Cromwell

C: I’ve gathered you together one last time before the midterms. How are you feeling today?

M: Depressed.

S: Anxious.

C: Mark, why are you depressed?

M: Trump’s war and tariffs are seriously damaging my business. I can’t sell SUVs when the price of gas is over $4 per gallon. The tariffs are driving up our costs and screwing up our supply chains. We don’t know whether we should be trying to build and sell EVs or gas-powered cars. And now, the Democrats, with their taxes and regulations, might win back Congress, which would mean one constitutional crisis after another for the next two years. If that isn’t good reason to be depressed, I don’t know what is.

C: Will you vote for Republicans this year in spite of Trump’s record?

M: Not for MAGA types who support him when he goes off the rails. For more moderate types, yes.

S: I always said you were a RINO. The Republican Party is all about Trump. Nobody else matters. If you’re not with him, you’re against him.

C: Why are you anxious?

S: The polls are bad, the war isn’t going well, and gas is too expensive. Trump could lose. That would be a problem.

C: You always said you trusted Trump. He said the war would be over in a few weeks. That didn’t happen. Do you still trust him?

S: I don’t like the war. I never did. I think someone gave him some bad advice. He needs to get rid of the fools around him and put an end to the war. It’s the source of all of his problems.

C: Trump has also given unqualified support to AI and data centers. How do you feel about that?

S: I’m concerned about data centers, and I hate AI. It could take away my job. It could even wipe out humanity. And for what? It only means more bad customer service and higher profits for businessmen like my RINO friend.

M: Nothing wrong with that! AI is awesome! I’m already planning to lay off most of my accounting staff.

C: Sebastian, are you concerned that most of the AI profits will wind up in the pockets of tech oligarchs?

S: Absolutely! I can’t stand those guys. They’re the global elite that Trump has been fighting all of his life.

C: But they’re all friends of Trump now. Especially Musk, of course.

S: They’re not really his friends. They’ll turn on him when it suits them. Right now, it doesn’t, but wait until 2028. They’ll be back on the blue team.

C: How can you continue to support Trump when you hate his closest allies? He claims to be a populist, but he gives the tech barons everything they want, even if you don’t like it.

S: Trump will figure out who his real friends are soon enough. Just you wait.

C: That’s enough for now. I’ll see you again after the election.

Desperate to show that he is doing something to mitigate the war’s impact on diesel prices, Trump made a deal with Putin to release more product into the world market. This did not go over well with the Europeans or a number of members of Congress. Even Thom Tillis has argued that the deal violates American law and should be terminated.

Zelensky, as you would expect, isn’t a fan, either. He made his opposition very clear. Trump responded by insisting that Ukraine needed a new president. His comments were not received favorably even by the opposition in Ukraine.

Zelensky has done his best under difficult circumstances to avoid provoking Trump for the last two years. Why does he think he can afford to be candid at this point in time?

Because Ukraine has largely weaned itself off American help, and he knows he has more cards to play against Trump than he did last year.

Assume, for purposes of argument, that the Democrats win control of the Senate, at least on paper. Can they rely on Fetterman to support them against Trump?

On issues relating to Israel, no. Otherwise, I would say yes. Fetterman is a contrarian, to be sure, but you would have to be a really passionate contrarian to support an unpopular and unsuccessful autocrat who had just lost his majorities against your own party.

Susan Collins prides herself on being independent, which means that when it comes to opposing Trump, she picks her spots. She voted against the BBB and Hegseth, but she supported Trump on RFK, Bondi, Patel, and the attempt to force changes in ICE tactics. Is that a more effective way to keep Trump within the guardrails than consistent opposition?

Based on the record, probably not. A Senate in which Collins is the decisive vote would most likely stand aside and wring its collective hands ineffectually in the face of creeping autocracy.

New law school students are quickly taught that the text of a document controls when it is clear, and that the remainder of the document and its historical background can be used to establish intent when it is not. This approach works perfectly well with contracts and statutes. Does it make sense as applied to the Constitution?

As far as it goes, absolutely. The problem is that a 200+ year old document with lots of very general language is rarely clear, and that establishing intent through historical research, if done honestly and correctly, is an extremely complex task. As a result, some other source must be used to fill in the gaps in the record.

Thomas gets over this hurdle by cherry-picking history in an unprincipled way in order to get the reactionary outcome he desires. Alito, for his part, apparently gives indications in his new book that he will be using “common good constitutionalism” to fill in the gaps in the historical record. That means medieval Catholic theologians whose influence on the drafting of the Constitution was minimal will be playing a large role in his jurisprudence for the foreseeable future.

Right-leaning lawyers have complained that the Warren Court simply made up new constitutional rights in order to further the ideology of a majority of the justices for decades. The New Right is turning originalism into a Trojan Horse to do the exact same thing in the opposite direction.

With every passing day, the quacking from the lame duck in the White House gets louder. As of today, there is a better than average chance that his successor will be a Democrat. He will enjoy the use of all of the new powers that SCOTUS has granted him over formerly independent agencies and the executive branch, not to mention the immunities provided from criminal prosecution. How will SCOTUS respond over the next two years?

