Cromwell

That can’t be true, right? With inflation, the unsuccessful war, the tariffs, and Trump’s repeated attempts at authoritarianism, things have to get better. Don’t they?

No. Little good will come from the election, regardless of the outcome; we will either get what Trump views as an endorsement of his policies or government shutdowns and nonstop constitutional crises. Trump will respond to any effective opposition by ignoring Congress and doubling down on autocracy. Don’t forget that Pete Hegseth is doing his best to turn our military into a right-wing militia by debasing the culture and firing officers who don’t fully embrace his agenda; in the long run, that is Trump’s ace in the hole. Finally, public and private debt and the possibility of the popping of an AI bubble are hanging over the economy. If we have a recession in the next two years, it is likely to be a really bad one, and Trump will respond, as usual, with a combination of denial and abuses of power.

So, yes, these are the good old days. Enjoy them while you can.

Ted Cruz is the administration outsider most often identified as a threat to J.D. How do the two stack up?

They have a lot in common. They are both highly intelligent lawyers with repellent personalities and a talent for trolling the left. Both of them are extremely ambitious and opportunistic. Both of them have strong ties to the religious right. Finally, both of them were passionate Trump critics until they weren’t. Not much to choose from there.

Are there openings for Cruz against J.D.? Not many, given Ted’s barely wavering support for Trump. AI is a potential liability for J.D. that Ted could exploit. Ted could also attack J.D. as being insufficiently committed to the war and Israel. That’s about it, and I don’t think it’s nearly enough.

DeSantis has a better shot than he does.

The NYT says Chevron’s involvement is separate from Trump’s deal with our new Venezuelan partner. Chevron, of course, will be relying on our political clout in Caracas to protect its investments from nationalists, so the deals are not completely separate. Nevertheless, while you can certainly question both the morality and the political wisdom of providing cover for Chevron, the plan at least makes sense for Chevron’s shareholders.

Without Chevron’s involvement in the joint venture, I have the following questions about the deal:

1. Our new partner is a relatively minor player without either the expertise or the financial wherewithal to make the massive improvements that will be required to make the venture a success. Where is the money coming from? Would you lend billions of dollars under these circumstances to the partner without, at a minimum, a guarantee from the US government? I think not, which would mean that the American taxpayer is ultimately funding the enterprise.
2. Using the oil obtained through the joint venture to refill the strategic reserve is logical. However, I have read that the chemical composition of Venezuelan oil makes that impractical, and in any event, the oil purchases would likely exceed the capacity of the reserve. What, then, are we going to do with the oil? Sell it to Chevron? If that is the plan, why not just leave the entire business to Chevron and keep the US government out of it?

J.D. hates it when you talk about his wife. I’m going there, anyway, because the issue really is about him, not Usha.

If you believe, as most Americans do, that this country operates under a secular creed, and that all American citizens, regardless of race, sex, or religion, are equally entitled to a voice in public life, then J.D.’s marriage is, if anything, admirable. If, however, you agree with J.D. that America was created as a Christian nation, that immigrants are harmful to the national fabric, and that “Heritage Americans” are entitled to rule, Usha is a serious problem.

In short, the left thinks that Vance should embrace Usha and ditch his principles, while the extreme right thinks he should ditch Usha and live in accordance with his ideology. In all likelihood, he will do neither, and the glaring contradiction between his family and his ideas will remain a sore spot for years to come.

J.D. attacked Abdul ferociously for his alleged antisemitism during a speech in Michigan yesterday. In an appearance in front of a group of Jewish donors, however, he skillfully used a straw man argument to address concerns about his ties to right-wing podcasters with debatably antisemitic views. Instead of talking about Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, he assured the group that Joe Rogan was not an antisemite and that he wasn’t close to the more extreme Nick Fuentes, who frequently attacks him and his wife. That was an evasion of the question, but it appears to have satisfied most of his audience.

The fact is that both Trump and J.D. believe that right-wing antisemites are an essential part of the Trump coalition and will do everything possible to keep them on board. Trump made this clear to the world after Charlottesville in 2021; J.D. is a lot more slippery, but his stance is the same.

The base has followed Trump on issues such as abortion, tariffs on friendly nations, and the Iran war. He hasn’t converted it on AI, however; he hardly even appears to be trying. What accounts for this unusual failure?

Trump is most effective with the base when he can argue that he is standing up to someone they hate. With AI, that is difficult, because the base loathes tech barons, partly because Trump attacked them when he was out of power.

AI and data centers are similar to the Epstein files; the base just doesn’t understand that Trump changes positions in his own interests on a dime, and they are obligated to jettison their old opinions and fall in line. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, after all.

Life in the time of Trump.

No progress with Iran.

Starve the beast, and then he’ll fall.

That seems to be the plan.

We’ve reached an equilibrium.

No one is satisfied.

The price of gas is still way up

But fewer people die.

In very similar terms, Trump and J.D. have indicated that America needs to protect the interests of producers over those of consumers. Is it really that simple?

No, because most of America’s large manufacturers rely on at least some parts from abroad; they are consequently both consumers and producers. Tariffs create more problems for them than they solve.

If you look back at the history of American imperialism, military interventions for the benefit of well-connected businesses were not an aberration. They were, at the time, quite normal.

What is new for Americans is Trump’s plan for the US government to take an equity interest in companies engaged in the exploitation of natural resources in foreign lands. That sounds more like something out of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Everything old becomes new again, I guess.

The details of the Trump-Venezuela oil deal are trickling out slowly. There is still much we don’t know, but it is now clear that a Venezuelan company with strong connections to the existing government, some experience in the oil business, and a reputation that has raised legal questions will be our partner in the joint venture. It is also fairly certain that our primary role in the process will be to provide legal and military protection to the other parties in exchange for some sort of power to control the distribution of at least some of the oil.

Several points are relevant here. First, I cannot tell whether the US government will be providing capital for the joint venture. If it is, we will be incurring a significant financial risk. Second, demanding an equity stake in a company in exchange for protection is something Trump has done on previous occasions; it makes the US government sound like a Mafia don. Third, our new Venezuelan business partner (chosen by Trump and Rubio without any public process) doesn’t have anything like the technical and financial resources to engage in exploration at this level, so the assistance of Chevron will be essential. As a result, I have to imagine that Chevron will be entitled to the lion’s share of the profits. Finally, this deal will give us what amounts to an equity stake in the Delcy regime. We will be enmeshed in Venezuelan politics on behalf of our business associates for the foreseeable future, and one can imagine a scenario in which we send troops to protect oil facilities and even the government itself in order to save our financial interests in Venezuelan oil.

It smells pretty bad–imperialism meets crony capitalism.

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?