Political Humor, Then and Now

From the earliest age, I heard my parents play records by Tom Lehrer, a mathematician who could sing, play the piano, and write devastating verses about current events and ideas. He stopped performing in public in the US after 1960, so few people younger than baby boomers know about him.

He began by writing songs that poked fun at vulnerable elements of culture, such as his first song, composed when he was 17 and an undergraduate at Harvard, which satirized college football fight songs. Those songs were fun to hear and sing along with: “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” about a program in Boston to control pigeons with strychnine-infused corn kernels; “The Elements” listing all 102 elements known as of 1959; and “Be Prepared”, a salacious version of the Boy Scout creed. Lehrer earned his living as a university professor, and liked to make fun of academics, as in what I think is his greatest song, “Lobachevsky”, about the Russian mathematician Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, who supposedly taught him the secret of success – plagiarize.

In the early 1960s, Lehrer stopped performing, but continued to write songs that were much more political. His songs were performed by others on the satirical TV program “That Was The Week That Was” between 1963 and 1965. TW3 broke the broadcasting conventions about political neutrality, and paved the way for later political television, such as “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In”, which launched the careers of Goldie Hawn, Lily Tomlin, and other comics.

Lehrer poked fun at serious subjects, such as racism, fascism, pollution and nuclear war. Listening to him skewer racist hypocrites, imagine World War III, and exaggerate the effects of poisons in our air and water certainly contributed to the development of my political views. I wonder if he influenced the burst of anti-establishment protest in the later 1960s among the small segment of record-purchasers and TV viewers who heard his exuberant songs.

It’s comforting to think that listening to some satirical political songs could reduce the polarization in our current politics. But Lehrer himself did not have high hopes for the political effects of his songs. In an interview in 1995, he said about his work, “I don’t think that it would change anybody’s mind. I don’t think humor does that. I think it moves people a little, and softens them up for the hard pitch. By its very nature, as I say, you have to exaggerate, you can’t really make a strong point.” He stopped writing and performing when it was no longer easy to be funny about politics in the mid-1960s. He felt out of touch with the harsher protest politics of the Black Power movement and Vietnam War. He even made fun of political folk songs in “The Folk Song Army”: “If you feel dissatisfaction, Strum your frustrations away. Some people may prefer action, But give me a folk song any old day.”

Some of Lehrer’s subjects are no longer familiar. One of his funniest songs, “Vatican Rag” mocks the Second Vatican Council, the reforms of Catholic practice in the early 1960s: “So get down upon your knees, Fiddle with your rosaries, Bow your head with great respect, And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!”

Politics today are angrier than in Tom Lehrer’s song-writing heyday, exemplified by our angry President, who seeks conflict wherever he can find it. It is harder to find political humor that doesn’t seem partisan. Johnny Carson has become Stephen Colbert, as each side watches its own form of news and laughs at its own jokes.

The guilty pleasures of Tom Lehrer’s often gross humor seem antiquated in today’s world, where presidential candidates compare the size of their penises and everybody drops F-bombs. His performances in tie and jacket as he plays musical theater piano are quaint. But his intellectual jabs at American culture, political or not, still retain their sharpness. On the liner notes of a 1997 re-release of some of this songs, Lehrer said of his musical career, “If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.”

One thing remains the same – the inverted relationship between politics and humor. As Will Rogers once said: “Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, November 28, 2017

This Tax Cut Is Not For You

The news is all about tax cuts. For corporations, the news is good – both the Senate and House plans cut corporate taxes by nearly half. For real people, not such good news, unless you are rich. These plans are complicated and subject to change, but one thing is clear. This is not a middle-class tax cut.

It’s not a tax cut for teachers, whose $250 deduction for classroom supplies is eliminated.

It’s not a tax cut for middle-class and working-class families who work for colleges and universities, because the House bill classifies their children’s free tuition as income. They would get a tax increase of thousands of dollars on tuition costs of $10,000 to $40,000 a year.

