Month: September 2018

Fifty Ways to Fire Bob Mueller

The problem is all inside your head

Jeff said to me.

The answer is easy if you take it logically.

I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free.

There must be fifty ways to fire Bob Mueller.

 

(Chorus)

A push in the back, Jack.

Send a pink slip, Rip.

No need to be coy, Roy.

Just listen to me.

Leak to the press, Les.

It’s good when they all guess.

Send out a tweet, Pete.

And set yourself free.

 

Jeff said it’s really not my habit to recuse.

Furthermore, I hope my meaning won’t be lost

Or misconstrued.

But I’ll repeat myself ’cause I know you hate to lose.

There must be fifty ways to fire Bob Mueller.

 

(Repeat chorus)

Parody of “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon.

The GOP candidates for president ran in fairly clear ideological lanes during the 2012 and 2016 primaries.  Mitt Romney and Donald Trump benefited from the absence of meaningful competition within their respective lanes.  If you’re puzzled as to why the Republicans nominated a white bread conservative in 2012 and a raving nationalist in 2016, you need look no further than that.

The Democratic race in 2020 will be more complex than that.  There are two major schisms within the party:  realo vs. fundi (i.e., do you promise the moon and the stars or just the moon?); and identity vs. class.  How do the likely candidates stack up?  Some of them are not perfectly defined at this point, but here are the ones we know:

1.  Joe Biden:  Realo/class.
2.  Bernie Sanders:  Fundi/class.
3.  Elizabeth Warren:  Realo/identity.
4.  Cory Booker:  Realo/identity.

Harris definitely falls on the identity side, and I’m guessing she’s a fundi, but that remains to be seen.

Obama and Clinton were realo/identity.  I suspect that’s where the sweet spot can be found, but it will depend to some extent, as it did with the GOP in 2016 and 2012, on the number and strength of the competitors within each group.

Donald Trump has assured us on several occasions that “winning” a trade war with China will be easy due to the large trade deficit.  After all, we can apply tariffs to far more products than they can.   Is he right?

Of course not.  First of all, the entire idea that running a trade deficit constitutes “losing” is completely inane–particularly for a decentralized economy that runs on the decisions of economic entities, not the government.  Second, it assumes that the interests of consumers are of no importance; only producers matter.  Third, the economic and political systems of the respective countries operate to the advantage of the Chinese.  The more open American system provides opportunities for both consumers and producers who bear the brunt of the war to complain to their representatives; the state-driven Chinese system, on the other hand, permits the government to compensate well-connected losers and to repress the others in the name of keeping order without appearing to be inept or hypocritical.

And then, of course, there is the question of what, exactly, Trump’s objectives are in fighting the trade war.  More on that later in the week.

Like Ronald Reagan, Trump loves to swagger;  it’s his stock in trade.  Unlike Reagan, however, he spends a substantial amount of his time whining about the “rigged” system, or the “deep state,” or whatever he thinks is afflicting him at any given time.  The billionaire son of a millionaire developer clearly believes the system is designed to be unfair to him.  He’s a victim, just like his constituents.

That’s pathetic, of course, but it reflects the changing times.  When Reagan was in office, the Reactionaries were confident that they were the moral majority.  Today, they’re looking for the Benedict option, or for a Cyrus the Great to protect them from the growing hordes of the unholy.  As a result, they love Trump almost as much when he whines as when he swaggers;  it’s his way of feeling their pain.

Personally, I think the statute of limitations on the alleged attempted drunken rape has expired.   Kavanaugh was nominated to be a Supreme Court justice, not a saint, and re-examining his behavior as a high school student is, to me, a stretch.  But assume I’m wrong.  How would you go about trying to find out whether this episode actually happened or not?

Well, duh.  You would have law enforcement do a real investigation, including interviewing all of the possible witnesses.  What you wouldn’t do is parade the two protagonists in front of a group of grandstanding politicians who have every reason to play to the camera and who have already made up their minds for self-interested reasons.

