As I say quite a lot around here, in many ways, I am a conservative. There are two kinds of conservatives in the world. Imagine you are trying to sleep and your next door neighbor is having a party. If you are the kind of conservative that has now taken over the Republican Party, you are waiting for the slightest sound so they can make angry phone calls, pound on the neighbor’s door, or call the cops. If you are my kind of conservative you just want to live and let live. And this is not just because I don’t like confrontations. In general, people should be allowed to live their lives unless doing so is really infringing on my doing the same. It is probably not hard to see how I managed to be a libertarian for so long.

Daniel Larison at The American Conservative — like most of the staff there when it comes to foreign policy — is my kind of conservative. He highlighted an interview that John Kasich had with Hugh Hewitt. In it, Kasich says a number of things that are wrong, and dangerous. And they all show that despite his reputation, Kasich is just your typical Republican. Well, just like with conservatives, there are two kinds of Republicans when it comes to foreign policy. There are those who want to go to war everywhere and there are those who just want to fund and supply arms to some faction everywhere in the world.

Larison refers to the first kind of Republicans as “expensive hawks” and the Kasich kind as “cheap hawks.” And I don’t think he means that just in the sense that expensive hawks cost the nation more money than the cheap hawks. There is definitely the sense — which I share — that the cheap hawks get their policy on the cheap. It is easier to make war everywhere if there aren’t dead American soldiers and grieving American families. This is a big problem with drone warfare. There isn’t a political price to pay for this foreign policy adventurism. So I would much rather deal with the expensive hawks, because at least they are being upfront about what they want to do.

One of Larison’s great insights about Kasich — and by extension, all the hawks — is that the policies that he’s for will not further the goals he claims to have. “Kasich wants to create the impression that he wants to maintain stability, but everything he recommends doing here is necessarily destabilizing.” As we knew well before the Iraq War, but should be crystal clear since, overthrowing dictators — while potentially good — is hugely destabilizing. To go back to my party analogy, sending weapons to insurgents is like thinking that you are going to make your neighbor’s party quieter by having a few cases of beer delivered.

Of course, other than being a whole lot smarter and less inclined to go everywhere, the Democratic Party is filled with cheap hawks as well. I have been happy that Obama has limited our engagements. But where he hasn’t — most especially in terms of drone warfare — he is cheap hawk all the way. And we are the worse for it. At least as the Iraq War dragged on, people started talking about it. Almost no one in the mainstream media talks about the drone strikes, except when something “notable” happens like an American getting killed. Drone strikes and funding rebels is a very cheap approach to war indeed.

Jonathan Bernstein pointed out something truly bizarre the other day, Americans Will Love Obamacare in 2020. But I’m almost certain that he’s right. You see, I’ve been of the opinion (In part because of arguments Bernstein himself has made!) that Obamacare is never going to be popular because it is so elusive.

The problem is that most people who get Obamacare don’t know it. A large number of them get Obamacare in the form of the Medicaid expansion. So these people see themselves getting healthcare from the state — not the federal government — much less Obamacare itself. And then another really large number of people get their healthcare from private insurers through the healthcare exchanges. Well over half of them are subsidized directly by Obamacare, but they aren’t alerted to this fact — they just pay less (often a lot less) for their insurance. So why should anyone “like” Obamacare; the main things they “know” about the law come from a very large disinformation campaign from conservatives over the last five years.

But as I discussed the other day, Obamacare approval ratings are going up. In fact, even since then, we have news that Obamacare is for the first time in two and half year above water: more people approve than disapprove. So what’s with that? Is the people learning? Well, probably not.

But Bernstein has a really compelling idea: it is all about Obama’s approval rating. As I just discussed, people really don’t know what Obamacare is or how it affects them. So in their minds, Obamacare and Obama mean more or less the same thing. As it is, earlier today, I clicked on a link that I thought was about Obama that was actually about Obamacare. So it is easy enough to mistake them, even if you are very clear on the distinction.

Now Obama’s approval rating could go down. It might very well! But one thing we know from experience is that the approval rating of presidents goes up after they leave the White House. George W Bush’s approval rating reached a low of 32% according to Gallup (it went much lower in other polls). But by mid-2013, it was back up to 49%. Things are going to be even better for Obama. How do I know? Because conservatives can’t manage to maintain any Republican Party talking points unless they are constantly being reminded by Fox News and company. It is hard to find a conservative who doesn’t think pretty highly of Bill Clinton now. They wonder why they hated him so much in the 1990s.

