A few years ago, I said he would gladly reduce half of America to ashes as long as he was recognized as the leader of the remaining half. Is it Trump or McCarthy? You decide.
If you were ever wondering what it is that binds these two very different men together, look no further.
You’re a successful businessman, and you’ve always voted Republican. Why? It isn’t because the economy performs better under the GOP, because that simply isn’t true. It isn’t primarily because the inevitable tax cuts help your bottom line, although you are certainly grateful for them. No, it is because you view yourself as the rugged individual–a job-creating superman–who makes the American economy go. It was you–not Donald Trump, let alone some wacko wearing a Viking outfit in the Capitol–who made America great. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans understood this. They showed you the deference you deserved.
But things are changing. A large part of the GOP is now at war with “woke capital.” They think business is the enemy. They believe businessmen are only entitled to free speech if they say and do the right things.
So, what do you do now? Do you shut up and make money, or defend your constitutional rights? We’ll see.
The NYT had another article about food companies raising prices in excess of any inflationary trends in order to increase profits. This article indicated that the price increases are predictably starting to run into consumer resistance. If that trend continues, consumer spending will ultimately decline, and the businesses in question will lose sales and profits. A recession, albeit a mild one, is the likely outcome.
Who will get the blame for this myopic behavior? Why, Biden and the Fed, of course.
Jamelle Bouie thinks the Supreme Court is arrogant and unaccountable to the public. Is that the real problem with the Court?
The right would (and did) make the same case against the Warren Court, so judicial independence is not really the issue. History will judge the Roberts Court harshly, not because it was indifferent to the transient will of the electorate, but because it imposed a partisan agenda in the following ways:
Twenty years from now, I suspect there will be as much pressure to overrule key Roberts Court decisions as there was to overturn Roe over the last two decades. Alito and Thomas will be to the left what Douglas and Brennan were to the right fifty years ago.
We can be reasonably certain of the following:
Here’s what we don’t know:
We won’t know the answers to those questions for a few months. In the meantime, keep the anti-nausea pills handy, because you’re going to need them.
Anyone old enough to remember the USSR will recall that its leaders portrayed themselves as “moderates” who were subject to the control of other, unnamed hardliners in the Kremlin. They would take extreme positions and warn that, if those positions were not accepted, the hardliners would intervene and make things even worse for us. It was a tactic that worked every now and then.
Since he succeeded in getting the House to accept his ransom note without a vote to spare, Kevin McCarthy has no wiggle room in any upcoming negotiations. He can thus credibly argue that Biden’s only alternatives are to accept his demands or trigger a default. It is essentially the “hardliners in the Kremlin” argument in a different context.
The bottom line here is as follows:
Elizabeth Warren came into the 2020 election as one of the favorites. She had passion, debating talents that no one could match, and a variety of plans that received plenty of positive press. She had a serious problem, however; she couldn’t figure out how to position herself relative to Bernie Sanders. Was she a more electable version of Bernie, with identical policy ideas, or a bridge between Sanders and more moderate Democrats? She zigged and zagged on the question, most notably with her health care plan, but ultimately fell on side of being a better version of Bernie. It didn’t work, and her candidacy died with surprising speed.
Ron DeSantis has the same problem with Trump. As of now, he’s selling himself as a policy clone of Trump with a history of winning elections. The polls are showing that the reactionary base wants Trump, not the Diet Coke version of the man on golf cart. Will he change course before it is too late and focus on the 70 percent of the GOP electorate that is available to him? We’ll see.
To date, Biden has refused to negotiate on the debt ceiling, for two reasons: first, there was no House GOP proposal to consider, and he wasn’t going to bargain with himself; and second, as a matter of principle, paying existing debts should be an unconditional obligation, not an opportunity for extortion. That was the appropriate response at the time.
As of this afternoon, however, we finally have a ransom note, albeit one that only passed with two votes to spare. So what does Biden do now? He has three choices:
In my opinion, Option #1 is not worth the risks, as Trump will be the only beneficiary if there is a default, and dividing the GOP on this issue won’t really impact the presidential election. I personally support #2, but Biden hasn’t shown much interest in it as of today, partly because it will make the markets uneasy. That leaves #3. My guess is that we will ultimately have a deal that includes a commitment to create some sort of bipartisan entitlements and deficit commission, the clawing back of unspent pandemic money, and a few other minor items that won’t move the needle one way or the other.
Joe and Dr. Jill are in the White House, talking about the upcoming campaign.
JOE: So, we’re back on the trail one last time. It’s like “The Last Dance,” except it’s a lot more important.
JILL: I always figured you’d run again, particularly since Trump is likely to be the nominee. What’s the plan this time?
JOE: Same as last time, except we’ll do it from the Rose Garden instead of the basement. We’ll continue to look stable and competent and let Trump make himself the issue. He’ll destroy himself, just like last time. He can’t help it. It’s who he is.
JILL: A Rose Garden strategy has more dignity than a basement strategy, for sure. But you’ll still have to do some campaigning. How is that going to work, at your age?
