Social Democracy Outlook:
September 01, 2017
August of 2017 may be remembered as the month the Accidental President went off the rails for good and proper. The beginning of the month found Trump being chastised by law enforcement leaders from around the country after he suggested that arresting officers intentionally commit assault and batteries against citizens under their charge. By mid-month the Confounder in Chief had scared the starch out of our Asian allies with threats of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and, apparently suffering a flashback to the McKinley era, proposed sending U.S. gunboats south of the border to bring unruly Venezuelans into line. This was all just a warm-up, however, for the real howler: Trump’s barely veiled support of white supremacists who descended upon Charlottesville to stand up for race-based slavery, apartheid and bigotry. The Accidental President’s backward and ignorant remarks resulted in stinging rebukes from his own party in Congress, the desertion of his business advisory council by multiple CEOs and the resignation en masse of the 17-member Advisory Council on the Arts. Not content to leave bad enough alone, on the 26th, with the nation distracted by Hurricane Harvey barreling into the Texas coast, Trump conducted two shadow operations against marginalized Americans. First he announced a ban on transgender troops serving in the U.S. military. Then, showing disdain for ethnic minorities as well as the federal judiciary, he pardoned Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom a federal court had found in contempt for failing to desist in the racial profiling of Arizona Hispanics. With Congress on break for much of the month and Trump himself taking one of the vacations he “never takes,” we will have to wait to determine whether the Trump-Congress conspiracy to dismantle American social democracy has been materially wounded by the Fool-in-Chief’s many summer gaffes.
The healthcare debate that so occupied our attention in July receded into the netherworld of not-daily-news-cycle after Republicans left town without the votes to repeal or even revise the Affordable Care Act. Still, Trump’s threat to withhold necessary subsidies and risk-sharing payments has rattled insurers, instigating legitimate concerns over the viability of the exchanges. Happily, responsible adults such as state insurance commissioners and other policy-makers scrambled to keep insurers operating in their jurisdictions; at the end of the month it was reported that the last county in the nation without a single exchange had found an insurer. (On the downside: most insurers expect serious rate hikes in the coming months.) Nor were other political actors quiescent on the matter: 17 state attorneys general brought suit to require the administration to disburse the mandated funds, while several Republican senators announced willingness to work across the aisle to make the ACA work. Trump committed only to make the required payments for the month of August, leaving the future fate of the exchanges up in the air; the Senate begins hearings on September 6 to address shoring up the healthcare marketplace. One fundamental issue in achieving universal healthcare is cost: a Gallop survey of large corporations found companies spending an average of $14,000 per employee per year. France, considered by the World Health Organization to possess the world’s best healthcare system, spends around $5,000. We have to do better!
Job creation remained strong—reflecting the ongoing Obama growth economy—but the majority of new jobs continue to be in the low-wage service sector. In a sign of the changing retail business, on the 2nd online giant Amazon sought 50,000 employees for its expanding distribution centers. The good news: all pay close to living wages for their regions, ranging from $11.50 in Chattanooga to $13.75 in Washington State. Thousands of jobs were likewise at issue in Wisconsin’s decision to offer billions in tax credits and other incentives to entice Taiwanese flat-screen manufacturer Foxconn to build its newest plant in the state. It is estimated that the tax subsidies will cost the state $15,000-$19,000, per year, per new job created. One might suggest that the laissez-faire Republicans running Wisconsin have signed on to state-sponsored employment! The Social Democrat may just approve. Another factory deal—a new plant to be built by the Toyota-Mazda partnership—has states across the South and Midwest falling over one another to lure the plant, with its 4,000 jobs, to their states. The danger, from a social democratic perspective, is a “race to the bottom,” with state governments vying to slash needed taxes, environmental reviews and worker protections. United Autoworkers organizers in Nissan’s Canton, Mississippi, factory faced disappointment when their multi-year effort to unionize the plant’s 6,000 workers failed to carry the day against hardball anti-union tactics organizers accuse Nissan management of employing. Complaints have been filed with the National Labor Relations Board. Bernie Sanders and actor Danny Glover have meanwhile promised a mission to French president Emmanuel Macron, whose government owns a considerable stake in Nissan’s partner company Renault, to press for a corporate change of heart. In another blow to workers, Illinois’ Republican governor, Bruce Rauner, vetoed the $15 minimum wage billed passed by the Illinois assembly in the spring. Unfortunately, the legislature does not appear to have the votes to override. In the longer-range job perspective, negotiations to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) began on the 16th. With Mexican and Canadian interests every bit as important to those nations as are American interests to the Accidental President, The Social Democrat is not predicting easy gains for American workers or businesses. The Trump administration’s investigation of intellectual property theft, which is estimated to cost American companies $600 billion per year, announced on the 15th, is a noble effort, but the devil will be in the details of enforcement.
