Between Hell and High Water

What Are the Republicans Thinking?

By Mike Koetting March 4, 2025

Twice before in my life, I experienced a sensation that our basic political system was in mortal danger. Once in 1970 on the day protestors were killed at Kent State and three years later when Richard Nixon precipitated the Saturday Night Massacre. In both cases, however, the sensation only lasted for a few hours. I found I had a deep-seated conviction that the series of checks and balances would work, even if a bit wobbly for a time.

Today I am finding that confidence waning.

Throughout our history, our system has worked because powerful individuals were willing to be constrained by institutions, by the system of checks and balances that provide some assurance that a small number of individuals can’t ride roughshod over the rest.

It isn’t as if these powerful individuals were all particularly virtuous—some were and others not so much. It was more that they operated in an environment of a shared understanding that if you wrecked the system, what came next would be worse. Democracy is what allows people with differences to work together over time.

So, although there have always been individuals who would have thrown over the institution, other than the Civil War, the broader ethic prevailed. Those who would have done way with these checks and balances have been restrained. A year after the Saturday Night Massacre, a group of Republican Senators told Nixon that he would be impeached if he did not resign.

What is different about today is not so much that Donald Trump would throw over the institutions, but that there are so many people who are willing to let him do so even though they know better.

Many citizens are so deeply alienated by the current moment and feel so powerless they don’t worry about Constitutional considerations. I am disappointed, but I understand.

However, I cannot fathom what is going through the minds of various Republican Representatives and Senators. What is their rationale for allowing Donald Trump so much leeway? It is implausible that they don’t understand they are destroying the checks and balances that have been fundamental to America for 250 years. Do they really believe that putting all the power in the President is a good idea? And while they may be happy that Trump will accomplish some things that they want and whack away at some things they oppose, do they really believe this is a sustainable model for running a country?

Time to Call Out the Immigration Con

By Mike Koetting February 26, 2025

Everyone knows the story of the emperor’s clothing. No one was willing to say the truth until a child blurted it out.

There are parallels in our national discussion of immigration. Republicans, led by Trump, have inflated some real—but manageable issues—into a national panic. The fact that the panic is caused by a con gets lost in the day-to-day coverage.

It is a real problem that our system for managing immigration is broken. It is broken from lack of funding and from incoherence in our rules and laws, in large part due to conflicting interests. There are any number of feasible solutions to those problems. None of them are addressed by deporting people. Fixing the core system requires nuanced, rational political discussions of the various trade-offs—which Republicans have been systematically undercutting for 20 years.

Numbers and Conversations in the Fires’ Aftermath

By Mike Koetting February 11, 2025

The thing about numbers is they are objective. You can fudge them for a while, but eventually their concreteness wins out.

So when the insurance actuaries mull over the Los Angeles wildfires, they will issue verdicts not based on rhetoric or hope or blame, but gimlet-eyed assessments of what makes sense for insurance companies—increase rates, leave or what.

We already have a preview. In the year leading up to the fires, State Farm, the largest homeowners insurance company in California, anticipating the risk, refused to renew thousands of policies there. They had already stopped selling new policies in the state. Other insurers are similarly trimming their sails.

Bad Faith in Immigration Policy

By Mike Koetting January 14. 2025

The recent election demonstrated that a large share of Americans want more control placed on immigration. Fair enough. But the Laken Riley bill that recently passed the House is a deeply troubling response. Presented as a plan to “deport criminals” it is in fact a stealth attempt to rewrite fundamental constitutional provisions. It exemplifies the partisan bad faith with which current politics are being waged.

This law would mandate the detention of anyone who is “unlawfully” in this country who is “charged with, arrested for, convicted of, or admits to having committed acts that constitute the essential elements of burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting.” Note this does not require the person be convicted of anything. Presumption of innocence is cancelled. Merely arresting someone for a crime is sufficient. Or having once been convicted, regardless of subsequent events, you could be detained.

Lots to Blame on Elites….But This Isn’t the Best Case

By Mike Koetting October 30, 2024

A speaker at a University of Chicago event two weeks ago said that the rising level of political polarization is among the elite and not shared by the mass electorate. Just a few days earlier, David Books made a similar, though goofier, argument that the polarization is primarily a function of the “high priests” of the right and left insisting on orthodoxy. Both arguments imply that the voters are mostly innocent bystanders, maybe even victims, and left to their own devices, we wouldn’t have this polarization. While there are elements of truth here, this argument is more wrong than right and masks how difficult it will be to address the sources of our polarization.

The Short Happy Strike of the Longshoremen

By Mike Koetting October 22,2024

Well…I am tired of the election. I don’t think I have anything more to say about it until it actually happens. Anyone reading this knows what I think. None of us have a clue how it’s going to end. Neither do all the pundits, who at least get paid for making up the same stuff that I would. We’ll just have to see.

On the other hand, it’s hard to talk about anything else. It’s like trying to have a conversation on the side of the runway while three dozen Boeing 737s are taking off, with of course, the possibility that one will crash.