JOE: Most of my appearances will be at ribbon-cuttings in the Midwest. The rest I’ll leave to Kamala. She needs to make a case for herself, both now and for 2028. This will be a good experience for her.
JILL: Makes sense.
JOE: How do you feel about where we are? Do you think we win?
JILL: The odds are in your favor, but there are a couple of things that could happen that would put us behind.
JOE: Which are?
JILL: First of all, some sort of foreign policy crisis that doesn’t go well, with you taking the blame. A collapse in Ukraine would be the obvious possibility, but there are a host of others. You just never know.
JOE: And?
JILL: The economy goes bad. The big concern here is a default on the debt. You would blame the Republicans, and they would deserve it, but nobody is going to blame Trump. He will be the big winner if it happens. You need to avoid that at all costs.
JOE: Agreed. Anything else?
JILL: A terrible performance at a debate. Of course, Trump may refuse to show up for a debate if it isn’t run by some right-wing nut job organization. That would reduce your risk.
JOE: OK, then. Let’s get the show on the road!
Representatives from the NAACP and an LGBTQ group recently advised their members not to travel to Florida in light of DeSantis’ various anti-wokeness measures. DeSantis responded by saying these advisories were a political stunt.
Thus said the man who used Florida taxpayer money to fly immigrants from Venezuela who weren’t even in Florida to Martha’s Vineyard. He should know a stunt when he sees one.
Ron DeSantis went to Japan, ostensibly to sell Florida “freedom” to the Japanese, and said nice things about his hosts. Under normal conditions, this would be utterly unremarkable, but DeSantis is trying desperately to emulate Trump, and Trump thinks foreigners who aren’t autocrats do nothing but screw us over.
Does this mean that a President DeSantis would have a slightly more mainstream foreign policy than Trump, his comments about Russia and Ukraine notwithstanding? Probably. Will he admit it by attacking Trump on that issue? Probably not; it would make him sound too much like a “globalist.”
Tucker Carlson apparently has no idea why he was fired, so I won’t pretend to know more than he does. I would like to think it was because he did his best to persuade gullible people to burn liberal democracy down, but history tells me that isn’t the reason. He did something to piss off Rupert Murdoch, he cost Murdoch money, or both.
Far more than Trump, who is principally guided by his own unique personal grievances, Carlson is a perfect reactionary. The e-mails uncovered by Dominion prove that he’s a greedy cynic, too. I’m sure he will land on his feet, but he won’t be as prominent as he was at Fox, and I certainly won’t miss him.
The Economist is a strong supporter of liberal democracy, so it is quite properly critical of Chinese saber-rattling and human rights violations. On the other hand, it was founded to lobby for free trade, so it tends to minimize the Chinese challenge when it talks about American protectionism.
In keeping with this trend, the latest issue of the magazine did its best to convince Americans that we are “riding high,” in spite of all of the dissatisfaction with our economy. The gist of the argument was that American GDP has grown much faster than GDP in Europe and Japan over the last 30 years, and that the American economy still represents roughly the same percentage of world GDP even with the rise of China. The underlying message is that life in America is good with globalization, so we shouldn’t mess with a good thing, even if it means enabling the Chinese, as well.
There are two problems with this analysis. The first, of course, is that Europe and Japan don’t present a problem for us, but China does, so it isn’t really very reassuring to tell us that we’re thriving compared to the UK, France, and Italy. Second, comparing GDP numbers–at least, if you are using them as a measure of national well-being–is somewhat misleading, because health care costs in America are far higher than they are in Europe. This is a source of great anxiety, not comfort, to many Americans, but it actually beefs up our GDP, and makes us look better than the Europeans, who have no such anxieties.
You can certainly make a case that protectionism directed at the Chinese should be limited to high-tech products with a clear relationship to national security, and that protectionism focused on Europe and Japan shouldn’t exist at all. I would agree with that. But arguing that we should limit protectionism because we are doing better than our friends with limited government and free trade completely misses the point.
Capitalism is all about creative destruction, so American history is full of victims as well as winners. You never hear about them; in the past, they just moved on and found other jobs. This time is different, however; the losers in the change to a globalized knowledge-based economy present a serious threat to liberal democracy in America, as well as many European countries. Why the difference?
Several reasons:
Ever since the Reagan days, all serious GOP presidential candidates have been required to propose a large tax cut that primarily benefits the wealthy. The stated purpose of the program is to encourage investment, which improves productivity and ultimately results in higher wages for workers. In reality, this doesn’t happen; the real purpose of the tax cut is to provide a payoff for the GOP donor class, which then uses the proceeds to finance the deficit in what I call “right-wing recycling”.
To date, however, the 2024 candidates have said very little about taxes. The focus of the campaign has been more on electability, the sins of the establishment, and wokeness. Will that continue?
Yes, because the reactionary base is far more interested in wokeness than tax cuts, but I think taxes will start entering the arena fairly soon. In particular, if DeSantis continues to struggle, he’s going to need something pretty dramatic to win back the donor class, and a tax cut is the logical way to do it.