Month: May 2022

If you just watch newsreel footage, the German advance into Austria looks like a parade. According to a book I am currently reading, however, the Wehrmacht was so poorly prepared for the invasion that a full one-sixth of German tanks broke down on the way to Vienna even without any opposition, and the Germans were forced to buy gas from private Austrian gas stations.

Does this sound familiar? Putin probably viewed his invasion of Ukraine in a similar vein. Unfortunately for him, his optimistic assumptions about Ukrainian public opinion were completely incorrect, and his lousy preparation has cost him bigly.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

How should Democratic candidates deal with January 6? It depends on the words and actions of the opposing candidate.

If the Republican clearly and openly expresses disdain for the rioters, there is no point in raising the issue. If he embraces the rioters, the issue should be front and center in the campaign, because liberal democracy itself will be on trial in the election. If, as in most cases, he equivocates in an effort to maintain party unity, he should be pushed hard until he makes a reasonably clear statement one way or another. That can be used against him with either the Reactionaries or the PBPs.

In my opinion, the best way to deal with the third group is to say that the public is entitled to believe the candidate supports the rioters unless he says otherwise. Or, in other words, silence means consent.

About ten days ago, I finished reading a new book about the financing of the Civil War entitled “Ways and Means.” I recommend it highly, because it is written in a very conversational style, but it provides a lot of useful technical information about the war that you don’t get in books that only talk about the military campaigns.

This isn’t a book review, however. The book also discusses at one point how a few Confederate bigwigs threw out the option of freeing the slaves in exchange for military service in order to deal with the Union’s massive manpower advantage, and how the suggestion was roundly rejected. I was dimly aware of that, but it occurred to me on this occasion that it presents the definitive answer to the question of the South’s war aims.

So, the next time some pro-Confederate reactionary tells you the war was about anything other than slavery, ask him why the Confederacy didn’t emancipate the slaves as a war measure in order to preserve its independence. That should be a lot of fun.

We know the GOP will put inflation front and center in their list of complaints about the Democrats during the general election campaign. What can the Democrats do to fight back?

Ask the right questions in public. The bottom line is that the Republicans have no plan for dealing with inflation other than to cut spending on safety net programs (and, in all likelihood, taxes for business). That obviously won’t help lower prices. If, as seems likely, the GOP candidates argue that the 2020 pandemic legislation was too generous to workers and should not have included the stimulus, it is fair to ask the voters if they would be willing to give the money back in exchange for slightly lower inflation. It is also appropriate to inquire as to what level of unemployment the GOP candidate thinks would be acceptable to reduce inflation back to 2 percent, and to point out that Trump supported stimulus checks during his campaign.

The point here is that the Democrats will lose big on this issue if they just run on the results of their own program and whine about supply chain problems. Showing the emptiness of the opposition agenda is essential.

In some related news, the Taliban have ordered all women to cover up from head to toe. If they don’t comply, the men in their family will be held responsible. That’s only fair, since it’s not as if women were full-fledged human beings.

At least the women aren’t being ordered to wear black burqas to make themselves look thinner. The Taliban already have that under control.

If you were wondering what to get your mother for Mother’sDay, the GOP has just the answer for you—an unplanned and unwanted baby! What could be a better tribute to Mom than that?

And you thought she would settle for candy and flowers.

We’re back in Boomerville! It’s 30 degrees cooler here. Some of the trees don’t have leaves yet, but the grass is green, the apple trees are in bloom, and the dogwood are spectacular.

It’s good to be home, and 500 miles from Ron DeSantis.

I’ve never interviewed Emmanuel Macron, and I probably never will. If I did, however, it would go something like this:

(I enter Macron’s office in the Elysee Palace, where he is waiting for me)

C: Before I start, M. Le President, I have to say, this is a gorgeous office. Particularly that desk there . . .

M: Ne le touchez pas! That desk was old when the Sun King was alive!

C: Actually, that’s a good segue to my first question. To paraphrase Sarah Palin, how’s that Jupiterian thing working out for you?

M: Well, I won the election, didn’t I?

C: True. But do you attribute that to your winning personality or to your record and the weakness of your opponent?

M: Mostly the latter. The French people want someone who can solve their problems, not someone who just screams about them.

C: It seems to me that the French people always want something different than what they have.

M: There’s some truth to that, but the French are not unique in that respect. America went from Obama to Trump, after all.

C: There is a lot of international concern about the political health of France even though you won fairly comfortably. After all, Le Pen got 41 percent of the vote. Do you think the concern is justified?

M: In part. It is possible that this is the high water mark for populism in France. We just don’t know at this point.

C: I have a theory that political systems are unstable when they lack responsible, well-defined parties on both the center-right and the center-left. Do you agree with that?

M: I think there is some validity to it.

C: Don’t you think that is a perfect description of where France is today? You occupy the entire center. That means anyone who is dissatisfied has to gravitate to the extremes.

M: Am I concerned about that? Yes. It would be much better if we had a plausible, responsible opposition.

