Month: June 2024

If the RN wins as expected, it will have an opportunity to prove that it can govern competently. If it fails and chaos ensues, America will notice. If it succeeds, it may serve as a precedent for us and other countries in the EU.

And how will the left react? The Olympics will begin about three weeks after the second round. Will we see massive demonstrations and blood on the streets of Paris? It could happen. Will it? I don’t know.

An excerpt from Trump’s 2025 inaugural speech:

“Everyone knows that Lincoln called for malice towards none and charity for all in his Second Inaugural Address. That was weak. The president needs to punish his enemies. He needs revenge and justice. The country’s enemies need to be exterminated. Only then can we move on as before.

You’re probably familiar with the scene in “The Godfather” where Michael Corleone settles all of his existing scores with his enemies. In that vein, even as we speak, I am ordering the arrests of all of the vermin who stole the country away from me and real America. The entirety of the Biden crime family, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Fani Willis, Justice Merchan, Alvin Bragg, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith are all being transported to Guantanamo Bay this morning. They will never see America again. They will die in jail next to ISIS terrorists.

Why? Because they’re terrorists, too. They’re horrible people. Horrible. They interfered with our election. They prosecuted the innocent tourists who brought such love to the Capitol on January 6. They stole the country away from the real people. Now they’re getting their just desserts.

Oh, and by the way, anyone who comes out and complains about this will either join them or be shot by my great military. I’m not Biden. I’m strong. We have our country back now. We’re going to make it great again.

Per Justice Gorsuch:

1. Homelessness is a complicated policy issue that can and should only be addressed by local legislatures. If judges intrude, they can only take an arrow out of the local government’s quiver, which is counterproductive.
2. Sleeping in public is “camping” whether it is done voluntarily or not. The ordinance in question was fair because it treated all campers similarly.

I have some sympathy for #1, but #2 sounds like something Javert would have said to Jean Valjean, which is exactly what you would expect from someone like Gorsuch. This decision is morally obnoxious, and it more logically should have been based on the Fifth Amendment, not the Eighth. I assume it was the existence of favorable case law that drove the petitioners in the direction of the Eighth.

In the world in which the Chief Justice claims to live, there are clear distinctions in administrative law between law and facts; agencies have special expertise over the latter, but the judiciary has exclusive dibs over the former, which it uses independently and with no interest in creating policy. In reality, the demise of Chevron will create a sandbox for reactionary judges to invalidate longstanding rules that protect the public against groups closely connected with Republicans. That’s the real meaning of today’s decision.

Roberts has been gunning for Chevron for years. He and his ideological allies first cut the legs out from under it with a series of limiting decisions, and then found today that the Court could no longer rely on it as precedent. This kind of bootstrapping is the way he would have handled Roe if it had been up to him.

He’s not a moderate or a swing judge; he just plays the long game.

I suspect that it wouldn’t look that bad on a transcript. Biden wasn’t dominated by his opponent, he punched back, and he mostly told the truth. But the tape was a different story. Within the first minute it was obvious that he looked and sounded like a frail old man who just wasn’t up to the job. It was a disaster, and nobody is going to forget it in November.

For about a year, I have argued that the benefits of an open convention (a new, more vibrant candidate, probably with limited ties to an unpopular administration) were exceeded by the down sides (an unprepared and largely untested candidate, a divided party, and the likelihood of a campaign based on identity, which is Trump’s strength). After last night, the cost-benefit ratio has changed. It’s time for something completely different.

There are three of them, as follows:

1. LOOK VIBRANT AND DON’T HAVE SENIOR MOMENTS: Based on his appearances over the last few months, I’m confident he won’t let us down here.
2. IF TRUMP WANTS TO COME ACROSS AS AN ANGRY, DOMINEERING LUNATIC, DON’T STAND IN THE WAY: A certain number of jabs about the criminal conviction are appropriate, but most of the work of controlling Trump’s id should be done by the moderators, who are likely to be friendly.
3. EXPOSE TRUMP’S LACK OF FLUENCY, OR EVEN INTEREST, IN MATTERS OF POLICY: The moderators should help with this, too. Trump is highly likely to ignore policy questions and to go on rants about the Biden crime family and his own martyrdom. Biden needs to show himself as the adult in the room who cares more about the welfare of the American people than his own grievances and has plausible answers to policy questions.

In the late 19th century, the GOP argued that tariffs would result in higher wages, as the industrialists who benefited from them would gladly pass their excess profits on to their workers. The actual results, as you might expect, were totally different. The industrialists pocketed their earnings–occasionally returning them to the public in the form of philanthropic enterprises they deemed appropriate–but did nothing to improve the lot of workers.

