Between Two Majorities | The Cordray Administration

[Unapologetic Chinaperson]

Sorry for being MIA, guys. I had some personal business to work out requiring me to take a sabbatical from Atlas to handle them. Then life kind of happened and I have to deal with full time school, plus a full time job, and a new place and assorted various things. So yeah, I haven't had the time to devote to this as I did in the past.

Maybe next year, I might do more stuff here but right now, I don't really have that much time. I am on Discord, where I annoy Technocratic Timmy unduly and the walrus. I am really proud of what they've done regarding the work in BTM, especially walrus. You guys have done a fantastic job building on BTM.

And yes, I know North Korea has been in the news with increased speculation about a military strike. Yes, I know the timeline predicts Trump to order a military strike on North Korea tomorrow. I'm painfully aware.

I appreciate the overall concern though.

Ayyy

The God Doctor has returned to us.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

2030 house elections (or 2026). Republicans pickup 36 house seats.

[OBD]

2030 house elections (or 2026). Republicans pickup 36 house seats.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GEORGIA 6 NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Captain Chaos]

Democratic gain in WY-AL in a GOP wave election? This I got to hear.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

Democratic gain in WY-AL in a GOP wave election? This I got to hear.

WY-AL doesn't flip?

[Doimper]

Here we go!

Richard Cordray stepping down as Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director

[_]

Here we go!

Richard Cordray stepping down as Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director

OUR KING IS ALIVE!!!!

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

Here we go!

Richard Cordray stepping down as Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director

OUR KING IS ALIVE!!!!

The 47th president of the united states, ladies and gentlemen.

[BuckeyeNut]

It is very unlikely Cordray -- or any Democrat -- is elected Governor.

[Anti-Bothsidesism]

It is very unlikely Cordray -- or any Democrat -- is elected Governor.

[TheSaint250]

It is very unlikely Cordray -- or any Democrat -- is elected Governor.

He's not actually a Republican

[GlobeSoc]

It is very unlikely Cordray -- or any Democrat -- is elected Governor.

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

IT BEGINSRichard Cordray will announce his candidacy for governor Tuesday, December 5th, in his native Grove City, Ohio.

[Lord Admirale]

IT BEGINSRichard Cordray will announce his candidacy for governor Tuesday, December 5th, in his native Grove City, Ohio.

YES

[The_Doctor]

Even as America's 47th President begins his ascent to the Oval Office, we still live in 2017. So, there will be a few end of the year articles about how well BTM has held up and the underlying fundamentals. It's a "Christmas" special work, holidays, and other things time permitting but I'll give you 2-3 articles I've been wanting to flesh out BTM thoughts. Not a return, just a few articles. I'll try to make time around Christmas week.

Especially with North Korea and Cordray in the news.

Spoiler: BTM has held up pretty well.

[The Govanah Jake]

All is going to plan...

[MRX]

It's happening. Cordray is announcing: http://thehill.com/policy/finance/363344-former-consumer-bureau-director-cordray-announces-run-for-ohio-governor

[The_Doctor]

Notes: We’ll cover what BtM got right this year in another article (spoiler: BtM got almost everything right, just wrong sequence and timing, except Trump’s approval rating, some international stuff, and infrastructure with North Korea remaining a question mark. We also famously called Richard Adams Cordray’s entry into the Ohio gubernatorial race). We’re also moving up the Pence Presidency to 2018, which I need to formalize and discuss. But not what I want to cover tonight.  

Part II and III of our Christmas special will probably be either how the GOP collapses specifically in warring factions and how BTM got a lot of things right. But the economics is important to get. The looming crisis is very much in motion right now.

The Great Crisis of 2021

(December 16, 2099) - Manhattan, New York, United States, United Earth Federation. Economists and historians gathered on the symposium that discussed the crisis that jump started the economy of the 21st century. Much as the Great Depression kicked off the 20th with the end of laissez faire economics and welfare economics dominated the era from 1930 to 1980, the 21st century crisis in 2021 ended neoliberal economics and ushered in the “space age unified economy.”

