Month: April 2025

Robert Moses has been a boogeyman for the left for decades due to his indifference to important American values. There are plenty of parks and useful roads in New York that wouldn’t exist without his energetic support, however. How can we change our regulatory system to keep the good side of Moses and expel the bad side?

Here are three ideas. First, give federal, state, and local governments the right to bypass the regular process on projects that are genuinely of overriding public importance. Second, put statutory deadlines in permitting process and enforce them. Third, find a way to compensate the people who wind up losing their rights in the expedited process in the name of the public interest. I have posted on ways to do this in zoning on previous occasions; the state and federal governments could surely find a way to cut taxes on regulatory victims in other cases.

Ezra Klein thinks it is too difficult to build things in America, and that the left’s enthusiasm for slow, methodical process is a big part of the reason. Is he right, and if so, what can be done about it?

He is correct, but the processes were created for a reason, as Trump reminds us every day. First, having set, transparent, enforceable procedural rules reduces the potential for corruption. Second, rules make arbitrary decisions with highly negative long-term results less likely. Third, they provide some degree of assurance that historically powerless people will have their voices heard. It is far less likely that interstate highways will be bulldozed through vibrant neighborhoods of poor people today than it was 50 years ago.

If we had no alternatives between the kind of autocracy supported by Trump and Musk or a regulatory swamp, I would choose the latter. There is, however, plenty of middle ground here. I will discuss ways of improving the system in my next post.

Can’t you just see it? Pete Hegseth’s army crosses over the border into Canada. Trump announces that, due to the irresponsibility of the Canadian voters, it has become necessary to annex the country by force. Just like Ukraine–Canada never had any right to exist, anyway.

Call it the American Anschluss.

As of the time I am writing this, it isn’t clear whether the Liberals have won a plurality or an absolute majority in yesterday’s election. What is clear is who lost–Trump and Elon Musk. Their repeated attempts to bully the Canadians into submission received the proper response from a liberal democracy. Now they will have to deal with the consequences.

Do you suppose Trump will have learned that being offensive to your friends is not a good way to get what you want? Don’t bet on it. Trump only has one speed, and diplomacy–except with autocrats, of course–isn’t it.

There was never any chance of a boatload of great deals within 90 days, particularly since Trump has no idea what to ask for in order to eliminate most of our bilateral trade deficits. He can’t afford to walk away with completely empty hands, however. As a result, the most likely short-term outcome will be a series of agreements merely to negotiate further, which he will trumpet as a colossal success.

Right. If the agreements come at all, they will take years and be much more limited in scope than the GOP reactionaries want. The beneficiaries will be restricted to a few industries (energy companies, weapons manufacturers, and possibly tech companies) and will do nothing to bring about the Godly Society.

National Socialism was not an ideologically monolithic movement. On the one hand, there were populist leaders who took the socialist part of the party’s name seriously; they wanted to absorb the regular military into the SA and favor workers over industrialists. On the other hand, business interests who supported the party as a bulwark against communism wanted no part of rights for workers, and the military remained aloof and dangerous. At some point, Hitler, who had tried to remain above the fray, had to choose.

He did. The outcome was the Night of the Long Knives. The populists lost, bigly.

Is this ringing any bells for you?

Ignoring court orders and deporting people to El Salvador without providing reasonable notice and hearings is a crime. The Trump tariff scheme is a blunder. So far, Trump is paying a price in the polls and the markets for the latter, but not the former. A few years from now, will America’s opinions have changed? It depends on what happens next; Trump has been somewhat deterred on the economic front, but emboldened, if anything, on his tropical gulag.

The question keeps coming up–should the Democrats just talk about the tariffs and shut up about the more popular deportations? The correct answer is that it is unnecessary to choose. It is essential to emphasize both.

A note to my readers: Regular posting will resume next Monday.

Trump can, of course, dismiss all of the stories about tariffs and stagflation in the MSM as “fake news.” But we are seeing a wave of commercials from car dealers and furniture stores telling us to buy now, before the massive wave of price increases hits. Even the base can’t ignore that kind of information.

In spite of the massive difference in style and tone, you could make a good case that Trump 1.0 was consistent with the administrations of Reagan and George W. Bush. The tax cuts and efforts at deregulation were completely orthodox and were inspired by the PBP faction; the Reactionaries, in spite of being the largest group within the GOP tent, had no economic program of their own; and while Trump frequently resorted to abrasive reactionary rhetoric, he took few practical steps to win the culture war outside of appointing three Supreme Court justices. Is the same true of Trump 2.0?