What we are going to have is political theater at its worst.  The GOP will be trying to destroy Ms. Ford’s credibility without looking like misogynists and thereby losing even more female votes in November.  Will they succeed?  My guess is that 99 percent of America has already taken sides on that issue, and it won’t matter much.

In the end, it all revolves around Donald Trump, which is just the way he likes it.  He barely reads bullet points, let alone books, so you don’t want to give him too much credit for having a coherent political philosophy, but the question is inescapable:  does he support liberal democracy in America, or not?

Just look at the criteria in Monday’s post and the record.  This is a man who refers to all of the media who do not support him uncritically as “enemies of the people,” who believes that the job of the Attorney General is to prosecute his political opponents, who supports ongoing GOP efforts to suppress voting by minorities, who is bitterly and openly critical of judges who rule against him, who has advocated discrimination against Muslims, and who insists against all of the evidence and centuries of experience that the “deep state” (i.e., government officials who actually comply with the law) has “rigged” the system against him.  What do you think?

I know I write about this all of the time, but it will take less than you think to turn the US into an “illiberal democracy.”  History shows that public disbelief that the system can change so dramatically will be Trump’s greatest ally if and when the struggle begins in earnest.  Heightening consciousness of the problem on a regular basis is, therefore, a necessity.

As we know, Bernie Sanders believes that a class-based “revolution” can inspire millions of reluctant voters to come to the polls to support a much larger welfare state and new controls on capitalists.  It didn’t happen for Bernie in 2016, it hasn’t happened in the past, and it probably won’t happen in 2020.

But can Trump’s obnoxious actions and rhetoric about women and minorities result in a different kind of “revolution,” based on identity politics?  Texas will give us a clue.  If Beto can beat Cruz, there may be something to it.

I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it, but it’s not impossible.

On the Trump nominee known as Brett.

A win’s still a pretty good bet.

The prez has his back

And he’s on the attack.

You wonder how ugly it gets.

 

Can a liberal state thrive without democracy?  Yes, indeed.  Look at the US and the UK in the nineteenth century; both were prosperous liberal states without universal adult suffrage.

Can democracy thrive without the checks of liberalism?  In Poland, Hungary, and Turkey, we’re apparently going to find out.  The first indications aren’t very encouraging.  The line between illiberal democracy and fascism is very thin.

Trump is often referred to as a “reality show president,” and with good reason.  The constant drama, the deliberate use of cliffhangers, and the constant churn of characters are all characteristics of reality shows.

There are other TV influences in his presidency, however.  His use of his Twitter feed to trigger the libs and reinforce the bond with his base sounds a lot like regular Fox News programming.  Call it “Trump & Friends.”

 

Donald Trump absolutely loves tariffs, and you can see why.  Part of it, obviously, is mercantilism, but mostly it is because they give him arbitrary power over the entire world.  Simply by saying the magic words “national security,” he can force domestic businessmen and foreign leaders alike to come to him and beg for favorable treatment, which he can bestow or not, depending on his whim.  What better way exists to make himself the center of attention and to boost his ego, short of a successful nuclear war?

None of that is surprising.  What is surprising is the reaction of the markets, which have reacted to the violation of every traditional red line by doing . . . nothing.  One has to assume that they have no idea to price Trump’s threats to the international system, so they have just decided to ignore them and focus on the joys of tax cuts and deregulation.  How long will that last?  Until there is a genuine geopolitical or financial crisis, and then, watch out–his credibility with the investing public, for a variety of reasons, will be zero.

One sees the argument that liberal democracy has failed fairly frequently these days.  The basis for the argument is that virtually all LDs have experienced slow growth and higher levels of inequality over the last few decades.

