Month: August 2017

Trump critics were told over and over again during the campaign that we took him “literally but not seriously.”  By that, his apologists meant that his campaign rhetoric should be taken as metaphor for the grievances expressed by the members of his base, not as actual policy prescriptions.

The wall is a great example of that.  Surveys done during the campaign indicated that Trump supporters did not really believe he could force Mexico to pay for it. Promises about the wall were simply viewed as expressions of solidarity with those who felt that outsiders–Mexicans, Muslims, African-Americans, whatever–were ruining our country.

The irony is that it is clear now that Trump actually feels bound by the campaign promise even though his supporters won’t hold him to it.  It can’t get much more ludicrous than that.

Donald Trump is famously a member of the school of negotiators who likes to start by putting maximum demands on the table.  When you add that to his repeated insistence that all previous administrations had consistently made terrible deals, it was clear that he was going to threaten nuclear war.  I predicted it months ago, and it has now come to pass.

Even discussing the nuclear option has been taboo until now.  It creates the following problems:

1. If you put using nukes on the table and draw a red line, you are running the risk that someone will assume you are bluffing (and you probably are).  Then what? If the threat isn’t real, it can be safely ignored.  That means it has to be used to remain credible.
2. If we can put nukes on the table, so can the Russians, Chinese, Indians, and Pakistanis–and they will.  Sooner or later, someone is going to follow through with the threat, and the entire world will have to live with the results.

I’ve previously commented on the impact of the iPhone on American politics. The latest issue of The Atlantic contains an article which shows that, since the release of the iPhone, American teenagers drive less, drink less, hang out less, take fewer drugs, and, yes, have significantly less sex.  They also kill themselves at higher rates.

And so, it turns out that all those arguments about abstinence and sex education were a waste of time–you just have to buy your teenager a smartphone and watch it work its magic.  They probably learn all they need to know from the phone, anyway.

The Chinese were humiliated by the destruction of their North Korean sort-of ally, so the world held its breath and waited to see what would happen next.  It did not have to wait very long.

A few days after the end of the war, the PLA poured over the border in spite of the dangerous levels of radiation that still existed all over the country.  China essentially took over the governance of what was left of North Korea.  The US and the South Koreans, not wishing to provoke the Chinese further, and happy to be free of clean-up duty, did not object strenuously.  North Korea became a Chinese vassal state.

Violent anti-American protests broke out all over the world.  Seeking to drive a deeper wedge between the US and its erstwhile allies, the Chinese drafted a UN resolution condemning the American military action and imposing sanctions. Russia voted for it, and it had a majority, including several traditional American friends, but it was vetoed.

At home, things were very different.  The GOP, once badly divided, united behind Trump and his war.  Trump demanded emergency powers to silence the “treasonous” opposition to the war.  The outcome of those debates was not known at the time this was published, but there was serious talk of a parade and a Trump Monument.

It looks like Trump thinks he has the power to bring McConnell into the Oval Office and fire him, just as he would fire a contestant on “The Apprentice.”  Alas! Our system doesn’t exactly work that way.

It’s not easy to make a sympathetic figure out of McConnell, but that’s the way this is heading.

Donald Trump told us repeatedly during the campaign that he planned to be as unpredictable as possible.  Hey, it worked for him in business, and it works for Putin, so why not?

North Korea is why not.  Imagine that you are Kim Jong-un, and you have just heard the “fire and fury” speech.  What do you make of it?  Do you completely blow it off as an obvious bluff, and continue with your missile program?  Do you take it seriously, and start preparing in earnest for a nuclear war?  Or do you assume that Trump isn’t really in charge, and listen only to Mattis, Tillerson, and McMaster?

It’s hard to know the correct answer to that question, and a miscalculation here could result in an absolute calamity for the entire world.

Don’t say I didn’t tell you so.

All About The Base

(Chorus)

Because you know I’m all about the base

‘Bout the base, no liberal.

I’m all about the base, ’bout the base, no liberal.

I’m all about the base, ’bout the base, no liberal.

I’m all about the base, ’bout the base.

 

Yeah, it’s pretty clear, I only love the right.

The left can just go stick it where it never sees the light.

‘Cause I won the election, and their lady lost.

Bitter though they may still be, I’ve become the boss.

The mainstream media all despise me

But you know that crap ain’t real.

 

I’ll win in 2020, just you see.

If you want to take me on, I’ll be here.

And my base will stand there with me.

They’ll be loyal, have no fear.

 

Yeah, my daddy always told me to kick the world’s butt.

He told me just ignore it when they tell you you’re a nut.

You know I’m not a puppet, establishment guy.

So if that’s what you’re into

Then go eat ___ and die.

 

(Chorus)

Parody of “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor.

All of the factions except the CDs (who detest Trump, and are effectively part of the opposition) are represented in the current administration, which is one of the reasons it lacks a consistent sense of direction.  Here is the breakdown:

1.  The most prominent Reactionaries are Bannon and Sessions.  DeVos, Carson, and Perry would probably fall into this category, too.

2.  All of the billionaires surrounding Trump are, as you would expect, PBPs.  That includes Kushner, Tillerson, and all of the members of his economic team.

3.  Mulvaney is the most important CL.

Does Trump have the political skills to keep this group operating as a unified whole?  Of course not.

 

Like Trump, PBPs are naturally transactional;  their opinion of him will depend, not on red meat or his Twitter account, but on whether he delivers the goods.  In their case, “the goods” means deregulation and tax cuts for businesses.

