Month: December 2018

The issues have taken shape, and the lines are now drawn: 2019 will be a year of open conflict between Trump, his trusty base, and Fox News against a wide range of adversaries, including the following:

1. House Democrats, on the budget, the debt ceiling, investigations, and much more;
2. Mueller, on his report;
3. The MSM, on practically everything;
4. The Fed, on interest rates;
5. China, on trade issues and the South China Sea;
6. The foreign policy blob, on the Middle East and Afghanistan;
7. Iran, on a host of issues; and
8. The judiciary, also on a wide range of issues.

My predictions for the year will follow tomorrow.

2017 was a year of experiment in Trumpland. The man on golf cart didn’t expect to win the election and had little idea of what to do when he did. Lacking firm views of how to govern, he was persuaded to hire and accept guidance from the “axis of adults.” While the corrosive quality of his rhetoric remained the same, he acted, with some notable exceptions (e.g., gratuitously offending our allies; refusing to condemn overt racists), as a conventional Republican. He won on the tax cut and lost on Obamacare, but he didn’t run the show in either instance. The markets, and many world leaders, decided to ignore his tweets and pay attention only to his actions.

2018, on the other hand, was a year of discovery. New allegations of misconduct rained down on the administration on a daily basis. Mueller’s work intensified. Now confident that he could run the country in the same manner as his real estate business, Trump decided he didn’t need the “axis of adults,” so he replaced them with the “circle of sycophants” and governed more and more often with his golden gut. The Democrats won the midterm elections and prepared to investigate Trump and his family. The long-awaited trade wars finally began. The year ended with a partial government shutdown and no clear solution in sight.

What will 2019 bring? That will be the subject of my next post.

I read three reasonably interesting columns/articles about climate change last week. The first was an op-ed by a senator from Wyoming arguing that the appropriate response to climate change was to support technological breakthroughs (particularly, of course, for “clean coal”); the second was an analysis in Vox of the “Green New Deal; and the third was a call to abandon carbon taxes in light of the recent events in France. The first, of course, was fanciful and self-interested, as “clean coal” is a punch line to a joke; the second provided evidence supporting the old German saying that “the green tree has red roots;” and the third was unduly, although understandably, defeatist.

There really isn’t any dispute that we need to encourage innovation in a big way in order to keep climate change under control. The question is, how can that best be achieved?

There are only three choices. The first is by forcing technology through regulation. The second is by subsidizing new technologies, which runs the risk of creating Solyndras. The third is by taxing carbon and leaving the rest of the process to the market.

Logically, the GOP should prefer Option #3, since it opposes unnecessary government spending and intervention in markets. And, indeed, some right-leaning economists have expressed support for a carbon tax, particularly when paired with other kinds of tax cuts. Will that position prevail after 2020? More likely, the GOP will simply avoid the issue by continuing to deny that climate change even exists. That way, they don’t have to make any difficult choices that offend their donors.

We all know how Donald Trump negotiates, partly because he ghostwrote several books on the subject, and partly because we’ve been watching it for the last two years. Here are some of his attitudes and tactics:

1. Life is nothing more than an endless series of negotiations, in which the strong and clever prevail over the weak and foolish.
2. Take maximum positions.
3. Be unpredictable and keep your opponent off-balance.
4. Don’t be afraid to pound the table or to walk away.
5. Find, create, and use leverage to the maximum extent possible.
6. If you somehow lose, spin it as a win.

The Democrats think the wall is stupid, expensive, and a very poor symbol for America. They are willing to trade it for something more valuable, however. Trump, for his part, is conflicted about the wall. On the one hand, he is afraid of losing people like Ann Coulter, and, for once, he has taken his promises on the subject literally. On the other hand, he has to know it won’t really work, so he doesn’t want to give up anything of real value in exchange for it. He’s also desperate for something he can call a “win.”

So how is this going? The Democrats’ approach has been Trumpian to the core. They are refusing to negotiate in the hope that negative polls will force Trump to surrender. Trump, for his part, is trying to create leverage by blaming the Democrats (not working), by threatening to close the border altogether, and by arguing that the employees he’s injuring are predominantly Democrats, anyway.

So how does this end? I only see two possibilities. First, Trump could make a deal for something the Democrats really value, such as relief for DREAMERs. Second, the Democrats could move slightly on the amount of money offered, and Trump will simply lie and call it a “wall” and, therefore, a “win.”

