Mixed Messages
“Spent the night with a friend of mine and a handle of good whiskey.
Picked guitars and we talked about all the glory days we miss them.
It didn’t take too long to find the truth inside that bottle.
Cast a sea so long ago was a message from my father.
You keep your heart above your head and your eyes wide open.
So this world can’t find a way to leave you cold.
And know you’re not the only ship out on the ocean.
Save your strength for things that you can change.
Forget the ones you can’t.
Gotta let it go!”
I try hard to understand what the future holds. I expect we all do. We have more information now than ever at our fingertips. We can research almost anything with a few clicks on a keyboard and find out things that 50 years ago would take researchers days to find in a library. Maybe it’s the easy access to reams of information that makes it more difficult to see what lies ahead, when we used to just rely on gut feel. Or, maybe we are in a particular era of uncertainty that obscures our vision of the path ahead. Let’s take a look at our five dimensions of chaos and try to assess what might come next. As you will see, there are mixed messages on all of them.
Political: After the debate, the Harris team is feeling pretty good. She seemed to get a little bump in polling. They continue to have plenty of money for get-out-the-vote efforts and ads. The regime media continue to ignore her frequent missteps and changes in position and fawn over her “historic” nature. The Fed just cut interest rates by half a point just before the election which has always been seen in the past as an attempt to help the party in power. As I suspected, the campaign is keeping her on a tight leash and she is cackling less and saying almost nothing of substance. Have you noticed that her answer to every question seems to be “I grew up in a middle class family…” She has been carefully scripted and instructed not to say anything else. I don’t know that it is helping her, but it keeps her from being the source of her own failure. In the meantime, the un-scriptable Donald Trump exaggerates and offends, which keeps his support from growing as much as it should.
On the other hand, the Trump campaign can feel good too. If the national polls are correct and the race is a dead heat nationally, Trump almost certainly wins the electoral college. In spite of recent polling setbacks, he never polled this high in 2016 or 2020. He has consistently outperformed polls in the past. This may be because Trump voters will not respond to polls for fear they will be put on an FBI list as a Trump supporter and the Feds will come take their guns.
The Senate still looks good for a slim Republican majority and The House is too close to call.
Economy: The economy is still growing. There is cash and liquidity all around. The values of houses, stocks, gold and various other assets are still rising. The Federal deficit is rising further meaning that now may be close to $3T is being pumped into the economy by the Feds each year to keep things humming. The debt and interest thereon is rising precipitously but so far no three alarm fire there. The Fed just cut interest rates by half a point. All is good.
But, we seem to have a “K-shaped” economy at the moment. People with assets at the higher end of the income spectrum are doing well as their assets have appreciated dramatically in the last four years. But people working for wages who either rent or own a home with a mortgage are struggling to stay even over that time. Using a car business example, the stock of Ferrari has more than doubled this year as the Italian manufacturer is selling a record number of cars at record prices and has already sold everything they can build into 2026. Meanwhile, the stocks of most of the “popular priced” car makers are down. The stock of Dollar General, a retailer catering to lower end consumers, has been cut in half this year as their customers buy a smaller number of less expensive items.
Corporate bankruptcies are the highest in over a decade. Delinquencies on credit cards and mortgages are rising. Defaults on real estate loans are heading higher as is unemployment. States and local governments are seeing declining revenues which means they too must cut back. And at some point, the massive federal debt will become a problem, and perhaps a major one.
Is the economy up or down? It seems it is both.
Culture: The Neo-Marxist Left (a term they actually embrace) has been on a 50 year march through American institutions in a plan to change the culture and society here. They have been successful in media, entertainment, education and technology. Critical Race Theory, DEI (which I call Discrimination, Exclusion and Indoctrination), Climate Worship, Antisemitism, Atheism, Transgenderism and other S2LGBTQII+++ perversions, Woke Ideology and Critical Immigration Theory have permeated these institutions and anyone who has a different view is a bigot of some sort.
However, things seem to be turning the other way. A number of major corporations and universities eliminated their DEI programs recently. The ratings of regime media continue to drop, so much so that the leftist state of California is proposing to have government funding of these media outlets lest they go bankrupt. Some universities, seeing their donations decline, are thinking of reversing some of these policies. The New University of Florida as well as The University of Austin have recently opened as alternatives to the woke establishment colleges. And after years of declining attendance at religious services, there are some indications that people are turning back to God for a solace which no earthly source can deliver.
Have we reached peak-wokism? In spite of their massive gains in the last 50 years, will Neo-Marxism recede from the American psyche? Too early to tell. At least now, the left has been exposed and there is significant pushback from freedom loving Americans.
Society: Two attempts to kill President Trump in less than two months have failed. This sort of political violence is not new in the history of the United States. Far from it. But it is unprecedented since World War II. There will be an election on November 5th. Either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will be elected president. Either half the country will think democracy has just died and a fascist is running the country, or free speech just died and a communist is running the country. Can either person pivot to be a unifier? It seems unlikely. I hate to say this, but it seems more likely that the violence will increase no matter what the outcome.
International: The Ukrainians attacked Russian territory and succeeded in taking and, so far, holding some of said ground. So, are the Ukrainians winning? Hard to tell. The Russians have called up even more men to fight. They have many more than Ukraine can ever field. So, can the Russians win by outlasting Ukraine in a war of attrition? It wouldn’t be the first time a war has been won that way. And of course, the Russians can always win by deploying nuclear weapons. Will they?
Israel is fighting for it’s very existence. It’s enemies (including those rioting in the U.S. and U.K.) make it clear that they no only want the state of Israel to disappear (from the river to the sea) but they want the extermination of all jews. Facing extermination is highly motivating. And the Israelis are very smart and very good. Did they cause the recent explosion of Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies? We don’t know for sure. If the IDF or Mossad did do this, it demonstrates capabilities and military innovation that is not matched anywhere. In spite of the Biden administration’s nonsensical policies in the region, Israel’s security relies on the elimination of Hamas, Hezbollah and maybe the Houthi’s as well. Does this widen the war to include Iran?
The rest of the world is not necessarily stable and safe either. China appears to have major economic problems. How does the government react and what do the people do? Right now, many wealthy in China are trying to get out. The EU continues to weaken from self-inflicted wounds including climate worship. Brazil may be turning authoritarian.
Summary: In any of our five dimensions listed above, I can make an argument, supported by data, for just about any outcome you care to support.
The Zac Brown song at the top of this missive gives an updated version of the message in Doris Day’s 1955 tune, Que Sera, Sera. We all do what we can to support the outcomes we think are best. Some of you readers work in cross-purposes to where I work. We do our part. We hope to influence the outcome, but we cannot change it on our own. We must prepare ourselves for how we will react no matter which way the winds blow.
When I was in the retail car business, my economic prognostications were pretty good. Seeing and talking to dozens of regular customers every day, I could get a feel for how they were acting in a way that no data or polling can provide. Today, I spend time in three very different states, but don’t have the breadth of exposure that I once did to people. With that caveat, my “feel” is that Trump will win and have very slim majorities in the House and Senate. That the economy will enter a formal recession in 2025 and the debt will be a problem. That Neo-marxism will recede further but the “culture wars” will increase in intensity as the Marxists will not give up. The vitriol in politics will not abate as Trump will either not try, or be unable to be a uniter. And finally, at least one conflict in the world will widen and create international turmoil and a wider war.
You can’t know how much I want to be wrong about some of that.
Until next week, I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free