Vice–President Harris Should Invoke the 25th Amendment to Relieve Biden of his Presidential Duties

Biden had a terrible debate.  Everyone knows that except for him.  Polls suggest collapsing support for Biden among voters in the critical swing states but also in places such as New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Virginia.  There is panic and pressure among donors for him to halt his presidential race, release his delegates, and let someone else run.  So far Biden has resisted these calls.

            But assume this happens. Assume Biden is unfit to continue his presidential candidacy.  Forcing him off the presidential ticket implicates another question–is he fit to continue as president and should Vice-President Harris and the cabinet invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and relieve him of his presidential duties?

            So far the focus of Biden’s debate performance has been on whether he should continue his presidential campaign.  Stories are increasing noting how is aides have witnessed  Biden’s decline in the last few months.  There are serious questions about his capacity to run, win, and serve a second term.  But if the conclusion is that he is mentally unfit to serve a second term, that forces the question whether he should even continue serving as president.

            Biden has to make the choice to discontinue his presidential run. One need not wait for Biden to make a choice to relieve him of his presidential duties.  According to Section Four of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment:

 

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

 

The people closest to Biden in his administration know best the president’s mental acuity.  They know whether he is fit to serve.  The Twenty-Fifth Amendment was put into place exactly to address the problem we see now where a sitting president may be so mentally incapacitated that he does not know he is incapacitated.

            Were this scenario to occur,  Harris would assume the duties of the presidency. Foremost, this decision would protect the US from a president who may not longer be fit to serve.  Second, the choice to do this may serve as a backdoor way of removing Biden as a presidential candidate. It would place enormous pressure on Biden to end his presidential debate and on the national delegates to reconsider another candidate.

            Of course, some may think this would be a conflict of interest for Harris to do this—given that she would become acting president and presumptively the Democrats' presidential candidate. In response, the check on Harris is the rest of  Biden’s cabinet.  Second, there is no guarantee that  at the Democratic National Convention Harris would be named the  nominee.

            Overall, the debate on Biden’s fitness as a candidate also raises questions about his fitness to continue to serve as president.  His decision to end his campaign would force  this latter question.  But independent of that choice, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment addresses a potentially more immediate problem that might also  indirectly  address the former.

Machiavelli and the Art of US Presidential Politics

 

The first rule of politics is to get and hold power. At least this is the argument of Niccolo Machiavelli in his classic book, The Prince.  If one wants to impact public policy, winning an election is not just an important thing. It is the only thing. Democrats need to remember that this year as they think about the presidential election and the prospects of running with Joe Biden.

Machiavelli's Prince  is often mischaracterized is making the argument that the ends justify the means.  By that, that any means necessary, whether it's legitimate or not, is permitted so long, it leads to one holding and maintaining power. The reality is even for Machiavelli, there are limits to power. At the end of the day, even he recognized both in the Prince and in his Discourses that the people are important. Winning them over and holding their support is critical to holding on to power.

 But in thinking about how one secures power Machiavelli distinguishes between virtu and fortuna.  Virtu is the characteristics and efficacy that the price possesses. In the case of modern America, a candidate for office brings charisma, their speaking ability, and  their stance on issues. It is their strategy and their ability to persuade or to influence.  Virtu is what is under one’s own control.

  In many ways, Richard Neustadt’s  classic book Presidential Power talks in part about the concept although he never calls it virtu.  Real power is the power to persuade and convince others to vote for you or adopt your policies.  Part of the power to persuade  are those traits that are within the scope and control of the candidate.

Conversely, Machiavelli also refers to fortuna, roughly translated as fate or luck, or perhaps contingency. These are factors beyond the control of the prince. Together, Machiavelli sees an interplay of virtu and fortuna.  The political he opportunities that one has are in part circumscribed or defined by fortuna. Similarly, in assessing the scope of presidential power, as the power to persuade Richard Neustadt sees both factors under a president's control as well as beyond as determining the actual power and influence.

When thinking about Joe Biden,  Machiavelli's concept of virtue and fortuna play out well. It 2020 Joe Biden got elected in part because of who he was a calming elderly candidate, whom people could trust. He significantly got elected because of the circumstances beyond his control. Donald Trump was his own worst enemy. He was a victim of fortuna but also his virtu was his own failing. Trump’s  mishandling of the pandemic just about sealed the election for Joe Biden.

