Month: March 2024

The problem with being an insurgent populist is, if you win, where do you go next? It’s all well and good to run against the liberal establishment where there is one, but if the red team has complete control of your state’s politics, what do you do?

Start a race to the bottom. Pretend that the band of populists that is in power is actually the liberal establishment. Be as irresponsible as possible and take pride in it. Never let anyone be more outrageous than you are.

Which is why Matt Gaetz, in spite of his many issues, has a good chance of being Florida’s next governor if he decides to run.

The thing you need to understand about Jesus is that he wasn’t from the big city. He wasn’t some illegal immigrant or coastal elite guy. He was one of us. He was a red person. He loved country music and NASCAR, not hip-hop and the NBA.

But the day came when he had to go to the city to bring his message to the blue people. And so, he packed up his big black SUV–Jesus was a huge fan of fossil fuels–and headed for Jerusalem. He had a big rally when he got there. The crowds were enormous–the biggest ever, of course.

He went directly to the home of woke capitalism after the rally to set the people straight. When he told off the woke bosses, the deep state retaliated. They weren’t going to let him get away with it. Something had to be done.

A lesser man would have just accepted his fate, but not our Jesus. He had an arsenal of AR-15s in his SUV–like us, he always packed heat–and he wasn’t going down without a fight. He and his disciples took over the temple and shot it out with the Romans and the Jews. It looked like something out of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

In the end, the temple was destroyed, and Jesus was killed–just like in Waco. But he was resurrected and then reincarnated as the GOP nominee for president. Why do you think we love him so much?

For purposes of moving absolutely essential legislation, the House is effectively being run by a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans. For all other purposes, it’s Romper Room. Johnson is giving the right-wing extremists the keys to the asylum to do anything they want in an effort to keep them on side.

It’s a very strange arrangement. Both sides tolerate it for now because they know the alternative could be worse, and the election is coming.

The acid test for the coalition is whether Johnson ever permits a vote on aid to Ukraine. If he does, the right may try to dump him; if he doesn’t, the Democrats will have to take action. They have to get something in exchange for their tacit support.

The three words I would use to describe liberalism are humility, tolerance, and optimism. Humility, because liberals believe that no single person has all of the answers; tolerance, for the same reason; and optimism, because the free flow of ideas will ultimately result in the discovery and common embrace of the truth. As a result, freedom of speech is an essential component of liberal democracy.

Historically, however, the negative impacts of free speech have been mitigated by the presence of gatekeepers and by time; if you wanted to say something false and inflammatory in public, you had to take the time to reflect and compose a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, who would probably refuse to print it. Social media eliminate both of those mitigating factors. Dangerous lies can spread around the world faster than the truth can catch up. What becomes of liberalism then?

Without at least some sort of limited consensus on what is acceptable and unacceptable speech, liberals are struggling mightily to find an answer to that question. For reactionaries and progressives, however, there is no difficulty; if you don’t like a particular kind of speech, you just ban it. The simplicity of that approach gives them an advantage, but it is a danger to our political system.

Florida is far from alone. Alabama has just followed it by approving sweeping anti-DEI legislation. For good measure, the new law also includes requirements that history be taught in a way that is not divisive; no current student should be made to feel guilty about anything done by his ancestors, and blame should not be attached to any racial group.

So what exactly are they going to teach high school students about Alabama in the 1960s? What are they going to say about Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma? How will they treat George Wallace and Bull Connor? This isn’t the Civil War we’re talking about here; some of the people involved in the racist crimes are still alive, and are related to the students who will be learning about them.

Say a prayer for high school history teachers in Alabama. They’re going to need all the help they can get.

You can understand NBC’s reasoning. The network wants to speak to all Americans, not just the blue team. To do that, it needs commentators with insider insight into Trumpism, not just Haley supporters. Why not McDaniel?

The problem here is that Trump’s political identity, at this point, is largely defined by his actions on January 6 and his continuing argument that the 2020 election was “rigged.” To be a real Trumpist, therefore, means openly accepting a position that is antithetical to the truth and American liberal democracy. To put a Trumpist on the air consequently means providing a forum and a source of legitimacy for these false and obnoxious views.

McDaniel admitted on the air that Biden had won the election, but her previous defense of Trump on this issue was a bridge too far for most of the talent at NBC. Is there anyone else out there who can square the circle of being a genuine and passionate Trump supporter who rejects his opinions about the 2020 election and January 6? I doubt it.

