Cromwell

This time, the aging leftist beat the thuggish reactionary in the rematch. Trump relates very strongly to the Bolsonaro family, so he will be extremely angry. What can we expect from him?

Two things. First, his complaints on the trail about the left rigging elections will become even more shrill. Second, he will begin a pressure campaign to try to force the Brazilian election officials to identify Bolsonaro as the victor. These will probably include more tariffs and even a threat of military intervention.

A Democratic Senate would be hobbled by the filibuster. Would this be the time to abolish it?

No, because the GOP could conceivably win the trifecta in 2028, at which time the Democrats would no longer have any leverage to protect their ideas and constituents. There is no reasonable prospect that any purely partisan blue team legislation will become law as long as Trump is president. Don’t push against the filibuster until it can do you some practical good.

Let’s be honest–Trump is likely to veto any initiatives from the new blue Congress, so any legislation generated in the next two years will be more of an exercise in line-drawing than in helping the American people. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried. Can the Democrats unite behind an agenda, and what would it look like?

The most obvious way of reducing costs for American voters is to repeal the more extreme Trump tariffs. In addition, the Democrats will agree on reining in ICE. An excess profits tax on fossil fuel industries could theoretically provide funds for reinstating the Biden subsidies for Obamacare policies. Finally, the Democrats should propose to eliminate the FICA cap in order to protect Social Security. If Trump and the GOP want to prioritize low taxes for wealthy people over the fiscal health of Social Security, let them say so in public.

Assume, for purposes of argument, that the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress. Should their agenda include impeachment? If so, of whom?

Trump clearly fears impeachment, but attacking him directly would be a mistake, because: (a) it will play into his martyrdom narrative; (b) it will unite a fractured base behind him; (c) it will make him even more autocratic; (d) it has no chance of success; and (e) if somehow successful, it would make J.D. president. In short, it’s a loser all around.

Impeaching Hegseth would be far more popular and would have some chance of success. There are three potential grounds: failing to protect secrets; general incompetence; and the politicization of the military for purely partisan purposes. Do these have any basis in the real world?

#1 clearly does, and is legally sustainable, but may seem too remote in time and insignificant to justify such a drastic remedy. #2 seems obvious to me, but may not meet the legal standard, and is at any rate subjective and reasonably debatable. #3 is the one that really meets the standard of a “high crime,” and I have opined on many occasions that it is the real reason for Heggy’s supposed war on wokeness. Can it be proved in public? I’m not sure.

This is a cause that would unite the blue base and divide the right. On balance, I think it would be worth attempting.

Leaf season came late to the mountains this year as a result of the unusually hot weather. As a result, most of the leaves are still on the trees. It’s getting cold, however, and winter is on the way. It’s time to return to Florida.

This is the last time we will see DeSantis’ name on the welcome sign when we cross the border. At this time next year, he will either be running for president or heading for a crushing anonymity. I suspect the former, even though he has inspired very little chatter, but let’s hope it’s the latter.

There is an interesting article in today’s NYT about what history tells us regarding the impact of dramatic technological change on workers. Sometimes the transition to a different kind of economy is smooth, and sometimes it isn’t. Key factors include the state of the economy at the time the change occurs, the speed at which the change occurs, and the amount and quality of government intervention to mitigate the damage to newly redundant workers.

That is a reasonable analysis. But it doesn’t answer the question that Bill Gates and I, among others, have asked about AI: the original Industrial Revolution replaced human strength and dexterity with machines, so if AI substitutes software for human intellect, what does the average person have left to sell?

I have yet to see a plausible answer to that question.

Since the war on the ground in Ukraine is not going well, Putin has changed tactics. He has decided to try and win it by flipping Trump and intensifying the bombing of civilians.

Trump, for his part, is contemplating an escalation of the Iran war after the midterms. The new air campaign will apparently largely focus on the destruction of Iran’s energy supplies. The plan, of course, is to force the regime to make concessions by further immiserating the civilian population.

Creating misery hasn’t worked in Cuba, it didn’t work in North Vietnam, it hasn’t worked yet in Iran, and it won’t work next month. It won’t work for Putin, either.

Trump is going to Florida on Friday to campaign for Byron Donalds. When Jolly was asked about this, his reply, in a nutshell, was “Good!”

Trump is trying desperately to win the midterms by making them about himself. Since he is the problem, his efforts are only making things worse for the GOP.

He looks like a man struggling to get out of quicksand.

