Month: May 2023

George Santos is a self-admitted liar. The resume he used to get elected was completely fabricated. Now, he has been indicted. He is an embarrassment to Republican Party, which wants to see the back of him as soon as possible. But everything I’ve said about him in this post is also true of Trump, who remains the frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination. Why are these apparently similar men being treated so differently by GOP voters?

The average reactionary voter sees Trump as the indispensable man: the only person, in spite of his innumerable personality flaws, who is tough, smart, and aggressive enough to save them from cultural annihilation at the hands of the libs. His lies and outrages are, in their eyes, proof that he is firmly on their side, and won’t be flipped by the establishment. Santos, on the other hand, is just a guy. He is consequently judged by the standards that bind all of the rest of us.

Obama apparently told CBS News a few days ago that the proliferation of media, and the loss of gatekeepers, is partially responsible for our political instability. The reliably wrong Rich Lowry disagrees; he thinks the issue is a fundamental difference of opinion within the American public, which is merely amplified (not created) by the media. Could he possibly be right this time?

No. It is true, of course, that there have been paranoid extremists within the GOP as long as I can remember–think the John Birch Society here. Media gatekeepers, however, mostly kept their opinions out of public view, so millions of people who didn’t experience what they considered left-wing oppression in their daily lives didn’t believe their culture was under an existential threat. Today, social media outlets proliferate extreme arguments through algorithms; from that point, Fox News picks them up, and they become unquestioned facts for the vast Fox audience within days. On the left, Twitter has given undue publicity to woke opinions, thereby driving both parties away from the center, although that may change with the new ownership. That would not have happened when I was growing up.

Obama knows you can’t unring the bell; he wasn’t suggesting that Fox News and the internet should be censored. It is the right, not the left, that is advocating the legal suppression of unorthodox opinions. You can also make a plausible argument that blocking extreme positions is undemocratic and adverse to the public interest. On the whole, however, Obama’s nostalgic view of media gatekeepers was completely defensible.

A: He ran for president in 2024 as a more electable and competent version of Trump, not realizing that what the base really wanted was swagger, outrage, and entertainment, not legislation and methodical administration.

Q: Who is Ron DeSantis?

Today’s NYT tells us that car prices remain historically high even though the supply chain issues have been resolved because the manufacturers and dealers have found a low volume, high margin business model to be extremely profitable. In other words, yet another example of the pandemic savings of wealthy people fueling inflation.

Once again, the Fed has no answers for this. Interest rate increases will not solve the problem.

The current debt ceiling negotiations can only result in a reasonable compromise if at least one of the following three things is true:

1. MAGA Republicans are selfless patriots who are willing to put self-interest and ideology aside for the good of the country;
2. McCarthy has such a strong hold on them, they will fall into line regardless of their ultimate objectives; or
3. McCarthy is willing to use Democratic votes to remain Speaker.

History already tells us that #1 and #2 may be true on the planet Zoltan, but not here. #3 is highly unlikely. Then what?

Barring the use of the Fourteenth Amendment, either Biden surrenders, or we go over the cliff. With the first option, Biden forfeits his legacy, the left is completely demoralized, the spending cuts cause a recession, and Trump is our next president. With the second option, we have a worldwide economic catastrophe, Biden is blamed, and Trump is our next president.

So why does Biden keep insisting that the Fourteenth Amendment won’t work? It may not be perfect, but it’s certainly a better option than surrender or default.

I don’t get it. I just don’t. What is he thinking?

As I noted in a previous post, Ted Cruz ran as a pious evangelical in 2016, presumably because he thought people like him made up at least a plurality of the GOP electorate. That wasn’t an unreasonable assumption–I believed it back then, as well–but it was incorrect. Trump was running alone in a white nationalist lane, and it turned out he had the plurality. That plurality, if anything, has increased in size since the Trump presidency.

For the most part, DeSantis, unlike Cruz, has been running in the Trump lane; he has portrayed himself as a more competent and electable version of Trump, not something fundamentally different. In recent days, however, he has started to focus a bit on abortion in an effort to distinguish himself from the man on golf cart. If this continues, the Cruz analogy will make more sense.

There are two glaring problems with running in Cruz country. First, Cruz lost. Second, if you’re a GOP voter and you are motivated mostly by your feelings on abortion, why would you pick DeSantis over Mike Pence? The Cruz lane is already occupied.

We’re at the first GOP presidential debate. Trump isn’t there, but his fan base is. They’re angry, and they’re ready to rumble.

