Month: August 2022

What is the “deep state?” It is all of the people who were hired at the federal level to provide expertise and to enforce the law equally and predictably. It includes the military, law enforcement, the judicial system, and bureaucrats of all kinds.

What Trump calls the “deep state” is a formidable barrier to the exercise of arbitrary power for the benefit of himself and his reactionary supporters and the detriment of everyone else. It relies on knowledge, precedent, and written law rather than the whims of a despot. It is the child of the Enlightenment, not the early Middle Ages. That’s why Trump hates it so much, and why his platform for 2024 will be to destroy it.

It would be fair to describe the McConnell Project as a highly diluted version of Orban’s illiberal democracy. It contains three pillars: a reactionary Supreme Court; gerrymandering; and the filibuster. Taken together, the three pillars do not prevent Democrats from winning elections on a national basis, but they do mean that the left has little ability to effectuate dramatic change at the federal level regardless of the state of public opinion. The Project is, therefore, fundamentally anti-democratic.

The Project has limits, however. It has little power over blue states. It cannot stop the left from raising taxes and increasing federal spending under any and all circumstances. It also leaves the media untouched, which is one of the central features of the Orban regime. That means the government cannot force the left to shut up, which is what reactionaries desire, above all.

The battle within the GOP is between the group of “moderates” that accepts the limits of the Project and a group of fairly similar size which rejects them, and wants to “burn it down.” Since the GOP cannot win elections without both groups, and the extremists appear to be ascendant, McConnell will probably have to choose between his version of the Constitution and reactionary autocracy in the reasonably near future. What will he do? I don’t know for sure, but his open willingness to support Trump in 2024, if the latter is nominated by the party, is pretty compelling evidence that he fears government by the left more than the destruction of American liberal democracy.

Both are obviously cynical, opportunistic GOP legislative leaders who typically put their party’s interests ahead of their country’s. That said, there are differences:

1. McConnell has a vision for the future, which has largely been realized, pending possible revolutionary change from both the right and left;
2. McConnell occasionally displays some symptoms of patriotism and bipartisanship;
3. McConnell believes in keeping the lights on in Washington; and
4. McConnell generally tells the truth and keeps his word.

McCarthy, on the other hand, has no apparent interest in anything except becoming Speaker. He sees maintaining party unity as the means by which that will happen. As a result, he accommodates the extremist members of his caucus to an extent that is dangerous to the country–not that he cares.

The war in Ukraine has devolved into something that looks like World War I: heavy casualties on both sides; the predominance of artillery and trench warfare; and mostly static lines. If the analogy holds, what does it tell us about the future?

It’s pretty scary. Neither side was willing to make a legitimate attempt to talk peace in 1916. 1917 and 1918 saw escalation in an effort to break the deadlock: unrestricted submarine warfare; the entrance of the US into the war; and the great German offensive of 1918. The Russian Empire collapsed, to be followed by the Austro-Hungarian and German Empires. You know the rest.

If Putin isn’t willing to call it a day and make a deal at some point of his choosing, he’s going to have to escalate. He could do that by mobilizing more troops, by using nuclear or chemical weapons, or by enlisting support from the Chinese. If he does, NATO will have to respond in kind. Things could get pretty hairy after that.

It’s March of 2023. The GOP has a slim majority in the House. President Biden sends a request for more military aid to Ukraine to Congress. A substantial majority of GOP House members supports the bill, but a smattering of Trumpists does not. As a result, Kevin McCarthy either has to rely on votes from Democrats to get the bill through, and thus alienate the extremists in his caucus, or watch the bill fail and see Putin swallow Ukraine.

What does he do? Any decent man in his position would put the national interest before his own. Can you really rely on a guy who lied about telling the truth, and who consistently panders to the crazoids in his party, to do that?

Steve Bannon was fond of saying that any day spent discussing identity politics was a win for the GOP. For the most part, he is right, because identity issues create wedges within the Democratic Party, but not the GOP.