The story, for many, began in 1945. The formation of the United Nations, World Bank, GATT, and the first organized economic order marked the managed welfare state era.  President Roosevelt and liberal European leaders ended formally the 19th century model of extremely limited government and corporate-dominated states after the Great Depression that struck worldwide. Think the New Deal in the United States, Clement Atlee’s NHS in 1947, and so on. The debt situation that engulfed Europe after World War I and led to World War II (not to mention the tinder keg that was Britain’s and Germany’s rivalry) had been mediated by the institutions set up in 1945 to 1948. Managed capitalism took off in an arms race against socialism and won the war in 1991.  

In the late 1970s to early 1980s, the laissez faire neoliberal order replaced the managed welfare state advocates. The welfare state advocates pushed full employment, high wages, strong unions, and in Europe, socialized industries in the name of creating an equitable economy. Laissez faire economics made a return under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and intensified after the Cold War ended in 1991. Conservatives groused in the 1950s that the emphasis on unions, full employment economics, and high wages cut into business profits, stifled innovation, and were inefficient. By the 1970s, they looked increasingly right under stagflation as the Left looked out of touch. China’s market opening up in 1978, the elections of 1979 in Britain and 1980 in the United States and subsequent Cold War victory of the capitalist side in 1991 sparked an intense neoliberal push to deregulate and open up markets, roll back safety nets, and to push for the free market’s hand to guide economies. The internet boom of the late 1990s (“dot com bubble”) cemented the laissez faire economy that ruled straight from 1980 to 2021.

The election of 2000 in the United States marked the height of neoliberal economics. Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush were two staunch neoliberal advocates that pushed open markets and accepted a greater deal of inequality than their predecessors. In Europe and Asia, the flourishing “Asian Tigers” testified to the fact that neoliberal markets were the best way to organize the economy.  From 1990 to 2018, extreme poverty fell dramatically from 60% to below 10% and market economics were credited for this.

However, it was not all rosy. The middle class shrunk or stagnated in many European nations (79% to 72% in Germany,  barely rose from 72% to 74% in France, etc).  As Pew noted, “The most substantial decrease in the share of aggregate household income held by the middle class occurred in Finland, where the share fell from 85% in 1991 to 74% in 2010. Other notable decreases in the share held by the middle class included Germany, where it fell from 77% to 70%, and the U.S., where the share slipped from 62% to 56%. Ireland.” (Ireland and the United Kingdom saw increases). In India, the richest 1% owned 36.8% and now went up to 50% in 2010. The Financial Times noted that China the richest 1% owned a third of the nation’s wealth and the Gini coefficient was .49. (Anything above .40 is severe inequality, for the World Bank). Still, Europe was far better off than anywhere else in the world.

These facts explain why the European Union was the least scathed by the crisis of 2021 (famously, like Britain’s economic slowdown after the Great Depression being something like a haircut of 5% of GDP which might explain why the Tory government remained in power from 1924 to 1945 with a two year break in 1929 to 1931), After 1981, while Europe had neoliberalized to an extent, they had not adopted the extreme measures of the United States or seen the inequality expand so much. But they were still badly hit by the global collapse.

The 2008 crisis had kicked off the events (much as 1908 would indirectly lead to 1929) that led to the realignment of 2024. The stock market wipeout erased considerable middle class wealth and the slow economic recovery pointed to the weakness of the middle class, which had seen flat wage growth since 2000. Globally, central banks poured money into the economy but most of it was sopped up by the rich and corporations thus preventing a real economic recovery.  Trillions in balance sheets disappeared and corporations and the rich, spooked by the crisis, hung onto their assets (thus paving the way for the next crisis).  Central banks around the world used traditional measures that had gone to targeting inflation (setting interest rates) and retained their traditional focus on inflation rather than shifting to putting more money into people’s pockets (which is not something they could legally do; that was more the province of legislatures and political institutions). The Federal Reserve misguidedly raised interest rates because they feared an overheating economy in 2017 and 2018; which actually accelerated the crash.  

After the GOP passed their tax cut in 2017 (author’s note: GOP, thanks for at least making it so I don’t have to change the dates from the BTM timeline), the mild recession of 2018-2019 masked the widening inequality gulf that the tax bill encouraged. Considering that the middle class could no longer sustain the growth because they were receiving not enough dollars to sustain the economy, and that their debts and needs were getting much larger, it was unsurprising that the crisis wiped out the middle class in 2021-2022 when the crisis hit.

