Global warming summary – for now

I have done what study I am going to do for the present on the global warming issue. So as one who is not a climate scientist and lacks the training to critique some of the more esoteric analysis involved, what conclusions have I come to?

The consensus on global warming is not as uniform as green advocacy groups, the media or the Obama administration would like us to think. There is general agreement among most climate scientists that warming has occurred, and broad agreement that the warming is probably due, at least in part, to human activity. There is much less agreement about how much this effect is, or what contributes to it, or what the long-term prospects are, or what the best policy response would be.

Global warming predictions are much more tenuous and uncertain than the media or the IPCC (intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) or the more active green groups would have you believe. Nor it that so surprising, really, if one thinks about it. With all our weather satellites and Doppler radar and closely-spaced weather stations on the ground we still only have moderate success predicting the local weather in our city more than a week ahead.  Predicting global climate decades ahead is far, far, far more complex. There are thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of processes involved, many probably not yet identified, all interacting with each other in very complex ways. Moreover the whole system is chaotic in the formal sense, meaning that very slight changes in initial conditions can produce wildly different outcomes. So it is not unreasonable to be skeptical about such predictions.

It seems to me fairly likely, but not absolutely certain, that the global climate has warmed over recent decades. The problem with being certain of this is that temperature data has a lot of noise (day to day variability), and there is a great deal of variability from place to place, so discerning a long-term global trend requires some complex time series analysis with a number of embedded assumptions (including assumption when one “adjusts” or “prunes” the raw data, as the IPCC has done with some of the data), and if one or more of these assumptions are wrong the result may be wrong. However, there do seem to be visible effects like melting permafrost and retreating glaciers and changing growing seasons that also seem to support a warming trend, so most likely there has been some global warming over the past century, on the order perhaps of half a degree Celsius.

Is seems to me possible that any warming that has occurred is at least partly due to human activity. The IPCC is fairly certain of this (always dangerous to be certain in science, because then one stops looking) and the media follows the IPCC.  But I rate it as only “possible” for two primary reasons:

1. There is some evidence that the parts of the climate were as warm or warmer during the medieval warm period (~950-1250 AD), and perhaps during the Roman Era (~0 AD) as well. These periods are of course long before the industrial age began pouring greenhouse gases into the air, so if they were as warm it suggests there are non-human causes of such warmings, which would challenge the IPCC’s assertions that human activity is the primary cause. The IPCC removed data for this period after their first (1990) report on the grounds that the measurements (all proxy measures, like tree growth rings, since no thermometers were around) were too uncertain.  I am not qualified to judge the validity of that decision, but it certainly was convenient for their argument to remove this period.

2. The establishment consensus has focused on human activity and carbon dioxide production in particular – it has become the mindset of a large proportion of researchers. That means that few people have looked at any other natural (non-human) possibilities. In fact, since belief in human origin global warming has become such a liberal litmus test, proposals to study alternative possibility have had trouble getting funding during the liberal Obama administration, and focus on alternatives is not a particularly good career move for a scientist in liberal academia. Or as one person put it, “you don’t get answers to questions you don’t ask.”

None of this is to say the Donald Trump or the politicians who don’t believe in global warming do so from any serious study of the issue, any more than the majority of the public who do believe in global warming base their belief on anything more than media stories and what their friends believe. But it does suggest that the issue is far more complex than generally portrayed, and justifies more skepticism than the public or the scientific community seems to be displaying, especially if we are thinking about spending billions of dollars and disrupting whole segments of the economy for remediation steps which may well be ineffective.  

Like almost every other right-thinking person….

Like almost every other right-thinking, intelligent, liberal, educated person I believe (a) that global warming is real, (b) that it is largely man-made, and (c) that there is almost complete agreement in the scientific community that both (a) and (b) are true. So clearly when someone like Donald Trump, or some conservative Republican oil-state senator says he doesn’t necessarily believe the climate change story, I discount them as simply ignorant, or in the pocket of the big fossil fuel corporations

But like most right-thinking, intelligent, educated people, I am no climate scientist, so what I am so sure of I have gleaned largely from dumbed-down press stories, popular mass-market books, and the opinions of those around me, which are also based almost entirely on the same dumbed-down press stories and popular mass-market books. And even if I read the original studies, without expertise in such arcane fields as dendroclimatology (determining past temperatures from tree rings) or time series analysis (reliably sorting a trend line from noise in a very noisy chronology of past temperature estimates) I wouldn’t be qualified to critique them.

So the preparation of a couple of my recent blogs on climate change has been an eye-opener for me. For one thing, a little online research reveals that there is indeed dissent among serious, well-trained scientists about both (a) and (b) above.  And even those scientists that agree with both (a) and (b) are widely split on how serious the issue really is, and what, if any, are the appropriate policy responses.

