Month: June 2016

I have noted previously that the best insight I ever had into politics came when a character in a dream told me that voters didn’t really expect politicians to solve their problems–they just needed to know that the candidate’s heart was in the right place.  Based on that, I have speculated that Trump voters don’t really think he can force Mexico to pay for the wall or ban Muslims from the country;  it is intent that matters, not results.

Both the NYT and the WaPo have run articles over the last two weeks about surveys of Trump voters which show precisely that.  QED.

I will be on vacation until next Wednesday, so blogging will be discontinued until then.  I should have plenty of fresh material when I return.

Never a dull day in the UK.

To the extent that there is a military solution to the Syrian problem, it would revolve around the use of the Turkish Army.  The combination of American air power and Turkish infantry would be more than a match for Assad’s forces and IS, and the ultimate political resolution could be left to the Turks, who presumably would be happy to rearrange the affairs of their neighbors to their liking.

There are basically two reasons why this hasn’t happened.  First, the Turks do not appear to believe that the benefits from reshaping the Syrian government and eliminating IS are worth the risks (a confrontation with the Russians being one of them).  Second, the Turkish government, for domestic political reasons, puts a much higher priority on fighting Kurdish militants than on getting rid of Assad and IS.  That puts them in conflict with US policy, which generally supports the aspirations of the Kurds, who are viewed as our most reliable ally.

The only way this equation is going to change is if IS starts becoming much more destructive within Turkey, so the government has to change its priorities.  That isn’t impossible, based on recent events, but it isn’t likely, either.

The Would-Be Man on Horseback

The would-be man on horseback

Came to my home town.

With weird hair and a bright orange face

He’s just an evil clown.

 

The would-be man on horseback

Was sending nasty tweets.

He made me think of days of yore.

Of men in hoods and sheets.

 

The would-be man on horseback

Admitted that it’s true.

He doesn’t give a tinker’s damn

For people that he screwed.

 

The would-be man on horseback

Stood tall upon the stage

His fans erupted to applaud

His message of cold rage.

 

The would-be man on horseback

Is on my TV screen.

I try hard to convince myself

It’s just an awful dream.

 

The would-be man on horseback

Please say it isn’t so.

‘Cause if he wins, the rest of us

Will have no place to go.

Trump advised Erdogan to stop being such a nice guy and do something about all those Muslims in his country.  Oh, wait. . .

This month’s issue of The Atlantic contains an article by Jonathan Rauch about American politics that has generated some buzz.  The gist of the article is that the system has gone “insane” as a result of systemic changes over the years which have weakened the power of middlemen who enforce discipline over both politicians and the electorate.

There is some merit to the article, but mostly I disagree with it.  The federal government made plenty of horrible choices during the Bush Administration, but its operations were not erratic or dysfunctional.  The first two years of the Obama Administration were marked by serious and productive lawmaking.  The Republican nominees in 2008 and 2012 were unquestionably mainstream politicians.  And the systemic changes that Rauch describes in the article took place over decades, so you can’t use them to explain why Congress has been dysfunctional since 2010, or why Trump became the GOP nominee in 2016.

The beginning of the dysfunction occurred when the GOP won the 2010 election and started threatening to shut down the government and default on the debt. The problems with our system, therefore, revolve around the radicalization of the GOP.  The reasons for that were described in a series of posts during GOP Radicalization Week several months ago.

Imagine that it is November 9, 2016.  Republicans are celebrating an unexpected Trump victory.  The markets, however, see Trump as a chaos agent, given his plans to tear up treaties, engage in trade wars, etc.  They are in free fall all over the world.

President Obama calls on Trump to make a public statement to calm things down.  Trump duly complies, telling the media that the inflammatory statements he made during the campaign were just “truthful hyperbole” and are only the starting point for negotiations with Congress and other world leaders.

The problem is that while markets operate on the basis of credibility and confidence, Trump openly views lying as a legitimate negotiating tactic to be used while he is President.  As a result, no one believes anything he says, and the free fall continues.

