First, full disclosure. I was not thrilled with any of the candidates
this year. I planned to vote for Gary Johnson, but I switched my vote to
Clinton when James Comey announced, eleven days before the election, that
Clinton’s emails were being reinvestigated. That very morning I had been to a
talk on the election. The speaker said Comey had said the Clinton email
question had been resolved, and, the speaker said, “Comey is a Republican; you
know if there were any possible way the emails would hurt Clinton, he would
have announced it.” And that afternoon he did.
I
live in a part of Missouri that is heavily Democratic. If you look at an
electoral map of Missouri, you’ll see three blue spots in a sea of red. One is
Kansas City; the other two are Columbia, where the University of Missouri is,
and St. Louis. Add to that my circle of friends, none of whom supported Trump
(at least openly), and you can see Trump supporters were simply outside my
universe. I knew none, so none were available to tell me why they were voting
the way they did. The evening of the election I expected it to be an early
night. Confirm a Clinton victory, see how many electoral votes she got, and go
to bed. What a surprise.
What
happened?
I’ve
been asked this a lot since the election, and the honest answer (from me as
well as from just about anyone else who claims to have the answers, I suspect)
is: I don’t know.
But
I’ll throw out a few possibilities.
First,
I think people are still really angry about the Great Recession. The recession
supposedly ended in June 2009, but for many people the recession has not ended.
Even for those doing better, I’d say most will never recover the earnings lost
during the recession.
New
York Times business writer Gretchen Morgenson wrote shortly after the election
that Main Street did not forget that everyone who precipitated the recession—from
those who made “liar loans” to those who sliced and diced the loan packages for
sale as mortgage securities to those who rated those toxic securities triple-A
to those who engaged in “robo-signing” when it came time to
foreclose—everyone—got away with it. With the exception of Bernie Madoff (who
was truly exceptional), not one person went to jail. Not one person had to pay
penalties out of their own pocket. Everyone got away with it. Even
Countrywide’s Angelo Mozilo. Ms. Morgenson points out more than 800 people
served time after the Savings and Loan disaster in the 1980s.
Add
to the lack of accountability the government’s quick action to bail out the
banks that made the mess. Taxpayers were on the hook for $700 billion. Taxpayers
bailed out the banks, but what did taxpayers get in return? Seven million homes
were foreclosed during the recession; 8.7 million jobs were lost. High rollers
gambled and lost. Taxpayers came to their rescue. But who came to the rescue of
the people really hurt by the recession?
No
one.
Oh,
the Obama administration came up with the Home Affordable Modification Program
(HAMP), which provided financial incentives to modify loans, but it was
completely voluntary. Not only did 90% of people whose homes were in danger of
being foreclosed not get any help, banks seemed to consider it their job to
make sure as few people got help as was possible. It seems they considered
helping those in need a moral hazard that might set some sort of precedent.
Never mind that the banks themselves had been rescued by taxpayers.
I
have a real estate license. In order to keep it active, I must take twelve
hours of continuing education every two years. During the depths of the recession
I heard tales of how difficult lenders were making closing short sales. Before
the Recession I had New Century stock. New Century was a subprime lender that
cratered. I had to recognize my losses and get on with my life. But most
mortgage holders didn’t take that approach. They refused to recognize homes had
fallen in value—often below the amount of the mortgage—and they refused to take
their losses. As a result, people who might have been able to save their homes
lost them, and those who might have been able to sell their homes for less than
they owed on them were not able to, and many of them simply walked away from
their homes and mailed the keys to their lenders, who were then stuck with
maintenance costs, property taxes, and all the other expenses involved in
owning a home. Some lenders, in Kansas City most notably Deutsche Bank, simply
let properties deteriorate and did not pay property taxes, which resulted in
local governments’ ultimately foreclosing for nonpayment of taxes and
frequently tearing the houses down. Banks’ refusals to write down bad assets,
in other words, wound up being expensive for taxpayers. And still no one’s been
held accountable.
As
the election was going on the tales of Wells Fargo’s opening fake accounts was
ongoing. It turned out that 5,300 employees (including whistleblowers) had been
fired. Many of those wound up with negative information on their employment
records that prevented them from getting another job in the banking industry.
Wells Fargo’s chief executive and its head of retail banking had to relinquish
$60 million in stock but managed to walk away with more than $350 million
between them. Wells Fargo has paid $185 million to settle claims—so far.
Volkswagen
was caught gaming emissions tests. 30,000 people worldwide will lose their jobs
as a result of VW’s needing to cut costs. No one has gone to jail.
In
order to stimulate the economy interest rates have been near zero for eight
years. Those of us who are savers and who rely on interest for a good portion
of our income have had to sacrifice because of the recession as we see bonds we
bought for the long term called, leaving us to reinvest at the Federal
Reserve’s “accommodative” rates.