But climate change has become a major multinational industry providing billions in research money, a major source of new bureaucratic power (and increased budget) for agencies like the EPA, and a liberal litmus test issue. So of course the popular news is heavily biased, and in the scientific world it is hard for dissenting studies to get through peer reviews (by peers who would lose careers and funding if the dissents were proven accurate). Dissenters tend to get dismissed out of hand by “established” climate scientists, just as Stephen Hawking’s black hole theories were dismissed out of hand by “established” astrophysicists, until the evidence became too much to ignore. (Actually, the history of science is chock full of “established” theories held by the majority of scientists that turned out in the end to be completely wrong.)

Those of us who are old enough have seen this before, of course. The 1968 book The Population Bomb, by Paul Ehrlich, set off a similar frenzy over several decades about overpopulation, and became the liberal litmus test of its time.  Now, of course, we know that it was overblown, and in fact a substantial number of nations like Japan and Russia are depopulating themselves, posing entirely different crisis.

And then we went through several decades when everyone (except the oil companies) was sure that in the early 1970’s we had hit the peak oil point predicted by M. King Hubbard. It turned out the oil companies were right and we “politically enlightened” public were wrong.  New prospecting techniques and new extraction methods (like fracking and deepwater drilling) have greatly expanded the proven reserves (though of course we will someday run out).

It may well be that 97% of scientists believe that global warming is real and man-made (though no one seems to be able to find the original source of this widely-quoted number, and it may have simply been made up by some journalist, as such simple statistics often are), but widely-held belief is not evidence of truth, just evidence of widely-held belief.

So what is my conclusion here? I haven’t the climatology or statistical expertise to tell if the dissenters have valid arguments, but I can tell that there are more than a few serious dissenters, with serious studies based on widely available public climate data and thoroughly documented analysis methods, that disagree with the current liberal climate change beliefs.

More than that, there are critics who make a compelling case that some of the most prominent climate change researchers may have, either wittingly or through incorrect understanding of statistical methods, “manipulated” or “cherry picked” the data to get the answer they want, which actually wouldn’t be that surprising, considering the career pressures and funding at risk, nor  would this by any means be the first time research was “steered” toward a politically desirable result.                                                        

This experience has made me remember again Oliver Cromwell’s 1650 admonishing to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.” There are certainly people out there who reject climate change out of simple ignorance, anti-science sentiment, or ideology, but there are also others who reject it, or parts of it, out of well-considered thought and study.

If you are emotionally committed to believing in man-made climate change, you can just ignore this posting.  But if you actually want to be open minded and explore the other side of the argument, let me suggest the following sites as potential starting points:

Just Facts at http://www.justfacts.com/  Factual, evidence-based analysis of many issues, of which global warming is just one.

Manhattan Contrarian at http://manhattancontrarian.com.  Perhaps start with the posting How To Tell Who's Lying To You: Climate Science Edition. It will lead you to other relevant articles.

Roy Spencer’s site at http://www.drroyspencer.com/.  Perhaps start with My Global Warming Skepticism, for Dummies, which is a good summary.

The Business Insider article The 10 Most-Respected Global Warming Skeptics might give you some pause, since it even includes one Nobel Prize winner.  Wikipedia also has a list of scientists who oppose the mainstream global warming assessment.  It can be found here.  The list is no doubt incomplete, but it gives a starting point for finding articles and papers relevant to the discussion.

If you want to look yourself at raw climate source data, or examine climate model code in detail, or do some of your own analysis on the data,  go to RealClimate at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/

Unless you are trained in the right fields you may not have the tools to critically analyze these skeptic’s arguments and data, but you will certainly see that there are serious opposing views and arguments, and that despite the media claims, there is not unanimity at all in the scientific field about the extent or causes of global warming, and that would be a revelation for some.  It certainly was for me.

Do you agree?

Just a thought.  Would you agree with the following statement?

“Healthy debate is the lifeblood of American democracy, and global warming has inspired one of the major policy debates of our time. That debate is far from settled. Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind. That debate should be encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress.”

In particular, is the statement  “Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind” correct or not?  Is there absolute unanimity among scientists about the exact extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind? Indeed, is there any scientific field or any scientific issue in which there is absolute unanimity among scientists? (In case you are uncertain about your answer, see for example Five Things Climate Scientists Actually Disagree About by a climate scientist.)

 

Why am I asking this question?  Because it is on the basis of this statement alone, made in a National Review article you can read in its entirety here, that the New York Times on Dec 7  claimed that the newly-appointed head of the EPA. Scott Pruitt, was a “climate change denier”, a claim that the rest of the press promptly echoed. You can read the original New York Times article here.

Pruitt is certainly against using political pressure to stifle debate and dissent, which is the point of his National Review article. And he certainly thinks the EPA has on occasion exceeded its authority, a point which even the US Supreme Court seems to agree on. He may or may not be a climate change denier, but do you agree with the New York Times that the statement above is adequate evidence that he is? 

