Cromwell

The North Carolina Senate race pits Roy Cooper, a popular Democratic former governor, against Michael Whatley, a veteran Republican bureaucrat who, as far as I can tell, has never actually run for office himself. A PAC supporting Cooper is already running ads slamming Whatley for his failures as Trump’s Hurricane Helene “recovery czar.” What can we expect from this race?

Cooper starts with plenty of money in the bank, a large advantage in name recognition, and a host of issues to run on. It is highly unlikely that invoking the sacred name of Trump is going to help Whatley much with swing voters in a purple state under today’s circumstances. Whatley will wind up talking endlessly about how Cooper is soft on crime and trans people because, well, what else can he say?

Barring events between now and November that move the needle substantially on Trump’s popularity, this is Cooper’s race to lose. He had better not lose it if the Democrats have any realistic hope of flipping the Senate.

In Dr. Johnson’s day, it was patriotism. Today, it’s ostentatious loyalty to Donald Trump. I’m sure Cornyn would agree.

The result in Texas has to encourage J.D. Vance. His great weakness in 2028 is his obligation to defend unconditionally the entirety of Trump’s record, but it appears today that winning the one-man primary is all it will take to be the nominee in 2028. Fortunately for us, the general election, if there is one, will be another story.

Trump has followed Bret Stephens’ advice to the letter. He started the war in the belief that the Iranian regime would roll over, and he imposed a blockade when bombing alone didn’t force a surrender. Now Stephens acknowledges that Trump has no good options left if he wants to impose his will on the regime. What should the great man do next?

Escalate, of course. Bomb more military targets, not civilians. The Iranian regime is on its last legs. Just one more vigorous push, and it will be all over.

Sure, Bret. Haven’t you heard about the definition of insanity? If Trump is going to succeed through escalation, he’s going to have to try something different. That most likely would be a terror bombing campaign, possibly including nukes.

Not an approach likely to win Trump a Nobel Prize, to be sure, but what else can he do, other than make an Obama deal or just leave the Middle East in chaos?

There are three reasons why Ohio reactionaries will have trouble voting for Ramaswamy for governor in November. First, he’s an Indian; second, he has made his disdain for American workers, whom he views as lazy and poorly educated, clear on many occasions; and third, he’s a tech millionaire. Not exactly Steve Bannon’s dream candidate.

Could an improbable alliance of extreme right-wingers and leftists motivated by their desire to get back at Trump elect the Democratic candidate? Maybe. It will make for fascinating viewing.

Pope Leo has released an encyclical which argues that AI must be strictly regulated to make sure it serves the interests of ordinary citizens and workers instead of becoming a tool for autocrats, criminals, and grasping capitalists. It is a position which enjoys the support of both the reactionary right and the left.

The CL and PBP factions of the Republican Party disagree. So, it seems, does Donald Trump. Who ultimately wins this battle? It will be a huge issue in 2028; the real question is whether AI will progress too far to be regulated in any meaningful way by that time.

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown, Middle East war blues.

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

The war continues to drag on, and now I’ve got to choose.

Escalate or just withdraw? Either way, I lose.

____________________

Bibi promised me a win; he said they wouldn’t fight.

It’s true that we control the air, and casualties are light.

The ayatollahs won’t give up, so Bibi wasn’t right.

The war just keeps on keeping on; there is no end in sight.

________________

I’ve got the blues.

The rising gas price blues.

Their military was wiped out

But they still control Hormuz.

Obama made a deal with them

And I may do the same.

I’ll argue that my deal is good

But the argument is lame.

Bibi and his hawkish friends are telling Trump he has to finish what he started and completely eliminate Iran’s nuclear and missile programs regardless of the short-term costs; otherwise, the war will have accomplished nothing. Isolationist elements of MAGA, normie Republicans, and the polls are telling him the economic and political costs of the war are too great, so he should make a face-saving deal and get out ASAP. In public, Trump looks like a ping-pong ball bouncing aimlessly between these two lines of thought; he doesn’t want to choose, so he supports both sides, even though they’re mutually exclusive.

It’s a classic dilemma. Poor guy. Does it make him wonder if starting the war was a mistake, and if his golden gut betrayed him this time?

Knowing Trump, probably not. It will work out in the end. It always does. That’s why God made him our president.

Assume for purposes of argument that the Democrats win control of both the House and the Senate. Will they be able to bring Trump back within the guardrails? Probably not. Consider the following:

1. APPOINTMENTS: Trump will rely on a series of interim appointments to keep his more egregious nominees in place.
2. INVESTIGATIONS: Trump 1.0 stonewalled investigations, litigated, and relied on delays in the judicial process to run the clock out. He’ll do the same thing this time around. In any event, most of what he does is completely transparent, so there isn’t that much to investigate.
3. GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWNS: Expect truly epic shutdowns that accomplish very little–that has been our experience to date. ICE has its own statutory funding outside of the budget process.
4. WAR POWERS: Expect Trump to continue to launch wars at will. He will argue that Article II authorizes this and that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional. Will the Supreme Court make the ultimate decision? I doubt it.
5. IMPOUNDMENT: We may see some definitive litigation on this subject, which would be a plus, but it is far from clear that Trump would comply with a Supreme Court decision that goes against him.

