Month: March 2023

MTG has announced that America needs a “national divorce.” By that, she has made it clear she is not calling for secession; she simply wants a dramatic rollback of the powers of the federal government to permit the red states to be governed exclusively in the interests of conservative white Christians. In effect, she is calling for the repeal of the Constitution, and the return of the Articles of Confederation. Now, that’s old school!

How could this be accomplished? What would MTG’s America look like? What challenges would she face? I will be addressing these questions throughout the week.

We shouldn’t try to sugarcoat it; the Saudi-Iranian agreement is a slap in Joe Biden’s face. Saudi Arabia clearly views America as an unreliable partner and wants to go on its own way. MBS would prefer to hang out with his fellow autocrats–Xi and Putin–than with annoying democrats who hector him on human rights while asking for lower oil prices. Using a Chinese mediator to midwife the deal is proof of that.

But is this such a bad thing for America? Biden clearly wants to disengage in the Middle East and focus on China; this will help. One less potential war in the Middle East is a positive, not a negative, development. America no longer has responsibility for any diplomatic or military mistakes that MBS may make, or for his autocratic rule. If radical Islam makes a comeback, the counterrevolutionaries won’t be able to point to us as the ultimate guarantors of MBS’ government. Finally, it means America is the only game in town for Israel if it wants a war with Iran. That gives us more leverage over Netanyahu and his radical right-wing pals.

You can consequently make a decent argument that we are better off than we were two days ago. The same cannot be said for the Israeli government, which probably believed that the march towards normalization could not be stopped. The security alternative of a Saudi alliance is gone, at least for the moment. It is America or nothing.

In what can only be described as a diplomatic revolution, the Saudis and the Iranians made a deal yesterday. Both sides agreed to reopen their embassies, and the Iranians presumably promised to stop attacking Saudi oil fields and cut their support for the Houthis and other Shiite militant groups. The deal was brokered by the Chinese. In addition, the Saudis named their price for normalization with Israel; the requested concessions were all demanded from, not Israel, but the US, as if we were the chief beneficiary of the deal. These terms will not be accepted by the US government.

For the Iranians, the agreement is a painful concession to reality; the Islamic Republic is overstretched and unpopular at home, and can no longer afford to confront all of Sunni Islam as well as America and Israel. For the Chinese, it is a way of flexing diplomatic muscles and ensuring a stable flow of oil. For the Saudis, it is a declaration of independence from the US, a trend that started in the last phases of the Trump era and has accelerated under Biden. MBS, as I noted in a previous post, shares a number of characteristics with Xi; with Chinese support and no real external security threats, he is free to exercise his autocratic powers to remake his country in any way he likes. The previous subservience for security deal with America is now superfluous–at least, as long as the new agreement holds, which is subject to question.

All three of these nations are the apparent winners of the deal; America and Israel are the losers. Are they, really? I will address that question tomorrow.

“Social Security is on an unsustainable path,” said the experts. The current retirement age was too low to deal with longer lifespans. The system would be bankrupted without substantial change. It was essential to increase the retirement age slowly in order to maintain solvency.

The year was 1983, and the retirement age was, in fact, increased. It is still increasing today and is not particularly generous to American workers, when compared to European pension schemes. But we are once again hearing that the system is unsustainable, and that the retirement age is too low. Is that true? Have there been dramatic increases in lifespans since 1983? Do we need to pile on a second increase?

No. The current demographic issue is the lack of younger taxpayers, not any sweeping change in life expectancy. The obvious way to deal with that problem, as with the issue of unfilled jobs, is to permit more immigration.

Democrats believe that a decent level of health care is a right, not a privilege, in a society such as ours that can afford it. Republicans, by and large, don’t agree. They think health care is a commodity like any other–like a car, or food–that must be earned, and should not be provided by the government. That is why they appear to be determined to cut both Medicaid and Obamacare, even though no specific plans have been released to date.

The GOP concept would work if the workers the party claims to represent could actually afford health care without subsidies. Republicans, unfortunately, oppose all efforts to increase worker power (and thus wages); they also oppose any meaningful attempts to rein in health care costs. So how are average workers–even reactionary white Christian workers–supposed to pay for health care in the GOP universe? They can’t, of course.