Suddenly, sports gambling is everywhere. Professional sports franchises have relocated to Las Vegas. Commercials for sports betting companies are ubiquitous. Right-wing Christians used to lead the fight against gambling; today, you don’t hear a peep out of them. What is going on here?

This is just more evidence that real Christians currently represent a small minority of the GOP. The head of the Republican Party used to own casinos. The party doesn’t really promote Christian positions; it fights for the economic, social, and political supremacy of people who call themselves Christians, but frequently have no regard for Christian ethics..

I have no opinion as to the legal merits of the decision of the New York appellate court to decrease Trump’s bond, but I would say it was politically astute. It left the bond at a number high enough to cause pain, while making it more difficult for the man on golf cart to argue that he is being crucified by a partisan judicial system. There will be no images of a fire sale sign on Trump Tower to use for a fundraising campaign.

The decision by the trial judge to keep the April 15 date is a clear blow to Trump. I can’t help observing again that if Trump really believed in his innocence, he would be demanding a speedy trial, not trying to push it back to a date after the election.

From all outward appearances, the Supreme Court is going to find that the plaintiffs in the abortion pill case don’t have standing, because their alleged injury is way too speculative. That decision would be the correct one. The student debt case should have gone the same way.

I’ve never interviewed J.D. Vance, and my chances of doing so in the future are extremely slim. If I did, however, it would run something like this:

C: Thank you for your time.

V: No problem. I always look forward to owning members of the liberal establishment.

C: You’re the one who went to an Ivy League school, not me.

V: You’re the liberal, not me. What do you want to discuss?

C: I want to see how you reconcile what I think are contradictory ways of thinking.

V: OK. Go ahead.

C: I think it’s clear that you have two mentors of a sort–Peter Thiel and Donald Trump. You worked for Thiel, received aid from him during your campaign, and consider him a friend. Trump’s influence on you is obvious.

V: Wouldn’t disagree with that.

C: Thiel is what I would call a conservative libertarian. He looks forward, not back. He thinks that America would be much improved if we took all of the tax and regulatory shackles off of people like him and let them run the country. His ideal America is a sort of techno-aristocracy. Trump, on the other hand, is a reactionary. He wants the economy of the 1950s, with lots of steelworkers and coal miners. He wants jobs for burly men who bring home the bacon for compliant housewives. And he thinks only he can speak for real America. He doesn’t believe in an aristocracy.

V: I’m not sure I completely agree with those descriptions, but they’re largely accurate. What’s your point?

C: They represent mutually exclusive visions for America. How do you reconcile them?

V: It’s only a problem in the long run. Thiel and Trump both think America as it exists today needs to be completely changed. They agree on burning it down. We’ll deal with what happens afterwards when we get there.

C: Which side are you on?

V: I’ll worry about that when we get there.

C: So you either don’t know or won’t say. My next question is about labor and capital. Like many members of the center-left, I would argue that the McConnell version of the Republican Party existed to transfer money and power from workers and government to judges and capitalists. He used the filibuster, conservative judges, and gerrymanders to accomplish this. He got workers to vote against their self-interest by feeding them social conservatism. What’s your reaction to that?

V: I don’t identify with McConnell. I think his version of the GOP is dead as a doornail. I support workers, not woke bosses.

C: But what have you actually done to support labor, besides showing up on a picket line on one occasion? Do you oppose the Trump tax cuts?

V: No.

C: Will you vote to reauthorize the tax cuts for the wealthy?

V: I don’t believe in tax increases.

C: Do you support legislation and rules strengthening organized labor/

V: Too much of organized labor supports Democrats. So, no.

C: Do you have any plans to cut taxes just for working people?

V: Not yet.

C: You don’t actually do anything for workers, but you’re big on attacking wokeness. That sounds exactly like McConnell.

V: I put workers first, not bosses. And you haven’t figured out my plan to help them.

C: Which is?

V: Tariffs and the deportation of illegal immigrants will create labor shortages, which will drive up wages faster than anything a union can accomplish.

C: It will also result in inflation. I thought your party hated inflation.

V: Only when we can blame the Democrats for it. It’s like the deficit. I know there will be some pain in the short run, but it will be worth it.

C: The tariffs will crush the forward-looking and prosperous part of the American economy. That sounds reactionary to me.

V: We’ll support the economy of the future with income tax cuts, subsidies for businesses who support our program. and deregulation.

C: Last question–you sometimes say that culture wars are class war. What do you mean by that?

V: Look at the people who hold left-wing culture war beliefs. They’re all part of the coastal elite. They’re the problem with our country.

