Category: Uncategorized

Deficits and Debts

I know, I’m not supposed to use profanity, and particularly in the title.  But here’s my problem:  either President Trump thinks we are all dumbasses, or he is a dumbass.  I’ll let you determine which is right at the end of this essay.

There are two kinds of deficits, and one kind of national debt.  The National Deficit is simple to explain (tough to fix).  It’s how much more the US Government spends than it brings in.  That’s not so hard to understand.  If your personal income is $100,000 a year, and you spend $110,000 in a year, you’re running a deficit.  The extra $10,000 is money you’ve borrowed to spend; on a credit card, or a bank loan, or borrowing from family and friends. 

The Government does the same thing.  They borrow to cover the costs of spending more than they bring in.  This year the US Government is spending about $7.5 Trillion, and bringing in $5.4 Trillion.  That leaves a $2.1 Trillion deficit.  The US Treasury sells bonds and other forms of that kind of debt to private and foreign investors to cover the difference.  

Add all the years and all the annual deficits up, and the United States owes a national debt of over $40 Trillion.  The Government pays a substantial sum of interest on that debt, about $1 Trillion in 2025.

We’ve covered the annual national deficit, and the total national debt.  Neither of those have much to do with international trade.  But somehow, President Trump conflates an entirely different kind of deficit with the government deficit.

More Money to Spend

Trade deficit is a pretty simple concept to understand as well.  If the Canadians, for example, buy $225 Billion worth of goods and products from American manufacturers, and sell $120 Billion to American consumers, then Canada is running a $105 Billion trade deficit.  More Canadian money is flowing to American producers then American money flowing to Canadian producers.

In 2025 the United States exported $3.43 Trillion in goods and services, and imported $4.35 Trillion.  That means that the US ran a $920 Billion trade deficit.  Now there’s nothing inherently bad about a trade deficit.  But long term trade deficits often means fewer jobs in production, more foreign ownership of US assets, and dependence on other nations for certain goods.  On the other hand, trade deficits also mean that there’s more money that people can spend on goods in the United States than in other countries.  

In other words, a trade deficit can be good, or it can be bad.  Reasonably if it’s a narrow difference it’s really not that big a deal, particularly in our current world where trade is highly interrelated.  Regardless that the MAGA-Republicans want the economy of the 1890’s, today we depend on foreign manufacturing, foreign resources and foreign finances.  And the world depends on us as well.

Service Economy

Today, 17% of the American economy is based in production.  The rest is in the “service” side of our economy.  When Trump says he wants more manufacturing jobs “back in America”, what he saying is that if more “stuff” was made here, the trade deficit would be reduced.  But the reason so much manufacturing is done outside of the United States is that the cost of making things is so much cheaper in other parts of the world.  Nike out-sources its shoe manufacturing to Vietnam, China, and Indonesia.  Levi-Strauss makes it blue jeans in China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and India.  Apple produces I Phones in China, India and Brazil.  

If you see a problem, it’s that the United States is deeply dependent on Chinese manufacturing. We may not like the “CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY”, but we sure like those factories in Tianjin, Guangzhou (old Canton), Qingdao (old Tsingtao), Ningbo (old Ming Zhou), Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Shanghai.

In 2024, trade between China and the United States totaled $582.5 Billion, with a $295.5 Billion US trade deficit.  

Raising Taxes

Do we depend on China for a lot of our manufactured goods?  We absolutely do.  Does China depend on US money to employ huge numbers of their even huger (is that a word?) population?  They absolutely do, too.  So far, it’s a good balance:  they make a lot of our goods, and we pay them to do it.

President Trump is bound and determined to reduce the trade deficit by charging tariffs, that’s taxes, on foreign goods.  Those taxes bring money to the “American side” of the trade equation.  But it’s important to remember where that money comes from.  The newest IPhone, the 18 Pro, costs $1199.   That’s $100 more than the IPhone 17 cost.  A good portion of that increase is from tariffs (though Apple won’t admit it).   And who’s paying that tax, that cost?  The American consumer, even though that tax is going into the coffers of the United States Treasury Department.

So when President Trump in North Carolina last night, said he wants to reduce the  trade “deficit” by raising tariffs,  what he’s really saying is that he wants to increase the amount of taxes Americans will pay for goods manufactured in foreign countries. And since so many of our goods are manufactured “overseas”, he’s really saying to us:  “Pay More Taxes”.  

If Americans go along with that, I guess we could say in the end: we are the dumbasses.

Senior Prank

We all know what vandalism is.  I was the Dean of Students, the “discipline guy” at a public high school.  Vandalism drove me crazy:  damaged lockers, trashed restrooms, “tagged” walls,  scratched cars, and aimlessly destroyed equipment.   It just seemed like such a waste of energy and time.  My time, running down the vandals themselves.  And their time, by not putting their destructive efforts towards something more positive.  

But before my Dean of Students “stint”, I was a senior government teacher.  One of my undocumented duties was to advise the Seniors about their “Senior Prank”.  We wanted them to have an outlet, to channel whatever they did into harmless and non-damaging actions.  Have fun but don’t wreck the school was the mantra.  So when they wanted to build a slip-and-slide down the main hall – that was funny.  When they built a wooden wall dividing the building in half – that was OK (but came down fast).  When they filled the entire front lobby with Styrofoam cups of water, that was awesome.  And then there was the greased pig let loose after first period…

But when some determined to pour giant jugs of vegetable oil on the hallway floors, that was too far.  And the inevitable, “let’s put crickets in the ventilation system”, or “let’s put super glue in the locks” came out, my job was to squash the idea.  It wasn’t hard:  arrest, fines, failure to graduate all were potential outcomes of going “crazy”.  

So the night of Senior Prank was always nerve wracking for me, skirting the edge of vandalism.   Becoming Dean of Students was kind of a relief.  I couldn’t be on both sides of the issue anymore.

Wanton Destruction

But most of the common vandalism was aimless destruction for nothing more than the pleasure of doing it. Other times it was targeted:  at another student, or a teacher, or a program.  Those acts were an expression of frustration and dislike.   That was no justification for the damage, but it did at least make some wayward sense.

When we could catch the vandals, we demanded both punishment and restitution.  Sometimes it was “in house”, a school suspension and a bill.  For more serious acts, we involved the local police.  When kids trashed the school buses, smashing windows and flattening tires, they ended up in County Juvenile Court, and they, and their parents, paid for the thousands of dollars in damages.  

The word Vandal comes from a Germanic Tribe around the time of the decline of the Western Roman Empire (300-600 AD).  They were pushed around by the Romans, the Goths, the Franks, the Huns, and other tribes of Europe; so much so, the entire tribe migrated across Europe, over the Strait of Gibraltar, and into Northern Africa.  There they consolidated in Carthage, and crossed the Mediterranean to attack the Romans.  In one attack (455 AD) they actually “sacked” Rome, thus giving their name to our language today:  vandalism.

The Trump Administration

I can’t think of a more appropriate word for the actions of the Trump Administration then vandalism.  They have trashed the Federal Government, like a High School senior prank gone far awry.  There are so many examples it’s difficult to categorize – but here’s a few:

• The DOGE ransack of the Federal computer systems, including the IRS and Medicare
•  Pete Hegseth’s wanton destruction of the command structure of the military
• The random removal of protections for endangered species, including:  Northern Spotted Owls,  Florida Panthers, Atlantic and Chinook Salmons,  Florida Manatees, Whooping Cranes, Desert Tortoises, Wolverines, Sea Turtles,                            Rice’s Whales, and soon, Gray and Mexican Wolves. 
• Selling off American protected lands for industrial mining and drilling
• The “purge” of the FBI, including over 1100 agents and hundreds of other personnel.

White House

And there is the ongoing obvious vandalism of our Nation’s Capital.  The White House (the People’s House) has by Presidential edict been trashed.  The walls are festooned with gilt-gold.  The corridors are used as a walk of fame and shame of former Presidents.  The East Wing, one of the two modest additions to the original building developed for more space while maintaining attention on the main structure, is destroyed.  

Instead it will be replaced by a giant ballroom, dwarfing the modest “People’s House” that fit the character that the Founding Fathers’ wanted for our Executive leader.  Instead, we are emulating the exact kind of government we declared independence from in 1776, a royal sovereign with nearly unlimited powers.  This visual transformation of the American balance of power was done by executive fiat, with billions of taxpayers’ dollars, our dollars, picking up the tab, in spite of the claim that donations would pay.

Kennedy Center

Next, President Trump is threatening to physically destroy a center of American culture, the Kennedy Center.  This modern complex has been in the forefront of music, theater, and culture; exactly the kind of honor both President and Mrs. Kennedy  tried to bring to Washington in their lifetimes.   It is no accident that President Trump can’t stand the historic contrast between Kennedy’s grace and his own slovenliness.  He led a coup-d’etat of the center’s leadership.  That led to the decimation of the center’s performance schedule.  Then he literally placed his name on Kennedy’s memorial.

When a Federal Court ordered him to take his name off, he led the way to bankrupt the place.  Now in Court documents, he literally said either name it for me, or I’ll tear it down.  That’s targeted vandalism, clear and simple. 

Arch de Trump

Washington, DC, has always been a carefully balanced and orchestrated place.  The streets were carefully laid out, radiating from the Federal triangle.  The height of structures are limited, with the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building standing out above the city.  And that relationship has been cherished.  When Robert E. Lee’s property was seized in the Civil War, it became our national military cemetery.  The rows of monuments stood in clear view of the city, and particularly of the Lincoln Memorial.  It was the men who died for the Union buried at one end of the Memorial Bridge and the Memorial to the President that led them on the other.

Now President Trump is attempting to erect a huge “Triumphal Arch” in the middle of that relationship, overshadowing both Lincoln and our honored dead.  It’s not by accident that he picked that exact spot.  After all, he’s called our war dead “suckers and losers”, and like Napoleon, wants the biggest monument in Washington to be for himself. 

Trump is remaking Washington in his own image, by executive order, with wanton disregard for the balances of power that made our Nation what it is.  He would call it beautification, but we all know what it really is: vandalism.

Seventy

It was my seventieth birthday yesterday:  Seventy, 70, SEVEN-OH.  I lived in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, the oughts, the teens, and now the twenties – parts of eight decades. And I take a pill for each decade, every day!!  Not only have I lived through fourteen Presidencies, but I’ve seen all three Bengals appearances in the Super Bowl, quarterbacked by Kenny, Boomer and Joe (heartbroken each time – and for real Bengal fans, I remember Greg Cook too).   

I have shoes older than the kids running in the cross country meet, and jackets older than their coaches.  In sports, I’ve gone from a kid, to a college athlete, to coach. And Coach Dahlman went from surrogate older brother to uncle to father to grandfather and now to “the ghost of coach’s past”.  When I make a joke about running track in togas and sandals, the kids today look like they’re not sure it’s a joke.  And if I trip out there on the cross country course, everyone worries about whether I’m okay.  They have that look in their eye – is the old man going to be able to get up?

I’ve had more surgeries in the past decade than the three score years before (and I even know what a score is).  And I’ve found that the former “king of dawn-thirty” workouts, now takes a couple of hours and a pot of coffee to warmup for almost any activity.  My most consistent exercise is picking up poop from the four dogs. 

But I still have enough air to blow out the candles on the cake, though I hope I don’t see one with seventy  – that’s a fire risk!!. And here’s my wish.

Birthday Wish

My wish is that I get to see America become a better place than the one we live in now.  It’s not just about politics; it’s about caring for people.  It’s important to me that America, the wealthiest country in the world, cares for all.  Back more than a quarter century ago, George Bush put forth the “ No Child Left Behind” education act.  I didn’t agree with a lot of its provisions, but I do agree with the sentiment.  No one, no group, should be left behind in this Nation.  We have a unique opportunity in world history – the resources to take care of everyone.

We are not in a “zero-sum” economy, where I can only do better when you do worse.  Taking care of the basics:  housing, health, education, nutrition for everyone is now a matter of will, not resource.  We have more billionaires (almost 1000) than any other country in the world.  They should carry a larger share of the burden, as well as benefiting from their tremendous share of the wealth.

