Politics
The US midterms – why did the political pundits get it so wrong?
So far all we know is that the red (Republican) wave didn’t materialize, that Trump’s anointed candidates did more poorly than expected, that the Republicans did well in Florida, that abortion was a significant issue, that turnout seems to have been high by US midterm standards, and that the political pundits got it wrong.
It will be some time before political scientists and statisticians analyse the results and reveal the factors that motivated people to turn up to vote and to vote the way they did. Someone will surely analyse the pollsters’ performance: the established notion that polls tend to overstate support for left or liberal candidates has not held up on this occasion.
It will also be some time before the political dynamics play out. In Australia a parliamentary majority, no matter how thin, is decisive. The US Congress has never been so disciplined, however. We know there will be wafer-thin outcomes in both houses, giving a handful of members and senators significant influence. Because there will be a runoff senate election in Georgia, the numbers won’t be known until next month.
Before the election pundits were fairly sure that Trump would announce next Wednesday that he will be running for president in 2024, buoyed by a pro-Trump wave, or as a tactic to shield himself from prosecution. What Trump does in the next few days will be consequential.
So far the media is interpreting Florida’s outcome as a victory for DeSantis over Trump. Maybe, but as The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta pointed out, well before the election, Democrats have been losing the Hispanic vote. The Democrats, obsessed by “race”, have assumed that anyone who isn’t thoroughbred “white”, leans their way politically, overlooking the reality that many Hispanic and other minority communities are socially conservative.
We can count on William Bowe’s Poll Bludger to keep us informed of the numbers (does he ever sleep?) and Adrian Beaumont has some summary numbers in a Conversation article.
Jared Mondschein, of the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, has some comments written with an Australian readership in mind, reminding us that in the US elections are much more about politics than policy, and that local issues play a strong role: “Red wave” fails to materialise as Democrats perform above expectations in tight midterm race in The Conversation. Another commentator familiar with Australian audiences is Bruce Shapiro, who covered the election in his regular segment on Late Night Live.
For a comment on what didn’t happen (but conceivably could still happen if the Republicans win both houses and Congress is disciplined enough) we can read Ronald Brownstein’s article in The Atlantic: How a GOP Congress Could Roll Back Freedoms Nationwide. It’s an ugly picture in its implications for gun laws, abortion, same-sex marriage and censorship of school curricula.
And buried among all the commentary is an admission by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, a confidant of Putin, that Russia has been interfering in US elections and will go on doing so. The interference is not news, but Prigozhin’s admission is: had he made it in 2016 it may have tipped the election outcome and have saved US authorities a lot of investigatory work. Trump has openly expressed his admiration for Putin, and has publicly supported his invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainians must be feeling at least some relief about the outcome of the midterms.
It may be satisfying to blame Morrison for Robodebt but don’t forget his myrmidons
So far there has been a great deal of media attention paid to the legality or illegality of Robodebt. Rick Morton has a piece in the Saturday Paper Robo-debt: Liberals knew it was illegal before it started, going through details of who knew what when, who sought legal advice, and who was careful to ensure that although staff at the Department of Social Services and the Department of Human Services were convinced that the scheme was illegal and unjust, there was no incriminating categorical statement to that effect.
Morton describes an organization structured so as to avoid accountability. We tend to think of “accountability” in terms of audit reports and annual reports, but it is also about how an organization relates to its stakeholders, in this case recipients of Centrelink benefits. Morton points out that those who had queries were provided with no phone number to contact a staff member handling their case. He might have noted that, by contrast, one of lobbyists’ main assets is a database of senior public servants’ email addresses and phone numbers.
On Late Night Live Royce Kurmelov describes some of the details of Robodebt, going back to 2014 when there was a similar program in Michigan, which was soon abandoned after being challenged in courts. The public servants who developed Robodebt would surely have known about this failure. He suggests that there were blockages in the public service chain of command, ensuring that beliefs in the scheme’s illegality did not make it up the line. His account is illustrated with stories of people’s harassment under Robodebt.
Reporting from the Robodebt commission of inquiry, the ABC’s Rory Callanan draws our attention to an executive minute to then Social Services Minister Morrison in which the clause “it could be expected that some of the proposals will come under significant scrutiny as not being consistent with the overall beneficial nature of social security law" was crossed out. It is not clear who crossed it out and replaced it with a more anodyne statement, but it was almost certainly a senior public servant: Crossed-out phrase in a brief for Scott Morrison 'watered down' seriousness of potential Robodebt legal issues, inquiry hears.
No doubt those with a partisan bent welcome anything that portrays Morrison as one who had little concern with legality or social justice. That may be so, but what is being exposed in these hearings is largely about the role of public servants. Anyone who has worked in, or consulted to, the Commonwealth Public Service, would know that among its senior ranks are those who go to extreme lengths to ingratiate themselves with the minister and his or her political party. Rather than providing frank and fearless advice, they use clever linguistic constructions, vague words, bureaucratic bullshit or sophistry – anything short of barefaced lying – to protect their minister from the truth. This commission is exposing just one instance of such behaviour.
This is corruption. It’s a more subtle form of corruption than an Aldi bag stashed with $50 notes, or a contract let to a minister’s mate – but it’s still corruption. It’s a corruption of process. Such behaviour should be within the remit of our yet-to-be established anti-corruption commission, and there should be harsh penalties for public servants who do not endeavour to ascertain the legality of their programs.