Tom with the BTRTN January 2021 Month in Review.
One of the phrases that has entered our lexicon is
“once-in-a-century.” Perhaps it came
into vogue with Hurricane Katrina, and has come to be a definer of various
climate-change induced calamities that have struck since, including tsunamis,
fires and floods. The pandemic has
brought new life to the term, a particularly apt usage since COVID-19 arrived
almost exactly a century after the 1918 flu pandemic, the last of its general
scale.
But in the political realm, even “once-in-a-century” is not an adequate appellation for what happened in January, 2021. Three successive Wednesdays in the month brought epochal events, none of which occurred in the last century or the one before that; indeed, they were unprecedented in our Republic’s history. Each was a marker of the cataclysmic end of the Trump Administration. But they also represented the beginning of a new, wildly uncertain era in American politics, and for America itself.
When history books are written, well, a century from now,
disproportionate attention will be placed on those three events of January,
2021. The first was the bloody
insurrection of the Capitol -- the first time Americans attacked the People’s House – directed by the sitting
President of the United States, Donald Trump, in his most brazen, but hardly
first attempt to reverse the free and fair election of his successor. The second was the impeachment of Trump for
his incitement of the mob, and the events leading up to it – the first time a President
had been impeached twice. And the third
was the inauguration of an unlikely pair of leaders, and while Joe Biden was
hardly a rarity (though he is the oldest President to take office), his Vice
President, Kamala Harris, was a precedent shatterer in so many ways -- the
first woman, the first Black and the first of Asian descent to hold her
office.
The overarching saga, of course, has been Trump’s quest to
overturn his election loss to Biden, now known as “The Big Lie.” The facts remains clear: Biden won the election fairly, albeit in
unusual fashion, catapulted to victory by COVID-inspired early mail-in votes
that were the last to be counted.
Trump (and anyone reading anything about the election) understood this
dynamic, and he used the pacing of the counting as, in his warped view, prima facie evidence of fraud. There was no actual evidence of fraud, as was demonstrated time and again by state
recounts and audits, and a multitude of judicial challenges (over 60). But Trump latched on to almost every
conspiracy theory being peddled in the dark corners of the Internet, espoused
by fringe extremists and an ever-narrowing and increasingly radicalized and
unhinged group of advisors. And thus he
continued to challenge the twin pillars of our democracy – our electoral
process and the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump refused to concede the election on November 7 when it was “called” by all the various media outlets, including the
venerable AP. But there were still many
markers to come when he might have thrown in the towel – notably when the
states formally certified their outcomes on December 8, and when the electors
voted in accordance with those results on December 14. With these events, former supporters -- and
powerful enablers such as Mitch McConnell and William Barr – broke with Trump,
the former recognizing Biden and the latter declaring that the DOJ had found no
evidence of fraud.
But Trump simply barreled on, working on a secret plot to
change the Georgia results, orchestrated with a DOJ underling sympathetic to
the Big Lie. Once that effort was
stopped by the threat of mass resignations by the DOJ leadership, Trump turned
his attention to Congress’ certification process, a heretofore little-noticed
formality scheduled for the fateful day of January 6.
Trump did everything he could to undermine this
process. All along he had been making
calls and holding White House meetings with state election officials to
browbeat them into changing their outcomes in his favor. One such call, to Georgia State Attorney
General Brad Raffensperger, was recorded (and then released to the press and
public) by the beleaguered but resourceful AG, on Saturday, January 2. The tape revealed Trump in full mafia-Don
shakedown mode, complete with blunt threats and a demand to “find 11,780 votes”
(the margin plus one of his loss to Biden).
Trump also cajoled Vice President Mike Pence, who would preside over the
certification session, to use powers in that role that simply do not exist to
overturn the certification. Pence, a
loyal soldier up to then, declined, choosing the Constitution over Trump,
finding, finally, his own bright line.
