Cromwell

According to the NYT, Todd Blanche refused to say that his DOJ would be “independent” on today’s “Meet the Press.” What conclusions should we draw from that?

Not many. The DOJ is part of the executive branch. As such, the president has some right to establish its priorities. For example, if he wants to emphasize dealing with organized crime or businesses committing fraud, as opposed to, say, immigration enforcement, that would be a perfectly legitimate use of his authority.

What is not legitimate is to pressure, in one way or another, the DOJ to engage in legally and factually frivolous investigations and prosecutions against the president’s political and legal opponents. The DOJ has an obligation to push back against those demands. For the past two years, it has not done so, and there is no reason to believe that the next two years offer anything better.

The NYT published a graph showing inflation rates and increases in average wages over time in an article yesterday. The graph showed a significant decrease in real wages during the peak inflation period in Biden’s term, which accounts nicely for Trump’s victory in 2024. The bad news for Trump, however, is that the graph indicates that real wages have fallen again in 2026 as a result of his tariffs and, above all, his stupid war.

Can the GOP overcome Trump’s self-imposed economic problems by ranting about crime and trans people? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Sam Altman has apparently said that he would be willing to flip a coin knowing that there was a 49 percent chance that humanity would be destroyed if he also knew that there was a 51 percent chance that our well-being would be doubled. After all, the odds would be in his favor.

How many of you would make the same bet? I’m guessing Altman would be in a small minority.

The premise of Altman’s statement, of course, is that he, not you, would be flipping the coin. You would have no say in the matter. You would simply have to trust him.

The decline in our birth rates is being driven by two things: increased female economic independence; and pessimism about the future. If you had reason to believe that you and your putative progeny could be wiped out at any time at the whim of some tech baron, how excited would you be about having children?

When my wife worked for a state agency, she was advised by her boss that disputes with health care providers were always about the money. He was wrong. Litigation is as often fueled by anger, pride, or a demand for respect and justice as by greed.

Is there an analogy to Trump and the Middle East here? Of course there is! Trump thought he could bring down the Iranian leadership by immiserating the Iranian people. To him, bombing and sanctions relief are two sides of the same coin, and prolonging the war, from the Iranian perspective, makes no sense. They should take whatever deal he offers, gratefully accept reconstruction assistance, and get rich in peace, because that’s what he would do.

Unfortunately, the Iranian leadership doesn’t think the way he does, which is why the war goes on.

Let’s move on to another state. Florida man Ron DeSantis promoted a huge property tax cut for two purposes: to embed CL economic theory in the Florida Constitution; and to force local governments to come crawling to Tallahassee to fill in the gaps in their budgets. Well, three purposes. He also wants to impress CL voters and wealthy business donors for his next presidential run.

The Florida Legislature, which is understandably sick of DeSantis and prefers to take its orders from Trump, decided to moderate his amendment before it goes on the ballot. DeSantis is now saying that he won’t campaign for the amendment because it isn’t his proposal. He is clearly setting himself up to take the credit if it passes and avoid blame if it fails.

On a related note, DeSantis is also executing prisoners at an unprecedented rate. This should tick off another box with the base. Can’t you imagine him taunting J.D. during a debate in 2028 by demanding to know how many people the VP has executed in the last few years?

Vivek Ramaswamy, on the other hand, has not exactly been a profile in courage in recent months. While other Ohio politicians have been doing their best to protect the Springfield Haitians, he is saying as little as possible on the issue. He is also promising to roll back property taxes and to ultimately eliminate the state income tax. When he is asked about the fate of a similar tax cut in Kansas, he simply advises us that Ohio isn’t Kansas, without identifying the relevant differences.

Ramaswamy isn’t stupid, so he can’t possibly believe that his tax cut will pay for itself, regardless of what he tells the public. He has a different course in mind. Unlike the federal government, state governments can’t run deficits or print money. As a result, a “starve the beast” program, which notoriously failed in the Reagan years, can work in Ohio.

Ramaswamy is a CL. You have to think that his tax cut is largely a pretext for a ferocious attack on state spending. He probably thinks he can stand tall where Brownback faltered. For the sake of the people of Ohio, let’s hope he never gets the chance.

Bernie Moreno, Republican senator from Ohio, has been showing some unusual independence lately. He may cost the GOP a House seat with his attacks on Max Miller, who, according to his daughter, was an abusive husband. Even more interestingly, he has co-sponsored a bill with Elizabeth Warren to remove the income cap on Social Security taxes. That’s not exactly the company most Republicans like to keep.

None of this is directed at Trump, of course, but it could suggest some serious splintering of the GOP once the man on golf cart leaves the scene.

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.