Cromwell

J: Alex, you’re looking pretty grim today. What’s up?

H: I’m just thinking about Trump and his stupid war.

J: I can certainly sympathize, but I thought you were in favor of the liberal use of American military power abroad. What gives?

H: Well, first of all, I know a lot more about war than you do. I was freezing at Valley Forge and leading the attack at Yorktown while you were running away from the British. It wasn’t a pretty sight.

J: I did write the Declaration of Independence, after all. My patriotic credentials are impeccable.

H: The Declaration would have been a footnote in history if it hadn’t been for me, Washington, and a few thousand other brave souls who were willing to fight for independence.

J: I’ll grant your war hero status. But what about the Iran war?

H: Let’s go back to basics. First of all, one of the few things we agreed on in the 1790s was the need to stay out of wars between France and Great Britain. We just didn’t have enough firepower to engage with either of them.

J: True. I tried using economic sanctions during my presidency instead of war.

H: And that didn’t work, either. It was a disaster.

J: One of my rare failures.

H: But today, America is the greatest military power on the planet. It has responsibilities to keep order around the world that it didn’t have when we were alive. Using that power to further our interests is not necessarily a bad thing.

J: I would be less willing to do that than you. I would do it only in self-defense, and only for a just cause. It’s the Wilsonian part of me.

H: We wouldn’t completely agree on that point. Where we would agree, I think, is that this latest war was launched without provocation and with a huge mismatch between ends and means. There was never any chance of causing regime change just with airpower. That left Trump with the options of wasting vast amounts of resources in a conflict with few American interests at stake or walking away and making things worse. That’s just dumb.

J: No argument from me.

H: Nothing good is going to come from this war, except poor polling for Trump and negative electoral consequences. America has to find a way within the Constitution to maintain control of that man’s worst impulses. If not, things are only going to get worse, both at home and abroad. I can see autocracy sitting and waiting around the corner.

J: I share your fears. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

As they demonstrated most vividly at Trump’s inauguration, the titans of tech have moved sharply to the right. Partly this was a matter of ideology–in particular, they thought their employees had too much power over their companies–and partly this was a defensive measure to keep Trump on their side. Whatever the motivation, they were successful; while you couldn’t fairly call today’s America a techno-aristocracy, Trump cut their taxes, treated them as national champions, and did everything he could to reduce their regulatory burdens. But the midterms are coming, and things are looking grim. What will they do now?

They are pouring money into congressional races. They are likely to lose more than they win. America will probably be in a state of constant constitutional crisis between 2027 and the 2028 election, with Trump behaving even more autocratically than before. Will tech work for compromise at that point, or will the tech barons throw their weight behind autocracy?

Many of the most prominent figures in tech have openly expressed doubts about liberal democracy for years. I don’t see much reason for optimism on this point.

Massie went down yesterday. Cassidy lost a few days ago. Cornyn will probably follow shortly. In spite of inflation, the war, and everything else, Trump’s voters remain loyal to him and punish normie Republicans who show any sign of independence. That is why GOP politicians are such cowards; they know they can ignore the great man on some issues of policy that he doesn’t care much about, but any kind of personal challenge is verboten and will result in political oblivion.

But Trump’s purges come with a risk; the number of lame duck normie GOP members of Congress with little left to lose from displays of independence is increasing. Some of them, like Tillis, are showing signs of a spine. Cornyn is such a GOP institutionalist that he probably will continue to go along, but Cassidy may not. If you add the lame ducks to Collins, Rand Paul, and Murkowski, you have the potential for adverse votes in the Senate. Then what?

Probably more autocracy.

The Trump DOJ, without any kind of appropriation or authorization from Congress, has created a $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who claim to be victims of “lawfare” and “weaponization” by Biden. In other words, Trump’s allies, including violent criminals from J6, can file what will certainly be frivolous claims, have them reviewed favorably by Trump appointees, and receive large amounts of taxpayer dollars for their “damages.”

The downward spiral of the DOJ thus continues. If you want to put a positive spin on this episode, at least you can say that it will make it much harder to get Blanche confirmed as AG if Trump decides to go in that direction.

Combine the current Supreme Court’s loathing of affirmative action with its desire to enhance the chances of Republicans, and you get the inevitable result–a decision that will wipe out black representation in red states for the foreseeable future.

For me, the most notable feature of the Alito opinion, apart from the snide references to Justice Brennan, is the way it portrays partisan gerrymandering. The previous decision outlawing federal scrutiny of gerrymandering kind of sighs and shrugs its shoulders and regrets that nothing can be done; Alito, on the other hand, views partisan gerrymandering as a positive good, so anything that mitigates it has to be stopped in its tracks.

While Alito claims he is not disturbing precedent, in reality, he is obliterating both the Act and fifty years of case law construing it. The Act is now a dead letter except to prevent the most extreme kinds of Jim Crow legislation that were common in the first half of the 20th century. The segregationists didn’t have computers, so they couldn’t afford to be subtle, but their descendants do, so they can reach the same result in an apparently color-blind fashion.

Here they are, in order of their plausibility:

1. TRUMP MAKES AN OBAMA DEAL: He then turns around and insists that the deal and the war were a great success. The base is persuaded, but no one else is.
2. TRUMP TAKES THE OFFRAMP: He walks away and declares victory, having accomplished none of his initial objectives. The Iranians are now in control of the Strait of Hormuz. Bibi is furious.
3. TRUMP ESCALATES AND COMMITS WAR CRIMES: Seeking more leverage for a deal, Trump attacks civilians and vital civilian infrastructure in Iran. The use of nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out completely. At the end of the war, Iran is a smoking ruin.
4. TRUMP LAUNCHES A MASSIVE GROUND ASSAULT: Having finally realized that the only way to change the regime is through a ground assault, Trump violates a core America First principle and launches a large-scale ground attack. It works, but the base is turned off forever.

