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.

I really like Brian Beutler’s writing and analysis. But I don’t remember him ever filling me with awe as he did on Monday, Obamacare Is More Popular Than It Seems — If You Discount These People’s Opinions. He is not pulling punches. Put simply, he argued that we shouldn’t listen to old people when it comes to Obamacare because it has nothing to do with them. “Presumably we’d have no problem ignoring old people if they objected to child tax credits financed by working-age people. We should ignore them in this instance, too.” The polling that shows that people don’t care for Obamacare is tilted negative because old people are so against it, even though they are neither beneficiaries nor tax payers (except the very wealthy ones) for it.

As an example of this, he quoted the following from a detailed Bloomberg poll:

This goes along with a lot of literature that indicates that people mostly haven’t a clue about what Obamacare actually is. And that’s especially true of conservatives. Let’s just think about this for a moment. She’s on Medicare, so Obamacare has nothing to do with any limits on her coverage. I question her complaints anyway, but as much as they are indicative of real problems, they are problems with Medicare. Right now, only 36% of senior citizens have a favorable view of Obamacare. But the last time Gallup asked (last January), only 37% were satisfied with Social Security and Medicare. So maybe it is just the case that only about a third of senior citizens are happy about anything at all.

But look at Ms Stone in the quote above. I’m sure she would be appalled at the suggestion that Medicare be repealed. But she is more than willing to take healthcare away from millions of people, for the sole reason that she thinks it would improve the care that she gets under Medicare. It is a truly villainous attitude to have. And narcissistic. Beutler is right, but I will put it more bluntly: we shouldn’t listen to people like this because they are amazingly ignorant and selfish.

There is one substantive bit in the article that we really need to think about: the people who are for full repeal of Obamacare are the same as those who favor “repeal and replace.” So roughly 35% of the people want to repeal and roughly the same amount want to “repeal and replace.” As Beutler put it: “tacking ‘replace’ on to ‘repeal’ doesn’t widen the appeal of the conservative position at all.” I think this shows that Americans are a bit more savvy than they often appear. They understand that when Republicans talk about “repeal and replace,” that they aren’t serious. So what we actually get is roughly 65% of the people wanting to keep Obamacare pretty much the way it is. This is not something you will see reported on Fox News:

My image of elderly people is the nice folks at the Unitary church who hold candlelight vigils for world peach. But that is apparently the wrong image. The more typical image is Ms Stone who is of the “Off my lawn you kids” variety. This is not to say that I would take anything away from them. I feel very much that we must respect our elders. And I’ve been tested for subconscious bias and been found to be — contrary to most of this nation — biased somewhat toward the elderly. But Beutler is right: we shouldn’t listen to them on this issue. As it is, most of them probably think Obamacare is bad because Fox News and Mitt Romney told them that Obamacare was stealing from Medicare. The question we need to ask is why people like the thoroughly confused Ms Stone vote so reliably while we youngsters don’t. We can ignore their incoherent arguments, but we can’t ignore their votes.

I’ve written a bit about the religious scholar Robert M Price’s conservative politics in the past. But it has always been in passing. While listening to a podcast or interview, he will say something ignorant. It always stands out — but not because I disagree with it. His religious scholarship is very smart and learned. His political views have always evidenced a total lack of seriousness. It really sounds like he listens to Rush Limbaugh and that is not only the extent of his opinion, but also of his knowledge of the subject. For example, there was the time that he claimed Congressional Democrats were being hypocritical for not applying Obamacare to themselves. That’s a total mischaracterization of the healthcare law — and one that people would be unlikely to come up with independently.

So I was excited to see that he had recently decided to write a whole blog post on his conservatism, Atheists for Huckabee. And it is laugh out loud funny. When it comes to politics, Price is apparently devoid of any thought except for common conservative talking points. For example, the article contained the above image of Obama. Back in 2008 and 2009, the presentation of Obama as a saint would be totally appropriate. I was as annoyed as anyone at the way that Obama was treated by many Democrats. But that’s been over for a long time — except in the minds of conservatives who don’t get out much.

