Tag: US Election

Election Analysis and Afterthoughts

George Noga
Hillary had a world class marketing team trying to sell box wine to oenophiles, more baggage than a carousel at LAX, a paranoid streak rivaling Nixon and a limitless sense of entitlement.
Election Analysis and Afterthoughts
By: George Noga – January 15, 2017
     We got it right all year! My January 17th post cited 3 principles: (1) no permanent majorities; (2) the longer a party is in power, the more likely it is to lose; and (3) economics trumps all else. I also cited 3 keys: (1) polling is dead; (2) Obamacare is wildly unpopular; and (3) demographics, i.e. for Republicans to make gains among Hispanics, Asians, women and millennials would be easier than for Democrats to make gains among whites. All 6 of these principles and keys proved to be correct.
 
     My September 20th special posting began “I don’t purport to know who will win the election, but I know how it will be decided. . . . It will be decided by les deplorables, good-hearted, hard-working Americans branded as racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and Islamophobic and revulsed by the latte-left’s perversion of America and outraged about being lied to.” Those words proved to be prophetic.
 
     Our final preelecton post on November 6th stated the race was tightening and Trump would win if all or most of the following happened: (1) polling was flawed; (2) there were late shifts in voter sentiment; (3) Obamacare repudiation was robust; (4) government failure drove voters as in the Brexit vote; and (5) blacks and millennials stayed home while evangelicals turned out in force. BINGO! All five happened. 
 
     Clinton and the Democrats lost because a good, decent and just society is based on a voluntary social and economic compact between citizens and government. That compact was violated, desecrated and trampled upon by Obama, Clinton and liberal elites who would be our masters. Voters demanded change from failed hyper-progressive social and economic policies. It had nothing to do with Comey or Putin; it had everything to do with deeply flawed governance and candidates.

Post-Election Reflections

  •     Hillary outspent Trump 2 to 1 and had a better organization but, in the final analysis, the best sales and marketing are limited by the product being sold. As one pundit nailed it, they had world class marketers trying to sell box wine to oenophiles.
  •     After every defeat, Democrats delude themselves into believing that their problem lay in not getting their message out. Their problem was that they did get their message across and it was soundly rejected by the voters. They never learn.
  •     Liberals exposed their churlish souls after the election: rioting, contesting the results, tampering with the electoral college and planning to disrupt the inauguration.
  •    Voters repudiated Obama’s policies and his method of governance, although he remains personally popular. Both Hillary and Obama immeasurably aided Trump.
  •     Demonization of opponents is dead. The Democrats won in 2012 by turning a good and decent man (Romney) into an unrecognizable monster. It did not work against Trump even though he was a target rich candidate. It may never work again.
  •     Democrats obsess with branding their opponents as racists. That abomination also may never work again. Disagreement about immigration is not racism. Over 200 counties that voted for Obama in 2012 changed to Trump; were they all racists? 
  •     Steve Bannon as a Trump advisor outraged liberals who were a-okay with Al Sharpton advising Obama. Bannon has degrees from Georgetown and Harvard, served 7 years as a navy officer and had successful stints at Goldman Sachs and Breitbart News. Sharpton attended Brooklyn College for two years before dropping out, never served in the military, owes $4.5 million in unpaid taxes and is known mainly for his role in the sordid Tawana Brawley affair that a jury ruled was a giant hoax.
 
    The fierce, frothing-at-the-mouth animus and virulence liberals are showing for Trump is not out of concern for America or because progressives are afraid he will fail. Au contraire; it is entirely because they are  terror-stricken that he will succeed!
 Coming January 20th – an Inauguration Day retrospective of the Obama presidency

Voter Ignorance – A Startling Perspective

George Noga
Most voters are ignorant of the issues and even about basic political facts.
What are the implications of massive voter ignorance for our republic?  
Voter Ignorance – A Startling Perspective
By: George Noga – November 13, 2016
    The election is history; whoever won was elected by voters ignorant of the issues and about our government. Most voters don’t even know our form of government, incorrectly believing it is a democracy and not a constitutional republic. Voters are ignorant of the identity of the vice president, who controls Congress, the branches of government, taxation and spending. Candidates shamelessly exploit this ignorance.
 
     The founders didn’t see voter ignorance as a problem because government had little power over peoples’ lives; politics was mostly local; and voting was limited to a small cohort of educated white male landowners. With federalism, states appointed senators. All this has changed with universal suffrage and vastly more complexity. Just how big a problem is voter ignorance? Does it doom democracy or, at least, argue for changes? Is it a serious concern voters spend more time planning a vacation than on the issues? 
 
    The answers may surprise you. Voters may be ignorant but they’re not stupid. Should a surgeon spend countless hours learning about foreign trade, immigration and tax policy? The ignorant voter, who spends many hours comparison shopping for a new television rather than learning the issues and the candidates, actually behaves rationally because his decision on the TV makes an immediate and significant difference in his life, whereas the chance his vote will make any difference is infinitesimal. 
 