And if you don't agree that this is adequate evidence, how much trust do you now put in  the New York Times (and other liberal press) accusations against other Trump cabinet and administration appointments?

Two recommendations on climate change

As a follow up to my recent post on the climate change debate, let me suggest two more articles posted today:

In today's Wall Street Journal Holman Jenkins Jr has the piece Climateers Can't Handle the Truth, in which he examines the New York Times' claim, echoed endlessly by the rest of the liberal press, that Scott Pruitt, Trump's pick for EPA head, is a "climate denialist".  In fact, Jenkins argues, the claim is based entirely on one line from one Op Ed piece that Pruitt wrote this year that said “Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.”  The statement is absolutely true; scientists do indeed disagree about the degree and extent of global warming, just as they debate and disagree about lots of other things in science.  This is a simple statement of fact, not the least bit unusual in science (in fact, lack of debate and disagreement about a scientific study would be far more unusual) , and not a denial of global warming.  It is another warning not to believe everything one reads these days, even from supposedly unbiased mainstream reporting.

My second recommendation is Francis Menton's piece in the Manhattan Contrarian, How To Tell Who's Lying To You: Climate Change Edition. It's always a mistake to listen to only one side of a debate. Menton gives a pretty good introduction to the other side of the debate.

Unfortunately, just when we ought to be having a rational, informed worldwide debate about just how much we expect the climate to change, and what would be the best course to mitigate the effects, the whole issue has become so politicized that no rational discussion is possible. Anyone who doesn't profess absolute belief in the doomsday dogma of the green movement is clearly an ignoramus. This is hardly a healthy way to deal with this subject.

(And, no doubt, The Times would argue that this post proves that I too am a climate change denier, even though I am not!)

Recommended: Now that Trump’s officially won the White House

Amid the ongoing childish liberal hysteria about Hillary Clinton's loss, there are (finally) beginning to be a few adult liberal voices beginning to think about what the Democrats need to do next. One of the best I have seen thus far is Bryan Dean Wright's opinion piece Now that Trump’s officially won the White House here are 10 ways Dems must drain their own swamp.  And, interestingly enough, considering that Wright is a liberal, it was published on the conservative Fox news website.

For those who can't reach the original story (there seems to be a block on some devices), here are his points:

1. Elites Must Go. We will push aggressively for a constitutional amendment for term limits. We also support a lifetime ban on elected officials serving as lobbyists. You don’t drain a swamp just to let it fill back up again.

2. Fair Trade. NAFTA and the World Trade Organization must be renegotiated. For 20 years, we have shipped jobs abroad with the promise of cheap goods and better jobs in return. Economists acknowledge this arrangement has failed.

3. Economic Vitality. We support rebuilding America’s infrastructure to facilitate job growth and protect the health of our people. This is especially true in rural America and inner cities. Meanwhile, we must address the economic tsunami heading our way: Silicon Valley’s automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

4. Education. We staunchly support public education and recognize the tough position of today’s teachers. Still, there is room for reform. Charter schools are part of that solution.

5. Energy. The elites shipped us off to wars and conflicts for oil. No more. It’s time to rebuild our electrical grid and let the free market develop solar, wind and natural gas projects in its place; no Solyndras.

6. National Security. We embrace the goal of making countries democratic, but not by the barrel of a gun. Wars like Iraq and Libya must end. Next, our fight against terrorism should include a tough line against the radical Islamic ideology that pours from Saudi Arabia. Finally, we must build an aggressive capacity to address asymmetrical threats like cyber attacks.

7. Corporate America. Wells Fargo recently admitted to opening up two million fake accounts in our names. This isn’t an anomaly: big corporations often chase profits at the expense of the American worker. We will fight any efforts to roll back common sense rules to keep businesses honest.

8. Environment. The Iroquois tribe had it right – every decision should consider how it would impact seven generations in the future. Our posterity deserves the cleanest water and freshest air we can give them, even if that means we sacrifice today.

9. Social Issues. The government should get out of our bodies, our bedrooms, and our churches. So long as our choices don’t involve taxpayer money, it’s no one’s business but our own. Next, we reject identity politics and their corrosive effects on the nation. Finally, we embrace individual responsibility and accountability.

10. Social Safety Net. We understand that the government can be a force for good if it’s directed properly. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are prime examples of that. We are amenable to reform but not if it undermines America’s basic protections for the most vulnerable.
 
I think his prescription is right on, and if followed would probably bring the Democrats back into contention fairly quickly, both at the state level and nationally.  But of course it probably won't be followed, because its very first step is to dump the liberal elites who have run the party into the ground over the last decade, and they aren't likely to step aside easily.  Too bad, because the nation is much healthier and much safer when there are two strong political parties in contention.

Still, once the shriller voices die down, if they ever do, perhaps the Democrats will get real and rethink their message and their strategy.  One can hope.

What is it about progressives this election?