Ultimately, Trump encouraged a rally among his followers in
Washington, DC on January 6, which resulted in thousands of his strongest
supporters meeting at the Ellipse on that fateful day. Trump came to the rally and exhorted the
semi-crazed mob to march to the Capitol, where both houses of Congress were in
session for the certification. He called
on them to “fight like hell” and be “strong,” and other variations on that
theme, many times. And he was not alone,
with personal attorney Rudy Giuliani calling for “trial by combat” and others using
inciting language as well. We all saw
what happened next: a now fully-crazed and enraged mob storming the Capitol,
overwhelming the shamefully inadequate defenses put up by Capitol and DC
police, striding through the halls of Congress while our representatives fled
to safety. The mob threatened death to
Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (with a grisly noose set
up outside for that purpose), trashed venerated spaces and offices in the
People’s House, and, before it was all over, inflicted enough violence to
result in the deaths of five people. Just
hours after the Capitol was finally cleared, Congress reconvened again and went
about their business of certifying Biden.
Thus January 6, 2021 became another day in infamy, to stand
alongside December 7, 1941, November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001, in our
Republic’s own circle of Hell. The
images of the Capitol being attacked by our own citizens will last forever. But beyond the attack itself stood the stark
reality that the violence had been incited by none other than the sitting U.S.
President, the latest and bloodiest move in an orchestrated campaign to subvert
our democracy. After a bit of searching
on how to best define the event, the right word was finally found:
insurrection.
Almost immediately, talk turned to impeachment. Trump had not only incited the mob, but he
watched their assault on the Capitol with approval. He expressed no horror that his words might
have been misunderstood, made no effort to call the mob off once their murderous
intent was clear, appeared supportive of their efforts, and made no attempt to
determine the safety of either the members of Congress or his own Vice
President, Mike Pence. (Pence, of
course, was now viewed by Trump and the mob as disloyal and weak). And the impeachment talk was not simply
confined to Trump’s actions on January 6.
That was viewed as merely the latest act in a 60-day drama to overturn
the election, with the whole sorry saga – inclusive of the DOJ shenanigans and
the Raffensperger call -- being worthy of impeachment.
But the condemnation was far from universal and the calls
for impeachment were, incredibly, largely partisan. Trump’s hold on the GOP was so strong that
139 GOP representatives and 8 GOP Senators actually voted against Biden’s
certification, even after the attacks.
The impeachment, swiftly conducted a week later on Wednesday, January
13, was even more partisan, with only 10 GOP representatives joining the united
Democrats to pass the one article of impeachment. Trump thus became the first President to be
impeached twice, a level of infamy that now sets him apart and alone in the
annals of vilified presidents.
The Senate trial timing became its own mini-drama. To set the context, we must recall another
momentous early January event, when Democrats Jon Ossoff and Rafael Warnock defeated
Georgia Senate GOP incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, respectively, in
runoffs elections, each by very narrow margins.
The two not only flipped two Senate seats from red to blue, but the
entire Senate as well. With their
election, the Democratic caucus numbers 50, equal to that of the GOP, and thus Senate
control tipped to the Democrats with Vice President Harris presiding over the
Senate and able to cast tiebreaker votes.
Mitch McConnell, in his waning days as Senate Majority
Leader, punted the Senate trial past the Inaugural, which not only put it under
the direction of new Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, but also set up the fig
leaf some Republicans might use come the trial – that trying a former president is unconstitutional (widely
viewed by Constitutional scholars as untrue, particularly given the pesky
precedent of the Senate trial of former Secretary of War William W. Belknap in
1876).
Beyond the politics, there was an avalanche of responses to
January 6. Perhaps of greatest
significance was the banning of Trump from most forms of social media,
including not only his beloved Twitter, but also Facebook, YouTube and many
others. This had an immediate effect, as
Trump struggled to be heard without a social media platform. Also of note was the corporate response, as
CEO’s suddenly became the standard bearers of “mainstream” Republican values,
not only condemning Trump but promising to withhold campaign donations to Trump
supporters.
Come January 20, the focus shifted, abruptly and markedly,
to the Biden Administration. It was an
Inaugural unlike any other, given the presence of COVID restrictions and the absence
of his predecessor (another once-a-century event, Trump was the first to skip
his successor’s Inaugural since Andrew Johnson missed Ulysses S. Grant’s in
1869). But the Biden team pulled off a
stunning slew of events and activities, full of somber pageantry, powerful
symbolism and calls to better angels.
