Month: October 2024

Imagine that you are Bibi Netanyahu (it’s hard, I know). You are still evaluating your retaliation options. What do you do?

The first logical choice is to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities. The problem here is that you can’t do it without American help, and even then, you might not succeed. In addition, the dynamics of the situation are different than they were in the Trump era; the Iranian nuclear program is far more advanced, and Iran is now effectively an ally of Russia. What you destroy, Putin might replace. This is not a viable option.

The second possibility is to bomb Iran’s oil production facilities. This will cause major economic pain, but the pain won’t be limited to Iran; it will be felt by everyone in the world except the Russians. The international community will be outraged. This probably isn’t a good idea, either.

Your ultimate goal should be regime change. If you attack Revolutionary Guard personnel and facilities and prove to the Iranian people that the repression machine can be defeated, it might move the populace to revolution, either now or in the future, when the Supreme Leader is gone. Why not try it?

As I’ve noted before, there are three wildly different revolutionary visions behind the Trump candidacy: the Godly Society; a techno-aristocracy; and the New Confederacy. Which of these has Trump’s support?

Based on the campaign to date, all of them! He put J.D. Vance, one of the most conspicuous advocates of the Godly Society, on the ticket; Elon Musk is one of his biggest supporters, and he is now advocating for crypto; and his states’ rights position on abortion is consistent with the New Confederacy. He also wants to bring back the names of Confederate loser generals for our military bases.

Trump is obviously trying to maintain party unity by nodding to all of the three groups. Can he successfully juggle their demands if he wins? Probably not.

The NYT published a lengthy interview with J.D. yesterday. Here are my thoughts:

1. The interviewer expended a lot of energy trying to get J.D. to justify sending wildly different messages to the base and to more establishment institutions. He shouldn’t have bothered; virtually all politicians do some form of this in order to get votes. What makes Trump and J.D. different from the rest is the vast distance between the messages, not the fact that one exists.
2. The headline news about the interview pertained to J.D.’s refusal to admit that Biden won the election. Since Vance would be excommunicated by the base and by Trump if he had done otherwise, this should come as a surprise to exactly nobody.
3. The interviewer was shrewd enough to ask Vance questions about what happens to the economy if millions of essential workers are driven out of the country. Vance insists that there is a huge pool of discouraged workers who will re-enter the labor force to work in construction (or, I suppose, packing plants or agricultural fields) if the illegal immigrants leave. The numbers and common sense clearly don’t back him up, so he is either deluded or simply doesn’t care–probably the latter.
4. The interviewer should have asked him where the money is going to come for the deportation scheme, and whether the government will obey court orders blocking it. He didn’t, unfortunately.
5. Vance sort of makes it sound like his ideas about abortion have evolved naturally to become identical to Trump’s. That clearly isn’t true. He is swallowing his principles in favor of his ambitions.

It’s been warm here the last few days, but that’s over. The wind is howling, and the temperature is plummeting. It’s supposed to snow tomorrow night. Winter is almost here.

So is the election. It makes you feel great, doesn’t it?

The Lebanese government is basically a joke. The Lebanese military is little better. The international peacekeeping force has never done anything meaningful to separate Hezbollah from the Israelis. As a result, you can certainly understand why the Israeli government has shown minimal interest in an international solution to the Hezbollah problem.

But what are the better alternatives? Israel’s attempt to create a proxy force in the border areas was a failure and would be no more successful today. That leaves two options: an indefinite occupation at a time when the country’s resources are already being stretched in Gaza; or a withdrawal after a short period of time that results in Hezbollah, weakened but not destroyed, returning to the border area with thousands of rockets and the will to use them.

In short, if the objective of the Hezbollah campaign is to provide permanent security for the residents of Israel, it will almost certainly fail. The Israelis are much better at tactics than they are at strategy.

Within weeks of taking office, Trump had implemented several of his key policy objectives through executive action. Relying on existing (if dubious) statutory authority, he imposed a large universal tariff on all imported goods and a massive one on Chinese products; he cut off all aid to Ukraine; and he diverted a significant part of the defense budget to his new deportation scheme, which included the construction of vast migrant camps in Texas. The base rejoiced, but moderate voters who had supported him in the belief that he would just bring back the 2019 economy were appalled. Deliberate acts of cruelty, the illegal use of funds, large price increases, and deference to dictators wasn’t what they voted for! Trump’s favorability ratings, never high, plummeted.