What is it about progressives and this election? Donald Trump is right; if Clinton had won and Republicans had marched in the streets, threatened members of the Electoral College to try to get them to be faithless, claimed it was fake news or the Russians or the FBI that lost them the election, and gotten childishly emotional on camera, Clinton followers would be claiming it really did prove they were a “basket of deplorables”.

Hillary, of course, is performing true to form. She simply can’t admit that her election loss had anything to do with her; it had to be (take your pick) the FBI, or the Russian hackers, or fake news, or unfair media coverage..or..or.  It couldn’t possibly be anything to do with her own carelessness with secret documents, or her uninspiring message (whatever it was), or the pay-for-play payments from foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation, or her cozy and high-paying relationship with Wall Street, or her failure to pay attention to her Blue State supporters in key swing states. It had, surely, to be someone else’s fault.

But what is it about the rest of the progressive media and Democratic elites that they can’t just accept that they lost because of a weak campaign and a tainted candidate, and turn to the business of correcting their mistakes and preparing for the next election?  I’m an independent, socially liberal and supportive of many progressive causes and positions, and the Democrats could have my vote if they would act like grownups.  But they certainly won’t get my vote if they continue to act like petulant spoiled children who didn’t get their way.

The Climate Change Debate

Climate change has become one of those issues so thoroughly bound up in ideology that there is little reasonable public discussion about it from either side.  There are in fact three separate issues involved:

1.      Is the worldwide climate changing?

2.      If so, to what extent is the change man-made?

3.      If it is man-made, what is the most reasonable response?

1.  Is the worldwide climate changing?

The short answer is almost certainly yes.  Worldwide 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000, and this year (2016) looks on track to be the hottest year yet. Worldwide the global temperature has increased about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit since adequate records began to be kept around 1880.  But the change is not uniform over the globe – some places have even gotten colder, and local temperature variations can be higher or lower. However the changes are becoming quite visible in the changes in growing seasons, the changes in vegetation, the thawing of permafrost, and the shrinking of polar ice packs and mountain glaciers.  Climate change deniers like to cherry pick the data to argue their case, like noting that the hottest year in the US was 1934 (but that was the US, not global).  But the evidence is pretty conclusive that the globe is warming.

2. To what extent is the change man-made?

The short answer is that almost certainly some of the change is the result of human activity. We know enough about the chemistry and physics of greenhouse gases to know how they operate to trap heat, and we have good enough instruments to be able to measure pretty accurately the concentration of these gases in the atmosphere. There is no question that greenhouse gas concentrations have increased substantially since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and by techniques like analyzing air trapped in pocket of ancient glaciers we can map the increase over time pretty accurately. Before the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide (one of the greenhouse gasses) was about 280 ppm (parts per million) – now it is past 400 ppm. Unless all we know of chemistry and physics is completely wrong, (pretty unlikely) this is having a significant warming effect on global temperatures.

There is a legitimate debate about exactly how much of the warming effect is man-made and how much might come from other sources, but climate change deniers have proposed no other likely source that would account for any significant part of the observed rise. The best they can offer is the observation that random variations do occur, which is true but not very convincing.

3. What is the most reasonable response?

This is the question that ought to be getting the most public and policy debate. It is not as simple as simply replacing all fossil fuels with renewable energy. For one thing, carbon dioxide isn’t the only greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide accounts for around 80% of the greenhouse gasses emitted by industrialized nations, but methane, while only around 10% of emitted greenhouse gases, is about 20 times more potent in trapping heat, and it comes from things like cows, rice paddies, and rotting vegetation and sewerage, and methane being released from frozen deposits on the ocean floors, not things so easily controlled.

Then there are the economic issues: about 70% of US power and electricity comes from fossil fuels, far more than can be replaced any time soon by renewable energy sources. Any significant cut in that energy source will have profound impacts on the economy, on transportation, on food production, and on industrial output. The result might well be more disastrous than climate change.  I think most people are unaware of how dependent just about everything in their daily lives is on energy. Without adequate energy we wouldn’t grow enough food to feed everyone, nor could we transport what we did grow to where it was needed, nor keep it from spoiling, nor cook it. We couldn’t run most of our offices and factories and stores.  We couldn’t heat and cool our homes, nor make many of the products we use every day.

There are things that can be done, of course. We could shift to more nuclear energy, which can be made pretty safe if we adopt some of the newer approaches (for example, subcritical accelerator-driven reactors; turn off the flow of neutrons from the linear accelerator and the nuclear reaction stops instantly). We could try to capture more of the carbon dioxide from combustion processes. We could reduce the amount of beef and milk we produce (there are an estimated 1.3-1.5 BILLION cows in the world, producing about 25% of the methane emitted into the atmosphere). We could undertake a massive reforestation project around the world, since trees absorb vast amounts of carbon dioxide.