C: What are you going to do about it?

M: That’s really an issue for the other political parties–not for me. My job is to deliver the goods for the public, not to figure out what the opposition should do.

C: What does Ukraine mean for your idea of European sovereignty? After all, America has been leading the way in the battle against Russia.

M: In the end, Russia is Europe’s problem. It always has been. We can’t just stop talking to them. We need a better way to resolve problems than war. That’s what European history was all about between 1945 and today.

C: What do you think ultimately happens with Ukraine?

M: We’ll have a deal that nobody likes. Russia will lick its wounds for a few years. We have to make sure they don’t try it again after that.

C: How do you do that?

M: By creating some new security machinery that provides the Russians with both carrots and sticks.

C: Will the Germans go along with that?

M: Good question. I’m working on that.

C: Merci for your time. (I leave)

The prevailing narrative after the Vance victory is that Trump still maintains his control over the GOP. The reality is more nuanced than that.

Vance won a clear plurality, but nothing like a majority, when faced with opposition you can clearly identify with the PBP and CL factions of the GOP. As a result, his victory looks a lot like Trump’s victories in the 2016 primaries, when he rarely received a majority of the votes.

The problem, of course, is that the Reactionaries are using their plurality to dominate the GOP, and the more moderate, principled groups are doing nothing to stop them. In that sense, it doesn’t matter whether Trump has the support of the entire GOP or not.

We know that Alito’s draft may change before the final opinion is issued. What makes this situation unique is our ability to compare the draft with the opinion, and to speculate as to the reasons for any changes.

I don’t expect to see many meaningful differences. What you should be looking for is any revisions to the language which emphatically distinguishes abortion from other culture war legal issues in spite of a mode of analysis that potentially encompasses far more than abortion. It would be extremely embarrassing for the majority to accept the current language and then find a few years later, for example, that same-sex marriage is a recently invented, bogus right that didn’t exist at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified.

If the distinction language is watered down, and you’re gay, be very afraid, because the Court is coming after you.

Of him, not the French people.

The populist wave is still growing. Macron increasingly looks like a solitary figure with his fingers in the dyke. What happens when he’s gone? Who will keep France from going full MAGA then?

France won’t be politically healthy until it has viable center-right and center-left parties again. Macron needs to be thinking hard about how to get from here to there during his second term.

They should be dancing in the streets; after all, this is the hour that they have dreamed of for 49 years. And yet, the GOP is whining about the breach of protocol instead of gloating. Why?

This is the party of Donald Trump, so you can immediately dismiss the idea that the GOP holds our institutions in some special reverence. This is purely about self-interest. Either the Republicans fear that an overwhelmingly hostile public reaction will scare Barrett or Kavanaugh into retreating to a more moderate position, or they believe the decision will cost them votes in the upcoming elections.

It’s yet another case of being careful what you ask for, because you might get it.

The Texas abortion vigilante law owed its unusual construction to the state’s desire to immunize it from federal court review. After Dobbs, there will be no constitutional right to abortion, and thus no apparent need for vigilantes. Will the law, and others inspired by it, disappear?

Not immediately, because state governments will have difficulty, as a practical (not a legal) matter, enforcing the new restrictions, due to a lack of resources. Highly motivated vigilantes can fill in the gap.

The problem, from a red state perspective, is that the blue states can retaliate by adopting their own vigilante laws on issues such as gun control. California has already shown some interest in doing this. Look for this fairly appalling way to push the legal envelope to vanish once the blue states get into the act.

As I’ve noted many times before, the vast majority of self-proclaimed “pro-life” reactionaries are actually just anti-abortion; they are less interested in protecting the unborn than in controlling the sex lives of women, who are viewed as latter-day Eves tempting men and leading them astray. That said, there are some genuinely pro-life people who follow the teachings of the Catholic Church on issues such as the death penalty and compassion for immigrants as well as abortion.

This should be their moment. With Roe gone, they should be fighting furiously to expand the welfare state to protect the interests of the women who will now be forced to give birth against their will. They should be doing it with the same energy that they used in the struggle against abortion.

So where is the uproar? Where is the blizzard of columns advocating for poor women in the NYT? Where are the rowdy demonstrations directed at the leaders of the GOP? Do you see and hear them?

Silence. The true pro-lifers know they have no power over the GOP. Widespread misery and social dysfunction are not their goal, but they are a price worth paying to save the lives of fertilized eggs.

It is a deal with the devil.

Whatever you may think about the reasoning in Roe, you can’t call it a partisan decision; most of the justices in the majority were appointed by Republicans, and one of the dissenters was appointed by JFK. Whatever you might think of the draft decision in Dobbs, on the other hand, it clearly is a partisan decision. Alito probably doesn’t care, but it isn’t a good look for the Supreme Court.

I read somewhere this morning that GOP members of Congress are already discussing legislation to enforce a nationwide ban on abortion. Don’t say I never warned you.