Trump and his acolytes will make a similar argument about tariffs this year. The problem is that even large tariffs won’t make import substitution a viable approach for many industries, and there is no pool of workers to handle the hypothetical jobs in any event. Using an Argentinian approach to an economy that is already running about as hot as it can without creating more inflation makes no sense whatsoever.

Some of the questions I would ask were incorporated in a previous post predicting the content of the debate. These were primarily about Gaza and Ukraine. Here are some other questions he should be asked?

1. You have been candid about your desire for revenge against your opponents. Please tell the American people what individuals or groups of people will be the subjects of your revenge, and what form the revenge will take.
2. Most observers, including members of your previous administration, think the Chinese refused to comply with the export deal you struck with them. Do you agree? If so, what would you do about it?
3. Housing costs are a big problem in this country. Undocumented workers make up a large percentage of construction employees. How will deporting them and creating a massive labor shortage reduce the cost of housing?
4. Do you intend to bring the Fed under the control of the executive branch?
5. Historically, you have threatened to stop traffic at the Mexican border if the Mexican government doesn’t do everything you want on immigration. That would cause massive hardship on both sides of the border. Is that your plan again?
6. The production of fentanyl is a decentralized business within Mexico. Do you seriously believe that starting a war with Mexico in order to disrupt gang activity is a good idea?
7. On several occasions, the Biden Administration has tried to impose immigration regulations that looked like yours. These regulations were mostly blocked by the courts. If the judicial system issues orders prohibiting your plans to use the military to create massive deportation camps, will you obey those orders?
8. It has been widely reported that you wanted to use the Insurrection Act to stop protests in cities in blue states. Do you intend to do that this time around, and will you extend it to removing blue state leaders from power by force?
9. Property insurance rates are soaring all over the country as a result of increasing losses tied to climate change. You have previously taken the position that climate change is a Chinese hoax. How does that help the people dealing with these higher insurance costs?
10. You have proposed large universal tariffs for the purpose of raising money and encouraging new American industries. This will result in significantly higher prices for consumer goods. Since the unemployment rate is also very low, it is unclear where the new industrial workers would come from. Where would the proceeds of the tariffs go, and how would you find workers for the new businesses without encouraging immigration?
11. President Biden has entered into relationships with Australia, Japan, South Korea, and India in order to deter Chinese aggression in Asia. Would you continue these relationships, or reject them and go it alone?
12. Social Security and Medicare are running deficits. Their trust funds will run out of money in the next decade, which would result in benefit cuts of about 20 percent. President Biden wants to raise taxes on the wealthy to fill in the gap. Would you consider raising taxes for that purpose?

Mainstream Republicans, who love Jews in Israel, but not in America, are enthralled by Netanyahu. To them, he’s a human bulldozer. He’s a man’s man. He’s the opposite of woke. He kicks ass in his neighborhood. He’s Churchill for the 21st century. He’s a man to be admired and emulated.

A relative handful of Israelis feel that way. To most of them, however, Bibi is a slippery temporizer who will say anything to anybody in order to stay in power. He’s the man without a plan to deal with Gaza after the war, or to get the hostages back, because having a plan could cost him his job. He’s the guy who deliberately coddled Hamas prior to October because it helped him argue that he didn’t have a negotiating partner. He was totally unprepared for the war. He has to go.

A group of Israelis makes the argument in today’s NYT that he should lose his invitation to address Congress. Frankly, I still can’t believe that Chuck Schumer agreed to it. If the invitation can’t be rescinded, the left should boycott the speech. Anybody who doesn’t boycott it should walk out ostentatiously when Bibi starts turning the speech into a Trump rally, as he is likely to do. Now that would send a message to the Israeli public that it isn’t a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you.

As far as I can tell, it consists of the following:

1. Deport millions of construction workers, thereby creating serious labor shortages;
2. Encourage suburban jurisdictions to exclude multi-family projects;
3. Reduce or eliminate the Fed’s independence, thereby reducing popular faith in the regulatory environment and the financial system; and
4. Throw large subsidies at developers to build large residential projects in areas that are allegedly poor, but are actually affluent.

Yep, that should do the trick, all right. If I’m a member of Gen Z, that’s a program that would surely win my vote.

The principal problem with selling climate change mitigation to voters is that the benefits are uncertain, diffuse, and largely in the future, while the costs are felt today. Not many people, Americans included, are inspired by that bargain. So how does Biden sell the issue to the voters?

The impacts of climate change are already being felt in the form of property damage and soaring insurance costs. That is something Biden can tell the voters that will move them in the here and now. Trump, on the other hand, is completely indifferent to these costs.

M: The first question is for President Biden. Mr. President, a lot of people in our country don’t understand why we’re continuing to give weapons to the Israeli military to kill civilians. Would you please explain your position?

