I certainly found Prasad Krishnamurthy’s post at The Hill thought-provoking. His subject is social mobility and he paints a pretty bleak picture of our future:

In recent years, there has been an explosion of novel and sobering research on intergenerational mobility and equality. We have learned that a child born in 1986 to parents whose income was in the bottom fifth of earners had only a 9 percent chance of ending up in the top fifth. We have also learned that these aggregate figures mask troubling differences across race.

For example, a white male born to parents in the bottom fifth had a 10 percent chance to end up in the top fifth, while a Black male had only a 2 percent chance. Black males born to parents in the top fifth are also far less likely to remain in the top fifth (17 percent) than are white males (40 percent).

How should we make sense of these stark facts, which describe the class dynamics of our capitalist society? Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believed that class dynamics and conflict were the driving force of human history. Modern economics embraces mathematical models rather than the dialectical method, but even a simple model – an economist’s parable – can reveal two truths about the deeper, long-run structure of class society with which Marx and Engels might agree. First, class mobility ultimately determines class structure. That is, class mobility determines the relative fractions of rich and poor in a society. Second, class interests are fundamentally antagonistic.

He goes on to present a simple mathematical model which strongly suggests that social mobility in the U. S. is declining sharply and will continue to do so. I can see that in my own family. My parents were more prosperous than their parents had been and I am more prosperous than they. Here’s a rather famous graph that illustrates what has been happening:

It’s pretty clear that a dramatic change took place in the mid-1960s. What happened?

I don’t honestly know but I will suggest four possibilities:

• the Great Society programs
• The Civil Right Movement
• immigration reform
• the women’s movement

There are others. There might even have been synergy among one or more of those factors. The closest I can see to a straightline causal relationship with social mobility is immigration policy which is why it’s such a hot button issue for me.

In a piece at Law & Liberty Rachel Ferguson challenges conservatives to come to a greater understanding of blacks:

So where does the rubber meet the road for conservatives? First, conservatives need to understand why black Americans are so unified when it comes to partisan politics. While 80% of black Americans identify with the Democratic Party, only 60% support affirmative action. Only 50% support government programs of redistribution of wealth—down from 80% in the 1960s. And scholars affirm that religion plays a huge role in the more socially conservative positions of black Americans on gender and sexuality. In other words, while black Americans are overwhelmingly Democratic, they tend to be some of the most centrist, or even conservative, members of the party. Why the loyalty? A phenomenon called linked fate drives black partisan unity. The Democratic Party drove the great accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement, and that same movement encouraged a sense of win-together-lose-together, so to speak.

This political alignment persists due to both policy and rhetoric. Black Americans tend to think of political issues in a communal way, asking themselves what this means not only for themselves as individuals, but for black people generally. For instance, black Americans have an unusually positive view of the military, since the military has historically been a source of equal treatment and social advancement for black Americans. If they are alienated or see that black people are deprioritized by the political rhetoric of the Republican Party, there will be little incentive to pay the social price of breaking solidarity with the community in order to switch sides, even if this or that Republican candidate or policy is interesting to them. Even as blacks become more and more integrated socio-economically, they will often remain deeply connected to the black community through church, fraternities and sororities, beauty and barber shops, and more. If historically the black community has had a voice through the Democratic Party, then the social pressure to remain will be strong because of the sense that splitting up the black community politically will mean the loss of any black voice in politics.

Her basic view is that American blacks are more communitarian-oriented than they are given credit for whether by white conservatives or white progressives. While I agree with some of her points I think she paints with far too broad a brush and that there are contradictions, variations, and diversity of opinion within the black community on which she does not touch. Let me provide an example.

You may recall that Toni Morrison referred to Bill Clinton as “our first black president” but I’m not sure she recognized the many senses in which that was true. As Monica Lewinsky said of him there was a Sunday morning Bill Clinton but there was also a Saturday night Bill Clinton. Such contrasts are fostered by non-orthodox Christianity. I characterize Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, High Church Episcopalianism, and High Church Lutheranism as “orthodox Christianity” in contrast with Baptists, African Methodist Episcopalians, and other denominations, many native to the American South. They tend not merely to be “born again” Christians (all Christians are “born again”) but born again and again and again. From that point of view all that is necessary to make up for Saturday’s debauchery is contrition on Sunday while orthodox Christianity tends to see things somewhat differently. IMO that thinking is one of the things that afflicts the black community.

