Month: June 2024

The Israelis launched a strike on a school that was occupied by both civilians and Hamas fighters yesterday. A small number of fighters and a much larger number of civilians were killed. The world is outraged; the Israelis say the attack was justified. What conclusions should we draw from this?

Hamas is fighting a guerrilla war in Gaza. It has no alternative, because it is totally outmanned and outgunned. Its fighters try to survive by mixing with the civilian population. It is what the Viet Cong did, and what the Boers did, and what the Cuban rebels did in the 19th century. As a tactic, it is nothing new.

The logical approach to the problem is to separate the fighters from the population. The Israeli military is not doing that, either because the government sees the entire population as the enemy, or because it thinks the job is just too hard. The government has decided that its overriding objective is to kill fighters, not to protect civilians. As a result, attacks like yesterday’s resulting in high numbers of civilian casualties are commonplace. The Israelis aren’t singling out civilians, but if they get in the way, they are acceptable collateral damage.

Indifference to civilian deaths creates a political problem for Israel both in Gaza and in the rest of the world. The Israelis are, in the long run, only strengthening opposition to their control of Gaza by offering no plausible alternative to resistance. One of two things is going to happen: either Hamas, or something like it, will revive after the Israelis get sick of the costs of the occupation; or the Israelis will have to escalate and either liquidate the population or move it elsewhere.

Trump 2.0, unlike the previous version, won’t be frustrated by members of his own administration. A GOP Congress will let him do whatever he pleases. The judiciary will try to keep him within the lines, but he can and will ignore even the Supreme Court if he sees fit. The military will try to remain apolitical, but you would be foolish to assume that they will disobey orders from the commander-in-chief just because they are unlawful, particularly after Trump gets to choose the leadership. That leaves the blue states as a potential source of effective dissent. What will he have in store for them?

The Insurrection Act, a bogus “emergency,” and martial law. Sure, he didn’t try it last time, but are you willing to bet your life on that happening again, after everything that has happened in the last few years?

Trumpism doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it has plenty of characteristics in common with European right-wing populism, including hatred of immigrants, support for declining industries and rural areas against a supposedly insensitive urban elite, and contempt for woke cultural ideas. But is Trumpism unique in some ways?

Yes. First of all, the European extreme right parties are ideological; they aren’t cults of personality. The individual grievances of their leaders don’t figure into their campaign strategies. Second, they aren’t attacking their own legal and political institutions as being fundamentally rotten. Finally, they haven’t targeted a large proportion of their own citizens as being the enemy. Trump and his supporters have made it clear that anyone who votes against them is not a real American and should be dealt with accordingly.

The emphasis on personal grievances is really what sets Trump apart from any other right-wing dictator or semi-democratic strongman with whom I’m familiar. Even Hitler and Mussolini didn’t do that; for them, at least in public, it was about the revival of the nation, not themselves. In a way, that may make Trump less dangerous than someone driven by ideology, but his reservoir of venom is almost bottomless, so it would be a mistake to assume that his ambition to turn blue America into an ash heap is limited.

The GOP, of course, is saying it is too little, too late. The left says it smacks of Trump, which it does. Why is Biden doing it?

My guess is that Biden is actually hoping that a Ninth Circuit judge will immediately issue an injunction prohibiting the enforcement of the executive order. He will then have the legal ammunition necessary to blame Trump and the GOP for refusing to support the virtually identical bipartisan legislation. He can further argue that Trump’s plans to use the military to facilitate the construction of vast migrant camps and mass deportations will suffer the same legal fate, so, in effect, Trump is softer on the border than he is.

The difference, of course, is that Trump would almost certainly ignore the court order. That’s the beginning of the slide to despotism, which is a problem of a completely different magnitude.

The parallels between the Trump and Hunter Biden cases are obvious. Both were charged with lying on paperwork; both faced trial before judges of the opposing party; and, in all likelihood, neither would have been charged if his name had been Smith.

But there are differences, as well, and they matter. The Hunter case is legally straightforward; the Trump case was not. The jury pool in the Hunter case is probably more favorable to the defendant than in the Trump case, as the man on golf cart is widely (and justly) despised in his old hometown. The Trump prosecution was tied to a much larger narrative, election fraud; Hunter is accused of telling a single lie. Oh, and Trump is evil and dangerous; Hunter is just pathetic.