What I am suggesting is that simply reducing carbon dioxide output may not be the only solution, nor even the best solution.  The issue is far more complex, and deserves a far wider, and more rational, debate than it is getting now. Climate deniers won’t even acknowledge the problem. Green advocates are too focused on a single “silver bullet” solution – reducing carbon dioxide emissions - and seem oblivious to the economic consequences.  The problem is more complex than that, and the solution will be too.

Recommended: Flashpoints – The Emerging Crisis in Europe

The current problems in the European Union have their roots far, far back in European history. George Friedman, author of other good books on geopolitics (see, for example, the 2009 book The Next 100 years in my booklist) has written a book the first third of which sets the context of today’s Europe by examining its past since Henry the Navigator set Portugal first on the path to empire. Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe argues that the EU papered over, but didn’t eliminate, the longstanding tensions in Europe, especially in the borderlands that separate, for example, Russia from Western Europe, or France from Germany.

With the current crisis in the EU, and with the rise of Germany once again as the pre-eminent power in Europe, these old tensions are coming to the surface again. Russia, much weaker now than when the Soviet Union existed, is doing what it thinks it must to rebuild its influence in the buffer states to protect itself from the future possibility of yet another French or German invasion. Britain is doing what it has always done – keep itself separate from the continent while trying to influence the balance of power there.

This is a good book, and an important contribution to trying to understand the dynamics of Europe these days.

Trump’s nominations and Russia

It seems to me a pattern is emerging in Trump’s cabinet and senior staff picks – he is picking people who are experienced in dealing with Russia. The Obama/Clinton years have been filled with constant media and diplomatic attacks on Russia, casting them back into our old Cold War advisories. Obama/Clinton tried a “Russia Reset”, but it was doomed from the beginning.  Perhaps we might have guessed that from the “Reset” button Clinton presented to Russian Foreign Minister Lavror in 2009. It was supposed to say “Reset” (perezagruzka) in Russian but the State Department got it wrong and put the word peregruzka (overcharge) on it. It seems to me the State Department under Clinton continued to get it wrong with Russia from then on.

It is true that Russia is not governed the way we would like America to be governed.  It is not a democracy, but rather a rather more refined Mafia-like kleptocracy, in which President Putin and his friends are getting quite rich. On the other hand, that seems to be the sort of government that the Russian public chooses, perhaps because they care more about stability under a strong leader  than about individual freedom. And given their history, who could blame them?

It is also true that the Russians are a proud people, with a rich history, and the collapse of the Soviet Union was a humiliating experience for them, which we didn’t make any easier by our actions and inaction. Instead of stepping in and magnanimously offering a helping hand (as we did to Germany with the Marshall Plan after we defeated them in World War II), we largely ignored them when we weren’t gloating in the media about having won the Cold War. So I can understand why the Russian people respond to President Putin’s constant attempts to make them proud again, to give them some dignity.

As a practical matter, Russia is no threat to us. They are a regional power, not a global power, and cannot project significant force beyond their immediate neighborhood.  Yes, they have nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles, but the ruling regime knows that using them would bring immediate destruction to the regime, so they are a matter of national pride and national status, not effective military threats. Their economy is too weak to sustain a major war. They can stir up trouble in their near neighborhood, but not much else.

And the Russian regime is paranoid for quite understandable reasons, after invasions in recent times by neighbors France (Napoleon) and Germany (Hitler). I think we Americans don’t appreciate how the ever-closer encroachment of NATO to their borders makes them nervous. We may know that NATO is just a defensive force, but with the Russian’s recent history, I can see why they don’t see it as such a benign force, and why they would like to have buffer states between themselves and the West.

One way to turn an enemy into a friend is to stop treating them as an enemy and start treating them as a friend. I suspect that may be what is in Trump’s mind. Give the Russian people the dignity and respect they deserve as a nation with a rich history and tradition, and legitimate security and economic concerns of their own.  Stop trying to replay the Cold War with them, and stop bitching that they aren’t a democracy. Certainly there are issues we disagree on – just as we disagree on various issues with other nations – but there are lots of issues in which we have common interests and should be working together.

Trump’s efforts here may not succeed, but it seems to me worth giving it a try. Certainly the path we have been on with Russia up to now under Obama hasn’t worked.   Of course the old Cold War hawks in America’s political class – liberal and conservative alike – will be up in arms about this, and the liberal media will continue to “view with alarm” Trump’s moves (but then they seem to kvetech endlessly about anything he does, so what else is new?).

I’m encouraged that we seem to have a president-elect who appears willing to step out of the old Cold War mindset that has dominated the professional Washington foreign policy community, and that hasn’t been working, and try something different with Russia.

Too many generals?

 The latest round of kvetching by liberal media figures who still can’t get over Hillary’s losing is about the number of generals Trump has been selecting for his top positions. The worry, apparently, is that so many military leaders in the administration will tend to make the administration more prone to military action.  In my experience, however, it is the non-military politicians who seem most prone to military adventures; the experienced military leaders understand all too well the uncertainties and the immense cost and the logistical nightmares of war. Generals like Colin Powell were the reluctant warriors, and civilians like Donald Rumsfeld were the ones who thought a small, highly mobile force was all that was needed to conquer Iraq.

