Month: December 2017

So how did my predictions turn out?  Here’s a list:

1.  Trump will run an inept and corrupt administration with authoritarian leanings.  Right on target with that one.  The real test on the authoritarian leanings will come if we go to war in 2018.  At least he hasn’t violated court orders yet.

2.  Congress will pass a huge, regressive tax cut.  Bingo.

3.  Obamacare will be repealed.  Only partly correct.  The GOP’s success with regard to the individual mandate may, paradoxically, help save the rest of the program.

4.  We’ll go to war with North Korea and Iran.  Not yet, but it’s definitely still on the table.  It doesn’t appear that Trump really wants to fight North Korea, or it already would have happened.  Iran is a different story; he’s clearly itching to get after the ayatollahs.

5.  The most likely economic scenario is “Funhouse Reagan.”  Still the most likely after the big tax cut, although battles over entitlement spending and trade loom in 2018.

6.  We’ll hear lots of disconcerting talk about the use of nuclear weapons.  Check.

7.  Doug Jones will lose, narrowly.  He won, narrowly.  Sometimes it’s good to be wrong.

8.  We’ll either have a swaggering version of traditional GOP foreign policy or a completely new approach focused on trade deficits.  We’ve had some of both.  Where we go from here remains to be seen.

Tomorrow, I’ll start a new series on 2018, starting with issues in the US.

If you want to identify the impact that Trump has made on our country and the world independent of his GOP affiliation, imagine where we would be today with President Rubio.  It probably looks like this:

1.  Obamacare repeal might have passed.  Trump wasn’t really the problem there, but he didn’t do anything to help, either.  A little more effective leadership might have made a difference.
2.  The tax cut would have strongly resembled the bill that was approved, but would have been a bit more family-friendly.
3.  We would still be friends with our erstwhile allies.  We would not insult them on a daily basis.
4.  We would be approximately where we are with North Korea, but there would be no danger of blundering into a war that no one wants through the misinterpretation of overheated rhetoric.
5.  There would be no Russia investigation.
6.  Our civil liberties would not be in danger.
7.  Corruption would not be an issue.
8.  There would be no discussion about a wall, about tariffs, or about abandoning NAFTA and the WTO.
9.  No one would have heard of Doug Jones.
10.  We might well still be in the Paris Agreement, although we probably wouldn’t be doing anything meaningful to implement it.
11.  Gorsuch, or someone like him, would be on the Supreme Court.
12.  “Fake news” would be something emanating from Russia or China.

In short, our country with a different GOP president would be far more respected around the world, and would be a better and safer place to live.  On the other hand, the prospects for the Democrats in 2018 and 2020 would be significantly worse.  How you balance those two is up to you.

A wretched old year nears its end.

Aren’t you glad we won’t do that again?

Can you guess what comes next?

Will we taste great success?

Does disaster await ’round the bend?

Marine LePen is, of course, a Reactionary who wants to “make France great again” by closing the doors and fortifying the welfare state.  The latter impulse is different than what you would see among Reactionaries in the US, but the faux nostalgia inspiration for it is the same.

Fillon reminds me of Ted Cruz:  a Reactionary on social issues with CL leanings on the economy.  No wonder he didn’t win.

Sarkozy is a PBP at heart, even though he’s so mercurial it is difficult to tell sometimes.

As for Jupiter, his roots are in the Socialist Party, so he doesn’t really figure in the equation even though his economic policies would find favor with PBPs.

It’s obvious what the Saudis get out of their de facto alliance with us against Iran. It’s less obvious what we get out of the bargain.  Saudi oil is less important strategically than it used to be as a result of fracking technology, Saudi money and ideology have been used to spread terrorism, and you can hardly make the case that the Saudi regime is less repressive than the Iranian government.

Until now, perhaps.  One can’t help but be intrigued by the reforms proposed by MBS.  His willingness to tackle terrorism appears to be genuine.  His liberalization of the economy and his efforts to promote the welfare of women are welcome.  His fight against high-level corruption is long overdue.  If he can make fundamental changes to the regime which will set it apart from Iran, that would change the equation.

For all that, there is good reason to be skeptical at this point.  MBS’ forays into Yemen and Lebanon don’t exactly inspire confidence in his judgment.  Forcing wealthy people into a luxury hotel and shaking them down isn’t my idea of due process.  Finally, there is the danger that his liberalization efforts may promote a backlash.  As I noted yesterday, it has happened before.