No. The tariff scheme is a reactionary economic program that frightens the PBPs, and Trump is fighting the culture war with executive orders, threats, and lawsuits, not just idle words. The Reactionaries are fully in charge today; the PBPs are just along for a very bumpy ride.

Right-wing populists, by definition, reject elites; to them, what matters is faith, power, and the will, not expertise. To a right-wing populist leader, the best qualifications for office are blind loyalty and ruthlessness, not competence–hence, Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem. As a result, populist governments have a poor track record of success. If you don’t believe me, just ask Boris Johnson.

I have never had any doubt that Trump 2.0 would be a failure. The real question is what Trump will do when he is confronted by the consequences of that failure. Will he change course and rely on spin to cover his tracks, or will he double down and become even more authoritarian? We don’t know the answer to that question yet.

I can only see two possible outcomes to Trump’s trade negotiations. If he decides that the ultimate objective is to isolate China, not to stop trade in the name of eliminating bilateral deficits, he will get the rest of the world to buy more American weapons (an achievable goal), energy (probably not enforceable), and agricultural products (ditto) in exchange for lifting the tariffs. This will do very little to bring back the economy of the 1950s, and it won’t be worth the economic pain it is causing in the short run, but it is an outcome that makes geopolitical sense.

If Trump sticks to the notion of reviving low-value American industry and eliminating bilateral trade deficits, however, there will be no deals, and confidence in our economy will dissolve very quickly. Faced with collapsing support at home, Trump will be tempted to treat his failures as an “emergency” which requires further despotism at home. That is the result which is truly to be feared.

Trump’s tariff chaos is making me, along with the rest of America, poor again. Do you remember that being any part of his campaign pitch? Me, neither.

A large part of the base will accept immiseration as long as blue America is being treated even worse; for them, leveling down is perfectly acceptable. Another part treats Trump as a cult leader and will believe the promised land is coming even if takes years–decades, even. But PBP voters and a small part of the base are expecting instant gratification. They will be heard from in 2026, assuming that we have a fair election at that point.

According to an article in today’s NYT, Trump wants a baby boom. His people are discussing a variety of ways to make it happen. Are they likely to succeed?

In my experience, women are likely to have more children when they have plenty of support, the economy is good, and they have reason to feel optimistic. Today, we are looking at a recession and major cuts in social programs, including those that support traditional families. In addition, Trumpian bro culture discourages men from engaging in the rearing of children, which it would view as women’s work. Under those conditions, do you really think women are going to be lining up to have babies, even if the government offers them some financial incentives to do so?

I think Francis will go down in history as a man who built bridges to nowhere. He floated trial balloons and encouraged debate but chose to pull back when things started to get out of hand. He was a well-meaning, noble failure.

There are far worse things, as we are learning every day. The big question for the new pope will revolve around his attitude towards right-wing populism. Will he embrace illiberal regimes for their emphasis on traditional moral values and downplay their contempt for social programs, the poor, the environment, and immigrants? Or will he follow the lead of Francis and confront the authoritarians, while continuing to advocate for traditional values?

I don’t know the answer to that. I suspect that even the cardinals don’t at this point.

According to an article in, I think, Politico, Trump is waiting for Xi to call him directly to make a deal, but Xi won’t bite. Why not?

For several reasons. First, Xi depends on the support of nationalists at home, so he doesn’t want to make the first move, particularly when it is obvious that Trump is trying to bully him. Second, as the article notes, Xi doesn’t want to be part of an unscripted scene similar to the Zelensky episode. But most importantly, in spite of what Trump probably thinks, Xi is not Putin or Kim; he is the head of a bureaucratic state with a fixed ideology, not an omnipotent fascist leader who can change positions on a dime. As I’ve noted before, Xi is bound by Xi Jinping thought; Putin, like Trump, can reverse himself any time he likes.

My guess is that Trump wants to deal directly with Xi, as he did with Kim, because he wants to discuss an uncomfortably broad geopolitical deal that may even include spheres of influence. Xi and the bureaucracy don’t want any part of that kind of surprise, just as the Soviet and American establishments didn’t embrace Reagan’s impromptu nuclear proposal to Gorbachev in the 1980s.