Paul Krugman wrote a recent post, Jeb The Unready. And he started with some great sarcasm, “I can’t help noticing that Jeb Bush has now come out with the highly original proposal that we give rich people and corporations big tax cuts.” And then he marveled at the fact that Bush seems to think that he can jump-start his campaign by appealing to Stephen Moore and other big promoters of supply side economics. I think it is fair to say that people like Bush and Trump really do live in an alternate reality. They really don’t know how the other 99.9% live.

Let’s think about this for a while. One thing I hear from conservatives all the time is the Democrats have no new ideas whereas they are just bursting with them. Well, when they do burst with them, two things become clear. First, they are clever — but still often good — ideas. But they have to be clever, because the ideological base of the Republican Party forbids doing obvious things that will work. Second, the Republican Party as a whole will never back these ideas. So the “great” and “new” Republican ideas are constrained by ideology, but it still isn’t enough to make large numbers of Republicans support them.

As a result of this, Republicans stick with the tried and true. Reagan cut taxes, so let’s cut taxes! Reagan cut aid to the poor, so let’s cut aid to the poor! Reagan greatly increased corporate welfare, so let’s increase corporate welfare! And that’s all we are getting from Jeb Bush: more supply side economic. That is the idea that if we give more money to the rich, they will invest and create jobs. We’ve been doing it for forty years. It has been completely demolished as a policy idea. It doesn’t work. But still Bush is pushing it.

But here’s the thing: the American people don’t buy it. The Republicans have been great at destroying confidence in the government. But the good side of that is that people are especially skeptical of Republican economic ideas. That’s what happened in 2005 when the newly re-elected George W Bush decided what the people really wanted was for the government to privatize Social Security. Bush pushed hard on that and the people pushed back even harder. They are used to being conned — especially by Republicans.

This is not to say that Republicans won’t get elected and then implement supply side tax cuts. But it does mean that the people will not elect Republicans because they are promising economic growth through the magic of tax cuts for the rich and corporations. I have given up hoping that the electorate will ever pay enough attention to vote against the Republicans for this reason. Ted McLaughlin recently provided a good rundown of the fact that, Democratic Presidents Are Best For Jobs and the Economy.

Does Jeb Bush really think that hauling out the old supply side economics — which is being hocked by every candidate except for Trump — is going to jump-start his campaign? I doubt it. I suspect he is just signaling to the power elite that they shouldn’t give up on him and that they (and not he) need to find a way of getting rid of Trump. After all, their tax cuts depend upon it.

While I was spending a very hot weekend afternoon applying water sealant to the deck of a different family member, my father and older sister were sitting close by watching. Normally, this is a job I do with my sister, but she is recuperating from surgery. And my father was just smart enough not to get involved. But I heard them talking about violence and guns, and that is never a good thing. I’m interested in the subjects, but when people casually talk about them, ignorance and stupidity is sure to follow.

My sister said that her husband always says that if everyone knew that everyone else had a gun, there would be a lot less violence. That was too much for me to let pass, so I noted that it really wasn’t true. Areas with a lot of guns often have very high homicide rates and that the wild west, while hardly the violent free for all that many people think, was hardly a bastion of peace. Ultimately, my greatest issue with easy gun availability is with regards to suicide. It’s just too easy for people to kill themselves with guns without thinking. This is one reason why gun purchase waiting periods are a great thing.

My point here is not about guns at all. My point is that people in casual conversations filled with “common sense” are very often completely wrong, and when not, they greatly simplify complicated issues. It’s part of social bonding. We tell each other the things that we all “know,” so as to signify to everyone that we are of the same tribe. That’s a good thing. Humans are social animals and its either this or sniffing each others’ butts. But there are better and worse ways to bond and I don’t think simplistic myths about guns and violence represent one of the better ones.

