Month: April 2018

I read two interesting articles on Vox.com yesterday morning.  The first one, from the invaluable Sarah Kliff, was about an attempt in California to impose uniform unit prices on all private health insurance companies through legislation.  It is clearly a move towards single-payer, but without much of the baggage.  It bears watching in the future.

The second was an article by Dylan Matthews about how Ryanism allegedly paved the way for Trumpism.  I was taken by this article largely because he talked about a “Christian Democratic” alternative for the GOP, which obviously uses my terminology for one of the GOP factions.  Nevertheless, I think he missed some of the nuances of the real story, as follows:

1.  Yes, the GOP clearly could have moved to the center after the debacle of the 2008 election.  Its decision not to had momentous consequences.  However, the seeds of the move towards the CLs and Reactionaries were planted in the domestic and overseas failures of the Bush administration, and became visible during the 2008 campaign, when the crowds were crying for Palin, not McCain.  It’s hard to imagine, even in retrospect, the GOP doubling down on “compassionate conservatism” after the Bush years; the country would have been much better off, but the principal beneficiary would have been Obama, not Mitch McConnell.
2.  Ryanism didn’t pave the way for Trumpism.  For one thing, “Trumpism” isn’t simply a code word for Reactionary ideology;  it just means faith in Donald Trump, whatever crazy thing he might decide to do today.  For another, the GOP gained control of Congress and many state governments between 2008 and 2016. This was hardly a disastrous era for the party.  Finally, Ryan won some victories during the Obama years; the size of government was cut significantly, but he didn’t get any credit for it from his own side.

Reality is more complicated.  With no ideology of his own except self-love, Trump was perfectly happy to outsource most of his program to Ryan after he took office; in other words, “Trumpism” and “Ryanism” have largely been one in practice.  The many failures of the program are due to the divisions within the GOP, and the discrepancy between the promises made to the public and the actual measures proposed in the program, not any split between the two GOP titans.

Pompeo spent most of yesterday trying unsuccessfully to distance himself from the extreme right positions he has taken in the past.  Nobody really believed him, and nobody should.  He’ll be a terrible Secretary of State.

But what’s the alternative?  Working for a boss whose Twitter eruptions are the very negation of diplomacy is a complete nightmare.  James Baker’s not walking through the door.   We have to take what we can get.

At the end of the day, he’ll be confirmed, because we need a Secretary of State during these troubled times, and he at least sees the value of repairing his crippled department. Better a minimally competent Trumpist than a vacuum and a daily blizzard of contradictions.

And if we need someone to play the bad cop more convincingly, Bolton’s already on the job.

Ryan, like all Ayn Rand acolytes, is a CL at heart.  His passion in life has always been to shrink the size of government for the benefit of the wealthy and to the detriment of the poor.  He succeeded in making his views the orthodoxy of the GOP in spite of their unpopularity with actual voters.   I suppose you could call that an “accomplishment,” although it meant that the GOP had to lie about its platform every election, and actually governing against the economic interests of its constituents proved very difficult in practice.

Ryan became Speaker with a large reservoir of goodwill within the party.  Was he a success?   Well, he failed miserably in uniting the factions, although that task may be beyond the ability of any mere mortal.  He failed in his attempts to remake the welfare state.  He could have treated Trump as a third-party president, not a real Republican, but he chose to embrace and enable him, instead.  His one creative idea on taxes, the BAT, went down early.  His only real success was with the mindless tax cut that was passed last year.  It will be modified over time, because it isn’t really working at any level.

I won’t miss him.  Will you?

Steve Bannon is wrong about just about everything, but not this:  America and China are heading for a showdown in the foreseeable future.  It doesn’t necessarily have to involve military force, and it may not be imminent, but it’s going to happen in my lifetime.

In a sense, China is the successor to the USSR as our greatest geopolitical rival, so how do the two stack up?  Here’s my analysis:

1.  Military:  Fortunately, China is not a militaristic society.   The USSR was a greater threat here.  However, China’s superior economy will permit substantial improvements in the country’s military capabilities, if the government, as seems likely, chooses to pursue them.  The gap will probably close fairly quickly.
2.  Ideology:  Soviet communism was a universal ideology with considerable appeal to anyone who was willing to close his eyes to how the system actually worked in practice.  Chinese “communism” is actually a form of Chinese exceptionalism, which doesn’t have any obvious attractions to the rest of the world.  Heavy-handed government actions towards dissidents don’t help, either.  The USSR had the edge here.
3.  Economy:  This one isn’t even close;  the Soviets didn’t make anything anyone wanted to buy except weapons, while China is clearly destined to become the largest economy in the world.

The bottom line is that China represents a very different challenge than the USSR. Its economic model has serious flaws in the long run, but it is doubtful that the system will just implode, as the USSR did.

There are actually three separate conflicts with China, involving industries of the past, present, and future.  Here is where they stand:

1.  The steel and aluminum tariff made no sense whatsoever.  It was an attempt to protect an industry that is, to put it mildly, already mature on specious national security grounds.  It will undoubtedly cost more jobs than it saves.  Finally, very few of our steel and aluminum imports come from China.  What’s not to like?
2.  Protecting intellectual property is a legitimate ongoing issue.  It is doubtful that tariffs, which only invite retaliation, are the best way to accomplish the objective. Working with our allies within the WTO framework is a more logical approach.
3.  Responding to “Made in China 2025” with regard to cutting edge industries of the future is perfectly sensible, given the national security implications of these technologies.  Again, however, imposing tariffs unilaterally is hardly the solution to the problem;  mobilizing the rest of the world to change Chinese behavior is.