I suspect Hunter will be convicted. Will I rail about the unfairness of the system? No, because, unlike the leaders of the GOP, I’m not a cynical opportunist, and in any event, I don’t care about Hunter. He isn’t the president; he’s just a grifter with lots of trauma in his past that explains his behavior.

There has, as you would expect, been plenty of right-wing blather about the outcome of the Trump trial over the last week. What kind of commentary is fair, and what isn’t?

It is completely fair to point out that the prosecution’s legal theory was convoluted, and that a few of the judge’s decisions were arguable. Those issues are properly decided by a New York appellate court (not the Supreme Court, Mr. Johnson). In addition, you can make a good faith argument that even if Trump was guilty, the prosecution was unwise, because the crime was too limited and remote to justify its divisiveness. I wouldn’t agree with either of those points, but I would respect them.

It is not fair, however, to say that Trump’s guilt wasn’t established by the evidence, or that the jury was biased, or that the judge was corrupt. If you take any of those positions, you are questioning the premises of the legal system without any evidence and exposing yourself to the argument that you are a hypocrite. After all, Hunter Biden is being tried for no obviously good reason for a victimless crime before a Trump judge even as we speak. More on that in a later post.

Larry Hogan had the audacity to say that the jury verdict in the Trump case should be respected. For that apparently banal comment, he was accused of being a RINO by the RNC. What does that tell us?

The Republican Party used to stand for limited government, traditional values and institutions, and a robust national defense. That devolved into unquestioning support for tax cuts for wealthy people and cultural intolerance after the Reagan presidency. Now, it seems, even that malignant ideology is gone; the GOP defines itself as the party that stands unconditionally behind Donald Trump no matter what he says or does on any given day.

In other words, Ben Sasse was wrong; American conservatism is, in fact, about the weird worship of one dude.

If Trump wins, it will be with the help of the Supreme Court, which has gone beyond the call of duty to delay his January 6 trial. In addition, while the “major questions” doctrine would apply on its face to administrative initiatives generated by Republican as well as Democratic presidents, don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. “Major questions” will go into hibernation in the Court the day Trump is inaugurated.

Don’t expect him to show any gratitude, however. In fact, he’s going to make a point of flouting court orders he dislikes, including those from the Supremes, to the embarrassment of all of the reactionary justices except Thomas and Alito, who might as well be wearing MAGA hats on the bench. As I’ve noted previously, that kind of lawless presidential behavior will create a precedent that will ultimately serve the interests of progressives. Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it.

Even if Trump wins, there will be no red wave, just as there was none in 2020, because House and Senate candidates are rarely held responsible for the perceived condition of the country on the date of the election. As a result, even if the GOP wins control of both the House and the Senate, the margins will be extremely slim, and the filibuster will remain in place. What does that mean for Trump’s agenda?

Not much, because the agenda revolves around executive action, not legislation. Trump will be attempting to pull power away from the other two branches of government into the executive branch. Congress will be useful for keeping the lights on, cutting taxes, and reducing spending on Biden’s green energy programs. That’s about it.

And none of the GOP members of Congress will have the nerve to complain.

Biden is apparently taking a relatively conservative approach to Trump’s conviction: supporting the jury’s decision and the rule of law, but nothing more. Is that wise?

Yes, for two reasons. First, it would be foolish to say anything to reinforce the opinion held by the right that he was somehow responsible for the New York prosecution. Second, he probably has bad news coming from the judicial system regarding his son and the workings of liberal government over the next few weeks. He will look like a hypocrite if he gloats about Trump and then whines about the unfairness of the system thereafter.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that his surrogates can’t do a bit of gloating. He also isn’t precluded from commenting on the verdict, and Trump’s decision not to testify, in a barbed way during the debate.

Notwithstanding the emotional satisfaction it would give to Trump’s opponents, the man on golf cart is highly unlikely to get jail time, for the following reasons: he has no previous criminal record; he’s old; and the felonies he committed are of a fairly low level. In addition, the Secret Service would have to come with him, which would disrupt the prison routine, and it would play perfectly into his martyr narrative. It’s not going to happen.

So what is a suitable sentence? I think he should be required to put on a jumpsuit and pick up trash in Manhattan once a week for several years. Community service is a concept with which he is unfamiliar; perhaps he should get used to it. It would humiliate him without making him a martyr. He might even lose weight in the process, which would be good for his health.

Life in the time of Trump.

The verdict has come in.

Guilt on every single count;

For Bragg, it’s a big win.

The left has no time to rejoice;

The red base will explode.

Will the rule of law survive

As faith in it erodes?