May 27, 2022: Uvalde

In which, another mass shooting mars the American landscape, Australia gets a new government, stagflation settles in, and was that Biden’s biggest gaffe yet?

Uvalde

After a week of mass shootings, Uvalde, Texas found itself a part of that deadly trend, and with a horrific twist: a lone gunman killing over 20 at a local elementary school, 19 of them children. The wickedness of the deed may appear incomprehensible to many, but two disturbing commonalities appeared between the Uvalde incident and other school shootings of the recent past. 

First, the lone, angry, depressed, fatherless young man perpetrating the crime was apparently overlooked by his community as a danger to others. Indeed, he appears to have been generally overlooked, period. Much was made about the ease with which he legally obtained guns, but here’s the thing: gun control laws aren’t designed to predict criminal behavior, and background checks rely on pre-existing data to flag a potential threat. If there’s literally no criminal data on the guy that’s not a problem with gun laws. Rather it’s a data problem, which raises its own set of ethical questions around predicting future criminal behavior. Bottom line: gun control laws may reduce risk of such events, but will never fully eliminate the risk.

Second, like the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting in Florida, the initial praise for law enforcement’s response to the incident (an off duty Border Patrol agent took down the shooter in Uvalde) evaporated as more information came to light highlighting the ineptitude of local law enforcement in responding to initial reports of the situation.

How do we make sense of such an unspeakable tragedy? Having a moral category for evil certainly helps. At the policy level, we also need to recognize that school shootings like this, and mass shootings in general, appear to be a very recent phenomenon. In other words, they’ve occurred in a context of increased gun control. So, while the deed is evil, we also need to wrestle with the fact that there are recent (very recent) social and cultural trend lines that are fomenting this evil, and ease of access to guns and their prevalence are probably not the prime culprits here.

Gaffers gonna gaffe

This last week, President Biden has been abroad in Asia seeking to fortify alliances and relationships there in the face of competition with China. In that context, the President made what was perhaps his most significant geostrategic gaffe:

For a President promising to return diplomacy and decorum to American foreign policy this is about as bad as it comes. What does such a verbal commitment of US troops to Taiwan’s defense mean? Is it an ironclad promise? Is there a secret agreement between Taiwan and the US? Would the US be prepared to jettison its One China policy and strategic ambiguity, and back Taiwanese independence? How far is America willing to go in assisting Taiwan in its defense?

Rather than answer any of these questions, the Biden team went into backpedal and spin control mode, further muddying the diplomatic waters. 

Further, in a more polished delivery of confusing rhetoric yesterday, Secretary of State Blinken seemed to echo Biden’s confusing policy posture towards China by labeling Beijing the main threat to world order, but a threat to be worked with where possible.

To be fair to the Biden administration, China is a tough challenge and our position on Taiwan makes it tougher. However, this confusing posturing and messaging was exactly what Biden (and many, many others) criticized Donald Trump for and promised not to do.

Instead, not only is the Biden administration trafficking in the same confusion, but it's doing so in a higher stakes context.

Summer of stagflation

Another week, another bad data point: Over half of American families are canceling summer plans due to inflation. With fuel costs continuing to rise, and consumer goods from baby formula to helium for party balloons in short supply, the first “post-Covid” summer is shaping up to be a dud. And for the employees of 70 Sears stores across the country, it’s turning into a summer without jobs.