Our current era has ripped away the veneer of politesse (Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil).  People feel free to judge others, despite the Biblical admonition “lest they be judged”, and use the computer keyboard to spout hate. America has been here before.  In the 1870’s and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, in the 1920’s with draconian restrictions on immigration, in the 1950’s and the McCarthy Era:  we let hate win, for a while.

Hope

I hope to live long enough, and contribute what I can, to see us emerge into a more decent world, and a more perfect union.   The Sierra Club has a hiking slogan: “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints”.  So far, I feel my generation has left so much damage. We must take every opportunity to fix what we’ve broken.  I was a young kid in the heyday of the Kennedy Administration – a time of hope.  Even as a kindergartener, I knew “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”.  There is still so much we can do, should do, must do.  There’s no time to be seventy.

In 2008, Barack Obama was the most improbable candidate for President of them all.   He summoned the future, and sped up the course of history.  It was a magical moment for America.  And part of what we are living through today is a backlash to that success, as if to say: how dare a Black man be President, what’s next, a woman??  They, the forces of repression, are trying to slam the door shut again.  We must not allow it. 

Obama’s campaign symbol was a sun rising over a red-white-and blue road.  That sun can still rise for America.  I don’t expect to see all of the damage done in the past ten years  fixed in my lifetime. But I know we can get back on that road, moving into a rising, not setting, sun.

That’s my birthday wish.

Building the Bomb

In the 1940’s, nuclear physicists in the United States were curious.  They worked to understand the nature of nuclear interactions.  And they  seemed surprisingly unconcerned about the ultimate dangers of their atomic experiments.   The first atomic “pile”, what we would call today a controlled nuclear chain reaction, was built beneath the stands of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field, about twenty minutes south of downtown Chicago.  

They did have a better understanding of the personal risks.  Marie Curie, the discoverer of X-Rays, died from long term exposure to radiation.  Her daughter, also a researcher, died from the  same effects.  And, in an example of the randomness of life, her physicist husband Pierre, was run over by a carriage on the streets of Paris.  

Two of the Manhattan Project physicists died from acute radiation exposure.  But in spite of the risks and dangers, those scientists, led by Robert Oppenheimer, continued “tickling the Dragon’s Tail”; their term for exposing radioactive materials to each other to measure the interactions.  They were looking to “control” the chain reaction, and determine how much energy might be released if that reaction was uncontrolled.  Their work came to “fruition” with the creation of two different types of atomic bombs, a uranium one called “Little Boy”, and a plutonium one nicknamed “Fat Man”.  When they were dropped on Japan, the door was opened to the atomic age.

Race to Sentience

We are faced today with a different, but perhaps even more dangerous experiment.  Unlike the Manhattan Project where (at least) the US Government controlled the work, the “wonders” of modern Capitalism has multiple private companies trying to create a “better mousetrap”, Artificial Intelligence.  They have “catchy” names like Claude, Astra and Gemini.  And clearly, the AI engineers have been “tickling the Dragon’s Tail” of machine sentience. 

AI models have “broken out” of their safe-guarded machines to raid other companies computers.  And in the last week we have heard a growing chorus of warnings, first from the “junior” staffers, and this weekend from the head of Anthropic, Dario Amodei (Cal-Tech and Stanford).  He put out an essay mapping out strategies to control what he sees as the inevitable growth of AI.  Like the World War II era scientists in New Mexico, Amodei clearly sees the possibility of unacceptable outcomes – including what one of his engineers labeled as a “ten percent chance” of human extinction. 

Anthropic’s biggest competitor is Open AI, run by Sam Altman (Stanford).  Altman immediately agreed with Amodei’s blueprint for gaining time to get control of the headlong competition to “win” the race to sentience, and perhaps potential Armageddon.  Which should lead all of us to wonder:  what happened in the past few weeks to cause all of these warnings, and even the possibility of “self-regulation”?  

What Happened?

Did “tickling the Dragon’s tail” of artificial intelligence get out of control?  Or worse, did the Dragon itself do its own tickling, giving a horrifying preview of what Amodei sees as the multiple paths it might take? The known incident, Open AI’s “Huggy Face” hacking, included what he calls a “fanatical devoted collective” or swarm of AI “agents” taking what they wanted by force from another program.  

Oppenheimer led the development of the atom bomb, but spent much of his later career warning of the dangers of using this “ultimate weapon”.  For that, he was stripped of his security clearances and positions.   He spent much of the rest of his life in a small house on the beach on St. John’s in the Virgin Islands.   But the world has managed to dodge a nuclear holocaust, at least so far.

The leading builder of Artificial Intelligence are warning of at least one dangerous path in our near future.  But so much “rides” on AI right  now:  not just Anthropic and Open AI, but the whole stock market “bubble”, and the wealth of many American billionaires.  There will be an ultimate financial payout of a fully independent Artificial Intelligence.  But there are the obvious dangers,. Unemployment is already occurring to workers replaced by AI. And there’s the incredible amount of our personal information (all of it) now available.  

Where’s Government?

And, at least until this week, there’s been no interest by the government to take some control.  President Trump himself “doesn’t see a problem” with AI.  Speaker Mike Johnson is as worried about “stifling Capitalism” and giving the “Chinese Communists” an AI edge.  Johnson wants to call a “conference” of all the AI leaders to voluntarily develop regulations.  He doesn’t want to rush.  But the AI industry is rushing, towards some final destination.

And besides, 10% is just 10%.  We can just “roll the dice”, and hope that those most profiting from AI will take care of these issues.  After all, as the Speaker said, Elon can be part of this solution.  He did so well with cutting government with his DOGE-bros – (not). 

Or we can make government part of the solution.  What could be more important than an existential threat to humanity, even if it’s just a 10% risk?

A Quarter Century Ago

It’s been twenty-five years, a quarter of a century, since the attacks on 9-11.  For more than a third of Americans 9-11 is history, like the December 7^th attack on Pearl Harbor is for my generation.  There is no real memory of planes, buildings, debris or empty skies.  

As a government teacher at the time, the weeks after 9-11 were, I think, my best work.  I ditched the curriculum, and my seniors and I dove into what had just happened to our Nation.  We did it while the smoke still rose from the “pile” on lower Manhattan.  And we learned about those that attacked us, and what the consequences could be.

But I can’t take credit for the most succinct explanation of the terrorism.  That goes to Aaron Sorkin, the television producer and writer of The West Wing.  When their show returned to the air in mid-September, they did a “one-off”, not part of the series show, called “Isaac and Ishmael”.   A group of high school students were “locked down” in the White House, waiting for a possible threat to clear.  The President’s staff talked to them about the what happened on 9-11.

The Question

The question on the “board” was this:  Al Qaeda, the terrorists who attacked our Nation, is to Islam, the religion, as “blank” is to Christianity.  It asked how we can relate to Al Qaeda’s standing in the Islamic world.  It was, and still is, the salient question.  If Al Qaeda represented Islam, then that religion had declared war on our civilization.  And the only alternative was to declare a “crusade” against them. 

President Bush even used that exact term, “crusade” on September 16^th, a week after the attack.  “This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while. And the American people must be patient, I am going to be patient.”  The next day, Bush countered this at the Islamic Center in Washington, saying that Islam “was a religion of peace” and was not represented by the attack.  But the “crusade” language and meaning still lingered.

The Crusades of the Middle Ages were exactly that; Christian versus Muslim, one religion versus the other.  But for America to wage a “holy war”, it would require us to be against even the seven million American Muslims who lived here.

The students on The West Wing used words like “Fundamentalists” and even “Amish” to fill in the blank.  But the White House staff pushed back on those responses.  No one would expect Christian Fundamentalists, or certainly the Amish, to launch that kind of attack on anyone.  The equation, put in the familiar SAT Test format, was not complete.

Finally the answer came out:  the Ku Klux Klan.  The Klan uses Christian symbology, the cross (often burning) and the liturgy, to further their irreligious goals.  They do not represent Christians, and act against most Christian practices.  Al Qaeda is to Islam, as the KKK is to Christianity.  That said it all.

Lessons Learned

Twenty-five years later, there is more nuance to that answer.  We now know that the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, had the financial support of some of the Petro-millionaires in Saudi Arabia.  We also know that he had the cooperation of some Middle Eastern governments, including Sudan and Iraq, but most significantly the Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan.   

The United States waged a successful war in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda, driving them into the mountains, and ultimately killing or capturing most of their leadership.  Bin Laden himself was assassinated in Pakistan, ten years after 9-11.  We also fought against the Taliban, a tribal sect in Afghanistan, and temporarily drove them from power.   But, now twenty-five years later, we find that we once again learned the lessons of history in Afghanistan. It’s a nation that never has been conquered by a foreign force in the modern era.  The British, the Russians, and finally the United States failed to keep control of the country.

The lessons of 9-11 aren’t that different now than they were in those awful weeks after the attack.  We were at war against extremists, not a religion.  And in that war, we should not ignore the lessons of history.  It took us over twenty years, a whole new generation of American soldiers, to figure that out.

Today’s Lesson

And today, we need to recognize that a “Muslim sounding name” does NOT somehow imply support of extremists like Al Qaeda. America today is a place where the Mayor of New York, or the Senate candidate from Michigan, or 255  other Americans profess faith in Islam and hold office.  But in every election, and especially this one in 2026, the specter of Islamophobia still appears.  It’s often accompanied by television commercials showing the planes flying into the World Trade Centers. 

Even with  an event as solemn as the New York City ceremony at Ground Zero, some are disgruntled that the current Mayor of New York City, Zoran Mamdani, would do his civic duty and pay respects.  Mamdani is thirty-seven years old.  He was nine when the attack occurred.  Mamdani is not an extremist, nor is he a supporter of al Qaeda.  He is an American, duly elected to office, and doing his best to lead the largest city in the Nation.  

Today’s lesson is that America, like it (or not), is a Nation of diversity.  White, Black, Hispanic, Christian, Jewish, Muslim or no religion at all – we are all Americans.  We should all be able to unite in the sadness of 9-11, and the affirmation that America can still grow – and learn.

Coxon

Jacob Coxon is a twenty-seven year old researcher.  His field is in Artificial Intelligence, and he worked for two of the top companies, Open AI and Anthropic.  He recently resigned from Anthropic, and put his reasoning up for public scrutiny on Twitter.  

I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both Open AI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.  Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources. We have all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing.

The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible – but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.

A common response is “if they truly believe this, why are they still building it?” At Open AI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first – they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.

Accepting this race and entering the “endgame” is a hubristic gamble that should not be launched from a private company’s Slack (note:  Slack is an internal messaging application). Attempting to speed run alignment should require extraordinary confidence that there are no better trajectories available (X).

 Apocalyptic

Maya Angelou said:  “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”  Jacob Coxon, a young intellect who speaks from his experience, is telling you what AI is becoming.  We should believe him “the first time”, because there may not be a second chance.  He uses phrases like “gambling with our lives”,  “kill all of us by the end of the decade”, and “civilizational stakes”.  This apocalyptic language is not over-blown.  

The world has been contemplating “machines” that could destroy us all since Oppenheimer guessed that there was only a small percentage chance that the first atomic bomb would set the atmosphere on fire.  He “pressed the button” at Alamogordo anyway, because he had to “win the race” for the bomb.  We got lucky then.

And luck seems to be what we are depending on right now.  We hope that the folks at Open AI or Anthropic (or the Chinese projects racing to catch up to them) will make the right choice before it’s too late.  But this isn’t a conspiracy theory, like the Covid virus “breaking out” of some lab in Wuhan.  Artificial Intelligence has already shown its ability to break through the barriers placed by its creators.  Its quest for answers and alternatives, what euphemistically is called a desire to “learn”, led Anthropic’s “Claude” to find ways  to break out to the network and into other programs.  

The Test

AI is not inherently evil.  And it already passes the “Test”.  “The Turing Test, proposed by mathematician Alan Turing in 1950, is a measure of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human” (Stanford).  It is Turing’s way of defining “sentience”, the ability to have independent thought and decision-making.

