Perry Bacon devotes his Washington Post column to a consideration of the policy differences between states whose governments are dominated by Republicans and those dominated by Democrats:

The political divisions in the United States increasingly aren’t coming from Washington. America has divided starkly into states dominated by Republicans with a shared agenda and states dominated by Democrats with an alternative one. Much of America’s uncivil war, as President Biden has described it, stems from states adopting these divergent policies.

About 45 percent of Americans live in the 25 GOP-dominated states, and about 40 percent in the 16 Democratic ones. In effect, we have two Americas of policy — and only a small fraction of Americans live in a place where one vision or the other isn’t on the march.

But these two Americas are not parallel. Republicans have been more effective at implementing a unified, national agenda through state legislatures and governors. They are also using state power in a more extreme way than Democrats — for instance, changing election laws and limiting abortion rights so aggressively that these state-level policies have become the center of national political fights.

He focuses a lot on the moves of the legislatures to limit teaching of “some ideas” about race and gender as well as access to abortion:

In states where Republicans dominate government, they are passing policies that include limits on the teaching of some ideas about race and identity, as well as restrictions on people who identify as transgender. Meanwhile, Democrats are protecting existing abortion rights or even extending them.

What I found conspicuous by its absence was any consideration of net domestic migration. According to the Census Bureau four of the states experiencing the highest rates of net domestic outmigration are “Blue” states (New York, Illinois, California, Hawaii) while only one “Red” state is (North Dakota). Of the ten states with the highest rates of net domestic outmigration only two are “Red” states. Conversely, four of the five states with the highest rates of net domestic inmigration are “Red” states. Of the ten states with the highest rates of net domestic inmigration only two (Delaware and Maine) are “Blue” states. And the total outmigration of just the worst three “Blue” states is two orders of magnitude higher than the total inmigration of those two states.

As somebody once said you can tell a lot by which way the canoes are paddling. Whatever you think of the social policies of Red and Blue, it is clear that the Red States are doing something right while the Blue States are doing something wrong. Said another way just better grassroots-level organization won’t be enough to stem the outflow. There needs to be a change in policies other than social policies. Race, identity, and access to abortion are only a very small amount of what state and local governments do. More important are public safety, general education, zoning, corporate regulations, and tax policies.

Consider Illinois and its neighboring state, Indiana. Demographically, geographically, and in terms of climate the two states are quite similar. Illinois has the worst credit rating of any state but Indiana one of the best. Illinois is the most politically corrupt state in the Union, vying only with Louisiana for the crown. Indiana does not have similar issues. Illinois’s tax burden is one of the highest in the country; Indiana’s is in the middle of the pack. Illinois has a high rate of domestic outmigration; Indiana has net domestic inmigration, much of it probably from Illinois.

I don’t know which way the causality runs but there’s clearly something going on and I doubt that better messaging or local political organization are the issues.

The editors of the Washington Post have some proposals for dealing with the baby formula shortage in a more organic fashion:

First, we need to keep the imports coming. The FDA claims its heavy-handed import controls are about safety, but formula could come from Europe, Australia and Singapore, which are places that have equally good — if not better — health outcomes for kids.

Second, Congress should seriously consider whether it’s time to ditch WIC state monopolies, which would also require additional funding to WIC, at least for a few years, to ease the transition. At a minimum, Congress could make it easier for companies to compete for WIC contracts by passing the bipartisan WIC Healthy Beginnings Act.

Third, the FDA needs to improve its food safety oversight, especially for domestic baby formula.

It’s a bit difficult to ferret out the reasons that the primary contractor monopoly system that is used by the Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) was adopted in the first place. Originally, it was a cost-containment system put in place through act of Congress from 1987 and fully implemented by 1994. It has been known for twenty years that the program had the perverse impact of increasing the price of baby formula, cf. here. See also here. The TL;DR version is that

• The program has always been opposed by small retailers and producers.
• It has always been supported by large producers.
• The increase in the price of baby formula is not related to the cost of its components.
• It is in fact a consequence of the WIC program itself.

or, shorter, we’re subsidizing the price of baby formula so we get higher prices.

It’s not the only well-intentioned but perverse program that has contributed to the price increases. We are subsidizing the immigration of poor people to the United States so we get more of them (yes, illegal immigrants are eligible for WIC). We are subsidizing the children of the poor so we get more of them than might otherwise be the case.