The natural environment continues to be under dire threat by the Trump gang. On the 11th an Obama regulation designed to prevent coal companies from eluding royalty payments for extraction on public lands was rescinded, thus achieving two Trumpian objectives at once: polluting the air, and cheating average Americans in favor of big business. Climate change denial more generally was in full swing, despite the release of the quadrennial National Climate Assessment, which unequivocally confirmed anthropogenic warming and its consequences. An Obama-era rule requiring infrastructure builders to take into account future climate change was jettisoned, as was a federal climate change advisory panel. Pockets of sanity persist, however. One month after the State of California extended its carbon cap-and-trade program to 2030, a consortium of nine northeast states with a similar regional initiative put more ambitious reduction targets in place. More vigilance is required across the environmental spectrum. The Gulf of Mexico “dead zone,” where pollutants discharged by the Mississippi River foster oxygen-depleting algae blooms, was at its largest extent ever recorded: larger than the State of New Jersey. At least the international community appears willing to take action: the UN announced a new marine preserve initiative to stem the destruction of ocean fisheries.
With the Bully in Chief recommending intentional battery against citizens taken into custody, rogue police continue to endanger the citizenry. Video showing a Cleveland officer beating a man within inches of his life with little provocation emerged on the 23rd: such sickening displays of police-state brutality should cause all Americans to rally for greater restraints on officer behavior. Two other cases give an indication that at least some measure of accountability may be possible: Sean Groubert, the South Carolina officer who repeatedly shot motorist Levar Jones, as Jones backed away with raised hands, received a five-year prison sentence; and a Chicago jury returned a guilty verdict against office Marco Proano, who fired 16 rounds into a car full of teenagers.
The “resistance” remains active. On the 7th we covered a Reuters story about how the DNC is supporting a wave of new candidates eager to help reverse the tide of red that now blankets the nation. The federal judiciary may make their job easier: in Texas federal courts sent the state back to class over discriminatory voting districts as well as exclusionary voter i.d. laws. Suits challenging biased voting procedures are moving along in other states as well, and the Supreme Court will hear a landmark case about partisan gerrymandering this fall. A major victory for voting rights was won in Illinois, where governor Bruce Rauner signed a bill making Illinois the tenth state in the nation to automatically enroll citizens to vote upon application for a drivers license. It is estimated that 1,000,000 Illinoisans will thereby gain easier access to this most fundamental right.
Other glimmers of social democratic progress continue to pop up on the state and local level. Back in Illinois again, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a new initiative to bring more affordable housing to the city, while a controversial school-funding bill which has dominated state politics for months finally passed the senate and was signed by Governor Rauner on the 31st. The bill alters the state’s formula for disbursing school funding, insuring more funds for lower-income communities. Unequal schooling based on income level is a problem throughout the nation, and we can hope that other states will look to Illinois’ example of solidarity and inclusion. Not waiting for the state to act, in Mississippi the Southern Poverty Law Center has brought suit on behalf of three moms to demand equal access to quality schools for all Mississippi residents, regardless of income.
The nation lost three towering figures of the pre-Boomer generation: comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory; musician Glen Campbell; and comedian Jerry Lewis. We can only hope that some of the grace and heart they brought to our national life will stay with us as we move forward without them.
If the Charlottesville riots were disturbing, the national outpouring against racism which followed, and the renewed determination of states and localities to clear their public spaces of detestable memorials to slavery and apartheid, might justifiably lead one to believe that what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature” are alive and well in America. To wit: on the 28th a bronze statue of Martin Luther King, Jr., looking serenely into a future America where his dream might be realized, was installed on the grounds of the state capitol of Georgia, King’s home state. We won’t give the all clear until other statues on the grounds, honoring champions of slavery and segregation, are removed, but for now we pause to relish a sweet moment of truth and honor. Onward and upward!
