Month: December 2022

For DeSantis and his base, the legislation terminating the Reedy Creek Improvement District is Exhibit A in his battle against wokeness. It shows just how far he will go, and what risks he will run, to strike a blow in the culture wars. It makes him look like a more effective version of Trump.

But for moderates, the Disney legislation is Exhibit A in the case against the Hungarian Candidate. It looks like a Trump tweet turned into law. It is a violation of First Amendment rights, done on a whim and without any kind of serious planning, which could end very badly for Florida’s taxpayers. It is despotism, pure and simple.

Whatever gains DeSantis might have pocketed as a result of the legislation have passed their expiration date. If he wants to be president, he needs to end this dispute as quickly as possible. Expect the Florida Legislature to essentially repeal 90 percent of the legislation, while keeping some cosmetic parts of it in place. DeSantis will then declare victory and move on.

It’s kind of like what Putin should do in Ukraine, but won’t.

The Iranian government has made it clear for over 40 years that restrictions on women’s dress are required by God. It has been willing to kill and imprison countless Iranians to defend that principle. With that in mind, does anyone seriously believe the concession on the morality police is genuine? It is simply an effort to eliminate the pressure. Once the pressure is gone, the police will return.

The dissidents are not completely stupid, so they apparently understand this perfectly. And so, the battle in the streets will continue.

No serious commentator believes that the current Supreme Court is going to rule against the web designer in the case that will be argued tomorrow, given its passion for protecting Christians. And, in fact, the designer has a reasonable argument; who wants to be compelled to express support for beliefs one finds abhorrent? The real question, however, is not the decision in this case; it is how far that decision can be stretched in the future.

The looming issue here is whether right-wing Christians will be permitted to refuse to serve blacks, or Jews, or other ethnic and religious minorities in violation of various civil rights laws based on sincerely felt, but bigoted, religious views. I suspect the Court will bend over backwards to make it clear that it is not endorsing that kind of discrimination, because to do otherwise would confirm the left’s worst fears about the Court and embarrass its reactionary friends, who repeatedly and ferociously insist they are not bigots. But how can the line be drawn to provide a reasonable limit to this precedent?

There are two obvious answers. One is to say that the vast majority of jobs and businesses don’t involve the exercise of First Amendment rights; the web designer is an idea creator, but a restaurant owner, for example, is not. The second is to draw a line between traditional religious views about gay rights, based on clear doctrine and historical experience, and racial questions The Court would have to concede that some Christian denominations have put racial discrimination at the heart of their doctrine, but it would undoubtedly say that those were aberrations that do not exist today.

Are those common sense distinctions viable in the long run? I have my doubts, but we’ll see.

It’s hard to overstate just how bereft of ideas the GOP is as a collective whole. In 2020, of course, the party platform was just to support the American Caligula in anything he might decide to do. In 2022, GOP candidates complained about crime and inflation without proposing any plausible ways of dealing with them. We can expect something similar in 2024. Since the party is not really full of morons, what’s going on here?

Two things. First, the party is badly divided on ideological grounds, so talking about ideas threatens party unity, which is viewed as the key to electoral success. You can keep everyone on board by relying on least common denominator issues like CRT and “defund the police.” Second, to the extent that the GOP actually has a program, it is highly unpopular with voters. Mocking climate change, oppressing minorities, cutting Social Security and Medicare, and further reducing taxes on the wealthy is not exactly a winning formula. Why would you talk about something that costs you votes when you can win with swagger, nostalgia, and culture wars?

We scraped through 2022.

We won’t be sad to say adieu.

Inflation and the hurricane;

The past year brought us lots of pain.

_________

We rode through Ian in NC.

We watched it unfold on TV.

We hoped our house would dodge the flood,

But storm surge left it full of mud.’

____________

To winter here was not the plan

But we will do the best we can.

We have no other place to go

So I’ll relearn to shovel snow.

_____________

In politics, a stalemate.

The blue team dodged a far worse fate.

With battles looming over debt

Our nation ain’t seen nothing yet.

_____________

My wife chose working over rest.

The Land of Oz; Horn in the West.

Darcy now is five years old.

She’s adjusting to the cold.

_______________

I’ll leave this on the brighter side.

