Month: February 2019

Ignore Mueller. Ignore Michael Cohen. Ignore Stormy Daniels. Ignore the National Inquirer. Ignore Flynn. Ignore Roger Stone. Ignore Manafort. Ignore Rudy. Ignore the Trump Tower meeting. Ignore Christopher Steele. Ignore Comey. Ignore the NBC interview. Ignore the tax returns. Ignore the foreign guests at the Trump hotels.

Ignore Mattis. Ignore Kelly. Ignore Spicer. Ignore McMaster. Ignore DeVos. Ignore Zinke. Ignore Pruitt. Ignore Carson. Ignore Tillerson. Ignore Mnuchin. Ignore Ross.

Ignore the tweets. Ignore Charlottesville. Ignore the shutdown. Ignore the wall. Ignore the family separations. Ignore the regulatory foxes in the henhouse. Ignore the lies and the narcissism. Ignore “executive time.” Ignore the scattershot decisionmaking process. Ignore Puerto Rico. Ignore the determination to replace Obamacare with something–anything–that would be worse. Ignore the regressive tax cut. Ignore all the times he mindlessly threw red meat to his base and divided the country. Ignore the shots at the judicial system and the Fed. Ignore the complaints about the “deep state.”

Ignore Putin. Ignore the stupid trade wars. Ignore the empty optimism about North Korea. Ignore MBS. Ignore the repeated and gratuitous insults to our allies. Ignore the complaints about NATO. Ignore the unnecessary drama over NAFTA. Ignore the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the Iran deal. Ignore Afghanistan and Syria. Ignore the Turks and the Kurds. Ignore his open enthusiasm for dictators. Ignore the impending arms race. Ignore his contempt for the rule of law and democratic principles, both at home and abroad.

The 2020 election can be boiled down to this: Trump gave us peace and prosperity, and the Democrats will give us socialism and Venezuela. Nothing else matters.

To which I would reply: that sure is a whole lot of ignorance.

China is far from a finished product. If you want to know its future, it is logical to start by identifying its strengths and weaknesses, which are as follows:

STRENGTHS

1. A LARGE POPULATION: China’s size alone would give it substantial regional, and even global, influence.
2. STABLE AND COMPETENT GOVERNMENT: Regardless of your feelings about the Chinese system, you have to give the government enormous credit for what it has accomplished over the last 20 years.
3. A RESILIENT, PRAGMATIC PEOPLE: Consider how much the Chinese have endured within your lifetime, and how far they have come since the Cultural Revolution. Could we have done that? I’m not so sure.

WEAKNESSES

1. POWERFUL, UNFRIENDLY NEIGHBORS: We have Mexico and Canada as our neighbors; they have Russia, Korea, Japan, India, and Vietnam. In spite of Trump’s best efforts, it’s not exactly the same thing. Just dominating the region will be an enormous challenge.
2. DEMOGRAPHIC ISSUES: The population is aging rapidly, due in part to the one child policy, which will inevitably slow down economic growth in the foreseeable future. In addition, the Chinese have avoided creating much of a welfare state by relying on families to take care of their own. With urbanization and the aging population, at some point, that will no longer work, which will further increase the strains on the system.
3. LACK OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC VALUES: It has always been assumed that the rule of law, a free press, official transparency, and respect for property rights are essential to economic development after you reach a certain level. China doesn’t have any of that; the Communist system naturally results in rampant official corruption and arbitrary decision-making. Will the Chinese be the exception to the rule, due to their size? That’s the $64,000 question.
4. RISING EXPECTATIONS: No one who survived the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution is going to have anything but gratitude for the current regime. Younger Chinese, however, will have much higher expectations for their government, which is bound to make mistakes along the line. How tolerant will they be of those mistakes? No one knows the answer to that yet.

In a nutshell, here is how Trump and the GOP will attack the leading candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2020. Please note that I am simply laying out lines of argument, some of which will be handled as dog whistles, and others made explicit; I am not in any way endorsing or justifying them.

SANDERS: Socialism! Sandinistas! Venezuela! Jewish radical! (There will actually be some truth to these statements)

WARREN: Socialism! Pocahontas! Snooty Ivy League professor who talks down to you and despises your values! Uppity woman telling men what to do!

BOOKER: Socialism! Patronizing Ivy League egghead who doesn’t understand your real American values! Newark is a crime-infested hellhole populated mostly by those people!

HARRIS: Socialism! Soft on crime and illegal immigration! Uppity woman telling men what to do! Low morals! San Francisco liberal who hates your values and loves those people!