China launched the crisis of 2020 but it could have easily been Europe’s PIGS situation that did it. The collapse of the housing market (the earliest signs were the bitcoin investing frenzy that China’s middle class engaged in in 2017-2018) presaged the crash of 2021. The Chinese middle class were too strapped and could not sustain the aging regime when all hell broke loose. Some said that the corruption crackdown had actually made the situation worse because it had made it harder to access capital (the Chinese middle class relied on informal access a lot more than most people thought). Meanwhile, the European Union’s PIGS crew threatened revolt. Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy all had economic issues on the fundamental level and the Chinese conflagration knocked the European Union domino next before spreading to American shores in 2021. Where the American economy was unable to withstand the hit because of the weak assets of the American middle class.

Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had propounded a basic theme that if you kept more of your own money, you could ably create wealth and become better off. That was true as long as existential drivers of costs like healthcare, property, and education remained affordable. However, as they spiraled out of control, the dogma became untenable. This of course was the subtext to elections around the globe in the 2020s.

Conservatives in the United States, split between Bannonite populists and establishment neoliberals were caught flatfooted by the crisis and the U.S. Congress descended into all out internal fractious warfare with Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) unable to marshal a majority in the House to pass initiatives to stop the bleeding. The Republican Party spiraled out of control with President Pence losing his grip on the Republican Party - the second Republican President in a row to look leaderless in a party that was increasingly unable to even govern. The GOP would not recover for a generation with populist and establishment warfare raging until the election of 2036. The 2022 tax cut was the only thing Republicans could agree to pass and that was it.

[The_Doctor]

The Republican Party’s inability to govern after 2006 spoke to the economic fundamentals. What bound the great Republican coalitions together was the unspoken belief that neoliberal economics helped all within it. As long as the good times rolled on, the GOP could build majorities. But propelled by weak economic times, Appalachia and poor whites took the Bannonite camp’s side in the internal warfare that roiled Republican politics from 2011 to 2037. But the fact no crisis had happened kept the establishment strong enough to not cede power to the Bannon wing. Two failed Presidencies in a row (Trump’s and Pence’s) spoke to this fundamental weakness.

The election of 2024, with Ohio Gov. Richard Adams Cordray (who squeaked to a 51-48% victory over Republican DeWine and stomped to a re-election 61-36% victory in 2022) prevailing, spoke to how devastated the middle class was (wide swaths of Appalachia and the poorest Southern regions swung heavily Democratic) spoke to this.

The crisis of 2021 was the first real non-US/European crisis that was global in nature and long lasting. China’s massive panic and the spreading conflagration engulfed the world  

When President Richard Adams “Rich” Cordray took power in 2025, he unveiled a number of unusual initiatives that spoke to the crisis. Instead of a traditional bailout package, President Cordray pushed single payer and universal college initiatives, as well as a radical student debt loan restructuring package. The President understood that relieving these economic pressures on the American middle class would allow them to rebound much faster than a traditional tax cut. Republicans lambasted the moves, arguing Cordray was enacting his agenda at the expense of economic recovery, missing the point that relieving the pressures on the middle and working class would power economic growth. Cordray had been educated and guided by his time at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from 2011 to 2017, and as Ohio Governor.

In Europe and Asia, world leaders followed Cordray’s lead and restructured their economies to give additional purchasing power to the middle and working class, understanding that economic growth was impossible otherwise. It was a sea change from neoliberal economics but not a return to welfare state economics. Indeed, this new economics focused on delivering essential services to the middle and working class to boost economic growth. With automation becoming a huge issue in the 2030s and 2040s, it was essential for many governments to create a sustainable economic base that was able to create value and build wealth assets. Those nations that were left behind (the most autocratic nations, in other words) suffered and stagnated mightily.

President Cordray also controversially adopted the policy of “helicopter money,” popularized by Ben Bernanke and adopted by President George W. Bush in 2008. He sent out a $1,000 rebate to everyone making income of below $50,000 in an attempt to clean out the balance of the weak middle class - and would do it for four years in a row (Cordray carefully structured the program to exclude those who were obviously rich and would manipulate their income and the program mostly worked). Republicans howled that it would lead to inflation (in line with their inability to shift to the new economic paradigm) and complain the program was being abused. But the President knew that he was infusing the middle and working class with enough income to rebound from the economic crisis. Because the middle and lower classes were so weak, inflation rates never rose significantly enough to be a threat because spending was limited to these people and they propelled the economy with their spending. It was the dry run for an UBI in fact - an issue revisited under the confirming Democratic Presidency headed by a fellow Midwesterner a generation later.

