Cromwell

Donald Trump lives in a zero-sum universe. Every human interaction is about power, and there is always a winner and a loser. More wealth, power, fame, and privilege for me means that much less for you. That’s just the way life is.

Applying that kind of thinking to AI, what does the accumulation of unimaginable wealth by tech companies mean for the rest of us? Poverty, obviously.

Against type, Trump wants us to believe that AI will give all of us a rosy future. Is it any wonder he has lost control of the base on this issue?

Having voted to make Trump supreme within the executive branch, Justice Gorsuch tells us we can all relax about the potential for autocracy. After all, he promises to use the new judicial toys–the “major questions” doctrine and nondelegation–to keep the bureaucracy in line, and he claims to believe that Congress should be great again within its own sphere.

The next two years will almost certainly be marked by battles between Trump and Congress, particularly over issues such as impoundment. Should we take Gorsuch at his word? Will he really act as a check on Trump when these constitutional issues come before him, as they inevitably will, or will he expose himself as just another political hack in Trump’s pocket?

There is some reason for optimism on this point. We’ll see.

J.D. has come to the Oval Office. He has a favor to ask.

T: What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be out making the Iran deal that will prove I’m a winner?

V: Not right now. The Iranians aren’t that interested in talking at the moment.

T: Well, you know I’m counting on you to pull my chestnuts out of the fire. I might not endorse you unless you do it.

V: Actually, that’s why I’m here.

T: Are you expecting an endorsement now?

V: Not exactly now, but in the near future. I need it to raise money and fend off any outside challengers. You don’t want DeSantis to succeed you, do you?

T: You don’t get it. The minute I endorse you, I lose attention and power. I’m not going to do that until the very last minute, if then.

V: So what do you plan to do?

T: I’ll make sly comments about running again all next year. Some fake news people and the left will believe me. It will drive them crazy and keep me at the center of attention.

V: True. It will also prevent anyone, including me, from campaigning.

T: That’s the point, of course. At the very last minute, I’ll make an endorsement. It’s a one-voter primary. The person I endorse will win automatically.

V: That will be me, right?

T: Maybe. It depends. Time will tell. You never know.

V: What does it depend on?

T: Well, first, you have to continue to be totally subservient. You can’t criticize anything I do. You even have to promise that you will automatically follow my advice when I give it after you take office.

V: You mean, be like a ventriloquist’s dummy?

T: Exactly!

V: OK. I’m good with that. What else?

T: You have to succeed at every task I give you. We can start with the negotiations.

V: That’s harder. You can’t reasonably expect me to be a miracle worker.

T: Why not? That’s what I am. I never lose, regardless of the odds. Now go and get to work!

Christians believe in both Christian ethics and metaphysics; pure pagans believe in neither. That means, under most conditions, they do not have a common agenda. They do, however, agree on their disdain for liberals; pagans think they go too far by embracing Christian ethics, while pure Christians think they don’t go far enough.

Trump succeeded in gaining the support of both of these groups; the most obvious manifestation of that was the presence of QAnon and Christian militants in the crowd on January 6. The two groups have also found some common ground on ethics; right-wing Christians have now rejected “compassionate conservatism” and see empathy as “toxic.” It is a synthesis that no one would have predicted a decade ago.

Can J.D. keep the two groups working together? He is clearly trying; as I’ve noted before, he uses completely different language when he is addressing different audiences. I have my doubts about his ultimate success, however; the issues–particularly abortion–are too divisive and inflammatory, and he is too closely aligned with the religious crowd to completely win over the swaggering libertarians.

An article in NYM from a few days ago advised us that Trump only had the ability to decide which way to lose his war. Is that correct?

Not if he is willing to accept the consequences of winning. He can order a ground invasion and shatter his party for the foreseeable future, bomb the civilian population and become a war criminal, or simply maintain the blockade through the midterms and suffer a greater electoral defeat than is otherwise necessary.

It is worth remembering that the immediate Iranian leverage on gas prices disappears after the midterms, which are now less than three months away. And if the GOP fares poorly, Trump can always turn up the dial on autocracy, which is exactly what I expect him to do.

According to the NYT, Lake Mead is at its lowest level in history. Does that have political implications?

It does. The economies of several western states depend on water from the Colorado River. If the flow should cease, it would do tremendous damage to the entire region.