It’s not a tax cut for middle-class families in states with high taxes, like New York, New Jersey and Illinois. The Senate bill eliminates deductions for property taxes and state income taxes; the House bill allows a deduction for up to $10,000 in property taxes. About 30% of all taxpayers claim these deductions, including half of middle-class taxpayers who make $50 - $100,000 a year.

It’s not a tax cut for families with high medical expenses. People who have to spend more than 10% of their income on health care could no longer deduct that amount, according to the House bill. About 9 million people, with average income of $55,000, take that deduction every year. People in nursing homes and families with disabled children often need that deduction to make ends meet.

This is not a middle-class tax cut. It will only lower some middle-class families’ taxes for a few years. But Republican leaders won’t say that. Two weeks ago, House Speaker Paul Ryan said: “according to the Joint Committee on Taxation – which is the official scorekeeper of these things – every single person, every rate payer, every bracket person gets a rate cut.” But he was doubly lying. First, while every category of taxpayers would see an average reduction of taxes, not everybody in each category gets a cut. If the House version becomes law, 10% of taxpayers in the middle income range would pay $1000 more in taxes next year and every year.

Second, the cuts for the middle class don’t last long. Senate Republicans made the tax cuts for individuals temporary, expiring in 2025, while the tax cut for corporations is permanent. Whatever benefit middle-class families gain disappears in a few years. That is clear from an exhaustive analysis by Ryan’s own scorekeeper, the Joint Committee on Taxation. By 2025, the Senate bill would increase taxes for Americans whose income is under $50,000 and collect about the same from those with incomes between $50,000 and $500,000. Only those making over $500,000 a year will still see a tax cut by then.

President Trump has broken the promises about taxes made by Candidate Trump. Candidate Trump said, “the hedge fund guys, they’re going to be paying up,” meaning they would no longer get a special low rate for their income. He repeated this many times, saying they are “getting away with murder.” Both the Senate and House bills leave that tax break intact. The most important promise Trump made was that the tax cut was for the middle class. Just two months ago, he said his tax plan was “not good for me, believe me” and “there’s very little benefit for people of wealth.” Don’t believe him. This month he urged a cut in the rate for the richest Americans and an end to the estate tax for inheritances over $11 million.

But you can believe that Trump is still trying to kill Obamacare. With his encouragement, Senate Republicans eliminated the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that everyone have health insurance. As we learned during the health care debate, this means insurance premiums will go up for millions of Americans, wiping out any tax cut they might get.

What would a real middle-class tax cut look like? Reduce taxes on Social Security benefits. If you receive other retirement benefits, then you’ll probably pay taxes on some or most of your Social Security income. Only if your total family income is less than $32,000 is your Social Security income free of tax. Millions of middle-class retirees would benefit if that threshold were raised. Pay for that by ending the tax boondoggle for hedge fund managers.

The Republican tax cut is not about economic policy and is certainly not for the middle class. It is political legislation about economic issues: cut corporate taxes to satisfy Republican donors and try again to kill Obamacare. Mainly it is a backwards reduction in the size of government. First create a giant deficit, much larger than the deficit that Republicans have been saying for years would bankrupt the country. Then later start screaming about deficits again and cut government spending to fit reduced revenues by slashing the programs that most Americans need to keep afloat – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Only 25% of Americans approve of the Republican tax bills. The more Republicans know about the details, the less they approve. Trump, Ryan and company are trying to pass this giant bill so fast, that most people won’t realize what is happening to them.

Steve Hochstadt

Jacksonville IL

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, November 21, 2017

Election 2017: Repudiation of Republicans

Several million Americans voted last Tuesday in the first nationwide election since Donald Trump became President. In the 4-year cycle, this year has the fewest significant election results: two governorships (36 next year) and three state legislative chambers (87 next year) were decided. The media repeated constantly the idea that this was a referendum on Trump’s performance, which is true, but only part of the story. Every race concerned local issues and local personalities, yet we can learn much about our national mood from these statewide and local elections.

