Month: June 2018

I will be on vacation starting tomorrow.  Regular postings will resume on 7/9.

Well, of course Trump wants to meet with Putin.  He obviously admires the man and enjoys his company.  Who wouldn’t rather hang out with the bad boy of Europe than with Merkel the schoolmarm?

Since Trump has endless belief in his ability to get things done with his bottomless negotiating skills and endless charm, there is no line for him between business and personal.  Actually knowing what he is talking about is far less important than what is in his golden gut.

Somehow, I don’t think Putin sees the world the same way.

As the story goes, Stalin was told by Churchill that a German invasion was imminent in 1940, but he refused to take any action to prepare for it, because if there was one leader he could trust, it was his fellow dictator–not some weenie democratic head of state.  This sort of reminds me of that episode.

It’s a given that our new Supreme Court justice is going to be a vote to reduce abortion rights.  It may be done in one fell swoop or brick-by-brick, but it’s going to happen.  The public and the Democratic Party need to be prepared to deal with that on a state-by-state basis.

What’s effectively up in the air, and probably more important, is whether the new justice will be a principled conservative with a healthy respect for traditional liberties, or a stooge for Trump and his complete lack of respect for traditional liberties.  In my opinion, the most critical question the Senate can ask the nominee will be about the Trump v. Hawaii case, and in particular, about Kennedy’s pathetic concurring opinion.

Historically, professional football has been a predominantly red sport.  Trump nonetheless decided to attack the NFL and make it part of the culture wars for his own purposes.  He succeeded;  red America followed him, and ratings dropped.

Harley-Davidson is, as Trump has said, an American icon, particularly among red Americans.  As a result of Trump’s tariffs and EU retaliation, they have decided to move some production overseas.  Trump, naturally, has complained about the company’s lack of patience and loyalty in his tweets, and H-D’s stock price has fallen.  Will red America follow him again and refuse to buy H-D motorcycles?  That would be a tough sell, but if what happened to the NFL is any guide, it could happen.

What’s next?  Will he go after American pig farmers for complaining about tariffs and Chinese retaliation?  At least they can’t move their production out of the country.

Every student of revolutionary politics learns early on that one of the principal tasks of the revolutionaries is to force the vast number of people who prefer to sit on the sidelines to take sides.  This is frequently done by doing outrageous things and provoking a disproportionate response from the establishment.

Does this sound familiar?  That’s the way Trump does business on a daily basis.

 

 

Borderline

Something ’bout those refugees drives my supporters nuts.

So I have to keep them in your country, no matter what.

Stop playing with our hearts.

I’ll finish what you start

When we finally build the wall.

If you want to pick a fight

I’ll be here to say goodnight.

I really don’t fear you at all.

 

Just try to understand.

I’ve given all I can.

You can’t get the best of me.

 

Borderline.

Some say I’ve already lost my mind.

You just keep on pushing rapists over the borderline.

(Repeat)

 

Parody of “Borderline” by Madonna.

As I predicted a long time ago, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court decisions and upheld the travel ban in Trump v. Hawaii.  In doing so, the Court chose to essentially prioritize the president’s powers in matters of national security over rights created by the Establishment Clause.

The case revolved around Trump’s public statements about a Muslim ban.  Justices Roberts and Kennedy made oblique, and ultimately ineffectual, efforts to show that they were still on the side of the angels;  the majority opinion overrules Korematsu, while Kennedy made some strained and almost pathetic comments about how incredibly important it is for public officials to follow the Constitution even when there is no judicial check on them.  The message is “We may have concerns about Trump, but we’re not part of the resistance–you’re on your own with that.”

I was watching a PBS program about America in World War I last night.  Part of the program, naturally, was about the Sedition Act and the other measures that were used to crack down on dissent during the war.  Naturally, the question arises:  what happens if Trump manufactures a foreign policy crisis and then demands limits on our civil liberties in the name of national security?  Can we rely on the Court to protect us, or will the justices simply wring their hands and do nothing, like Ryan and McConnell?

After yesterday, the answer is fairly clear.  And don’t think for a minute that it can’t happen here, because it has before.

There is an element of the blue base which believes that civility amounts to unilateral disarmament in the face of Trump’s provocations.  Leaving aside that uncivil behavior inevitably provokes an angry right-wing backlash, the fact of the matter is that Trumpism is the enemy to be vanquished in November–not just Trump himself.  Replacing right-wing Trumpism with a left-wing version of the same thing would not be much of an accomplishment.

And so, being civil is not unilateral disarmament, and it is not simply the right thing to do; it is the very essence of the struggle for liberal democratic values which should be at the heart of the campaign.