BIDEN: Plagiarism! Obama connection!

If you read this carefully, you can see that it is an argument for Biden as the party nominee. He’s simply not as vulnerable to GOP attacks as the others. His real weaknesses are with his own party; they won’t show up standing next to Trump.

Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello obviously have plenty in common: both rose to fame as vastly overqualified “punks” in the late seventies; both are best known for their first three albums; and both have dabbled, mostly successfully, in a variety of genres outside of the limelight since the middle of the eighties. They have different strengths, however. Costello is a fine musician, but he really made his mark with his lyrics; he can write a song about virtually anything and find an angle that makes it interesting–even gripping. You will like a Costello song better the tenth time you hear it than the first. Jackson’s gift, on the other hand, is writing rich, elegant melodies. A Jackson song will grab you the first or second time you hear it, or not at all.

Jackson’s latest, “Fool,” delivers in spades. His band sounds great; he has managed to integrate the piano and the guitar in a way I’ve never heard before. “Fool” may well be the best-recorded CD I’ve ever heard; every note practically shimmers. And the songs themselves are outstanding. Every one of them is memorable in its own way.

Lyrically, “Fool” falls a little short; Jackson can come across as a Brexit-voting curmudgeon railing about political correctness. That hardly matters, however. “Fool” is a big success, and well worth your time and money.

There is bipartisan agreement that China presents a significant, and growing, challenge to the world primacy of the United States. What exactly is the challenge, and how can it be addressed?

1. IS IT IDEOLOGICAL? Not really; the Chinese believe in Chinese exceptionalism, and have no interest in imposing their system on others. They are most comfortable dealing with like-minded authoritarians, but they are perfectly willing to do business with genuinely democratic states. There is no danger that we will be forced to live on collective farms if we do battle with the Chinese and lose, which was not the case with the Soviet Union.
2. IS IT A SOFT POWER BATTLE? The Chinese value soft power, and have invested considerable resources in it, but Chinese culture is relatively inaccessible to the rest of the world, largely because the language is so difficult. Running Tibet and Xinjiang as de facto prison camps doesn’t exactly make their system more attractive to outsiders. So, no.
3. DOES IT HAVE A MILITARY ELEMENT? Yes, at least as to the South China Sea. Otherwise, not at present, but the Chinese military is becoming more professional, so the danger will undoubtedly increase over time.
4. IS IT ECONOMIC? Obviously, yes. China has the ability to buy off many countries that it cannot otherwise persuade. The Chinese economy will be larger than ours in the foreseeable future. That, in and of itself, is not decisive; the Chinese economy, due to the size of the Chinese population, was larger than the British economy during the Opium War, and you know how that turned out. Nevertheless, size and resources definitely matter, and, barring a political catastrophe or a war of annihilation, a large Chinese economy is here to stay.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese system? That will be discussed in the next post in this series.

Good evening, America! Remember me? I’m your Uncle Joe. I’ve been gone the past few years, but I’m back, and I’m running for president.

You might be wondering why an old guy like me would run for the most difficult job in the world. Well, there are two reasons. First, I’m better qualified than anyone else in the country, and if you’ve been watching the last few years, you understand that competence matters. Second, and perhaps even more important, I understand what the American people want, and don’t want, from their government.

During the 2016 election, it became fashionable to say that America was “rigged.” Bernie Sanders started it, and he meant it. Donald Trump picked it up, and it helped him to get elected. Apparently he had a different definition of “rigged” than you and I do, because he decided to solve what he viewed as the problem by making racist remarks, supporting a huge tax giveaway to rich people, sucking up to Putin and other dictators, obstructing justice, and dismantling all of the agencies that protect us from unhealthy substances and activities, just among many other things. He thinks his job is to divide America every day he’s in office. I guess that was his idea of how to make America great. Well, it’s not mine.

Some people in our party have picked up the “rigged” idea and called for a “revolution” to fix a country that is flawed beyond all recognition. They’re right about one thing–we do have problems that need to be fixed. But America isn’t “rigged.” We don’t need Donald Trump, or any “revolutionary,” to make America great again. America is already great. It just needs a change of leadership to get back on the right track, and in spite of Trump, we’re not that far off.

How will we do that? By building on the legacy of Barack Obama. By rolling back most of the egregious Trump tax giveaway to the rich and using the money to help struggling working and middle-class people. By expanding Obamacare through the use of Medicare for More. By enacting ethics legislation. By finding a reasonable compromise on immigration. By not sucking up to dictators anymore, and standing up to Putin and Xi. By putting an end to a stupid trade war. By acknowledging climate change is a really serious problem, and using legislation, regulations, and subsidies to fight it. By rejoining the Paris and the Iran Agreements. And by fighting racism in the criminal justice and political systems.