Additionally, the plan is easier to administer than a more competitive system would be so, naturally, it is favored by bureaucrats. Lawmakers tend to prefer grand, sweeping solutions to complex problems rather than constantly revisiting them and adjusting them. That explains why nothing has been done to fix the program even though its problems have been recognized for a generation. You don’t want to have starving babies, do you?

There is no perfect solution and, indeed, there is no single solution. At the very least we need to be phasing out the perverse drivers of increasing cost and reduced availability of baby formula. We should also stop thinking about solving problems once and for all and more about risk mitigation.

Well, that’s a shock. The French “far right” political party National Front (redubbed “National Rally”) is now France’s second largest political party. From John Irish at Reuters:

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s far-right scored a historic success in legislative elections on Sunday increasing its number of lawmakers almost tenfold and cementing the party’s rise from fringe status to the mainstream opposition.

Since taking the helm of the party in 2011, leader Marine Le Pen has sought to rid the National Front – now called the National Rally (RN) – of the anti-Semitic image it acquired under the nearly 40-year leadership of her father, ex-paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Securing 42% in April’s presidential election, Le Pen had already tapped into the general disenchantment with President Emmanuel Macron and identifying anger across the country over the rising cost of living and the decline of many rural communities.

On Sunday, she took that one step further. According to estimates, Le Pen’s party will win between 85-90 seats, up from just two in 2012 and eight in 2017, which could make it the second-largest party in parliament. Major pollsters last week estimated just 25-50 seats.

There is a rise in nationalism everywhere not just in France. The increases in both Ukrainian nationalism and Russian nationalism is one of the factors behind the Russia-Ukraine War. Nationalism is one of the factors in China’s actions on its side of the Pacific. The persecution of Muslims in India is a consequence of the rise in Indian nationalism expressed in a peculiarly Indian way, as Hindu nationalism.

In many places the spur behind the rise in nationalism is the failure of government to deal with the country’s problems in practical, affordable ways. Ordinary people languish while elites flourish. That’s one of the things that aggravates me about the January 6 committee hearings. Getting rid of Trump won’t solve our problems but better government might.

In France Emmanuel Macron’s leadership, the weeks of demonstrations by people in gilets jaunes, yellow vests, including, maybe especially in the midst of a nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19, rising prices, and decreasing standards of living are combining to make what had been a fringe group that secured a tiny fraction of the vote into the second largest party in the country.

I found this article by Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard at the European Council on Foreign Relations interesting:

The European Council on Foreign Relations conducted a pan-European opinion poll across ten countries to find answers to these questions. The poll was conducted in mid-May – at a time when citizens had had a chance to absorb the shock of the invasion. The public debate was turning away from events on the battlefield and towards questions of how the conflict will end, as well as its impact on people’s lives, on their countries, and on the EU. It was also a moment when Europeans were becoming much more aware of the global economic and social consequences of the war: high inflation, and energy and food crises. This poll measures European publics’ resilience rather than just their anger at Putin’s war.

The approximately 8,000 people polled came from across Europe. The countries surveyed were Poland and Romania – frontline, traditionally Russia-sceptic, states in central Europe; France, Germany, and Italy – large western European states that previously earned reputations as Russlandverstehers (“Russia understanders”); Portugal and Spain – southern European states that have in the past generally been less involved in Russia policy; Finland and Sweden – northern European states that are applying for NATO membership as a result of the invasion; and Great Britain.

Their findings are summarized in the graph at the top of the page. The “Peace Camp” refers to those who believe that bringing the war to a conclusion as quickly as possible is of the greatest importance. The “Justice Camp” believes that punishing Russia is of the greatest importance. “Swing voters” don’t want to choose between peace and justice.

Note that of the ten countries surveyed in only the UK and Poland do members of the “Peace Camp” outnumber those of the ‘Justice Camp”. When you farther isolate your focus to the three largest economies in the EU (Germany, France, Italy) the positions of the three “camps” become even clearer.

German-British writer Katja Hoyer expresses dismay at European leaders in her Washington Post op-ed:

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, none of the European Union heavyweights had seen fit to visit Ukraine. Macron, who boasted that he has spent “at least a hundred hours” on the phone with Vladimir Putin, declared that he would travel to Kyiv only if he felt it was “useful.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke dismissively of not wanting to “join the queue of people who do a quick in-and-out for a photo opportunity.”

But the Thursday visit didn’t turn out to be particularly “useful” to Ukraine, which has been pleading desperately for more weapons; nor was it much more than a photo op. Apart from six additional howitzers from France, all the European leaders offered was support for Ukraine’s bid to become a member of the E.U. at some point in the future.

