The two are related, because in any fair election, there will be candidates vowing to take control of the oil reserves back from the Yankee imperialists. They might even win. Then what?
The obvious answer, from Trump’s perspective, is to keep the problem from arising, either by putting off elections indefinitely or by effectively rigging them. That will create a different kind of issue for both the US and Venezuelan governments down the road.
Trump announced yesterday that the United States now owns Venezuela’s oil reserves. Since the oil is not located within our borders and we do not have a national oil company, what does this mean, and how will it benefit average Americans?
Details are scarce at this point, but it is relatively clear that Chevron now possesses some exclusive rights to exploit the reserves. It apparently has made some investment commitments in exchange for those rights. Trump probably considers Chevron to be an “American” oil company, but in reality, its shares are owned by people all over the world. In addition, given the fairly high cost of exploiting Venezuela’s reserves, this may or may not be a good deal for the owners of Chevron. In short, as a business transaction, there are plenty of uncertainties about the virtues of this agreement in the long run.
As to the hundreds of millions of Americans who do not own shares of Chevron, how do we gain from this deal? It may be that Chevron has agreed to make payments of some sort to the US government, which would offset to some extent the fiscal impact of Trump’s war and tax cuts, but it would hardly make us rich. If the idea is to drive down prices permanently by creating a major new source of supply, it will probably result in less drilling in America and elsewhere. If the plan is to, in effect, create a world oil reserve that is not subject to Iranian influence–in other words, to make Chevron a swing producer in times of crisis–I doubt that would make economic sense for Chevron.
In short, there is plenty of reason to doubt that Trump has found a way to make imperialism pay off for America even if he can make the deal stick over the likely opposition of an elected Venezuelan government at some point in the future, which is questionable at best.
Real conservatives dislike change and detest the rapid kind. If change is necessary, it should be slow and incremental in order to permit society to adjust and avoid unforeseen consequences. This is the exact antithesis of the Silicon Valley ethic–to move fast and break things.
What does this mean for American politics? First of all, if you didn’t know it already, Donald Trump is not a conservative in any meaningful sense. Second, the battle within the Republican Party over AI is not going away any time soon. Tech barons and elderly reactionaries make very uncomfortable bedfellows.
The polls I have seen indicate that Harris is the current frontrunner for the blue team nomination in 2028. Should she be? Should she even run?
No, for three reasons. First, she has a history of being an uninspired campaigner. Second, she meets even fewer of my criteria for the perfect candidate than AOC. Third, if she is the nominee, the GOP will be able to frame the general election as a rematch of 2024, not a referendum on four years of Trumpism. That’s the last thing the Democrats need.
I have often described crypto as the answer to a nonexistent question, except for money launderers. Now it turns out, to no one’s surprise, that crypto is also useful for avoiding economic sanctions. The Iranians are reportedly employing it for that purpose.
Donald Trump is one of the world’s foremost supporters of crypto, which makes perfect sense, since he has profited wildly from it. Do you think he appreciates the irony here? Has it even occurred to him?
A Republican administration famous for its corruption. Tax cuts for the wealthy. Increased tariffs. A much more restrictive immigration regime based on ethnicity. Big technological changes. A fundamentalist attack on science. Disengagement from former alliances. Even the backwash from a pandemic.
Yes, it can seem like we’ve gone back 100 years, minus the unprecedented economic growth and Prohibition and with an unnecessary war. Maybe Trump should put Warren Harding’s portrait in the Oval Office instead of Jackson’s.
I’m not a big country music fan, but I admired Dolly. Why not? She was religious and conservative to the core, but unlike many of her contemporaries, she didn’t hate anyone. Even blue people could appreciate that.
A few years ago, my wife scored some free tickets to Dollywood, so we decided to make a day trip out of it. I remember looking around at the innumerable tourist businesses in Pigeon Forge and Sevierville and remarking that all of them owed their existence to a tiny woman with tremendous heart and talent from a desperately poor background. The thought of it amazed me.
It still does.
WE’RE SO GLAD WE’RE VOTING FOR THE DSA
Oh well, oh well
I feel so good today.
Mamdani won, and Abdul’s on his way.
We’ll make blue bluer; what can I say?
