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The risk of election violence in America is real

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THERE ARE countries in the world where machete-wielding teenagers intimidating voters are a routine part of elections. America is not normally among them. Yet on October 29th an 18-year-old man in Florida was arrested for doing exactly that. Caleb James Williams was, according to local police, part of a group of eight young men hanging out in the parking lot of an early-vote polling station in suburban Jacksonville, waving Donald Trump flags and chanting slogans. Mr Williams allegedly “brandished a machete in an aggressive, threatening posture over his head” at two women who were supporting Kamala Harris.

In late October two ballot boxes, one in Washington state and one in Oregon, were set alight. In Arizona, on October 24th, a 60-year-old man was arrested in connection with three incidents where a Democratic National Committee office was shot at, first with a BB gun, and then with real bullets. In Michigan, on November 2nd, a 55-year-old man was charged after allegedly accelerating his car at Harris campaign canvassers, while calling for them to be exterminated. And in July, one candidate, Donald Trump, was almost assassinated.

Many Americans fear it could get worse. Three-quarters of Americans say that they are worried about post-election violence, according to the AP/NORC poll. Some businesses in Washington, DC, have boarded up their windows, apparently for fear of riots. A few larger businesses are quietly preparing for potential disruption by cancelling meetings and suggesting employees work from home. Readying for potential unrest, some media organisations have even redeployed correspondents from warzones. A few media organisations are warning darkly of “civil war”. But how bad could it really get?

“I am not a panic peddler,” says Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County, Illinois. “I am just sitting on data that is indisputable…saying that we’ve never had more people saying political violence is OK.” Mr Dart is among the most prominent of 200 law-enforcement officers who have been briefed by Robert Pape, an academic at the University of Chicago who studies political violence. Mr Pape has been surveying voters, both remotely and in person at rallies. Based on this evidence, he is frank: “We are going forward into a season of political violence.”

Underpinning this is data showing that significant minorities—a fifth of Americans—say they support the use of violence to either restore Donald Trump to the presidency or else to prevent him from taking it. That finding, Mr Pape argues, is roughly analogous to discovering there is a lot of dry wood in a forest. It does not necessarily mean that an enormous wildfire will break out. Nor does it tell you much about what sort of spark could set it off. But it means that you should be prepared.

What would violence look like if it happened? Much depends on the results. If Ms Harris appears to be winning in a close count, one possibility is protests at places where counts are being held (as happened in 2020), fuelled by conspiracy theories about fraud. Even if she won clearly, currently sporadic violent incidents against Democrats by amped-up or paranoid individuals could escalate. By contrast, if Mr Trump wins, the fear would be widespread protests in big cities, some of which could turn into violent rioting. Mr Pape stresses that his data suggest people on both sides of the political divide are supportive of violence.

The risk, however, is not evenly balanced. Another survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, a think-tank, suggests Republicans are over three times as likely as Democrats to believe that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country”. And incitement can turn support for violence into action. In the final weeks of the campaign, Mr Trump has come close to that. At one of his final rallies in Pennsylvania on November 3rd he appeared to make a joke about how he “wouldn’t mind” if somebody shot at the “fake news” journalists covering him, and suggested that “demonic” Democrats “are fighting so hard to steal this damn thing”.

One concern is that viral online posts claiming to offer proof of electoral fraud or irregularities will inspire people to take to the streets. A recent illustration of just how quickly “rage bait” can spin out of control came from the (false) claim that Haitians were eating dogs in Springfield, Ohio. That was then amplified by Mr Trump and his running-mate, J.D. Vance. It led to over 30 bomb threats against schools and government buildings. Already hundreds of posts have claimed to show evidence of election fraud, and many more are certain to follow on and after election day. False claims are also fanned by foreign adversaries: a viral video purporting to show Haitian immigrants illegally voting in Georgia turned out to be Russian election interference, America’s intelligence agencies said last week.

Yet there are reasons to be optimistic for a smoother ride than in 2020. Local officials are better prepared. In Michigan, poll workers have been given special phone numbers to contact law enforcement if they are threatened. In Philadelphia’s, ballot-counting  has been moved from the city centre location warehouse , where in 2020 Mr Trump’s supporters banged on the windows demanding to “stop the count” to a suburban warehouse, is now surrounded by barbed wire. “Do we think it’s possible there’s going to be protests at election warehouses? We’ve already seen that, so, yeah, we’re planning for that. Do we think that folks are going to get threatened? Yeah, we’re planning for that,” says Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state. According to the Brennan Centre for Justice, a think-tank, 92% of local election officials across America have taken steps to improve election security and staff safety.

Will it be enough? Predictions of imminent civil war are clearly overblown. Even widespread violence seems unlikely. But irregularities and a few bad incidents are inevitable (and happen at every election). “The notion that all police departments are going to be up to speed on election law is wildly naive,” worries Mr Dart, the sheriff in Illinois. After all, America has almost 18,000 police departments. Small forces are not all trained in active-shooter response, best crowd-control practices or in riot equipment and weapons, says Brian Higgins, a former cop and now a crowd-control expert at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Overall, police seem prepared. And election officials have put measures in place, including live feeds of drop boxes, in an attempt to build trust in the process. Sending a signal that political violence will be severely punished would help. Unfortunately Mr Trump is conveying the opposite message to his supporters—by promising to pardon January 6th rioters if re-elected. As long as violence is not roundly condemned, it is impossible to rule out.