These
low interest rates have affected pensions—probably more than we know. Last
year, for example, the Central States Pension Fund told its 270,000 retirees
their pensions would have to be cut—some up to 50%. These are people who are
retired and who can’t just go out and get a job to make up the difference.
Watch for more shoes to drop.
Social
Security cost-of-living raises have been between zero and next to nothing since
the recession began—supposedly because inflation has been low. And yet my water
bill has quadrupled and my property taxes and health insurance go up every
year.
You
can see why some people might have been moved by Trump’s assertion that the
system is rigged. The rich get bailed out by the government, and the poor lose
their homes and their jobs. Others have to swallow cuts in their income. Is
there any real doubt the system IS rigged?
And
would Hillary Clinton’s cozy relationship with Goldman Sachs, for whom she made
three speeches and was paid $675,000, possibly have made some who are still
suffering from the effects of the Great Recession a little uneasy? Maybe her
on-again, off-again position on the Trans-Pacific Partnership made people
wonder if she had a consistent position on anything.
Perhaps
Bernie Sander’s primary campaign, which highlighted how primary voters’ wishes
were easily outweighed by “super delegates,” convinced Bernie’s supporters the
nominating system is rigged.
And,
Geez! Mrs. Clinton’s calling half of Trump’s supporters a “basket of
deplorables?” Now, that ranks right up there with Mitt Romney’s calling 47% of
Americans “takers.” Except Romney didn’t know he was being taped.
Next,
some people have become offended by the actions of those of us who are LGBT. We
are rapidly moving into the mainstream. Remember in 2004 when all eleven bans
on gay marriage passed by wide margins? (Ours in Missouri—a constitutional
amendment, no less, passed 71%-29%.) Last year, when the Supreme Court made gay
marriage legal, a Gallup poll showed 60% support for that decision. We made a
lot of progress in just eleven years. But we pushed our luck.
In Political
Frugality, I told about Jeannie, the former friend who could never be
satisfied or happy. She’d want me to do something. Just when I thought I’d met
her need and could get on with my life, there was always something else. I
eventually had to recognize the friendship was toxic and end it. Well, I think
the same is true with LGBT issues. We got gay marriage. That’s a biggie. It
gives us access to the financial and legal benefits of marriage. Assuming,
though, that we have 60% support for gay marriage, that means 40% still oppose
it. In my opinion, in another generation, they’ll change their minds or be
dying off. Eventually gay marriage will be the nonissue interracial marriage is
today. We need to give people a breather and choose our battles wisely.
If
you’re discriminated against for employment or housing, feel free to cry bloody
murder. But a wedding cake? Caterers? Florists? Photographers? C’mon. Grow up
already.
The
wedding-industrial complex is large, highly profitable, and highly competitive.
Good grief. If someone doesn’t want to bake you a cake, find someone who does.
Would you want someone who opposes your lifestyle anywhere near your food? And
do you really want your gay money supporting those who don’t like you for who
you are?
We
need to recognize many people belong to churches that have taught them
homosexuality is wrong and those who practice it are doomed to hell. We don’t
share those beliefs, of course, but they’re as real to those folks as our
beliefs are to us. Let them get to know us. Let them get to see we’re not the
monsters they’ve been led to believe we are. And let them see our money going
to their competitors. Money, after all, is this country’s true religion.
Forcing
our beliefs on trivial issues such as cakes, florists, caterers, photographers,
etc. probably angered social conservatives enough that they overlooked Trump’s
rather tenuous relationship with religion. (Three wives?) The courts that took
these issues seriously (including awarding $135,000 to a couple denied a cake
in Oregon) may well have made some Catholic and fundamentalist Christians
believe the system is rigged against them, too.
And
then there’s the bathroom issue. I sympathize with transgendered people, and I
believe the best solution would be a separate bathroom for them; however, that
costs money, and sometimes the money is just not there. So, is it better for
one person to be uncomfortable when using the bathroom or is it better for one
person to make many people uncomfortable? As long as there is a door on the
stall, is it really a big deal to go into a bathroom, close the door, and do
your thing? By the way, if you’re uncomfortable sharing a bathroom with people
of the opposite sex, don’t go to France, where, if the line for the women’s
bathroom is long, they simply use the men’s facilities. You get used to it.
Anyway,
perhaps people have had a difficult time hearing so much about bathrooms
lately.
And
then we have the issue of political correctness, especially on college
campuses. I entered college in 1966. At freshman orientation we were told our
beliefs would be challenged, and we may well graduate not only with different
political views, but we may question our religions as well.
