Patriots + 1; Commies/Nazis -1
Bidenflation and open borders combine to drive a wholesale political restructuring.
June 26, 2024
On June 25, Representative Lauren Boebert won her primary, while Representative Jamal Bowman was sent packing. What does this suggest for national trends? GOP voters, regardless of the desires of RINO leadership, are increasingly moving toward the populist end of the spectrum. So are Democratic voters. We are witnessing a convergence and consolidation of the populist faction. Rationality is beginning its return to the American political landscape.
Bowman lost the most expensive congressional race in history — $25 million in ad spending. After two terms, he was clearly damaged goods. From his fire alarm stunt to his blatant antisemitism (“Show fucking AIPAC the power of the motherfucking South Bronx.”), he had clearly wandered way too far off the reservation. The fool make the contest into a referendum on the Israel/Hamas conflict, and continued even in his concession speech: “We will continue to fight for a free Palestine, and God help us that we live in a better world where when we say ‘Free Palestine,’ it is not antisemitic.” He thanked “the Muslim community from Yonkers to San Francisco to Dearborn, Michigan, to St. Louis to Chicago to Long Island to New Jersey [who] surrounded me this entire race with protection, with love, with gratitude and they helped us raise more money than we ever raised before.” Meanwhile, back in the Bronx (aka the Real World), his constituents were suffering under Bidenomics and open borders. AOC may need to brush up on her bartending skills if this keeps up.
As a side note to the primary results, an actual conservative Republican won the June 25 Colorado special election to fill the remainder of Ken Buck’s (good riddance) term. This is a double win, for the House majority and the Freedom Caucus, which acquired a new member. Greg Lopez will serve for the rest of the year in the district Boebert just won the primary in, ensuring her an easy victory in November.
80% of the country now resides in cities, the consequence of consistently increasing urbanization since the nation’s founding. Urban residents have been forced to absorb most of the impact from the border invasion. Higher taxes and crime, reduced quality of life, and jobs stolen by illegal immigrants driving down wages. These are the factors which determine elections. Forget foreign affairs, climate change, gender wars, abortion, or any other various divisive diversions used to distract from these core issues. It’s the economy, stupid. Piling on tax increases, crime, and showering freebies on illegal immigrants while working class voters struggle to make ends meet, is not a winning formula for Democrats going into an election. Bidenflation was the final straw. As if that was not enough, finding places to put millions of new arrivals has created a housing crisis, enriching landlords but exacerbating pressures on the rental class. Marxism was supposed to work the opposite way.
Money is at the core of everything regarding the ongoing political restructuring.
Democrats' sanctuary cities policy is a multi-decade effort to import new Democratic voters at the expense of existing ones. It was inevitably going to implode thanks to its self-contradictions. Bowman’s defeat is an example of that implosion. Democrats’ base has tread marks on their backs from being thrown under the bus. Bidenflation was the final insult.
Democrats were (past tense) dependent upon two tactics to maintain power: pandering to special interests and passing out money. Both have reached their end stage. Let’s take each other in turn. The time frame for this examination could conceivably begin during the New Deal, but was definitely underway by the time of the 1960’s Great Society initiative.
Special interest pandering began with the big, obvious categories: women and Blacks. At some point between 1865 and 1960, Democrats reluctantly realized if they could no longer enslave Blacks the old-fashioned way, they would need new ways to exploit them. Hispanics, and immigrants in general, were added to the list, especially after passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, an early manifestation of DEI. European Whites were bad, everybody else was good. 59 years later, many of the non-White immigrants have become fully assimilated and emancipated themselves from the Democratic plantation.
Before there were wide open borders, the great Puerto Rican migratation was encouraged. Democrats continued searching high and low for every additional special interest they could squeeze inside their tent, until finally recruiting from those numbering in a fraction of a single digit percent of the population (e.g., transgenders). Inevitably, by attempting the impossible task of keeping everyone happy, the opposite occurred. Muslims and Jews bailed, as did the cisgender great majority, including female athletes. Crime victims left, but criminals remained (including elected criminals). The plan worked until it no longer did. Democrats even managed to split the transgender vote.
Now that the debt consumes increasing portions of the federal budget (at an exponentially accelerating pace), economic pandering is also concluding. The debt will never get repaid. A default of some sort is unavoidable, likely a haircut of X% for bondholders. This means unnecessary wars, teachers’ unions, countless NGOs, free vaccines, the Green New Deal, student loan bailouts, open borders, WHO dues, etc., etc. are becoming relics of a bygone era. In a first, the Teamsters Union president will be addressing both party conventions this summer. It may not be long before the Teamsters drop the Democrats altogether.