Of course, the far worse thing is The Book of Marx that he’s holding. Really?! The claims that Obama is a socialist are only made by people who don’t know what socialism is. But Marx?! It’s just ridiculous. Obama is a neoliberal — a very conservative person when it comes to the economy. And the fact that Price doesn’t know that shows that he indeed doesn’t pay attention to politics. He lives in his world of religion and science fiction and all the rest. And that’s great! But his claims to being misunderstood are ridiculous. He doesn’t take politics seriously enough to have a well formed opinion about it nor for the rest of us to misunderstand him.

But forget economics. Price’s conservatism is not about economics. It is about foreign affairs. It is about the fact that he has bought the neoconservative line on the world completely. He uses the term “Islamo-fascism” carelessly. Apparently Obama isn’t against the Islamo-fascists, which must be whatever governments Price has been told to hate. And he refers to Obama as “President Neville Chamberlain II.” As I have discussed in the past, Neville Chamberlain Was Right. I am sick to death of conservatives using Chamberlain as a shorthand argument against any foreign policy but war. Although I will admit, Price doubles his power with that one: showing total ignorance of two important western leaders.

But the main thing is that Price’s article is, in fact, an apologia for supporting Mike Huckabee. He brushes aside all of Huckabee’s radical, theocratic agenda. And to offset it, there really is not anything else other than that he would “stand against PC and Islamo-fascism.” Note: PC! Yes, that’s oh so important: all those liberals with their PC; they are just bringing down America! Oh, and there’s this other benefit of a Huckabee presidency, “Huckabee would shelve Global Warming fears, which is certainly okay with me, since I strongly suspect the whole thing is yet another Progressivist scheme to control, ie, screw up, the economy.” So he’s a global warming denier too. Not that he knows enough to be one. He’s just reads George Will.

People can have whatever opinions they like. But if they are going to start ranting about them in public, the least they could do is learn a little bit. The only mentions of the economy in Price’s article is that Obama is a Marxist and that “Progressivists” want to screw up the economy by controlling it. I can’t say that Price is not a deep thinker, because he clearly is a deep thinker about some things. But when it comes to politics, he doesn’t even try. He just lets his prejudices fly. We can only hope that he won’t make a habit of writing about politics.

Economist Dean Baker is the best source for information about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it’s problems, and how the power elite of this country are trying to cram it down our throats before anyone can really check it out. For example, a couple of weeks ago, over at FAIR, he wrote, Three Fake Myths — and Two Actual Ones — About TPP Trade Pact. But today, he wrote about something that is always much on people’s minds when we aren’t discussing trade deals, but somehow just can’t be dealt with when we are: currency manipulation. Baker framed it regarding how his favorite newspaper is covering it, Washington Post Tells Readers the Elite Will Lie, Cheat, and Steal to Pass Their Trade Deals.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article, National Income Accounting. In it, I show that there is a basic contradiction among most people who simultaneously want a balanced federal budget and a strong dollar. This is a simple matter of arithmetic. So when it comes to trade deals, the number one most important issue for us should be getting the value of our dollar down compared to other currancies — especially the Chinese renminbi. The Chinese government keeps the renminbi artificially depressed, which means that it can export more to the United States than it could in a fair system. So Americans get cheap Chinese goods, but they don’t have jobs.

The TPP does not include China, of course. But the idea has always been that eventually China would sign on to the deal. Baker asked rhetorically, “If currency rules are not included now, is The Post’s argument that it will be easier to get them included after China has joined?” But of course, we know why currency rules are not included. It is the same reason that so much effort on this supposed free trade agreement is spent on making intellectual property laws stronger. None of this deal is about helping the American (or any other country’s) worker. It is about allowing people who already have a lot of money to make even more. If you want to know more, read my article, No Trade Deals Until Our Economy Is Fixed.

Defenders of the TPP claim that the agreement can’t do anything about currency manipulation because it is hard. The Washington Pose opined, “The problem is that it’s very difficult to establish precisely, much less in a legally binding multinational agreement, ‘correct’ valuations of major currencies or the precise intent behind any particular policy that affects currency values.” Before we get to the substance of that, consider how typical this is. I hear this same argument in the education “reform” movement. It is always the case that doing something that is actually productive would be “hard” or “politically impossible.” So instead, we do things that are easy, which just so happen to help the people least in need of help — usually making things worse for everyone else.