There was a beautiful lighted memorial by the reflecting pool to honor
the 400,000+ Americans killed by COVID; Lady Gaga singing a heartrending
version of The Star Spangled Banner; a stunning poem by Young Poet Laureate
Amanda Gorman, several stirring versions of “Amazing Grace” and, at night,
Bruce Springsteen alone on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, singing his
American anthem, “Land of Hope and Dreams.”
Biden himself delivered a remarkable address that found the
moment, touching on themes of remembrance and compassion (for the COVID
victims), resolve (in the fight to tame the virus and revive the economy), and,
perhaps above all, a call for unity.
Perhaps we were all willing to suspend disbelief in such a goal at a
time when far too many Republicans – citizens and politicians – were supporting
Trump, the Big Lie and even the insurrection.
But Biden seems stubbornly committed to the notion that we can find our
way back from this abyss to common purpose and action.
Not since FDR has an incoming president been handed so
much. Apart from the radical disharmony
found in the politics, lives and identities of America’s factions, there was
COVID, surging anew, killing a record 98,000 Americans in January, forcing
businesses to scurry back into semi-hiding, resulting in the loss of 140,000
jobs in December, a reversal from seven months of job growth following the
initial downturn of some 18 million jobs.
The Biden team, playing catch-up from a Trump-opposed transition that
saw mixed levels of cooperation across various government departments,
discovered that there was, essentially, no master plan for vaccine
distribution. This was perhaps not
surprising, since the Trump Administration fell remarkably short of its
December goals of having 20 million American vaccinated.
Biden plunged right in, signing 17 executive actions in the
late afternoon of his Inaugural, a surge of its own sandwiched between a visit
to Arlington with Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, and settling in to enjoy
Tom Hanks, Springsteen and other performers.
Many were simply to put an abrupt end to Trump policies – stopping any
“Wall” construction and the travel ban from Muslim countries, rejoining the
Paris Accords and the World Health Organization. Others were to jumpstart the COVID effort,
naming a coordinator for vaccine distribution and instituting a mask mandate on
Federal property. And in the ensuing
days, the 17 actions ballooned to 42, as Biden tackled various daily “themes”
such as immigration, the environment and economic relief. Hardly a facet of American life went
untouched.
But executive actions might only last until the next
Republican Administration. The more
aggressive steps, those built to last, require legislation, and the centerpiece
of the Biden Administration’s action plan rests with the COVID relief bill, a
$1.9 trillion proposal that includes stimulus checks, aid for the unemployed
and renters, money for states and small business, and for vaccine distribution
and testing. The “American Rescue Plan”
could be passed without GOP support in Congress, given the House and Senate
majorities, and the Senate “reconciliation” process which require only majority
votes for certain economic measures. But
Biden is first attempting to win some level of bipartisan support, and he has
to keep his own centrist wing (Manchin of West Virginia, and Synema and Kelly
of Arizona) on board as well. This is
old-fashioned American politics, but it remains to be seen if Biden still has
what it takes to form meaningful compromises across the aisle, or whether,
indeed, that game is still being played.
At months end over 25 million Americans had received their
first dose of a vaccine, and about 6 million had also received the second. At 8% and 2% of the population, respectively,
there is a long way to go. Help is on
the way with new vaccines from Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca nearing the
approval stage, but major challenges remain.
Distribution is still riddled with bottlenecks, inequities and doubt,
and the virus is mutating into new strands that show somewhat more resistance
to the current vaccines (though the vaccines are still effective against them). There is cause for optimism, but success is
not assured, particularly in the short term.
We will see tens of thousands more die in the coming months, and the
vaccination process will continue at a pace such that vaccinations will likely
continue throughout the summer, at least.
But one can say with some degree of confidence that COVID
will be tamed at some point, and perhaps life will return to normal towards the
end of 2021. The same cannot be said for
the Republican Party.