At least Trump wouldn’t be able to appoint any new members of the Supreme Court. That isn’t nothing.

Trump and the Iranians say we are close to a deal, but they disagree on what the deal is. Trump’s version is that the Iranians have agreed to give up their nuclear material, but that the means by which it will be done are subject to subsequent negotiation. The Iranians say the whole nuclear issue is still on the table and will be discussed later.

In either case, the ultimate resolution of the nuclear issue is left until later. If the negotiations are successful, the outcome will be an updated Obama deal. Trump will have caused lots of death and destruction in the Middle East and plagued the rest of the world with shortages and higher prices essentially to recreate the deal he tore up in his first term. If they fail, Trump will have to escalate or, as is more likely, walk away without accomplishing any of the goals of the war.

Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

Yesterday, we learned that yet another dear friend of ours had died from pancreatic cancer. For most of the day, rain poured down mercilessly on us. When we went to lunch, the restaurant’s sound system played “What a Wonderful World.” It took all of the self-discipline I possess not to lose it right then and there.

Today’s is my late mother’s birthday. I will mark the occasion by leafing through boxed memorabilia and grieving–hard. When I am done, I will put the boxes away and do my best to move on.

Part of life’s purpose is to learn how to live with pain and grief. Otherwise, how do you account for Donald Trump?

He was the leader of a powerful nation which, in his eyes, had lost its way and needed to become great again. His economic ideas mostly revolved around mercantilism; he worked tirelessly to increase exports and decrease imports, even if it made his people poorer. He subsidized favored businesses and interfered constantly in their operations. He imposed his own brand of orthodoxy on the ruling party through periodic purges. In foreign affairs, he bullied his neighbors with economic sanctions and made it clear that weaker nations must submit to stronger ones. Finally, he believed in his country’s exceptionalism; he had no regard for any ideas about universal human rights.

Is it Xi or Trump? You decide.

The worse things get, the worse he’ll get. The more Trump’s popularity plummets, and he feels threatened, the more tempted he’ll be to govern as an unvarnished autocrat. That is the paradox that his critics will have to work through over the next two years.

But look on the bright side. The more Trump engages in foolish and unsuccessful military actions overseas, the less likely it is that he can use the regular armed forces to crush dissent at home. He’ll still have ICE, of course, but they have already failed at that task in Minnesota.

Trump has just indicted Raul Castro in what is obviously an effort to create more leverage against the Cuban leadership. The Nimitz is coming to help with the oil blockade. Rubio is making propaganda videos to stir up dissent among the Cuban people. It looks like the regime change train is coming to town, even with the Iran war completely unresolved. Does Cuba look more like Iran or Venezuela?

On the Venezuela side, Cuba is geographically close to the US, lacks modern weapons, and is vulnerable to a blockade. In addition, it cannot be certain of receiving meaningful help from the outside, and it doesn’t have any obvious leverage on the US except the possibility of a massive exodus of refugees. On the Iran side, the regime is well-established and embedded throughout the country, and the government is fighting for its life. It is unlikely to sign a deal to extinguish itself just to improve the economic prospects of the population, although measures stopping short of that are on the table.

Trump appears to believe that inflicting economic misery on the population will be enough to overthrow the regime. For reasons I have outlined in previous posts, I think he is wrong. If I am right, what is Plan B? Will military action, possibly including an invasion, be on the table? TBD.

Imagine that you are a newly minted graduate of an elite school with a STEM degree. You were told all of your life that the liberal arts were worthless, and that the passport to success was tech. To that end, you gave up more entertaining pastimes and plugged your way through school. Now, however, you are staring unemployment in the face. AI has effectively made you redundant. At best, you will scramble to find a decent job in an unrelated line of work; at worst, you can expect to either become a humble service provider for a vastly wealthy techno-aristocrat or an ungrateful recipient of a small UBI.

When the tech baron gives a speech at your graduation extolling the glories of AI, you’d boo, too. He just pulled the chair out from under you.

The trade truce with China effectively means that Trump has given up his grandiose dreams to remake the American economy and the world’s trade patterns through tariffs. Tariffs will primarily raise revenue for the Treasury and provide a small amount of encouragement to move manufacturing plants to the US; they won’t create the Godly Society. An all-out trade war and an effort to build a new economy based on import substitution would be too politically dangerous and too likely to fail. Trump’s more sober view of the situation is accurate, if belated, so it should be welcomed.

I’m guessing he thinks the AI is the new deus ex machina that will create American trade supremacy. TBD.