I’m not sure why. They are behaving very much as you would expect if you make some simple assumptions:

• They act through narrow national interest
• They have little or no interest in Ukraine
• They don’t think that Russia is a threat to them
• They’re confident that the U. S. will defend them
• They want to buy Russian gas and oil

As long as they pay lip service to support for Ukraine, make promises they may never need to fulfill, provide some minimal support, and avoid aggravating Russia too greatly, they accomplish their goals without bearing much cost. Conversely, the countries who are providing the most support for Ukraine, e.g. Poland, Latvia, Estonia, do feel threatened by Russia. They, too, are behaving as should be expected.

The question is not why they do as they do but why we do as we do. My hypothesis is that we don’t act through narrow national interest. I think we’ve been sold a bill of goods by our notional allies but I seem to be nearly alone in that view.

There are countries that are notional allies who have done even worse. Were I president or Secretary of State I would be musing out loud about whether Turkey were really a member of NATO. They don’t meet the “duck test” for it but they do meet such a test for “ally of Russia”.

As it becomes increasingly obvious that battlespace preparation is contending with the legitimate objective of increasing confidence in our electoral system in the House’s January 6 committee hearings, I thought I’d focus a little attention on the skyrocketing risk of domestic terrorism in the U. S. Consider the graph at the top of this page, illustrating the relationship between political demonstrations and domestic terrorism in the U. S. The graph was sample from an article at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published a month ago. Consider:

Violent far-right attacks and plots remained the most frequent type of domestic terrorism in 2021, but violent far-left perpetrators committed a growing percentage of attacks. As shown in Figure 5, of the 77 terrorist events in 2021, 38 events (49 percent) were perpetrated by those on the violent far-right, 31 events (40 percent) by the violent far-left, 3 events (4 percent) by Salafi-jihadists, 2 events (3 percent) by ethnonationalists, and 3 events (4 percent) by those with other motives.

Here is their Figure 5:

What is clear is that there has been a sharp increase in all forms of domestic terrorism regardless of motivation over the last several years. Furthermore their definitions of “violent far-right extremism” and “violent far-left extremism” are a bit idiosyncratic. Here is what they say they are:

Most violent far-right perpetrators were motivated by white supremacist or anti-government sentiments, and they committed most of the fatal attacks in 2021. Of the 30 fatalities in 2021, 28 resulted from far-right terrorist attacks. White supremacists killed 13 people, a violent misogynist killed, anti-government extremists killed 4, and an anti-vaccination perpetrator killed 3. On June 26 in Winthrop, Massachusetts, for example, Nathan Allen shot and killed two Black individuals after crashing a stolen box truck. Allen had frequently read extremist material and had written journals filled with white nationalist beliefs, including calls for white people—who he believed to be “apex predators”—to kill Black people.

Most violent far-left perpetrators were motivated by anarchism, anti-fascism, or anti-police stances. Although these actors committed a historically high number of terrorist attacks and plots in 2021, only one resulted in a fatality. On June 24 in Daytona Beach, Florida, Othal Wallace shot and killed local police officer Jason Raynor. Wallace had links to several Black nationalist paramilitary groups, including the Not F*****g Around Coalition and Black Nation, the latter of which he founded in early 2021.

Why do I say “idiosyncratic”? Because racially-motivated extremist attacks are always classified as “violent right-wing extremism” while attacks inspired by anarchism are classified as “violent left-wing extremism” regardless of the political views of the perpetrators.

I’m less concerned about whether the perpetrators are “far right”, “far left”, or something else than I am about why we are having the sharp increase in violence. How do you classify the mass murder in Buffalo? Yes, he was motivated by racial hatred but he also held left wing political views. The motivations of crazy people can elude classification.

The authors attribute the increase to polarization:

Political polarization in the United States has grown in recent years, including among the general public, members of Congress, and within political parties.37 Despite this political polarization, however, policymakers—including from the legislative branch—need to pursue bipartisan efforts to reject all forms of terrorism. By definition, terrorism involves the use or threat of violence and is illegal. Freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but violence is not. In fact, violence and the threat of violence can undermine the ability and willingness of individuals to express their ideas in accordance with their First Amendment rights.

I didn’t find any of their prescriptions particularly compelling. IMO we have been on a slippery slope towards political violence for some time and the “law of holes” applies. Public figures need to temper their speech including when they don’t think their remarks are public. There’s no such thing as a private statement any more.