So you can bet that after four years of Hillary Clinton or, even more, one of the Republican loons, that Obama is going to look pretty damned good (not because he was necessarily better but because he will be out of politics). Bill Clinton left office with a 42% approval rating. As of 2012, it was 66%. I expect that Obama will be up around 60% by 2020. And what that most likely means is that Obamacare will be up there too. And the longer he is out of office, the harder conservatives will have to work to remember what all the fuss was about. Did they really go crazy over birth certificates? Did they really think he was a Muslim? A socialist? An America hater? It will all seem like a vague dream.

And as a result, people will have fond thoughts about Obamacare. It will bring back memories of when politics wasn’t so divisive!

One of my biggest problems with the way that my fellow liberals talk about economic debate is that they don’t understand that different people mean different things by the same words. So now we see that Republicans are talking about “economic inequality.” Should we be excited about this? No. To them, the big solution to economic inequality is the same solution that they have had to every economic issue for the last forty years: cut regulation and taxes. Doing this will supposedly increase economic growth and that will in turn increase middle class wages. There are just two problems here: the first and second claims.

For years now, I’ve been ranting about how we need to stop talking about productivity growth. We are now in our fifth decade during which workers have seen little to no gain from productivity growth. How many more decades do we need before people will accept that the rich have rigged the political economy so that they get the vast majority of gains? Really, as a nation, we are living in a fantasy. People seem to think that if we just get rid of all labor unions and worker protections, the rich will reward workers with a piece of the action. It doesn’t work that way. The only reason that workers had a piece of the action before was because of labor unions and worker protections.

I’m always pleased when an actual economist comes out with a paper that backs up what I’ve long been saying. On Tuesday, Jared Bernstein put out a paper, Faster Productivity Growth Would Be Great. But Don’t Count on It to Raise Middle Class Incomes. The secondary part of his argument is that we just aren’t going to get the kind of growth that we saw in the 1960s. This is actually a big Republican lie. Every time one of them comes out with a big old tax cut for the rich, they claim that it will cause the economy to grow at some absurd rate like 5%.

But the main point is that we have no reason at all to think that productivity increases would be shared. He provides a version of a common graph that looks at productivity growth and median family income on the same graph with the same (percentage) scale. Between 1947 and 1973, both increased by a bit less than 100%. But between 1973 and 2013, productivity increased by over 100%, while median family income has gone up only 13%. And notice that even this is deceptive. During the first period, most families had only one person working outside the home. Now most have two. So it is possible to see that 13% increase in family income as coming not from productivity increases but by simply working more.

Bernstein is very careful, of course. I don’t have to be similarly restrained. What we see is that even since 1973, the divergence between productivity growth and median income has increased. This is entirely to be expected from a political, rather than economic, perspective. The more money the rich have, the more political power they have to tilt the economy in their direction. But just on a practical level of solutions, Bernstein has the right idea:

But this all depends upon us living in an actual democracy. A democracy is about a lot more than voting. But even on the voting front, the United States is showing that you can have apparently “free and fair” elections and still not offer the people any real choice. What’s more, we are now so far removed from the time when workers shared in the fruits of our economy, and most people don’t think anything is wrong and in need of fixing.

I wasn’t going to write about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s flipping off of a security camera. I’m against the death penalty, but the state does far worse things all the time than it would do if it decides to kill him. But then I saw the video from which the photo was taken. And it is clear that the photo should never have been allowed into evidence. It is a total distortion of what Tsarnaev was doing. This, my friends, is why we can’t have nice things. This is why law enforcement is able to use pseudoscience to convict people. This is why police officers almost never even get charged for killing innocent people. This is why after years of appeals, the state still kills innocent people. Because our system is not about justice. It is about establishing who has the power and who does not. Justice just doesn’t matter.

You know how you go to the the DMV to get your picture taken for your driver’s license? And in almost all cases, it just looks bad and generally weird? But you know that this is not how you look all the time. As you are moving from one expression to another, your face does all kinds of strange things. But we don’t notice this as we look at each other because it is fluid — we see the context. Well, that is exactly what happened to Tsarnaev in the picture above. Compare it to the 36 second video from which it was taken:

Given that video, does this look like something that CNN should have described as, “He glares into the camera defiantly, his middle finger raised in a profane salute.” But at least CNN is right: that is kind of what the single image looks like. The real problem here is the judge who allowed the photo into evidence. It is prejudicial and totally distorts what was actually going on: he was checking out his image in the only mirror around. Further, it allowed the prosecution to claim that it showed an unrepentant Tsarnaev. But it doesn’t show that at all. It may well be that Tsarnaev is unrepentant. But that photo sure doesn’t show it.

Glenn Greenwald nailed it when he wrote, “It was, explicitly, the prosecutors’ intent to provoke exactly this reaction: this one photo, standing alone, was designed to produce a visceral, bottomless contempt for Tsarnaev which even disgust at his actual crime could not achieve.” This doesn’t seem like a real trial to me. It seems like a kangaroo court. If the judge had decided that Tsarnaev is to die before the trial even started, he should have just announced it. But of course, he wouldn’t. Because he, like pretty much everyone else in the criminal justice system, is determined to make it appear neutral, even while it isn’t in the vast majority of cases.