____________
I won’t miss the tech titans.
I won’t miss the billionaires.
They say growth will slow down.
What do I care?
The working class is winning;
Oligarchs had best beware.
_________________
We’re so glad we’re voting for the DSA.
We’re so glad we’re voting for the DSA.
Everything we want, we’ll get it right here from the DSA.
________________
Parody of “Back in the USA” by Chuck Berry
To start a new trade war with Canada when GOP candidates in Michigan and Maine need all the help they can get sounds utterly suicidal. So why is Trump doing it?
Here are some possibilities:
In case you were wondering, the correct answer is “all of the above.”
A fairly recent Ross Douthat interview with Elbridge Colby identified the cornerstone of Trump’s foreign policy: every service provided by Uncle Sam to the rest of the world should be priced at market value. What that means in practice, of course, is that we bully our weaker friends, who profit from our protection and access to our markets, and suck up to our adversaries, who don’t. It alienates the voters in other liberal democratic states, to our ultimate cost.
The market approach reminds me of the definition of a cynic–a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. I guess Trump would take pride in that, but he shouldn’t; the refusal of the other NATO nations to help with the Iran war is just a small taste of what is to come.
Jon Ossoff’s popularity in what is at best a purple state is evidence that it is possible to oppose Trump in a firm, consistent, and entertaining way without adopting extreme policy positions or becoming a third-rate insult comedian–a left-wing Trump.
The blue team could learn a thing or two from that approach.
My wife and I went to see “The Odyssey” this afternoon. Since everyone else has expressed an opinion on the movie, I will share mine with you.
Three observations are pertinent:
Most of the speculation about GOP candidates in 2028 has revolved around J.D. and Marco Rubio. To the extent that any outsiders have been mentioned, the usual suspect is Ted Cruz. What about DeSantis? Will Ron run?
From his perspective, there are pros and cons. On the con side, he probably fears provoking Trump again, and he knows he can’t beat J.D. if the current administration is viewed as a success by the electorate. He is also, as he has pointed out, young enough to wait until 2032. On the other hand, as I’ve noted in many previous posts, there are plenty of opportunities for DeSantis to peel base voters away from J.D on issues such as Iran, AI, and “heritage Americans,” so there is a path to victory if Trump is viewed as a failure in 2028. In addition, by 2032, DeSantis will have been out of office for six years, and unlike Trump, he doesn’t have the ability to command the public’s attention on social media. He will be yesterday’s man. His time will have come and gone.
On balance, I think DeSantis will avoid making commitments to either enter or stay out of the race until the last minute. He has already run for president before, so he can probably mobilize a base of donors on short notice. If he thinks J.D. is vulnerable, he will run regardless of what Trump says and does. If not, he will stay out and root silently for a blue team victory in 2028.
J.D. thinks AOC will be the blue team nominee in 2028. Well, of course he does; he believes that the Democratic Party is completely controlled by a small cadre of crazed woke socialists which has no connection whatsoever to real Americans. Is there any basis for his belief?
Regardless of what J.D. believes, the Democratic Party is ultimately controlled by its voters, who have a history of being pretty risk averse. They picked Biden over Bernie and Warren in 2020 because they correctly thought an elderly white male moderate was their best hope to beat Trump. In all likelihood, they will do it again unless the condition of the country is so dire that practically anyone could beat J.D. AOC has an underappreciated pragmatic streak, and she meets the young and charismatic standards for my perfect candidate, but she fails most of the tests, so she is unlikely to be the voters’ choice.
Based on the figures for the trade deficit and manufacturing employment, it simply doesn’t exist. Yes, the new tariff regime has only been in place for a little over a year, but we should have seen some favorable evidence by now. Is this due to flawed execution or an impractical objective?
Both, of course. The chaotic rollout of the program and the constant arbitrary changes to it on the fly–after all, proving Trump is the boss of the world is more important than the fate of American workers–obviously didn’t help. But the truth is that Trump is swimming against the tide of history by putting so many eggs in the manufacturing basket. Technological change is working against him. Even the Chinese will acknowledge that.
Using industrial policy in a few key economic sectors makes sense for national security reasons. Going beyond that is wasteful and inefficient.