Month: January 2023

At first glance, Benedict and Donald Trump appear to have nothing in common. Benedict was highly literate and articulate. He had a well-developed ethical system that wasn’t based on power. He wasn’t narcissistic or corrupt. He gave up power with grace. Above all, he wanted desperately to strengthen the establishment, not to burn it down. All of these factors weigh heavily in his favor if you compare the two.

But Benedict, like Trump, believed in drawing lines and excluding people who did not completely buy into his program. Just as Trump sees a distinction between “Real America” and people like me, Benedict wanted to enforce the line between traditional Catholics and everyone else. In Trumpian terms, he threw red meat to his base and showed little interest in reaching out to anyone else. As a clerical politician, he was a one-trick pony, and a failure, just like the man on golf cart.

Benedict’s papacy did not extend into the Trump years. You have to imagine that he would have been an AAT–appalled by Trump’s personal shortcomings, but grateful enough for his reactionary rhetoric and judicial choices to keep his mouth shut. He would be a DeSantis supporter today.

Paul Krugman thinks the allegedly brilliant Elon Musk is making an obvious mistake by going full MAGA on Sewer and thereby alienating the primarily blue person customer base for Tesla. Is he right?

Yes, and it’s actually worse than that. The average flamboyant right-wing businessman can count on reactionaries to come to his aid by buying his product if he is attacked from the left. In this instance, however, the red base is totally committed to fossil fuels. It is never going to embrace electric cars just to bail Musk out; coal miners and oil executives are much more important.

Musk is in danger of finding himself a man without a country. A man without money would come next.

In commemoration (celebration?) of Former Papal Guy’s death, I’m going to do an entire weekly series on Benedict’s thought and legacy. You may wonder why the life of an old man who hasn’t been pope for ages is worthy of such attention. I won’t leave that question unanswered.

There are two reasons. First, Benedict’s ideology was, and remains, a source of inspiration for many prominent figures of the New Right. The arc of GOP thought is currently bending in their direction, so they can’t be ignored. Second, I am quite certain that Benedict, in a different time, would have had me burned at the stake for insisting upon the primacy of logic and experience over his personal authority. Even Xi and Putin wouldn’t go that far, to say nothing of Trump and DeSantis.

It’s a lot to forgive–way too much, in fact. I will discuss it in more detail throughout the week.

These will be the biggest stories of 2023:

1. RUSSIA/UKRAINE: Both Putin and NATO will escalate slowly and in a reciprocal way, without moving the needle much. By the end of the year, there is some momentum for a reasonable diplomatic settlement, as a total military victory for either side seems less and less plausible.
2. TURKEY: With an election coming soon and the economy in trouble, Erdogan stirs the nationalist pot in order to divert the attention of his voters. A war with Greece looks imminent for a time, but the usefulness of the crisis ends, so Erdogan slowly pulls back from the brink.
3. CHINA: See “Turkey” above, with Taiwan replacing Greece and without the election part.
4. IRAN: Given that Iran is now effectively an ally of Russia, a war to stop the export of weapons, eliminate the nuclear threat, and weaken the power of the regime to control dissent would make some sense on its face. Biden really doesn’t want another Middle East war, however, so it doesn’t happen.
5. NORTH KOREA: With all possible diplomatic solutions exhausted, and an aggressive war unthinkable, the US and the rest of the world quietly faces facts and learns to live with Kim’s nukes.

DONALD TRUMP: To live under an ethical system that isn’t based solely on power.

RON DESANTIS: To develop some empathy for the 50 percent of Americans who don’t agree with him on issues involving race and sex.

PROGRESSIVES: To read the Serenity Prayer every day. Their agenda is going nowhere for the next two years.

KEVIN MCCARTHY: To grow a spine.

JOE BIDEN: Since DeSantis, not Trump, is likely to be the GOP nominee, to make plans for an early retirement. Barring that, to build a time machine.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: To paraphrase Chris Christie during Sandy, to get his ass out of Ukraine.

XI JINPING: To chill out and loosen up a bit. It’s in the best interests of himself, his country, and the world.

THE RIGHT-WING MAJORITY ON THE SUPREME COURT: To keep the counterrevolutionary stuff to a dull roar to preserve what is left of the Court’s legitimacy.

AYATOLLAH KHAMENEI: To die as soon as possible in order to free his people.

JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE: Happy New Year!