Month: January 2018

Here is my analysis of Bernie’s strengths, weaknesses, and chances:

Strengths:  experience running a national campaign; strong support from fundi voters; a certain gruff authenticity.

Weaknesses:  age; wife’s legal problems; inability to connect with minorities due to world view revolving around class;  half-baked political and economic ideas; embarrassing past left-wing statements and associations.

Prognosis:  Bernie succeeded in moving the needle in 2020.  This time, there will be multiple candidates without his baggage running in his lane.  He would be wise to quit while he’s ahead.

 

It has become clear, if it wasn’t clear already, that the principal obstacle to DACA isn’t Trump or Mitch McConnell;  it’s Paul Ryan and the Reactionaries in the House.  How can their opposition be overcome?

Plan A was the shutdown.  The idea was that the popularity of DACA, along with the fallout from Trump’s inflammatory comments and the unpopularity of the shutdown, would cow the GOP into conceding the point.  It was obvious even three days on that it hadn’t worked. The Democrats were wise to cut the deal with McConnell and move on.

Plan B is to get a bill through the Senate with a large majority, persuade the unpredictable Trump to support it, and rely on that support to provide political cover for Ryan to violate the Hastert Rule.  Will it work?  It’s worth trying, but the odds are against it.  It isn’t clear that there are enough Republican votes to pass an acceptable bill, there are never any guarantees with Trump, and history suggests there are no powers on earth strong enough to make the House leadership move on this issue as long as the GOP has a majority.

My best guess is that a bill will pass, but that Trump will equivocate, and the House will do nothing.  The March deadline will pass, but Trump won’t want to take the blame for any ensuing deportations, so he will call for further negotiations and extend his deadline, probably more than once.  The issue will remain in limbo until the election.

Plan C is to win the election and take control of the House.  That’s really the best hope for DACA.

John Boehner was always willing to violate the Hastert Rule when it was necessary to keep the government open.  On the other hand, he was never willing to confront the Reactionaries in his caucus on immigration.

Ryan is currently facing both issues at once.  Which path will he choose?  Will he agree to allow a vote on DACA in exchange for ending the shutdown, knowing that it might cause his party to splinter, or will he opt for partisanship over the national interest?

Do you even have to ask?

Next time, it really will be different.

Hillary entered the 2008 campaign as a decided, but not overwhelming, favorite. She lost to Obama, not because of any meaningful ideological differences, but because the public preferred a fresh, articulate figure without her baggage, most notably her vote on the Iraq War.  In 2016, on the other hand, the only meaningful opposition came from the left, and was ideological.  This time, she won.

There will be no clear frontrunner going into 2020.  The Democratic base has moved to the left.  There will almost certainly be multiple minority and female candidates, and they will effectively be running in separate minority and female lanes.  As a result, the primaries will look a bit like the GOP in 2016.

Who will win?  I will be analyzing the chances of the known prospective candidates throughout the week.

Before Inauguration Day, it was just possible for optimists (I wasn’t one of them) to predict that Trump would jettison his ignorant racist blowhard campaign persona and evolve into a serious politician when he took office.  “American Carnage” put an end to that.  As Dennis Green would have said, he is what we thought he was, and he will never change.

“American Carnage” was, in retrospect, the high point of the Trump-as-Batman theme, because, with time, he has to take more and more responsibility for the status quo.  But what of his promises?  Where are we today?

Our political system has been corrupted.   The nation has not been this divided in the last fifty years.  Nuclear war is a real possibility.  Our country has never been less respected overseas (except in Israel and Saudi Arabia)–at least not in my lifetime.  And now the government is shut down, because Trump wants to use a program that he has previously claimed to support as bargaining leverage for other immigration concessions, which is either dishonest or completely insane.

Against that, the market is up, and unemployment is at four percent.  His deregulation program and regressive tax cut have played a small role in that.  On balance, is it worth it?  You decide.

1.  Republicans invented this tactic.  Their hypocrisy in complaining about its use is breathtaking.
2.  Where is the great dealmaker who promised to put an end to dysfunction in Washington?  His inability to articulate and stick to positions on immigration issues is a big part of the problem.
3.  There are really three issues for the Democrats: (a) Is DACA an appropriate issue to use as the basis for a shutdown?  (b) Will they be punished for it politically? (c) Will the shutdown increase or decrease the chances of making a deal?  My responses would be:  (a) DACA is a simple, easily-understood, and important issue with moral overtones and bipartisan support, so yes; (b) Trump is the center of attention to such an extent that he is likely to get the credit or the blame for just about anything; and (c) I don’t know if this will help, but I do know that everything else has failed thus far, and that Trump doesn’t respect people who don’t stand up to him, so it is worth trying.