The two graphs below use logarithmic scales to illustrate the rate of increase in the money supply. The second one is zoomed in to focus on the situation since the 2008 financial crisis.
The COVID injection was well underway before Biden took office in January 2021, but was continued through April 2022. The contraction since has been responsible for the joys of stagflation. High inflation from the lingering effects of the injection, slowing economic activity due to the lack of continued stimulus. The only other option would have been to continue the accelerated rate of injecting, leading to ever greater increases in inflation.
Once the rate of increase in the money supply halts and reverses, it is only a matter of time before the implosion. Stagflation is the result of the lingering effects of the past inflation. Absent future significant injections of new money, prices must eventually fall as defaults, foreclosures, bank failures, etc. begin to take hold.
Meanwhile, back at the debt bomb, we can see how an increase in the accumulation of federal debt occurred in the wake of the 9/11 attack, followed by a significant jump upward in response to the 2008 crisis, and again with COVID. Another trillion now gets tacked on every 100 days. That time interval is about to shorten because with the slightest hiccup in the economy, government revenues will drop while expenses will rise as more require public assistance. Massive budget cuts will soon be inevitable, further reducing economic activity in the short term when that stimulus is removed. This quickly turns into a self-reinforcing process, driving everything down. Inflation will transition into deflation. Logarithmic price scale:
The delinquency rate on credit card loans is only beginning to rise. With interest rates now averaging in the 20-25% level, anyone who can’t clear their monthly balance is screwed. The almost 7% rate of delinquencies experienced after the 2008 crisis will soon be exceeded.
Consumer demand has been artificially juiced from the COVID stimulus (and all the previous post-2008 stimulus), but that has now dissipated. Bank failures are about to begin sprouting as they experience defaults on the approximately $1 trillion in short-term loans they are on the hook for. Logarithmic scale:
Which brings us to the real estate sector, a tale of two opposites. Commercial real estate prices have been trending lower since the end of 2021, thanks to COVID, work from home policies, the Internet economy, etc. Loan defaults are currently modest, but this can not continue indefinitely. Commercial real estate prices depicted below include not only offices, but multi-family housing, which has helped prop up the sector due to the housing shortage.
The housing sector is experiencing negligible mortgage defaults thanks to the housing shortage driving prices higher. This will soon no longer be the case, Prices have trended lower since Q4 2022, after having risen an extraordinary 40% in 2.75 years beginning in Q2 2020. A possible contributor to that sharp increase might have been foreign investment money fleeing collapsing economies, especially China. While global trade is contracting, with negative consequences for the American economy, capital flight helps to modulate the negatives. Current interest levels will continue exerting continuing downward pressure.
As the election approaches, we need to examine how all this leaves the Little Guy, so important in determining the prevailing party. Residential rental rates have continued their climb, unabated. The graph below uses a logarithmic price scale to emphasize the steady rate of increase. The renter class is being squeezed by food, housing, and additional costs. The electoral consequences will prove substantial.
The sorts of economic, crime, and overall quality-of-life issues currently driving events are capable of creating a seismic shift in the nation’s political complexion. Every member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection. There is almost no speculation regarding a potential massive GOP pickup in municipalities, state houses, and Washington. Almost everyone is missing the probable outcome. The worse things become over the next four months, the more likely this becomes magnified. This includes economic conditions and any terrorist incidents. The Tea Party movement, beginning a month after Obama’s inauguration, was a revolt from the Right. The MAGA faction represents the second phase of that revolt. We are now witnessing a mass shift of allegiance from the Left, especially on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. The MAGA, Blexit, and Walk Away movements are merging into a mass exodus to sanity.
The country is experiencing a reversal about to permanently alter its political orientation. If Republicans win big in November, many incumbent Democrats will choose not to run for reelection. Democrats’ power rests on their ability to bestow cash on their constituents. Those days are over, thanks to the debt bomb. For the next decade, elected officials at all levels will be responsible for locating budget cuts. It is not simply Democratic political retirements about to surge. RINOs will also lose interest in continuing their graft. The ongoing MAGAfication of the GOP is about to experience a substantial rate of increase.
Politicians have never been concerned with paying off the debts they obligate us to be responsible for. That is the nature of democracies. There is no electoral reward for spending cuts. The consequences of this can not be postponed indefinitely.
The NY Post, in the nation’s largest city, has its pulse on the electorate. While some of Biden’s cabinet secretaries are simply evil (Garland or Mayorkas), or full of crap (Buttigieg), Yellen must rank as the dumbest Treasury secretary in the nation’s history. Most presidents place an astute individual in that position because it is essential for getting reelected.