The inverse to Bannon’s dictum is that any day in which Donald Trump commands the headlines is a win for the Democrats. Trump may be hugely popular with the red base, but the country as a whole disliked him even before the events of January 6. The more the man on golf cart is identified with the GOP, the worse it is for the party as a whole.

Chuck Schumer has come to the Oval Office for a victory lap.

B: Chuckles! You da man! Or should I say, you da Manchin whisperer!

S: I just did my job, Mr. President.

B: I remember in the old days, Barack used to call me the McConnell whisperer. I guess something like that is your job now.

S: Something like that. Joe’s easier to deal with than Mitch, even though he’s less predictable.

B: We’ve accomplished quite a lot in this term, don’t you think?

S: We didn’t make you the new FDR. That was probably never realistic, given our slim majorities, the Ukraine war, and inflation. But leaving that aside, I think our record is damn good. Particularly if you compare it to Trump’s. All he could do is cut taxes, and he barely got that done.

B: So where do we go now?

S: First, we need to start selling all these bills to the American public and pointing out the differences between us and the Republicans. Then, we have to do a decent job with the election.

B: Then what? Do we have a realistic agenda for the next two years?

S: Almost regardless of the outcome of the election, we’re playing defense the next two years. Barring some sort of a miracle, we’re not getting anything meaningful done until 2024.

B: Yeah, the next two years are going to be full of Republican malarkey. They’re going to be investigating my son out the wazoo. We’re probably going to have a debt ceiling crisis, too. The Trump base will demand one. They don’t care if we destroy the country’s credit or not. That’s part of burning it down.

S: What will you do if it happens?

B: I’m not going to give in to GOP blackmail, no matter what. We will continue to pay the nation’s bills whether Kevin and Mitch agree to it or not.

S: Good. In the meantime, let’s enjoy what we’ve accomplished. It was a long and winding road to get here.

B: And you were the driver. Thanks for everything. (Schumer leaves)

Kevin McCarthy is (or claims to be) outraged at the raid on Mar-a-Lago. He is telling Merrick Garland to clear his calendar to answer lots of questions from the expected GOP House majority in a few months.

I don’t know about you, but the prospect of Garland answering obnoxious questions from some doofus GOP committee chairman about Trump’s criminality on national TV fills me with joy, not fear.

Some genuinely pro-life pundits and politicians are supporting compromises on abortion legislation that wouldn’t find favor with the Catholic Church. Should they be accused of hypocrisy?

No, because there isn’t anything self-serving or dishonest about taking only what you can reasonably get in the real world–that’s called liberal democracy. Where I have a problem with anti-abortion activists is when they pretend to take a position that really isn’t what they want based on principles they don’t actually advocate (e.g., abortion should be regulated by the individual states) and when they advocate policies they know are practically impossible in order to prove their good faith and moderation (e.g., the GOP will expand the welfare state to protect the mothers of unwanted babies once abortion has been outlawed).

Donald Trump was an historically unpopular president. His antics with regard to the virus didn’t help much. Based on history and the polls, the GOP should have been destroyed in 2020. It didn’t happen; the GOP actually gained seats in the House. Biden’s poll numbers are similarly bad today; what, if anything, does that mean for 2022?

As in 2020, not as much as you might think. The blue base will be motivated to vote against the reds on culture war issues–particularly abortion. In spite of his troubles, Biden still polls ahead of Trump, whose association with the GOP hasn’t diminished a bit. The playing field for the Senate in 2022 is tilted towards the Democrats. Finally, increasing polarization creates a floor as well as a ceiling for both parties. It will be just as difficult to create a red wave as it was a blue one.

Yesterday, I posted on the economic impacts of the first 18 months of the Biden regime. Today, I will take on the issues that send the right screaming into the night-crime, immigration, and culture war questions. Where do we stand with those?