Health care is a field in which the Democrats have an inherent advantage under most circumstances. When the GOP is trying to take existing rights away, as opposed to the Democrats increasing the size of programs, the advantage becomes much greater. The left needs to take full advantage of this gift from the right over the next two years.

The GOP, of course, has made considerable political hay over the issue of wokeness in primary schools. The rationale for this is the need for the system to be accountable to parents. I have previously made the point that, as a state and local government taxpayer, I have as much right to a say on wokeness issues as anyone, but the Republicans ignored me. To them, it was only about the parents; taxpayers without children didn’t count.

Since college students are adults and informed consumers, the GOP can’t take the same position with regard to higher education. So what is their argument with regard to wokeness in state colleges? That the system has to be accountable to the taxpayers–the same argument they reject with primary schools!

As a practical matter, the Florida Republican effort to turn universities into incubators for conservatives will fail. There simply aren’t enough conservative professors or students to make it work. The best members of the system–both students and teachers–will flee to other states, thereby leaving Florida dumber and poorer. In short, DeSantis and his friends can’t convert the system; they can only destroy it.

So the right is worked up about debt

Though they don’t have a budget plan yet.

The deficit rose

Fiscal records will show

From Trump’s tax cuts, so don’t you forget.

Rural white Protestant America’s fear and loathing of cities is a theme of our history that stretches through centuries. It extends from Jefferson to Palin, and from the Know-Nothings to the 1920s KKK to the opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. I’m not sure it has ever been more pronounced than it is today. Why?

Because, in a knowledge-based and globalized economy, the urban areas are thriving, and the rural areas are not. An economic rationale has thus been added to the usual cultural resentment, which is based on the belief that only white Protestants are real Americans, and that everyone else is a dangerous interloper seeking wealth and power at their expense.

In a sense this is silly, of course; the allegedly purely American culture they embrace with such fervor has cosmopolitan roots. To point out two examples, cowboys and the culture around them are largely derived from Mexico, and country music has its inspiration in a variety of sources, including music created by the descendants of slaves. In addition, would the real Americans really want to live in a world without ethnic food? Probably not.

Regardless of the thinness of the rationale, however, the divide persists, and becomes more dangerous by the day. The Democrats will have to find a way to transcend it if they want to win power as well as office.

I’ve previously commented on the many similarities between Trump and Netanyahu. Now it appears we can add another to the list. Trump was, and is, willing to leave blue America in ashes as long as he can be the leader of the other half; Bibi, it seems, is perfectly willing to bring his country to the brink of civil war as long as he can cling to power.

In Trump’s case, the problem was rooted in his narcissism. Bibi isn’t a narcissist, so what’s his motivation? Fear of the ongoing prosecution? Has he come to believe his own propaganda about being the indispensable man? Both?

I’m guessing the answer is both.

The thing about the internet is that it functions like a pantheistic version of God: it is present everywhere, but has no specific location. As a result, anyone around the world with an opinion about the Florida GOP, or Ron DeSantis, has the ability to post it. That is the reason the internet is regulated lightly, and only at the national and international levels.

Does the Florida GOP think it has the ability to identify the origin of critical posts, when they truly only exist in cyberspace? Or does it believe it has the power to regulate expressive activity outside of the borders of its home state, without other states claiming the same rights? Either way, the assaults on the First Amendment are outrageous, performative, and doomed to fail.

Florida Republicans are on a tear, and that doesn’t even include their new proposed abortion legislation. First, one of them filed a bill regarding defamation cases and public officials that is clearly intended to push the Supreme Court to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan. Now, the same guy is trying to force all bloggers who write about DeSantis and other state officials to register with the state and disclose any compensation received for writing the blog. This bill is so unconstitutional under prevailing interpretations of the First Amendment that it makes my head swim, which I suppose is the author’s point.

I’ll leave the legal analysis for another day. The first question I want to ask this guy is, do you think what happens in Florida will stay in Florida? Do you think Gavin Newsom likes criticism any better than DeSantis? Don’t you understand that, if you somehow prevail, your friends at Fox News and Breitbart will be in terrible trouble in blue states? Overturning prevailing First Amendment precedents won’t just impact blue people; it will severely damage liberal democracy in America, and impact the interests of dissenters everywhere, including red pundits in blue states.