While Trump and the GOP Congress have sent the right message on deregulation, the chaos surrounding the administration is a clear source of concern, and the failure of Obamacare repeal doesn’t bode well for tax reform.   To make a long story short, the PBPs will swallow a large dose of corruption and incompetence as long as Trump makes them money, but if he doesn’t, unlike his Reactionary base, they’ll jump ship.

You probably thought that one minor silver lining inherent in the GOP victory in 2016 was an end to debt ceiling crises.  But noooooooo!

I’m not sure how this is going to turn out, but here are the key questions:

1.  Can Paul Ryan maintain control of the Freedom Caucus?  Probably not. Boehner couldn’t, and the FC is even hungrier for a victory after the Obamacare repeal debacle.

2.  Can Nancy Pelosi deliver enough votes for a clean increase?  Yes.  She has always come through when it mattered most, and a debt ceiling debacle would damage the Democrats’ brand as the responsible party.

3.  Can Mulvaney be trusted?  He’s saying the right things at the moment, but his heart isn’t in a clean increase.  Given the degree of dysfunction in the administration, one can easily imagine him playing both sides of the street.

4.  What will Trump do?  This is, of course, the most important question.  It is clear to me that there are two keys to persuading him to do what you want:  be the last person to speak to him; and have a plausible argument that your position constitutes “winning.”  Let’s hope the few adults in the administration can convince him that damaging the country’s credit and hurting the economy is not a “win.”  Am I sure that will happen?  No.

You probably remember the scene in “The Godfather” in which Vito Corleone and the rest of the mob leaders meet to work out an acceptable truce in the ongoing war.  Trump would probably view this as a template for his brand of politics:  strong men (i.e., “winners”) ruthlessly pursuing their own interests by cutting favorable deals, with very little concern about the impacts to the public at large.

Unfortunately for him, the American political system doesn’t work that way.  The Russian system, on the other hand, does.  Hence at least part of his enthusiasm for Putin.

Paul Krugman used to say that the Democrats were ambivalent about immigration, but the Republicans are schizophrenic.  What he meant by that is that Democrats had some difficulty balancing their normal compassion for the needy with their desire to protect the wages of workers;  on the other hand, immigration is a major football within the GOP between PBPs (who want the workers) and Reactionaries (who hate foreigners).

For what it’s worth, here’s my two cents on the matter:

1.  We have a right as a nation to protect our borders.  That’s a matter of common sense and sovereignty, not racism.
2.  There is no current problem with the levels of illegal immigration.  There haven’t been any hordes at our borders for years.
3.  Refugees and economic immigrants represent separate problems.
4.  We have a history of welcoming refugees.  It is part of our national DNA that should be respected and maintained.  Refugees do not disproportionately commit violent crimes, regardless of what Trump tries to argue.
5.  Economic immigrants should be admitted on the basis of cold-eyed policy.  The factors that go into this include:  (a) impacts to wage levels for the low-skilled; (b) relations with our neighbors; (c) impacts to public services; (d) the likelihood that the immigrants will create economic benefits; and (e) demographic concerns.
6.  There is little evidence that immigrants depress wages.  Immigration is really just a conspicuous form of globalization.  Offshoring and technological changes have a far greater impact.  Even countries with minimal immigration have experienced problems with stagnant wages for the low-skilled.  Depriving our farmers of a needed labor source just makes everyone poorer.
7.  Pissing off Mexico is not really a good way to conduct foreign policy.
8.  Immigrants typically create more benefits than they consume.
9.  Immigrants can help us pay for the welfare state.
10.  And so, I would argue for a liberal position on legal immigration.  As to the illegals who are already here, most of whom are otherwise law-abiding, I don’t see any public benefit to making their lives more miserable than they already are.

Politico has a good, lengthy article today about the impact of Trump’s protectionism on American farmers, the majority of whom voted for him.

There go all those exports to Japan!  Oh, well:  at least they have Gorsuch.

You don’t actually have to watch a horror movie to know what’s happening;  the music alone will tell you roughly what’s going on.  The same is true of historical documentaries.  With the advantage of hindsight, it’s easy to show how and why disaster was imminent in 1914, and 1929, and 1939.

The real world isn’t like that;  life doesn’t come with a soundtrack.  If it did, Franz Ferdinand would have known better than to go to Sarajevo.

I can’t hear cellos groaning in the background, but I’m worried about what I see, and I’m not the only one.   The cover of this week’s Economist features a mushroom cloud with the faces of Kim and Trump and the caption “It Could Happen.”  New York Magazine has an article about how Trump could turn things around with a war. These are topics that I write about all the time.

Very few things in life are inevitable.  I hope I’m wrong.  I just don’t think I am.

 

Donald Trump is a one-trick pony;  the only thing he knows how to do is to throw red meat to his base.  He’s continuing to roam the country, holding rallies in red states and talking about locking up Hillary Clinton, because that’s how he got elected.  If he wants to move his agenda, he needs to figure out a way to get beyond that and reach the more moderate members of his own party, but building coalitions is just not part of his DNA, and it certainly isn’t as much fun.

It is likely that some of his style will rub off on the Democrats, but will we ever see a successful left-wing imitation of Trump?  Will we ever get to “Lock him up!” I don’t think so, because:

1. The Democratic victims coalition is much more heterogeneous than the Republican Reactionary base.  If you’re throwing red meat to African-Americans, for example, where does that leave women and Hispanics?
2.  Every poll I have ever seen suggests that the Democratic voting base prefers compromise and results to ideological purity.
3.  One would hope that the reaction to bombast would be quiet competence.