 

Imagine that you are Donald Trump contemplating the GOP’s strategy for the midterm elections.  You know that you are facing a highly motivated blue base.  It’s far too late to move to the center to win over centrist voters, and you have no interest in doing so, anyway.  Any efforts to suppress blue voters have to be done at the state level, not by you, and the time for that has passed, as well.  What do you do?

The plan, obviously, is to motivate your own base.  You realize that your tax cuts aren’t selling that well, and that the base is driven by anger and fear–your entire political career has been built around that.  And so, the obvious points of emphasis will be:

1.  Immigration:  The animals are invading our country, with the support of the Democrats!
2.  Impeachment:  The Democrats are trying to nullify the results of the election with their witch hunt!
3.  Judicial appointments:  We’ll lose the culture wars to the minorities and gays permanently without more right-wing judges!

Will it work?  If I knew the answer to that, I would be living in Las Vegas, not Florida.

Erdogan, like Trump, seems determined to make Turkey great again by pissing off as many of his neighbors as possible.  He called for Assad’s removal without taking the steps necessary to accomplish it; he antagonized Putin by opposing him in Syria and shooting down one of his planes; he alienated Egypt and Saudi Arabia by supporting the Muslim Brotherhood; his relationships with Israel  and Greece are terrible; he consistently blames the US for all of his domestic problems; and he calls out the EU on a regular basis.

Unlike Trump, he doesn’t live in a friendly neighborhood, and he doesn’t command the world’s largest economy and strongest military.

It’s hard to see how this ends well for the Turks.  Will he go the full Maduro when times get tougher, or will he change course and moderate his policies when he runs out of friends?  We’ll see.

Donald Trump, of course, lives in an extremely Trumpocentric world.  As a result, when he thinks about Kim, he sees a talented, ambitious young man who inherited the family business from his domineering father and made it even bigger, even in the face of a hostile world, by being clever and ruthless.  Just like you know who.

The differences between running the world’s most repressive totalitarian state and the Trump Organization vastly exceed the similarities, but Trump doesn’t have the intelligence or the imagination to understand that.

Do you think Kim, for his part, views Trump as a sort of surrogate father?  Somehow, I doubt it.

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown, Donald Trump blues.

You have to be aware of them; they’re all over the news.

The Donald’s spun out of control, and now I’ve got to choose.

Which demands to acquiesce, and which ones to refuse.

 

He doesn’t care a fig for the values that we share.

His brain is as erratic as his multi-colored hair.

I’ve pushed him and I’ve prodded him as far as I dare.

‘Cause when he tells you he’s your friend, that’s when you must beware.

 

I’ve got the blues.

The populist blues.

He sees the world in black and white

When it comes in many hues.

He’s bitching about deficits.

He’s got strange views on trade.

He says he’ll cut his ties with us

But we are not afraid.

But what did James Madison think about cell phones?  He’s probably hanging out with Scalia now, so Gorsuch can hold a séance and ask both of them.

In my view, the decision is correct, based on changing times and conditions.

The NYT ran an article about Erdogan and his massive public works projects yesterday.  It makes perfect sense;  a true strongman wants to increase the size and reach of government in order to maximize his own role in the lives of his subjects and make them more dependent on him.  Trump, however, has succeeded in cutting government revenues substantially with his tax cut, and is seeking to reduce the size of programs for the poor.

How do we account for this apparent paradox?  There are a number of possible explanations:

1.  He wants to be a strongman, but he simply doesn’t know how to do it.  He’s a man on golf cart, not a man on horseback.
2.  The GOP has long since concluded that it isn’t necessary to pay for government.  In Dick Cheney’s immortal words, “Reagan taught us that deficits don’t matter.”  It is consequently possible to increase the size of government and cut taxes.
3.  Trump is increasing the size of the part of the government that swaggers (the military), and cutting the rest.  It is a matter of priorities.

The correct answer is (4):  all of the above.

Donald Trump, as we know, loves being unpredictable.  It gives him more freedom to change positions on a dime, and it keeps him at the center of attention.  Both of those things are very important to him.

But what about his employees and hangers-on?  How difficult must it be to have to completely change your story with a straight face day after day?  Even the Fox News crowd must be a little bit embarrassed to argue that family separation is necessary one day, and then to hail Trump for putting an end to it the next.

He’s already starting to feel the effects of his lack of credibility;  the superconservatives in the House won’t vote for an immigration bill he claims to support, because they simply don’t believe he will keep his word and give them cover against primary opponents screaming about “amnesty.”

Poor babies.  My heart bleeds for them, and him.