As for the other side of this is: so what? What if Tsarnaev was doing just what he appears to be doing in that photo? Suppose it is clear that he thinks the Boston Marathon bombing was great, that he wishes he had killed more, and if he ever gets out he will kill everyone. What does that prove? I’ve never understood this part of the criminal justice system. Jeffrey Dahmer became a Christian in jail. Did that take away from the heinousness of his crimes? Was his conversion even real? I think the answer to both is, “No!” But it does matter to the courts.

And what it shows about the courts is how it is all about power. Sparing the lives of people who come to court and repent is very much like the fake confessions of Stalin’s show trials — or any number of other scenes like them that show up. It doesn’t matter than the confesser actually believes what she is saying. It is like a religious rite: yielding officially to power. And that is the business of a sick institution — be it a terrorist group, or the United States of America’s criminal justice system.

I keep reading really annoying bits of news. This one is about Scott Walker, but it doesn’t matter. I read the same basic thing about all kinds of Republicans, “A new Marquette Law School Poll finds Governor Scott Walker’s job approval rating has fallen to 41 percent, with 56 percent of registered voters in Wisconsin saying they disapprove of how he is handling his job as governor.” This always makes me blurt out, “Then why did you vote for him?!” Well, in part, it is that only six months ago, the wise people of Wisconsin thought differently, “In the previous poll, in October 2014, Walker’s approval among registered voters was 49 percent, with 47 percent disapproving.” But really: has anything he’s done been a surprise?

Oh yes, I know: he signed the “right to work” law that he always seemed to be saying that he wouldn’t sign. But there was never a question about that. And then there is his horrible budget — necessitated by his conservative policies. But again: this is not a surprise. Scott Walker wasn’t transformed into some horrible creature when he woke up on 5 November 2014. This is the man that the wise people of Wisconsin — the ones that are so unhappy with him — voted for.

I’ve notice recently that a lot of my articles end with something like, “But what do you expect when only conservatives vote?” And similar sentiments. I do believe that I’m going crazy. I need to install a punching bag next to my computer just so I can get through the day. My level of frustration is clearly having a negative effect on my life. Just the same, the level of sensibleness on the part of the average American is having a deadly effect on this country. And I’m going right along with the country, the world, and the shoreline in Florida.

Speaking of which, we see that Rick Scott way back in February was not liked by the people in his state, “Scott has a negative job approval rating, with 42 percent of voters approving of his performance and 47 percent disapproving.” But he still managed to win re-election last November from the wise people of Florida. Again: on 5 November 2014, he was not more horrible and scary and fit for a Wes Craven film. He was the same guy. He wasn’t hiding who he was. He was quite clear. Although I will give the wise people of Florida this: Charlie Crist wasn’t much of an alternative.

It is at times like these that I regret having stopped using expletives on this blog. Because I could really use some right now! But here is the thing. When I was a kid, I was a true believer in America. In a lot of ways, I still am. I’m far more of a patriot than a million conservative pretenders like Scott Walker, Rick Scott, or literally hundreds of others that I could name off the top of my head. But I can deal with it. I can watch as my county is destroyed even while being nominally a democracy. What I cannot take is seeing my country destroyed while the rest of my countrymen stand by and complain about the bastards that they elected just a couple of months earlier.

I’m sure you know the story about the guy who goes to the doctor and says, “My brother thinks he’s a chicken.” The doctor says, “Why don’t you have him committed?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” I think that story relates to Republicans’ increasing difficulty winning elections. Yes, I know: 2010 and 2014. But they only do well in these off year elections because no one shows up. Slowly, the entire Republican base is dying off and the Democratic base is growing up and, hopefully, starting to take voting more seriously. But I don’t think this is all about bigotry as many claim. I think it is about eggs.

EJ Dionne wrote an interesting article recently in The Washington Post, Can the GOP Learn From California? It is about how California went from a swing state just a couple of decades ago to one of the bluest of states. According to the article, this is all about bigotry — especially the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 so loved by then governor Pete Wilson. But I really wonder about that. Californians have never really had a problem with bigotry. After all, Proposition 187 won by an overwhelming majority: 59-41. And Reagan and Bush Sr both won the state.