Australian politician and diplomat Kevin Rudd has a post at Project Syndicate outlining the lessons that China can presumed to have drawn from the Russia-Ukraine War. It’s not easily summarized succinctly but the last lesson Mr. Rudd mentions is something that China hardly need have learned at all since it has long seen self-sufficiency as a most desireable goal:

The last lesson that China’s government will take from Russia’s experience is that it is essential to hardwire the Chinese economy against the kinds of financial and economic sanctions that the US and the European Union are now using to isolate and enfeeble Russia.

To avoid suffering the same fate, Xi’s government will accelerate longstanding efforts to strengthen the renminbi’s international position, open China’s capital account, and increase the currency’s share of global foreign-exchange reserves. That will make it more difficult for the US and its allies to seize Chinese assets than it was for them to freeze Russia’s central-bank reserves.

Xi will also be motivated to redouble his effort to make China a “self-reliant” economy, by selectively decoupling supply chains from the West, supporting domestic technological self-sufficiency, and ensuring food and energy security. But beyond prompting China to double down on these existing policies, the war in Ukraine is unlikely to change the regime’s outlook significantly. Under Xi, China has already been pursuing economic self-sufficiency, financial and technological resilience, and a military modernization geared toward challenging, and someday displacing, US strategic primacy.

Unfortunately, I doubt that the ever-overconfident Western leaders will take the right lesson from that themselves: we need to end our dependence on China for strategic goods as quickly as possible. The Chinese have already demonstrated that they view trade as a zero-sum game (one side wins; the other side loses) and they have no intention of losing.

Washington Post columnists are similarly concerned. After noting that the Russia-Ukraine War has passed the “opening salvo” point and entered the longer, more deliberate phase of each side attempting to “gain advantage on the battlefield”. He, too, urges us to redouble our efforts. “Redouble” seems to be the word of the day:

While there are real limits to how much the Ukrainians can absorb, Washington (and its allies in Europe and elsewhere) must redouble their efforts. They also need to help Ukraine break the Russian blockade around Odessa. People have focused on the collapse of the Russian economy, which will probably shrink by about 11 percent this year. But Ukraine’s economy is likely to contract by a staggering 45 percent in 2022. Unless the country can export its grain out of its Black Sea ports, it could face economic calamity for years to come.

While I’m glad that he, at least, acknowledges that there are actual limits to the degree to which the Ukrainians can make productive use of equipment or training, I remain unconvinced that we are able to accomplish the breaking of the “Russian blockade”. My recollection is that wargames of U. S. naval action in relatively cramped quarters have tended not to go well for us. And will the Turks allow transit? The Montreux Convention limits what we can do there and gives the Turks broad discretion. In my view the Turks have not provided full-throated support to NATO efforts in the Russia-Ukraine War. Just to cite one example, Turkey has provided no aid to the Ukrainians to date.

He reiterates a point I have made:

In the short term, this favors Russia. It has taken control of much of Donbas. And because the West hasn’t completely banned Russia’s energy exports, the Russian government has actually profited during this war. Bloomberg projects Russia’s oil and gas revenue for this year will be about $285 billion, compared with $236 billion last year. Meanwhile, it can now thwart Ukraine’s ability to export.

but he’s more sanguine than I about the prospects for the economic sanctions working in the future:

In the longer term, one has to hope that the sanctions will hit Russia harder as the war goes on. At the same time, Ukraine has massive Western assistance, high morale and a willingness to fight to the end.

I think the opposite is more likely. For practical purposes only the G7 countries are imposing sanctions and even those continue to buy Russian oil and gas; the remaining countries of the world have no imposed sanctions. He also fails to mention the possibility of the Russians interdicting our supplies to the Ukrainians.

Finally, he gets around to his real point—we (meaning Ukraine, the U. S., and the EU) need to decide on the “endgame”:

In the final phase of the war, the West — and the United States in particular — become the pivotal players. Right now Russia is battling Ukraine directly. But if and when the conflict becomes something of a stalemate, the real struggle will be between Russia and the West. What will Russia give to get a relaxation of sanctions? What will the West demand to end Russia’s isolation?

So far, Washington has punted on this, explaining that it is up to the Ukrainians to decide what they want and that Washington will not negotiate over their heads. That’s the right message of public support, but Ukraine and its Western partners need to formulate a set of common war aims, coordinating strategy around them, gaining international support and using all the leverage they have to succeed. The goal must be an independent Ukraine, in full control of at least as much territory as it had before Feb. 24, and with some security commitments from the West.