Donald Trump demands three qualities of his lawyers:  (a) absolute loyalty; (b) a hyperaggressive approach to litigation; and (c) the ability to spin failures into successes in the media.  Notably absent from this list is the ability to provide dispassionate, sensible legal advice, because he won’t listen to it.  That’s why many prominent lawyers have refused to take him on as a client.

Roy Cohn famously was Trump’s idea of the perfect attorney:  a man who would give no quarter, and would stop at nothing to get what his client wanted.  As it turns out, however, Trump already has his own Cohn, and they are separated only by a “e.”

If Cohen’s story is to be believed, he paid $130,000 of his own money to Stormy Daniels without even consulting Trump, much less with any hope of repayment. What a guy!  If you want absolute loyalty, what better evidence could you have of it?

Of course, no one actually believes this, which is undoubtedly why the search warrant was issued, and why Stormy may ultimately prove to be more dangerous to Trump than Mueller.

                  Caravan

And the caravan is on the way.

I can hear the Fox News people say

Donald Donald stop them short of the border.

Use the Guard if you must to keep order.

La, la, la, la, la.

 

And the caravan hates Fox and Friends.

Their diatribes, it seems, will never end.

We’re just terrorists, in their view.

Think we should just wait in an endless queue.

La, la, la, la, la.

 

Turn off your TV

And let us tell our tale.

Switch off the mindless right.

Then we can get down to what is really wrong.

Crime and corruption and the gangs that kill.

To them, we’re only grist in an evil mill.

 

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Fox and Friends.

 

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Fox and Friends.

 

Parody of “Caravan” by Van Morrison.

It is an article of faith among CLs that a dollar taken from the private sector and given to the government is a dollar, not merely wasted, but used to curtail your freedom.  And so, in many red states, you have seen a concerted effort to cut taxes and substantially reduce spending on vital public services.  PBPs have tolerated this because, after all, they have been the primary beneficiaries of the tax cuts.

But tax cuts and deregulation can only take business so far.  The Third World plantation model of economic growth doesn’t create educated workers or wealthy consumers; as I’ve noted before, there is no “Mississippi Miracle.”  In addition, at some point, the voters tend to rise up in defense of teachers, decent roads, and providers of public safety.  As a result, we are starting to see some backlash, and the PBPs are starting to split from the CLs in some red states.

On the NSC hawk known as John.

He’ll call to be using the bomb.

So who will be first?

Is Korea the worst?

Or Iran’s Supreme Leader is gone?

As far as I can tell, there are three separate Trump policies on Syria:

1.  Just get out and let the Russians pay to clean it up.
2.  Assad is an animal who gasses his own people.  We are prepared to use all of the weapons at our disposal to get rid of him.
3.  Create enclaves of allies who can be used as bargaining chips in the negotiations over the nature of the future of the Syrian government.

As to which of these will prevail, who the hell knows?  It changes from day to day–sometimes from hour to hour.

That Vladimir Putin is capable of great brutality is beyond question.  Just ask the Chechens.  And the Syrians.

You would think that American Christians would be appalled by this.  And yet, Putin has some fans among the religious right, because he associates himself with the Orthodox Church and “traditional values” (i.e., he claims to hate the idea of gay marriage).

This tells you all you need to know about what Christianity really means to the religious right.

One of the ongoing themes of Russian history is the ongoing cultural and political struggle between Westerners and Easterners.  Westerners think that Russia is a backward country that needs a huge dose of the Enlightenment–by force, if necessary.  Peter the Great, Gorbachev, and Lenin were Westerners.  Easterners, on the other hand, view western Europe as being corrupt and secular and put their faith in the unique, unstained Russian soul.  Stalin was an Easterner, as was Nicholas II.

Putin, as an ex-KGB agent, started his political career as a Westerner.  For cynical political reasons, he has adopted the views of an Easterner.  That is why he works so closely with the Russian Orthodox Church.

The similarities between the Easterner/Westerner theme and the red/blue divide in this country are obvious.  It is consequently unsurprising that some members of the American religious right are advocates for Putin.  I will post on that tomorrow.

 

The EPA man known as Pruitt

Had ambitions, but then he just blew it.

He’s embarrassing Don.

Now it’s time he moved on.

Come on man!  Let him go! Up and do it!

Putin essentially had the following objectives in Syria:

1.  To protect Russia’s military and economic interests in the country;
2.  To prevent another fellow strong man from falling in the face of American    pressure; and
3.  Just to make trouble for America, generally.

He succeeded in all of these things, partly because he and Assad were prepared to be completely ruthless, partly because he had lots of help on the ground from Hezbollah, and partly because he didn’t have to engage in any nation-building–there was already a reasonably competent tyrant in place, so his intervention was completely legal.

The down sides to the intervention are just starting to be felt.  There is no permanent political solution in sight.  The dangers of conflict with American-backed forces, and even with Americans themselves, are very real. And the war hasn’t done anything to improve his brutal image abroad.

Does he care about the last?  My guess is he does.  Is America prepared to turn the tables on him, and make him pay a continuing price for his actions? Unfortunately, that’s ultimately up to Trump.

It is fair to say that Obama viewed terrorism as his greatest international short-term problem, the rise of China as our greatest long-term issue, and Russia as a nuisance.  For the most part, he treated the Russians as just a declining regional power, to be resisted at times and accommodated at others.  Putin’s ambitions are greater than that, so relations between the two countries suffered.

The Democrats clearly (and correctly) see political advantages in publicizing the weird ties between Trump and his base on the one hand and Putin on the other. The danger is that they may start to believe their own rhetoric when they return to power.  Russia is a genuine danger, yes.  But, for the reasons I described a few days ago, it is not the same kind of existential threat as the USSR, and should not be treated as one.