Most results are easily predictable from previous elections, because fundamental voting patterns remain dominant. The only Congressional election, replacing Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz who had resigned to become a FOX commentator, was won by another Republican with 58% of the vote. In New York, Democrat Bill de Blasio won overwhelming reelection as mayor, but lost Staten Island, typically a Republican stronghold, to his Republican challenger. In elections for NY City Council, 41 of 42 incumbents won and the last incumbent was in a race too close to call. All seven NY big city mayors won re-election, including the Republican mayor of Binghamton.

Only 2 incumbents lost in the 40-seat New Jersey Senate. Democrats picked up one seat in the Senate and one in the NJ House.

Exit polls in Virginia show how demographic differences in voter preference stayed relatively stable. Just as in the Clinton-Trump contest, voters over 45, men, and whites were more Republican, and women, under 45, and voters of color were more Democratic. The western mountainous regions went Republican and the Washington DC suburbs went Democratic.

But small shifts within these groups had major consequences for the outcome. Democrats slightly increased their percentage of votes in all demographic groups over previous years. For example, Trump won 52% among men and 59% of whites, but the Republican candidate for Governor, Ed Gillespie, won 50% and 57%. Clinton won 56% of women’s votes, but the Democrat Ralph Northam won 61%. The biggest shifts toward Democrats were among young voters 18-29 and middle-class voters with incomes of $50-100,000. The movement toward Democrats repositioned the Virginia House of Delegates, where Republicans held a huge 66-34 seat majority and all 100 seats were in play. Democrats defeated 10 Republican incumbents and picked up at least 15 seats, with 3 Republican seats still too close to call. Control of the Virginia legislature remains in doubt.

The deciding factor in this major legislative shift in Virginia may have been turnout. In the 15 districts that Democrats picked up, turnout increased by 26%.

A different sort of small shift occurred in Washington state, where only 5 state Senate seats were up for election. Two Democratic and two Republican incumbents won huge victories in safe districts, but one open seat in a formerly Republican district was won by a Democrat, switching control of the Senate from a one-vote Republican majority to a one-vote Democratic majority. Three other state legislative seats were flipped, all from Republicans to Democrats, in New Hampshire and Georgia.

Dissatisfaction with Trump and Republican politics since his election is certainly one reason for Democratic gains through higher turnout in these local elections. Another change that exhibited renewed liberal energy was the success of new candidates from previously under-represented groups. Trump’s sexism brought out an army of female candidates who won historic victories. In Newton, MA, and Manchester, NH, the first women were elected mayors. Seattle elected its first woman mayor since the 1920s, and the number of female mayors in larger Washington cities rose from 11 to 27. Women increased their numbers on city councils in Massachusetts to nearly half in Boston and Newton, and doubled their numbers in Cambridge, including the first Muslim woman. In Atlantic City, NJ, 32-year-old Ashley Bennett, who had never held public office, defeated 58-year-old John L. Carman, well-known in local politics for 20 years, for county commissioner.

Non-whites won election firsts: the first black female mayor in Charlotte, NC, and a majority of people of color on the Seattle city council. At least 7 cities elected their first black mayor, including Wilmot Collins, a refugee from Liberia, who was elected mayor of Helena, Montana. Elizabeth Guzman, an immigrant from Peru, trounced a retired Army colonel who has served in the Virginia legislature for 15 years in a traditionally Republican-leaning DC suburb.

Openly transgender candidates won unprecedented victories: first to win election to a state legislature – Danica Roem in Virginia; first to win election to city council seat in a major city – Andrea Jenkins in Minneapolis; first to win any election in Pennsylvania – Tyler Titus in Erie school board.

The Washington Post wondered whether “the Trump era will one day be remembered as the last gasp of white male privilege.” That will only happen if Trump continues his descent into national disapproval and the energy of liberal voters can be sustained through more election cycles.

Steve Hochstadt

Boston MA

Published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, November 14, 2017