I thought you might find this post by James A. Gardner at RealClearPolicy interesting:

The great and wholly unforeseen political disaster of our times, however, is that the United States no longer has two parties committed to liberalism. The Democratic Party retains its historical commitment to liberal democracy. The Republican Party, on the other hand, has become something else entirely: It has become a party of illiberalism and authoritarianism. Its leaders no longer profess the basic equality of all Americans. They oppose popular sovereignty anywhere that its exercise results in the elevation to office of Democrats. They seek to undermine the rule of law, adhering instead to the maxim followed by dictators everywhere: “for my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”

I think I see things a little differently. I think that we have a completely foreseeable political disaster caused by neither party retaining any particular commitment to liberal democracy, joined by their common determination to acquire and retain power by any means necessary.

The Gallup organization has taken a poll of Americans’ beliefs about the risk of hospitalization due to COVID-19:

The American public’s understanding of the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines may have been put to the test in recent weeks as national public health leaders openly debated whether a booster shot is needed for the general population. Meanwhile, a large gap in vaccination rates persists between Democrats and Republicans, possibly reflecting partisans’ different views on the relative risks of COVID-19 versus the vaccines.

In August, Gallup surveyed over 3,000 U.S. adults on their understanding of the likelihood of hospitalization after contracting COVID-19 among those who have versus have not been vaccinated. The results show that most Americans overstate the risk of hospitalization for both groups: 92% overstate the risk that unvaccinated people will be hospitalized, and 62% overstate the risk for vaccinated people. At the same time, U.S. adults are fairly accurate at estimating the effectiveness of vaccines at preventing hospitalization, with the median respondent putting it at 80%.

Democrats provide much higher and more accurate vaccine efficacy estimates than Republicans (88% vs. 50%), and unvaccinated Republicans have a median vaccine efficacy of 0%, compared with 73% for vaccinated Republicans. The results suggest that the low vaccine uptake among Republicans may be driven, at least in part, by an inaccurate understanding of the published data on vaccine effectiveness

which I found completely unsurprising. Just for the record the answers I gave to the questions they were asking were factually accurate which places me in a distinct minority among Americans.

There was one thing that I found pretty amusing—the self-reported vaccination rates which I think prove more than anything else that people lie to poll takers.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Lance Morrow laments that the word “evil” has become so debased:

Here we are. The word evil has suffered from severe grade inflation in the 21st century. Just as every college student must now get an A, so, in the hysteria of social media, the most ordinary pipsqueak may now be flattered with the grand honorific. Evil, once an august item in the range of human possibilities, has been reduced to a cliché of political abuse.

How is the word being used today?

Recently I revived my question. I started by asking progressives whether they ever knew someone who was evil. Their number one answer—surprise—was Donald Trump. Do they really mean it? Are they being metaphorical? Hyperbolical? (If Mr. Trump is evil, what would be the word for Pol Pot ?) When they are through with Mr. Trump, progressives mention such lesser devils as Derek Chauvin and Dylann Roof. Then their eyes dart back and forth and less likely names fetch up, people they know from the screens: Josh Hawley, Tucker Carlson. In the end, there is no distinction in their minds between the mass murderer in the church in Charleston and someone with whose opinions they disagree.

Mr. Trump himself tosses around the word evil in a mindless way. He uses it almost as often as he does the word “incredible.” It is one of his six adjectives. Progressives and Trumpists accuse one another, batting the word “evil” back and forth like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck disputing whether it is “duck season” or “wabbit season.”

concluding:

f you are serious about evil, talk about consequences. You can’t call a person evil unless—as with Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot—the evidence is there: the body count. Evil once belonged to the realm of reality. But the 21st century has lost its appetite for objective proof. Feelings are enough. If you feel that something or someone is evil, why then it is so. What you feel (the mirage of your emotions) acquires the status of reality. You must, after all, “speak your truth.”

Talking about consequences is only a gauge for consequentialists not for deontologists. And not for those who fling epithets as primates in captivity fling their feces which is a lot of what I think is going on these days.