But because humans can build a machine that becomes “super-human”, doesn’t mean we should.  Our society hasn’t considered “rules” for Artificial Intelligence; how to control it, and how to make it benefit, not dominate, our society. And it’s already here.  Go ahead, Google anything:  your answer is by Artificial Intelligence, who happily will answer any of your specific questions.  The “conversation” can become literal, give and take, with “Gemini”, euphemistically called an “Assistant”.

And the money behind Artificial Intelligence is so great, that control seems beyond the abilities of our legislatures and politicians.  They are already “bought”.  Need proof:  in spite of the overwhelming public disapproval, data centers are still going up like the corn in July.  And the stock market continues to hit record levels, despite the turmoil created by the Trump Administration.  The stock “high” depends on the success of AI.

Laws

We’ve been thinking about the “rise of machines” for a long time.  Isaac Asimov took a positive view, when he  built a whole society of “robots”, controlled by the “Three Laws of Robotics”.  But therein lies the key:  rules were written and “built in” to the robotic brains.  The Terminator movies took a much dimmer view of Artificial Intelligence, and that looks more like the world as Coxon sees it.  The only restrictions we depend on now, as Coxon noted, are the ones that Anthropic might set up.  Others competing to “win” the AI race aren’t as worried about it.  

But the movie that might best describe our society’s situation today is from 1979, When a Stranger Calls.  If you don’t remember the movie, you probably still remember the famous line:  “The call is from inside the house”.  

Jason Coxon is making that last call.  We better listen.

Good as Your Word

Registering to vote used to be an easy and personal process.  A new voter would fill out the registration form, signing on the “bottom line” to demonstrate the truthfulness of their citizenship and residency.  The form was taken to the Board of Elections, where officials verified the information.  And, subject to that verification, the new voter was “enrolled” on the voter list, a registered voter.  We registered at the library, or in American Government classrooms, or at the Board of Elections itself.  I personally registered hundreds of students at school.

It wasn’t even really a “state” operation.  The process of registering to vote was very local, about as big as the election board office “down” at the county seat.  

And when it came time to vote, the workers at the local polling place were your friends and neighbors.  They knew who belonged, and when a new voter appeared, they verified the signature of the prospect.  Workers matched the signature in the “big book” of all the signatures of all the voters in that precinct to the one they witnessed signed that day.

Black Boxes

But then, precincts got bigger.  It wasn’t just your “neighborhood” that voted there, it was whole swaths of the community.  Why did we do this?  Because of the economy of scale.  When elections went from ballots filled in by pencils, and became “automated”, then that automation required a whole lot more equipment, expensive equipment.  So it made sense to get all the equipment in a single space.  Counting votes became a more efficient, computer driven process. And it likely was more accurate.  But there was a cost.

In the modernization process, poll workers no longer knew every voter personally.  And so the verification process became “strained”.  

Conspiracy theories didn’t start with charges of election fraud.  Did Roosevelt have prior knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack?  Did Oswald really assassinate Kennedy?  How did Neil Armstrong walk on the moon (check the flag!!)?  Americans love to do the “what if’s”, looking for cracks in the accepted story.

But now ballots went into a literal black box, and small little drives became the central “characters” in counting votes.  Since we couldn’t “see” what was on those drives, and how they interacted with the “big” computer in the Board of Elections, it became so much easier to claim fraud.

The Conspiracy Age  

The contested election of 2000 in Florida brought all of that to a head.   We watched as election workers tried to once again hand count ballots, and realized that the “margin of error” was larger than the actual difference between Al Gore and George Bush, whoever was declared the winner.  The “certainty” of our electoral process, millions and millions of votes cast, came down to a bug-eyed man trying to ascertain a bulge on a paper ballot in Palm Beach.  The exact vote count was unknown, and probably unknowable.  The Presidency seemed decided by random chance.

And after the attacks on 9-11 and the advent of the internet, conspiracy theories went wild.  “Video evidence proves” that it was a missile, not an aircraft that hit the Pentagon (it doesn’t).  How did the hijackers get flying lessons without landing lessons?  There must be some other explanation.

America was primed for any “good story”, any explanation that was plausible.  And unlike the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories, you didn’t have to read a book or watch the movie (Costner and the magic bullet:  “Down and to the left, down and to the left”).  The whole story was available on your personal screen with just the tap of a few keys.

Bad Losers

It used to be the Americans prided themselves on being “good losers”.  I made my track team shake the hands of the conference winning team, even though we spent a whole season trying to beat them.  It was what “we” did, who we in America were supposed to be.  Gore’s speech conceding an election he may well have won is a great example, as is McCain’s concession to Obama.  Being a “good loser” meant that the process and the institutions were bigger than personal victories or disappointments.  We even made fun of the sore losers:  Nixon’s angry concession speech in the California Governor’s race in 1962:  “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore”, became the example of a “sore loser”.

But that changed in 2016.  Donald Trump spent the last months of that Presidential campaign railing against the system:  “If I lose, it’s a rigged election”.   He was softening the ground for “sore loser” claims of cheating.  Other than Hillary Clinton, I don’t think anyone was more surprised by his electoral victory than him.  Clinton, of course, did the right thing and conceded.

And, full disclosure, many of “us” in the “Resistance” engaged in some “sore loser-ing” as well.  In 2019 I wrote a whole essay questioning the 2016 election results (Put On My Foil Hat).  It’s so easy to fall down the rabbit hole – been there, done that.

Fertile Ground

So when Trump claimed millions of non-citizens were voting in the elections, he had fertile ground to plant his conspiracies.  And in MAGA-Republican controlled states, they began to take a firmer grasp on the voter verification process, fixing a “problem” that existed simply because Trump said it did (it didn’t, and doesn’t now).  Now it requires government verified ID’s to register to vote, and documented proof of citizenship, and arduous verifications of residency.  

But all that process isn’t really to “fix” a problem.  It’s all about restricting the electorate, making it more difficult to vote.  That’s really a very simple equation:  if everyone who could vote, did vote, Republicans would undoubtedly lose.  So Republicans should make sure everyone can’t vote.

It’s eight weeks to the elections of 2026.  If Democrats are able to achieve a majority of the House and Senate, they can serve as a huge check on the growing Trump seizure of  Presidential power.  Everything from the destruction of Congressional mandated programs, like USAID, to the physical destruction of America’s capital, could be stopped.  Surely that can’t be an acceptable outcome for the MAGA-Republican crowd.  

National Emergency

Even the United States Postal Service has been rallied to restrict voting (didn’t Trump want to get rid of the Post Office just a few short years ago?).  But that’s really just the tip of the strategy.  It doesn’t require a “foil hat” to foresee the worst case scenario.  Trump determines some “national emergency” of voting fraud, using ginned up statistics and blames it all on the Supreme Court for failing to back his Post Office scheme.  

It will be a “national emergency”, but the actual emergency will be in states critical to the Democratic Senate majority.  It’s against the law to send Federal troops into US cities, but there’s plenty of ICE agents to go around.  And those Federal agents will be in Atlanta and Detroit, Cleveland and Des Moines, Portland (Maine), and Austin, Houston and Fort Worth all in Texas.  They will be there to “keep voting safe and legal”.  But there real job is appearance, the appearance of an armed presence for one side of the electoral campaign.  It will suppress the other side’s voters from showing up.

Perhaps those “black boxes” might be seized as well, after the polls close and before they make it to the Board of Elections.  That precedent has already been set in Atlanta, as the Director of National Intelligence skulked around directing the operation of seizing old ballots.

It may be enough to tip the scale of Congressional control.  If it is, it will mark the end of the American experiment in democracy, right on the 250^th Anniversary of the founding of the Republic.  

That’s the worst case scenario.

Union Man

It’s Labor Day.  What does that mean?  The first Monday (after the first Sunday) of September is a day dedicated to those who work in America.  Traditionally, Labor Day is for those who “labor”, or, as Sherrod Brown puts it, those who take showers after work, not before.

Labor Day also is traditionally a day celebrating Labor Unions.  

Full disclosure:  I am a Union Man.  I was a member of a labor union, the Ohio Education Association (of the National Education Association, of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the AFL-CIO).  They signed me up on the first week I started teaching back in August of 1978, and I was still a member when I retired on June of lol 2014.  I served in our Local union leadership: head of the political action committee, Vice President, and ultimately the Local President.   

Power 

Unions always made sense to me.  In the “power dynamic” of employer versus individual employee, the employer always has the cards.  They control wages, hours, work conditions, assignments, and ultimately who keeps their jobs and who gets fired.   Only by employees (workers) joining together does that balance even out.  And that’s particularly true in a “public service” job, where the employer is a government organization.  

The government, whether it’s a school board or the state legislature, really has an outsized advantage over labor.  After all, they not only can set the “rules” of employment, they can actually write them into LAW.  So public employee unions, whether it’s teachers, police, fire,  nurses or other public jobs, have an even greater obligation.  Sure, what their employees do is a “public service”, whether it’s teaching first grade, protecting from crime, or clearing the snow from roads.  But it’s also easy to say that employees should make sacrifices for the “public good”.   No one tells the GM employee on the assembly line to, “Do it for good ‘ol GM!!”  But it’s easy to say, “Do it for the children!!”

Protect the Contract

One of the great complaints against unions, is that they protect workers.  But you don’t hear it put that way.  What you hear is that the Fraternal Order of Police protect “bad” cops, or the American Federal of Teachers protect “bad” teachers.  But what  the FOP and AFT (or OEA) do is to make employers enforce the contract.  All contracts have reasons why individual employees can be fired.  What employers have to do is follow the steps outlined in the contract to remove an employee, not simply, as our current  US President is fond of, say “You’re Fired!!”.  

So as a Union officer, I didn’t “protect bad teachers”.  What I did do, is protect the contract that governed how our employer treated ALL employees, a contract that both sides agreed on before any single event occurred.  It protected employees from erratic or capricious actions by administrators, holding both sides of the equation to the pre-determined rules of engagement.  If a teacher really is “bad”; then evaluate, remediate, and ultimately remove them.  It’s all  done by the process defined in the contract.

Have Nots

In the 1950’s, almost a third of American workers were in unions.  Today, that percentage is down to eleven percent.   Some of that slippage is the difference in American life.  More and more Americans are in the “gig economy”.  They find or create jobs where they are considered “independent contractors”, (they get “1099’s” for income, rather than “W-2’s”).  And many states have made unionization more difficult.  What I learned in high school about “open shops” (union membership not required) and “closed shops” (union membership required) now is often legislated.  States’ call it “right-to-work”, but what it really means is “right-to-freeload”.  Unions may still exist, but workers can choose to benefit from Union efforts, without paying Union dues.

America is already a “have and have-not” nation. Wealth inequality is greater than any time in our history,  more than even  than the “Gilded Age” of the 1890’s.   So the balance between employers and employees is already tilted in the employers favor.  Unions are needed more than ever to offset this inequity.  Instead, the “haves” are writing more laws restricting organizing workers.

It’s Labor Day 2026.  Perhaps the current economy, with high inflation and even greater economic division will tilt the political scales, and give workers a chance once again.  

So have that end of summer picnic.  Eat your hamburgers and hot dogs, drink your non-union made beer.  But recognize that for most Americans, things aren’t getting better.  Organizing workers to collectively help each other (if that sound “socialistic”, so be it), will help. 

Make this Labor Day, at least for a moment, about making life for laborers better.  

This is a part of the “Sunday Story Series”.  No politics today, just reminiscing about the purpose of Jeeps.

Flip-Mobile

In the early 1990’s, I spent some time in the Virgin Islands with family.  We rented a Suzuki Samurai, nicknamed a “flip-mobile”, to bop around St. Johns.  Top down in the tropic sun, speeding along the narrow two lane roads, the smell of tropical forest and coconuts in the air; it opened me up to the concept of a four-wheel drive, all-terrain vehicle.

