What If There Is No Low-Hanging Economic Fruit? 

The myth of the president-as-rainmaker.

By
269
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on new actions to strengthen supply chains at the Indian Treaty Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on November 27, 2023. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)

Joe Biden is in an economic-political bind, partly of his own making and partly more than a century in the making: He is a hostage of our national religion, the cult of the magic president. 

In this case, it is the president-as-rainmaker, the guy who is responsible for the economy—a belief founded on very little other than pure superstition rooted in ancient magical beliefs about national/tribal leaders as intercessors between men and the gods, who by their personal virtue and ceremonial correctness ensure material prosperity. If the rains are timely and the crops abundant, then the king has done right. If there is disease or drought, then … 

In the (very) old days, a sacral king who lost the mandate of heaven might expect to be ritually murdered by his successor, but now we just have elections—unless you take Donald Trump’s lawyers seriously, in which case apparently we can expect doddering incumbents to murder their would-be successors. As a tradition-minded conservative, I have to say that I prefer it the other way around, but that’s a longer story.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    Another great newsletter. These are the kind I especially like.

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  2. Jf

    I share Mr. Williamson's contempt for Trump but to describe Trump as a "pornographic performer" is false, as a quick reading of the link will reveal. Williamson would condemn the characterization as a smear if it were directed toward someone he was fond of.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      I’m pretty sure Trump was in at least one pornographic film, although having not seen the film I can’t confirm.

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      1. Portrait of Kevin D Williamsoncircle-angle-nib
        Kevin D. Williamson vertical-nib Author

        Three, I think it was.

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    Steven Sarafian

    I am reminded of the comment by Dwight Morrow (Calvin Coolidge's college room mate, successful ambassador to Mexico (Coolidge told him to get to know people and discuss matters with them instead of issuing demands), and Senator from NJ): "An administration which takes credit for the rain must expect to be blamed for the drought".

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    Tylergveld

    I am a physical therapist and it is incredible how many otherwise intelligent and excellent health care providers still talk about myofascial release and breaking up adhesions. Then patients come in asking for it and you have to try to break through the haze of misinformation. Good stuff

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    1. Avatar photo
      TJ

      Have you seen the Gill Headley video, “the fuzz speech“? If I came in to a physical therapist and asked for myofascial release, that’s what I would be talking about. Is that all bogus?

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    2. Avatar photo
      Ben Connelly

      What would you say about the claim that massaging a muscle can get it to relax and usually reduces subjective feelings of pain? That appears to me to be well-documented, even if “removing adhesions” isn’t the mechanism. I’m curious as to what the mechanism is, but I doubt it’s the placebo effect.

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        Tylergveld

        Good question! It's a little more complicated than it just relaxing, but it certainly can have a short term reduction in pain. This is driven by a combination of neurological cascades (which also occur with other sensory inputs such as exercise or joint mobilizations) and what you can call "contextual factors" or nonspecific inputs (the relief that comes from having an empathetic caregiver treat you, someone putting their hands on you, etc.). These temporary decreases in pain can be helpful if utilized by a skilled provider guiding an course of treatment to facilitate patient buy in, meet expectations, or allow someone to perform exercises, but they don't have much to do with a long term prognosis (you will probably be about the same in 3-6 months whether or not massage was used). Anyone who has done a full cadaver dissection should be disillusioned of the idea that we could break up adhesions! Thanks for the thoughtful question

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        1. Placid Paddler

          I was amazed to hear a serious researcher talk about how beneficial empathetic care could be. Seems like a lot of quackery turns out to be beneficial just from care and placebo effects. Goes to show how little we still know about our bodies.

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        2. Avatar photo
          Ben Connelly

          That makes a ton of sense! I should have clarified that I didn’t mean that massaging (in various forms) was a permanent cure or anything, but that it could provide some short-term relief and in some cases could perform a function similar to joint mobilizations (i.e. improve mobility). For example, if you have some sort of ball and place it in the corner of the pec near the shoulder (against a wall) and have the person move their arm up and down in a particular manner their pec can relax and their shoulder will sit back and won’t be protracted forward anymore. Obviously, without corrective exercise, their chest might tighten up again in a few hours, but in the short term the massaging clearly did something.

