Month: April 2023

In the early stages of the “special military operation,” Putin was making little effort to mobilize public support for the conflict, largely because he didn’t think it was necessary. It was logical at that time to take the position that any NATO response should be similarly restrained in order to avoid escalation from the Russian side.

But things have changed. Putin has now taken every imaginable measure to win the war short of the use of weapons of mass destruction, which he has to assume is a red line for NATO. He has also shown no interest in any meaningful form of negotiation, probably because he thinks the GOP will ultimately hand Ukraine to him on a platter. How can he be driven to the bargaining table under these conditions?

You can argue that openly providing Ukraine with the weapons necessary to recapture Crimea would do the trick. There would obviously be risk involved; Putin might respond by using weapons of mass destruction or attacking NATO rather than by offering a reasonable deal that would avoid the potential of a humiliating defeat. Would the risk be worth it? It’s debatable.

The Electoral College will operate in the GOP’s favor in 2024, of course. In addition, the Democrats will have to defend a majority of the contested Senate seats. We don’t know what the economy will look like at the time of the election, or where the war will stand. On its face, there are plenty of reasons for pessimism. Do the Democrats have any offsetting advantages?

Yes. The GOP, regardless of who their nominee is, will be running as the party that wants to take your rights away. An essentially conservative electorate is skeptical of new government programs, but it won’t respond favorably to any attempts to deprive it of what it already has.

If DeSantis is elected president in 2024, you can be sure that he will be coming to Washington with lots of legislation attacking wokeness in his back pocket. Once there, he will run smack into the filibuster, whose most prominent advocate is one Mitch McConnell, a member of his own party.

DeSantis will be screaming for the abolition of the filibuster; extirpating wokeness is far more important than maintaining checks and balances to him. Will McConnell and the other GOP PBP senators give in?

My guess is yes, but it would be interesting to watch, in the same way that it is interesting to watch car crashes. We will be far better off if it never happens.

Several influential Republicans, including Trump, are on record proposing some sort of special American military excursion into Mexico to put an end to the smuggling of illegal drugs. Some of these people don’t see anything wrong in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Is this a reasonable solution to an admittedly serious problem?

Of course not. It might make some sense if the military could put an end to the drug trade by dropping a bomb on some enormous factory, but the business of manufacturing and smuggling drugs isn’t that centralized. Identifying a wide range of culprits is as important and difficult as catching and punishing them. This is a matter for law enforcement, not the military, which is not trained for that purpose.

To put it another way, Pancho Villa died about 100 years ago. The American and Mexican economies are highly and increasingly interdependent. The idea of sending in American troops in violation of Mexican sovereignty was controversial even when a power vacuum of sorts existed in parts of Mexico; to do it today, given the importance of our relationship with the Mexican government, would be ludicrous.

One of them is a communist who apparently believes that history is on his side, and that his country will overcome the decadent West and dominate the world. The other is an angry revanchist who wants to reverse his nation’s collapse and defeat and make it great again. They are, at least for the moment, allies. Are Xi and Putin the Stalin and Hitler of the 21st century?

Not exactly. Putin doesn’t have the economic and military resources that Hitler did, and Xi’s form of communism is based on Chinese exceptionalism and state capitalism, not Marxist ideology, terror, and militarism. They don’t present the same kind of threat that Hitler and Stalin did. Still, the historical precedent suggests that making a deal with Putin to contain Xi would be a serious mistake.

Fortunately, Biden doesn’t carry an umbrella. Trump and DeSantis might, however.

Most right-wing American political figures who support Putin do so out of a belief that he is their ally in the culture wars. Against all of the evidence, they see Ukraine as just another front in the common battle against wokeness. There is a more sophisticated intellectual thread, however, to the effect that containing China is our overriding objective, and that Putin can be flipped to our side through appeasement. Does this approach make sense?

Only if you make the unjustified assumption that Putin’s territorial dreams end in Ukraine. In all likelihood, appeasement would require giving him the Baltic states and at least part of Poland, as well. That would mean an end to NATO as we have known it. Europe would be staring down the barrel of a Russian gun with no assurance of American help. Would that be a fair trade for some level of Russian assistance containing China?

No, and if you think this analysis sounds a lot like the disastrous calculation made by some British right-wing political figures about Hitler and Stalin prior to 1939, you’re right. I will have more to say about the analogy to the thirties in a subsequent post.