I’m suspicious of consequentialism because I think there’s a knowledge problem with it. An act doesn’t suddenly become evil because bad things happened down the road or eventually came into the light. Hitler was widely thought of as a hero until the extent of his evil came to light and some of the very best people supported his “scientific” way of doing things. The same was true of Stalin and Mussolini. That doesn’t mean they became evil then; they were evil all along. And it was not their motives that made them evil; they all had good motives.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal delve into that very question today:

Exit polls Sunday evening showed a race too close to call, although perhaps with a slight edge for the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). They and Mrs. Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU and Bavarian sister CSU) each have won roughly a quarter of the votes. Whichever of the two manages to form a government, it will be a choice voters have made without much evident conviction.

And with whom will that “winner” govern? The Greens came in a strong third with an estimated 15%, with the free-market Free Democrats (FDP) at 11% and quasi-communist Left waddling in at 5%. The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), at about 10%, lost ground compared to 2017’s 13% finish.

Because theirs is not a “first past the post” system as ours is, now the wrangling begins:

The possible coalition combinations are endless, and so are the policy outcomes. The SPD and CDU/CSU could reconstitute their current “grand coalition,” and perhaps voters would be happy with four more years of the status quo. Or the CDU/CSU could form an awkward coalition with the Greens and FDP.

Or the SPD could govern with the Greens and the FDP in a government that might pursue more aggressive environmental goals while limiting tax increases. Or the SPD, Greens and Left could form a left-wing government with heavier taxation but the tougher line on Russia and China that the Greens favor.

concluding:

Whoever ends up in charge, Berlin faces serious challenges over how to spur productive investment and innovation at home, absorb large migrant inflows, respond to mounting strategic threats from China and Russia, and maintain good relations with neighbors and the U.S.

As Germany settles in for lengthy coalition wrangling, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the parties and voters prefer a static status quo to a clear new direction.

Some of the possible coalitions are conspicuous by their absence. I will only point out that two of the “right” parties, the Christian Democrats (Merkel’s party) and the AfD, both lost ground yesterday while two of the “left” parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens, gained ground. But so did the “libertarian” Free Democrats.

The conclusion that the editors draw is only one of the possible conclusions. My speculation is that the CDU ran the wrong candidate for chancellor.

I plan to look around for some regional results, particularly in Bavaria and Saxony, because I think those are more important than the national ones.

Today the editors of the Washington Post declaim confidently: “Immigration reform is back at square one. But the way forward is clear.” I don’t find it nearly as clear and this paragraph from their editorial illustrates why:

There are available solutions if Congress could overcome its horror of bipartisan compromise. The goal should be to establish a realistic annual quota of immigrant visas for Central Americans, Haitians and others desperate to reach this country who otherwise will cross the border illegally — a number that recognizes the U.S. labor market’s demand for such employees. That must be supplemented by a muscular guest worker program that enables legal border crossing for migrants who want to support families remaining in their home countries.

I support a “muscular guest worker program” and I also support “realistic annual quota” but, sadly, even if those were implemented effectively and rigorously, it wouldn’t resolve the problem. As Gallup found 750 million people would like to leave their home countries if they could. More than half of the population of the “Northern Triangle” wants to move. By far the greatest number (158 million)—greater than the next five countries put together—want to emigrate to the U. S.

Said another way there is no quota, no practical number that would result in some people not being turned away. What has blocked compromise to date is that there is one faction that is unwilling to accept any more immigrants and another that is unwilling to turn anyone away. There is no meeting of minds there.

A couple of years ago a compromise deal was available to resolve the conundrum of the “Dreamers”, the beneficiaries of President Obama’s DACA executive order. It failed because the progressives in Congress wanted to extend the order to the Dreamers’ parents (and maybe a general amnesty) and that was unacceptable to many Congressional Republicans.

I present this post at Foreign Policy by Hal Brands and Michael Beckley not because I believe it is true but because it presents a point-of-view that was, at least to me, quite counter-intuitive:

The idea of a Thucydides Trap, popularized by Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, holds that the danger of war will skyrocket as a surging China overtakes a sagging America. Even Chinese President Xi Jinping has endorsed the concept arguing Washington must make room for Beijing. As tensions between the United States and China escalate, the belief that the fundamental cause of friction is a looming “power transition”—the replacement of one hegemon by another—has become canonical.

