Between Hell and High Water

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.

Are the Rule of Law’s Foundations Eroding…Or Being Dismantled?

By Mike Koetting June 18, 2024

Over the last several years, I have realized that “the rule of law” is only secondarily related to laws. It is a lot more inchoate and contingent than anything as concrete as a law. At root, it is nothing more—and nothing less—than a vague agreement among a populace that they are willing to share a common project of governing under some loosely agreed upon rules, even if—indeed, because—there are other values they don’t share. Absent that agreement, no laws or no courts can make democracy work.

I suspect at any given time over the last 150 years, there were a discernible number of citizens who viewed some social error so fundamental that this agreement to govern jointly in toleration should be dissolved. But as long as the number willing to carry on was a substantial majority, the agreement sustained and bumbled on to its next crisis.

Invest in Coal?

By Mike Koetting June 4, 2024

I wasn’t planning on writing another blog on environmental issues so soon, but my interest was severely piqued when I saw a recent article in the Chicago Tribune with the headline:

Communities Being Urged to
Double-Down on Coal

I assumed this was surely not what it appeared to be but was a clever hook for some different kind of story. I was curious enough to look.

Nope. The story was pretty much as advertised. A little more complicated, but the headline was straight. A number of communities around the state who are currently getting their electricity from coal-burning plants are being asked to extend their commitments to coal into the 2050s. To be fair, part of the argument is that by extending their commitment, they would finance the development of carbon-capture technology so that by 2050 it would be “net zero”.

Creating Clean Energy Is Not Enough

By Mike Koetting May 21, 2024

The struggle to adjust to changing environmental conditions is not a challenge that can be resolved by fragmented, individual policy decisions. It requires a network of mutually organized and supportive policies. None of the individual policies will be perfect—and can certainly be pecked to death if we let it happen. But we will thrive, perhaps just survive, only if we look at how the totality of responses work together to achieve an adequate outcome.

What’s going on with the nation’s electric supply puts very bright lights on this issue.

Educational Reform and Teachers

By Mike Koetting May 7,2024

I’m a religious reader of the articles published by Bob Melville in The Civic Way, a much more disciplined look at policy issues than my own scattershot set of interests. He has recently undertaken an excellent multi-part series on the challenges facing public education. It’s not a cheery read because public education is facing crises from multiple directions.

His piece on “The Public Teaching Crisis,” however, touched on a couple of my hot buttons, so I thought I would offer some suggestions as to how I would explicate and implement some of his thoughts. These proposals reflect my fundamental beliefs not only about teachers, principals, and educational quality, but also underline broader sentiments on doing the public business, which is much more complicated than people want to accept. These, however, are my own ideas and you can’t blame Bob for them.

Defining Educational Quality

Americans are generally unhappy with the direction of our educational system. However, descriptions of what is wrong vary so much by political ideology, one must assume a fair amount of this dissatisfaction is simply another refection of the broader societal malaise. People would like to imagine that education could fix whatever it is they think wrong with society—around which there is little agreement and much passion. But it will be hard to get public acceptance of education until we figure out how to address the broader disentrancement with our society.

In the meantime, this malaise combines with factors more specific to the educational environment to create a high level of teacher dissatisfaction.

Posturing of Republican States a Planetary Threat

By Mike Koetting April 22,2024

My last post used property insurance to illustrate how climate change is already intruding on our day-to-day lives. When I started that post, I had the vague idea that this might be causing some softening of attitudes, even in Red states. Talk about misbegotten hopes!

Rather, the impact of these states pretending environmental threats are not man-made has a greater rippling effect than I anticipated.

Property Insurance: An Environmentally Endangered Species

By Mike Koetting April 9, 2024

I believe one of the reasons that people discount the threats to our environment is that they imagine them as some really catastrophic events resulting in the kind of dystopian science fiction scenario portrayed in a Mad Max movie. Since that is, literally, unthinkable, it gives license to lower the immediate threat level.