This issue has been around for years but is more pressing now than ever. During the Biden years, I was concerned that a federal resolution of the allocation question would cost the Democrats control of one or more blue states. Now it appears that Trump will have to be the bad cop. Good! It’s a role that suits him perfectly, and it will cost his party votes in the future.

In 2024, Biden’s last year in office, inflation was slightly under three percent, GDP growth was between two and three percent, and unemployment was around four percent. Today, inflation is slightly over three percent, GDP growth is projected to be a bit over two percent, and unemployment is around four percent. The numbers, in short, are quite similar.

There are differences. Trump’s economy has been kept afloat by vast investments in AI and data centers. If some portion of that turns into a bubble, as is likely, hold on to your hat. While the unemployment rate is nearly identical, the respective job creation figures are not; Trump’s are much lower, thanks to his limits on immigration. Finally, Trump’s inflation is, for the most part, the result of his stupid war. It is a self-inflicted wound.

The Biden economy was viewed as a failure by the voters. Will Trump suffer the same fate, or will residual fears about wokeness and communism, along with some vigorous gerrymandering, keep the electorate in line? TBD.

A reviewer in The Atlantic trashes most books written by politicians and asks specifically whether J.D. even wants anyone to read “Communion.” Can we help him out here?

To the extent that J.D. has a steady job within the administration, it is largely to keep all of the different factions happy. With reactionaries, he does this primarily by making outrageous and offensive statements about Democrats and immigrants on social media. With relative moderates, however, he tries to portray himself as a thoughtful guy who constantly examines his own motives and doesn’t hate anyone. When Vance is interviewed by the NYT, he is trying to reassure people like you and me that he isn’t just an angry reactionary. “Communion” is intended to serve the same purpose.

The problem for J.D., however, is that his mixed messages damage his credibility with everyone. At least Trump doesn’t pretend to be anything he isn’t just for purposes of political expediency.

Ross Douthat built a brand as a pundit on his opposition to the secular liberal establishment. In his last column for the NYT, he continues to maintain that position, although he admits that right-wing populist governments have been inept, corrupt, and capricious, and he loathes left-wing populist culture with a passion. Is he right about the supposed failures of the liberal establishment? What does the record in the 21st century tell us?

George W. Bush built his administration on the deregulation of business, the promotion of Christian values, and activism in the Middle East. He gave us the Great Recession and the Iraq War. Barack Obama saved the country from the ravages of the former, put an end to the latter, and started no more wars, unless you count his very brief aerial campaign against the Libyan regime, for which our European partners were the chief advocates, not him. It is true that the recovery from the Great Recession was longer and slower than one would have liked, due largely to opposition to additional government spending by Republicans, and that the bad guys were largely unpunished, but Obama also managed to get an ambitious health care program through the system that improved the lives of millions and is popular today. Does that sound like a failure to you?

Joe Biden, for his part, was elected mostly as a reaction to Trump’s chaotic response to the pandemic. He succeeded in making the vaccine (financed by Trump in one of his few admirable moves) widely available to the public as quickly as possible, which undoubtedly saved millions of lives, although the value of the vaccine is widely disparaged by the right today. He also engineered a recovery that was much faster and more robust than those of our allies, managed to slow Russian aggression in Ukraine at minimal cost to ourselves, and avoided participating in new foreign wars. His failures revolved around his refusal to restrain Israel in Gaza and some unnecessary spending that made inflation, most of which was caused by supply chain problems, slightly worse than it needed to be. On balance, is that a terrible record?

If you think the answer is yes, here’s a thought experiment: what do you think would happen if we had a new pandemic with Trump and RFK in charge of public health? Right-wing populists despise vaccines, which are inevitably created by liberal elites, so there wouldn’t be one. Would Jesus and cures hawked by quacks on the internet save the day?

I think not.

Trump’s other regime change project isn’t going so well, either. He thought imposing misery on the Cubans would result in a revolution, but that hasn’t happened, for the reasons I listed in previous posts; if you are on your last legs, you will use your last ounce of energy on survival, not an attempt to change the government.

So where is this going? For the foreseeable future, nowhere, because both sides think time is on their side. Trump still believes the pain he is causing will ultimately result in regime change, while the Cuban leadership thinks that Trump will eventually lose interest as long as they offer tepid concessions and don’t do anything to provoke him.