Going into 2024 Joe Biden is behind Donald Trump in the popular vote, but more importantly trails Trump in the critical five or six swing states that will decide the election. Democrats had been hoping that fortuna would work in their favor again. The hope was that the economy would work to Biden's advantage and help him or that abortion politics, much like it worked in 2020 and in the midterm elections of 2022.  There was also hope that Trump's convictions or legal problems would help Biden and perhaps a belief that the Supreme Court decision in the disqualification  case would work to the advantage of Democrats. All of these are variables beyond Biden's control. They are fortuna.

The more one relies upon fortuna the less certain ones fate is.  This is exactly where Biden was prior to the presidential debate. There was a hope that his debate performance would change the direction of the presidential race. But it failed. Now in the days after that failed debate, Democrats and Biden appear to still be reliant upon fortuna hoping that somehow Trump will implode. Or that the voters will come back to their senses because of the fear of a Trump second presidency.

To believe all that is to leave too much to fate or to fortuna. Thinking that doing nothing, staying the course, not replacing Biden with somebody else will somehow lead to some scenario that will lead to his reelection is quite fanciful. In goes against what Machiavelli taught us about the first rule of politics.

What's in a word? Candidate language in the first Trump Biden debate

 

So much focus of the analysis of the Trump Biden debate was on how the candidates appeared or how they performed and very little analysis has been given to what they said or the words they chose to use. While fact checkers noted that the content of what the two candidates said varied in terms of how truthful they were, what also becomes interesting is to look at the words two candidates chose to use and what it says about their two campaigns.

            Eight years ago, I did an analysis of the acceptance speeches by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at the respective Democratic and  Republican National Conventions.

            What I found was that Hillary Clinton spoke at an approximate thirteenth or college-level vocabulary. A high percentage of her words were polysyllabic . A high percentage of her words were conceptual as opposed to effective or feeling.

            For Trump, he spoke at a seventh grade level, with few polysyllabic words and with terms that were more effective or emotive.

            One could not have found a greater contrast between the two candidates in terms of the words they chose to use.

            The first Biden Trump presidential debate produced a transcript of the words they chose to use. I analyzed their comments, producing word clouds for each.   For Donald Trump his top four words were country, border, history, and money. For Biden, his top four were idea, number, president and fact. Clearly the two chose to emphasize different words in their speech, reflecting different themes. In fact, of the ten most frequent words each of them used only the words country, history, and president repeated for both of them.

            When it came to Donald Trump in his debate, he spoke 8170 words. His average sentence was 11.2 words.  Of those words 11% or 902 or polysyllabic. Additionally, 65% or 5345 were monosyllabic. According to the Dale-Chali readability index, Trump spoke at a 7.8 grade level.

            For Joe Biden. He spoke a total of 6896 words. His average sentence was 14 words long. Of the words he spoke 64.7%  were monosyllabic, with  10.9% or 755 or polysyllabic. He spoke at an eighth grade level.

            In many ways, Trump and Biden chose different words, but spoke roughly at the same level of readability or intelligibility. This is in sharp contrast to Clinton versus Trump eight years earlier.

            What might we make of this convergence in terms of readability?  Both candidates aimed their comments at a small cluster of 150,000 to 200,000 voters who may not be paying a lot of attention to the election. They are pitched at a level roughly where many newspapers and new shows are. They spoke at a level aimed to maximize viewer cognition or ability to understand their terms and concepts.  Of course, they way they delivered their words and the meaning those words conveyed  also are important.  But together they all speak to why words matter.

Biden's Abysmal Debate: Denial ain't just a river in Egypt

                    

As much as partisan Democrats seek to put lipstick on a pig, Biden's first and probably last
presidential debate was a disaster, if not fatal. Not only did it fail to do what it was supposed to do but it also confirmed public perceptions about Biden and trendlines in the presidential race that had largely been frozen for nearly six months.

            Even before this debate there were growing concerns about Joe Biden's age and cognitive capacities.  Four years ago the public was concerned about Biden's age and that has only grown since he was president.  Biden has held the fewest number of press conferences since Ronald Reagan was president, and his public appearances have mostly been canned and scripted. For many, he looks like their aging grandfather who has good and bad days, with many wondering that while we see Biden on his good days, what is he like on those days which are not so good?

            Polls indicate a majority of Americans are concerned about his age and think he shouldn't run for reelection.

            Even beyond the age factor, political science models all suggest that Biden was going to lose the 2024 election. While the models are not perfect, they look to presidential approval rating and perceptions about the economy as key to predicting reelection.