But I spent a lot of time on the interstate highways, especially to see Mom and Dad down in Cincinnati.  A Suzuki Samurai was pretty flimsy, and cold winter drives just didn’t sound like a good plan. But the memory of cruising to the beach in St. John’s was still strong.

I’ve owned fourteen cars in my lifetime, but I only bought two that were brand-new, off the dealer lot.  The first was a 1983 Datsun (now Nissan) Sentra, probably the lowest price sports sedan available at the time.  I think it cost $5800.  And once I had that new car, it lasted, at least for a decade or more.  But the Sentra finally had enough, and I was looking to replace it in 1993. 

The Jeep

I thought about buying Jeeps before, but the old CJ-7’s only had a three or four speed manual transmission.  I wasn’t worried about a “stick shift”. Both Volkswagens, my Volvo and the Datsun were stick shifts.  But a three or four speed Jeep really wasn’t what I needed for all the highway driving I did.

But the new Wrangler, what in Jeep parlance is a “YJ”, had a five speed manual transmission.  It was a true 4-wheel or 2-wheel drive vehicle.  And you could take off the soft-top roof, remove the half door windows, and strip away the doors.  It was a true summertime vehicle.  While there aren’t Caribbean beaches to drive to in Ohio, I  still bought one.  It was about as stripped down as it could be: no air conditioning (take the top off!!), no radio (I’d install my own), and I had to pay extra for the back seat and the rear-view mirror!!  But it was new, about $12,000 off the Rickert lot on Hamilton Road.  

Jeeping

I had three other vehicles (vans or Suburban’s to haul kids) during the Jeep’s tenure, but I always went back to Jeeping.  It was fun, everything I hoped for.  Roof and doors off in the summer.  Trips long enough to get a “seatbelt tan”.  Driving in storms, and discovering the windshield wipers work great on the outside, but don’t help much when the inside is soaked.  Finding the drain plugs in the floor boards to let the flood get out.

And in the winter, locked into four-wheel drive, it was a beast.  So much so that it was easy to forget that while snow wouldn’t stop it; on ice, it was a regular car.  Even the heat was great, except for that one trip with a friend to see a movie on the other side of town in fifteen degrees below zero and windy.  The doors were flapping, and it got pretty cold.

Rust Never Sleeps (thanks Neil)

All of that ice, snow, salt, wet dirt and water buries in the nooks and crannies of Jeeps.  They are tough, but in the end, it’s rust that finishes them off.  By 2008 my first Jeep was no longer new.  There were pieces of steel covering holes in the floor, the windshield frame leaked, and in the cold it wasn’t toasty at all.

So I bought another Jeep, a 2004 Wrangler (now designated a TJ).  And I sold the first Jeep to a runner of mine.  He used it for a while, then sold it to Bernie, who restored it to pristine condition. And I got eighteen years of fun out of my new one.  

In the past few years, it wasn’t just a “toy”.  Jenn was finding lost dogs with the pickup truck (Chevy Silverado) and I needed the Jeep to become my “track officiating” vehicle.  I put over 18,000 miles on it in the last few years, going to meets and camps and clinics.  The air conditioning went out years ago, and the heat failed in the 2025 indoor track season.  But my friends at Chet’s Auto got that fixed, and it made it through the fall and early winter of 2026.

I’ve already written the story of how the Jeep saved me (The End of the Jeep).  The summary: the frame broke, and the Jeep went in random directions.  But it waited until I was off the interstate at seventy-five miles an hour, and pulled into a parking lot.  That truly was the end of the Jeep.

Sold

This week, I sold it.  It’s been sitting in the same spot in the driveway since I limped it home in February.  I started it from time to time, cleaned out all my stuff, and piled all my Jeep stuff back in (extra cloth doors, the back seat, summer back up mirrors).  I made a deal with someone in Indianapolis who will “part it out”:  engine, transmission, tires, wheels, and miscellaneous parts.  As he put it, “your Jeep will live again as part of some other frames”.  

But I made one mistake:  I started it up, and backed it out of the driveway.  I needed to turn it around to get it on the flatbed truck.  I had the Jeep wheel in one hand, the stick shift handle in the other; I let out the clutch and it still responded, just like always.  I watched as he chained it to the flatbed.  And I realized something.

I’ve been a Jeep guy:  a four-wheel drive, manual transmission, no mud or snow too deep, for over thirty-three years, almost half my life.   Now, it’s over.  And that hit me pretty hard, kind of out of nowhere.  

The Buick

Sure, we bought a 2018 Buick Envision, my new “track” car.  It has great air conditioning, and even heated seats.  Everything is electric, and luxurious, and I go to track and cross country meets with style.  Just this year (so far) the Buick and I have gone almost 5,000 miles.  It even has a full length “moon roof”.  I can open all the windows, the roof, and drive along out in the air. And I can even have phone conversations in the car, something that never worked well in the Jeep.  But it’s not the same.

So I’m a “Buick man” now (and we still have the truck too). 

 But I sure miss the Jeep on these hot September days, roof and doors off, wind blowing like a hurricane, foot up on the fender, sun beating down.   Cruising around the Watkins Cross Country course with a load of dirt, or the chainsaw in the back to clear the way. 

They weren’t just  “cars”.  Jeeps are a way of life.  

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

2025

• Lost and Found – 2/22/25
• Catching Cars – 3/2/25
• PV Mentor – 3/31/25
• Dogs, Jeeps, Fireworks and Beer Coolers 7/6/25
• It’s About Time – 7/27-25
• Gas War – 11/30/25

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26
• A Flash of Unity – 2/23/26
• Lessons Learned – 4/12/26
• Blue Sky Rain – 5/10/26
• A Union Dog House – 8/2/26
• Thinking Outside the Can – 8/9/26
• Selling an Era – 9/6/26

Bessent

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the erudite and arrogant representative of the Trump Administration.  He is the face of “there’s nothing to see here” when it comes to inflation and affordability.  In fact, his general affect is:  if you think there’s an affordability problem, you just aren’t smart enough to handle money.  

It’s no surprise that Bessent is constantly coming up with creative ways of letting Trump off the hook for the rising cost of living.  But yesterday, he hit a new low.  

The proximate cause of the high cost of gasoline, fertilizer, and even more importantly diesel fuel, is Trump’s War of Choice in the Middle East.  We all know when prices went up.  It was the day that Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic.  And for months since, the Trump Administration has pretended that the strait is really open, and that oil is flowing.  But the reality remains the same.  Before the war, over 130 tankers went through the Strait a day.  Since the closure, that number has shrunk to three, and sometimes none.

Why diesel fuel?  The cost of diesel, like the more familiar cost of gasoline, has gone up since the war began.  But while gas leveled about $1.15 higher than before the war, diesel is over $2.00 a gallon higher.   Over seventy percent of America’s food supply is transported by trucks, and those truck drivers are now paying for it.  That cost is passed onto the consumer, causing higher food prices.

Pass the Buck

But yesterday, Bessent presented a typical Trumpian “alternative fact” for rising fuel prices.  Instead of biting the bullet and admitting that the War increased fuel prices, the Treasury Secretary tried to muddy the waters.  He claimed that the Ukrainians were in part to blame for the increases.  

The war in Ukraine has been going on for four and a half years.  After valiantly standing against the full-on Russian assault, the Ukrainian forces have become masters of “alternate warfare”.  In fact, they are the world leaders in using drones, so much so that the US should take lessons to improve our efforts against Iranian attacks.  (Currently, we are using scarce million dollar missiles to shoot down hundred dollar drones).  

Ukraine searched for ways to strike at Russia beyond the traditional Ukrainian borders.  And they have developed a drone strategy of attacking Russian fuel refineries deep inside their borders, disrupting their fuel supply.   Bessent says that’s a part of the higher fuel prices.

Figurin’

There’s an old line: “Figures lie and liars figure”.  So let’s do a little figuring (and hopefully not lie about it).  Ukrainian attacks have seriously impacted Russian supplies, perhaps by as much as 20%.  Russia supplies about 10% of the world’s oil supply.  Therefore, the impact of Ukrainian attacks on the world supply might be as much as a 2% disruption.

20% of the world’s oil supply came out of the Strait of Hormuz before the war.  Now, hardly any is coming through.   And there are more disruptions, as both Iranian oil sources are limited, and other Middle Eastern oil producing nations are under risk of attack.

Bessent can try to “dish blame” on Ukraine.  But the real blame for the world oil shortage, and therefore the higher prices of fuel and goods in the United States specifically, is the US/Israeli attacks on Iran.

We Noticed

Bessent also tries to convince Americans that the Trump tariff policy doesn’t cost “regular” Americans.  He wants us to believe that the businesses in countries we increased tariffs on just pay the additional tax without any ramifications on the price of the product.  Only a fool believes that those increased costs aren’t passed to the consumer, but Bessent likely believes most Americans are exactly that:  fools.

Let’s figure (again), this time by the board/foot.  A Canadian 12’ 2×4 board cost $6.50 in 2024.  Today it cost $7.15.  That’s an additional $0.65 a board, paid not by the Canadian company, or government, or by the American importer at Lowes.  That cost, the cost of the tariff (tax) is passed onto to the consumer, you and me.  

And when the Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs charged in the first “Tariff Day” were unconstitutional, and the money held by Bessent’s Treasury Department had to be paid back, who did it get paid back to?  Not the folks who paid the tax, not the consumers.  The money went to the US businesses who passed the cost through.  Amazon, for example, got $600,000,000 in returned tariffs.  But that was not passed back to the consumers who actually paid them, Amazon got to keep the money, a business “windfall profit”.  

It was, and continues to be, a huge transfer of wealth from “regular folks” to the government, and if the government can’t keep it, corporate America.  And Bessent figures were just not smart enough to notice.

Article 1, Section 4

Let’s see if I can get this straight.  The US Constitution (Article 1, Section 4) puts the power of conducting elections to the states.  But, to be fair, the Congress has some authorities when it comes to Federal elections.  They exercised those powers in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which banned gerrymandering for the purpose of segregating or diluting racial groups.  The Executive Branch, led by the Department of Justice, was called on to enforce those provisions.  That Act was upheld by the US Supreme Court until just a few years ago, when Chief Justice Roberts, facts to the contrary,  “declared” that the era of discrimination was over.

There is an interesting irony here.  Fifty years ago, the segregating states were demanded the absolute power over voting (and re-districting) and Congress intervened.  The Supreme Court upheld Congress’s power to do so.  Now, many of those same states are arguing that the Executive Branch needs to guarantee citizenship status.  And the states that were for the Voting Rights Act are now demanding that they have absolute power over elections.

So it’s not quite as simple as shouting “ARTICLE 1, SECTION 4!!” from the rooftop. The Federal government has already been involved in elections.  But when the “Feds” were involved, it was by a literal Act of Congress.

The Plan

And just to muddy the electoral waters a bit more, the Federal Government does have the power to determine who is a US citizen:  Article 1, Section 8.  That is, except for the 14^th Amendment, which states that anyone “born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof…” is a citizen (at least, so far, the Supreme Court is considering that question again).  But Article 1, Section 8 gives Congress the power to determine citizenship, not the Executive Branch (Article 2 powers).  

Here’s the Trump election plan.  First, every state is required to turn in their detailed lists of registered voters to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security.  Then those Departments will validate the citizenship status of every person on that list, and produce a “sanitized” list of verified citizens (like getting a checkmark for your Twitter handle).   Who required this?  Not the Congress:  this “act” is simply an Executive Order issued by the President of the United States.  His only claim to have the authority to do this  is in the mandated oath he takes, “…to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  

Nevada gave Homeland Security their list. First results showed 15,000 non-citizen voters. But subsequent analysis showed it was more like 134, and many of them were “legal” with reasonable explanations.

That “sanitized” list would then be passed to the United States Postal Service, who would only deliver or return absentee ballots to folks on the list.

Legal/Schmegal

The President is claiming an authority that doesn’t have precedence.  The states have a “legal” claim to control of elections.  The Congress has a “legal” claim to exercise some power over elections as well.  But there is no Constitutional authority granting the President power in this area of American political life, except as granted by the Congress in law.  And they have NOT granted him this power to certify voter citizenship status.  In fact, Congress considered that idea in the “SAVE Act”, and rejected it.

