Month: October 2025

There are basically four reasons why so many women–and not just American women–refuse to get married, settle down, and have kids:

1. In a knowledge-based economy, lots of men are financial liabilities, not assets;
2. In addition to bringing home the bacon, women are expected to do the bulk of the housework and the caregiving;
3. For women, having kids damages their career prospects; and
4. The cost of childcare is astronomical.

The answer to #1 was the creation of the Godly Society through the use of massive tariffs. Trump has already recognized economic reality and abandoned that objective by setting the tariffs at more moderate levels. The pro-natalists are proposing nothing to address the other three issues; their pitch to women seems to be to embrace poverty and sacrifice. That isn’t going to cut it.

When Trump sees another strongman, he assumes he is looking in the mirror. That’s why he is always so desperate to meet with Xi. Is he right?

No, because strongmen are not fungible. Kim is essentially a hereditary monarch, while Putin is a dictator; like Trump, they can change positions on a dime, and the nation is bound to follow. Xi, on the other hand, is the leader of a country with an entrenched official ideology and a huge bureaucracy. For all of the power he wields within the system, he can’t simply ignore its interests; as a true believer, it is doubtful he would even want to try. That means personal diplomacy with him is only going to get Trump so far.

C: We haven’t talked about Trump for a few months. How would you grade his economy?

M: C-plus. Maybe a D-minus.

S: A-plus.

C: Mark, you’ve given him a pretty low grade. Why?

M: He did cut my taxes, so I didn’t give him an F. His random, capricious interventions in the economy are causing me and my car dealership lots of problems. The tariffs are killing us. We’re selling 2023 models that no one wanted before to avoid jacking up prices. Profits are down. And it’s not going to get any better anytime soon.

C: Leaving aside your personal issues, how would you rate the macro elements of the economy?

M: Unemployment is up slightly. Inflation hasn’t fallen; in fact, practically everything Trump is doing is designed to increase prices. Poor people are struggling. There is no industrial renaissance. The deportations are causing labor shortages. There’s nothing here to celebrate.

C: Sebastian, why do you think the economy is so great?

S: Gas prices are down. There’s hope again. Trump is sticking it to the people I hate. That’s what I really care about.

C: It sounds like your evaluation isn’t really based on the state of the economy.

S: What’s really important to me is showing blue America who’s the boss. That’s Trump, and by extension, people like me. It may not make me money, but it sure feels good.

C: What do you think of the “No Kings” protests?

S: I want Trump to be a king. I want him to burn down blue America. Those people are getting what they deserve from him.

C: How do you feel about his attacks on the universities?

M: Some of his ideas about protecting conservatives on campus are OK. But, as a taxpayer, I want money for cancer research to go to the most qualified people, not to people who agree with Trump about trans people. That’s just stupid.

S: It’s another example of Trump fulfilling his promises to inflict pain on the elites. I totally approve of that. If some money gets wasted in the process, that’s OK.

C: What about sending troops to American cities?

M: It’s unnecessary and divisive. It could lead to big trouble in the future.

S: Still another example of Trump showing the bad guys who’s boss.

C: And the indictments of Trump’s enemies?

S: They’re getting what they deserve. They did it to him first.

M: That turns my stomach. It tells you that anyone who speaks out against Trump could be next.

S: Yeah, it could be you, RINO.

C: That’s enough for today.

Rinse and repeat. Deja vu all over again. Lighting the fire and then putting it out. That’s what Trump’s relationship with Xi is all about.

The world understands perfectly; for all of Trump’s bluster and determination to prove he is the boss, he is losing the trade war to China, because Xi holds the rare earths card and is willing to use it. If you were in his position, you would, too.

This “agreement” is just a brief cease-fire. The real issues have not been resolved. We still don’t know what Trump’s real objectives are, and the likelihood is that he doesn’t, either. The war will return shortly.

Warren Zevon is going into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It should have happened twenty years ago, but late is a lot better than never.

In light of my previous two posts, I have been scanning American history to determine whether there are precedents for a candidate running purely as the mouthpiece of the incumbent. Madison (Jefferson), Monroe (Madison), Van Buren (Jackson), and George H.W. Bush (Reagan) don’t really fit the bill, because they were politicians of considerable reputation in their own right. Vance, as a national figure, had about as much heft as Dan Quayle before Trump chose him as his running mate.

The closest precedent would be Taft, who ran and won as TR’s anointed candidate. You will recall that the Taft episode didn’t end well for the GOP. TR ultimately turned on him and ran as a third-party candidate, thus handing the presidency to Wilson in 1912.

As I’ve noted many times before, Harris couldn’t run on Biden’s record, because it was unjustly unpopular. She couldn’t run as a credible change agent, either. That left her with nothing except Trump’s record and the threat he posed to liberal democracy, which wasn’t enough.