The first question is for DeSantis. It goes something like this: “You’ve made electability the focus of your campaign, but that only makes sense logically if Trump lost the 2020 election. Are you conceding that Biden won the last election?”

DeSantis predictably refuses to answer the question. Using a time-honored GOP tactic, he attacks the moderator instead. He accuses her of being divisive and says that he is only interested in beating Joe Biden. Channeling his inner Mark McGwire, he insists that he won’t talk about the past.

The crowd is having none of it. There are plenty of boos and catcalls from the audience. The other candidates then pile on, essentially accusing DeSantis of being an unprincipled wimp.

Is America impressed? I doubt it.

If you watch NBC News these days, you might be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled into Fox programming. The telecast is full of stories about the chaos at the border. Conditions look grim. Biden is blamed for it by both the left and the right. Is this fair?

There are two things to keep in mind here. First of all, Biden only has the legal authority and the resources granted to him by Congress. Second, even though the asylum seekers are living in difficult conditions, when they are interviewed, they say they would rather be here than back home. That means only a regime of extreme cruelty would be enough to deter them from coming.

My message on the subject is simple. If you’re not: (a) willing to openly embrace a Trumpian program of savagery at the border; (b) ready to provide Biden with far more money for law enforcement and administration; or (c) proposing a specific plan to use existing resources far more efficiently, then you have nothing useful to offer on the subject, and you would be wise to STFU.

It will be very difficult for the Ukrainians to retake the land bridge to Crimea, given their manpower disadvantage and the strength of the Russian defenses. Nevertheless, it has to be tried, because the benefits of success are immense. Ukraine would have more access to the Black Sea coast and would be in a position to attack Crimea at any time. Putin would see that the greatest prize of the war was in jeopardy; he might be inclined to negotiate to keep it. That could lead to a reasonable end to the war.

Using an attack on Crimea as diplomatic leverage is one thing; actually taking it would be something else entirely. It is not clear that America is willing to make enough of an investment in Ukraine to accomplish it. Neither is it obvious that the residents of Crimea, most of whom are ethnic Russians, would see the death and destruction that follows as “liberation.” Finally, Putin might be driven to escalate, either by using nukes or by attacking NATO supply lines, in an effort to keep his precious trophy on his bookshelf. In short, there are serious risks that may outweigh the rewards.

In my opinion, the best way to handle this is to go step by step. Try taking the land bridge, and if the Ukrainians succeed, see if Putin is then open to serious negotiations. If he is, great. If not, get ready for the next big offensive.

It isn’t the way I would have handled it. I would have announced up front that I would rely on the Fourteenth Amendment if necessary, and then allowed centrists to try to make a deal on their own. But that isn’t where we are; Biden is clearly negotiating, when he said he wouldn’t. What happens next?

It appears that the framework for a reasonable deal is in place, although the devil will be in the details. Clawing back unused pandemic funds is OK, because the program turned out to be too generous, and spending the money fuels inflation; once you have conceded the point on work requirements for safety net payments, the age requirement is of little conceptual importance; given the private sector’s commitment to electric cars, easing oil and gas permitting standards won’t matter much; spending caps for the next year or so will be imposed by the GOP House majority one way or the other; and so on. The length of the cap is important, but I can imagine most Democrats agreeing to something like this. But then what?

My guess is that at least 50, and probably more, Republican House members would vote against an agreement similar to this one, so it would have to pass with significant Democratic support. Any one of the 50 could then file a motion to remove McCarthy as Speaker. It appears that a number of Democrats have told McCarthy, directly or indirectly, that they will help him keep his job under those circumstances, but he would then be operating at the sufferance of the opposing party, which could pull the chair out from under him at any time.

What do you think McCarthy would do? Will he agree to operate what amounts to a coalition government of moderates in the face of rabid opposition from Trump and his extremist acolytes? Is he really ready to be aa 21st century version of Ramsay MacDonald? Or would he rather maintain party unity, avoid the allegations of disloyalty, and keep the bus heading for the cliff?

Nothing I have seen from him over the years suggests to me that he will put his position in jeopardy and turn his back on the extremists. Maybe he’ll prove me wrong, but I don’t think so. I still say we are heading for the cliff, and Biden will have to use the Fourteenth Amendment in the end.

Anyone who has read my poem “Jesus Was an Ass-Kicker” knows that very little about today’s GOP can shock me. And yet, Michelle Goldberg has done it. In a column in today’s NYT, she argues that the race for the Republican nomination is a battle between a man who wants to impose Christian orthodoxy on the country and a man whose followers see him as a new messiah, unbound by rules created by the establishment in the past.