America has functioned with a two-party system since 1854,
with the rise of the Republican Party from the ashes of the Whigs and Free
Soilers. While there have been third
parties and independent challenges of note since then, and several elections
(notably in 1860 and 1948) when four parties legitimately vied for electoral
votes, the two-party system has prevailed.
But the Republicans are now facing the most serious split within a major party in the two-party
era. Up until the 2020 election, and
even in the early days that followed, mainstream Republicans could cling to the
fantasy that Trump, once defeated, might not exactly disappear, but could be
marginalized and, ultimately, left behind.
The GOP is notably more conservative than even in Ronald Reagan’s days –
even George W. Bush’s days – but the hope was that they could find a tent big
enough to contain both of its wings.
But that myth has been shattered, and the data is
revealing. In a CNN poll released after
the insurrection and impeachment, 48% of GOP respondents wanted the party to
move away from Trump, while 47% recognized and welcomed Trump as the party
leader. This split has been given a very
public face in the actions of the two most powerful active Republicans right
now, the minority leaders of the Senate and the House, Mitch McConnell and
Kevin McCarthy. To be clear, both have been Trump enablers throughout both his
presidency and in the aftermath of the election. It was only after the electors voted on
December 14 that McConnell began his break with Trump, publicly recognizing Joe
Biden as the President-Elect for the first time. While this timing was shamefully late, at
least McConnell had his limits. Such was
not the case for McCarthy, who supported Trump by espousing the Big Lie, refusing
to recognize Biden, and voting against Biden’s certification.
These two men are politicians to the core. Nothing they do is done irrationally –
immorally, at times, to be sure – but not irrationally. Their responses reflect different calculus,
in part based on the character of the different minorities they lead. McCarthy has to deal with the crazies,
exemplified by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new QAnon-infused, Space-Laser
representative from Georgia, essentially a whole slew of GOP representatives
who are utterly lashed to Trump, representing districts who do the same. Many of these representatives simply buy into
Trump hook, line and sinker, while others know that one false step and they
will be primaried in a heartbeat.
McConnell’s Senate colleagues are a different sort. A private poll would indicate that almost
every Senator, in both parties, thinks that Trump is foolish, underqualified
and dangerous. But the Senators – even the
Josh Hawley’s and Ted Cruz’s -- are more measured in their approaches than
their House counterparts, and more respectful of McConnell.
Both McConnell and McCarthy are focused on the 2022
midterms, and what it will take for the GOP to regain control and make them, in
McCarthy’s case, Speaker of the House, and in McConnell’s, a return gig as
Majority Leader. McConnell believes a
break from Trump is necessary. He sees
that, in Trump’s short four years, Trump managed to lose the House, the Senate
and the White House, and he holds Trump personally accountable for those
failures. He sees that Trump put little
effort into Georgia, and put both GOP Senators in a poor position there, unable
to run on a “we are the check against Biden” platform that would have served
them well. And he personally despises
Trump and does not want to see him back in 2024. McCarthy, however, faces intense pressure
from his caucus’ crazies every day.
They want to throw out Liz Cheney, the #3 GOP leader who supported
impeachment, and stand firm with Trump. McCarthy’s
own leadership would be in jeopardy if he broke with Trump, and he knows
it.
McConnell has been quite firm in his position; he supported
the House’s call for impeachment, made it clear he believed Trump had committed
impeachable acts, and has not lobbied Senators to support Trump in the trial as
he did in 2019. Ever the calculator, he
has limits, too, in how far he will stray – he supported the motion put forward
by Rand Paul to cancel the Senate trial on the grounds of
unconstitutionality. But while
McConnell’s vote was a backslide toward Trump, that vote does not necessarily
mean he is opposed to conviction.
Clearly, the future of the GOP is at stake. Some, like Paul, believe that a conviction
will result in at least a third of the party exiting, perhaps following Trump
if he creates a new “Patriot” Party, an idea he has floated. McCarthy and most GOP representatives and
Senators recognize that it is still Trump’s party, and to think otherwise is
foolish. But even if the Senate acquits
Trump, there are deeper issues.