This episode just smells like the Shah of Iran all over again, possibly with worse consequences.  I hope I’m wrong.  I may be.  But I don’t think so.

There are no political parties as such within the Vatican, so you may well be wondering why it is included in this series.  It is true that, for obvious reasons, there are no PBP and CL factions within the Catholic Church.  There is, however, an very important rift between groups that are recognizably CD and Reactionary that is pervasive within the Church today.

Pope Francis and Bono are CDs.  In a nutshell, they believe in reaching out to the outside world and in love and compassion over the enforcement of rules.  If the rules have to be fudged a bit in order to reach millions of people who desperately need help and guidance, so be it.  Benedict and Ross Douthat are Reactionaries. They believe in drawing lines and enforcing traditional rules;  if the rest of the world doesn’t like it, it’s their loss.

The difference between the two groups is perhaps most obvious in their attitudes towards immigrants.  Francis always makes a point of showing favor to them; Douthat essentially agrees with Trump on this issue, as well as on abortion.  That is the reason some passionate Catholics who otherwise wouldn’t give Trump the time of day, given his personal morality, voted for him in 2016.

The government was pressing for changes that would benefit groups that were previously oppressed, both legally and socially.   Conservatives were bewildered and frustrated by the changes, which, in their eyes, overturned hundreds, and sometimes even thousands, of years of precedent.

When the inevitable backlash came, it was furious and comprehensive.  The country would never be the same again.

Is this Iran in 1979, the US in 2016, or Saudi Arabia in 2018?  You decide.

Anyone who strongly supported Brexit on the basis that the country was accepting too many immigrants is obviously a Reactionary.

Any member of the Conservative Party who frequently talks about Disraeli and “one nation” is a CD.  Theresa May is in that group.

George Osborne is a PBP.

And BoJo?  Well, opportunism is not a faction.

There was a time when the Republican Party was legitimately “conservative”; it was suspicious of new government programs and foreign entanglements and in favor of balanced budgets.  Those days are long gone.  Today, the GOP is unabashedly reactionary on social issues, swaggers abroad, and believes that tax cuts are the solution to every possible economic problem, deficits be damned.

I’ve addressed parts of this evolution previously.  The question for today is, how did the party of limited spending and balanced budgets turn tax cutting into a religion?

It all goes back to Reagan, of course.  The deep recession of the early 1980’s was caused by dramatic increases in interest rates imposed by the Fed in order to crush inflation.  The expansion that followed was primarily due to a corresponding fall in interest rates after the battle with inflation had been won. Due to Reagan’s commanding presence, however, the credit for the expansion was given by the business community, not to Paul Volcker, but to the 1981 tax cuts.   It has been an article of faith in the GOP, and the business community in particular, ever since that tax cuts are always good, that government doesn’t have to be paid for, and that, in Dick Cheney’s words, Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.

The irony, of course, is that recent experiences have shown that tax cuts frequently don’t fuel economic expansions, and that Reagan himself was willing to raise taxes after 1981.  The myth of “Morning in America” remains so strong, however, that inconvenient facts have simply been expunged from the narrative.

It occurred to me last week that the four ideological threads represented by the GOP factions can be found in European conservative parties, too.  This is the first of a short series on how that works:

1.  As is obviously suggested by the name, the Christian Democrats are CDs.  The relative health of the German political system is consistent with the historical predominance of the CD party.
2.  The Free Democrats are PBPs.  Some of them might even slide into the CL category, but I don’t think you will find many of those in Europe;  by and large, conservative libertarianism is an American phenomenon.
3.  The Alternative for Germany is the German equivalent of the Reactionary faction of the GOP.

My wife and I went to see “The Book of Mormon” last Saturday.  I was aware, of course, that it was written by the creators of “South Park,” but even at that, I was astonished by how gratuitously salty the language was.  It was surprising that more of the wealthy, well-dressed women in the audience didn’t walk out.

For all that, “The Book of Mormon” is pro-religion, albeit from an unusual angle. It goes to great pains to lay out the essential tenets of Mormonism, which, to any average person, are logically and empirically ludicrous.  The Mormon missionaries then embellish the story to make it even preposterous.  The African natives ultimately accept the religion even though they acknowledge that large parts of it are just metaphor because they think it contains greater truths.  They are happier and better off as a result.