            Biden has approval numbers worse than Trump did in 2020. In fact, no incumbent president has ever won reelection with the numbers that Biden has.  In many cases, the economy looks good yet the public remains very fraught and fearful about inflation and the future of the economy.

            Even if we did not look at a traditional political science prediction model, polls indicate that for at least the last six months, Joe Biden and Donald Trump have been frozen in terms of what the numbers say in the five or six swing states that are going to decide the election. Last October I looked at Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Five swing states that will decide the 2024 election. Joe Biden was behind in enough of those swing states that were the election held back then he would lose to Donald Trump in the Electoral College. A couple of months later, the New York Times did a similar analysis, but added Nevada to the list. It too found that Joe Biden would lose to Donald Trump and the Electoral College.

            Leading up to this debate, the polls indicated in those critical swing states that Biden and Trump are close, but Trump enjoyed a consistent if not narrow lead. Generally this election as I've argued will come down to about 150,000 to 200,000 swing voters in five or six swing states. We are looking at an incredibly small number of people who effectively will decide the election.  Biden needed to move these voters.  They are probably low-information voters not paying a lot of daily attention to politics, but might nonetheless be affected by mass, pop culture or otherwise impressions of the candidates.

            Biden and his staff too were looking at the polls in the swing states.  They needed to do something to shake up the dynamics of the race.

            Thus an early debate.  Thus far, neither abortion politics as it did in 2022, nor fears of Donald Trump being reelected seem to be enough to change the trajectory of the Biden campaign. He and his staff placed a lot on the value of this first debate.

            The debate did little to move the trendline. There is no indication thus far that it altered people's perceptions of Trump versus Biden in a significant way or at least in a way to Biden's advantage. But what it did do was to confirm what many people believed about Biden and that he lacked the wherewithal to serve out a second term as President of the United States.

            After the debate party loyalists did their best to address Biden's bad performance.

            They said that it was just one bad day and he will be able to recover from it. In doing that, they drew parallels back to 2012 where Barack Obama had a bad debate against Mitt Romney but managed to recover. But that analogy is not appropriate. No one questioned Obama's cognitive capacities in 2012. There was not a belief that he was too old or too feeble to be president. He had a bad debate.

            Biden's bad performance confirmed what most people are believing. The debate might have been a bad day, even if Biden had a good day afterwards it does not alter the  impression that he is an eighty-one-year old in cognitive decline.

            It is nearly impossible to shake those types of public impressions for those few undecided voters who are out there if they were paying attention. There's an old adage you don't have a second chance to make a first impression. This first impression for them might well have been decisive.

            Party loyalists are also trying to argue that they would rather have a president with a sore throat and who stammers a little ahead of a president who lies. It may be true that the debate was between a person who lied about the facts and one who forgot the facts. But it still doesn't change the fact that there is no indication that this debate changed perceptions about Biden or changed the trajectory of the race. Does this mean that people, especially those 150,000 to 200,000, are more likely to vote for Trump? Perhaps not. It certainly doesn't mean they're more likely to vote for Biden. They could very well stay home on election day. They could vote for an alternative third party candidate. But certainly Biden did nothing to win them over.

            The reaction to the debate shifts to the question of decision making. All indications are for the last several months there were concerns among some in the Biden campaign regarding his mental capacities. But nonetheless the Biden campaign and partisans are rallying around him.  Party loyalty and loyalty to Biden seems stronger than the resolve for the Democrats to win the election. They fear an open convention more than they appear to fear losing. They fear being politically ostracized within the party. Much like Congressman Dean Phillips was when he said Biden shouldn't run.

            Somehow, Democrats are thinking he can still win this one.

            Perhaps they hope abortion fear of Donald Trump or some other black swan will intervene and change the trajectory of the election, perhaps even a second debate.  While I think a second debate is unlikely because Donald Trump has no incentive to do it. The risks of a repeat of this are too great for even Biden to consider. Yet he probably will do it or insist on it.

            There is something wrong with this level of insularity in decision making. If a candidate who was so unpopular and now so demonstrates lack of cognitive capacity even only occasionally still is nominated, there is something wrong in how political decisions are being made.  Yet despite all this, unless a black swan emerges, the theme of the Biden campaign might as well be “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.

Why the large omnibus bill passed in Minnesota violates the single-subject rule

 

This blog originally appeared in Minnpost.

The 1,400-page plus omnibus bill that the Minnesota Legislature passed in the closing days of the session is likely unconstitutional. The reason is that it violated the single subject rule of the Minnesota Constitution.