If anything, I am encouraged that the administration will have some experienced military people in it to keep the naïve politicians from getting us into any more unwinnable military adventures.

Recommended: Trump, Taiwan and an Uproar

There is a wonderful 1993 movie called Rising Sun, starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes, involving the investigation of a murder in a newly-opened Japanese corporate office building in New York. In it there is an early scene in which the young detective (Wesley Snipes), guided by the old Japan hand (Sean Connery) suddenly realizes that he is completely out of his depth, and that in the Japanese corporate culture around him there are layers and layers of complexity well beyond his simple American concepts.  I think the mainstream American press and the blogosphere and the TV talking heads are about at about that point right now. Ideologically blinded, they still think of Trump as dumb and naïve despite the now overwhelming evidence that he is in fact a pretty bright guy, a lot brighter apparently than the political establishment and media that were so sure he would never win the primaries, and certainly never win the presidency. And in fact, anyone who really thought clearly about it might suspect that anyone who could become a billionaire with a private 757 jet in the rough, dog-eat-dog high-risk New York commercial real estate market is probably a pretty clever cookie!

Trump’s call with the President of Taiwan set off a predictable cascade of editorials and stories about how this was yet another naïve move by a foreign policy amateur. Now of course it has been coming out that this was instead a carefully planned strategic move, orchestrated in part by ex-Senator Bob Dole over several weeks.  To understand the background and probable significance of this move, read George Friedman’s article Trump, Taiwan and an Uproar.  Friedman, CEO of STRATFOR, the world’s largest private intelligence agency, is a very astute geopolitical student. (I highly recommend reading STRATFOR’s free weekly geopolitical summary articles, and Friedman's books).

Since the mainstream press (and the administration) has been wrong-footed for some years now with ISIS and the Middle East, China, Putin’s Russia, Brexit, and now the primaries and the election, one wonders how much more it will take before they realize they need to re-calibrate their thinking. Or maybe they are so in thrall with their ideology, or so smug in their supposed superiority that they are simply incapable of learning and changing!

Ideological blindness

One of the most remarkable things about this presidential election is the amazing degree to which ideology has blinded the Democrats. They lost the election for a number of fairly obvious reasons – a weak, scandal-ridden candidate, the historical tendency of American voters to vote to change parties after a two-term president, and their failure to pay attention to the economic plight of their largest and most important base, the working class. A pragmatist would simply say “Oops, I goofed” and get on with repairing the errors and getting ready for the next election. But not the ideologues in the Democratic party.

Hillary’s team has joined Jill Stein’s expensive but meaningless effort to get votes recounted in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, even though (a) there is no evidence of any significant voter irregularities in any of these states, (b) no past recount has ever found enough change to overcome the Trump lead in any of these three states, and (c) a recount would have to change the result in all three of these states for Trump to lose the Electoral College vote. Stein’s motive may have been as a scam to raise money from gullible liberals for one of her future campaigns, but what is Hillary’s motive?

The mainstream liberal press is rushing around trying to find – or create - dirt on anyone Trump looks likely to pick as a cabinet member. Did she 20 years ago make a sarcastic remark that can be stretched to imply racism? Did he once own some stock in a coal company that was fined by the EPA?  Did a neo-Nazi nut once say in public that he liked her? Does he have a third cousin twice removed who was once arrested on a DWI?  The liberal press is so desperate to keep up the hysteria that they are ignoring the question of whether these people are competent (most are) in favor of trying to paint them as evil as possible. Of course all of this is satisfying to the liberal base, because it feeds what they want to believe, but it keeps them blinded to the hard truths they need to face if they are to regain power.

And of course the liberals keep harping on the fact that Hillary won the popular vote. She did, but only because she won so many votes in New York City and Los Angeles. Remove those two cities, and she lost the popular vote across the rest of the nation by almost 2 million votes. But more to the point, for very good reasons we elect presidents vie Electoral College votes, not popular vote. That’s the system. If it makes liberals feel better that she won the popular vote, so be it, but in fact it is irrelevant and distracts liberals from the hard self-examination they need to recover their fortunes.

Then there is this insane movement to try to get the Electoral College delegates to vote against their pledges. If you think this election was a popular revolt, imagine what sort of revolt would occur if 60+ million Americans, many of them armed and all of them furious, suddenly found that their vote didn’t count because someone tampered with the system. We would likely have civil war in the streets, and I wouldn’t blame them.

And finally there is the re-election of the Democratic Party leadership, which looks like it will put back in place the very same people whose flawed far-left ideology and stale message has resulted in the decimation of the Democratic Party locally and nationally over the past decade.

There are many progressive causes that make sense and are worth supporting, but they will not be represented effectively by people as ideologically blinded as the current crop of liberal politicians and journalists.  