A number of publications have proclaimed different words “Word of the Year” for 2017.  One opted for “youthquake,” based on the result of the election in the UK;  others chose “feminism,” for obvious reasons.

To me, the choice is clear:  it has to be “covfefe.”  It tells you everything you need to know about 2017.

Until 2009, it appeared that the Republican Party had learned its lesson from the Great Depression:  Bush had supported soft money and tax cuts during recessions, and all of the major GOP candidates proposed stimulus packages during the 2008 election.  Then Obama was elected, and the party reverted to form:  suddenly low interest rates, bailouts, and large deficits were turning us into Greece. Stagflation and economic collapse were imminent.

That didn’t happen, of course, but the people who predicted it are in power today, and they have never apologized for their mistakes.  President Trump, for his part, is incapable of saying anything coherent on the issue of interest rates.  When you then consider that the Fed’s ability to reduce interest rates is more limited than it was in 2008, that the current administration is doing its best to defang Dodd-Frank, and that the deficit is much larger than it was in 2008, you can see that any financial crisis in the next few years could turn into a complete disaster.

 

Most people associate Obama with the (successful) bailouts, but TARP was actually passed when Bush was president, mostly with Democratic votes.  The GOP was severely divided on the issue.

If something similar happens under Trump, the issue will be even more contentious, because the factions are split:

1.  PBPs:  Save us!  Save us!  Then wait and see how ungrateful we are when it’s done.
2.  CLs:  Using public funds to bail out private businesses is both immoral and bad economics.  Liquidation is the only proper course, regardless of the immediate consequences.  Hey, it worked for Hoover and Andrew Mellon.
3.  CDs:  Avoiding the human costs of an economic disaster takes precedence over abstract concerns about moral hazard.
4.  Reactionaries:  Nobody’s bailing me out–why should Wall Street get different treatment?

The potential for calamity in the face of a financial crisis, given the splits in the GOP and Trump’s economic illiteracy, is very grave.  I will have more on that tomorrow.

If you’ve seen “The Missiles of October,” you probably remember the scene in which JFK’s military advisers are calling for air strikes on Cuba.  RFK responds by saying that he doesn’t want his brother to go down in history as an American Tojo.

Trump is facing the same kind of issue with North Korea.  The questions for today are:

1.  Would it bother him to be known as an American Tojo?
2.  Does he even know who Tojo was?

My guess is that the answer to both questions is no.

As I’ve noted before, the Democratic Party is essentially a coalition of victims opposed to the white Christian patriarchy.  The various elements of the coalition have few claims against each other, which means the Democrats don’t have the same kind of factional issues that the GOP has.  That doesn’t mean they agree on everything, as noted below:

1.  Realos vs. Fundis:  The terminology comes from the German Green party.  Realos  (Obama, Clinton) think that making promises that cannot plausibly be kept due to current political realities is a mistake, because in the long run, it just frustrates the base.  They also worry about the cost of new government programs and the deficit.  Fundis (Sanders) believe that the best way to inspire the base and ultimately move the needle is to demand what you really want regardless of whether it is attainable today;  they also agree with the GOP that deficits don’t matter.
2. Open vs. Closed:  Democratic Party centrists (Obama, and Clinton when she’s being honest about it) believe in free trade and liberal immigration policies, which actually poll well among Democrats.  Ironically, the Sanders wing agrees with Trump that free trade is a sucker’s bet for workers, and logically should have concerns about immigration, although Sanders did not say much about that during the 2016 campaign.
3.  Identity vs. Class:  The mainstream of the Democratic Party sees the fundamental struggle of American history as being between socially disadvantaged groups (minorities; women; gays; seculars) and the white male Christian establishment. Representatives of the mainstream (again, Clinton and Obama) are happy to accept votes and donations from affluent professionals, even those who work on Wall Street, who agree with them on this.  Sanders, on the other hand, believes that everything ultimately revolves around class distinctions, spurns the assistance of affluent people, and wants to win back Reactionary white workers by proposing government programs to be paid for by wealthy people.
4.  The Individual vs. the Community:  This split exists in both parties, but is more obvious in the GOP.  You see it in the Democratic Party on issues like privacy and terrorism.  There was no clear difference between Clinton and Sanders on this point.