Society needs people like me. And trust me: I know how people see me from the outside. We live in a society that fetishizes certainty because it sees it as a source of strength. Sometimes it is. My ability to consider all sides of an issue and endless possible contingencies really can paralyze me. It’s good to have people around who are good at taking in information and making a decision. But as we see in politics, this is not usually the way things work. Instead, it is like my father and sister chatting. George W Bush decided he was going to war with Iraq and then he set about justifying that. This is, of course, exactly backwards from the way it ought to work.

Because I am smart and (frankly) make a fetish out of knowing stuff for no real reason, a lot of people come to me with questions. And if they really want an answer, they are generally very disappointed. Because I’m not big on simple answers. “Yes” and “no” are two of my least favorite words in the English language. I prefer to tell you that on the one hand there is something and on the other hand there is something and on the third hand there is something — like some hyper-discursive blue-skinned Hindu deity. But this is what you get when you decide to think seriously about things.

The funny thing is that I am a prototypical academic. And you would think with so much larger a share of people with college educations, that there would be a whole lot more people like me. But it just isn’t true. In fact, there may be less. And I think that is really the outcome of what William Deresiewicz wrote about in, The Neoliberal Arts. By turning higher education into job training, we’ve greatly endangered our entire democracy.

Over the weekend, I was with my nephew who is a social worker. He works with a lot of people on disability — especially for mental problems. And he mentioned that people who had committed felonies in California could not vote. That came as a surprise to me. I told him that I had spent more time going over the California voter registration form than any sane man would. And I thought I would know. My understanding was that as long as a felon was not under state care (prison, parole, or probation), she could vote. He responded that he had read it somewhere, but he was glad I countered him on it because he wasn’t sure.

It turns out that I was wrong — but only because I was being too harsh. According to Nonprofit VOTE’s Voting as an Ex-Offender, page, in California:

The truth is that it is generally possible for ex-felons to vote, although some states make it really hard. But before we get to them, let’s discuss the way that our voting system should work. In Maine and Vermont even people in prison vote. I know that this idea is shocking to many people. Think about my nephew for a moment: he’s a social worker who is studying criminal justice and even he had fallen into the trap of thinking the default was that ex-felons couldn’t vote.

There is a widely held belief that not only can ex-felons not vote, but that they shouldn’t be able to vote. And that goes along with our incredibly punitive society. Somehow, throwing a woman in jail for a decade because she was caught with a small amount of cannabis in Florida is not enough. She also has to be effectively forbidden from ever having a good job again. She can’t be allowed on public assistance. And she can never vote again. It’s just madness, and, I think, indicative of just what a horrible people we are.

But there are a whole lot of states where your past doesn’t matter. If you are out of prison, you can vote. These include:

It’s interesting that even in a number of conservative western states, we get more liberal policy. I think this is part of the tradition of the west: people make mistakes but they should be allowed to get on their their lives. Interestingly, it is only liberal states who don’t let parolees vote: California, Colorado, Connecticut, and New York. That’s actually not a good idea. Voting is one of the ways that you welcome a person back into polite society. A parole officer could demand that the parolee register and vote.

Next we get to the states where the ex-felon has to be totally free of the system. I think this is bad, but acceptable:

And now we get to some really punitive and vile states. But it gets complicated. And that’s part of the problem. None of these states automatically give back voting rights. Here is a list of the states where you can get your voting rights back as long as you didn’t commit certain felonies:

In general, those felonies are pretty bad: murder, rape, etc. But not always. There are things like bribery and voter fraud. And Mississippi is totally bizarre. They have 21 specific crimes that stop you have getting your voting rights back. Some of them are fairly minor like check fraud. But here’s the weird part: if you weren’t convicted of one of these felonies, you can vote while in jail. But in all these states, ex-felons have to fill out paper work and run the bureaucratic gauntlet and pay fees.

The last states are just completely vile: Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, and Virginia. In these states (and the previous ones if you have committed the wrong kind of felony), you have to file and individual petition on get a pardon from the governor. And in general, you have to wait years before you can even apply (also true of some of the previous group).

The system is terrible. For one thing, where’s the equal treatment in this? Ex-felon Floridians can’t vote in a presidential election but ex-felon Californians can? That isn’t fair. We really do need a constitutional right to vote.