Can Democrats learn?

I see that Democrats are still trying to blame everyone but themselves for Trump’s election. And they are still apparently unable to connect Clinton’s loss this fall with the party’s disastrous performance nationally over the Obama administration’s years. Over Obama’s almost 8 years, Democrats have lost 63 House seats, 10 Senate seats, and 12 state governorships, losing control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.

Anyone not blinded by ideology would see that whatever message Democrats have been trying to sell over the past decade just isn’t selling – nationally or locally. So far the noisiest of the talking heads in the press and among the Democratic elite are still sticking to their identity politics approach, even though the post-election statistics are showing that it didn’t work.

A few of the Midwest Democratic operatives have been pointing out that they warned the Clinton campaign team way back in early summer that they needed to pay more attention to the economic plight of the traditionally Democratic working class, but the East Coast Democratic elites in their arrogance thought they knew better, and  ignored these warnings. The success of the Sander’s campaign might have alerted them if they had been paying attention, but it didn’t. Even Bill Clinton himself couldn’t get his warning through Hillary’s inner circle.

But the Democrat’s problems run far deeper than Hillary’s flawed candidacy, or than the Clinton machine’s ability to hijack the Democrat’s nomination process so thoroughly. It is rooted in the fundamental fact that they have lost contact with much of their traditional base – they have gotten so focused on the social concerns of the urban privileged classes that they have forgotten about the middle class workers they used to represent.  As someone pointed out in a post today, the fact that a billionaire with gold-plated toilets would appeal to them more than the Democratic candidate is an indictment of how far out of touch they have gotten.  .

So it will be interesting to see if the Democrats can learn from this election loss.  The message is clear, and unchanged from when Bill Clinton first enunciated it in 1992: “It’s the economy, stupid!”. 

Of course the Republicans, having won, will learn nothing. And they too have lost their way in recent decades. So their chickens will come home to roost in a while too.

Recommended: The Crisis for Liberalism

Ross Douthat has a fascinating article in today's New York Times, The Crisis for Liberalism. This is about more than the issue of whether the Democrats should go further left or back toward the center to win more elections. He is discussing a more fundamental issue, the issue of identity politics in America. This isn't the easiest article to read - I had to reread it several times before I grasped the full import of what he was trying to say.  But I think it is important.

Recommended: The Media's Hysteria Over Trump Is a Real Problem

Kyle Smith at the New York Post has a good article today, The Media's Hysteria Over Trump Is a Real Problem. Like Smith, I am dismayed and disgusted at the continual heavily biased and at times completely untrue attacks from the media against our new president-elect. No, I didn't vote for him, but 60+ million Americans did, and he won the Electoral College votes needed  to win the presidency. In this country we hold democratic elections, and then accept the results. But apparently not the mainstream media, not this time.

Let's be absolutely clear about this, there are lots of things not to like about Trump, but

a) There is absolutely no evidence in either his actions or his speeches that he is a white supremacist, despite the repeated attacks by the press.  If you don't believe this go read the full transcripts of his speeches, not the cleverly edited excerpts from the press or the blogosphere, but what he actually said, all of it. Did you know, for example, that when he considered running for president in 1999 he wanted Oprah Winfrey as his running mate? Does that sound like a white supremacist?

b) There is absolutely no evidence in either his actions or his speeches that he is anti-Semitic, despite the attacks by some liberal journalists. Again, if you don't believe this, do some serious research, something more than reading Op Ed opinions by anti-Trump journalists. Or just consider that Israel thinks he is one of their strongest supporters, or that his daughter Ivanka is Jewish.  

c) There is absolutely no evidence in either his actions or his speeches that he discriminates against the LGBTQ community, despite the hysterical claims made by some journalists. Again, if you don't believe this, do some serious research. For example, on the NBC "Today" show in April he said that transgender people should be allowed to use whatever bathroom they feel most comfortable with — including at Trump Tower in New York.

d) There is absolutely no evidence in either his actions or his speeches that he is anti-Muslim, despite the hysterical attacks by the media. He certainly is against Islamic jihad terrorists (who isn't?), and he certainly wants tighter vetting for people coming from countries where such terrorists are highly active (not unreasonable), but that does not mean he is biased against all Muslims.

e)  There is absolutely no evidence in either his actions or his speeches that he is anti-immigrant.  He certainly is against illegal immigrants, and in that respect he is exactly like Obama (who has already deported about 2.5 million of them), Bush and Clinton.

Again, there are lots of things to dislike about Trump, but let's get off these malicious attacks, motivated more by sore losing among liberals than by any real facts.  

I am appalled!

I am appalled at the liberal response to this election. It is bad enough that the news media is doing everything they can to de-legitimize the new administration even before it has taken office.

On Friday night vice-president elect Mike Pence attended a performance of Hamilton on Broadway. At the end of the performance one of the actors singled him out and read a prepared statement - a political statement - from the stage to him. It was at least a fairly respectful statement, but it was unbelievably rude to do that to anyone, whether you agree with them or not.

