Month: July 2017

In light of the events of the last few weeks, I wish someone would ask Trump these questions:

1.  What actions, if any, do you plan to take to prevent the Russians, or any other foreign power, from hacking the computers of the Democratic candidate in 2020?
2.  If you are offered “oppo” by the Russians in 2020, will you take it?
3.  Will you consider it OK to use the resources of the federal government to generate “oppo” on your opponent in 2020?
4.  If your opponent accepted “oppo” on you from the North Korean government, would that be OK?

Until proven otherwise, I will assume that Trump believes that all is fair in love, war, and elections–but not for his opponents.

It occurred to me this morning that the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate are going to vote for BCRA for the same reason British soldiers obeyed orders to attack in 1916;  the fear of letting down your people, and facing humiliation for it, is greater than the fear of death.

I predicted weeks ago that McConnell will get exactly 50 votes, and I’m sticking with that.  If he does, Trump will prance and preen and call himself a “winner.” Will the public agree?  I don’t think so, because:

1.  The base isn’t in love with this legislation.   BCRA is the illegitimate child of Obamacare, not its annihilation.

2.  There are no real winners from BCRA.  Even the rich don’t get their big tax cut.  Millions of people lose their insurance in order to reduce the deficit slightly. The public regains its “freedom” to buy worthless “insurance,”  a right it values about as much as its “freedom” to starve or be homeless.  Whoo-hoo!

3.  It’s a victory for McConnell, not Trump.  Only the truly uninformed will believe that the credit for getting 50 votes belongs to Trump.  The job will have been done by peer pressure and legislative bribes.

Did you see the photo of the evangelical leaders laying hands on Donald Trump?  I didn’t know if I should laugh, cry, or throw up.

The association of fundamentalist religion with the Republican Party really began with Reagan.  Prior to that, religious figures generally tried to avoid being partisan figures, presumably because they didn’t think that tying Christianity to particular secular policies (e.g., God demands a larger defense budget) and demonizing half the population was a good long-term marketing tool.  As one would have predicted, they’ve paid the price for their decision;  church attendance is falling significantly, particularly among young people, and the very public connection between Reactionary voters and Christianity has to be part of the reason.

The negative impacts of right-wing Christianity can also be seen in our political system.  The GOP, when forced to choose between science and fundamentalist beliefs, will inevitably lean towards the latter.  The intensity of the partisan divide naturally increased when the Democrats were portrayed as agents of Satan.  As I’ve noted before, American “conservatives” are different than their counterparts everywhere else in the world;  the unique connection between secular ideology and religion is clearly a large factor in that.

For their part, it is very important for the Democrats to avoid being perceived as being hostile to Christianity.  Becoming a purely secular humanist party will cost them millions of otherwise obtainable votes and cut them off from their history; after all, the civil rights movement has deep roots in Christian ethics, not secular humanism.  As with guns, abortion, and rural culture, a little more tolerance and public acceptance would be a really good idea.

The revised Senate bill combines elements of the second and third GOP health care alternatives described in a post earlier in the week.  The Obamacare plans will clearly become an unusual form of high risk pool, while the treatment of the unregulated plans resembles in some respects the catastrophic insurance alternative.

The losers from the new bill, using the old Senate plan as a baseline, would be wealthy people (who are losing their tax cut), people with pre-existing conditions (forced into a high risk pool with rapidly escalating prices), and anyone who picks an unregulated plan and unexpectedly requires lots of expensive medical care.  The winners are healthy young people who can buy cheap unregulated catastrophic plans at a lower cost than before.   People requiring Medicaid are treated like dirt under both the old and the new bill.

Will it pass?  As I projected weeks ago, Collins and Paul will vote no.  McConnell is apparently touting the Medicaid cuts to the conservatives, while telling the moderates that they will never happen in the real world.  If he manages to get 50 votes with that amazingly cynical approach, it will probably be a fitting end to a Kafkaesque story.

Life in the time of Trump.

The Russia thing is true.

The dirt is flying everywhere.

Each day, there’s something new.

Impeachment talk is on our minds

But nothing comes of it.

I don’t believe he’ll ever leave

Unless he’ll up and quit.

As far as I know, there is no real evidence of this to date, but for purposes of argument, assume that we discover that Donald Trump Sr. was aware of, and even authorized, efforts by his associates to solicit information damaging to the Clinton campaign from individuals believed to be agents of the Russian government.  Would that result in impeachment?

I doubt it.  The “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard for impeachment in the Constitution doesn’t just apply to any old violation of the law, as Bill Clinton could tell you.  I can’t imagine the GOP majorities in Congress pursuing impeachment unless there is also evidence of promises to change our foreign policy in relation to Russia in exchange for assistance with the campaign.  That would effectively make Trump a Russian agent.  Even Paul Ryan would have trouble with that one.

The truth is, the base might forgive him even for that.  Sean Hannity would tell them that it is fake news, and they would believe it.