By the time of the inauguration, Americans have lost about a third of their wealth, and the economy is losing jobs at the rate of a million a month as a new Great Recession kicks in.  And so is America “made great again” by the man on golf cart.

The GOP nominee Don.

The Christian right over him fawned.

They’re buying his crap.

They don’t see it’s a trap.

But you and I know they’ve been conned.

I think you can divide Simon’s career into four phases.  In his first, Simon & Garfunkel, phase, he wrote painfully earnest songs about America in the sixties which captured the idealism of the times and remain standards today.  In the second phase, he went solo, watched America and personal relationships unravel, and wrote darker songs that are nonetheless classics (e.g., “Still Crazy After All These Years” and “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover”).  The third phase, in the eighties and nineties, was marked by the artistic and commercial success of “Graceland,” fallow periods, and some failures.  The later “Surprise” and “So Beautiful or So What,” however, are poignant meditations on love, God, and mortality which captured the subtle joys and sorrows of old age almost perfectly.

His new CD, “Stranger to Stranger,” is fundamentally different than its two predecessors.  Musically, it sounds more like “Graceland” than any of his other works.  The best songs–“Wristband” and “The Werewolf”–were clearly prompted by contemporary events.  There is some filler, even though it is less than 40 minutes long, but it is well worth a listen.

Is this the beginning of a fifth phase?  Time will tell, but his greatness is assured.

 

According to the NYT, a prominent member of the Christian right has advised his compatriots that Trump has found Christ.  He warned, however, that Trump was a “baby Christian” in need of intensive pastoral care, and that slip-ups could be expected.

Obviously, this is a perfect deal for Trump.  He gets to spout out the redemption narrative if he so chooses without changing his actual behavior, since he will be perpetually viewed as a flawed work in progress.  The students of Trump University drove a harder bargain than that.

The record shows that Trump has rejected Christian ethics all of his life, and recognizes no power higher than his own personal awesomeness.  The only way he would truly embrace Christianity as if it recognized him as a god.  You could call it the Holy Quadrilateral:  the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Donald!

Johnny Rotten was forty years ahead of his time.

The GOP nominee Don.

Of his Scottish golf courses he’s fond.

His Brexiteer views

Weren’t perceived as good news.

He’s no better hither than yon.

Marco’s greatest legislative accomplishment was the Senate’s approval of an immigration reform bill supported by a genuinely bipartisan “gang” of whom he was a prominent member.  When it became clear that the bill could not be sold to extreme right-wingers in the House and the country as a whole, he repudiated it, even though, as the child of an immigrant, it was an issue that presumably had some resonance for him.

When Marco ran for President, he (correctly) noted that Donald Trump was completely unqualified, by both experience and temperament, for the job. About two months after he dropped out of the race, he endorsed Trump and offered to speak for him at the Republican Convention.

Marco clearly disliked the Senate, made a point of not being there, and stated repeatedly that he had no interest in running for re-election.  About a week ago, he changed his mind, for stated reasons that, on their face, made no sense.

In short, Rubio has shown that he will sell out his ideas, his country, and his party for his own ambition.  Caveat emptor.

It’s the day after the convention.  Where does Sanders go from here?

Broadly speaking, he has the following three choices:

1.  Sulk in his tent.  If he’s secretly rooting for a Trump victory in the hope that it will expedite the “revolution,” that is the logical course of action. Otherwise, it will damage his reputation and cost the Democrats dearly.

2. Campaign vigorously against Trump, without saying much about Clinton.  No elaboration necessary.

3.  Campaign against Trump, and for his vision of the Democratic Party.   Basically, this requires him to accept a Clinton presidency as a practical first step in the “revolution.”  In the long run, he has to persuade the American people as a whole, not just a relative handful of left-wing activists and Clinton-haters, if the “revolution” is to occur.  The polls I have seen strongly suggest that the “revolution” is not very popular in the nation as a whole, so I would recommend this approach over the other two.

As we bid the EU our goodbye

We’re taking some time to say why.

While it’s been a nice trip

We prefer fish and chips

High tea, and big gray English skies.