Month: November 2024

No governmental entity under the control of two volunteer billionaires and lacking statutory authorization can be a real “department.” It will operate as a small office in the executive branch. Given the identity of the two billionaires, however, it is completely possible that it could recommend enormous cuts in federal spending–Project 2025 on steroids. Then what?

There will be a willing audience for this kind of counterrevolution in Congress, most notably in the House. The GOP is going to have tiny and unreliable majorities in both houses, however. Are the moderates really going to swallow enormous cuts that will cause massive pain to their constituents and put their seats in jeopardy at a time when the economy is actually running quite well?

History says no, but history is not always a reliable guide.

Don’t bother–they’re here.

I can’t figure out whether Trump has just discovered a new way to own the libs, or if his plan to defeat the “deep state” revolves around hiring obviously incompetent people to run it. Kristi Noem at Homeland Security was bad. The Fox talking head at DOD is probably worse. Tulsi Gabbard at National Intelligence is ridiculous. But Matt Gaetz as the AG is at a whole different plane here. When I read it, I laughed out loud.

Gaetz is despised by most of his colleagues. Will the Senate actually confirm him? Is the GOP’s loyalty to Trump so strong that he can force Gaetz down their throats? I have my doubts.

In a way, picking him is reassuring to me, because I can’t imagine Gaetz playing much of a part in the creation of a fascist state. He just isn’t serious enough to pull it off.

Our new Secretary of Defense is a Kudlowesque figure who appears to have been selected because he is a ferocious partisan who is good on TV. I don’t see where he has any credentials to engage in serious military planning or to run a huge organization.

How this translates with regard to using the military to stifle dissent isn’t clear. Hey, it could have been worse; at least he didn’t pick Michael Flynn.

Kristi Noem for Homeland Security? Really?

I guess if you want someone who will shoot illegal immigrants like dogs, she’s a logical choice.

Biden never made fighting inflation an overriding priority, probably because he thought there wasn’t much he could do about it; the system just needed to heal itself. If so, he was right. Supply chain problems ended after the pandemic; the world adjusted to the impacts of the Ukraine war; and the two-year rule cited in several previous posts worked its magic. Today, inflation is back to normal. Trump will undoubtedly get the credit for it.

But the experience of 2022-23 was a political disaster for Biden. Would things have been different if he had been more public and less passive in the battle against inflation? Would a constant drumbeat of complaints from the Oval Office about unjustified price increases have helped? Would a more vigorous effort to rein in spending have impressed the electorate, even if it didn’t accomplish much in the real world?

I doubt it, but we’ll never know. In retrospect, it was probably his only chance.

During the first Trump term, the bureaucracy ran a relatively “normal” foreign policy, while Trump ran off on his own, leading to dissonance and uncertainty that the man on golf cart clearly viewed as a positive feature of his system. His appointments to date suggest that he plans to do the same thing this time around, which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. Is Marco Rubio prepared to have his position undercut by Trump every time he opens his mouth? I certainly hope so.

But the foreign policy appointments have been unobjectionable, at least by Trump’s incredibly low standards. The real test involves his selections for AG and Secretary of Defense. Does he intend to use the military and the legal system to punish enemies and stifle dissent? We will have a much better idea when these appointments are made.

J: Hey, Alex! Happy Veterans Day!

H: Yeah, at least one of us was a veteran, and it wasn’t you.

J: Whoa! Why so grumpy?

H: Did you see the results of the election? Can you believe what our country is doing to itself?

J: Yeah, it’s hard to believe they elected that clown.

H: We spent a lot of time worrying about demagogues and men on horseback during the Constitutional Convention. We thought we might have to deal with a Caesar or an Oliver Cromwell. Instead, we got a narcissistic casino owner whose idea of exercise is riding in a golf cart. It’s absolutely pathetic.

J: You’ll get no argument from me. His vices are mitigated only by his other vices.

H: He reminds me a bit of your friend Aaron Burr, except that Burr was a good attorney and a war hero. He just didn’t have any principles when it came to his ambition.

J: He wasn’t my friend. I had him tried for treason, as you know.

H: Yeah, but he ran on a ticket with you and shot me. Anyway, the American people are mostly responsible for this, but you get some of the blame, too.

J: For what? I was a Renaissance man. Trump’s more of a Neolithic man.

H: That part’s true, but his base hates cities and immigrants, just like you did. They think that only white Christian farmers are real Americans. They want to stick it to everyone else.

J: I admit I thought America should be run by virtuous and independent yeomen farmers, but the country evolved in ways I couldn’t possibly imagine. I wouldn’t be channeling Sarah Palin if I were alive today. Anyway, I think you’re to blame, too.

H: For what?

J: Tariffs. You loved them. So does Trump. They’re a big part of his appeal to the voters.

H: At the time, tariffs were necessary to raise revenue, and to protect infant American industries from unfair foreign competition. Times have changed. Trump’s tariffs have more to do with Juan Peron than me.