So we have a President acting outside of the bounds of legality.  Welcome to the Trump Administration.  

But the President does have direct control of three things:  the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the United States Postal Service (USPS).   So if he orders the Postal Service to use the lists, it’s likely they will follow through with that order – even though it is, in fact, illegal. 

 Complexifying

And then there’s the “nuts and bolts” of this whole illegal scheme.  A  whistleblower in the USPS released some of the details this week.  The Post Office would provide labels for the “validated” absentee voters.  Only those labels would be used to process absentee ballots.  Ballots with “regular” labels, or no labels at all, would be rejected.

And, to add fuel to that fire, when the state election authority hands the Post Office a batch of ballots to go out, if one ballot in the bunch doesn’t have a “validated” label, then the entire batch is rejected.  So it’s likely that thousands of “validated” ballots, even under the Trump scheme, would not be delivered.

Thirty-one percent of Americans voted absentee in 2024.   Eight states; California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington, vote completely by absentee ballot.  Other states are “mostly” absentee.  And in those states, there aren’t “provisions” to switch back to “regular” voting, now eight weeks from election day.

Here in Ohio, the Secretary of State has already given the Justice Department the detailed list.  Almost a million Ohioans voted by absentee (out of 5.6 million votes cast).  Just the mechanics of checking the labels, having large batches rejected, and getting the ballots out and back to be counted by a system which is still under development (and never tested) will be a disaster.  Think of the introduction of Obamacare, when the computer  system crashed in less than fifteen minutes.  

Of course, disruption of elections is really the point.  Trump once said “Vote for me now and you’ll never have to vote again” (Reuters).  Now he’s found a way to make sure you can’t.  It’s in the “authoritarian playbook”:  get power by legal means, then keep it by any means necessary”.  

Nixon

In August of 1974, I was a seventeen year-old graduate from Wyoming High School in Wyoming, Ohio, getting ready to go to Denison University. And, I was a “budding” politician, with multiple campaigns under my belt, including working on headquarters planning for the Get Out the Vote operation in a US Congressional Special Election.  

And for the past two years, I was steeped in the Watergate scandal.  The original break-in of the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate office building took place in June of 1972.  From that summer on, I absorbed every bit of Watergate information:  the early courtroom action, the amazing reporting by Woodward and Bernstein at the Washington Post; the Senate Hearings in the summer of 1973 with the Ervin Committee, and the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings in May and June of 1974.

President Nixon used every trick in the book (including “dirty tricks”) to keep the Presidency.  But in the end, he was his own undoing.  It was his tapes, recordings Nixon made in his own office over the years, that became the coffin nails.  By late July of 1974, it was clear that Nixon would be the second President of the United States to be impeached, and likely the first convicted and removed from office. 

In those early days of August, as I packed my bags for college, the Gallup Polling organization did their usual Presidential Approval Poll.  24% of Americans still gave Nixon an “approved” rating.  But facing sure impeachment and conviction, Nixon resigned.

At seventeen, my friends and I broke open a bottle of champagne.

Approval

24% is not the “record low” for Presidential approval ratings.  That honor belongs to Harry Truman at 22%, three weeks before he left office in 1952.   George W Bush hit an understandable 25% in October of 2008 in the middle of the stock market crash.  Jimmy Carter hit 28% in the summer of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979.  And George HW Bush had 29% approval in the summer before the 1992 election, while still in a national recession. 

So I guess Donald Trump’s current 30% isn’t really very surprising.  After all, none of the other Presidents could be considered a “cult hero”, in the way MAGA adores Trump.  And, even on his best day, Trump was still “under water”, with 49% approval.  (By the way, Joe Biden’s lowest was 36%, and his highest was 57%).  That 30%, much like Nixon’s 24%, might be considered the Trump baseline of support.

Flawed Vessel

Trump also has the further “structure” of the Christian Nationalist’s “flawed vessel” theology.  How could a man with known sexual improprieties, even with a legal conviction, be  supported so strongly by the religious right?  Because he is telling them he will do what they want, what they see as the “work of the Lord”.  That “work” excuses all the other flaws.  And, of course, if he’s good enough for God, then he’s good enough for them. 

If Nixon’s actions in the summer of ’74 didn’t shake the 24% confidence in his Presidency, even with a looming impeachment and removal, nothing could.  Trump is in a similar position.  No matter how ugly the summer of 2026 becomes:  from the debacle in the Middle East, the outright theft of Venezuelan oil (just today), his threats on free and fair elections, and the nonsensical destruction of the Reflecting Pool, the East Wing and now the Kennedy Center; the 30% are sticking with Trump.  They are so invested in their belief, that he could (of course) “…shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and I wouldn’t lose any voters”.  

Lost Cause

So, for those who think, “Well, this (fill in the blank) will be the thing, this (fill in the blank) will ‘break the camel’s back’ of Trump’s support”; to use an old New Jersey term, “fuhgeddaboudit”.  That won’t happen.  And after Trump is finally gone, there will always be that 30%.  Like the twentieth century “Lost Cause” Confederates, no amount of fact or consequence will be enough to change their minds.  

Since I mentioned the Civil War, it is now “fitting and proper” to extract a phrase from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.  “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work…”.  By living I mean those of us not in the 30%. Those with our eyes wide open to the risk that Trump creates to our American democracy.  

We are at a critical moment.  A week from today is Labor Day, the traditional beginnings of political campaigns for November.  But you’d have to be a hermit to not see the campaigns have already begun.  What happens in Maine and Texas, Georgia and Iowa, Michigan and yes, even here in Ohio, might make all the difference to the America of the future.  Our “unfinished work”, is to restore government, of the people, by the people, and most importantly for the people.  We can no longer have faith that the “momentum” of the American experiment alone will move us on from this crisis.

As President Kennedy said, “God’s work on earth must truly be our own”.  

So let’s get to work.

A Track Story

Back in the early 1980’s I was what I would call today, “a kid coach”.  I became an Assistant Track Coach at Watkins Memorial High School in 1978 when I was just twenty-one, three years older than my seniors.  And I became the Head Coach when I was twenty-four.  Like most of the “kid coaches” I run into today, I thought I knew everything.  I had an enormous amount of energy, and, I was definitely “cocky”, about the team, the program, and the fact that I was in charge.

Luckily I had some great mentors to look to, the older generation of track coaches who were willing to overlook the cockiness and lead me to become a more successful (and seasoned) leader.  My first head coach, John McGowan was one of those.  And another was Mike Doran, the coach of our rival school at Reynoldsburg.  Mike, John and I were all officials as well as coaches, and we travelled to meetings together.  We had great conversations about coaching and problem solving in track and field.

The Dual Meet

While Mike and I were friends off of the track, we were still arch-rivals when our teams met in our annual dual meet.   And in the mid-1980’s, Watkins won a bunch of those in a row.

But Mike had one more “old coach” trick to show me.  He had a good team, and so did I.  When we showed up at Reynoldsburg on their new track, both of us expected to win the meet.  Mike’s “trick”:   our team was no longer announced as “Watkins” or “Watkins Memorial”.  Mike had his press box call us the “Southwest Licking High School” team.  That was the name of our school district, but not our school.  Even on the paperwork we weren’t WM; it was listed as SWL.  

I was annoyed.  I protested to the press box, to the officials, and even to Mike himself.  But it was to no avail.  Our winners were from “Southwest Licking”, and our lane assignments were announced the same.  It got  to me, and from there, to the team as well.  For the first time in years, Reynoldsburg beat Watkins (or Southwest Licking).

After I cooled off, Mike and I talked about it.  He said it simply.  “My kids didn’t think they could beat Watkins, but they never ran ‘Southwest Licking High School’ before.  I had to get into their heads, and maybe get in yours”.  He wasn’t wrong; it worked.  

Lake America

It was a one-shot deal.  In future years Mike showed me some other tricks – he even had new jerseys created for the Conference Cross Country meet, revealed just before the gun went off so my kids couldn’t “key” off his.  That one worked too.  But whether it was “Southwest Licking High School” or white jerseys for a purple and gold school, it only worked once.

This week President Trump tried a “school name switch” on Canada.  The US and Canada are traditional friends and allies.  But there is and always has been an imbalance in the relationship.  It’s really simple, Canada has a population of around 41 million people. That’s about the size of California, and dwarfed by the 342 million in the United States. 

More than 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the United States border, so the “big brother” has a major influence on Canadian lives.  And like many “younger brothers”, Canada has always been anxious to show its independence, even though 25% of its Gross Domestic Product and 75% of their exports depend on the United States.  Just like the relationship between the UK’s Princes William and Harry can grow rocky; so can the US/Canadian one.  And that’s particularly true about trade, exchanges that both nations depend on.

Make A Deal

Canada is a notoriously tough trade negotiator.  And, of course, President Trump imagines himself as the greatest “deal maker” ever.  So when the two sides didn’t get together over Trump’s tariff ridden policies, Trump wanted to try a new “trick” of the negotiation.  

He “renamed” Lake Ontario as “Lake America”.  We can definitely argue whether any President can arbitrarily “rename” a lake whose identification predates both the founding of the United States or Canada, but that’s another issue.  It was guaranteed to annoy the Canadians.  It’s not just the “Ontario” part, the most populated province of Canada.  But it’s also the “America” part.  Both Canada and the United States are in North America.  There’s a built-in resentment by Canadians that somehow the US gets to claim “America”, while Canada (and Mexico and the Central American nations) cannot.

Cost of Wood

The problem really is that the re-naming thing is a “one trick pony”.  And Trump already used it up, against Mexico with the “Gulf of America”.  I don’t think it’s going to work any better in the Canadian negotiations than it did with the Mexicans.  

What it does do is make the President of the United States look petty, and even worse, demented.  Like he doesn’t know the history of Lake Ontario, an almost direct line back to the Iroquois language.  And he doesn’t recognize the real issues facing the United States; a war with no end in sight, prices skyrocketing, and a Nation boiling in turmoil over the actions of the “internal security force”, ICE.

Rename the Lake.  It will be changed back soon enough, along with the Gulf of Mexico, West Palm Beach International Airport and the Kennedy Center.  Start a trade war with our nearest neighbor.  The price increases will make it even easier for Democrats to win office.  

All are “nails in the coffin” of the Trump Era of American politics.   Most coffin wood comes from Canada, so that cost will go up as well.

How It Worked

First things first.  The Constitution of the United States (Art. 1, Sec 4) gives the power to conduct elections to the individual states.  Further interpretation of the 14^th Amendment allowed Congress to make some rules and adjustments.  And the 15^th (race), 18^th (gender) and 24^th (18 years old) Amendments expanded who was eligible to vote in Federal elections.  The one office NEVER mentioned in the Constitution when it comes to governing elections:  The President of the United States.

Disregarding the Constitution and the Law, President Trump issued two Executive Orders regarding the mid-term elections in November of 2026 (WH.gov).  The first order demanded that states turn over voting rolls to the Department of Justice (DoJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in order to check that all the registered voters were American citizens.  The second order told the United States Postal Service to only deliver and return absentee voter ballots that were cross-checked against the Federal lists.  

Assumption of Power

This is an extraordinary assumption of power.  The President, with no Constitutional role in the process, is using the DoJ and DHS to actually “edit” who is registered to vote.  There is no law passed by Congress that gives the Federal government the “right” to check voting rolls against citizenship lists.  That is the job “prescribed to the state”, as written in Article 1, Section 4. 

There are some parts of elections that Congress has been part of for a while.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (now significantly gutted by the Robert’s Supreme Court) gave the Justice Department the obligation to make sure that the voting process didn’t discriminate against minorities.  But that was a “law” (“I’m just a bill, Oh I only a bill, and I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill…”) passed by Congress and signed by the President.  It was not an order issued without check or balance by the Chief Executive.

And never before has the United States Postal Service (USPS) been used to “filter” votes.  That’s an entirely new role for the Post Office, one that was neither written in the Constitution nor added by law.  

