Month: April 2021

Some GOP luminaries like to argue that we can’t afford to take action on climate change because the Chinese will just cheat and free ride off our efforts. While this is theoretically possible, it would have the following impacts:

1. China is far more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than we are. If the country fails to do its part, the impacts will definitely be felt domestically;
2. Cheating would be exposed, which would cause China to lose face all over the world, and would likely result in substantial new tariffs on exported goods to the US and the EU; and
3. China would be falling behind in the industries of the future. In the long run, it would be a disaster for the Chinese economy and for national security.

The bottom line is that we are engaged in a race to the top, not the bottom. The Chinese are looking to the future, not to preserve the not-so-glorious past. So should we.

After the Trump years, it’s much more difficult to talk about a fixed GOP ideology, but it’s fair to say that the following concepts are sacrosanct:

1. Regulations on business are always bad, because they unnecessarily drive up costs and substitute the government’s ideas of justice for the dictates of the free market.
2. Tax increases are always bad, because they reduce both investment and consumption, make products and services more expensive, and divert resources from a productive private sector to a clueless government.

With climate change, the problem for the GOP is that, if you really want to address the issue, you need to pick at least one of these two options. Is it any wonder that they simply prefer to call climate change a hoax?

Martin Luther was a nobody until he started to object in public to the sale of indulgences, a get out of purgatory card created by the papacy to finance the construction of the new St. Peter’s and some sketchy diplomatic initiatives.

The modern equivalent, of course, is right-wing religious and political figures begging for money and peddling worthless products on TV and the internet. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

During the Cold War, the US generally supported Pakistan against the claims of Soviet-leaning India. But the Cold War ended, Islamic terrorism emerged as a major problem for the West, and America’s relations with Pakistan changed. The Pakistani military consistently played a double game in Afghanistan, frustrating presidents of both parties. The Afghan war went on and on, inconclusively. And China started to rise.

The Pakistani military will have “won” the Afghan war after our withdrawal in a matter of months. This “victory” will leave the country far more vulnerable to Islamic militants than it was before. America is now primarily concerned about Chinese aggression, and is in the process of creating a loose alliance with India. The Chinese, for their part, are becoming the dominant power in this part of the world.

What does this mean? That Pakistan, with all of its volatility, poor government, nuclear weapons, and vulnerability to Islamic groups, will be China’s problem, not ours. Given China’s physical proximity and ongoing concerns about Islamic terrorism, it is far more vulnerable to Pakistani instability than we ever were. So good luck with your new problem, guys.

Update: it was #1. He said the poor white cop was lynched by a BLM mob. I’m not sure the Fox News watchers in middle America will follow him on this one, but they might, since they are trained to accept the narrative over the evidence before their eyes.

The jury did the right thing, and so disaster was averted. Some commentators are calling this an inflection point, but they’re wrong; the facts were so extreme that they are unlikely to be repeated. Don’t be surprised if the next case goes the other way.

What will Tucker say? Either that Chauvin was railroaded by a woke leftist mob or that the verdict proves America isn’t racist. My bet is on the second, but we’ll see tonight.

A man in a cart in the place where I live

Fishes for balls in a golf course pond.

His prizes are worthless.

His searches are fruitless.

So why does he do it?

What else would he do?

It may sound absurd

But it gives his life meaning.

It gives his life meaning.

Under normal conditions, I’m not a fan of using the criminal law to punish police officers who make fatal mistakes. The job is just too difficult, and there are other, more appropriate remedies available to protect the public. In George Floyd’s case, however, even the right was shocked by the callousness of the violence. The killing was murder, and should be punished as such.

I wish Chauvin had taken the stand, so the prosecutor could have asked him at what point he planned to take his knee off the guy’s neck. If the answer, as I suspect, was when Floyd was totally immobilized, how would he be able to tell the difference between that and death? Inquiring minds want to know!

If Chauvin is somehow acquitted, the black community is going to take it as a signal that police officers can get away with murder as long as the victim is a minority, and will respond accordingly. That conclusion won’t be exactly accurate; the guy has been fired, and the government has paid a huge settlement to Floyd’s estate, so a deterrence factor is still in place. It is true enough, however, for the concern to be perfectly legitimate.

As far as I know, Chauvin has never expressed the slightest regret for what he did. He needs to go down. Today.

Defeat in the 2020 elections has only increased the sense of victimhood on the part of the reactionary GOP base. Instead of engaging in a battle over policy, the intelligentsia of the Republican Party (if you can call them that) is now openly embracing anti-democratic ideas and branding a majority of American–not outsiders or even the government– as the enemy. The leadership, for its part, is pursuing a “no enemies to the right” approach by tolerating extremists, if not openly embracing their views. The GOP is, in effect, declaring war on America instead of trying to change its mind.

Since, for a variety of reasons, secession is not a practical option, this means pursuing vote suppression legislation at the state level, infiltrating the military and law enforcement agencies, and packing the judiciary wherever possible with reliable supporters. If this can be accomplished, and the GOP wins the presidency in 2024, a suitable pretext can be found for imposing emergency restrictions on the cultural left. The Orban Option will then be an accomplished fact.