The world - as it had done in 1945 and 1981 - shifted again and the populist revolts quieted down as governments began to focus on delivering economic growth to the broad electorate.

Written with thanks to TT’s work on helicopter money

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

I'm glad that our prophet TD has given me comfort in knowing where our world will end up at the end of the century

[Doimper]

Great stuff!

Although rereading the first parts of this, it feels like things are happening a lot faster than predicted. You gave Trump a lot more credit than he ended up deserving.

[ShadowRocket]

Great stuff!

Although rereading the first parts of this, it feels like things are happening a lot faster than predicted. You gave Trump a lot more credit than he ended up deserving.

This is just my interpretation, but I'm thinking that the realignment may be more of a gradual one instead of being a sudden shift as TD initially predicted. In large part because it is becoming increasing difficult to not see the Democrats taking back the House next year and having a good result in the Senate even if they don't take it back. Which will probably be due to opposition to Trump more than anything, with the Reagan coalition still staying in tact. In which case, I could still see Pence winning in 2020 and Democrats not making the leap to majority party status until the debt crisis and Cordray or some other progressive Democrat arriving on the scene.

[King Lear]

I think TD wrote a very amazing and realistic timeline, The only thing that strikes me as unrealistic when I first read it a few months ago before I started posting on this forum (I used to lurk around and read people's post and timelines before I decided to join), is the fact that TDs so dead set on believing Trump won't fill out his term. If I wrote this, I would have kept everything the same except I would have had Trump getting reelected and the crisis breaking out at the start of His second term leading to republicans losing congress in 2022 and Cordray beating Pence in a realigning Landslide in 2024. Honestly I think Two terms of Trump with a economic meltdown in his second term is more likely to lead to a realignment because the legacy of a failed, controversial, Trump administration would weigh on republicans for decades to come.

[The_Doctor]

To handle the various comments

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A global government is honestly inevitable or at least a federation of countries operating on a global level with a highly decentralized body. Whether we get there by 2099 or by 2199 is an open question. Global warming, trade, advances in communications and traveling technologies will create the need for us to become a planetary civilization, as well as the need to secure a nuclear and biological weapon arsenal.

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Yes I did. That said, I feel that the 2018 midterms will tell us if we're headed towards a 2020 realignment or 2024.

At this juncture, Trump's failures is so epic that I expect President Pence to take power in 2018 somewhere by March to July. The 2019 Trump resignation may well play out in 2018. As said, the business scandals bring down Trump, not the Russian affair.

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A live possibility but I don't think Trump will finish his term. It's at this point a gut feeling but also the popular vote loser, elected under a cloud of suspicion and with little support from his party. I get the feeling that the Republican leadership would throw Trump overboard if they could, safely.

