Ross Douthat responds to attacks on populists by arguing they didn’t support the Iran war. Is he right?
Iran is not Iraq; there was no foreign policy elite consensus in favor of the war. Responsibility for it rests with one man, Donald Trump, who owes his position primarily to a base full of populists. As a result, if you have to attach blame to one side or the other instead of a single dude, it belongs to the populists, even though a few of them don’t support the war.
Life in the time of Trump.
His Iran war drags on.
An easy win, the great man thought
But all such hopes are gone.
We command the air and sea
But they control the Strait.
Which side will surrender first?
For now, it’s a stalemate.
Article III of the Constitution doesn’t really say much about the Supreme Court. It tells us that its members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate; it lays out some jurisdictional parameters; and it sets a “good behavior” standard for removal of justices. That’s it. Everything else is negotiable.
Donald Trump’s legacy is largely a matter of luck; he was able to make three appointments to the Court in his first term as a result of timely retirements and the death of RBG. Obama had fewer appointments than that in two terms in office. By any reasonable standard, that was an unjust result.
Packing the Court is legally possible, but practically inappropriate, as it would invite retaliation and eliminate whatever residual respect the Court continues to enjoy. The best option would be to subject justices to term limits, but that would require a constitutional amendment, which isn’t going to happen. Personally, I think it would be a good idea to enact legislation that guarantees each president one appointment per term. The number of justices would consequently fluctuate with deaths and retirements. So what?
Trump has been demanding defense budget increases from our allies for years. You would think, then, that he would welcome efforts on the part of the Europeans to create their own defense industries. But no! Elbridge Colby is telling them not to duplicate American manufacturing capabilities. What does this mean?
It means, as I’ve said many times before, that Trump doesn’t really want Europe to pay more and police its own continent, regardless of what he says in public. He wants it to be an American vassal state–to acknowledge him as the boss and pay America for its protection. The defense budget issue is just a smokescreen.
Gerrymandering is as old as our country; after all, Elbridge Gerry signed the Declaration of Independence. Gerry didn’t have computers and algorithms to help him, however, and the Supreme Court didn’t give its blessing to gerrymandering until the Trump years. As a practical matter, millions of Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, now have little voice in choosing their House member and no hope of any change in the future. Is it possible to remedy that situation at the federal level?
Maybe. The Constitution says nothing specific about who creates House district boundaries and how it is to be done; it simply gives the states the power to choose the time, place, and “manner” of House elections. The extent to which the reference to “manner” includes drawing boundaries is vague at best. In addition, the federal government is given some residual powers to shape election rules. Could all of this ambiguity give the federal government some ability to limit or even prohibit gerrymandering?
House district boundaries are probably always going to be established at the state level. I don’t see anything in the Constitution, however, that would prohibit the federal government from enacting legislation requiring the states to create bipartisan commissions to draw boundaries that are neutral on a partisan basis after each census and prohibiting the creation of new maps at other times. It should be tried after 2028.
Imagine that you are an Iranian official involved in the negotiations with the US. You know your country has already demonstrated the will and the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. That will not change whether you make a deal to keep the Strait open or not. You also know that the Americans do not have a way to enforce an agreement keeping the Strait open at any reasonable cost. Finally, you may readily assume that the entire world will do its best to find alternative routes for goods if the war continues and the Strait remains closed, which will damage your best source of leverage in the long run.
Under those circumstances, wouldn’t it make perfect sense to concede the point in exchange for something of value instead of continuing to endure American bombing and economic pressure? It certainly does to me.
Why are there so many remarkably awful members of Congress, particularly on the GOP side? Part of the answer has to be that Congress is no longer an equal partner in government. If the legislature no longer plays much of a role in making policy, and does not legislate, then what is the point in being a hard-working team player? Real power lies in the manipulation of social media and the gathering of attention, not the production of useful legislation.
Killing the filibuster would change these incentives. If the voters had reason to judge the effectiveness of a legislator based on his actual production instead of the violence of his rhetoric, we might get a better class of legislator.
There is a consensus among serious historians that the Founding Fathers wanted and expected Congress to be the most important of the three branches of the federal government. There was a time during the 19th century when that was, in fact, the case, but not now. The only important function of Congress today is to keep the lights on and, occasionally, to cut taxes; real power is wielded by the executive branch and, increasingly, by the Supreme Court. How can this be changed?
The filibuster is not mandated by the Constitution, so eliminating it is low-hanging fruit. In addition, the Supreme Court has made it impossible to push through significant reforms by administrative action; the Gorsuch model of government, which now has the force of law, requires an active and responsive Congress that legislates constantly and in greater detail to address emerging problems. As a result, the filibuster has to go.