How can Biden and the Democrats resist this? Here are some suggestions:

1. GOVERN SUCCESSFULLY: Given the stakes involved, be bold. Money is not much of an object if the survival of the system is at stake.
2. FIND AND PROSECUTE DANGEROUS EXTREMISTS TO THE FULLEST EXTENT: Extremism can be deterred to some extent if it is handled properly.
3. DON’T POKE THE BEAR: Time is on your side, and the GOP knows it. Demographics will solve the problem in 10-20 years. Do your best to avoid culture war provocations in the interim.

The Claremont Institute published a column in which the author argued that the 81 million Biden voters aren’t real Americans, that all of our institutions are rotten, and that the Constitution doesn’t work any more. At about the same time, Tucker Carlson was giving his voice of approval on TV to neo-Nazi replacement theory. What is going on here?

Instead of repudiating Trump after his resounding defeat and half-hearted coup attempt, GOP thought leaders are responding by moving even further right on culture war issues. They are openly embracing the concept of an anti-democratic counterrevolution based on white Christian nationalism without identifying a means of accomplishing it, and describing more than half of America as the enemy. This is, as you can imagine, a very dangerous state of affairs if you believe in liberal democracy.

Where does this go from here? Anything that gets repeated a few times on Fox News, regardless of whether it conforms with actual life experience of right-wing voters, becomes the gospel in Nebraska shortly thereafter. We can only hope against hope that the Biden boom causes middle America to tune it out. If that doesn’t work, then the only thing protecting our system would be a lack of will or imagination on the part of the counterrevolutionary wannabes.

Just as there are two paths (mass mobilization vs. control of the armed forces) to fascism, so there are two kinds of fascist leaders. The first is highly ideological; the leader in question has a deep reverence for traditional culture and firm, unwavering ideas about how to return the nation from its current corrupt state to its previous moment of glory. The second, by contrast, completely rejects ideology and the entire idea of objective truth in favor of faith in an omnipotent leader, who is consequently free to change his tactics on a dime as circumstances require. Franco is the best example of the first kind of fascist; Kim and Putin are excellent examples of the second.

If you’re wondering, Hitler and Mussolini lean more towards the second group, given the fluid nature of their ideological views and tactical flexibility, but obviously have some of the characteristics of the first group, as well. Donald Trump would have been the ideal type for the second group if he had not been too lazy and narcissistic to be a committed fascist.

On its face, the differences between the two types are so stark as to be unreconcilable. One believes in an anachronistic truth; the other denies truth and embraces power. Which is more likely to prevail in America? Based on our experience with Trump, you would have to say the second type, but it is hard to see any future Trumps among the list of potential GOP contenders in 2024.

President Biden is said to be haunted by the images of the American withdrawal from Vietnam. And with good reason! No one seriously believes the Afghan government will survive long after our troops leave, and what happens next won’t be pretty. Anyone who advocated withdrawal had better be prepared for that.

It won’t be an exact rerun of Saigon, however. There were no warlords in South Vietnam in 1975, so the government survived until it was defeated on the battlefield. The Afghan government, on the other hand, has minimal support and is likely to start imploding very shortly. Power will return to the warlords; some of them will fight the Taliban, while others will look to make deals. There won’t be much left by the time we withdraw. There won’t be peace, either.

On the left-leaning justice named Breyer.

In the legal world, you can’t go higher.

I hate to be curt

But he’s older than dirt

So it’s time for the guy to retire.

Imagine that you are Xi Jinping, and you are considering your options with regard to Taiwan. The effective independence of the island feels like a stick in the eye to you–or, perhaps, an amputated limb. You know that your legacy in Chinese history will be assured if you can somehow bring Taiwan back under your control. What’s more, you think you have both the will and the ability to do it.

But still. China has prospered for all of these years without driving America into war. You think America will back down, but you can’t be sure. America’s military is experienced, and not to be trifled with. And everything is going well in your world without taking any such enormous risks. Is now really the time to strike?

Probably not. Maybe if it looks like America’s relations with the Quad start looking more dangerous, and you need to launch a preemptive attack somewhere. But for now, you think you’re winning, so the rewards don’t justify the risks. The day is coming, but it isn’t here quite yet.

A note to my readers: I will be on vacation next week. Any posting will be irregular at best.

American ambiguity towards the protection of Taiwan was, in its initial phases, just a diplomatic formula. There was never any doubt about our willingness or ability to fend off a Chinese attack at the time. Our military predominance was obvious to both sides.

That is no longer true, at least for what the Chinese would view as a home game. There is some talk of creating a red line in order to avoid stumbling into war over the issue. That sounds like Obama’s line in the sand on Syria to me. It’s a bad idea.

The Chinese are going to make their decisions based on what they see, not what we say. Making an unequivocal commitment to Taiwan would sound more like weakness than strength to them. If Biden is wise, he will maintain the status quo, and back it up with actions rather than words.