Sir Geoffrey Howe had had enough. Margaret Thatcher had treated him with contempt for years and had finally fired him. When he subsequently let loose about her, he was called “The Sheep that Roared.” It was the beginning of the end for the Thatcher government.

Bill Cassidy gave Trump his manhood and received nothing in return. Trump endorsed his primary opponent, who won handily. Cassidy consequently had nothing to lose by doing the right thing and opposing Todd Blanche. Today, he announced that he would cast the deciding vote for a man who has contributed mightily to the wrecking of the DOJ.

Are you surprised? I’m not. I predicted that Susan Collins would vote no, but that Blanche would be confirmed anyway.

In the early years of this blog, I opined that the fundamental split in the blue team revolved around means, not ends; in other words, the left wanted dramatic increases in the size of the welfare state, while the center thought they were not politically or economically possible. I labeled these groups “realos” and “fundis,” the terms used to describe groupings within the German Green Party. Does that analysis hold up today?

It does. The DSA, notwithstanding its name, is really a faction of Social Democrats that is more interested in expanding the welfare state than in nationalizing the means of production. More centrist Democrats have no theoretical objection to this goal but doubt the American electorate will tolerate the large tax increases that would be required to finance it. The obvious example is “Medicare for All;” the left wants it now, while the center, based on the numbers and our experience with Obamacare, thinks it is unattainable for the foreseeable future, whatever its merits.

The division between the two groupings is fairly easy to overcome; the center doesn’t have any fundamental objection to voting for someone who tells them to follow their dreams instead of their fears, and the left will vote for half a loaf rather than nothing. The real practical question is whether the left alienates enough swing voters to lose elections. We’ll get a partial answer to that when we see who wins Michigan in November.

Who would be the ideal nominee? Here are my criteria:

1. It would be a man. I don’t agree that a woman can’t win, but running a woman hurts on the margins.
2. He would have no ties to the Biden administration, so he can’t be associated with Biden’s perceived failures.
3. He is a successful governor.
4. He is young, articulate, and charismatic.
5. He knows how to communicate with social media.
6. He isn’t afraid to take moderate, well-reasoned positions on culture war issues.
7. He doesn’t describe himself as a socialist.
8. He opposes Trump vigorously, but without veering to the left on issues which create vulnerability for Democrats. In other words, he doesn’t think rejecting Trumpism naturally requires defunding the police or throwing open the borders.
9. He understands that the McConnell version of the Constitution doesn’t work and must be changed. I have laid out the kinds of reforms that are possible in previous posts.
10. He will actually promote a balanced form of liberal democracy that moves power away from the executive and the Supreme Court to Congress even if it means limiting his own options for change.

We won’t get this paragon. Let’s hope we get someone close to it.

Michigan is a blue state. As of today, it has a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators. Its automobile industry has been hit hard by Trump’s capriciousness. It has extensive economic ties with Canada that have been jeopardized by the current administration. Inflation is up; real wages are down; and the war is a disaster. Throw in a young, charismatic, media-savvy candidate for the Senate, and you have a walkover–right?

Not exactly, given that candidate’s hard left-wing views on a wide range of issues. Michelle Goldberg is right; this is a litmus test for the left. If El-Sayed does not win this election, given all of the advantages he starts with, it will send a message that the Democrats have to nominate a centrist in 2028 unless the state of the country is so dire that they cannot possibly lose.

I have previously noted that Roy Cooper and Sherrod Brown are saying nothing about Trump in their commercials. Are there Senate races in which Trump is the featured actor?

Yes. In Maine, a blue state, the key issue is the degree to which Susan Collins is genuinely independent of Trump. She has some facts on her side, but she will have to defend plenty of her other votes. Does Maine want someone who believes Trump is right on most of the issues, but not some of the big ones, or someone who opposes him at every turn? We will find out in November.

In the Michigan Senate race, the GOP candidate, Mike Rogers, will portray the newly minted Democratic standard bearer as a wokester, an antisemite, and a socialist. There will be a grain of truth in these allegations. El-Sayed will respond by tying Rogers to Trump at every turn. Will animosity towards Trump be enough to overcome culture war liabilities? Since Michigan is a swing state in presidential elections, this race will tell us a great deal about whether a conspicuously left leaning Democrat has a real chance to win in 2028.