As I’ve noted previously, Trump was elected without the support of the GOP establishment, so he could have decided to govern as a man above party, and encouraged the Democrats to compete for his favor.  Instead, he decided to embrace the right wing of the Republican Party, and any hope of winning Democratic support is long gone.

This has implications for the GOP as a whole as well as for Trump.  If Trump had operated as a de facto third party, they could have kept their distance from him, and avoided, at least to some extent, being tarnished by his scandals.  That can’t happen now;  he’s one of them, so they’re stuck with him.  They will pay the price for it in 2018 and 2020.

The worst case scenario for the GOP is being associated with Trump without actually accomplishing any of their cherished policy objectives.  That is becoming more likely by the day, because they have not been able to find a way to overcome the ideological differences that I discuss almost on a daily basis.

How can the GOP escape this trap?  They either have to hope that Trump can somehow turn it around, or they have to aggressively take the lead on impeaching him.  Both outcomes are unlikely.

During the 2015/16 campaign, Donald Trump performed what I would consider a public service by laying bare the differences in ideology among the various factions of the Republican Party.  The GOP cannot actually govern, however, unless those differences can be resolved, or at least papered over.  Some of that task can be delegated to Ryan and McConnell, but some of it is up to Trump.

He can’t do it.  His personality, to say the least, is abrasive, not soothing or placid. He doesn’t have positive relationships with enough members of Congress to sway votes.  His poll ratings don’t indicate that he can rely on the bully pulpit to intimidate wayward GOP members.  Finally, he knows practically nothing about policy, so he can’t help with the detail work.  All he can do is call meetings at the White House and fruitlessly demand victories for himself.

It certainly doesn’t bode well for the future.  He needs a war or a terrorist attack to turn things around, and soon.

As I’ve noted before, there are two largely inconsistent threads of Bannonite thought:  the internationalist war of civilizations against Islamic extremism; and the nationalist battle against countries with large trade surpluses with the US. You could sort of harmonize the two if you could fairly assume that Europe would be taken over by nationalist parties, but right-wing populism has apparently hit the wall, based on the outcome of the Dutch, French, and UK elections.  So where does Bannon go from here?

The result of Bannonite thought can be seen today:  inglorious isolation.  We can alienate our erstwhile friends with our positions on free trade, climate change, and human rights, but we can’t make any new ones.

The new White House guru named Steve.

He says things you wouldn’t believe.

He wants to build walls.

He has Trump in his thrall.

And the world thus has reason to grieve.

Both the House and Senate bills are, at their core, naked attempts to get a majority for something that can be called a repeal of Obamacare, not expressions of philosophy about the delivery of health care in the US.  The question for today is, if you could divorce the need to “win” from the equation, what would a GOP health care bill say?  The wide range of answers explains why it is so difficult for the GOP to agree on a single piece of legislation.

Here are the options, as I see them:

1.  Repeal Obamacare, and return to the status quo ante:  This would be relatively simple from a technical perspective, and would have strong support from the base.  Advantages, from the GOP’s point of view:  completely eliminates a new entitlement program enjoyed largely by the undeserving poor; sends a message that health care should be treated like any other commodity in the market.  Disadvantages:  Probably deprives about 30 million people, many of them GOP voters, of health insurance;  health care providers (often GOP voters) lose big bucks; countless job losses in the health care field; individual insurance markets may go into a death spiral.  Overall assessment:  CLs and some Reactionaries support this approach, but no one else does, because the down sides far outweigh the advantages.

2.  Maintain most of Obamacare’s architecture, but replace community rating with high risk pools:  This is contemplated in the House bill.  Advantages: lowers premiums for young and healthy people; moves the focus of health care back to personal responsibility.  Disadvantages:  if (this is unlikely) the high risk pools are adequately funded, the GOP is maintaining a very expensive entitlement program;  if not, GOP voters with pre-existing conditions will be turned into unsuccessful beggars.  Overall assessment:  unlike the poor, prosperous GOP voters with pre-existing conditions are sacred cows.  There is nothing in the history of high risk pools which suggests that the funding would be in any way adequate to the task.

3.  Create a system of universal catastrophic insurance:  The Senate bill moves tentatively in this direction.  A somewhat workable system would include prefunded HSAs for the poor, tax advantages for HSAs for everyone else, and tax credits adequate for the purchase of high deductible plans for all.  Advantages: this approach essentially eliminates the use of insurance for daily care, which, in the eyes of the GOP, will reduce waste and ultimately cut unit prices. Disadvantages:  keeps an expensive entitlement program in place; will have a very limited impact on pricing.  Overall assessment:  there is some merit to this approach, but without substantial government intervention to drive down prices, as in Singapore, it won’t work.

Both philosophically and practically, there are very large differences among these three concepts.  That is why getting 50 votes is so difficult, even for a magician like McConnell.