J.D. Vance will be in a slightly different position in 2028. He will have to defend every inch of Trump’s record. Any initiatives of his own will have to be described as logical extensions of Trumpism. He will be running as a perpetual outsider who is actually responsible for the condition of the country.

Will it work? Only if Trump is viewed as a roaring success by the electorate, which seems highly unlikely.

When Elizabeth I was asked why she wouldn’t designate a successor, she said people worshipped the rising, not the setting, sun. Trump almost certainly understands that, which is why he persists in talking about a third term.

Consider what this means for J.D. Vance. He won’t be able to start his campaign until very late in the process. Neither Trump nor the base will forgive him if he puts any distance at all between himself and the president. In fact, I suspect he will have to portray himself as a puppet for Trump in order to get the nomination. That will be awkward, to say the least.

Where does that leave Vance if Trump is viewed as a failure by a majority of Americans? Oh, right. He’ll still have the military and the DOJ. That might be enough.

With regard to the blue team’s ostensible objective–forcing the GOP to make a deal on Obamacare subsidies–it is already clear that the shutdown has been a failure, as nobody has openly broken ranks on the issue. The most you can say is that the public’s consciousness has been raised on the issue, and the GOP will be blamed if, as is likely, the government does nothing to solve the problem after it reopens.

There are a number of dates in the near future that could trigger the end to the crisis. Open enrollment starts on November 1. The end of SNAP payments in many states will start on that date. The election is a few days later. There is no obvious reason to go on after that, because the country now knows that the Democrats have no leverage in Washington on health care or any other issue, with the possible exception of farmer aid. Period.

Will the base be satisfied with a surrender in the face of millions of poor people going hungry? I’m guessing most of it will. The real danger is that the activists will conclude that the only possible answer is on the streets and behave accordingly, because Trump will meet them with force if they get violent.

If Trump’s principal objective in Asia is geopolitical–the flexible containment of China–he should be making deals to cut tariffs with China’s neighbors. If his overriding goal is not geopolitical, but to create a lasting trade deal with China, he should nonetheless cozy up to our traditional allies in order to create leverage with the CCP. If his goals revolve around trade, however, and he makes no distinction between our allies and the Chinese, there is no reason to deepen our relationships with anyone in Asia. Which option will Trump choose?

Option #1 is unlikely. I can’t tell if he prefers Option #2 or Option #3. Chances are, he doesn’t know himself.

You will recall that Cass noted a month or so ago that it was time for kindly Uncle Donald to stop wrecking things and acting capriciously; he needed to put his program on a more stable and lasting basis through legislation, which meant working with Democrats. How is that working for him?

Just within the last week, Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on Canada because the PM of Ontario ran a commercial that pissed him off. He bulldozed the East Wing after promising he wouldn’t. He’s openly talking about regime change in Venezuela without any authorization from Congress. And, of course, he won’t bend on the shutdown, because he can’t tolerate the thought that his political opponents have any leverage over him.

In other words, as I predicted, kindly Uncle Donald is about as plausible as Uncle Joe Stalin.

The much-ballyhooed Gaza “peace agreement” is actually a cease-fire with some vague aspirations for the future. There is good reason to doubt that Phase 2 will actually be implemented. Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize, however. He won’t get one for the little that has been accomplished to date. As a result, he may be willing to push Bibi harder than usual to get the international validation he so desperately craves.

I noted during his first term that Trump’s vices are mitigated by his other vices, not his few virtues. This is a classic example of that phenomenon.

Trump is, of course, a passionate supporter of crypto, which is making him billions of dollars, at least on paper. The NYT, however, tells us today that Maduro is using crypto to avoid American sanctions and keep the Venezuelan economy afloat, at least by today’s low standards, thereby frustrating Trump’s plans to get rid of him.

The message here is that the blockchain bows to no one, not even Trump.

Trump tells the public that he won’t touch the East Wing of the White House in his effort to build a large new ballroom. Instead, without seeking the proper authorizations, he bulldozes it. The new ballroom will be funded by extremely wealthy supporters and will look like something that belongs at Versailles.

As a metaphor for his presidency, could you possibly do better than that?

What a difference a year makes! Our mountain community was wrecked by Helene in 2024, and we had no running water the week before we left. This year, the fall colors have been resplendent, and as usual, it is very painful to leave. But it is already getting uncomfortably cold, and next week will be brutal. Ready or not, we have to go.

Florida will be different, too. For once, our home will be intact. Ron DeSantis is a lame duck, largely despised by the state leadership of his own party. Wokeness has had its day; the 2026 campaign will most likely revolve around financial issues. The candidates in the governor’s race will have difficulty running the usual outsider against liberal coastal elites campaign; they will have to define themselves relative to DeSantis’ legacy. It should be fascinating.

We will have a ringside seat for it.