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

To see the future, we must first consider the past.
Oct 22nd, 2099.
The Death of the Seventh party system and the election of 2060
   The old democratic majority, the majority that had propelled the presidencies of Klobuchar, Castro, Moon, and Busto, was showing signs of breaking even back in 2048, when Overton first ascended to the presidency. Despite Garcia on the ticket, Overton had carried Colorado and Arizona, and had managed to win Illinois, Michigan, and most of the northeast, a feat not even Sun managed.
   The Square Deal majority of Klobuchar was split three ways by two issues. In the Midwest and the northeast, there were old school democrats, Obama voters most of them, many of them wealthy and most old school liberal, increasingly uncomfortable with the growing left populism of the party and the money spent on global warming, a trend which only increased under Moon and Overton. In the northeast US, Overton won every Obama except Maine and New York in 2048, and in 2052 carried even Maine. These voters were the first to leave the Democratic party, and their growing republicanness helped propel Overton to the presidency and congressional majorities in 2048. The second group were the immigrants and their children, in Washington, Hawaii, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. They had been steadfast democrats ever since Trump, but the failures of 3 democratic immigrations to liberalize immigration laws, and Sun and Overton’s successes, led to them voting for Overton in 2052, and proving integral to the coalition that Terry and the younger Overton would ride to the presidency. The third group, and the newest members were the working class white voters, often catholic, many of them the children of ancestral democrats, in the south, who switched for Klobuchar and slowly began to vote Democratic again down ballot. As the century wore on, the black democratic vote in the south slowly began to merge, and the three blocks of the democratic party had formed. Overton managed to win majorities from the southwestern and northeastern democratic vote, but they were due more to personal popularity than a permanent reason for them to join the forming majority coalition. Thurstan vs. Mississippi and Hurricane Eva were the wedge issues, that would give Republicans 12 years in the White House for the first time since H.W Bush. 
   First, let us examine Thurstan vs. Mississippi. Jane Thurstan was a young woman who lived in Mississippi, and who wished to genetically modify her fetus’s with her husband. Under the Genetic Protection Act of 2051, this was illegal in Mississippi, and carried strict penalties, with the possibility of up to 6 months in jail. Thurstan sued the government of Mississippi in October 2057, arguing that under the precedent set by Roe v. Wade she had the right to do so. The Governor of Mississippi, Derrick Simmons, publicly decried her and declared genetic modification an “abomination against god”. The case quickly worked its way up to the supreme court, which in June 2059 ruled that Thurstan was justified, in a 6-3 ruling. Chief Justice Thomas Russell, speaking for the majority, ruled that parents had the right to fetal modification as long as it did not “directly and immediately harm their future child.” Justice Neil Gorsuch (who was originally appointed by Donald Trump) angrily dissented, comparing modification of fetuses to rape and even mentioning his anti-abortion stance. Justices Costa and Collins, though less fiery in their dissents, also disagreeing with Russell’s ruling. Notably, all four women on the supreme court, Bennett, Flores, Scott, and Ward, agreed with Jane Thurstan, while only David Hale and Thomas Russell of the men on the court did so.
   Thurstan vs. Mississippi was essentially a grenade thrown into the heart of the Democratic coalition, with the party being split down the middle. 4 of the 6 democratic justices ruled in favor of genetic modification, while two did not. With the issue now brought into the spotlight, many in the democratic party supported a constitutional amendment to ban genetic modification, President Nayara Bustos being among them. However, southwestern and northeastern liberals were far less sanguine about that. No states north of the mason-Dixon would pass the proposed 31st amendment, and Busto’s hardline stance would lead to President Terry sweeping the northeast, and the remnants of down ballot democrats vanishing in the northeast. In the South, it was more popular, and Busto carried the evangelical vote in Mississippi for the first time since Jimmy Carter.
   Hurricane Eva was the second issue that destroyed the Square Deal coalition that dominated the first half of the 20th century. Even today, Hurricane Eva was a hurricane of astonishing scale. It measured nearly 2000 miles in diameter, stretching at one point from Austin to the Bahamas in August 2058. It had peak winds of over 250 mph. It lasted for two weeks. smashing through almost the entire southeast and dumping rain all the way to Phoenix. Eva caused 4.5 trillion dollars (2099) in damage, nearly 7% of the US’s GDP. Busto’s incompetence in handling the hurricane lead to collapsing popularity for her. But more importantly, it polarized the Republicans as the party of the North. When Overton had called for “No more Bailouts” in 2048, he had been referring to hurricanes a tenth Eva’s size. The new movement was far stronger. Northeastern and West Coast liberals alike loathed the thought of wasting their income to bail out the south again, to rebuild New Orleans for the fourth time and Miami for the third. The Eva Relief bill that Bustos originally proposed failed, 251-188, with the representatives of the north nearly unanimous against it. Though a compromise bill would ultimately get through after the midterms, it would be significantly smaller, and would ban government aid in much of the south for further hurricanes. It would also impose a mandatory hurricane insurance system in most of the south for homeowners. The Martin bill would lead to Busto’s getting over 60% in most of the south in 2060, even as she went to a landslide defeat.
   In conclusion, the Square deal coalition was ultimately undone by the issues of genetic modification and climate change, which polarized the religious poor southern conservatives against the northern democrats, and led to Emily Terry successfully picking up the Southwest and Northeast in 2060 and 2064, and the democrats nearly collapsing, shrinking into their poor conservative aging southern base. It would take them until 2072 to regenerate, and even then it was rough, with Republicans holding the presidency from 2080-2092, in the Rupertson and Mondy administrations. The current administration is rather different, of course, but that is an entirely different article.
-Isa Popov is a writer with The Atlantic.