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Economics

Trump and Fed Chair Powell could be set on a collision course over rates

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Jerome Powell and President Donald Trump during a nomination announcement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell could be on a policy collision course in 2025 depending on how economic circumstances play out.

Should the economy run hot and inflation flare up again, Powell and his colleagues could decide to tap the brakes on their efforts to lower interest rates. That in turn could infuriate Trump, who lashed Fed officials including Powell during his first term in office for not relaxing monetary policy quickly enough.

“Without question,” said Joseph LaVorgna, former chief economist at the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, when asked about the potential for a conflict. “When they don’t know what to do, oftentimes they don’t do anything. That may be a problem. If the president feels like rates should be lowered, does the Fed, just for public optics, dig its feet in?”

Though Powell became Fed chair in 2018, after Trump nominated him for the position, the two clashed often about the direction of interest rates.

Trump publicly and aggressively berated the chair, who in turn responded by asserting how important it is for the Fed to be independent and apart from political pressures, even if they’re coming from the president.

When Trump takes office in January, the two will be operating against a different backdrop. During the first term, there was little inflation, meaning that even Fed rate hikes kept benchmark rates well below where they are now.

Trump is planning both expansionary and protectionist fiscal policy, even more so than during his previous run, that will include an even tougher round of tariffs, lower taxes and big spending. Should the results start to show up in the data, the Powell Fed may be tempted to hold tougher on monetary policy against inflation.

LaVorgna, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, who is rumored for a position in the new administration, thinks that would be mistake.

“They’re going to look at a very nontraditional approach to policy that Trump is bringing forward but put it through a very traditional economic lens,” he said. “The Fed’s going to have a really difficult choice based on their traditional approach of what to do.”

Market sees fewer rate cuts

Futures traders have been waffling in recent days on their expectations for what the Fed will do next.

The market is pricing in about a coin-flip chance of another interest rate cut in December, after it being a near-certainty a week ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch. Pricing further out indicates the equivalent of three quarter-percentage-point reductions through the end of 2025, which also has come down significantly from prior expectations.

Investors’ nerves have gotten jangled in recent days about the Fed’s intentions. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman on Wednesday noted that progress on inflation has “stalled,” an indication that she might continue to push for a slower pace of rate cuts.

“All roads lead to tensions between the White House and the Fed,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM. “It won’t just be the White House. It will be Treasury, it’ll be Commerce and the Fed all intersecting.”

Indeed, Trump is building a team of loyalists to implement his economic agenda, but much of the success depends on accommodative or at least accurate monetary policy that doesn’t push too hard to either boost or restrict growth. For the Fed, that is represented in the quest to find the “neutral” rate of interest, but for the new administration, it could mean something different.

The struggle over where rates should be will create “political and policy tensions between the Federal Reserve and the White House that would clearly prefer lower rates,” Brusuelas said.

“If one is going to impose tariffs, or mass deportations, you’re talking about restricting aggregate supply while simultaneously implementing deficit finance tax cuts, which is encouraging an increase in aggregate demand. You’ve got a basic inconsistency in your policy matrix,” he added. “There’s an inevitable crossroads that results in tensions between Trump and Powell.”

Avoiding conflict

To be sure, there are some factors that could mitigate the tensions.

One is that Powell’s term as Fed chair expires in early 2026, so Trump may simply choose to ride it out until he can put someone in the chair more to his liking. There’s also little chance that the Fed would actually move to raise rates outside of some highly unexpected event that would push inflation much higher.

Also, Trump’s policies will take a while to make their way through the system, so any impacts on inflation and macroeconomic growth likely won’t be readily apparent in the data, thus not necessitating a Fed response. There’s also the chance that the impacts might not be that much either way.

“I expect higher inflation and slower growth. I think the tariffs and the deportations are negative supply shocks. They hurt growth and they lift inflation,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The Fed will still cut interest rates next year, just perhaps not as quickly as would have otherwise been the case.”

Battles with Trump, then, could be more of a headache for the next Fed chair, assuming Trump doesn’t reappoint Powell.

“So I don’t think it’s going to be an issue in 2025,” Zandi said. “It could be an issue in 2026, because at that point, the rate cutting’s over and the Fed may be in a position where it certainly needs to start raising interest rates. Then that’s when it becomes an issue.”

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Economics

Congestion pricing in New York gets the go-ahead after all. Maybe

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NOVEMBER 20th marks the first “Gridlock Alert” day of New York City’s holiday season. This is the official designation for the city’s busiest traffic days of the year. But traffic is bad most days, with more than 900,000 cars entering Manhattan’s central business district. INRIX, a traffic-data firm, found that New York City leads the world in urban traffic congestion among the cities scored, with the average driver stationary for 101 hours a year. After years of false starts, including a cowardly pre-election pause by Kathy Hochul, New York’s Democratic governor, congestion pricing has the green light.

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Economics

Howard Lutnick, Donald Trump’s pick for commerce secretary

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Editor’s note: On November 19th Donald Trump chose Howard Lutnick to be commerce secretary in his new administration. We published this profile of Mr Lutnick on November 16th and have updated it to include his appointment.

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