I think that the bigger problem is just that the Republicans are incompetent. People everywhere are willing to vote for racists if they think the racists will do right by them. Remember: Bush won the state using the infamous Willie Horton ad. And Prop 187 was six years after that. The problem is that Republicans have gotten a reputation for not being good at their jobs. And they aren’t! Even worse: they don’t seem to care about being good at their jobs. And they don’t! I’m sure the only California Republican Congressmen you’ve ever heard of are Kevin McCarthy and Darrell Issa. McCarthy — who represents Bakersfield — is against any action at all on global warming. If there is one thing that legislators from California should care about, it is global warming. But McCarthy just cares about drilling more oil. And Issa, of course, is just a freak — and a flat out climate change denier. These are not serious men. They are ideologues who are dedicated to the interests of the rich.

I’m not suggesting that the bigotry of the Republican Party doesn’t hurt it. The lesson of Lee Atwater’s “Nigger, nigger, nigger” comment is that bigotry changes over time. And it is becoming more and more clear modern bigots need to come up with even more subtle dog whistles. Of course, a big problem is that the Republicans have gone backwards and allowed rather direct bigotry to creep back into their lexicon. And it isn’t so much that the voters of America disagree or, in any event, have a problem with it as a practical matter. But they do have a problem with being associated with it. The point of dog whistles is that they provide plausible deniability. Being in favor of deporting honor students in the name of the “rule of law” just doesn’t provide much cover.

If Republicans could actually deliver the goods, they could overcome this. But Obama beat Romney in 2012 by a shocking margin of 60-37. And I think Romney’s anti-immigrant stance has been way overstated. He was for self-deportation. That was a dog whistle to the immigrant community, “I’m not going to do dick!” But it was kind of hard to take Romney’s economic policies seriously when they are the same as the ones Republicans were pushing in 1980. Then, the top marginal tax rate was 70%. When Romney was running, it was 35%. In the meantime, average Americans had seen no improvement in their lives. But yet another tax cut for the rich was going to help?

Another problem with the focus on Republican bigotry is that it is pretty much all they have. Look at the states that Romney won. It’s a map of the deep south and those other states where the racists have gone and the Klan still lives:

How long are those states going to vote Republican if the party doesn’t constantly assure the voters that as bad as its policies are, at least it will always proclaim the white race supreme? Not long. And the idea that the Republican Party could change its image is ridiculous. Even the most outspoken Republicans for change only want to do the bare minimum — and to hold their noses while they do it. If the Republicans really want to start winning elections outside of huge economic downturns, they should start governing like they actually thought it was a worthwhile endeavor. Until then, they won’t deliver the eggs.

In general, I’ve liked Neil Irwin’s work over the years. So I didn’t think much when I saw last week that he had written an article entitled, Why Americans Don’t Want to Soak the Rich. I think I may have given up on trying to understand what Americans do and don’t want to do. It changes from day to day and is incoherent regardless. But the word “soak” stopped me anyway. That’s a pejorative. I want to tax the rich a whole lot more, but I wouldn’t call it “soaking the rich.” So I figured the article didn’t have much to offer in terms of actual insight. What I most definitely did not think was that the article would be downright deceptive.

But when I saw that Jim Naureckas at FAIR had questioned the article, I took notice, Why Don’t Americans Want to “Soak the Rich”? It’s a Trick Question. What he means by that is that polling going back decades indicates a constant and high level of support for taxing the rich more. What was going on?

It turns out that Irwin’s article is not about polling data, but about two studies, which actually don’t shed much light at all about why Americans think any which way. The studies are vaguely interesting, but generally not so much so that they would be discussed in The New York Times. At first, I thought it was just a question of a bad headline for an article that didn’t back it up. But that isn’t true. Neil Irwin was indeed trying to make the case that Americans are less inclined to support taxing the rich. Check out this slippery move:

I’ll get to the first paragraph in a moment. But note how he shifts from the data being inconsistent to “Americans’ desire to soak the rich has diminished”! This article was not written as an opinion piece. It was part of The Upshot blog — The Times’ answer to Wonk Blog and (now) Vox. What I think we see here is something I talk about a lot: an upper-middle (or upper) class journalist who is so isolated that he doesn’t see his own economic conservatism as anything but “objective.”

As for the first paragraph, Naureckas goes into some detail to show that indeed, there has been no drop in the desire of Americans to tax the rich. There was a little blip in 2010-2011 when “less than 60 percent said they thought the rich were not paying enough federal taxes.” Maybe Irwin is looking at surveys that ended in 2011. But those two years were the only years since 1992 in which support dipped below 60%. Check out the whole article because it has a lot of interesting data that totally refutes Irwin’s careless claim.

This makes me angry. This is the supposed liberal “newspaper of record.” And this article works as propaganda for the rich. It says to people, “Americans don’t want to tax the rich; you’re an American; right?!” Of course it works on a subconscious level where people simply pick up the idea that Americans don’t want to tax the rich. It is a way of narrowing the field of debate so that the idea of a 50% — much less a 70% or 91% — top marginal tax rate is just unthinkable. This is truly shameful.