If there is one thing on which all members of the GOP agree, it is opposition to wokeness. As a result, it is hardly surprising that some limited government advocates are describing federal programs that largely benefit white Christian workers as “woke.”

Aside from the opportunism, there is a certain logic to this; if wokeness is a kind of war for equality, why must it be limited to people of color? But the public understanding of wokeness revolves around race and sex, not federal spending. Poor white people will be astonished to hear that Medicaid spending keeping rural hospitals in business is “woke.” As a result, these efforts aren’t going to work.

A note to my readers: We will be taking a break from our house restoration until Tuesday. Regular postings will resume next Wednesday.

The obvious solution to the Social Security shortfall is to eliminate the income cap on the tax, which is currently around $160,000. Doing so admittedly would do some damage to the widely held perception that Social Security is a standard insurance program, based purely on consumer payments and actuarial statistics, but that’s only an illusion, so who cares?

Biden has shown a willingness to address the income cap, but only for people earning over $400,000 per year. Why that number? It’s a relic from the Obama years. It bears no relationship whatsoever to public perceptions regarding who is rich and who is middle class. It doesn’t bear any relationship to anything, as far as I can tell.

There is no obvious reason why a poor or middle-class person should pay a higher rate of FICA tax than someone making $399,999 per year. This number needs to go.

Rick Scott, the party’s most prominent CL, and Josh Hawley, its best known “national conservative,” aren’t running for president. That means the scope of disagreement on the issues among the candidates will be relatively narrow. Since the candidates will all be looking for votes from the Reactionary and PBP factions of the party, the real questions will involve their ability to create bridges between the two factions.

For all that, there will be some genuine disputes, including the following:

1. UKRAINE: Trump openly supports Putin and despises Ukraine; DeSantis dismisses Putin as a problem; the rest of the candidates will probably be openly pro-Ukraine. Advantage, the others.
2. ABORTION: All of the candidates will support new restrictions on abortion, of course, but they will probably disagree on a national ban, exceptions, and the length of the legal abortion window. Mike Pence will undoubtedly take the hardest line and win millions of pro-life votes; the others will be all over the map.
3. CLIMATE CHANGE: Trump will say it’s a complete fraud. The others will probably acknowledge its existence, but insist nothing can be done without wrecking the economy. The latter position is closer to the position held by the median GOP voter, but it remains to be seen whether moderation on this issue can attract votes.
4. AGRICULTURE AND TARIFFS: Trump will say his Chinese tariffs were a complete success. Iowa voters may beg to differ, which leaves an opening for the other candidates.
5. IMMIGRATION: Trump will never let any opponent take a more extreme position on the border than he does. He will probably advocate for family separation again. Will the others follow, or simply criticize Biden without proposing any real alternatives? If the latter, will the base punish them for their equivocation? My guess is yes.
6. ENTITLEMENTS: We know Trump fully understands that the base supports Social Security and Medicare. He will never support cuts, regardless of what the donor class wants. What about the others? Expect vague statements about the need to “save” the programs, but no commitments on cuts, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the PBPs and the Reactionaries.
7. TAX CUTS: Republicans have to have a new tax cut warming up in the bullpen, don’t they?

What you won’t hear is a debate on wokeness. There isn’t one in the GOP.

In a way, the assassination saved my reputation. If I had lived to deal with Reconstruction, I would have been caught between my instinct to be generous with the rebels and my desire to do right by the former slaves. I would have been more successful in dealing with Congress than Johnson–that’s not a high bar–but would I have embraced the Radical Republican agenda or attempted to tone it down? We’ll never know.

Unfortunately, the racial issue just morphed into something more subtle and permanent after the war; it didn’t disappear. The fight for racial equality long postdates Reconstruction. In some ways, the Civil Rights Movement was the sequel to the Civil War. Even now, racial issues largely drive American politics.

Like virtually everyone else during my day, I was a racist, albeit an unusually enlightened one. Events since then have proved to my satisfaction that racism is wrong. The Republican Party is consequently no longer on the side of the angels; ironically, it is the Democrats, who opposed the war in the 1860s, who are on the cutting edge of history.