In 1941, FDR gave a speech in which he identified four freedoms that, in his opinion, should be universal: freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom from want; and freedom from fear. Today, the right has its own list of four freedoms, but they only apply to white American Christians. These are:

1. FREEDOM NOT TO BE OFFENDED: Are there things in your community that really bug you: drag shows; transgender people; books with sexual references? Ban them! You made this country great, so why should you have to put up with this kind of filth?
2. FREEDOM TO BE OFFENSIVE: You, on the other hand, have the right to say anything you want about the other side without fear of being labeled a bigot on social media. Enough of this PC crap!
3. FREEDOM TO ENDANGER OTHERS: It’s all about you, not your neighbors. If you want to spread the virus or terrorize people with assault weapons, that’s your right. They just have to live with it.
4. FREEDOM TO IMPOSE YOUR VALUES ON OTHERS, EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE MAJORITY: Again, you made this country great, so you’re entitled to run it in your own interest, regardless of whether you speak for the majority. If that means engaging in unscrupulous tactics or even violence, so be it. The ends justify the means.

Don’t you find this inspirational?

Kevin McCarthy is meeting with four GOP House members to discuss the ransom note for the debt ceiling increase. They include: a CD from a Biden district in New York; a PBP from a reliably Republican district in Indiana; a reactionary from a rural district in Nebraska; and a CL from a bright red district in Texas. Let’s listen in!

M: I called you all here today to talk about our demands for the debt ceiling increase.

CL: We absolutely have to get spending under control. This is our chance. Nothing should be off the table.

M: So, what do you suggest?

CL: Go where the money is–Social Security and Medicare. They should be privatized, or at least cut dramatically.

R: What, are you crazy? My constituents are totally dependent on those programs. They paid into them for decades. It would be political suicide.

CL: There would be some short-term pain, but it would be worth it in the long run. Trust me.

PBP: Cutting entitlements is nuts. It would cost me my seat.

CD: Me, too.

M: OK, that one’s off the table. What’s next?

CL: Defense. Other than entitlements, that’s where the money is.

R: We’re not cutting defense with the Chinese breathing down our necks.

CD: Agreed.

PBP: Second.

M: That one doesn’t work, either. Next?

CL: Food stamps. We need to get the lazy minorities out of their hammock of dependency.

R: I’m sympathetic, but food stamps are part of the farm bill. My constituents depend on that bill. We can’t go along with that.

CD: Food stamps keep lots of hard-working people out of abject poverty. I can’t agree with that.

PBP: It doesn’t look like this one’s going anywhere, either.

M: Any other ideas?

CL: Foreign aid?

PBP: We can’t compete with the Chinese in world markets without making an effort to help foreigners. They buy lots of our products and help us diplomatically. Anyway, it’s a drop in the bucket.

CD: He’s right.

M: What else?

CL: Cutting IRS agents?

CD: I can go for that.

R: Me, too.

PBP: It’s unanimous.

M: OK, then. We are resolved to balance the budget by cutting spending on a program that actually increases revenues and reduces the deficit.

ALL: Right! (The meeting ends at this point)

What will America look like when the vast majority of Boomers are gone–say, in 2050? Here are some predictions:

1. THE DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEM IS GONE: With the Boomers dead and lots of new immigrant workers in place, the issues involved in paying for the welfare state have disappeared.
2. THE RACIAL ISSUE HAS CHANGED: Woke members of Gen Z are now running the country. They went to integrated public schools and are contemptuous of racists. The influx of Hispanic immigrants, however, has created a society in which immigrants do all of the hard work and Anglos reap most of the benefits. This presents serious political and social problems for the future.
3. CHRISTIANITY IS A SPENT FORCE: America has seen periods of religious fervor at seemingly unlikely times in the past, but no longer. The corrupt bargain between reactionary politicians and Christians which empowered the latter in the short run has destroyed any enthusiasm for Christianity among members of Gen Z and their children. The chickens have come home to roost.
4. CLIMATE CHANGE MEANS CLIMATE CHANGES: The Southwest is almost uninhabitable. Parts of California have been depopulated. Florida now belongs exclusively to the wealthy and to tourists, neither of whom are present during hurricane season. Mountain property values are skyrocketing. The Northeast and the Midwest are becoming more popular. Lots of new climate regulations are in place, too; government seems to be everywhere these days.
5. THE SEARCH FOR A HAPPY MEDIUM CONTINUES: America needs both ample incentives for entrepreneurs and a large, stable middle class. Finding just the right balance of incentives and regulations to produce both results has always been a difficult task. It still is.

You have probably noted that the America I have described is a nightmare for reactionaries. That is why they are trying today to turn the clock back, and why they will fail in the long run.

Brexit meant different things to different people, but more than anything else, it meant limits on immigration. The Conservative government that implemented it has largely delivered on the promise. As a result, the UK is short of essential workers, most notably in the NHS and agriculture. Both businesses and consumers have suffered.