The second is more likely, but we’ll see.

Stephens thinks Trump is bad for Israel. I would agree, but to me, the question is beside the point; I only care if Trump is bad for America.

That said, the Stephens column contains several arguments that are near and dear to the heart of the neocon blob. I will deconstruct them:

1. TRUMP’S WHIMSICAL DECISIONMAKING PROCESS IS A SERIOUS PROBLEM FOR US AND OUR ALLIES: Absolutely true, but Trump said repeatedly during the campaign that he liked being unpredictable–hey, it worked for him in the real estate business! That’s what America, in its infinite wisdom, elected. It beats Clinton and her e-mails, right?
2. KEEPING TROOPS IN SYRIA IS STILL NECESSARY TO DEFEAT ISIS: I don’t have access to enough information to judge the truth of that, but it seems to me that if the “caliphate” doesn’t hold any territory anymore, the job of keeping IS down requires intelligence and police work more than American ground troops.
3. WE NEED TO STAY IN SYRIA TO KEEP FAITH WITTH THE KURDS AND MAINTAIN CREDIBILITY WITH CURRENT AND FUTURE ALLIES: Selling out the Kurds is troubling, but what about the Turks? They’re NATO allies, after all, and we have treaty obligations to them. Is it really a good idea to keep troops in between the two parties? Can’t the job of separating them be done diplomatically? In any event, we have already effectively sold out the Iraqi Kurds, and the Syrian Kurds undoubtedly assumed this would happen sooner or later.
4. WE NEED TO STAY IN SYRIA TO PREVENT THE SPREAD OF RUSSIAN AND SYRIAN INFLUENCE: Stephens, like many others before him, forgets that the Russians and Iranians were Assad’s allies long before the civil war began. At worst, Syria is a lost opportunity to gain ground, not an additional loss of influence. In addition, is Syria really the right place to do battle with Russia and Iran? Do we have enough of an interest in the country to justify keeping troops there? Isn’t it better to put the burden on the Russians and Iranians to keep Syria quiet? Does the presence of 2,000 troops in Syria actually give us enough diplomatic leverage to force Assad out, or even to drive Iran and Hezbollah away? I just don’t think we can get our way without escalating dramatically, and that isn’t on the cards, particularly not after years of inaction.
5. ISRAEL IS ONLY MARGINALLY SAFER AFTER THE TERMINATION OF THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL BECAUSE “SANCTIONS ARE A TOOL OF STRATEGY, NOT A STRATEGY UNTO THEMSELVES.” In my opinion, Israel isn’t safer at all, and yes, sanctions are just a tool, not an end. Obama used them to get the Iran deal, which came about after long and difficult multilateral negotiations. The apparent objective of the Trump crowd is regime change, and sanctions won’t bring it about. That leaves war as an inevitable Plan B. Stephens either doesn’t understand that, or he’s lying to himself and his readers.
6. WE NEED TO DEFEND THE LIBERAL INTERNATIONAL ORDER AGAINST ITS TOTALITARIAN ENEMIES BY FORCE, WHERE NECESSARY. The Cold War origins of neoconservatism become clear when you hear statements like this, because Iran and Russia, while repressive, are not totalitarian states. Yes, I would certainly agree that we need to stop openly embracing dictators and disparaging human rights, but, given our decline in the world relative to the Chinese, we need to work with allies to solve problems, use diplomacy, and pick our spots to use force very carefully. Neocons essentially think the military is the first option, not the last. They have already forgotten the lesson of Iraq.

Trump visited a war zone for the first time yesterday. He lied about a ten percent pay raise for the troops, made inappropriate remarks about Democrats, and succeeded in offending his Iraqi hosts, who are now calling for the departure of the troops. One imagines that he demanded that the troops thank him for his service, as well.

On a related note, the NYT ran an article yesterday which indicated that Trump got his medical deferment through a corrupt deal involving his father and a doctor. The question for today is, should that matter? It was, after all, a long time ago, and one can certainly understand why anyone would go to great lengths to avoid the draft.

The answer is yes, for two reasons. First, someone who is putting troops in harm’s way requires a degree of moral authority to do it; second, his strongest adherents object to minorities getting “cuts in line,” and this was the quintessential “cut in line.”