But regarding the substance of the claim that it is “difficult” to establish correct valuations, this is just absurd. Of course, The Post used weasel words — most especially “precise.” But we don’t have to know precisely. We can tell simply by looking at the fact that the United States has a huge trade surplus with China. We know this from the National Income Accounting I discussed above. If things were reversed, it would be different, because developed countries are supposed to be flooding developing countries with capital. But it isn’t that way and so we know.

Regardless, we are left with the great apologists’ war cry, “We must do something!” And that something just happens to make Walmart’s supply chains that much more profitable. And it makes Sony’s copyrights that much more profitable. But American workers? They are supposed to shut-up and accept their subsistence service jobs. Go team!

I’m not sure what to make of Rebecca Leber’s article in New Republic, Republicans Understand Climate Change, but Only Behind Closed Doors. The story doesn’t especially back up that headline. There are only two examples given in the article. The first is regarding a trip to Greenland that some Senators took seven years ago. Well, as you may remember: seven years ago, even John McCain was talking about a cap and trade deal. The issue simply wasn’t toxic the way it is now. The second example was from 2012, but even there, all that happened was that some unnamed 2016 presidential candidate (I’m assuming Marco Rubio) admitted that there did indeed seem to be some warming — not that humans are causing it and that it will continue.

But I agree with the contention, even without the data. Republican politicians (Especially in the Senate!) are educated and sophisticated people. They at least have grave concerns about their global warming denial. And I would expect that at least half of them know that global warming is real, man made, and a big threat. These are the most vile of people: public officials putting their own personal political careers ahead of the interests of the nation and the world itself. They are traitors.

I don’t expect politicians to be altruistic. But as I said: seven years ago, this wasn’t an issue. Global warming denial has become a conservative third rail in exactly the same way that Obamacare became one: because the Republicans saw it to their advantage. It’s interesting, actually. In The Reactionary Mind, Corey Robin argues that conservatism can be defined as a reaction against liberation movements. That is certainly true historically. But the modern Republican Party seems primarily to be defined simply as being against whatever the Democrats — Obama most especially — are for. And thus, we can do nothing about global warming because liberals do what to do something about it.

One example from the article is very telling. As you may remember, about two years ago, Republicans came up with a perfect way to not talk about global warming. If a journalist asked them, they would say, “Well, I’m not a scientist.” I always thought this was curious, because it makes no sense. They may not be scientists, but that doesn’t stop them have having a scientific opinion: global warming isn’t happening. But while Rick Scott ran for re-election as governor of Florida, he used that dodge. So after he won his election (Would it be too much to ask for Democrats to run people other than ex-Republicans?!) Scott was pressured into attending a half hour meeting with people who were scientists. “Eckerd College’s David Hastings described the governor’s face as showing ‘no expression of his interest or concern,’ giving the session the air of a chore.” I think that says a lot. He knows that the data are convincing, so he just has to avoid it. The new Republican global warming dodge should be, “Well, I’m not a scientist and I don’t care to listen to what scientists know.”

For a long time, I’ve been saying that there will never come a time that will convince conservatives that global warming is real. But that may not be the case. Miami is not even two meters above sea level. If it floods, I think we might find that Rick Scott expresses some interest and concern when scientists talk. But the real problem isn’t Rick Scott. It is the voters. Rick Scott will just give a heartfelt Rick Perry, “Oops!” And the people will forgive him and elect him to whatever job he’s running for at that time.

Ultimately, all of our problems are of our own making. No one forced Fox News viewers to keep the station tuned in 24 hours a day so that the network had to animate its logo so as not to damage their television sets. No one forced the voters of California to turn against a GMO labeling proposition because Monsanto and friends dumped $50 million in advertising. The power elite have more tools than it has ever had to maintain its position and the keep the people down. They are evil. But we are stupid.