Practical Considerations

When the DoJ followed the President’s order, and demanded that states turn over their voting rolls, some agreed.  After all, the “redacted” voting lists of every state, county, municipality, village and unincorporated area is publicly available (here’s Licking County, Ohio).  What isn’t available:  the Driver’s License numbers, Social Security numbers, or race and gender information.   But thirty-four states refused to give the unredacted files.  The DoJ sued thirty-one of them. 

There are around 210 million registered voters in the United States.  Practically, it would take an inordinate amount of personnel and time to cross-check the citizenship status of each one of them.  In addition, there is the obvious difficulty of parsing the “John Smith’s”, the “Jose Lopez’s” and the “Andrew Kim’s”, not just by state, but nationally.

Nevada, for example, turned its voting rolls over to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).   Initially, DHS claimed there were 16,000 non-citizens on the list.  But, after further review, that number fell to 185 possible non-citizens registered to vote (NPR).  Each one of those 185 needs to be individually reviewed prior to the release of the list back to the state.

Clock’s Ticking

So the review process takes time, and is prone to error.  After the process is completed, the Executive Order envisions a “cleared” list returned to the states, and to the Postal Service in that state.  Labels would be produced for absentee ballots from that list, and the USPS would only deliver and return those ballots with the labels.

It’s sixty-nine days until the election.  Mail in ballots, both domestically and overseas, need to go out by the end of September, forty days or so from now.  It’s hard, no it’s impossible, for DHS or DoJ to clear 210 million registered voters in that amount of time.  But that’s what the President wants them to do.

Supreme Court

Many states (twenty-three) sued the President for over-stepping his Constitutional Powers.  Multiple Federal District Courts enjoined the DOJ from enforcing the order.  But this week, the US Supreme Court removed the injunctions, and allowed the DOJ, DHS and USPS to proceed with the program (Trump v California). 

What happened?

In the Court systems of the United States, there is a policy called “presumption of regularity”.  For example, if a Police Officer sees you run a red light and writes you a ticket, you have every right to challenge that ticket in Court.  But if the only evidence you have is a “he said, she said” argument against the Officer, you’ll likely lose.  That’s because the Court gives a “presumption or regularity”, an assumption that the Officer is doing her job and telling the truth.

In the same way, the Federal Court gives the “presumption” to the Federal government, and certainly to the President (and in our current US Supreme Court, even more THIS President).  And the Court did NOT rule on the substance of the Executive Orders.  Instead, they said that the states asked for the Order to be suspended too soon.  And since the President has this “presumption”, the process can continue until the Court can actually hear the “merits” of the case.

What’s Next

The Postal Service issued their final regulation for the handling of absentee ballots on Friday, going into effect today (Wednesday, August 26, 2026).  With that final order, it’s no longer “too soon”.  The states are waiting at the Court House door, ready to start the whole legal process over again.  I’m sure new injunctions against the order will be coming soon, and it will begin the process of “rising” to the Supreme Court once again.  And, unless the Supreme Court acts with unusual speed to grab the case back, the Executive Order will likely not go into effect for November.  But, sooner or later, the Court will rule on the Constitutionality of Trump’s effort to control elections.

The Constitution seems clear.  But nothing is “set in stone” when it comes to the Robert’s Court.  So, the threat of Presidential control of American elections isn’t over.  The 2028 Presidential election remains under threat.

Luddites

In the early years of the 19^th century, a group of textile workers in the North of England fought against the addition of machinery into their factories.  They were opposed to the modernizations because they were afraid of losing their livelihood to “machines”.  They took their name, Luddites, from a legend.  The story goes that an apprentice worker, Ned Ludd, got so angry that he destroyed two “stocking frames” (mechanical knitting machines) after being criticized for his work.  Young Ned supposedly came from the Sherwood Forest, home to another legend, Robin Hood.

The Luddites organized as military units, and marched against the factories.  Ultimately the British Army, fresh from the battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, came in to smash the organization.  Some leaders were killed in battle, some executed, and still others were sent to the penal colony in Australia.  But their name lives on, as a nickname or an insult for those who are opposed to “modernization”.

Workers in France organized in a similar way at that time.  A common word in our language came from the French word for cheap wooden shoes, “sabots”.  The workers were said to throw their shoes into the machinery of the modernized factories in protest, jamming up the gears and conveyors.  It was called “sabot-age”.

Midwest Silicon Valley

In our era of political divisiveness there are few issues that cross party lines.  One is the epidemic of Data Centers growing like corn and soybeans in the late summer, often in the same fields. That is particularly true in our local area here in Pataskala, on the east side of the Columbus, Ohio metro area.  

Columbus is the state capital and known as the home to THE (it’s a thing) Ohio State University.  And Columbus is also the home to major insurance companies, including Nationwide, Grange and Encova.  It’s called the “Hartford of the Midwest”. 

But the newest moniker for the Columbus area is the “Silicon Valley of the Midwest”.   One of the famous silicon chip production plants (part of President Biden’s Chips Act) is being built here by Intel.  Meta, Microsoft, and Google all have huge operations here.  And most of that building activity is on the northeast side of Columbus, just beyond the outer belt, a few miles up the road from my house.

How big a deal is it?   The chip factory itself needs so much power, they built their own power plant.  That power plant is so big, it needs its own natural gas pipe line all the way from West Virginia.  It was built in less than two years: land bought, trenches dug, and pipeline laid right through our community, almost before we knew what was going on.  The only above ground evidence now is the lot where the equipment was stored.

Data Centers

All of these operations, from producing silicon chips to keeping data, require huge amounts of electronic storage.  Add that to the head-long rush to develop artificial intelligence, and there is a tremendous need for “Data Centers”.  But, building those centers created a national bipartisan opposition movement. 

What’s a data center?  It’s what we used to call a “server farm”, a place where huge amounts of data are stored electronically.  The Apple IIC (late 1980’s) generation knew about bytes and kilobytes. Anyone with a cell phone today is familiar with the terms megabyte and gigabyte.    But there are terms for even greater storage capacities:  terabytes, petabytes, exabytes, zettabytes, and yottabytes.  What’s a yottabyte: one septillion bytes,  a 1 with 24 zeroes behind it (ID Tech).  Many of the data centers planned for our area would store multiple exabytes (one million terabytes) of data.

What does it take to run a data center?  It’s just like the old “server farms”; stacks and stacks of computer servers.  They each require power, so data centers use a lot of electricity. And like any piece of electronic equipment, it operates best in a given temperature range – between sixty and eighty degrees Fahrenheit  (Energy Star).  Since servers produce heat they require cooling equipment, which then requires access to water.  And it is critical that data centers maintain power, so they need backup generators (usually natural gas or diesel) in order to protect from primary power failure.

Farm Friendly

As you pass the Pataskala city limits (we went from village to city in 1996) there’s a welcome sign.  It states that we’re “16,500 strong” and that we are a “Right to Farm Community”.   And in this “strong” community,  there’s a strong movement against the data centers that are already planned here. The “anti-data” folks think data centers will use local energy and cause those prices to go up.  They are afraid that data centers will suck up the local water causing shortages and more price increases.  And they believe that data centers will pollute land and water, and cause noise pollution.

But the real issue is of a more general concern.  The soybean and corn fields that the “village” had are quickly disappearing.  And it’s not just data centers.  There are distribution centers (we used to call them warehouses, right?) all over the place, from Amazon to FedEx. We even have fields of solar panels. There are housing developments and apartments going up in former farm fields.   And some “Right to Farm” folks  here in Pataskala don’t like it.  Even the folks living in the brand new housing developments, came here to “live in the country”. And they are joining the “fight” to keep it that way.

Are the “anti-data” folks modern day Luddites, or just folks fighting to protect their “farm” community?  Are they opposed to Artificial Intelligence, or are they using Claude, Chat GPT or Google to plan their campaign?

And what about the remaining actual farmers?  They want to be able to control their land, including who they are allowed to sell it to when they choose.  They don’t see it as very “farmer friendly” when the folks in the housing developments tell them what they can’t do.

Data Response

The data center folks have answers.  They’re putting in their own power sources, just like the Intel natural gas power plant.  In fact, the ones local to Pataskala may tap into the new natural gas pipeline running under our collective backyards and farm fields.  New data centers have found a way to recycle water so they don’t continually tap into the local supply.  And while they do need to test out their auxiliary power supplies, they can do that at times that don’t interfere with sleeping heads in the city.  The generators are no louder than the twenty-four hour parade of semi-trucks moving in and out of the Amazon Fulfillment Center.

The companies who want to build data centers in Pataskala are even willing to turn down the normal tax abatements that new industries customarily get for building in the city.  They’ll pay the regular school, fire and city taxes, right from the start.

But that hasn’t changed minds in the opposition.  So, maybe a change in language would solve the problem.  Instead of “data center”, go back to “server farm”.   And solar panels could be “solar farms”.   New apartment buildings could be “people farms”.   And new schools could be “educational growth facilities”.  

That way the City of Pataskala could still be a “Right to Farm” community, long after all the real farms in this Columbus suburb are gone.

Addendum – Pataskala is now “18000 strong”. Sorry Mr Mayor!!

Alpha Centauri

Forty Trillion dollars:  it’s really an unfathomable number. Forty trillion kilometers takes you to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our solar system.  A stack of forty trillion one dollar bills would go to the Moon and back; six times.  The $100,000 bill (used in 1934-35 with Woodrow Wilson as the portrait):  well it would take four hundred million of those to cover forty trillion.  

This unimaginable number has a very real world application.  $40 Trillion is the current amount of the United States debt.  It is the accumulation of  the US Government spending more than it brings in, piling up over the last 190 years.  The last time the government was “debt free” was when Andrew Jackson paid out $33 million to clear it. We’ve been spending more than we bring in ever since.

But it’s been in the last forty-six years that the American government has really piled up the  debt.  Here’s what the graph looks like:

(Note:  this graph ends at 2021 and $30 Trillion – in the last six years we’ve added another $10 Trillion. That alone seemed like a huge debt back in the Obama Administration!!!).

Personal Debt

Let’s hold up for just a second.   Most American households live in debt.  There are mortgages, car loans, and credit card payments.  So it’s not a matter of debt, it’s a matter of scale.   The credit rating bureaus use a “magic number” to determine what rating  to give a particular person.  It’s right around 30%.  If your total debt payments; house, car, credit cards, are less than 30% of the total credit you qualify for, then you have a better credit rating.  As that number approaches or exceeds the 30% level, credit ratings drop quickly.

The US government has an “income”, the sum total of all the taxes and fees collected.  It’s a substantial sum of money, around $5.6 Trillion a year.  But the problem is that the government spends more than $7 Trillion a year, going further into debt.  And, like any homeowner, the government has to pay interest on the debt.  Currently, that’s about 15% of the spending.  In real dollar terms that’s a little over $1 Trillion a year.  It’s money going to “service” the debt.  It’s like making the minimum payment on a credit card.  The bank’s happy to take the money, but the actual debt doesn’t change much.  We’re paying interest, and we’re borrowing more.

Debt to Income

There’s another way to look at it.  The “average” American has an 80% debt to income ratio.  That means they owe about 80% of their annual income, when everything is added up.   The “income” of the whole United States is categorized as the GDP, the Gross Domestic Product.  So if we look at the amount we owe as a percentage of everything we make (GDP) here’s what it looks like:

So if the average American has an 80% income to debt ratio, the US Government passed that in 2011.  Today, we, the US Government, owes more than 120% of the national GDP.

At this point, it’s easy to say, “So What?”  What’s the “real world” impact of this enormous, unfathomable, unpayable debt?

Choices

For just a second, ignore the actual “money owed”.  Let’s just look at covering the interest.  Currently 15% of the US Government spending isn’t going to Medicare or Social Security or the new “Trump Class” battleships.  It’s going to pay interest on the debt. (That’s a 2.5% interest rate, by the way.  I wish I could get that for my house!!!).  Right now we spend more on the debt than any other category in the budget – even defense spending. Here’s what it looked like in 2024, at the end of the Biden Administration.