J: Probably true. Can we call it a draw and just blame the American people for falling for a fraud who won’t deliver the economy of 2019 with his mass deportations and his ridiculous tariffs?

H: I’m OK with that. The real question has to do with what happens with the public sees it has been deceived. Will Trump respond by crushing dissent and destroying the system we worked so hard to create? Or will he back down and spin his failures as a success?

J: I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

RATIONALE: It’s all Joe Biden’s fault. His spending resulted in inflation. He didn’t do enough to sell the economy to the American people. Then he waited too long to drop out. Harris didn’t have a chance. REALITY: This one contains germs of truth, but nothing more than that. Biden deserves far more credit than he got for bringing the country back after the pandemic; his spending was authorized by Congress, and only caused a small part of the spike in inflation. He wasn’t a successful salesman, partly because he didn’t command the spotlight the way Trump does, but based on the results of elections in the rest of the world, it is unlikely he would have convinced the public even if he had tried harder. As to the timing of his decision to drop out, it still gave Harris a chance, and does anyone believe a different Democratic nominee–even one who wasn’t part of the administration–would have avoided responsibility for inflation? I have serious doubts about that.

THE RATIONALE: The Democrats don’t care about working people. They have become the party of self-satisfied coastal elites that are too progressive for the average worker. THE REALITY: Really? Joe Biden, the most labor-friendly president in history–a man who didn’t go to an Ivy League school–doesn’t care about workers? How do we explain his protectionist measures, his attempts to expand the welfare state for the benefit of workers, and his vast investments in struggling red states?

The reality is that the Democrats have done little but worry about their relationship with workers since 2016. Their failure to connect with them has nothing to do with a lack of effort.

THE RATIONALE: The electorate punished the Democrats for being woke. THE REALITY: There are two major problems with this theory. First of all, Joe Biden, an old moderate white guy, was selected by the Democrats in 2020 precisely because he wasn’t woke. Harris, for her part, ran as a tough cop who didn’t have time for identity issues. Second, the high tide of wokeness was in 2020, when the Democrats prevailed. They also outperformed expectations in 2022. Ron DeSantis ran on fighting wokeness and lost to Trump. Other than a few anti-trans commercials, Trump barely raised the issue, preferring to talk about inflation and illegal immigrants. Why, given this record, would anyone attribute the outcome of the election to wokeness?

If the Democrats pull a rabbit out of a hat and win the House, it will be Hakeem Jeffries. If not, it will be the most visible and effective member of the resistance. That would be Gavin Newsom.

It depends on the public perception of the success or failure of the Trump years. If, against substantial odds, the Trump economy somehow works for everyone, the Democrats will have to lay out a progressive vision based on youth, class, and race and involving significant institutional change; AOC immediately comes to mind here. If, on the other hand, Trump is viewed as a complete failure, the Democrats will play it safe, emulate the Labour Party in the last election, and pick the most moderate white guy they can find–a younger version of Joe Biden. Josh Shapiro would be a logical choice.

For once, I’m going to say something positive about a Trump appointee; Susie Wiles is a good, if obvious, choice for chief of staff. She seems to be able to keep Trump on track and to protect him from at least some of his worst impulses. The nation will be grateful to her if she can do it for the next four years.

Here’s the history: in 2008 and 2012, America chose a liberal black man over a conservative white guy; in 2016, it preferred a reactionary white guy to a white woman; in 2020, it picked an old white liberal man over the reactionary; and in 2024, it elected the reactionary white guy instead of a liberal black woman. What are we to make of this?

Here are three potential theories:

1. America is irredeemably racist and sexist. Trump’s victory in 2024 proves it.
2. The MAGA portion of the electorate is racist and sexist, but the outcome of each election was determined by facts specific to it. In 2016, Trump won largely due to Hillary Clinton’s legal issues and general unpopularity; in 2020, he lost because his response to the pandemic was inadequate; and in 2024, he won because America was unhappy with the Biden economy.
3. America is not irredeemably racist, but it is sexist. It will never elect a woman president.

The identity left prefers #1, but it simply doesn’t fit the facts, because it is inconsistent with the outcomes in 2008 and 2012. #2 is completely consistent with the record. #3 is possible, but there is every reason to believe that Biden would have done even worse, so I would call it unproven.

Another theory of the case is that “the left” only helped Trump by prosecuting him. The prosecutions supported his martyrdom narrative and consolidated support for him among moderate Republicans. One of the other alternatives might have won the primaries otherwise.

The argument that the prosecutions helped Trump in the primaries is undoubtedly correct. “The left,” however, did not bring these cases against him. Those decisions were made by a few specific individuals; I wasn’t consulted. To the extent that “the left” had an opinion on the matter, it was equivocal at best.

In the end, the prosecutors in question had to make a horrible choice between making America look like a banana republic and elevating Trump above the law. They decided the latter was more dangerous, and with good reason, John Roberts notwithstanding. We’re about to find out why.