Article four, section 17 of the Constitution declares “that no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.” This clause refers to the single subject rule, which is similar across other state constitutions in the United States. The single subject clauses were adopted in the 19th century; the purpose of them was to address what some people call legislative mischief. Specifically, they were meant to address situations where legislation was jammed together in one bill, forcing individuals to vote for provisions in the bill that they might not otherwise support because they wanted other provisions.

The single subject rule is in many ways an anti-logrolling measure. But it is more than that. It is as the Minnesota Supreme Court said in the leading case on this clause, Associated Builders v. Ventura, that the purpose of the clause is to address mischief and abuses of legislative power and to make it possible for the public to know what the Legislature is doing by forcing legislation to conform to its title and not use trickery to hide or embed legislation under some generic or vague title. It is all about transparency and openness in government and to prevent corruption.

If we look at what was contained in this big omnibus tax bill, it perfectly fits the description of what the single subject rule was meant to prevent. It calls for the creation of new State Patrol headquarters; for health plans to cover abortion; and to regulate straw purchases and binary triggers with guns. It addresses traffic light cameras, motorcycles, and a host of other revenue and policy provisions. These are hardly topics that address a single subject.

The Democrats in the House, by their own admission, put all these provisions together out of frustration that the Republicans were slowing down the process. The Democrats wanted to short circuit Republican debate. They jammed all these provisions together in an effort to get it passed and to do so quickly as the clock was running out in the session.

The DFL justifies this action to overcome or counter Republican dilatory tactics. For some, the argument would be that were the Republicans in the same position they would have done the same thing. Perhaps they would have, but that does not make what the Democrats did correct or constitutional.

It may be about power politics. It may be all about winner-take-all politics. But it’s certainly not good legislating. It also sets up for the Republicans to do exactly the same thing if and when they eventually take control again. It sets bad precedent and does nothing to dampen the inflamed polarization of politics in Minnesota. All of these reasons are the reasons why single subject rules were adapted.

Newsflash: Inequality in Neoliberal America

Ths blog originally appeared in Counterpunch. Counterpunch. 

If anyone is perplexed or surprised  why Americans are so upset about the economy, they should look no further than the Income Distribution and Dynamics in America (IDDA) recent report by the Federal Reserve Board of  Minneapolis and its data site that looks at the stagnation of American income and economic mobility in America.  It unfortunately confirms what we already know—the neoliberal state benefits unevenly and in ways that confound an ability to challenge it..

America is built upon two myths, the myth of equality and the myth of the American dream. The myth of equality is the idea that we all have an equal opportunity to succeed.  The American dream is the idea that by hard work, perseverance, and a little bit of luck, anybody can work themselves out of poverty and potentially become rich. Yet we already knew from previous studies that neo-liberal economic policies have produced a gap between the rich and poor in America from the 1970s to the present that has largely benefited upper-income levels.  We also knew that economic mobility has largely stagnated.

Drawing upon IRS and Census Bureau records the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Board was able to construct a portrait regarding the status of income and mobility in America between 2005 and 2019. It does so across gender, race, and geography (state).  The importance of this intersectionality is to highlight how inequality and mobility in America is not just about race, it is not just about class, but also how the two intersect in terms of the state where one lives, offering a picture perhaps regarding how specific state policies may impact one’s life prospects.

Generally the IDDA study confirms other reports of the growing income gap.  Between 2005 and 2019 those in the bottom ten percent saw their adjusted gross income increase by 5%, whereas those in the top two percent saw a 23% increase.  One of the most startling conclusions of the report according to the Federal Reserve Board was that a “household in the bottom 20 percent of the distribution now makes exactly the same as it was making 50 years ago, in real terms.”   Regardless of race and gender, unless you are at an upper income level, earnings have stagnated. This can explain both the angry Trump voters who feel they have been left out economically, and the disappointment in Obama-Biden policies that have left most Americans behind.  Across the presidencies from the second Bush to Biden, neo-liberal economics  has benefitted only few, but even across class there is a skewing.

For example, across the board women continue to lag in income compared to men. In 2005 women generally earned 69% of what men earned, while in 2019 it was 74%. But the gap varies across income levels.  At the 10th percentile (lowest income level) in 2005  women earned 61%, by 2019 It was merely 70.8%. At the 50th percentile in 2005 women earned 68% of what men earned, in 2019 it was 74%.  But then by the time one gets to the 99.999 percentile in 2005, it was 26% compared to 29% in 2019 Over time, depending on your income level women made modest at best improvements in bridging the gap between their income and those of men.