Ron DeSantis wasn’t watching this–or, perhaps, he just didn’t care. Florida’s economy, which is based on tourism, construction, and the care of elderly people, depends on immigrant labor, but the Florida GOP is about to approve a series of measures to make the lives of immigrants as miserable as possible. The base hates immigrants, so the outcome is not in doubt, even though business interests are objecting. The ultimate result will be skyrocketing costs and labor shortages, as in the UK.

This is just one of a series of anti-business measures that have been approved as part of the Florida GOP “freedom” agenda. Why, the next thing you know, DeSantis will be going to war over wokeness with a huge employer that attracts millions of tourists to the state. Oh, right!

It is clear that DeSantis believes the GOP base is looking for a more electable, more competent, more conventional version of Trump. He can provide tangible results on wokeness; Trump only provides noise and drama. Is he right?

No, because Trump’s base relishes his transgressions. They respond emotionally to his endless cycles of outrage, blue team response, and cries of victimization. What most of us see as corruption and incompetence assures them that he will never sell them out. They will cheer him on when he burns it down; that is what they want, too.

DeSantis’ plodding style says “establishment” to the base. No matter how much red meat he delivers to them, he can’t speak for them the way Trump does. He would be wise to stop trying.

The continued impressment of American sailors by the British Navy left Jefferson with no good options. It was an affront to the national dignity, but America was in no position to go to war with Great Britain; in addition, to do so would force Jefferson to dramatically increase the size of the American government, which was inconsistent with his core political principles. His response was to apply economic sanctions, in the form of the Embargo Act.

The Act was actually a blast from the past; the colonists had used embargoes to influence Parliament prior to the Revolution. Circumstances had changed, however. In the 1770s, the colonists were British subjects, and had a claim on the sympathy of the British government; in 1807, they were aliens with an insignificant military, and Britain was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Napoleon. As a result, the chances of impacting British policy weren’t very good.

Enforcing the embargo was unpopular, and made Jefferson look like a tyrant and a hypocrite. One of his last actions as president was to sign the act repealing it.

This analogy obviously isn’t perfect; our nation is far stronger relative to China than we were relative to Britain in 1807. The central point is valid, however; sanctions come with costs, and often don’t work. They definitely won’t work if the public isn’t prepared to make sacrifices when the other side retaliates.

I’m ambivalent about Tik Tok, which, of course, I don’t use. On the one hand, there is a genuine possibility that the data generated by the company could be appropriated by the Chinese government, and the reactions of the government and the Chinese public are proof that all large Chinese corporations, like it or not, are effectively agents of the state. On the other hand, a ban would be largely unenforceable, and it would result in serious First Amendment issues. Do we really want to create the equivalent of the Great Firewall of China? I have my doubts.

Tik Tok is just the beginning. Any attempt to uncouple our economy from the country that provides us with most of our manufactured goods is going to come with significant costs. Is Biden doing anything to prepare us to make those kinds of sacrifices? Is Trump? DeSantis? I don’t see it.

Imposing economic sanctions on countries with tiny economies doesn’t create major problems. Doing the same thing with larger countries with whom you are interdependent is another story–one that doesn’t have to end well. I will discuss one such instance in my next post.

Like many other GOP politicians who have tried to look respectable while showing “respect” for the reactionary base, DeSantis has done his best to avoid answering questions about the “rigged” election and January 6. He typically minimizes the danger presented by the rioters without commenting on the justice of their cause.

That approach is unlikely to survive the presidential primaries–Trump will see to that. Then what? If he continues to dodge the question during the debates, he will look like a wimp to both the base and more moderate voters. If he agrees with Trump that the election was rigged, he is effectively admitting that Trump won and should be president today, which completely undercuts his argument that Trump is a loser. If he openly condemns the plot to overturn the election and the rioters, he will no longer have any claim to the votes of the base. Which is the least bad choice?

A more astute tactician would condemn the rioters and seek to unite the 70 percent against Trump on the basis that the 30 percent has nowhere else to go in the general election. I have seen no indication that DeSantis is likely to do this. I suspect he will continue to avoid the question, to howls of derision from both the right and the left.

Easter and spring are a perfect match. When the sun is out, the leaves are unfurling on the trees, the new MLB season has just started, and the Masters is on, it’s much easier to believe in the death/resurrection story. Don’t you wonder how it works in the Southern Hemisphere?

This year the story is particularly vivid for us, because our house is starting to emerge from the wreckage. We’ve spent the last three months cleaning, reinstalling, moving, and replacing virtually everything. We’re not done yet, and we’ve run into countless obstacles along the way, but we’re reasonably close now. We’re functioning at about 80 percent, which is tolerable, if not great.

We will be fleeing DeSantistan for the mountains in a few weeks. I’ll have more to say about that later. In the meantime, happy Easter!