However, it is not likely it will happen like that. It is much, much more likely that things will come apart gradually, one problem after another, each compounding the previous. It has already started to happen, poking successive holes in the fabric of our life. Today’s conversations are no longer just about the future.

This post addresses one of these clear and present problems—the retreat of home owners’ insurance in the face of environmental threats.

WTO or WTI—World Trade Organization or What Then Instead?

By Mike Koetting March 26, 2024

My attention was piqued last week when I noticed two articles suggesting that the wheels were coming off the World Trade Organization (WTO), the 160-something nation member organization whose members have agreed to negotiate, implement and abide by common rules for international trade under the premise of free trade. I started to think about the implications of its collapse and whether that was good thing or a bad thing. Oh, and I suppose, whether or not it was close to death.

Let’s start with the last. My Peanut Gallery View of the facts suggest that the WTO is facing some major problems. The most recent of its biennial meetings ended with no major agreements despite some serious issues on the table. The dispute resolution mechanism has come to a standstill as the United State has blocked appointments to the resolution panel for seven years. The Global South, particularly South Africa and India, have used their ability to block many resolutions. Competition between the U.S. and China has spilled into a wide range of issues.

Update on the Presidential Election

By Mike Koetting March 13, 2024

I last wrote about presidential politics in July. Now, we are half-way between that post and the election. The primary season is well under way. Probably time for an update.

The Nominees

The two front runners are still who they were in July—Trump and Biden.

Of course, In July I predicted Trump would not be the Republican nominee. Sure looks like I was wrong. It is true that some people put a lot of money into Nicki Haley. I’m guessing some of that was because they didn’t want Trump and some because they wanted to have an alternative in case Trump imploded. It never crossed my mind anything would dissuade his base, but I simply couldn’t get my head around the idea that serious people would give a pass to a person with all his baggage in a world so fraught with difficulties. I don’t know if the issue is that these people think having a person like him is an advantage or the sense of inevitably has simply worn down those I thought would throw the switch. The glacial slowness of the court system has certainly benefited Trump. The fact that the Supremes agreed to hear the immunity case—however they ultimately rule—was a gift of delay. I always thought that people who said a Trump conviction would deter them were exaggerating the likelihood of their paying attention to the legal system. But I did believe more power players would balk at the idea of a candidate having to bob and weave around court appearances and spend large sums of money on legal defense. I failed to realize that the potential alternative power centers in the GOP had so completely capitulated to the Trumplicans.

I still think Biden will be the Democratic nominee. But, opposite Trump, his position in the party has gotten weaker—despite an objectively strong job performance and a good State of the Union performance. The merciless criticism of his age has taken a toll. Although the media is reasonably good about also calling attention to Donald Trump’s arguably greater cognitive deficits, the damage to Biden is much greater because Republicans simply don’t care. Biden has also been saddled with a mess in the Middle East that alienates key parts of his base. Again, the Republicans don’t care—and to the extent they do care, atrocities against Muslims are fine with them. He might turn this into something good if he can up with a settlement in the next few months. If a settlement is not forthcoming, his only political choice will be to get much tougher with Israel. Where that goes is hard to predict. Finally, it is a fact that Biden’s energy level is observably lower and his projection shakier. On balance, as Ezra Kein summarized it, Biden is a much better president than a presidential candidate.

Meanwhile, Closer to Home (Or….Cities Are Really Difficult)

By Mike Koetting February 26, 2024

The last several posts have been on extremely macro issues. Today’s post lurches to the opposite end of the spectrum—local, even hyper-local, issues. I am writing about two specific issues primarily because they remind me how in-your-face cities’ problems are. There is nothing abstract or theoretical about them; they affect our life, up close and in real time. These problems also serve as a reminder of how excruciatingly hard it is to manage cities. Once you put hundreds of thousands of people in a compact space, things get complicated. There are forces well beyond the control of any mayor and most of these problems have no really good answer.