Nevertheless, I am going to talk about something else—the longshoremen’s strike that streaked across the American consciousness and is already forgotten because it turned into a non-event. Before I get into the main part of that discussion, I can’t keep myself from making one election related point: the longshoremen got a huge raise because they had a strong union and because the White House weighed in as a real, working ally. In office, Trump did everything he could to undercut unions. And, while he was full of bluster about what he would do for workers, he never delivered squat, particularly in comparison to what Biden and the Democrats have delivered. Any argument by union members for backing Trump for economic reasons are wildly suspect. I have argued elsewhere that there are real economic issues in the society and that the current economic successes don’t scratch all the valid itches. But still, if you’re a union guy and you say you support Trump for economic reasons, you’re either lying or are deluded about what can possibly be accomplished by policy. (A recent book by Lainey Newman and Theda Skocpol, who was one of my mentors in graduate school, argues that what has so badly eroded Democratic support from labor is that the weakening and dispersion of American manufacturing has not only depleted union membership but more fundamentally destroyed the sense of working-class culture that was important in creating union solidarity. This surely contributes to the confusion as to who is really on their side.)

Reality Can’t Get to the Table

By Mike Koetting October 10, 2024

Twenty years ago, we were all a twitter about a George Bush adviser deriding “reality- based media.” He may get the last laugh. We in the reality-based world are still struggling. Close to half the electorate is committed to various fables. The delusionary nature of that bubble is clear to those on the outside. But, in the short run, a large part of the nation seems wedded to this cartoon version of the world.

There are plenty of legitimate differences between Harris and traditional Republican positions that should be open for debate. But Trump has simply turned his back on reality-based discussion and, in the process, opened a whole lot of territory in which people can find all kinds of responses and reasons to believe. It also makes it easier for the truly extreme to feel they are licensed.

Vance Is Misleading the Hillbillies

By Mike Koetting October 1, 2024

My wife regularly reads Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter and from time to time reads potentially interesting passages to me. The other morning I almost got whiplash doing a double take at something JD Vance said a few years ago:

American history is a constant war between Northern Yankees and Southern Bourbons, where whichever side the hillbillies are on, wins. And that’s kind of how I think about American politics today, is like, the Northern Yankees are now the hyper-woke, coastal elites. The Southern Bourbons are sort of the same old-school Southern folks that have been around and influential in this country for 200 years. And it’s like the hillbillies have really started to migrate towards the Southern Bourbons instead of the Northern woke people. That’s just a fundamental thing that’s happening in American politics.

My first reaction was stunned amazement. Was he suggesting, for instance, that it would have been okay if the South had won the Civil War? On second thought, I was struck with how flaccid an explanation he was offering for the “fundamental thing that’s happening in American politics.”

Causes versus Institutions

By Mike Koetting September 17, 2024

Just before taking off on a short trip with our grandson, I read a review in the Washington Post of a political thriller, Charles McCarry’s Shelley’s Heart, that it described as “unnervingly prescient.” While written 25 years ago, plot elements include a highly contested vote count, renegade Arab terrorists, impeachments and a rogue Supreme Court. Sounded just like the thing for a trip to Washington DC.

It was, as promised, an exciting thriller that I had a hard time putting down. It also turned out to be an interesting meditation on the philosophical orientations toward politics and government, specifically, what is the right balance between strongly-held values and maintaining the institutions of governing?

There Are Reasons This Is So Hard

By Mike Koetting August 19, 2024

Chicago has had more presidential nominating conventions than any other American city (26). The last one, the 1996 Democratic Convention, was pretty much of a snooze—do you even remember what happened then? The one before that, however, in 1968, was an epic barn burner. I was there and got my head wacked.

If you want to read about that, check out my book on the Sixties, You Must Choose Now.

Even though this one is anticipated to be much quieter, I figure I have had enough convention for a lifetime, so I’m watching from a distance. There will be some contention over a few specific issues, particularly outside the convention hall. But inside, Democrats seem determined to present a show of exuberant unity as tight as shown at the Republican convention.

The anticipated show of enthusiasm is something of a surprise. A month ago, the Democrats were facing their convention with the grim determination of a baseball team going into the ninth and down by a whole bunch of runs. No one was admitting defeat, but energy was hard to find. When Biden stepped away, a stunning whoosh swept the Democratic party. People were energized, wallets opened, rallies hopped, and the internet was flooded with new memes. Donald Trump and his opportunistic running mate suddenly looked even weirder.

This is great. Joe Biden was a terrific president and I think he would have been a good president again. But he was no longer a compelling candidate. There can be a lot of philosophy spilled trying to get to the bottom of people’s confusion between what they want and what they think they want, but it was clear that another term of Joe Biden was going to be a difficult sale, even given that the opposition was an incoherent, amoral, declining grifter. Kamala Harris put new life into the campaign.

Whether that’s enough remains to be seen. The arithmetic of the Electoral College means presidential contests still revolve around a few key states. Winning the popular vote is no guarantee of election. But victory feels within grasp. Indeed, a really large victory for Harris does not feel impossible.

Still, it is more likely that this election will be very close. There is something fundamentally wrong here. Donald Trump is not a likeable human. He served one-term as president where his main accomplishments were an enormous tax cut for the rich and stoking all the divisions in America. Yet millions of Americans seem happy to vote for him. And, while a Kamala Harris victory is an essential step toward addressing what’s wrong, by itself is unlikely to fix what creates the situation where Trump gets so many votes.