“When should we worry about the debt ceiling?” concerned market participants ask, every second of every trading day.
The answer is “now” or “yesterday” or “every day it’s not abolished.”
Of all contentious Beltway debates, this is easily the most inane. And that’s really saying something considering almost every debate that takes place inside the halls of power in America is petty or sophomoric in its own special way.
Placing an artificial limit on the US government’s capacity to meet the country’s obligations both foreign and domestic is a kind of insanity that’s hard to comprehend out of context. That’s particularly true given the role of US government paper in international finance.
In context, though, it makes a lot of sense in 2023. There are no issues of mutual concern to Americans anymore, where “concern” means a shared interest in solving ostensible problems. Issues aren’t issues, they’re weapons to be wielded in the culture wars.
Although weaponizing divisive issues at the expense of problem-solving and substantive discussion isn’t a new phenomenon, the almost complete subjugation of the problems themselves to theater arguably is. “Rounding up Venezuelan asylum seekers on the streets of San Antonio and shipping them on private planes” to Martha’s Vineyard allegedly using millions of dollars in Florida taxpayer money is a good example.
Immigration is a perennially divisive political hot potato, but in the “good” old days, you might’ve just run a TV ad using one of those grainy thermal imaging videos of people streaming across the border at night. Maybe you set the footage to ominous music. Now, you compete with governors from your own party to see who can stage the most elaborate multi-million dollar spectacle using busses, planes and, if necessary, stealing another state’s migrants when you can’t find enough human props in yours.
This dynamic isn’t the sole purview of Republicans, but there’s no point in being obtuse: The GOP’s strategy for winning elections increasingly depends on the daily dramatization of culture war issues. Maximizing that opportunity means making every issue a culture wars issue, including fiscal concerns.
It’s no secret that demographic and social trends favor Democrats. Gerrymandering and other run-of-the-mill chicanery can only get you so far, and there’s only so much excitement people like Mitt Romney and Kevin McCarthy can whip up among the lower-income, less-educated constituency that comprises half the GOP’s extremely awkward voter coalition. The other half is comprised of the wealthy and corporate “citizens.”
In short: Republicans need to animate what we now lazily refer to as the “Trump base.” The most effective way to do that is by presenting the demographic and social trends that favor Democrats as an existential threat not just to the Republican party (which, if we’re honest, the Trump base can take or leave), but to “American values.” You can’t counter the trends, but if you can increase the pitch and raise the temperature, you might be able to turn out more voters and thereby forestall the inevitable.
When leveraged in that context, “American values” means something very specific but it also serves as a deliberately nebulous catch-all. The anchor is just truck stop patriotism — jingoistic symbols, appeals to Christianity unironically paired with gun-themed machismo, star-spangled bandanas and chintzy USA talismans hanging above quarts of Castrol and replacement windshield wipers. (That, unfortunately, is what’s become of the Founders’ vision.)
But crucially for the culture wars, “American values” can mean whatever it needs to mean to rile up red hats. One day immigrants are overrunning the suburbs. The next day, Anthony Fauci’s masks are desecrating the legacy of Thomas Paine. The day after that, Mickey Mouse is too “woke” and M&Ms’ outfits are a liberal conspiracy. The next thing you know, black history is too black. And so on.
Republicans have always demonized deficits and characterized “the debt” as both a burden on America’s “grandchildren” and an affront to everything we hold dear (never mind that fiscal discipline went out the window in America with the Reagan administration). Although their populist streak would almost surely manifest in more government spending were they formally empowered, in the current circumstances, the GOP’s extreme right flank is highly likely to make the debt ceiling a culture wars issue, in a bid to galvanize the electorate against Democrats and, more generally, to enliven their perpetually restive constituents and fans, most of whom need something to rail against.
National debt hysteria and deficit doomsaying aren’t new, of course. Neither are misconceptions about what US Treasurys actually are (not “debt”) and about what deficits actually represent (not what you think). I’ve been over that on countless occasions, and in the event the latest episode in this exceedingly ridiculous cartoon series goes down to the proverbial wire, I suppose I’ll go over it all again.
What I wanted to emphasize now — so, today, months ahead of the so-called “x-date” when Janet Yellen may have to explain to the Freedom Caucus why a US default is a total non-starter — is the extent to which the Republican party’s path to relevance increasingly goes through a handful of extremists, most of whom demonstrated in late 2020 and early 2021 that their grip on reality is tenuous. Their grip on the GOP, by contrast, is tight despite their small numbers, something they demonstrated to dramatic effect earlier this month by blocking McCarthy’s bid for the House gavel 14 times in a row.
Although Mitch McConnell last week appeared to rule out the prospect of a default-by-GOP, it’s not obvious that McConnell could break a stalemate should one develop. More to the point, the brand of politics that’s become the calling card of Republicans in the Trump era nearly cost America its system of governance two years ago. The idea that the same people whose rhetoric helped inspire a deadly (albeit farcical) attempt to overthrow the US government understand, or care about, the economic implications (let alone the impact on global markets) of a debt default seems dubious.