The Freedom Caucus has been partying at our expense for the last several years. Armed with enough members to tip the balance of power, the Hastert Rule, and (for the last two years) a back channel to the White House, they have been making life miserable for the House leadership and doing their best to make the country ungovernable. The shutdown is almost as attributable to their nihilism as to Trump’s capriciousness.

Well, guess what, guys–the party’s over! The Pelosi Rules will be in effect from next week, and, as far as they’re concerned, she’s the honey badger. They will be as impotent as a pack of reactionaries could possibly be.

Aw, darn! The question for the next Congress is whether they will work in good faith (in a partisan way, of course) as a check on the executive, or whether they will try to obstruct investigations and show Trump unconditional love on TV regardless of the facts, the effect on the country, and the ultimate implications for the GOP.

Based on their behavior over the last two years, there shouldn’t be any doubt about the correct answer. The lemmings will go over the cliff if it comes to that, and it probably will.

Mitch McConnell is a ferocious, and sometimes vicious, partisan. His decision to do battle with Obama in lieu of trying to help the American people out of the Great Recession was unforgivable. His refusal to give Merrick Garland a hearing was a blow against civility in government. And, of course, his support of regressive tax cuts and reactionary judges speaks for itself.

But McConnell is not a nut, and you can do business with him. He genuinely cares about the Senate. He doesn’t like shutdowns and debt crises. He wants America to work, albeit on his own terms. And, perhaps most of all, he takes the long view; he knows the Democrats will be back in power someday, and he’s willing to forego some temporary advantages in exchange for similar treatment in the future. He will never support giving up the filibuster, no matter how much pressure Trump puts on him.

So what can we expect from him over the next two years? He will certainly continue to confirm conservative judges at a record rate, and he will defend Trump as long as he isn’t too big a liability to the GOP. But what happens if it becomes clear that Trump is leading the party to disaster in 2020? Will McConnell respond by trying to create as much distance between Trump and the GOP as possible, in the hopes of saving something in the future, or will he decide to go down with the ship?

I’m guessing the former. We’ll see.

They promised the voters a highly-idealized version of the past. It worked; they won. Delivering the new golden age predictably turned out to be impossible, however. When they failed, they didn’t accept responsibility or admit that the project was flawed from the beginning; they blamed the opposition and, above all, the leadership, who had allegedly sold the country out.

Is it the Freedom Caucus or the Brexiteers? You decide.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are natural rivals for the leadership of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, so you might be tempted to think they’re interchangeable. They’re not; they’re actually quite different, as follows:

Sanders is an ideologue. Like Jeremy Corbyn, his mind is largely stuck in the 1960s and 1970s, as evidenced by his odd fondness for attacking Henry Kissinger. His program is not really socialist, but his mentality is based on warmed-over Marxism. He has one speech, about Wall Street bankers and the “revolution.” His ideas about expanding the welfare state have lots of holes. He doesn’t really get identity politics. As a nominee, he would be a disaster.

Warren, as befits a professor, is a wonk. She isn’t a natural politician; when she turns on the intensity, she usually looks like she’s trying too hard. She has made a point of positioning herself as a capitalist reformer, not a socialist wannabe. She has been far more successful in merging class and identity concepts than Sanders. Her reform ideas have some merit, and she doesn’t insist on spending huge amounts of public money. Finally, she has lots of speeches, not just one.

Both of them would make better presidents than Trump, of course. Neither would be even close to my first choice for the Democrats’ nominee. Of the two, however, Warren is clearly the better option.

For a Christian, the meaning of Christmas is obvious. For a young child, it is about experiencing the joys of the moment. For the parents of a young child, it is primarily about hopes for the future. For someone of my age, however, it is a milepost on a road that gets shorter with each passing year. It is about reconnecting with youthful memories–most of them happy–that remain buried between January and November. Above all, it is about remembering the people (and in my case, the dogs) that you loved who are no longer here.

That sounds pretty melancholy, and it is, but there is an undeniable strength and a richness to feeling your roots which transcends sadness. And so, I try to embrace the entire complex emotional package. I might as well–there’s no place to hide, anyway.

Merry Christmas!

I have always generally agreed with Paul Krugman’s description of Ryan as a flim-flam man, but I hoped that he would use his credibility as a budget cutter with the Freedom Caucus to make the House a little more predictable, constructive, and civil when he became Speaker. No such luck. The shutdown is perfect theme music for his departure.

