Dana Blankenhorn

Rope a Dope

You may be too young to recall, but the greatest fight in history occurred in 1974.

“The Rumble in the Jungle” was more noteworthy for the tactic of challenger Muhammad Ali than the result. Ali called it the “rope a dope.” He held his forearms against his body and let George Foreman punch himself out. Ali won in the 8^th round.

In the war against Trumpism, Joe Biden is using the same tactic. It requires patience, discipline, and getting hit a lot. But a politics based on always attacking exhausts the attacker. It leaves them open to a counterpunch.

To make the rope a dope work, you must take some hits. Gandhi knew that. Dr. King knew that. People must see the cliff they’re falling into. Not just what the monkeys on Fox News claim, the world organ grinders like Rupert Murdoch are shaping.

The Coup Succeeded

January 6 wasn’t THE coup. It was a coup, an attempted coup, a failed coup.

But there is a coup that succeeded, that toppled American democracy, possibly for all time.

This was the McConnell coup. By succeeding, during the course of 4 years, in getting three unqualified political hacks onto the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell won the power to redefine the Constitution and destroy American democracy.

That work has barely begun.

Hopium and Copium

As the election approached, my fear rose.

I gave up on the news. I turned off the TV. I hid myself away and got high on Hopium.

Hopium is a warm feeling of hope, the idea that people are good, that they’ll see things as they are, that they’ll do the right thing. It came mostly from Twitter, then mostly from Simon Rosenberg, who followed the early vote for The Democrats. They were coming out, he said. Coming out in numbers. Coming out by the millions. Coming out nearly everywhere.

I don’t recall there being early voting when I was young. In New York everyone did it on the day. I remember an Election Day line in 1976, when I was at Rice, but it wasn’t very long and the weather was warm.

Lies Unmet Become Truth

In politics, lies that are not met with truth become the playing field.

There are some huge ones this year.

The Economy

We’re told, and assume, that the economy is terrible. It’s not.

There is inflation, but full employment and pay raises means the impact on most families is modest. The U.S. GDP rose 2.6%, on an annual rate, in the last quarter. Thanks to the government, millions of families have savings, a cushion against hard times, to see them through, at least for a while.

But this year has sucked for one group of people. Investors. Especially rich investors.

The men who control the Cloud Czars have lost trillions of dollars in market cap this year. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have each lost $100 billion of their fortunes. But these losses are dwarfed, in impact, by the trillions more lost by smaller investors, and speculators, in SPACs, in crypto, in stocks and in bonds.

We don’t live on our investments. We’re not supposed to. Those who are near retirement, like me, are supposed to move into cash and interest-bearing accounts for living expenses. Those who have done so are doing OK. For the first time in decades, we can get a return on our money. The return is guaranteed when you buy I-Bonds, government paper whose interest rate is indexed to inflation.

But the rich are “suffering” and they are busy convincing the middle class they must make up the difference, and that until the poor truly suffer the Fed can’t be expected to ease off. Remember, the rich demanded the Fed fight inflation, last year. The Fed has and they haven’t responded. It’s their own fault.

The Strength of Autocracy

The strength of autocracy lies in its ability to deny reality and get people to embrace lies.

Putin is losing in Ukraine, but he’s not losing his mandate. Among those Russians who remain in the country, and who feel free to express an opinion, his support remains strong.

Xi Jinping is losing his economy, but he’s not losing his mandate either. Stocks are falling, real estate is collapsing, manufacturing jobs are running off to East Asia and his best minds are fleeing Hong Kong. But his rule faces no threat.

Wall Street Revolt

What’s most distinguishing about the 2022 economy is how capital is taking the hit.

We all know about the bear market in stocks, down over 20% from their peak. Bond investors are also down over 15%. Real estate is rolling over. This is where capital gets its money.

Meanwhile, ordinary Americans are doing OK. It’s true that inflation is outpacing wage gains, but there are wage gains. Jobs remain plentiful. Last year’s stimulus was mainly aimed at firming incomes. More relief is coming from the Inflation Reduction Act.

This has created pure fury on Wall Street. I follow financial Twitter for my job, and the anger is palpable. Investors are predicting the imminent downfall of the whole economy. They’re demanding that the poor pay the penalty for their mistakes with money. They really can’t get their heads around the current situation.

The Tragedy of Herschel Walker

There are many tragic figures in the politics of 2022.

For me the most tragic is Herschel Walker.

Democrats don’t see it this way. More’s the pity. That’s because Walker represents the apotheosis of Jim Crow 2.0, a system of institutional racism that has been making its way across the south since I moved here in 1981.

It’s like this. Give blacks some places. Give them their own places, like Atlanta. Use thinly veiled racism to maintain white discipline and control in the suburbs. Use state policy to ghettoize the places with black majorities and encourage corruption. Meanwhile, take some with exploitable talent and raise them up. Coddle them, make them think they’re as good as white, so they become the new system’s avatars, black faces on a white system.

See, we’re not racist, look at X. Whose idiocy justifies the racists’ instincts.  

Fear Itself, Without You

“The only thing that we have to fear is…fear itself.”

The words of Franklin Roosevelt, almost 90 years ago, remain true today.

Fear is always with us, all the time. Some (like me) react to fear by acting out, by yelling or (even) committing acts of violence. Others react in the opposite way, withdrawing from argument, even from the world.

Fear is a great weapon. Overcoming fear is a superpower. This is a time to test that superpower.

Having lost all rational argument, Republicans have decided on fear as their 2022 platform. Fear doesn’t have to be real to be powerful. Rainbow fentanyl may be no more real than monsters under the bed. What matters is keeping up the scare and getting fearful people to do what the fear merchants want.

Those of a liberal or rational bent don’t react well to fear. We like to think that people are generally good, and they are. But fear is as human as courage and far more common.

Some react to this fear with their own fear, making their friends and neighbors fear the fearful. Others hide in their homes, in their rooms, and close themselves off from the news. Both these reactions are fine with the fear merchants.

There’s another way. It’s a harder way. But it’s the only way.

That is resolution. Ukraine, and Ukrainians, have been demonstrating this all year, in the face of the horrors and atrocities and death from war. In the face of the coming winter their president, the Churchill of our time, said it better from inside the lion’s mouth.

The Straight Ticket Election

Senate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act was the final act of political policy season. It was the opening of campaign season.

Midterms are usually a verdict on the President, a simple game of inside vs. outside. That’s not true this time. Both parties have done things and it makes both parties incumbents. Republicans hold most state houses and the courts. Democrats hold the Presidency and the Congress. It’s finely balanced.

Both parties are also more united than at any time in American history. There once were liberal Republicans. There once were conservative Democrats. This is a straight ticket election.

Bad News Can Be Good News

Some very good news was misinterpreted yesterday.

It came from Snap, in the form of a very bad quarter. Growth slowed and losses jumped. The stock crashed, down by 25%.

This was good because Snap is a social media company. It’s known for Snapchat, and its CEO, tech bro Evan Spiegel, is a younger version of Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

The numbers indicate that Madison Avenue, at least, is turning away from “social media,” and that users are starting to follow. The problem is “the algorithm’s” natural tendency to lead people down rabbit holes. You’re suspicious of government, we’ll make you paranoid. Then we’ll make you violent. Russia used this to install Trump, and Trump used it to create January 6.

The problem is that this is a feature, not a bug. If you watch mysteries on Netflix, then Netflix will offer you more mysteries. If you follow liberals on Twitter, it will offer you more liberals to follow. If you like medieval drama on Kindle Unlimited, you’ll be offered another medieval drama.