The justices claim they don’t pay any attention to polls or election returns. There is every reason to believe that Thomas, Alito, and the three liberals will follow their own advice. For the others, however, the next two years will be a minefield. Gorsuch and Roberts in particular would be wise to make a display of their independence from Trump’s agenda if they want to avoid allegations of hypocrisy when they inevitably vote to restrain executive power during the next Democratic administration.

I use a PC that runs on Windows, so I understand the contribution that Bill Gates made to my life. I occasionally buy items on Amazon, and I watch documentaries on Amazon Prime, so I don’t resent the fortune accumulated by Jeff Bezos. I’m not on Facebook, but I know plenty of people who rely on it, so I don’t ask why Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire many times over. But what about Elon Musk? What has he ever done for me, or anyone around me?

I don’t drive a Tesla. In any event, Chinese electric cars are better and cheaper than his. I don’t use Starlink or X, either. I don’t see how Musk has made any positive contribution to my life. What, then, justifies his status as a trillionaire? Why should the American political system continue to treat him as a demigod whose whims and weird ideology will define the future?

Beats me.

Recent history tells us that undecided voters break against the party in power in presidential elections when the administration is unpopular, as it is today. It happened in 2016, 2020, and 2024. Does that provide a guide for the midterms?

Not exactly. The outcome of the midterms will revolve less around swing voters and more around the willingness of less engaged 2024 Trump voters to go to the polls to support lackluster Republicans. Angry Democrats and independents will make sure their voices are heard; will waves of commercials attacking the left for being weak and woke do the same for the right?

The outcome of several key Senate races, particularly in the Midwest, will depend on the answer to that question. The polls suggest that those races could go either way. I make no predictions at this point.

Trump says he should have won about eight Nobel Prizes by now. He’s right, but only if they awarded Nobel Prizes for greed, ignorance, narcissism, bad taste, autocracy, bullying, incoherent speeches, and bad hair and makeup.

Until then, I’m afraid he’ll just have to wait.

Recruiting commercials for the military used to be rather sober affairs which emphasized the opportunity to become educated in a tech field at the government’s expense and to assist helpless civilians. As you would expect, Hegseth will have none of that. His commercials show images of ripped, patriotic soldiers relentlessly blowing stuff up. It looks like something out of a video game rather than real warfare.

With that as background, are you surprised that he wants to livestream the execution of a notorious criminal? It probably won’t even bother him that our opponent in the ongoing war is one of the few countries that does the same thing.

Peter Thiel is J.D.’s patron and friend. A few days ago, during one of his Antichrist lectures, Thiel attacked Pope Leo for expressing concerns about the impacts of AI. What does this mean for J.D.?

It will be hugely embarrassing. Leo and the base are on the same page with regard to data centers and AI. The connection with Thiel will be a huge issue in 2028.

In one respect, Trump has been very lucky; his rudderless and largely defunded FEMA has not been challenged by any hurricanes this year. His luck runs out on Saturday. Isaias will strike Alabama and the Florida Panhandle as a Category 2 storm in less than 48 hours.

To make things worse from Trump’s perspective, these are extremely red areas. If FEMA falls short in the recovery effort, it will be predominantly members of his base who will feel the pain.

At least Kristi Noem won’t be there to slow everything down.

Trump lost the 2020 election as a result of his shambolic response to the virus. How do I know that? Because the rest of the GOP ran well ahead of him.

Harris lost the 2024 election because Biden was blamed for the high inflation of 2021 and 2022. Most of the inflation was a worldwide phenomenon that was outside of the US government’s control, and the rest of it was a side effect of a recovery that was the fastest in the world, but the electorate didn’t see it that way.

Trump was elected to bring back the economy of 2019. Instead, he took his narrow victory as a mandate to start wars on a whim and govern despotically at home. While the stock market went up, so did inflation and interest rates. As a result, the GOP is likely to take a bad beating in the midterms.

The overall message here is that, while most Americans vote on the basis of identity politics, elections are actually won by persuading swing voters without a strong party affiliation whose primary interest is in the state of the economy. In other words, in the end, results matter more than ideology and identity, even in today’s badly polarized society.

That’s normal, and it should be reassuring, except that Germans didn’t vote for Nazis in 1932 because they wanted a world war and the extermination of the Jews. When you open Pandora’s Box, lots of nasty stuff that you didn’t foresee flies out.

Pete Hegseth has made it clear what he doesn’t want in his military: “fatties;” “trannies;” “beardos;” and “weirdos.” His military will be a ferociously patriotic group of right-wing Christian crusaders who will blow up anything and kill anyone at his command. In short, they will be a warrior caste similar to the Knights Templars.

The problem with this approach is that a successful military in today’s world relies heavily on the ability to work with local populations and to develop and master new forms of technology. These skills have no reasonable relationship to personal appearance or sex. What difference does it make if a drone operator has a beard?

It should also be pointed out that Saladin wiped out the poorly led Templars over 800 years ago. Hegseth should take notice.

Peter Thiel apparently believes that God has given mankind a sacred mission to improve himself and his environment through the use of new technology. It follows from that premise that anyone standing in the way of technological improvement–politicians, bureaucrats, judges, and activists–is a form of the Antichrist. Does this make sense?

Of all of the stupid and weird ways to read the Bible, this one is close to the top of the list. Didn’t he read the bit about Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge?