During the campaign, I created a foreign policy test for the various Democratic candidates. The gist of it was that you had to know how to behave if Putin showed up late for a summit, and with his dog. Some passed; some failed.
Biden passed. Now he has an even better solution to the problem–a big, ferocious dog of his own! That’s what I call creativity in diplomacy!
(Joe Biden has come to meet Putin. The latter, familiar with Major’s reputation, has wisely left his dog at home.)
B: How’s it going, Killer?
P: (Sounding pained) Please don’t call me that, Mr. President!
B: Why not? You clearly relish your fearsome reputation. What about Chechnya? What about Syria?
P: We do what is necessary for the best interests of the Russian people. We don’t take any particular pleasure in it. But if you get in our way, you’re gone.
B: What about Navalny? Poison in his underwear? That sounds like something from Monty Python!
P: That was probably the CIA trying to gain some sympathy for my opposition. They have been known to do such things, you know.
B: In my country, that would be called implausible deniability. And you know it. You rely on it to keep your opponents terrified.
P: Believe what you like. That’s not my problem.
B: Anyway, that isn’t the main focus of this meeting.
P: And that is?
B: Cyberwarfare. Criminal hacking of our businesses and institutions. It needs to stop.
P: We don’t have any hand in that.
B: At this rate, this is going to go down in history as the Malarkey Summit.
P: Again, believe what you like. We don’t condone hacking.
B: You had better not.
P: Or else, what?
B: You forget that America created the internet. We have even more and better hackers than you do. We can bring your country to a standstill without you even knowing it. It will get ugly, I promise.
P: I’ll keep that in mind. And now, I have a message for you, Mr. President.
B: Which is?
P: You think the future belongs to you, but you’re wrong. Trump and I have exposed the hollowness of your so-called democracy. America will look like Russia in a few years.
B: I understand your vision of the future. No NATO, no EU, and a disengaged America. Russia looks like the most powerful country in Europe.
P: That’s it!
B: But there are two problems with your vision, so be careful what you ask for.
P: Which are?
B: China is on your doorstep, and without NATO, Germany has nukes. You think life was scary with us having nukes–think what it would be like if the Germans had them!
P: We’ll see. (He leaves)
Robert Bruce owned extensive lands in England as well as Scotland. He spent about as much time sucking up to Edward I as he did fighting him. He only irrevocably committed himself to an independent Scotland after he killed a political rival in a church. And yet, he is revered as the founder of the Scottish state. Is there a message here for Americans?
Yes–a bigger and a smaller picture can coexist with regard to historical events. For example, it is perfectly appropriate to admire the military acumen of Lee, Jackson, and many other Confederate leaders, and to respect their work against a superior Union Army, without buying into the Lost Cause. Individual Confederates may have had positive qualities, but the big picture is that they were fighting for an evil cause, so they cannot be heroes. In addition, the statues put up to them were typically intended to send a message of white supremacy years after the fact. As a result, they need to come down. All of them.
With difficult Brexit implementation issues looming, Boris needs friends. You can be sure he is bending Biden’s ear on this matter during the G7. Will he succeed?
To a large extent, yes. Biden may have been an opponent of Brexit and an EU partisan in another life, but his primary objective is a united front against China. He needs to have the rest of the G7 reading from the same page. As a result, you can expect him to function as a mediator of sorts between the UK and the EU for the foreseeable future.
Give Trump “credit” for being consistent; he supported authoritarianism both at home and abroad. At home, he wanted to run the country the same way he ran the Trump Organization; abroad, he thought dictators were more reliable (and more fun) partners than democratic leaders. It was an unprecedented development in American politics.
If Trump is our next GOP president, we know we can expect more of the same. But what of the rest of his party, which supports the use of pro-democracy rhetoric abroad, while suppressing liberal democracy at home? How will they paper over the contradiction, and how will the rest of the G7 respond?
Let’s hope we don’t find out anytime soon.
Every attempt to drive up turnout by using extremist rhetoric to mobilize the base will provoke an equal and opposite reaction. That’s the problem with Trumpism.
There is some division of opinion on this, but most reactionaries would tell you that the Fifties were a golden age for America. White men ruled the roost, socially, economically, and politically. The average person wasn’t even aware of a culture war. Life was good, at least if you were a white worker.
The irony is that the highest marginal tax rate at the time was 90 percent, and the federal government was spending huge amounts of money on infrastructure, as well as the military. That’s about as far from Brigadoon for freedom-loving businessmen and libertarians as you can get.
If you’re a reactionary, this should inspire you to support tax increases for the wealthy and for corporations. It won’t, however. The vast majority of reactionaries are too wedded to their deal with business interests to give it up.
Under ordinary conditions, employment figures are an excellent proxy for levels of misery. These are not ordinary conditions, however; as a result of the enhanced federal UI benefits, it is possible to maintain a decent standard of living without a job, at least in blue states and through September. Millions of elderly workers may also have decided to retire in lieu of working through the pandemic. Does it make sense, therefore, to pay so much attention to the employment numbers, at least for now?
No. GDP and wage growth more accurately describe the actual state of the nation until the enhanced benefits expire. Keep your eyes on them for now.
It isn’t Biden; it’s Manchin the left-wing dream crusher! Don’t say I didn’t warn you; I posted on this very subject three months prior to the election.
During the campaign, when Elizabeth Warren was asked hypothetical questions on this subject, she said she would overcome resistance to the progressive agenda by “fighting.” Why don’t I see her fighting for Manchin’s vote? Where are AOC and the Justice Democrats? Why aren’t they mobilizing a tidal wave of support for the progressive agenda in West Virginia to force Manchin to change his mind?
Because even they know that there is no tidal wave to mobilize, and that “fighting” is useless. Learn the Serenity Prayer, folks; you’re going to need it.
The Republicans have a very limited idea of what constitutes “infrastructure.” Why? For the same reason they’re willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the military, but refuse to wear masks: they’re the Daddy Party! Anything involving large, burly men on noisy, powerful machines, or blowing stuff up, is in their wheelhouse. Anything else–forget it.
Trump had a fixation with “real” jobs that were done by strong men: frackers; coal miners; and steelworkers. Retail sales clerks–not so much. He was not alone.
Mitch McConnell is not a counterrevolutionary. He has no reason to be; the McConnell Project is fully achievable under the current system. All he has to do is leverage the GOP’s structural advantages into election victories, and regressive tax cuts and deregulation follow naturally, since the filibuster stops neither.
The problem, of course, is that tax cuts and deregulation don’t resonate with the base, so he is forced to rely on nightmares of culture war apocalypse in order to get out the vote. The big change in the GOP over the last decade is that the base has started to take that pitch seriously, and to demand action to save white Christians from annihilation. Hence, the January 6 riot, the red state attempts to suppress the vote, and the threats and legislation directed at the tech companies and cancel culture.
The base is out of McConnell’s control. He can’t very well say that Christian camps really aren’t around the corner at this stage of the process. The freedoms provided in the Constitution–not the current administration–have become the enemy for reactionaries. Can Mitch restore order? For now, he just seems to be riding the waves.
GET OVER IT
Your people were herded on overstuffed ships
And sailed to the land of the chains and the whips.
It was a crime
In a distant time
So get over it.
______
Marched through the streets, they were sold at the block.
They had fewer rights than the owner’s livestock.
It wasn’t fair,
But I wasn’t there,
So get over it.
________
Many years later, I don’t know what for
The North and the South chose to fight a great war.
The slaves were freed.
What’s that to me?
Get over it.
______________
After the war, social progress was slow.
Black people oppressed by the Klan and Jim Crow.
But that was then.
It has to end.
So get over it.
__________
Marching for justice; demanding the vote.
Just a handful of white people jumped on the boat.
Your cause was just.
But don’t make a fuss.
Get over it.
________
The election was rigged, and our hero went down
To an old left-wing establishment clown.
It wasn’t right.
Don’t give up the fight
And don’t get over it.
If you think about it, American reactionaries see the world in much the same way as white South Africans in the pre-Mandela days: completely outnumbered by people with cultural values different than their own, they hope to keep the future at bay by maintaining a monopoly on political power and imposing censorship and a police state on the masses.
A few observations are pertinent here. First, attempts to stick a finger in the dyke without a viable alternative national vision inevitably fail in the long run, as they did in South Africa. Second, the analogy is not perfect; it would be difficult to send the population of New York to live in a homeland in Nebraska. Finally, the real enemy of American reactionaries is their grandchildren, not minorities. For that problem, there is no plausible long term answer.
Although he apparently denies it now, Michael Flynn has been telling QAnon types that we need a Myanmar-style coup to return Trump to power. Should we be worried?
Not as long as Biden is in the White House. Any coup would require a fig leaf of legitimacy. If we get a more competent and ruthless version of Trump in the White House, however, hang on to your hat.
Time to hit the road to Loserland—and don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out!