A significant portion of the GOP has gone down the rabbit
hole of conspiracy theories, fed by QAnon, Newsmax, OAN and many dark spaces on
the Internet. Even if mainstream social
media self-polices these threats aggressively, there are plenty of outlets for
them to fester. If the GOP leadership
does not stand as one and denounce, first and foremost, the Big Lie, then
essentially they sanction all of these theories. This is the fundamental problem of the
Republican Party – the failure to confront false narratives.
Keep in mind that there is another whole wing of the party
that behaves like traditional Republicans.
These are people like Mitt Romney and John Kasich who care about America
as the leader of the free world, mistrust Russia, support free trade, fear huge
deficits that lead to mountains of debt, and support “traditional family values.” These are traditional Republican canons. The mainstream GOP has not lost sight of the
facts, as Romney and Kasich demonstrate. They are horrified by Trump. And while this wing of the party has been
subordinated, they still have significant membership and, as the CEO’s have
demonstrated, they have some clout. The
GOP needs their votes, too.
No tent can bridge gaps this wide on both the facts to
believe and the policies to pursue. The
Democrats, for all of their own rifts, differ neither in fact base nor
philosophy, simply in matters of degree and the breath of tactics. There is no comparison between the two
parties.
There will be a reckoning, because the GOP cannot win back
anything – not the House, not the Senate, not the White House – in this current
state. Trump, with his actions over the
last three months, has fully ripped the party apart. It was Lincoln himself who said, in another
context, that a “house divided against itself cannot stand.” Now it is the party of Lincoln that must
conduct its own civil war.
MONTHLY MADNESS
What is madness, when it seems like a sizable portion of
the nation has succumbed to it 24/7?
But two moments stand out, both from January 6.
An article from the Daily Mail sums up the Trump real-time
reaction to the protesters as follows, based on sources who were with him as
the insurrection unfolded.
Yet it was not the mayhem and violence that caused Trump to roar in
fury...Trump was ‘apoplectic’ in embarrassment because the ‘white trash’ mob on
screen made him look bad. ‘He was angry,
not at the appalling crimes they were committing, but because he felt
embarrassed,’ said the source. ‘When they first stormed the Capitol he was
enjoying it. These were “his people”. But
when he saw pictures of the half-naked guy in the fur hat he started
complaining they looked “cheap and poor.”
‘Even
at one of the worst moments in American history he was thinking about his
image. He didn’t grasp the scale of the disaster.’ Fuelled by hamburgers and endless cans of
Coca-Cola, Trump ignored calls from his closest political advisers, including
Vice President Mike Pence, who begged him to make a televised address and call
off the mob. ‘He was shouting: “Why
should I? These people are my supporters”.’
In the early evening, after the horror was abundantly
clear, after Trump had issued a far-too-late video telling the rioters to “go
home” (while also saying that he “loved” them), but before the Congress
reconvened to resume the Biden certification process, Trump and Guiliani each made
a phone call. They called brand new
Senator Tommy Tuberville to exhort him to vote against certifying even more
states, to delay the process (each state challenge would require separate
debate) even further, into the next day, so that they would have more time to
browbeat local swing state election officials.
This was bad enough, but there was one other problem so
typical of the Trump/Giuliani tandem: they had called, both times, Senator Mike
Lee of Utah – who actually supported the Biden certification – by mistake.
TRUMP AND BIDEN APPROVAL RATINGS
Joe Biden began his presidency with a higher rating than
that ever achieved by Donald Trump:
55%. And with only 34% disapproval,
Biden sports a +21 net approval, quite impressive in these polarized times.
BIDEN APPROVAL RATING |
|
|
Jan 2021 |
Approval |
55 |
Disapproval |
34 |
Net |
21 |
Trump, on the other hand, ended his presidency with a 39%
approval rating for January, his lowest since December, 2017. This broke a stretch of 36 consecutive month that Trump’s
approval rating fell in the 40-45% range.