Things couldn’t get worse, right? Well, actually, they have been worse, and in my lifetime. In 1968, America’s cities were burning, RFK and MLK were assassinated, and the country was torn apart by the war. The country voted for law and order in the presidential election, and the rest is history.

The difference between now and then is that the threat to stability came from people who had been denied the benefits of liberal democracy and were seeking a more inclusionary version of the existing system. Today, the threat comes from reactionaries who don’t believe in liberal democracy, but in their supposed God-given entitlement to political, social, and economic supremacy.

Macron is a brilliant man, and he was right on the big issues. He understood that slow growth was making the French welfare state unsustainable and France itself increasingly irrelevant. He did what he could to solve the problems. In the end, however, he failed. Today, France is caught between the demands of bond vigilantes and a citizenry that refuses to give up even small fragments of its welfare state. In the end, the circle will probably be squared by violence–most likely from a newly repressive state.

Why did Macron fail? Because his communications and political skills were inadequate for a very tough job. Persuading the French people to move into the 21st century was always going to be a difficult sell. I’m not at all sure that anyone could have done a better job than he did. The bottom line, however, is that the French center isn’t holding, and the next leader will probably come from the far right, which has no answers except nostalgia and a big stick. When the history books are written, Macron will get a large part of the blame.

Trump and J.D. couldn’t help opining on the riots. They blamed them on immigrants, spoiled elites, and wokesters. Is there any truth to their statements?

To my knowledge, there is no evidence that immigrants participated in disproportionate numbers, and wokeness has never infiltrated the political discussion in France to the extent it did here. This was a movement that started with French students (historically, a very politically active group), spread to include the grievances of the population as a whole, and was hijacked by far-left radicals. In short, the answer to the question is no.

Trump and J.D. probably believe that any event which assists the international brotherhood of nationalists is good for them and America. What they will actually find, if the RN wins the election, is that right-wing populists in France are even less sympathetic to America than the Macron regime. There is no international brotherhood of nationalists; by definition, there can’t be.

My head and heart are at war over the election. My heart is rooting desperately for a blue tsunami to send the message to the world that Trump can and will be stopped; my head, however, is telling me that he has workarounds for virtually every guardrail the Democrats will build, that the next two years will be an excruciating series of constitutional crises, and that the man on golf cart will govern even more autocratically than before. Can these positions be reconciled?

Yes. The ideal outcome would be a massive blue team victory in the House, but a pickup of only three seats in the Senate, not to include Maine. Under this scenario, the Republicans would retain nominal, but not practical, control of the Senate; Trump’s more obnoxious appointments and measures would be blocked by Collins and Murkowski. Trump’s inevitable attacks on Congress would carry far less sting, and J.D. would have to spend his days in Washington casting tiebreaking votes instead of campaigning.

It could happen. We’ll see.

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown, looming midterm blues.

You have to be aware of it; it’s all over the news.

The polls are looking pretty bad, and now I’ve got to choose.

If I can’t end my stupid war, chances are, we’ll lose.

__________________

Prices have gone up and up; the economy’s not great.

I tell my friends this too will pass; they only have to wait.

The vote’s less than a month away; the time is getting late.

Some opposition I can stand; it’s Democrats I hate.

_____________________

I’ve got the blues.

The lost election blues.

I’ve rallied almost everywhere;

I’ve really paid my dues.

The Democrats are coming back;

They never went away.

But I’ve got plans to deal with them.

They won’t get in my way.

Trump 1.0 featured an openly reactionary economic plan. Through tariffs and the deregulation of the fossil fuel industries, Trump sought to bring back an America full of jobs for burly, sweaty men. All jobs were not equal in his view; if you were an installer of solar panels, so much the worse for you.

Trump 2.0 has pursued the reactionary agenda even more vigorously. This time, however, he has paired it with the deregulation and promotion of AI–in other words, the promise of a utopian future. What’s going on here? What holds these two mutually exclusive visions of a great past and a vastly greater future together?

Political expediency in the form of new and powerful allies and an intense desire to disrupt the status quo. Other than that, nothing, as J.D. will probably learn to his cost.

The French government accuses the left of supporting the riots that are causing plenty of damage in cities all over the country. There is some reason to believe it. Who will ultimately benefit from the riots?

The RN, of course. The populist right has no realistic answers for the country’s fiscal and economic problems, but law and order is right up its alley. If the average French voter is forced to choose between an authoritarian who will crack down on rioters and a left which encourages disorder in 2027, which side do you think he will pick?

The same one he picked in America in 1968 and 2024, of course.