C: So, in your view, workers and incredibly rich businessmen are on the same side, fighting a class war against highly-educated doctors and teachers and scientists?

V: Exactly!

C: How do the doctors and teachers and scientists keep the wages of workers down?

V: They don’t, but they keep them feeling inferior. It’s the same thing.

C: Thank you for your time.

The standard libertarian formula is to grant freedom to people as long as they don’t use it to hurt others. It is a reasonable and humane approach to both ethics and politics.

But reactionaries want to be free to oppress others. That is the freedom they cherish the most; they deeply resent any efforts to restrict it.

Marx turned Hegel on his head. Reactionaries turn Mill on his head.

The Israeli government insists that it has no viable alternative except to blow up all of Gaza and kill tens of thousands of civilians; otherwise, Hamas will reemerge and will win the war. Is that true?

No. Here is how I would deal with Gaza at this point in the campaign:

1. Construct one or more large refugee camps in the northern part of Gaza–the part that is already under Israeli control. Make sure these areas can be easily supplied and provide a decent quality of life.
2. Herd the civilians in the Rafah area into the camps. If they are clearly safe and adequately supplied, this should not be difficult. Vet all of the civilians before they are allowed in. Police work is an important part of the job.
3. Do whatever you have to do with anyone who remains in Rafah after the exodus is over.

The way you defeat guerrillas is by separating the fighters from the populace. The Israelis have somehow lost sight of that objective. Along with their lack of planning for the end of the war, that needs to change–and fast.

If you’re a genuine pro-life reactionary–in all likelihood, a devout Catholic–you believe fervently that a fertilized egg is a human being. As a result, you agree with the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court on IVF, even though you may concurrently think that America’s birth rate is far too low. Your answer to that problem, in all likelihood, is to ban birth control.

But, as I’ve said many times, most reactionaries aren’t really pro-life; they think abortion restrictions are necessary to provide a deterrent for immoral sexual behavior. The wages of sin is birth, in other words. If you’re in this camp, putting an end to IVF makes no sense, because it is a deterrent to nothing except wanted pregnancies.

The fact that the GOP is moving so swiftly to support IVF legislation is proof that the second group is in charge, not the pro-lifers.

The anti-anti-Trumpers are back in Egypt–they’re living in denial. Having supported DeSantis during the primaries, they are back on side. Trump 2.0, they say, will be the same as the first version. Sure, he’ll be a little rough with his mouth, but he’s no threat to liberal democracy. The guardrails will hold. They always have, and they always will.

That was to be expected. What scares me is the prospect that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party might agree. I think some of them view the first Trump term as an age of clarity in which the party was driven to the left on issues we now refer to as “wokeness.” One more strong shove from the right, they think, and the party will be theirs. It’s worth the risk, right?

Like the AATs. they lack imagination. The best case scenario for Trump 2.0 is a scatterbrained Viktor Orban; the worst is Putin. And he’ll be coming first for the woke left, not for people like me. He will do his best to shut them up for good. He may shoot them down in the street if they demonstrate against him. Then what?

It’s not worth the risk.

In previous years, I posted about right-wing recycling: Trump cut taxes for the wealthy; the deficit soared; and the wealthy financed the debt instead of investing in new businesses. Trump 2.0 will give us a new form of recycling: Trump imposes tariffs; our trading partners retaliate; American businesses dependent on exports suffer; and Trump responds by bailing out the suffering businesses that support him (e.g., farmers) with the proceeds of the tariffs. The beneficiaries of the bailouts become grateful wards of the state and vote for Republicans in spite of their business reverses, while we enjoy higher prices and slow growth.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Roger Lowenstein acknowledges that Biden might be politically wise to oppose the acquisition of US Steel by a Japanese company, but, from a wider perspective, he finds this unfortunate manifestation of economic nationalism silly and counterproductive. After all, Japan is not a threat to national security, and this kind of pointless protectionism only costs jobs and offends our allies. Is he right, and should we expect more from Biden?

Yes, he is right, but no, we don’t have any good reason to expect more from a president who desperately needs the support of steelworkers to win Pennsylvania. Would it really be worth it to take an unpopular stand on free trade that could throw the entire election to Trump and put American liberal democracy in danger? I think not.

Biden needs to pick and choose his battles on free trade. Opposing the massive new Trump tariffs provides him an opening based on America’s loathing of inflation; he definitely should take it. Arguing about the fate of US Steel, on the other hand, is a vote loser. If he had a huge lead, it might be worth trying, but not now.