If that faction of the Republican party makes the debt ceiling a culture wars issue on the way to forcing a voluntary US default (and do note the absurd paradox of a default that’s both “forced” and “voluntary”), it’d be foolish not to consider taking steps to limit that faction’s access to government office in the future. Otherwise, the “full faith and credit” of the US government won’t mean as much to international investors. And that would be very bad news indeed.
“it’d be foolish not to consider taking steps to limit that faction’s access to government office in the future.”
I’m pretty sure we are all sitting here going how did January 6th not result in this, at the very least? It’s difficult to put your faith in a system of government that won’t even try to protect itself AFTER it was barely not overthrown by pure luck. Instead, the people behind the assault are now in charge of House committees.
Next up, I hear there’s some folks planning to knife Caesar.
Yes, on the 4th of July (according to ChatGPT).
I grew up in a republican household. My parents voted for Nixon (though they did not like him), and Ford after Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. I know republicans who are not jerks, or self-serving, or mentally deficient, or idiots, or liars, or pro-Putin. They voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020. Frankly, they’re in different circles and I do not keep in the closest touch with them. But my sense is that they do not swim in the same stream as McCarthy, Gaetz, Jordan, etal. Instead, they keep their feet in the realm of reality. My old friends are conservative, like the greater portion of our country. In other words, they are not radicals.
I call myself a liberal thinker. And like our country, I tend to be conservative in how I live my life and manage my affairs. I think it is time to call a spade a spade. McCarthy is not typically a political radical. But he’s kissing the asses of a bunch of radicals in the House, including Gaetz, Gosar, Jordan, Perry, etcetera. So, in effect, McCarthy has fixed himself in their midst.
It’s about time we all learn the meanings of conservative and radical. My purpose in making this point is that both democrats and republicans can become radicalized. We need to be aligned in the meanings of these terms.
Heisenberg, who studied political science, knows more about this than I. Liberalism is about freely agreeing to be governed, holding personal political thoughts and moral beliefs that are based on individual rights, liberty, political equality, and equality in application of the law. Whereas, radical politics, according to the Oxford dictionary means: “the beliefs or actions of people who advocate thorough or complete political or social reform.”
We saw a fair volume of that among young democrats in the 60s. Some kids went over the top and radicalized. The Students for a Democratic Society come to mind. Then there were radicals from Puerto Rico who bombed Chicago. Then there were radical police in ’68 who violently beat (with truncheons) a bunch of students at the democratic convention in Chicago because Mayor Dailey was pissed off.
Correct me if I’m wrong, Walt. Or elaborate further if you like.
I think the issue for the GOP is that people like your friends or family are relatively rare. Obviously numerous enough you could create an entire bubble where they are the only people you knew but rare enough at the country’s scale they are not sufficient to win office reliably.
The thing is, no one is strongly in favor of fiscal conservatism. Liberals/left leaning people tend to want to spend money to alleviate problems, Trumpers/right wing populists want to money for themselves but, to be fair, they’re willing to take a hit to deny money to Black/Hispanic/”underserving” people. That’s their vision of the common good… if only it was legal to say “government money for whites only”… 🙂 And run of the mill republicans tend to favor such deep tax cuts for the wealthiest they always screw up the books.
I largely agree with this and share similar formative experiences. It also reminds me of the apocryphal story in which Clemenceau says (in rough paraphrase), “If a man isn’t a socialist when he’s young, he has no heart; if a man is a socialist when he’s old, he has no head.”
And do we really think anyone in the freedom caucus has read Edmund Burke
I thought about this quote a lot in my youth and never thought I’d see the say where I switch sides, but indeed the quote held true for me.
Dave
Since we share Chicago I would point out that clearly much of all this political chicanery is really just posing, or at least the basis for something else down the road. I grew up in a house where my mother was a staunchly social liberal (women had only had the vote for a few years when she was born, a fact of which she was acutely aware. I don’t know what my dad was because I never heard him talk about politics. He was an active community leader as a family business top executive and an active Rotarian. At any rate this pair sent their kids to private schools in Chicago, both of us in Lake Forest. My sister was a liberal at Brown, helped build a couple schools in Chad and is now very conservative. Me, I wasn’t anything but as a econ major I was a socialist leaner and social liberal in college. Before college I went to a prep school where one of my classmates was Bill Ayers, also from Chicago. Some will remember he and his wife (they are still married) Bernardine Dorhn came out of college and co-founded the infamous Weather Underground which bombed some stuff, and they soon made the FBI’s top ten and went underground until 1980 when they turned themselves in and went back to school. She became an activist lawyer and he got a top PhD and became a distinguished educator and author specializing in issues in urban schools, among other things. When I was in classes with Bill I would not have said he was radical. Nor would I say he is particularly radical now. He was a socially conscious teacher trying to better the lives of those less well off, same as what I did. Funny how things change when they need to sometimes.
Mr. Lucky, just when I am thinking you have told us the craziest of all of your stories- you post yet another story that goes right to the top of the list!
Real life in Congress is now akin to the dark and absurdist satire of Dr. Strangelove. Disaster by idiot clowns could happen.
The whole M & M thing was absurd.
The boots were fine, not offensive to anyone in any way.
Tucker has literally nothing to talk about.
Now we find out that the FBI agent in charge of the Trump-Russia investigation, was himself paid by Oleg Deripaska.
You can’t make this s*** up. Unbelievable.