B: We stand with Israel against Hamas. We agree with the Israeli government that Hamas should be destroyed to the maximum extent possible. Without doing that, no meaningful progress can be made on a peace plan. But we also think that Hamas is the enemy, not the Palestinian people. As a result, we’re pushing the Israelis to protect civilians and let in aid. We won’t give them weapons that can be used primarily against civilians.

M: President Trump, your position.

T: Crooked Joe and the Biden crime family stole the 2020 election from me and real America. Vote for me so I can have my revenge, because it will be your revenge, too.

B: There he goes again.

M: President Trump, from your public statements, it appears you think the Israelis should kill as many Palestinian civilians as necessary as fast as possible and get out of Gaza. Is that really your position?

T: During the Trump years, we didn’t have stagflation. We had a big, beautiful economy. It was the greatest in history. Crooked Joe ruined it all. Vote for me and I’ll bring it back.

B: Obviously, he didn’t answer the question, so America is free to assume that he thinks the Israelis should kill lots more innocent civilians.

T: I never said that.

B: If you refuse to answer the questions, everyone has a right to assume the worst.

M: President Biden, how does America define victory in Ukraine?

B: We need to guarantee the survival of a viable Ukrainian state. Questions about boundaries we will leave to the Ukrainian government.

T: The Ukrainian government was first in cahoots with Crooked Hillary, and then with Crooked Joe. It has to go.

M: President Trump, you have stated that you have a secret plan to bring peace to Ukraine. The popular assumption is that you plan to hand the country over to Putin. This is your opportunity to set the record straight.

T: Putin didn’t invade Ukraine while I was president. If America has a strong leader, problems like Ukraine will just go away.

M: You’re not denying the popular opinion.

T: My plans are secret. America has to trust me. I did a great job before, so I should be trusted.

B: His actual answer is, yes, I’m going to give Ukraine to Putin, probably in exchange for nothing, just because I hate the Ukrainian government.

M: President Biden, inflation was a serious problem during most of your first term. What is your plan for combating it?

B: Inflation was a worldwide problem due to the pandemic and supply chain issues. We have those under control. We’re fighting high prices on a variety of fronts–from insulin price caps to jawboning on shrinkflation to forgiving excessive student debt. The plan is working–inflation is almost back to normal.

T: We didn’t have inflation during my presidency. Crooked Joe created it. Vote for me, and I’ll bring back the big, beautiful economy of 2019.

B: Your tariffs and your mass deportation scheme will cause prices to skyrocket. America, take note.

T: No, everyone else in the world will actually pay the tariffs. Americans won’t pay anything. Trust me.

M: One last question for both of you. What are your plans to unite a badly divided nation?

B: I’ve done my best not to demonize my political opponents. That can be hard, the way they behave at times, but using Nazi-era rhetoric has consequences.

T: I need to have my revenge on my enemies in order to satisfy real America, because the attacks on me were really attacks on them. After that, we can think about unifying the country behind me.

How will the moderators address Trump? Will they call him President, former President, or just Mr.? The first approach puts the candidates on equal footing but plays into Trump’s argument that he is still the lawful president. The latter two would probably make him crazy and cause him to lash out.

Was this even addressed in the rules? I haven’t seen any reference to an agreement on that point. It matters.

If Trump wins and has a GOP majority in both houses, what will his first priority be? To overturn the results of the 2020 election, of course. Expect some sort of legislation or resolution stating that the election was rigged and that Trump was lawfully elected to move swiftly through the system after the inauguration.

Would this piece of legislation explicitly invalidate all actions taken by Biden as president? Would it even criminalize expressing the opinion that Trump lost the election? No measure, no matter how extreme, can be completely disregarded here, because the idea of being a loser has always been totally anathema to Trump.

This blog turns nine years old in a few weeks. One of its recurring themes is that Trump is a man on golf cart–a wannabe man on horseback who simply can’t cut the mustard because he’s too lazy and easily distracted. Many commentators, mostly on the right, think his second term will follow the same pattern, so fears of a dictatorship are overblown. Are they right?

No, for four reasons. First, the 2024 version of Trump is angrier and openly seeking revenge against his many opponents. Second, as all of the books about the Trump first term will tell you, his worst instincts were held in check by the bureaucracy. This time, he will be surrounded by people who will be fanning the flames. Third, there is no one formula for being a dictator. Stalin was a hard worker, but Hitler was lazy; his practice was to give vague orders and leave all of the details to his subordinates, who were required to compete for his favor. Does that ring any bells for you? Finally, Trump knows he will never lose office through the impeachment process, and the judicial system will roll over for him as long as he is in the White House. What does he have to lose by pushing the envelope?