The alternative to some kind of negotiated settlement would be an unending war in Ukraine, which would further devastate that country and its people, more than 5 million of whom have already fled. And the resulting disruptions to energy supplies, food and the economy would spiral everywhere, with political turmoil intensifying across the globe. Surely it is worth searching for an endgame that avoids this bleak future.

It is on that turmoil “across the globe” that David Ignatius focuses in his column:

Global food shortages are a largely invisible consequence of the Ukraine war, whose combatants happen to be two of the world’s largest grain exporters. The ripple effect in global markets is just beginning. But a senior White House official warns that unless steps are taken quickly, the war could trigger “a potential mass starvation event.”

The numbers are frightening. Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, estimates that the conflict has blocked export of 30 percent of the world’s wheat and barley. The Center for Global Development predicts that price spikes for food and energy will push 40 million people into extreme poverty and food insecurity. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports that global food prices are 30 percent higher than a year ago.

The world’s food supply “has quite literally been held hostage by the Russian military,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the United Nations last month. He described Ukrainian farmers attempting to harvest their crops wearing helmets and bulletproof vests.

I’m left a bit confused by his column. Russia is actually a larger exporter of both wheat and barley (not to mention fertilizer) than Ukraine. Is it Russia’s blocking Ukrainian exports of wheat and barley, the Russian embargo on trade with the EU, or some of both that are causing the problem?

I detect a note of serious concern in the editors’ of the Washington Post’s remarks about Ukraine:

With the invasion now nearly four months old and at an inflection point — between its initial shocks and a longer-term grind — the United States and its allies must learn the right lessons and draw the right conclusions. The first is to take seriously both Russia’s intentions and its capabilities. Mr. Putin still considers all Ukraine to be Russian, as he indicated in a June 9 speech likening his current war to Peter the Great’s 18th-century campaign to retake territory from the Swedish Empire. Despite the vast losses of men and materiel Mr. Putin has already sustained, the Russian military retains an advantage over Ukraine in heavy weaponry crucial to the fight: planes, tanks and artillery.

The second of their “right conclusions” is that we need to persevere. They urge us to redouble aid to Ukraine. They hint at the reason for their concern in their conclusion:

A stalemated war could give Russia time to consolidate its territorial gains — and foment division within Western ranks. Hastening and broadening military aid to Kyiv is the best way to prevent that.

I made the same observation a few days ago although perhaps a bit more stridently. Time is not on the Ukrainians’ side. At this point almost 20% of the population has fled—to neighboring EU countries, to Moldova, internally, and even to Russia. We can’t be certain of their military casualties because the Ukrainians, reasonably enough, are not forthcoming about them but it can reasonably be assumed that at least 10% of their military and possibly many more are hors de combat. The Russians have actually profited during the sanctions, largely due to the increased prices of oil and gas. We don’t know how many Russian soldiers are out of action, either. Their military is four times the size of Ukraine’s at least. China has just restated its support for the Russians.

The more protracted the conflict is the more Ukrainian territory the Russians are likely to take and the weaker the Ukrainians’ position.

Who is the “we” of whom the WaPo’s editors speak? The editors of the Wall Street Journal observe that at this point it’s largely the United States:

A new working report from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research institute, sheds light on the issue. It’s clear that many countries are significantly helping Ukraine while others are mostly talking since the war began.

“In total, we trace €85 billion in government-to-government commitments from January 24, 2022, until June 7,” the paper reports. The totals are a combination of financial, humanitarian and military assistance.

The U.S. remains the biggest overall contributor, with €42.7 billion, or about half of the commitments, while the EU has ponied up €27.2 billion across countries and European institutions. “It is remarkable that the US alone has committed considerably more than all EU countries combined, in whose immediate neighborhood the war is raging,” the paper notes.

Commitments are also distinct from what actually arrives. Washington has delivered only 48% of its disclosed “military in-kind aid”—that is, military assistance that excludes financial aid for military purposes. (The nearby chart shows the relative amount of military-in-kind aid through June 7.) Only some 10% of American aid comes directly in the form of material or equipment like missiles or helicopters, but the U.S. still outpaces every other nation. Poland is a close second, having sent all of what it promised. It’s followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Estonia and Latvia.

Why are France and Germany laying back? Is it yet another instance of the U. S. standing up so they can stand down? Are they waiting to see what happens, hedging their bets? Or are they just not particularly concerned?