A perceptive member of the audience will note that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are peppered with logical absurdities, too;  Mormonism simply takes them to a higher level.  And so, “The Book of Mormon” leaves us with a lot of compelling and familiar questions.  What is the relationship between faith and reason?  Are people genetically predisposed to be religious?  Is it right to believe in something that doesn’t make any logical sense just because it improves your life?

The answers to those questions, alas, will await another day on this blog.

Chinese New Year is an anachronism;  the lunar calendar doesn’t really work, and the world, including the Chinese, don’t really use it.  For all that, millions of migrant workers pack into trains like sardines in order to go home, reconnect with their extended families and traditions, and watch a cheesy TV show every year.

Similarly, Christmas is largely unmoored from its actual history.  A narrative about a virgin birth and the son of God has morphed into a story about a character created by a 19th century cartoonist, which itself had its roots in the life of a vastly older Turkish bishop.  Even the Japanese, with little or no Christian past, now celebrate Christmas.  If you’re a purist, it’s probably enough to make you ill.

For most people, Christmas is an opportunity to note the passing of the current year and express hope for the year to come, to exchange gifts, and to reconnect with family and tradition–just like Chinese New Year.  It may not be logical or rooted in authentic historical experience, but it’s very human, and most of us cherish it.

And so, Merry Christmas to all!

As a developer, Donald Trump always wanted the biggest, flashiest, and most expensive of everything:  buildings; golf courses; casinos; whatever.  It is safe to assume he still does.

The irony is that he is the head of a party which believes with all of its heart and soul that a dollar given to the public sector is a dollar inevitably wasted.  The tax cut is a perfect example of this philosophy in action.  As a result, there will be no money for Donald Trump bridges, highways, or airports.  If any new monuments are created, it will be done by private individuals, and they will bear the names of their creators, not Trump.

Oh well.  He can always start his own war if he wants a monument.  No mere developer can do that.

 

Shortly after I started this blog, I addressed the issue of when, in Trump’s view, America was last great.  Today, the question is a bit different:  what makes America great?

In Trump’s view, it has nothing to do with freedom, justice, tolerance, openness, our political institutions, or the American dream.  It doesn’t even have anything to do with our culture.  Instead, it all revolves around visible manifestations of power:  large buildings; medals at the Olympics; aircraft carriers; large factories; and the like.

The irony is that his victory on the tax cut will make it harder, not easier, for him to make us look great again, at least in his terms.  More on that tomorrow.

It is 5:00 on December 24.  Bob Cratchit is working in his cubicle at Scrooge LLC when the boss, in “managing by walking around” mode, comes by.

BC:  Mr. Scrooge, sir.

S:  What is it (looks for nameplate on the cubicle) . . .Cratchit?

BC:  Can I please have tomorrow off, sir?

S:  Why?

BC:  Why, it’s Christmas, sir.

S:  Not in China, it isn’t.  How am I supposed to compete with those people and their low labor costs if I give people free time off?

BC:  Wasn’t Donald Trump supposed to solve that problem with tariffs?

S:  He hasn’t gotten around to that yet, but he’s working on it.  He’s getting bad advice from some of the people around him.  But at least he cut my taxes.  That will help a little bit.

BC:  I’m going to get a $4,000 raise out of the corporate tax cut, right?  That’s what the Republicans said.

S:  If you believe that, you graduated from Trump University.  Trump just says things like that to sell his plans to the public.  In reality, he believes what made this country great was job creators, like me.

BC:  At least he didn’t succeed in repealing Obamacare.  We wouldn’t get by without it.  I have a special needs child, you know.

Scrooge peers into the cubicle again and sees a photo of Tiny Tim.

S:  Is that him?

BC:  Yes, sir.

Scrooge hobbles around the office with an exaggerated limp.

BC:  He’s in really bad shape, sir.  Why are you making fun of him?

S:   I don’t have time for that political correctness crap.

BC:  You sound just like Trump.

S:  He makes me proud to be an American again.  We aren’t tolerating losers anymore.

BC:  But what about Christmas?

S:  You’ll probably complain that you didn’t get any benefit from the tax cut if I don’t give you Christmas off, so you can stay home.  But keep your phone on–I will send you some spreadsheets to analyze.

He thinks for a minute.

S:  Hey, there’s an idea!  You could be an independent contractor . . .