If that actor had gone to a restaurant and at the end of the meal the chef had come out and singled him out among the customers and read a prepared political statement to him in front of everyone in the restaurant he would have been outraged - and correctly so. Why does anyone think it is OK for an actor to do this from the stage in a public performance?

Have common decency and manners completely disappeared in our society?

Highly recommended: You Are Still Crying Wolf

In the face of the continuing hyperventilating among mainstream journalists about Donald Trump's election, I highly recommend Scott Alexander's article today You Are Still Crying Wolf . Scott Adams is also recommending it, I see.

Alexander puts some hard facts and real quotes against some of the more outlandish claims about Trump circulating these days in the press and blogosphere.  He isn't particularly a Trump supporter, and is well aware of Trump's failings, but he simply thinks there are too many completely false claims running around.  His worry is that if a real Hitler came along, the liberal press has cried "Wolf" so many times before (with Reagan, with McCain, with Romney, with Bush, now with Trump) that no one would listen.

I haven't trusted the press in years, and never trusted the blogosphere, but the blatant bias in this election against an anti-establishment candidate has made me largely tune the press out, and apparently many others have had the same reaction.

Seven things to learn from this election

1.      It’s still the economy, stupid. It was true when Bill Clinton first said it. It’s still true. Liberals may think immigration policy or women’s rights are more important to the voters. Conservatives may think Christian values or gun rights are more important to the voters. Both are wrong. In the end, if people can’t find jobs or can’t find a way to pay their bills, THAT is what is most important to them. Trump understood that, Hillary didn’t, even though Bill Clinton tried his best to tell her that. The Obama administration tried its best to convince people the economy was good - and it is great for the top 10%, the CEOs and top executives of corporations, Wall Street investors, and all the lobbyists and experts who feed off of Washington,  but it has been disastrous for many others.

 2.      Don’t trust the mainstream press for accurate information. The press and the network talking heads and the Op Ed writers have gotten this election wrong right from the beginning. They saw what they wanted to see, not what was actually happening.  Trump didn’t fade from the primaries, despite their confident predictions. Trump won the Republican primary, despite their confident predictions otherwise. Trump won the general election, despite their confident predations that he would lose. The stock market didn’t crash the next day, despite their confident predictions – in fact it hit new highs. (They predicted Brexit wrong too) The mainstream press is establishment, and portrays the establishment views, largely liberal. It doesn’t portray reality. It is not unbiased. The coverage was not in the least balanced in this election – Trump’s outrageous comments made better headlines, so they often ignored bad news about Hillary’s scandal of the day. (And Trump wisely used that very flaw to con the press out of billions in free political advertising).

Remember two things about the mainstream press. First, it exists primarily to sell advertising, which means sensational news that will draw readers is more important than accurate news. Second, all mainstream press has a reader base, so the news it distributes will be slanted to what the reader base wants to believe. Liberal press will be slanted to liberal readers, conservative press to conservative readers.  It is hard, but not impossible, to find fairly balanced sources (The Economist is pretty good, for example.)

3.      Don’t trust the web for accurate information. Facebook and Twitter and the various websites like The Huffington Post (liberal) or the Drudge Report (conservative) were full of misinformation, fake stories, doctored facts and videos, etc. etc.  Mainstream reporters, biased as they may be, have to have at least some basis for a story, even if they have to work hard to spin it the way they want it. Website stories and Twitter and Facebook posts can be (and often are) complete fabrications.

4.      Identity politics doesn’t work reliably.  Hillary just proved that.  Political strategists may see all women as a voting block, all African-Americans as a voting block, all Evangelicals as a voting block, all Hispanics as a voting block, all gun owners as a voting block, etc, but many, perhaps most of them, don’t see themselves that way. They self-identify in many other ways.

5.      Extremes don’t win elections – the majority in this country is moderate. Obama went too far left for the country, and Hillary, pushed by Sanders, did too in this last election. Republicans, driven by evangelicals and social conservatives, have gone too far right.  If Cruz had won the Republican nomination I think he would have done poorly because of that.

6.      In this election a third party finally won. Yes, Trump ran as a Republican, but he is no more a Republican than he is a Democrat (and in fact he has registered as both at various times in the past).  Trump’s positions in the campaign were neither traditional Republican nor traditional Democratic positions.  And he probably won because a lot of people are unhappy with the policies and the actions (or inactions) of both parties.

7.      Emotions matter more than facts in a campaign. Trump won because he engaged the emotions of a large segment of the population who felt left behind. In fact it is not clear he (or anyone else, for that matter) knows how to solve their problem, but he at least paid attention to them and acknowledged their pain. When Obama won his first term, it was because he stirred hope in many people, even though there was no evidence that he could deliver on that hope, or that he had any background that equipped him to deliver on that hope (and in the end, he didn’t deliver, of course).