Fast
forward to the present day. No one wants to hear views they don’t already agree
with. College is designated as a “safe space,” where no one is ever confronted
with challenging views. Last year a couple of professors at Yale questioned
whether the university should police Halloween costumes and advised, “If you don’t like a costume someone is wearing, look away, or
tell them you are offended. Talk to each other. Free speech and the ability to
tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society.” This started a series of protests that included students’
shouting obscenities at the professors (so much for sensitivity) who stepped
down from some of their duties at Yale. Too many speakers at colleges have been
“disinvited,” or worse, shouted down for having views that challenge students’
preconceptions, which in some cases is called “invading their safe space.”
To
add to the coddling some colleges provide “trigger warnings” regarding
literature assignments. For example, a student reading Huckleberry
Finn, written in 1884, would be warned about the use of the n-word.
Someone reading Peyton Place or even Gone with the
Wind would be warned the books involve sexual assaults. It’s as if
college students believe the world always adhered to twenty-first century
ideals of morality and sensitivity. (Trigger warning: It didn’t.)
This
belief is leading to the defacing and removal of historical monuments—most
notably those pertaining to the Civil War. (Trigger warning: The Civil War was
fought between 1861 and 1865; it happened, and many southerners, some of whom
who owned slaves, fought in the war, were considered heroes, and monuments were
built to them.) The Harvard Law School shield was changed to omit any reference
to the Royall family, who owned slaves in the Eighteenth Century. (Trigger
warning: Slavery was legal in the Eighteenth Century, not only in the colonies
but in the mother country, which outlawed it in 1833.) Princeton students want
the name of Woodrow Wilson removed from a building named after him because the
former president of the college was a racist. (Trigger warning: Wilson was
indeed a racist and generally a nasty piece of work, but he did become
President of the United States; I’d say keep the name and put up a plaque
detailing how he suspended civil liberties during World War I and hope our
President-elect doesn’t do the same.) A similar controversy at Yale involved
the John C. Calhoun building. (Trigger warning: Google him yourself.)
My
point in bringing up all these instances of overreach and campus trivia is to
focus on what some of us have been considering Important Issues. But take another look at them—wedding cakes for gays, which
bathrooms transgendered people should be able to use, campus speakers,
Halloween costumes, historic monuments, building names, etc. If you consider
what these issues mean to most of America, you’ll find, frankly, my dear, most
people just don’t give a damn. Most people are concerned with living day to
day, making enough in a difficult economy to feed their families, nursing their
old car along because they can’t afford a new one, dealing with aging parents
and possibly boomerang kids. When they hear those privileged enough to attend
college raging about these issues, they no doubt think, “WTF?”
Shortly
after the election a letter from Edward Warren of Cambridge, Massachusetts to
the New York Times summed up what he thought happened
succinctly. He’s building a cabin in northern New Hampshire. He’s gotten to
know his neighbors in New Hampshire, and he writes, “While my Harvard Kennedy
School classmates tend to talk about microaggressions and systemic bias, my
rural neighbors deal with opioid addiction, unfulfilling jobs and PTSD from a
war they fought for a country that seems to be moving on without them.”
In
another era, these people would be coming after authority figures with
pitchforks. We can thank cable TV and Netflix for keeping them home and
occupied watching The Walking Dead. But we can’t really blame them
for voting for change.
I am hoping for the best,
but it’s difficult to be hopeful with nominees like Oklahoma Attorney General
Scott Pruitt to head the EPA, an organization he’s sued early and often
(possibly on behalf of Devon Industry, whose 50-story building dominates the
downtown Oklahoma City skyline), former Texas Governor Rick Perry for Secretary
of Energy, an agency he campaigned to eliminate (Pruitt’s and
Perry’s nominations remind me of Ronald Reagan’s nominating James Watt for
Secretary of Interior), and Exxon president Rex Tillerson for Secretary of
State (who brings to mind Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense, Charles E. Wilson,
former president of General Motors, who when asked about potential conflicts of
interest, simply said what’s good for General Motors is good for
America—prompting “L’il Abner” cartoonist Al Capp to invent General Bullmoose
who believed “What’s good for General Bullmoose is good for the USA”). Betsy
Prince DeVos, who is married to the Amway cult—er, MLM heir and whose brother,
Eric, founded the military contractor Blackwater, will be Secretary of
Education.
It’s
going to be an interesting four years.
One
last thing. This was the fifth election in which the winner of the popular vote
did not win the electoral vote. With the exception of the election of 1824
(before there was a Republican party), every one of these elections has gone to
Republicans. It’s high time something was done about the Electoral College.
(I’m amazed it survived the election of 2000.)
We
may not be able to get the Electoral College eliminated, but we can change the
system state-by-state. Nebraska and Maine split their electoral votes. Let’s
start lobbying our state representatives to do the same in the other forty-eight
states.
Up
next: The Universal Basic Income.
© 2016
Larry Roth