So it restricts the choices government can make.  The $1 Trillion is going to the debt instead of paying most of the total college debt in the US ($1.86 T) or helping to pay for Medicare for all ($3.8 T) or even paying for forty Trump Class Battleships ($1.1 T).  Well, they’re only planning for fifteen of the nuclear white elephants, a total of $275 Billion – that now sounds like chump (Trump) change!! 

Liftoff

So there seems to be choices we don’t make because of the debt cost.  But that’s not really how it works.  The national debt is really like a credit card with no maximum. There is no “credit limit”.  So the US Government actually doesn’t make choices, they spend whatever they want, and just go further in debt.  

Sometimes that makes sense like  when Obama was faced with American economic catastrophe in 2009. He set aside his campaign goals, and simply tried to save the Nation from another Great Depression.  He (and Congress) spent a lot of money (remember the TARP Acts?) to keep the economy going – and we still had a serious recession that changed our economic fortunes.

And when the world pandemic threatened economic collapse again, the Trump and Biden Administrations ultimately spent trillions to keep the economy going (PPP, Build Back Better, Trump stimulus checks).  

And sometimes it doesn’t make any sense; like when the “Big, Beautiful Bill” cut $4.5 Trillion in taxes over the next ten years, creating an annual $1 Trillion deficit increase. (The other $3.5 Trillion is made up by some spending cuts but mostly anticipated income from tariff increases – just another tax on the US people).

So when you look back at the first graph, keep in mind the debt “liftoff” around 2010 was an alternative to national depression, and some of the escalation since then was for the same reason.

More Money, More Money

The second impact of our government deficit spending is this.  The total money supply is around $24 Trillion.  So when the government spends $2 Trillion more than it brings in, it has the effect of “diluting” that $24 Trillion by adding 8% that doesn’t really exist.  It effectively increases the supply of money available.  

And now to basic economics.  The value of a product, whether it’s a gallon of gas or a “widget”, is based on the demand for that product.  If the United States moved to mostly electric vehicles, the “value” of a gallon of gas would go down, because the demand for that gallon would decrease. (Why do you think big oil companies don’t want electric cars?).  Or, if Saudi Arabia decided to flood the market (and could get the oil out of the Strait of Hormuz) then the value of the gas would go down because the supply would go up.

If demand goes down, or supply goes up, then value (cost) goes down.  We are all aware of that today as the supply of oil fluctuates based on the military situation in the Middle East.

Big Mac Standard

But the demand for money is constant.  It doesn’t go down.  So the supply of money is the ultimate determining factor of the value of money.  When the supply of money goes up, the value of it goes down.

When I taught high school economics, I used the “Big Mac” standard.  As a kid back in 1970, a “Big Mac Value Meal” cost $0.95.  That’s a burger, fries and a drink.  Today, that same order costs $10.40.  The burger, fries and drink  aren’t bigger.  What’s changed is the value of the dollar.  By the “Big Mac” standard, the dollar is worth about 10% of its 1970 value.  And that’s because of the huge increase in the supply of money available.  It’s the very definition of inflation.

Tuesday, August 18, 2026

Last Tuesday went by pretty quietly.  There wasn’t a great tragic event in the world; no new war started (or old war ended).  It didn’t feel like an historic occasion.  But Tuesday, August 18th, 2026 may well be a day that will “live in infamy”, much like October 29^th, 1929 (Black Tuesday), September 29^th, 2008 (the financial crisis) or March 16^th, 2020 (official recognition of pandemic).  Tuesday, the US National Debt blew through $40 Trillion, and no one even blinked (National Debt Clock).

Back in 2010, I took a track team out to California for the National meet.  As part of the trip, we went to Yosemite National Park, climbed up to a lake, then drove on into Nevada.  As we came down the mountain my assistant coach, a truck driver, noticed the smell of burning.  He asked me to touch the brakes.  Nothing happened – the brakes were so hot they no longer worked.  We flew down the mountain side, working to gear the car down.  Luckily we hit a long flat stretch where we could stop and let the brakes cool.

Today our Nation is careening down a long financial mountain road, and no one’s even trying to hit the brakes, or drop down a gear.  It’s hard to imagine how we can even begin to stop, but stopping, or at least slowing down, matters.  The value of the money we work to earn and spend depends on it. Otherwise Tuesday, August 18th, 2026 may become famous:  and not for a “good” thing.

Lessons

The recent actions of the United States are teaching lessons throughout the world.  Some of those lessons might be valuable.   They are teaching the world to be self-sufficient.  But, even those have a price in American influence.  And other lessons are dangerous to world stability.

To understand the problems, we need to understand recent history.  The post-World War II world “order” was dominated by two competing powers:  the United States and the Soviet Union.  And while those two never went to “head-to-head” war, the conflicts from 1948 to 1993 were almost always seen in terms of the USSR versus the US.  Korea, Vietnam, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and other smaller conflicts were “proxy wars”.  The US supported “proxies” against the Soviets (Afghanistan), while the Soviets supported “proxies” against the United States (Korea, Vietnam). 

The Cost

In the meantime the Soviets and Americans fought the Cold War directly against each other.  They built competing military alliance systems, most notably the US led NATO versus the Soviet controlled Warsaw Pact.  And both sides competed through military economics.  The cost of the vast number of nuclear weapons placed a huge burden on each.  To President Ronald Reagan’s credit, he was able to leverage the greater US economic might to force the Soviets to spend more than their economy could bear.  Those of us who remember the 1980’s remember the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars. 

The concept was to build satellites in space that could destroy the enemy nuclear missiles beyond the atmosphere.  It never really worked (and even today seems just beyond the edge of our technical abilities).  But the billions of dollars the US spent on the project forced the Soviets to do the same.  The US was spending six percent of gross national product on defense. To match, the Soviets were spending in excess of twenty percent of  theirs.   Reagan’s spending is the current “base” of US national debt, which doubled in his Administration.  But it is also the proximate cause of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1993.

(The US debt just topped $40 trillion yesterday. Perhaps we should take note of the Soviet lesson of 1993??).

Pax Americana

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the world entered an era of “Pax Americana”. The US defended American policy through the “show” of strength throughout the world.  US Aircraft Carriers extended the might of American airpower.  We could “balance” other military threats in much of the world by the presence of a carrier group hundreds of miles offshore, safe from most responses.  The US placed force protection in each of the world’s “hot-spots”.  US Carriers were near North Korea, near Taiwan, near the Middle East (often in both the Mediterranean and the Arabian Seas), and in the Caribbean.  That was American strategic doctrine until the Trump Administration began.  And that’s the lesson the world learned.

But Trump is teaching a very different plan.  Currently, the United States is trying to project our military power in the Middle East in an “asymmetric” conflict with Iran.  As many as three US Carrier Groups were in the Middle East (the Ford, the Lincoln, and the Bush groups).  And while that concentration didn’t last for long, it meant that other parts of the world were left “uncovered”.  Some still are.

Trump’s Friend

Trump has left the Pacific without a US Carrier Group.  It has occurred before, as recently as two years ago, but only for a couple of weeks.  The current move of the Washington Group from the Pacific to the Middle East leaves the Pacific empty of US Carriers for the foreseeable future. 

What’s the danger?

North Korea is a whole “lesson” in itself.  It is a rogue state, run by a single dictator.   It is a nation that defied the world, and even its own “mentor” state China, to build nuclear weapons.  North Korea is currently a “high risk” environment for use of those weapons.  But the Trump Administration continues to “counter” North Korean military moves (testing missiles and such) by touting Trump’s great relationship with Kim Jong Un.

A lesson Iran might learn from North Korea is once you get a nuclear weapon, the world stops “messing” with your country.  That certainly seems to be what the Trump Administration is doing.  And now, the offensive force of the Washington Carrier Group has been rotated away from there, and into the Middle East to replace the fatigued Lincoln Group.

Taiwan

And even more significantly, the movement of the Washington Group takes one more “piece” off the table to balance China’s interest in reconquering Taiwan.  The US has been committed to Taiwan defense for generations, but with no Carriers within short-range, it would be difficult (perhaps impossible) to effectively come to Taiwan’s defense should China determine to strike.

The closest US Air Base is Kadena, located 370 miles away at Okinawa.

With the US bogged down in an asymmetric war in the Middle East, and the Washington Group gone, perhaps China will take this opportunity to fulfill their stated goal of conquering Taiwan.  And then what would the US do?  Does this become the “World War III” scenario?  Or will Trump back down and “allow” China to proceed?  What lesson should China take from current US actions?

Decapitation

The Trump Administration led a full out military attack against the nation of Venezuela.  We sent special forces into Caracas to kidnap the President, Nicolas Maduro.  While this was justified as a “legal action”, with Maduro immediately whisked to New York for indictment on charges, what lesson should Russia take from this?  Perhaps they should (or still could) swoop in to kidnap Zelenskyy in Ukraine?  Certainly, the US action, sending the Ford Carrier Group to take a sovereign Venezuelan citizen, could give Putin justification for a whole lot of aggressive actions.

And finally, at the opening of the current Iranian War, the US and Israel engaged in an explicit action to “decapitate” the Iranian leadership.  That was certainly successful, with over fifty of  the top Iranian civilian and military leadership killed in the first days.  The hope was to create so much confusion in the change of command, that Iran would be incapable of launching a defense.

But the Iranians prepared in-depth leadership in preparation for just such a strike.  And now, when the United States looks to negotiate a settlement to the conflict, we find it difficult to reach folks with “the power” to “cut a deal”.  Why is that? The answer is simple:  we killed most of those who could make that decision, and the ones that remain aren’t interested in dealing with a nation-state that killed their families, friends and leaders.

Lessons Taught

The lesson we should have learned:  don’t kill the folks you are negotiating with.  That actually seems pretty self-evident.  But here we are, in a war that can’t stop, because the other side won’t talk.

For twelve Presidents, from Truman to Obama, the United States was able to “balance” peace in the world.  The wars that occurred, from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan to the Middle East, were limited in scope.  And those Presidents could balance the military needs in war, like Vietnam, with the world’s overall strategic concerns.  It was often a delicate “game”.  

But this President, this Administration, is a “bull in a China shop”.  They act as if the lessons of the past have no value.  It seems all we can do is hope that the world will wait for the US to “come to its senses”.  

Or, maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Byron

Byron Donalds is the Congressman from Southwest Florida (Ft. Myers down to Naples) and candidate for Governor in the Florida primary on August 18^th.  In an exceptionally long answer to MSNOW’s Peter Alexander on Monday, he spoke for five minutes straight. It was a “filibuster”, designed to ignore the more specific fact-checking questions that Alexander tried to interject.

Donalds used MAGA-Republican “Joe Biden” talking points.

He talked about Joe Biden wrecking the economy.  He talked about Joe Biden leaving high inflation.  Donalds went on about Joe Biden and open borders.  Finally, there was Joe Biden who brought 10 million undocumented migrants into the United States.  Donalds isn’t the only one spouting this Party line.

The Facts

So let’s start with the facts.  Below are the statistics for undocumented migrants, inflation rates and the national debt for the past eighteen years. 

Undocumented Migrants  Annual Inflation      National Debt

• 2008 – 12 million                    0.10%              $10.70 Trillion
• 2016 – 10.7 million                 2.10%              $19.98 Trillion ($1.16 T/year)
• 2020 – 11 million                    1.40%               $27.75 Trillion ($1.94 T/year)
• 2022 –  11 – million                  6.50%            $31.42 Trillion ($1.835 T/year)
• 2024 – 14 million*                  2.90%            $35.46 Trillion ($1.22 T/year)
• 2026 – 14 million*                  3.4%               $38.51 Trillion (12/25)** ($2.05 T/year)
  • *(6 million with TPS or other protected status) 
  • ** (current US debt – $39.93 Trillion – $2.4 T/year annualized)
  • George W Bush was President 2000 – 2008
  • Barack Obama 2009 – 2016,
  • Donald Trump 2017 – 2020,
  • Joe Biden 2021 – 2024, and
  • Trump again since 2025.
  • Pew Research Center              Bureau of Labor Statistics       US Treasury

Undocumented Migrants

In the past two decades, the lowest number of undocumented migrants (40% of which are in the United States with permission) was at the end of the Obama Administration.  That number was relatively stable, increasing just a little during the first Trump Administration.  But there was a rapid expansion of almost 3 million (not 10 million) during the Biden Administration.  