To put it in historical terms, this is a fight between a wannabe Jesus and Torquemada. The scary thing is that Goldberg is probably right.

This week’s issue of The Economist tells us that Biden is more responsible for America’s inflation than for our record low levels of unemployment. Is that true?

Three observations are pertinent here. First, most of the pandemic relief bill was designed to alleviate misery, not provide a “stimulus.” It worked admirably. Second, the portion of it that was labeled “stimulus” was supported by Trump. Third, it is difficult to take The Economist’s complaints about inflation seriously when it just announced another enormous price increase–one that cannot be justified on the basis of rising production costs. This is exactly the kind of corporate pricing strategy, based on arguments about premium products and directed at the relatively wealthy, that is driving American inflation today.

Physician, heal thyself.

Consistent with his “no enemies to the right” approach to the campaign, Ron DeSantis has embraced some pretty wild conspiracy theorists. He has completely associated himself with anti-vaxxers in the name of freedom, as you might expect, even though some of his followers want to go so far as to prohibit the use of the vaccine by millions of Florida residents who still believe in it. He has even referred to Alvin Bragg as a “George Soros prosecutor,” using the oldest right-wing trick in the book. It’s not very inspiring to anyone left of Viktor Orban.

He forgot that you can’t out-crazy Trump and his supporters, because they operate completely without limits. There is a school of thought among them to the effect that DeSantis is a tool planted by the establishment to keep the nomination away from the man on golf cart. These people even call him “Ron DeSoros.”

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

A right-wing former judge named Michael McConnell argues in the NYT that the House GOP is simply acting in the spirit of the parliamentarians who used the power of the purse against the Stuarts. This is normal politics, not hostage taking. Biden is obligated to negotiate. If he doesn’t, he’ll lose the case before the Supreme Court, because there is a big difference between questioning the validity of debts and simply not paying them. The issue won’t get that far, however, because selling bonds without a debt ceiling increase isn’t practically possible, given the level of risk the buyers would be accepting.

Is he right? Let’s deconstruct the argument:

1. BIDEN IS CHARLES I: Parliament didn’t authorize any of the king’s expenditures. Congress mandated Biden’s. The GOP wants to undo what it already legally did.
2. IT’S NOT HOSTAGE TAKING: Threatening to crash the economy over debts you previously authorized if you don’t get everything you want is normal politics? Give me a break!
3. BIDEN IS OBLIGATED TO NEGOTIATE: McCarthy has no votes to spare. Trump and several GOP extremists who voted for the ransom note have made it clear they will accept nothing less. Does that sound like “negotiating?”
4. THE SUPREMES WILL RULE IN FAVOR OF THE HOUSE GOP: McConnell doesn’t address the standing and justiciability issues any plaintiff would face. And do you really think the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment thought it was OK to refuse to pay Civil War debts as long as you didn’t say they were legally invalid? The result is exactly the same.
5. SELLING BONDS WITHOUT A DEBT CEILING INCREASE WON’T WORK: Yes, there will be a risk premium, which is why this approach isn’t ideal, but is it likely that investors will completely shun these bonds, given the virtual certainty of payment?

The bottom line is that the use of the Fourteenth Amendment is not ideal, but it’s certainly better than refusing to pay the debt. If that’s the choice facing Biden in the last hours before default, and it probably will be, given the inability of the GOP to accept any kind of reasonable compromise, he should take it without hesitation.

Ross Douthat fears we are replaying the primaries of 2016, with Ron DeSantis playing the role of Ted Cruz. Is he right?

Let’s break that proposition into two parts. During the process in 2016, Trump was the front-runner in the polls and was running in his own lane. He had plurality, but not majority, support in the GOP. A reasonable person could (just barely) believe at the time that he was a brilliant businessman operating outside the system who could improve America by making deals. Today, little of that is true. Trump is still the front-runner, but he has an extensive record, he is no longer running in his own lane, and nobody thinks he is any kind of a moderate pragmatist. This time around, his voters want to burn it down. The structure of the race, therefore, is very different.

As to the Cruz/DeSantis analogy, Cruz was running as the champion of pious evangelicals, whom he believed (not without reason) to be a majority of GOP voters. It turned out that he was wrong; the voters wanted an uncouth, amoral man who would make a display of fighting for them. DeSantis is running as an electable version of Trump, with all of the man on golf cart’s ideological and identity prejudices. That isn’t the same thing, either; if 2016 Cruz has an analogy, it is Mike Pence, not DeSantis.