.

The New Deal and its successors worked because it actively insured that the economy shared productivity increases with the rest of society. Over the last 45 years, corporations and their owners have eroded these protections. Following Reagan, it became gospel that corporations only responsibility is to the shareholders, which has meant that all decisions are seen through the lens of what enriched their owners.

Oren Cass, a traditionally conservative economist, has argued this has led to the “financialization” of the economy, which is the single largest cause of the soaring inequity. He shows how this has infected every corner of our society.

Neither Clinton nor Obama, unfortunately, directly confronted the fact that maintaining the economic well-being of the entire society requires robust government oversight and instead focused on what would grow the overall economy. They missed that while “a rising tide might lift all boats” that it would not lift them equally—or even close to that. In the absence of countervailing efforts, the economic elite will consolidate power to increase its advantages. And then the advantages of economic growth go almost solely to those who already have wealth.

Almost a century ago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis warned “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” The current political situation bears this out.

Addressing this will require specific measures to lessen the concentration of wealth in individuals and to narrow the power of corporations to write their own rules for the benefit of their stockholders.

This Is Not an Easy Path

Democrats like to think of themselves as the defenders of the lower two-thirds of the economy. But the growing income and wealth divides make it clear that they have not been able to do so effectively.

As I suggested above, the biggest problem is that Democratic leaders have been as concerned about maintaining overall economic growth as they have been about the distribution of that wealth. On the one hand, trying to change distribution without continuing economic growth has rarely been a recipe for a successful society. On the other hand, distribution of resources will never become equitable on its own. People who have advantages use them. In many ways this is good for society. But unless limits are created and maintained, a society winds up with the kind of economic distribution shown above.

The tension between overall growth and distribution is regularly played out in debates about how progressive the Democratic agenda should be on economic issues. While this is a real issue, it is apparent that to date, Democrats have not had the right formula. As the distribution of wealth has gotten more extreme, the lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic Party has gotten worse.

While one can (and probably should) be skeptical of any single poll, the number of polls that show the voting public is significantly unhappy with the Democratic Party are so numerous and consistent, it is delusional to pretend this is not a problem. Yes, voters do not like Donald Trump. But unhappiness with Trump is not the same as support for the Democrats. By itself, it is unlikely to lead to a lasting majority, particularly once Trump is gone. An economic reset is going to be a long-term project. Without a big House majority and a veto-proof Senate, it is hard to see how this happens. Neither of these is likely by 2028. Which is why there needs to deep support behind a party that is trying to do this.

But, for instance, a recent NBC poll shows that as much as Trump is “underwater,” the Democratic Party fares worse.

I think this is a function of two things.

First, disappointment that the Democrats have failed to fix the economic situation. Voters don’t expect Republicans to address distribution of income issues. That’s the job of Democrats. And when they don’t do it, they are disproportionately rejected.

Second, there is a sense among many voters (for one example, see this discussion of a focus group in Pennsylvania) that the Democratic Party has become too focused on meeting the needs of various groups at the expense of supporting the broader middle class. The position of once Democratic Ruy Teixeira may be a bit extreme, but clearly reflects a broader sentiment.

Neither of these criticisms are entirely fair but neither are they entirely without basis. And, whether fair or not, these are clearly sentiments about the Democratic Party held by many voters. While one might argue that the success of Democratic Party per se is not important, the problem is that with our current (kind of stupid) political structure, voters need to choose one of two groups. When they turn on the Democratic Party, they wind up supporting a Republican Party—not only against their best interests, but against the interests of the entire society, as is being played out daily.

The Obstacles Ahead

Democrats first obstacle is to achieve some consensus around taking on corporations and the wealthy, something they have not been able to do for generations.

Part of their problem stems from a real understanding of the beneficial effects on society from overall economic growth. But there is also reliance on the wealthy for campaign funds. Republicans are probably more reliant, but this doesn’t cause a problem for them since their core mission is to protect these people. I don’t know how willing Democrats outside certain districts will be to risk support by buying into a campaign against concentrated wealth. Nor do I know how, if they took that risk, it would play out.

Related, Democratic candidates are often psychically and culturally more at home with the top third of the economy in their daily life. The days of Democratic ward bosses and union leaders who were closer to the working class in social terms are gone; the Democratic base has grown to include a large portion of college educated professionals. While these folks hate many parts of the Trumplican agenda, their overall position in society is comfortable and they are wary of radical changes. They rationally recognize the problems that corporate financialization have brought to the country, but they have many reasons to question what might come next.

All of this can become somewhat self-fulfilling. If candidates and would-be candidates fear that there would be pushback from financial supporters and friends, they might hedge their willingness to commit to an economic reset. Same with voters who fear, despite their own analysis of the facts, that coming across as “too far left” on economic issues would cause them to be seen as “fringe.”

What Is the Alternative?

I assume Democrats would continue their juggling act of supporting cultural progress and being sort of progressive on the economy. In the short term, given the Trump backlash, this should be enough to do well this November and might even lead to a Democratic president in 2028. While those are good things, it is hard to see that leading to major changes in our society. Those require a fundamental break with the status quo.

In the absence of that, the two parties will probably continue splitting up small margins and we will lurch from one party to the other as the voters keep thrashing about looking for someone to address the core problem of American society—the growing inequality that is destroying our democracy. Letting that happen seems morally irresponsible.

Closing Note

Getting a party to unite around a high-level strategy is a sine non qua for achieving a meaningful majority. But it is not sufficient. Voters, even the strongest supporters, also need to believe you have defensible ideas behind the grand strategy and the ability to execute those ideas. And you need a candidate who can carry the message. I hope to address these in subsequent posts. But for the time being, Democrats should start by demonstrating a clear commitment to people over excessive wealth and corporate excess.