Where will the party go in 2020?  Given the importance of female and minority votes in the primaries, the likelihood of a class-based approach succeeding is very low.  My best guess is that Trump will discredit protectionism to the point where it is safe for the Democratic candidate to openly espouse free trade, although that remains to be seen.  The realo vs. fundi debate could go either way, and what happens with the individual/community split probably depends on whether we have a large scale terrorist attack between now and 2020.

 

                  Life’s Been Good

I have a hedge fund; I roll in the dough.

‘Cause I’m a big job creator, you know.

Live in a high rise; the views are just great.

You want to see me; you’ll just have to wait.

 

Poor people suffer, but I don’t really care.

‘Cause they ain’t nothing, nohow, nowhere.

Life’s been good to me so far.

 

Don’t ride the subway; my limo’s just fine.

I’ve got a cellar of really good wine.

My wife’s jewels sparkle like light on the ice.

Summer in Como is really quite nice.

 

It’s fun to be more important than you.

I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do.

Life’s been good to me so far.

 

I go to parties; drink expensive booze.

Rules seem to change, but I win and you lose.

I’ve learned to handle good fortune and fame.

Trump or Obama, it’s still the same game.

 

Lucky I’m still sane after 2008.

Things weren’t too good then, but now they’re just great.

Life’s been good to me so far.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Parody of “Life’s Been Good” by Joe Walsh.  On a related note, check out Jimmy Fallon’s parody of “Fire and Rain” (“Fire and Fury”) on NBC’s web site.

There has been considerable discussion recently about the possibility of a limited “bloody nose” attack on North Korea.  The idea presumably would be to send a message of American resolve without starting a wider war.  One assumes it would look like last year’s attack on the Syrian airfield.

The dangers of escalation inherent in a “bloody nose” attack are obvious.  In addition, to me, launching an attack of such limited scope is a sign of weakness, not strength.  It would send a message to the North Korean regime that we are afraid of fighting a real war.

There is no point in a “bloody nose” attack, in my view, unless it draws some real blood.  That means the destruction of the North Korean nuclear program, their missile program, or both.

No issue divides the Republican Party quite like immigration.  Here is how it shakes out:

1.  Reactionaries:  Immigrants are destroying America.  They’re taking our jobs, driving wages down, swamping our culture, committing terrorist acts, and voting for Democrats.  They must go!
2.  PBPs:  Immigrants are an economic boon to America.  They take jobs Americans either can’t or won’t do, from high tech to picking fruit.  We need their labor.
3.  CDs:  Assistance to the downtrodden is a Christian duty.
4.  CLs:  We can’t support increasing the size of government for any purpose, much less this one.

The bottom line is that bipartisan immigration reform would pass Congress easily but for the Hastert Rule.  The GOP leadership is unlikely to bring anything forward that could split the party this badly.

Whether you loathe Steve Bannon or just dislike him, you have to give him credit for espousing an ideology that is surprisingly consistent and coherent.  He is a pure Reactionary, and his cocktail of walls, tariffs, social legislation, isolationism, and targeted tax cuts is directed directly at rural whites.

Bannon’s problem, in the final analysis, was that Trump didn’t buy into the part of the vision that applies to the economy.  Trump is proud of being a businessman, admires other successful businessmen, and genuinely believes in the PBP concepts of tax cuts and deregulation.  He also seems to understand the transactional nature of the support he gets from PBPs.  As a result, his program is the familiar one of regressive tax cuts for business and gestures for the Reactionary base.  What sets him apart from his predecessors is the frequency and the violence of the gestures, not the fact that they exist.

Can Bannonism survive?  His dismissal from Breitbart, presumably at the behest of its wealthy patron, suggests not.  While the Reactionaries are the biggest GOP faction, they don’t represent a majority of the party, much less the country as a whole.  The financial and voting support of the PBPs is just too important;  Trump realized that, even if Bannon didn’t.  As a result, Bannon was compelled to support cranks and fringe figures even before he broke with Trump.

What would it take for Bannonism to revive?  A charismatic leader with limited ties to business, but a strong understanding of the desires and fears of the elderly and poor white workers;  an economic disaster; and the evolution of the Democratic Party into a socialist party that truly threatens the interests of businessmen to the extent that they would support a Reactionary over a Democrat even if it means trade wars and limits on immigration.

If that sounds a lot like Germany in 1933, that’s not a coincidence.