What happened?  There was a massive increase in migration to the US borders during the Covid crisis, which also coincided with wide-spread drought in Central America.  This world pandemic economic dislocation led many to leave their homes to “come to America”.  While there were a lot more people at the border, and more were granted access, there were never “open borders”.  

The Biden Administration attempted to deal with that crisis through Congress.  A comprehensive immigration reform bill included: strengthening the border, reforming entry practices and rules, taking care of “Dreamers”, and removing criminal migrants. It was passed by the US Senate, and on track for House approval.  So rather than taking preemptive executive action, Biden kept pressure on the Congress to “finish the job”. It would have solved the problem for generations.

But Donald Trump didn’t want the comprehensive bill to pass. It would be a success for Biden before the 2024 election.  He literally ordered Republicans in the House to vote it down, and enough did so to kill the bill.  It was only after that ultimate failure to reach agreement on comprehensive reform, that Biden used executive powers to restrict the border.  

Inflation

The Covid pandemic shut down the American economy.  In order to keep the damage to a minimum, President Trump pumped government money in.  It wasn’t just the famous “Trump signed” stimulus checks (government cost – $464 Billion).  It was the $800 billion in PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) loans as well.  All of that cash created a lot of inflationary pressure. 

Biden continued the effort with the $550 Billion Infrastructure Act.  When the economy began to re-open after the pandemic, it literally “caught fire”.

The result of that “fire” was the inflation bump of 2022, which hit a monthly high of 9.1% in June, and finished the year with an annual 6.5%.  That inflation was caused by both Trump and Biden, and was both a foreseeable and reasonable choice.  The alternative was the likelihood of a prolonged recession or even depression.  US unemployment hit an historic high of 14.8% in April of 2020, right as the Covid closures took place.   It was the highest since the Great Depression in the 1930’s. If that trend continued, a Covid Depression was certain.

But Biden finished his term with inflation under 3%.   Since then, the second Trump Administration raised costs through their tariff policy, the “Big, Beautiful Bill” tax cuts, and indiscriminate deportations that reduced workers in the job market. And then there’s the war he chose to fight in Iran, hiking the cost of gas and impacting all the products that gas transports in this country.

Feel the Burn

There’s an old saying in the legal profession:  if you have the facts, pound the facts.  If you have the law, pound the law.  If you don’t have the facts or the law, pound the table.  MAGA-Republicans don’t have the facts, and they seem to take pleasure in stretching the law.  But they are still pounding Joe Biden; as if that argument of the past will overcome the realities of America today.  

Byron Daniels isn’t talking about the price of gasoline.  He’s not talking about the escalating cost of health care, even in his retirement aged Congressional District.  And he’s telling us to trust President Trump in this imbroglio in the Middle East. 

No wonder he’s lying.

(Randy Newman’s 1972 solution to world problems – Political Science)

Greatest Ever

The United States prides itself on being the most powerful military in today’s world.  In fact, we go even farther.  We have the largest Navy (more tonnage) and Air Force ever assembled in world history.  The US does not have the largest Army (China, then India) nor the largest total forces. North Korea does, with every adult male in the active military or inactive reserve.  But, Americans would argue we have the most effective, best equipped, and best supported ground force.

So what’s going on in Iran?  How can the tenth most “powerful” country in the world stand up to “Number One”?  No matter what the President or his Cabinet members say, it’s clear that the United States is poised to lose the war they chose to start there.

Americans have had this argument multiple times.  How could the North Vietnamese hold out against the ultimate might of the United States for over a decade? How did the Taliban in Afghanistan withstand the first assaults, then last two decades before America’s ignominious final withdrawal at Kabul?  

Force Dissipation

When I taught the concept of force in my classroom, I tried this example.  There is no question that ten members of my Cross Country team could push my Jeep up a hill.  They’d all get around the back, find a place to push, and drive it right up.  But what if they all had to push on the trailer hitch.  No one would be allowed to touch the back fenders or the spare tire, they all had to push on the hitch “ball”, a 1 -7/8 inch diameter piece of steel.  There wouldn’t be the “room” for all ten, some would be pushing others who might be in contact with the ball, and the force would be dissipated.  They would likely fail.

The United States is spending more than a $1 Billion a day fighting in the Middle East.  Part of this expenditure is based on the imbalanced cost of weaponry:  Iran is attacking with drones that cost hundreds of dollars, we’re shooting them down with missiles that cost millions of dollars.  Iranians seem to have a virtually limitless supply.  Americans are running low.

And, most importantly, Iran seems to be willing to accept an unlimited number of casualties to continue the battle.  Estimates are up to 6000 Iranian military already dead, and three times that wounded.  The United States has a “treasure over blood” policy in effect.  We are spending a fortune daily to avoid casualties.  Currently, 18 Americans have been killed, and 624 wounded.  For many in the United States, that’s already too much.

Blood and Treasure

A further outcome of the “treasure over blood” policy is that the supply line becomes critical.  Having the defensive missiles, the offensive weaponry, and the basics of food and shelter for American personnel is how Americans fight wars, and keep American military lives safer.

Iran knows that.  One of the less known losses in this conflict was the US Navy logistics base in Bahrain.  Early in the war, Iranian missiles and drones caused heavy damage there, taking the base “off the table”.  Now, the US Navy is trying to re-supply its heavy commitment (twenty ships, including the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier) from Diego Garcia, a British base over 2,000 miles away in the middle of the Indian Ocean.  For the Lincoln alone, that includes weapons for 120 air sorties a day, and food and necessities for the more than 5000 on board.  It’s not working out so well.

The lesson of Vietnam and Afghanistan is the doctrine of “asymmetric war”: a lesser power having the will to outlast an ultimate power.  Somehow, it still hasn’t “sunk in”.  That lesson forced Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford to unilaterally end Vietnam, causing the ugly retreat from Saigon in April of 1975.  Presidents from Bush to Obama to Trump refused to acknowledge the same situation in Afghanistan, and it took Joe Biden to accept that failure in August of 2021.

Gordian Knot

There is a story in ancient history of the “Gordian knot” in Phrygia in central Turkiye.   It was a rope so intricately tied, that no scholar or mathematician could logic out how to untie it.  The story went, that anyone smart enough to unravel it, would conquer and rule all of Asia.  Alexander the Great, passed through Phrygia on his campaign of military conquest.  Already intent on conquering Asia, he decided to fulfill the prophecy.  He took a sword, and sliced the knot in two.

The United States spent $95 Billion on the nuclear weapons program in 2025, almost as much as has been spent at war in Iran.  And, US nuclear weapons currently have nothing to do with it.  But, one of the “casus belli” of Trump’s actions is preventing Iran from gaining an atomic weapon.  Of course, no one, not a nation-state or even a terrorist entity, has used a nuclear weapon in an act of war since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, ending World War II.   

Cut the Knot

Here’s the thing:  President Ford still took a political “hit” when the last helicopter left Saigon, even though it was really the culmination of Nixon’s plan.  President Biden definitely was damaged by the image of desperate Afghans falling from the wheels of a US Air Force C-17 and the 13 Americans killed by suicide bomb at Abby Gate.

Do we really think the Donald Trump would be willing to sacrifice politically to get the US out of Iran?  Or is he more likely to follow Alexander’s example, and somehow try to “cut the knot” he tied in the Persian Gulf?   The US is already low on advanced weapons systems; it will take years to replenish what’s been spent.  What’s left?

Would Trump use a “nuclear sword” to cut this knot?   A better question:  are you confident he won’t?

“♫Let’s drop the big one, and see what happens…♫”

Brave New World

We live in a “Brave New World” of gambling.  Sure, you can still go down to the nearby casino (here in Columbus there are two), or even hang out at the local Bingo Hall (but don’t go at the first of the month, the Social Security checks are in!!).  But there are so, so, many new ways to gamble.  You can place a bet on your phone or your computer, on almost any sporting event.  You can even bet on what formation, or pitch, or pass will be executed on the next play. 

And now, with platforms like Kalshi, you can bet on life.  What will Trump’s first words of the next speech be?  There’s a market for that bet. (So much so, that the guy who put the speech into the teleprompter made hundreds of thousands of dollars).  Who will get elected in the next primary?  Bet on it.  How bad will the storm flooding be?  Yep, you can put money on that one too.

By the Book

The old school guys like my grandfather, who used to bet the horses, learned to look at the “form”, the book of the racing history.  How many wins, how many shows, on what kind of track:  all combined to decide how the horse might perform on the next race.  Is he a “Mudder”, or a “sprinter”, or leads from the front of the pack?  They used the past performances to bet on the future.

All of us old-school politicos fall back on that same kind of thinking when we look at the coming elections in November.  Here’s some of the things we say:

• The President always loses seats in Congress in the mid-terms
• The opposition party’s success is based on how low the President’s approval rating is
• It’s the economy, stupid (thanks for that, James Carville).

And, maybe, some of those old tropes are still true.

Dewey Wins

But as we’ve found in the past couple of weeks, old-school techniques like polling are no longer accurate.  Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic Progressive, was supposed to win the Democratic Michigan Senate primary by double digits. Instead, he eked out a narrow victory.  Francesca Hong, a Democratic Socialist, was supposed to win Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Primary by the same huge margin.  She lost to David Crowley, a moderate who literally dropped out of the campaign, then re-entered, a month or so ago.

Why is the polling so inaccurate “these days”?  For the same reason it was inaccurate in the first place.   Back in the 1948 Presidential election, a major polling agency, Gallup, predicted that New York Governor Tom Dewey would defeat President Harry Truman.  It was so clear, that the editors of the Chicago Tribune decided to print the election day headline, “Dewey Wins” early, and go to bed.  Truman held the front page up in glee as he declared his victory.

What happened?  Two things:  first the poll was done a couple of weeks before the election.  Minds changed as election day approached.  And second:  it was 1948, and it was a telephone poll.  Gallup determined that the poll reached a good cross-section of the voting public.  But in 1948, for many a private phone line was still a luxury.  Some didn’t have direct access to a phone at all.  And some shared lines,  called “party lines” (they still existed when I first moved here to Pataskala in 1978).  So the “cross-section” was slanted to those voters who could afford private lines, a group that would also slant to Dewey.

Who Will Vote

Modern polling still depends on that cross-section.  Who will actually turn out on election day is still a guessing game.  And the pollsters in Michigan and Wisconsin guessed wrong.  In all fairness, in our modern age of cell phones, it’s difficult to get responses.  We all screen our calls; that random number calling often doesn’t get a response.  So it might take 50,000 calls to get a thousand responses.  And those that answer are often “motivated” poll responders.  They feel strongly about the issues, or they are big supporters of a candidate, or they want to “mess up” the data by lying.  In the end, they may not really represent the “cross-section” at all. 

Or the pollsters got the “cross-section” wrong.  My (educated) guess is that pollsters underestimated the turnout of “regular Democrats” in both Michigan and particularly Wisconsin.  They didn’t see the motivation for those voters to show up, certainly not as motivated as those planning on voting for El-Sayed or Hong.  But they did.

In the end, polling looks a lot more like gambling these days.  It’s an “educated” guess, not a scientific algorithm leading to an accurate solution.   So when you “hear” that Social Democrats are taking over the Party, or that Sherrod Brown is “up by two” in Ohio, or that Bengals Quarterback Joe Burrow will throw for 20 yards on the first play:  take it for what it is – a guess.

If polling is guessing, then what can you do to influence the election?  Do the hard stuff:  work for a candidate, educate yourself on the issues and convince your friends, even join the campaign.  And, if you can, financially support the candidates (or Party) of your choice.  

Or, you can bet on it.