Month: July 2022

When you compare the first 18 months of Biden’s administration to the last years of the Trump regime, you are struck more by the amount of continuity than by the differences. The tone is completely changed, of course. But the following items were not, due to a lack of votes in Congress and a high level of concern about political blowback:

1. Biden complied with Trump’s Afghanistan withdrawal agreement;
2. The Trump tax cuts have not been repealed;
3. Trump supported the 2021 stimulus;
4. The Trump tariffs on China are still in effect; and
5. Biden has not entered into a new agreement with Iran.

Where would we be today if Trump had actually remained in office? Inflation and unemployment would be at about the same levels, and our position in the Middle East would be roughly the same. The big difference, of course, is our willingness and ability to work with our partners in both Europe and Asia to contain China and Russia. Trump would have done his best to help Putin in Ukraine, and would have tried to take on the Chinese on his own.

Since Biden does not present an easy target for Trump’s identity politics gambit, and the man on golf cart has little interest in policy, his campaign is bound to be primarily about the “corrupt” establishment and the “rigged” 2020 election. He will grumble about inflation and falling markets, but say little about what he would do to improve matters. In short, it will be a campaign heavy on personality and owning the libs, and extremely light on any vision except of the man with the orange face in the mirror. Just like 2020.

I had always assumed that Trump would wait as long as possible before making an announcement about his candidacy. That way, he could get more people to kiss his ring, and keep his options open. The NYT, however, has reported that an announcement could be imminent, which surprises me.

Maybe it shouldn’t. Announcing early has some clear advantages for Trump. It makes it easier for him to argue that any potential prosecutions are politically motivated. It gives him a larger megaphone with which to shape public impressions of the work of the January 6 committee. Anything that attracts attention is always welcome, of course, and he absolutely loves running for president (being president, not quite so much). Finally, and most importantly, it would mean that DeSantis could not blunder into running against him. Trump will be the presumptive nominee the minute he announces, and anyone who dares to take him on will be fully aware of the consequences.

For the GOP, an early announcement prior to the midterms would be a disaster. It would put Trump and January 6 in the foreground of the campaign, which is the last thing McConnell and McCarthy want. It will increase turnout among otherwise disaffected Democratic voters. It will also attract attention to Trump’s idiosyncratic views about Russia and Ukraine at the least appropriate time. For Trump, however, concerns about the welfare of the party will always take second place to the interests of the man in the mirror.

So what would Trump actually say on the stump? Even more importantly, how would he govern, if he wins? I will be addressing the likely events of a second Trump term throughout the week.

Question presented: Can a state government completely ban the sale of AR-15s to private citizens?

For the would-be sellers and owners: Hey, everyone owns an AR-15! They’re as common as Japanese cars! That makes them analogous to 18th century muskets. They can’t be prohibited.

For the state: Are you high? The AR-15, in addition to having no legitimate public purpose when owned by a private citizen, has destructive power far greater than a hunting rifle, which is the appropriate analogy for a musket. It’s destructive power that controls here, not the number in circulation. The state can ban AR-15s.

How do you suppose Justice Thomas disposes of this one?

If Trump does, in fact, have to run against DeSantis, he is bound to lose at least some of the primaries. As in 2020, would he attribute his defeats to “rigged” elections, even if they are run by Republicans exclusively for Republicans?

Of course he would! He did it when he lost to Cruz in 2016. And the gap between him and the remaining respectable members of his party would widen even further.

At a summit also attended by leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, NATO revised its mission statement to discuss the “challenge” presented by China. The document is also harshly critical of Chinese behavior in a variety of ways. The Chinese responded, as usual, by suggesting that the US is leading the rest of the developed world by the nose and threatening consequences for Europe, a key trade partner.

Xi has to be alarmed; encirclement is becoming more of a reality every day. But what did he expect? Did he think that China could engage in belligerent “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, throttle the rights of people in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, continually threaten Taiwan, and openly support Russian aggression without provoking a response from the liberal democratic world? Did he believe that China has so much money, it can buy off even countries with far larger per capita GDPs?

We used to be told that China was sensitive to the analogy putting it in the position of the German Empire prior to World War I. Xi seems to have forgotten that lesson. Having effectively given Putin a blank check in Ukraine, he increasingly resembles the blustering Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914.

The first phase of the Ukraine war–the blitzkrieg that wasn’t–was a disastrous failure for the Russians. The second phase–terror, slow and indiscriminate destruction, and strangulation–is coming to an end, and will almost certainly end inconclusively. What happens in the third phase?

It will focus on the international and political elements of the war. Putin will be hoping that the increased cost of gas and food will dampen the enthusiasm for the war among NATO members, and that he will have support from starving Third World countries. Biden’s job will be to prevent that. So far, he has done well.

Trump held off making his announcement as long as possible, because it was his way of attracting attention and exerting authority over the other candidates. Finally, DeSantis had had enough. He announced his candidacy in the summer of 2023, explaining that he assumed that Trump had decided not to run, and sounding as deferential as possible to the man on golf cart.

Trump was outraged, as anyone would have predicted. He announced that he would take on the ungrateful “Ron the RINO” within days. He attacked DeSantis, amusingly enough, for being irresponsible on the “Trump vaccine.” He claimed DeSantis was a closet environmentalist who was soft on fossil fuels. He said DeSantis didn’t really care about illegal immigration and had presided over an increase in violent crime. But mostly, he went on and on about how DeSantis had failed to support him adequately on January 6. DeSantis was not a true counterrevolutionary, he fumed. He had to go, along with all of the rest of the corrupt establishment.

DeSantis, for his part, was much more moderate in tone, but as the campaign got uglier, he took stronger stands on Trump’s failures in office and on his irresponsibility on January 6. Tucker Carlson was appalled; to him, this was the right-wing equivalent of Sanders fighting with Warren. Couldn’t they just work together and get along? The answer was no; there was too much at stake.

In the end, the GOP voters split pretty evenly over the January 6 issue. Biden waited in the wings to take on a badly divided party.