     Just because voters are grossly underinformed and/or misinformed does not mean they always fail to act rationally. There are four ways voters evince erudite behavior.
 
1. Voters recognize and act on serious problems: When the nation is in the midst of social upheaval, beset with security issues and/or the economy is in a prolonged tailspin, voters invariably will vote out those perceived responsible. Even ignorant voters punish incumbents when there is clear-cut government failure. 
 
2. Prolonged one party rule is rejected: Even low information voters viscerally grasp that incumbency leads to complacency and corruption. Prior to 2016 only Reagan/Bush (since FDR) won 3 consecutive elections. No party won 4 straight (excluding only the civil war era and FDR) since 1801, beginning with Jefferson.
 
3. Peace and prosperity are rewarded: Just as voters react to serious problems by voting out the perps, they also reward success – particularly in achieving peace and prosperity – at least for a time but not for 3 or 4 presidential terms.
 
4. People vote with their feet. Under our federal system, people can and do vote with their feet, moving from one jurisdiction to another. Just as with the TV example, people analyze, rationally and non politically, where to live because it has a large, immediate and direct impact on their lives. That explains why there is a shortage of moving vans in California and a corresponding glut in Texas. 
 
   Surprisingly, perhaps startlingly, massive voter ignorance is not an uber-serious problem. Democracy (including constitutional republics) is not perfect, but what system is better? Even ignorant voters can and do trump demographics, money and special interests. And being ignorant does not always equate to being irrational.
 
   Ignorant voters almost certainly will vote for change in 2020 if the economy is torpid with no prospect of improvement and if America is beset with chronic and serious problems, not the least of which is Obamacare. They will vote for change if we are in the midst of prolonged one party rule and if we have neither peace nor prosperity.
Note to readers: I have been besieged with requests to write an election postmortem. During January 2017 I will provide same. Also as Obama leaves office, I will publish a retrospective on the Obama presidency – that is one post not to be missed and I hope one of the best ever.
The next post on November 20 is our special Thanksgiving edition.

Guns in America – Liberty vs. Government – MLLG Update

George Noga

We address: (1) Guns in America redux; (2) MLLG status and website; and (3) the eternal struggle between personal freedom and government power.

By: George Noga – June 26, 2016

    This post touches briefly on three topics beginning with a followup to our February 2016 series: Guns in America, which enjoyed phenomenal distribution that propelled it to a high position on search engines including Google. Recently, we noticed a paper published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Although it was published years ago, it has just now begun gaining widespread traction in the gun control debate.

  The paper is entitled: Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? To read, simply click the title. It documents that gun control has no correlation with criminal violence and, in fact, has a negative correlation, i.e. more guns, less crime. The authors concluded that gun control is ineffective because it does not affect the social, cultural and economic factors that are the real determinants of violent crime. Note: The main sources for the study include the CDC, US Academy of Sciences and United Nations.

Uncommon Wisdom about Liberty and Government

    It doesn’t get better than this; that’s why MLLG is publishing a lengthy quote. The case being discussed was before the Texas Supreme Court and involved eyebrow threading, a safe and traditional South Asian practice to remove unwanted hair. The State of Texas demanded threaders obtain cosmetology licenses requiring 750 hours of training (that did not include eyebrow threading), shut down of their businesses and fines of thousands of dollars. The threaders took Texas to court. Justice Don Willet wrote the following in his opinion supporting the threaders, who won the case 6-3.  

   “This case concerns the timeless struggle between personal freedom and government power. Do Texans live under a presumption of liberty or a presumption of restraint? The Texas Constitution confers power – but even more critically, it constrains power. What are the outer boundary limits of government actions that trample Texans’ constitutional right to earn an honest living? Must courts rubber-stamp even the most nonsensical encroachments on freedom? Are even the most patently farcical and protectionist restrictions unchangeable, or are there judicially enforceable limits?

    “This case raises constitutional eyebrows because it asks building-block questions about constitutional architecture – about how we as Texans govern ourselves and about the relationship of the citizen to the State. This case concerns far more than whether (Texans) can pluck unwanted hair with a strand of thread. This case is fundamentally about the American Dream and the unalienable human right to pursue happiness without curtsying to government on bended knee. It is about whether government can connive with rent-seeking factions to ration liberty unrestrained and whether judges must submissively uphold even the most risible encroachments.”

MLLG Preview and Website Update

    So far in 2016, MLLG has published two series, Guns in America and Inequality in America. We have blogged about, inter alia, the US election (3 times), climate change (3), government and socialism (3), school choice, tax inversions, Pope Francis, Islamic terrorism, Scandinavian economics and Jefferson-Jackson Day. Whew!

    For the second half of 2016, look for multi-part series on (1) climate change; (2) poverty, hunger and homelessness in America; and (3) financial repression, negative interest rates and the war on cash. Other pithy topics may include: China, political correctness, Greece and Puerto Rico, Uber and gay marriage (you’ll really like that one) and media bias. This summer, as customary, we lighten things up with posts about life in Montana – our summer home. We call these posts “Montana Moments“; enjoy!