An article in The Atlantic makes the well-worn argument that America needs to stop subsidizing seniors and put more money into younger folks. Does that make sense?

Yes and no. It is true that many seniors own their own homes and some stocks; they have benefited disproportionately from the price increases of the last decade. There are millions of other seniors, however, who do not own homes or stocks and depend almost entirely on Social Security and Medicare. Cutting those programs to alleviate poverty among younger people would be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Means testing Social Security would be a reasonable possibility, but only for the truly affluent, which means the cost savings would be relatively minimal. As for Medicare, there is no viable market for health care for the elderly; that is why the program was created in the first place. Would it really make sense to put even middle-class seniors at the risk of ruin from medical expenses?

The truth is that the Medicare problem is one of soaring unit costs and demographics, not senior greed, and the increased wealth of seniors is due to fairly unique conditions that could change dramatically overnight, as with the falling home prices during the Great Recession. To the extent the problem needs to be addressed, it should be by imposing higher taxes on capital gains for all wealthy people, not by cutting or means testing Social Security.

Oh, and by the way, a massive transfer of wealth to the younger generations is about to unfold as a result, not of government policy, but of extinction. Just be patient, folks. Your time is coming.

European countries have relatively homogeneous populations that, until recently, had not changed much for centuries. They had monarchs, a well-defined class system, and an established state church. The goal of European reactionaries since the late 18th century has been to protect those national characteristics. But what about America?

America was created as an independent nation on Enlightenment principles–the Declaration of Independence says so. Its population mix changes every year due to large levels of immigration. It never experienced the Middle Ages, so it never had a monarch, a nobility, or an established state church. It is always evolving and is built on constant change. The stasis admired by reactionaries never existed here. So what is an American reactionary to do?

The truth is that they don’t even agree on the timeframe for the society they want to revive. Trump’s apparent preferred date, 1898, was in an era of massive immigration. Taking us back to the Middle Ages, the goal of the reactionary Catholics, is kind of a stretch. The best bet would be the 1950s.

The NYT political columnists are divided on Graham Platner’s candidacy. Frank Bruni and Michelle Goldberg think Democrats are obligated to support him, while David French and Bret Stephens (of course!) believe he is a dangerous extremist who lacks the character to replace Susan Collins. Who is correct here?

Here is my analysis:

1. IS PLATNER SOME SORT OF NEO-NAZI? Definitely not. He combines a personality and background somewhat similar to John Fetterman’s with the progressive ideology of Bernie Sanders. Whatever you think of Bernie’s program, he’s obviously not a left-wing version of Trump.
2. IS COLLINS A RELIABLE CHECK ON TRUMP? No. She voted for all but one of Trump’s egregious nominees and did nothing to bring ICE under control.
3. WILL THE NEXT TWO YEARS REPRESENT A CRISIS IN AMERICAN LIBERAL DEMOCRACY? Yes. The more resistance Trump meets, the more autocratic he will get. Susan Collins will just wring her hands when this occurs. Platner will fight back.

In short, I agree with Bruni and Goldberg. For reasons I will set out in a future post, I have serious doubts that even a Congress with both houses under Democratic control will be able to restrain Trump, but what else can we do?

In the end, as I suspected, there was neither the time nor the inclination to pursue a grand bargain with the Chinese. Trump received the usual vague assurances about purchases of American beef and airplanes, which may be good news for ranchers and Boeing, but not particularly for you and me. For his part, Trump was using language which suggests he can turn off Taiwanese purchases of American weapons when it suits him to appease the Chinese. That suggests–as many of us have long predicted–that Taiwan is now a bargaining chip in our relationship with the Chinese.

If you live on Taiwan, you should be very, very concerned. For the people of America, it is time to give up any illusions that Trump is determined to completely remake our relationship with the Chinese government. China has become, to him, just the first among equals when it comes to ripping us off. Since the Chinese have leverage that other countries don’t, he will leave them alone and direct his bullying tactics at weaker victims.

The American economy continues to lurch forward in spite of the obstacles created by Trump. This is due to spending fueled by the rising stock market, which in turn is the result of AI optimism and huge investments in data centers. At the lower end of the pyramid, consumer confidence has collapsed, and real wages are no longer increasing due to Trumpflation. What does it mean?

That intentionally or not–probably not–Trump has effectively embraced the dollar store economy.

When he was asked about defending Taiwan after the summit, Trump said the last thing we needed was a war 9,500 miles from home.

What? Like the one he already started? He really should have said we don’t need another war 9,500 miles from home.

Like me, you probably cringe when you see Trump sucking up to Xi and other dictators. But look on the bright side–he demands that everyone else suck up to him, so he’s just practicing the Golden Rule.

Instead of being embarrassed by his antics, you should be impressed by his ethics. Right?

Trump typically views negotiations as opportunities to impose his will on his adversaries. That won’t work with China, however. If he wants something from Xi, he will have to give something of equal value in return.

Most of the media coverage prior to the summit focused on Trump’s wish list. The more important questions should actually revolve around the concessions the great man is willing to make to get what he wants.

Taiwan should not be on the table, but here are two proposals that I would actively support:

1. Invite Xi to see his golden statue at Doral ASAP. The Chinese need to see how a cult of personality really works in practice.
2. Leave Elon Musk in Beijing as a hostage.

So Trump is in China today.

Exactly what cards will he play?

Losing face in Iran

Wasn’t part of his plan.

Will he try to give Taiwan away?