Mitch McConnell doesn’t seem to care much about America, but he definitely does care about the Republican Party and the Senate.  Unlike most of his contemporaries, he is capable of taking the long view, and he understands very well that what goes around comes around.  As a result, you can probably rely on him to resist any efforts to eliminate the legislative filibuster, and Trump won’t necessarily be able to count on his support in the civil rights crackdown that will follow a war or major terrorist attack.

It occurred to me this morning that the Chief Justice plays roughly the same role on the Supreme Court.  He’s a GOP partisan to the core, but he cares deeply about his personal reputation within the legal community and about the Court’s reputation in the country as a whole.  It is unlikely, therefore, that he will do an abrupt 180 and become a vocal proponent of federal power, particularly executive power, over the rights of Congress and the states.  He will probably continue to make deals with the Court’s liberal wing to advance his agenda incrementally,  while maintaining the appearance of the rule of law.

Gorsuch’s vote on the travel ban case strongly suggests that, at least for now, he plans to be a stooge for the Trump Administration.  If there is a new vacancy on the Court, we have to assume that it will be filled by a fourth stooge.  Roberts may be all that is standing in front of a judicial counterrevolution.

If you accept the Trump/Bannon premises that we are engaged in a existential clash of civilizations with radical Islam, that trade deficits are inherently evil, and that culture and nationality must prevail over supposedly universal ideas inherent in liberal democracy, then it follows logically that Putin should be our ally, and that our erstwhile allies in Europe are really the enemy.

The problem is that Putin doesn’t really see the world that way.  His objective is to weaken the US, not to fight Islam.  He just makes opportunistic arguments to get his way.

And so, the ultimate outcome of this will be an isolated America, with Putin and Xi as its beneficiaries.

Donald Trump strides confidently into a hotel room, where Putin is waiting for him. Trump gives him the obligatory crushing handshake.  Putin briefly considers throwing a judo move, but wisely decides against it.

VP:  Mr. President!  It’s so good to meet you at last!

DT:  But we’ve met before! Or maybe not.  I’ve told so many different stories, I can’t remember which one is true.

VP:  Congratulations for beating that bitch Hillary Clinton like a drum!  The victory was all yours.  Your media gave me way too much credit.

DT:  Fake news!  Fake news!

VP:  I invented fake news, you know.

DT:  No, I did.

VP:  No, I did.

DT:  No, I did.

VP:  Whatever.  Anyway, congratulations.

So how did your meeting with Merkel go?

DT:  She’s worse than Clinton.  She’s always in my ear with boring stuff about free trade and human rights.  And she’s a two at best.  At least Clinton’s a three or a four.

VP:  Life’s too short to be spending time with ugly women.  To the victors go the spoils, eh?

DT:  You got that right, bro.

VP:  If you need any help with her, I can offer you the use of my dog.  He freaks her out.

DT:  That would be funny, but I don’t like dogs, either.

VP:  I have to say, we’ve gotten off to a disappointing start.  I thought we were going to be friends.

DT:  It’s not me, it’s Congress and my cabinet.  Now that Flynn’s gone, no one except Bannon understands the game plan.

VP:  You need to assert yourself, Mr. President.  If you’re going to talk like a strong man, be one!  Show everyone you’re the boss.  That’s what I would do.

DT:  I thought it would be easy, but it’s not.  Our system is complicated.

VP:  Here’s what works for me:  have lots of pictures taken with your shirt off wrestling people and doing manual labor.  It shows everyone how tough you are.

DT:  I only play golf.  The optics wouldn’t work.

VP:  I suppose not.  So let’s talk business.  What can you do for me in Ukraine?

DT:  My new Polish friends tell me you need to stop destabilizing the situation there.

VP:  Screw the Poles–they’re just losers.  There’s a reason their country is always being occupied.  Ukraine belongs to us.

DT:  But you can’t just go around invading all of your neighbors.

VP:  Why not?  If you have to invade Mexico after their next election, I promise I won’t say a word about it.  Mexico belongs to you.  Ukraine belongs to us.

DT:  I’ll think about it.

VP:  What about Syria?  Why can’t we cooperate there?  Assad is a great guy when you get to know him.  He’s one of us.

DT:  But you’re effectively supporting Iran, and we can’t live with that.

VP:  The ayatollahs aren’t as crazy as you think.  But here’s a deal:  you can have a free hand with Iran if you’ll give me one in Ukraine.  Does that work?

DT:  That sounds like a deal.

VP:  Can you do anything about sanctions?

DT:  Can you help with North Korea?

VP:  No can do with that, bro.  We don’t have any influence there.

DT:  I understand.  Even Xi hasn’t been able to help.

VP:  Anything else?

DT:  No, but it’s been fun. Let’s go and have our pictures taken by the fake news.

The photos are taken, and Trump leaves.

You could understand this sort of thing when the neoliberal consensus prevailed, but what does it mean after Trump and Brexit?  Are these people actually, probably without knowing it, demonstrating for Donald Trump’s nationalist and protectionist agenda?  Or are they clamoring for the return of communism? Good luck with that.

Either way, it doesn’t make any sense.