But when we look at different states for example, as well as break it down by gender and race we find, for example, that in Texas, Hispanic women make 43% of white males, white women make 63% compared to white males, and Hispanic men make. 67%.  Whereas in California Hispanic women make 46%, white women 69%, and  Hispanic men 62%. Despite two different political cultures and different political party domination, the difference in income  between California and Texas is modest at best.

In terms of mobility, while the statistics in the IDDA project break it up by state and by income in general from 2005 to 2018 a portrait of stagnation also appears. For men in general, there is a 62% chance of moving from the lowest income quartile to the next quartile for women 57% Hispanic 63%, Whites 59%. Blacks 54%. At best, slightly better than even chances of moving up from that lowest income quartile to the next quartile, with the probabilities of  moving even further up even more significantly diminished.

The IDDA report provides perhaps the best detail we have so far on the economic and social consequences of neo-liberal economic policies in America.  It demonstrates uneven distributions of benefits in ways that nearly everyone can claim to be a loser  while also pointing to relative winners,  thereby thwarting efforts to form any solidarity to fight these policies.

Yet despite this socio-economic news,  voters this November will face a rematch of two neo-liberal presidential candidates, with little hope that the pattern of inequality and frozen mobility will change.

Minnesota is an Educational Leader in Racial Inequality

 

            According to the most recent WalletHub survey, Minnesota comes in second to last in terms of education racial equality among the 50 states. Minnesota only loses out to its rival Wisconsin, which takes first place in terms of racial inequality equality.

           Minnesota has struggled with race across many dimensions that have been well documented. It comes in among the worst states in the country in racial disparities in criminal justice, health and healthcare outcomes,  and with employment, wealth, and income.  Cities such as Minneapolis and St. Paul also have legacies of racial covenants and zoning that produced residential segregation that persist to the present.  Reports also place Minnesota among the worst in the country when it comes to economic mobility and stagnation, including for persons of color.

            But among the most notable inequalities has been education. Back in the 1990s while I was still working at the University of Minnesota's Institute on Race and Poverty we documented also how Minnesota and especially Minneapolis was among the worst in the country when it came to residential segregation and educational outcomes.

            Back then, the City of Minneapolis was in the midst of legal challenges to segregation in its schools and the state was heavily criticized also for its racial inequities when it came to education. Ostensibly many of the reforms adopted in Minnesota were aimed at addressing these racial inequalities.  These included open enrollment, magnet schools, charter schools and the enabling of more parental choice. All in theory were meant to address the problems of educational inequity. However, one can take another interpretation of these reforms. They were not meant to address the problems of racial inequality, but simply to forestall having to make the tough choices to really address them.

            Thus when we look at the Wallethub report, what we find is that Minnesota ranks 49^th out of the 50 states in terms of overall racial equality. It comes in 50th in terms of share of adults with at least a high school degree; 42nd In terms of share of adults with at least a bachelor's degree; 49th In terms of high school graduation rates; 38th for standardized test scores, 38th for mean SATs scores; and  34th for average ACT scores. If you are white, and perhaps affluent, the Minnesota schools do well. But if you are a person of color, the schools largely fail you. The racial equality rankings reflect this difference in performance between whites and persons of color.

            Minnesota has known about these problems for a quarter of a century if not more. There have been no serious suggestions or policies to address this problem. Some have argued for a constitutional amendment simply to change the way education is funded or to give individuals a state constitutional right to sue for inequities. There I s little evidence that such approaches would work.

            Conversely, while teachers deserve to be paid more, increasing their pay or changing workloads also will not address the racial equality gap.  The problem is far more entrenched. It is entrenched in the legacy of racial covenants and segregation in the state. It is entrenched in the fact that for so many years, persons of color represent such a small percentage of the population they were powerless and voiceless in terms of formulating public policy. It is entrenched because of the fragmented nature of our school boundaries and jurisdictions in Minnesota, and it is entrenched simply because at the end of the day, there is neither the will nor the desire to really address these fundamental inequalities.

       
Seventy years ago the US Supreme Court declared in Brown v. Board of Education that educational segregation and separate but equal were unconstitutional.  That decision brought promise and hope for educational equality.  Yet seventy years later that promise has yet to come to Minnesota. To be a leader in education racial inequality  is  nothing to be proud of. But that is the distinction that Minnesota still suffers.