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    3. Jf

      It is incredible how many otherwise intelligent people constantly invoke the grossly overused word "incredible". Have some pity.

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      1. Kgfroehle

        It's inconceivable!

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        1. Jf

          And amazing!

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      2. Avatar photo
        Tylergveld

        Cool dude

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        1. Jf

          Sho' nuf, bro'.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Daniel.Standage

    It's fun to see models of planets next to each other to get a sense of scale. Thanks for painting the economic equivalent so skillfully here!

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  6. Avatar photo
    Kleboutillier

    1st Amendment is certainly a dead letter in today's political atmosphere. 2nd Amendment is seen as a crime against the American people. We'd start at the 3rd Amendment, a useless law about housing troops in citizen's homes, and we land on the 4th amendment about unreasonable search and seizure, which has been skirted by other laws and RICO that it moots the original meaning in many cases.

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  7. Robert Archibald

    "I do not think the Democratic Party ever has really been made to have a reckoning with its past." Because the Southern Democrats ended up becoming Republicans after losing the civil rights battles of the 1960s.

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    1. Portrait of Kevin D Williamsoncircle-angle-nib
      Kevin D. Williamson vertical-nib Author

      That's not really true. Southern voting patterns did not change much overall, and where they did change, Southern voters started shifting GOP in relatively educated suburban districts, i.e., among voters who were a lot like Republicans elsewhere in the country at the time. With the notable exception of Strom Thurmond, the Democrats who had bitterly opposed civil-rights legislation in Congress stayed Democrats. Most Southern states remained Democratic at the state level into the 21st century. Lester Maddox was replaced by Jimmy Carter, not by Ronald Reagan. Etc.

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      1. Stephen W. Sides

        Let's also not forget that many Southern segregationists were dyed-in-the-wool New Dealers as well.

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        1. Portrait of Kevin D Williamsoncircle-angle-nib
          Kevin D. Williamson vertical-nib Author

          A great majority of them, and they were Wilsonian progressives before that. The whole notion of the racist Southern "conservative" is a bit off.

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          1. Placid Paddler

            But that notion sold well in academia and the press. I wonder why.

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            Judson Heartsill

            and Wilson helped perpetuate lost cause mythology with his Confederate veterans rapprochement as part of ginning up warm fuzzy support for WW1.

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  8. Vaddeman

    Convicted

    I'm open to creative usage, as long as the intended meaning is actually contained and reasonably apparent. Pulling out a dictionary or thesaurus, once in a while, is good.

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    John Lewis

    Kevin is as witty as Christopher Hitchens. Without the bad manners of being a convicted atheist.

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    1. Portrait of Kevin D Williamsoncircle-angle-nib
      Kevin D. Williamson vertical-nib Author

      So far, I've managed to avoid being convicted of anything, but I've had good representation.

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      Kmregan7

      Was it his “bad manners” that you didn’t like or do you just have something against atheists and think being one makes you have bad manners?

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      1. Avatar photo
        John Lewis

        I’m generally ok with atheists. I have more a problem with the humorless. In that sense, Hitch was pretty ok.

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        1. Jf

          I generally am successful in tolerating people who adhere to religious superstition. I have more of a problem with the sanctimonious subset of them. In that sense, John Lewis, is maybe pretty could-be ok.

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            John Lewis

            I’m not too pretty but kinda ok. I can think of a coworker or two who’d be less generous.

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      WilliamJ

      Nice.

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  10. Cpbogdan

    The idea that the president runs the economy reminds me of a line from Pushing Tin: Nick, an air traffic controller is trying to convince the cabin crew that the flight their on is being manipulated by another ATC with a grudge. She tells Nick not to worry because “the pilot is in control of the plane”. To which, he replies “Oh, you really think the pilot is controlling this plane? That really would scare me.”

    If the president actually controlled the economy… yikes!

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