Ryan’s legacy, in a word, is failure. Like Boehner before him, he never figured out how to get the right under control. His mild words of disapproval in the face of the worst of Trumpism annoyed the man on golf cart, but never caused him to moderate his behavior. His two principal policy initiatives–the border adjustment tax and entitlement “reform”–died ignominiously, to the regret of few. Yes, he did succeed in shepherding a large regressive tax cut through the system, but a reasonably trained seal could have done that, since cutting taxes is one of the few things all Republicans agree on.

Having lost the election, along with everything else, he wouldn’t have been Speaker, anyway. The Republicans in the House will have very little say in how the country is run over the next two years. What will they do with themselves? More on that at a later date.

Bernie Sanders said it first, and made it the centerpiece of his stump speech. Donald Trump soon followed, although his behavior in office makes it clear that he defined it in very different terms. Now Elizabeth Warren has picked it up; America is “rigged.” What do they mean by that, and are they right?

As to #1, it means that a wealthy, well-educated elite has abused its economic and political power relative to average American workers in the interests of perpetuating its privileges. Increased inequality and a lack of social mobility are the inevitable results.

As to #2, I have three comments:

A. IT IS A PHENOMENON SEEN ALL OVER THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD. Increased inequality and stagnant wages are primarily the result of the loss of high-paying, low-skilled industrial jobs, which in turn has been caused by automation and globalization. That suggests that the problem really has economic roots, and is not caused by any “rigging” of a wide range of political and legal systems.

B. TO THE EXTENT THAT “RIGGING” HAS OCCURRED, IT HAS BEEN DONE BY REPUBLICANS. Regressive tax changes and legislation limiting union power have undoubtedly played a role in the inequality and stagnant wage problem.

C. THE VICTIMS OF “RIGGING” USUALLY VOTE FOR THE PERPETRATORS OF THE CRIME. White workers in red states vote for Republicans because the GOP is aligned with them on cultural issues and make false promises that their jobs will return. In their eyes, that beats a government handout any day. The victims are consequently complicit in the crime. Are they deluded when they vote against their economic interests, or do they understand how the bargain works, and acquiesce in it anyway? Different people will give you different answers.

And so, it isn’t really about evil Wall Street bankers hiring armies of expensive lobbyists, or even Ivy League grads marrying each other and fighting to keep the unwashed out of their neighborhood. It’s about economic conditions that are beyond the control of any particular group, exacerbated by legislation that favors the interests of wealthy investors over the working poor.

RAGE ON, KING LEAR

For a moment, the world was your oyster.

It all went according to plan.

You grew up in Queens

But you swore from your teens

That the whole town would see you’re the man.

________________

Old money would never accept you

Regardless of how hard you tried.

So you went on TV

And the country could see

That you were the boss–that’s no lie.

_____________

You ran for the big prize in ’16.

Only you really thought you could win.

You thought up the wall

Showed the right you had balls

The establishment’s ears were of tin.

_______________

The Democrats thought they would crush you

But you proved you were smarter than them.

The Russians were blamed

But it’s all just a game

You won, and they didn’t–the end.

_____________

But the prize that you won turned to poison.

The bad guys are back at your door.

Mueller awaits

All are guessing your fate

It’s not that much fun anymore.

_____________

Rage on, King Lear, at the TV.

Even Fox isn’t really your friend.

Shut the newspapers down

‘Cause they call you a clown

They’ll show you respect in the end.

_____________

Rage on, King Lear, at the lawyers.

Who tell you it just can’t be done.

Throw Clinton in jail

Watch the left gnash and wail

Throw Pelosi in, too, just for fun.

_____________

Rage on, King Lear, at the traitors

Who keep sticking knives in your back.

You’ll show all those rats

That you’re still the big cat.

You kill when you’re under attack.

___________________

Rage on, King Lear, at the public.

They don’t see the genius you are.

One day you’ll be gone

They think life will go on

But it won’t! Cause you’re just such a star!

SHUTDOWN

It’s all right if you love me.

It’s all right if you don’t.

I’m not afraid that the base runs away from me.

I get the feeling they won’t.

__________

You know that I’m not pretending.

You know that I want the wall.

I need a win now

I don’t really care how.

It shows that I really have balls.

________

Nancy!

Shutdown–you better give that wall to me.

Shutdown–it could last until next year.

Shutdown–take me on; I’m not afraid!

Shutdown–it’s here!

It’s here!

It’s here!

Parody of “Breakdown” by Tom Petty.