But is it true?  I would say no, for the following reasons:

1.  As I noted before, what alternative system has generated higher levels of growth, other than China?  Would you really rather live in the land of Uighur camps?
2.  Focusing just on the last few decades is a mistake.  Over a longer period of time, LD has brought unprecedented prosperity to America and to Europe.
3.  LD is not just, or even primarily, a cash machine.  The quality of life that it brings–the freedom to think and experience life as you see fit, so long as you don’t injure your neighbor–is far more important.  There is no substitute for that, regardless of the levels of growth or the workings of the welfare state.
4. In any event, LD is not responsible for policy mistakes.  There is no guarantee in any political system that the powers-that-be will make wise decisions.  Blame the politicians, not the system.

By most definitions, I’m a baby boomer, but I never felt like one.  To me, a proper boomer is someone whose formative years included the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the Summer of Love, Chicago in 1968, and Woodstock.  I was way too young for any of that;  my formative years featured Watergate, inflation, Jimmy Carter, and the Iran hostage crisis.  It’s not the same thing at all;  real boomers thought they had the divine right to change the world, but my cohort just wanted to survive it.

Donald Trump was born in 1946; he is, therefore, unquestionably a boomer.  To what extent does he reflect values and personality traits typically associated with boomers, and how, if at all, does he deviate from them?

His self-absorption and rejection of conventional sexual morality are boomer traits.  His complete lack of idealism, on the other hand, sets him far apart from the rest of his generation.  Did he ever even see “The Graduate?”  He would have been the guy saying “Plastics,” not the innocent protagonist.

The end of history is not nigh; there are plenty of critiques of liberal democracy, including the following:

1.  God has revealed his truth to the world, including how to organize and run government.  The purpose of government is to please God, not mankind.  This is the theocratic model.  Nothing in the syllogism is self-evident or acceptable to liberals.

2.  The vast majority of the people are way too stupid to run their own affairs.  They will plunder the rich, run the country into the ground, or both.  Only the educated and refined people should have a real say in the operation of the government.  The oligarchical model made more sense before education became universal and information became so easily available.  Today, if you were trying to define a proper oligarchy, you would have a tough time laying out the boundaries.

3.  Liberal democracy never results in complete and perfect equality.  Guilty as charged!  History teaches us that the cost of creating a perfectly equal society far exceeds its benefits.  And, for what it’s worth, even communist countries never came close to the ideal.  A large welfare state is, however, perfectly consistent with LD.

4.  Liberal democracy overemphasizes the rational parts of people and puts inadequate emphasis on their emotional needs.  Patriotism, solidarity, security, the need for drama, spectacle, and glory, and the desire to identify with a strong leader are fatally neglected.  This is the fascist model.  A liberal democrat would point out in response that the LD model leaves people free to find emotional satisfaction almost anywhere they want, so the charge is not completely correct.  And anyway, when has fascism worked well for anyone except the leadership?

5.  Liberal democracy in the 21st century leaves the country open to subversion and defeat by other, more closed societies.  Call this the Chinese model.  It is true that liberal democracies, with a great deal of assistance from the Soviet Union, managed to transform their political and economic systems sufficiently to win World War II, and then revert back to something like normal thereafter.  It can be argued, however, that 21st century technology doesn’t give us the same kind of breathing space that we had in the 1940s;  the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, for example, do not protect us from cyberwarfare.  How does this critique turn out?  Let’s hope we don’t find out.

For decades, the frustrating and tiresome ritual with a Supreme Court nominee has gone as follows:

1.  The nominee refuses to answer legitimate questions about his judicial philosophy.
2.  Given the importance of the nomination, and with no effective way to oppose it in light of #1, the party out of power engages in a war of personal destruction.
3.  The nominee is approved, anyway.
4.  Everyone is bitter about the experience.  Rinse and repeat.

The allegations of sexual assault here are serious enough to be disqualifying, assuming they were proven, if they had occurred while Kavanaugh was working for Ken Starr, or at the White House, or as a judge.  But . . . high school?  Seriously?

At some point, this needs to stop.  Nominees should be willing to answer the real questions, and the personal destruction should come to an end.