I know there are candidates in my party who think that President Obama was a failure, and that we should throw out his work and start from scratch. I’m here to tell you that they’re wrong, and that many of the programs they’re advocating will never pass in our system, or cost way too much, or infringe on the freedoms of Americans in a way that they won’t accept. It’s not enough to have good intentions. It doesn’t do any good to make promises you can’t keep. You have to be able to deliver.

And so, I will be asking for your vote during the primaries this year, and in November of 2020. God bless you, God bless America, and good night.

On the Democrat candidate Cory.

He has quite the interesting story.

He sounds like Barack.

No, that isn’t a crock.

Can he find the same pathway to glory?

The Democrats, as you would expect, see inequality in economic terms. It occurred to me this morning, however, that the Republicans see it in social and intellectual terms. The class enemy for them isn’t the rich car dealer who, like you, worked hard all his life to get where he is today; it’s the snooty professors, doctors, and lawyers who went to elite schools and think they’re smarter than you. Leave the rich folks who are just like you alone–crush the elitists and globalists who want to tell you what to do!

And so, Donald Trump, with his strange syntax and pedestrian tastes, is on our side regardless of his wealth, while Barack Obama, with his cool, urbane style, was not.

There is a lesson for the Democrats in that; if they nominate someone who comes across as being too professorial, their chances of flipping reactionary white workers are going to disappear.

THE ROAD TO VENEZUELA

We’re on the road to Venezuela

If the left should win.

They’re bound to bring Maduro here

So vote for Trump again.

_______________

Sure, he’s stupid and corrupt.

He’s narcissistic, too.

But if you put the left in power

Here’s what’s in store for you.

_______________

Inflation ravaging the land.

Your money’s worthless now.

The government’s without a plan.

You’ll struggle through–but how?

___________________

Rioters will fill the streets.

The government fights back.

Left-wing thugs will loot and kill.

Your rights under attack.

________________

Criminals will rule the land.

The border’s been erased.

White folks’ time has come and gone.

Our culture’s been replaced.

________________

Standing in an endless line

To buy a crust of bread.

The president won’t care a fig.

She’ll blame the right, instead.

____________

This nightmare land is yours to choose

So ponder hard and well.

For this is true: if Trump should lose

It’s all going to hell.

Kamala Harris looks and sounds like a winner. She’s smart, telegenic, and tough. Her campaign rollout was, with one exception, a great success. That exception, however, is worthy of discussion.

Harris, like virtually every other Democrat, supports Medicare for All–whatever that means. When she was asked about the role of private insurance in her plan during a CNN town hall, she went the full Bernie and said that it would have to go. Later, when faced with plenty of public opposition, she walked part of it back. Her communications director explained that she wanted a burrito (the Sanders version of MFA), but for tactical reasons, might be willing to settle for a taco (Medicare for More).

There isn’t anything obviously wrong with saying that you will keep your powder dry and your tactics flexible. I suspect most of the other candidates will ultimately handle the issue the same way. The point is that this is one of the most important questions the candidates will be addressing between now and November, and she should have been better prepared for it.

I write largely to explain that, in this case, a taco is unlikely, in the long run, to get you a burrito. The full Bernie version of MFA provides universal coverage with no co-pays through a tax-supported payment system; there is no role for private insurance in this system. Medicare for More is a voluntary system that does not get you to universal coverage, is paid for largely by individual consumers rather than taxpayers, has co-pays, and does not impact the interests of people who have private insurance; that is a completely different model. Medicare for All, in my opinion, is a political disaster waiting to happen in 2020; Medicare for More, on the other hand, is not.

Elizabeth Warren tells us we can restore the integrity of our political system and fund vital new social programs, without damaging our economy, by adopting her plutocrat tax. Right-wingers, on the other hand, are rending their garments and screaming that the next stop is Venezuela. Who’s right?

In my opinion, none of the above. The legal and administrative problems associated with the tax make it a less desirable alternative for soaking the rich than, say, the Sanders estate tax increase. The adoption of the tax will do little to improve the workings of our political system. On the other hand, the economic impacts of the tax have been vastly overstated by the right; whether it helps or hurts depends on how the proceeds are invested by the government.

In reality, the likelihood that the proposal will ever become law is quite small. Its real impact will be as a campaign tactic, and a symbol of genuine populism. Will it succeed on those terms? We’ll know for certain no later than next November.