And Now I Vote

Surveying the certainties and uncertainties that shape my election choices.

Two days until the election.  Still way too early to attempt a general analysis of the campaign and its importance in the history of the United States.  Many of us will attempt that in the days ahead.  And sound judgement will be in the hands of future historians who will have the advantage of hindsight. 

As for now, let me try to think through with you from a shifting “higher ground” some basic facts going into the election.  Take or leave what I say, as helpful in talking with undecided friends over the next two days. 

For what it’s worth, I always hold to the truth of my favorite philosopher Yogi Berra.  “It ain’t over till its over.” 

First, I believe that degrees of uncertainty matter, even when we are tempted by outside pressure to be certain.  If your choice involves more than a judgment about Donald Trump, then certain policy claims and promises need to be evaluated.  Claims are just that. Hypotheses, opinions, grounded in one’s personal experience and evidence from “reliable” (to you) sources. 

Let’s start with the economy.  How well are we doing?  We know it took a whack from Covid and the various ways in which we tried to right ourselves after the pandemic moderated.  I think that objective sources, outside this country, and in what most consider a conservative press, say we are doing well.  Very well, when compared to other industrial economies.  Or compared to our own past. When it was “morning in America” for Ronald Reagan, unemployment and inflation were higher than today./

Hold on a minute before you disagree.  I am not making a claim about who or what is responsible for this.  It may be in spite of the Biden administration, because of that administration’s policies, or independent of national government action.  Credit the underlying strength of the American economic system if you want.  We can debate this for years to come. 

Then let’s ask what “doing well” means to large numbers of workers and their families.  Here again, I feel reasonably certain in my answer.  The success of this economy in the lives of many Americans is fragile at best, and negative for many.  For whatever reasons, debatable again, many live paycheck to paycheck in uncertain employment.  Many are struggling to find and hold jobs that pay less than a living wage.  Many lack the education, the tools, to succeed in a 21^st century technologically challenging economy.  “Doing well” means that we are back to the “success” we lived with from the Reagan Presidency to the first years of the Trump administration.  It wasn’t exactly a “winner take all” world, but it was a “winner takes most of the productivity gains” society. 

Now take immigration, asylum seeking and the Southern border.  It is a crisis.  That, seems certain to me.  Again, though, it may be largely in spite of, because of, or independent of, Biden policies.  Don’t leave out in your analysis the overall context of this crisis.  Such as: organized cartels marketing passage to the border, economic and political turmoil in countries South of the border, an overall U.S. legal framework for immigration and asylum seeking that does meet the realities of the 2020s, and a stalemated federal government political process. 

And don’t get me started on the predictable but nearly comic attempt by candidates to wash their hands of real social and economic problems by attributing all the failures and hardships of life to immigration and immigrants.    Been there, done it:  1850s, 1890s, 1920s, 1950s and all the years in between. 

As to what is happening on the world stage?  As some past pundit was fond of saying, “give me a break.” 

Let’s shake loose from the belief that the United States is the source of all the world’s successes and all its problems.  We influence events.  The extent to which is debatable.

No President, no administration has the power to “step in and fix the world.” 

Again, I believe, with a little less certainty, that the world is presently very unstable.  We are at a “turning point.”  And, yes, U.S. policy can make a difference, perhaps not as great as some believe, but a difference that will have unforeseen effect.    

And again, I see only uncertainty as to alternative policy proposals.  I would, however, suspect that incompetent and irrational American leadership will make things worse. Trade War anyone? 

Finally, the “deep state.”  I think we need to define this concept. Basically, they are the “go to and get it done” public employees that interpret and maintain lawfully enacted policies, guiding fiscal, commercial, health, education and judicial processes in the country.  The are people with “deep” experience and considerable expertise and skills.  Among other things they are responsible for much of the economic regulation that facilitates economic activity and protects public interests. 

Certainty here.  It is fundamentally necessary. 

And certainty as to how difficult it is to change (enact regulatory reform) and how often it has unintended consequences, or say it furthers mutually incompatible goals. 

So now I go with a brief into the court of public opinion.  So now I play one of the many roles in life that I am fortunate to own, the citizen.  Now I vote.

I know these are not the only concerns I take with me into the voting booth.  The President as Chief of State represents America to the rest of the world and is one of the most important symbols by which our children discover who they are as Americans.  That matters.

I know that at the local level, there are other choices that will shape our future, especially the nature and quality of education. 

And I know that I there is much that I don’t know that would make my voting decision wiser.  But, I know that I welcome a life of choices in world of uncertainty. 

“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about…”  -- Richard  Feynman