A federal court in the Ninth Circuit issued an injunction prohibiting the most extreme deportation measures. In addition, there were mass demonstrations in major urban areas all over the country. Trump responded to the national expressions of disapproval by threatening to use all of the resources of the federal government to punish his most vocal critics. He ignored the injunction and continued with the deportation plan. He also promised to use the Insurrection Act to shoot demonstrators.

The march to fascism had begun. It was going to be a long four years.

Harris hasn’t done much to put distance between herself and Biden on the Gaza issue. As a result, I’m reading plenty about how the disgruntled Arab-Americans in Michigan will refuse to vote for her. What is going on here?

I think the Harris campaign has decided that the votes of Liz Cheney Republicans are more important to her campaign on a national basis than the “uncommitted” votes in Michigan. She is gambling that the latter group will ultimately come around purely as a result of Trump’s awfulness. Let’s hope she’s right.

Unlike Biden in the final stages of the 2020 campaign, Kamala Harris has no great vision to improve the country. She has no plans to dramatically expand the safety net or to replace the dollar store economy with something more equitable. Even if she did, it wouldn’t happen; the lack of a majority in the Senate, the filibuster, and the Supreme Court would be insurmountable obstacles. A vote for Harris, therefore, is effectively a vote for the status quo.

Trump will similarly be frustrated by the lack of a real working majority in either the House or the Senate. For him, however, the inability to legislate–except on tax issues, on which he will undoubtedly defer to PBPs in Congress–is not really a problem. His tariffs and his deportation regime–his two significant policy initiatives– will be based, however unlawfully, on existing statutes, not any new ones.

In the end, therefore, Biden’s theory of the case was correct. This election is really about whether Trump can seize control of what he calls the “deep state” and use it to punish his political, cultural, and intellectual enemies in violation of constitutional norms. Nothing more or less is at stake here.

One of the mixed blessings I get from having a variety of TV sports subscriptions is the ability to watch political ads from all over the country. You might be surprised by how similar they are: Mr. Democrat voted for transgender rights and to defund the police; Mr. Republican is an extremist on abortion rights. The candidates are fungible; the song remains the same.

The most memorable commercial I’ve seen was a Gallego ad from Arizona. In the ad, a guy talking about Kari Lake says, “She’s not conservative–she’s nuts!”

Exactly. If only the Harris ads were that punchy.

On the Russian dictator named Putin.

For his dear old friend Don he was rootin’.

And why would he not?

Trump would help him a lot.

On that point, there can be no disputin’.

This was hardly our first hurricane: we lived through Charley and Wilma; we evacuated during Irma but struggled through its aftermath; and we had to reconstruct our home after Ian. In one respect, however, this was the worst one; we had no information about anything that was going on in the world except what we could see for ourselves and what we heard from neighbors. That has never happened in Florida.

At least it is mostly over for us, because we live closer to the top of the mountain than the bottom. If you own property near a river, your ordeal is just beginning.

A note to my readers: Helene delayed but did not cancel a proposed vacation. Regular posts will resume around 10/12.

It appears at this point that Biden has persuaded the Israelis to limit themselves to a relatively minor ground invasion and no permanent occupation. There is some justified concern about mission creep, but the Israelis are looking for a short-term fix, not a chimerical complete and final victory over Hezbollah.

In other words, Israel is cutting the grass in Lebanon, just as it did in Gaza before October 7. In this case, for the reasons I set out in a previous post, it makes sense.

When asked about the Harris Helene commercial, a Trump spokesman stated: “There were no hurricanes during the Trump presidency, but lots of them under Biden. Why? Because, like wars, hurricanes gravitate towards wokeness and weakness. Donald Trump is a strong man. Hurricanes wouldn’t dare to mess with him.”

Victims of Hurricanes Maria and Harvey could not be reached for comment.

A potential Harris commercial in North Carolina–a swing state– would juxtapose shots of Helene damage with Trump throwing paper towels to people in Puerto Rico. A commentator would say something to the effect that Trump believes climate change is a Chinese hoax and that storm victims are acceptable collateral damage in an economy dominated by fossil fuels.

It’s the kind of hard shot the Democrats haven’t even really tried to land on climate change during the last three elections. They should, and it might work.