On crime, the statistics show that violent crime increased dramatically in 2020–the last year of Trump, and the first year of the pandemic. The increase continued, but at a slower rate, under Biden, and was felt in both urban and rural areas. There isn’t much of a case to be made here, even assuming (absurdly) that either president had much of an impact.

On immigration, while the right continues to howl about the crisis at the border, The Economist is telling us that immigration is down, and the economy is suffering as a result. As I’ve stated many times before, increasing immigration is a good way to fill construction and service jobs and thus to reduce inflation.

As to the culture war, the right has been predicting an apocalypse for white Christians since 2016. Did the 2020 election cause the promised disaster? Hardly. In fact, the right, thanks largely to the Supreme Court and red state legislatures, has had a field day using government to deprive blue people of rights they value (abortion; freedom of speech), while expanding the rights cherished by red people (guns). Wokeness is in retreat. There are no Christian concentration camps anywhere in the country. What’s not to like?

I won’t have an opinion on that subject until I know what the DOJ was looking for, why they were looking for it, and what the agents actually found. You shouldn’t have an opinion at this point, either, unless you work for the DOJ and have inside information.

The bottom line is that anyone who claims to be outraged at this point is talking out of his rear end and should keep quiet until we see what happens next.

It’s the question that Reagan used to devastating effect in 1980. With the midterms coming up in a few months, it is fair to ask it of the first part of the Biden regime. In this post, I will be addressing material concerns; in a second post, I will discuss some of the right’s cultural concerns.

The answer to the question is complicated, as follows:

1. The unemployment rate has fallen from over 6 percent to 3.5 percent. If you were unemployed in January 2021, and subsequently found a job, you are clearly better off.
2. If you had pre-existing debt, inflation has made you a winner. You are paying off your debt with depreciated dollars.
3. If you own your home, it is probably worth significantly more than it was in January 2021. Count yourself a winner.
4. Business interests have had some difficulty adjusting to changed conditions, most notably, supply chain problems and labor shortages. Nevertheless, the DJIA is up from January 2021, and corporate profits have soared. You are probably better off than you were back then, although you have some reason to worry about a recession in the foreseeable future.
5. If you had a job and kept it, or found a better one, the first few months of Biden were excellent, because you increased your savings and received a stimulus payment. Since then, however, your wages probably haven’t kept pace with inflation. You may or may not be better off today than you were in January 2021, based on the state of your savings, but the immediate future doesn’t look that great, barring a decrease in the inflation rate.
6. If you’re trying to buy a house, or renting, you are definitely worse off, due to soaring housing costs.
7. If you’re a retiree, you were protected from inflation to some extent by the indexing of Social Security. Your stocks are still up from January 2021. Your bonds may not be. It’s a mixed bag.

The bottom line here is that there is no clear verdict; it depends on your individual circumstances. There is nothing in the Biden record, however, which suggests that a red wave is appropriate.

Peter Thiel is the quintessential CL: a tech billionaire who thinks the fate of mankind revolves around geniuses like himself, and who consequently thinks he should be completely free of any annoying government meddling in his business. And yet, Thiel is aggressively supporting two candidates–Vance and Masters–who are running as reactionary, business-skeptical populists. On its face, it makes no sense. What is going on here?

My best guess is that Thiel sees the reactionaries (including Trump, of course) as a force that will destroy the constraints of liberal democracy and the rule of law and leave unfettered freedom and power to people like him. In other words, instead of a Marxist dictatorship of the proletariat, he is looking forward to the dictatorship of the tech billionaire.

As the saying goes, Marx turned Hegel on his head. Thiel wants to turn Marx on his head.

Progressives want to use the government to improve the lives of all Americans, including those who routinely vote against them. They believe in liberal democracy, accept the constraints inherent in the system, and take a half loaf when it is the best they can expect. The far right, on the other hand, increasingly rejects liberal democracy, rejects any sort of compromise, and sees government as a tool to punish the left, not as a force for good for all Americans. Its adherents want to burn it down, create chaos, and impose authoritarian rule on the rest of us.

It’s not the same thing at all.