Not once did Trump ever achieve a monthly (or weekly) approval rating of
50% of higher. His highest month was 46%
in the infancy of his presidency, in February, 2017. His lowest, 38%, was in August of 2017. This high/low range of only 8 percentage
points is the lowest of any president since approval ratings have been tracked,
in Truman’s presidency.
TRUMP APPROVAL RATING |
|
||||||||
|
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
||||
|
1H |
2H |
1H |
2H |
1H |
2H |
1H |
2H |
Jan |
App |
44 |
39 |
42 |
43 |
42 |
43 |
44 |
42 |
39 |
Dis |
50 |
56 |
54 |
53 |
54 |
54 |
54 |
55 |
59 |
Net |
-6 |
-17 |
-12 |
-10 |
-12 |
-11 |
-10 |
-13 |
-20 |
BIDENOMETER
With Biden’s inauguration, we now christen the
Bidenometer. This measure is designed to
provide an objective answer to the legendary economically-driven question at
the heart of the 1980 Reagan campaign:
“Are you better off than you were four years ago?” We reset the Bidenometer to zero, to better
demonstrate whether the economy performs better or worse under Biden than what
he inherited from the Trump Administration.
In the past 30 years, the economy has thrived under Clinton
and Obama, and soured under Bush and Trump.
While this is widely recognized, the “Econometer” gives a tidy “one
number” summary of the trends. This
exclusive BTRTN measure is comprised of five indicative data points: the unemployment rate, Consumer Confidence,
the price of gasoline, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average and the U.S. GDP. The measure is calculated by averaging the
percentage change in each measure from one period to another.
Using January 20, 2021 as a baseline measure of zero, you
can see from the chart below that under Clinton the measure ended at 55. It declined from 55 to 8 under Bush, who presided
over the Great Recession at the end of his term, then rose from 8 to 33 under
Obama’s recovery. Under Trump, it fell
again, from 33 to 0, driven by COVID-19.
Now we will see how it does under Biden.
Thus far, we are 11 days in, which has seen only modest
changes in all the measures. The slight
downturn in the Dow has resulted in a -1 for Biden thus far. Obviously, more time will have to pass before
we can take the measure seriously as a determinant of the economy’s performance
under Biden’s stewardship.
BIDENOMETER |
Clinton |
Bush |
Obama |
Trump |
Biden |
Clinton
ends Bush begins |
Bush
ends Obama begins |
Obama
ends Trump begins |
Trump
ends Biden begins |
In
progress |
|
Date |
1/20/2001 |
1/20/2009 |
1/20/2017 |
1/20/2021 |
1/31/2021 |
Unemployment
Rate (last month) |
4.2 |
7.8 |
4.7 |
6.7 |
6.7 |
Consumer
Confidence (last month) |
129 |
38 |
114 |
89 |
89 |
Price
of Gas (end of last month) |
1.27 |
1.84 |
2.44 |
2.46 |
2.48 |
Dow-Jones
(end of last month) |
10,588
|
8,281
|
19,732
|
31,188
|
29,983
|
GDP
(last 12 months) |
3.9 |
2.2 |
1.4 |
-3.5 |
-3.5 |
Avg.
% difference versus Jan 30, 2021 |
55 |
8 |
33 |
0 |
(1) |
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Notes
on methodology:
BTRTN calculates our
monthly approval ratings using an average of the four pollsters who conduct
daily or weekly approval rating polls: Gallup Rasmussen, Reuters/Ipsos and You
Gov/Economist. This provides consistent and accurate trending information and
does not muddy the waters by including infrequent pollsters. The outcome tends to mirror the RCP average
but, we believe, our method gives more precise trending.
For
the generic ballot (which is not polled in this post-election time period), we
take an average of the only two pollsters who conduct weekly generic ballot
polls, Reuters/Ipsos
and You Gov/Economist, again for trending consistency.
The Trumpometer aggregates a set of economic indicators and compares the resulting index to that same set of aggregated indicators at the time of the Biden Inaugural on January 20, 2021, on an average percentage change basis. The basic idea is to demonstrate whether the country is better off economically now versus when Trump took office. The indicators are the unemployment rate, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, the Consumer Confidence Index, the price of gasoline and the GDP.
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