The only problem with this familiar formula is that it’s wrong.

The Thucydides Trap doesn’t really explain what caused the Peloponnesian War. It doesn’t capture the dynamics that have often driven revisionist powers—whether that is Germany in 1914 or Japan in 1941—to start some of history’s most devastating conflicts. And it doesn’t explain why war is a very real possibility in U.S.-China relations today because it fundamentally misdiagnoses where China now finds itself on its arc of development—the point at which its relative power is peaking and will soon start to fade.

There’s indeed a deadly trap that could ensnare the United States and China. But it’s not the product of a power transition the Thucydidean cliché says it is. It’s best thought of instead as a “peaking power trap.” And if history is any guide, it’s China’s—not the United States’—impending decline that could cause it to snap shut.

and

A dissatisfied state has been building its power and expanding its geopolitical horizons. But then the country peaks, perhaps because its economy slows, perhaps because its own assertiveness provokes a coalition of determined rivals, or perhaps because both of these things happen at once. The future starts to look quite forbidding; a sense of imminent danger starts to replace a feeling of limitless possibility. In these circumstances, a revisionist power may act boldly, even aggressively, to grab what it can before it is too late. The most dangerous trajectory in world politics is a long rise followed by the prospect of a sharp decline.

and

Over the past 150 years, peaking powers—great powers that had been growing dramatically faster than the world average and then suffered a severe, prolonged slowdown—usually don’t fade away quietly. Rather, they become brash and aggressive. They suppress dissent at home and try to regain economic momentum by creating exclusive spheres of influence abroad. They pour money into their militaries and use force to expand their influence. This behavior commonly provokes great-power tensions. In some cases, it touches disastrous wars.

They go on to present both Imperial Germany and Imperial Japan as examples of just that dynamics.

They conclude:

To be clear, China probably won’t undertake an all-out military rampage across Asia, as Japan did in the 1930s and early 1940s. But it will run greater risks and accept greater tensions as it tries to lock in key gains. Welcome to geopolitics in the age of a peaking China: a country that already has the ability to violently challenge the existing order and one that will probably run faster and push harder as it loses confidence that time is on its side.

The United States, then, will face not one but two tasks in dealing with China in the 2020s. It will have to continue mobilizing for long-term competition while also moving quickly to deter aggression and blunt some of the more aggressive, near-term moves Beijing may make. In other words, buckle up. The United States has been rousing itself to deal with a rising China. It’s about to discover that a declining China may be even more dangerous.

I will only make one observation. In the entire history of the world there has never been a country that has been rising in power while declining in population and China’s population is already declining. Perhaps China is the exception that proves the rule.

If you listened to the talking heads programs this morning you may have been a bit confused by what you heard. I know I was. In the interest of clarity I wanted to make a few points:

1. Neither poverty, chaos, nor crime in your country of origin constitute legitimate cases for asylum under U. S. law. Legitimate cases require persecution or fear of persecution in their countries of origin due to race, religion, being a member of a particular social group, nationality, or political opinion.
2. Similarly, a refugee under U. S. law is an individual who is unwilling or unable to return to his or her home country due to a well-founded fear of persecution due to race, membership in a particular social group, political opinion, religion, or national origin.

It should be manifestly clear that very few if any of the Haitians who somehow made their way to our southern border were either legitimately seeking asylum or refugees. Taking the most charitable possible view they were economic migrants. Less charitably, they were venue shopping for the best deal.

They went from Haiti to Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, or elsewhere because those countries had very lax immigration laws.

90% of Haitians speak only Creole. Creole is not French. Of the adults among those, again charitably, at most 62% are literate in Creole. Relatively few Americans speak Creole. The demand for workers who speak a language intelligible to very few in the U. S. and who are illiterate in that language is quite low in the 21st century. Like the Somalis before them the only thing they are really prepared for is to be clients of the state for life.

I believe that the United States should be giving more aid to Haiti and should be providing it in a more prudent manner so that it actually reaches those for whom it is intended. I do not believe that the proper way to to ameliorate the living conditions of the people of Haiti is to bring them here.