Eliminating the filibuster comes with significant risks. America might well be much closer to a fascist state today if the GOP majorities in Congress had been set free. Nevertheless, it has to be done, because power abhors a vacuum, and the consequences of inaction–a completely disillusioned voting public and an imperial executive–are even worse than the potential for legislative overkill.
For a man who demands unconditional loyalty while giving none himself, Trump has been remarkably tolerant of J.D.’s very public attempts to distance himself from the war. What’s going on here?
I’m speculating, of course, but I suspect that Trump is trying to send a message to his anti-war MAGA supporters through the back door that he is still one of them at heart. J.D.’s job in his administration, other than to reverse engineer his incoherent utterances into something that makes sense, is to keep the band from flying apart. That’s probably what he’s doing here, too.
It isn’t working, just as his attempts to keep the techno-aristocrats and the populists on the same page can’t succeed in the long run.
America has always been about change. Americans are used to having the newest and best of everything. Why, then, is there so much pessimism about the impacts of AI, which is potentially a new golden goose of productivity and profit?
Part of the answer is demographic change, of course; you can hardly expect a country that is largely run by and for the elderly to embrace revolution in the economy. But that is not the whole story; Gen Z dislikes AI as much as old reactionaries do. Why is that?
Because the events of the last few decades have shown that the federal government is incapable of responding quickly and appropriately to the issues that will be created by AI. Nobody compensated the losers from globalization and technological change after 2000, and Congress is hamstrung by the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and its own rules, so why would anyone expect anything better this time around?
Change is needed to head off serious problems in the future. I will outline a number of revisions to the McConnell Project which do not require amendments to the Constitution and which, if enacted, would improve things dramatically in a series of posts over the next week.
The federal debt as a percentage of GDP was approximately 30 percent in 1980. Ronald Reagan argued that a big tax cut, combined with massive increases in defense spending, would not increase the debt, as increased economic growth and the elimination of waste and fraud would fill in the gap. He was wrong; the deficit exploded, and we have been living on borrowed money ever since.
In 2012, Governor Sam Brownback pushed a large tax cut through the Kansas Legislature. He maintained that the cut would pay for itself through economic growth. It didn’t; services were cut dramatically as a result; and the tax cut was repealed by Republicans a few years later.
In 2022, Liz Truss supported an enormous tax cut, which, according to her, would pay for itself. Markets didn’t agree; the value of the pound fell significantly; and Truss was forced to resign.
Today, DeSantis and Ramaswamy are advocating for huge state tax cuts on the basis that the ensuing growth, combined with reductions in waste and fraud, would pay for them. What do you think?
Marx famously said that history repeats itself twice–once as tragedy, and once as farce. He was wrong. With the GOP and tax cuts, the hits just keep on coming.
Trump is apparently threatening Canada with new tariffs for the wildfire smoke even though it is caused primarily by climate change, a phenomenon he rejects as a Chinese hoax. In addition, one of the rationales for his new tariffs on Brazil is the country’s alleged failure to get deforestation under control; Lula has done a far better job of this than Trump’s buddy Bolsonaro, who basically told Brazilians to let it rip.
You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. Next thing you know, he’ll be offering the Chinese a geopolitical partnership while accusing them of flipping the 2020 election to Biden. Oh, wait . . .
Trump misrepresented facts and documents, ignored his own efforts to weaken our defenses against foreign interference, and made no attempt to create a nexus between the supposed foreign rigging and his precious SAVE Act. In other words, it was a typical performance last night. The base will be happy, but no one will be persuaded.
Even Fox was cautious about his allegations. Paying out hundreds of millions of dollars to settle defamation suits will do that to you.
Roman emperors lacked mass media and the internet, so they relied on their images on coins to get the message across. Fittingly enough for a man who frequently resembles Caligula, Trump appears to be trying the same thing. Will it work for him?
No, because we have mass media and the internet. We also use credit cards more often than cash. It is unlikely that putting Trump’s signature and image on currency will win him much support, although his ego will undoubtedly be gratified.
The better question is, did the Treasury pay him for the use of his image? It would be unlike him not to demand a cut from the transaction.
Effective opposition contains three components. First, you have to take positions on the issues that will get you elected; second, you have to take actions while in office to check Trump’s excesses; and third, you have to mobilize public support for guardrails against the abuse of executive power.
What effective opposition does not consist of is taking positions that are unpopular and unrealistic, going off on personal safaris that divide the Democratic Party, and making loud and controversial statements on social media that alienate potential swing voters. In other words, the Democrats do not need their own version of the Tea Party; they are the party of responsible adults and stable government, not a flock of sheep or a collection of noisy narcissists.