This year we traveled far and wide.

Texas, Chi-town, and D.C.

Boston, MD, NYC.

___________

We won’t miss 2022.

We send our best to all of you.

By this time next year we should see

A better 2023.

By March 2024, even Trump could see the handwriting on the wall. The math was remorseless. He was going to lose to DeSantis.

His rage was incandescent. It was bad enough to lose to “Sleepy Joe,” but DeSantis? The man was his creature! He made him a governor, and a celebrity! And now this? It was intolerable!

Since Trump had no allegiance to the “corrupt” Republican Party that had turned on him and rigged the election, he seriously considered running a third party campaign to split the right-wing vote and deny DeSantis the presidency. It was what the man deserved, after all. But Trump’s pragmatic side prevailed, for once; he knew he didn’t have the juice for another unsuccessful campaign, and DeSantis potentially had the power to give him something he wanted–a pardon.

Trump contacted DeSantis and used his leverage, as he had so many times in the past. While he would not appear on stage with DeSantis at the convention or campaign for him, he would agree not to run as a third party candidate or to support the Democrats in exchange for the promise of a future pardon. DeSantis quickly accepted the deal, thereby making his future presidency (if it happened) corrupt in the eyes of most of the public from Day 1.

Did Trump keep his promise not to diss DeSantis? Did the burn it down crowd hold its collective nose and vote for DeSantis in November? For the answers to those questions, read my predictions in 2024.

Trump’s 2016 primary opponents–the Class of 2016, if you will–had two things in common: a raging ambition to be president; and an intense desire to avenge themselves on the man who had humiliated them for the past several years. Seeing blood in the water, most of them plunged in. They were joined by Larry Hogan, who had his own tiny lane and nothing better to do, Rick Scott, who mistakenly believed the GOP electorate was panting for him and massive budget cuts, and DeSantis. It was a full field, to be sure.

Trump started with the advantages of money, name recognition, and a fanatical base. He hoped to play his opponents against each other. But Fox immediately threw its support to DeSantis, and his opponents spent all of their time attacking him, thus wearing him down. Worse, even Ted Cruz ultimately agreed to surrender and support DeSantis. It was a two man race by March.

The numbers told the story–Trump was doomed. What would he do next? Would he gracefully bow out of the race and give DeSantis his complete support?

I will answer that question in my next post, but really, if you have any understanding of Trump, it answers itself.

Putin made a deal with the Russian people: stay out of politics, and I’ll give you stability and some measure of freedom and prosperity. Xi offered the Chinese people the same deal, but with less freedom. The Iranian leadership, on the other hand, made no such bargain; as far as they’re concerned, they speak for God, and the will of the population is irrelevant.

All three autocracies are stumbling. Putin initiated a disastrous war and so broke his bargain; the Chinese people are out in the street complaining about covid policies; and opposition to the Iranian regime becomes more dangerous by the day. This is due to two things: autocrats–even the competent ones–are far from infallible, and usually double down when they should retreat to avoid looking weak; and the desire for at least some minimum level of individual freedom and prosperity is universal.

Take note, American admirers of autocracy.

Here is where the two GOP titans stand with the factions:

1. REACTIONARIES: Trump has effectively split them into two groups. The “Burn it down” crowd will support him through thick and thin; its members view his outrageous behavior as a way of keeping faith with them. The Constitutional Reactionaries mostly agree with his agenda, but deplore his unattractive personal qualities and object to January 6. They think America can be returned to the 1950s without any dramatic change in liberal democracy.
2. PBPs: They generally despise Trump, but appreciate his support for business tax cuts and deregulation. Their relationship with Trump and DeSantis will be purely transactional.
3. CLs and CDs: The CDs, once a mainstay of the party, have mostly left it over the last decade. There are very few genuine CL voters.

The bottom line here is that Trump cannot win a head-to-head matchup with DeSantis with just the “Burn it down” vote because it doesn’t represent a majority of the party. DeSantis has the Constitutional Reactionary vote in his pocket. The CLs and CDs won’t come out in large enough numbers to matter much. The key questions are whether DeSantis can win over the PBPs by adhering to strict GOP orthodoxy on tax cuts and deregulation, and whether additional candidates will split that vote and throw the election to Trump.