Month: October 2025

Trump has made opposition to foreign wars and regime change the centerpiece of his foreign policy. It appears, however, that he is about to attack Venezuela to oust Maduro. Will MAGA follow him?

There will be some loud dissent, but for the most part, yes. Trump will argue that the foreign war rule doesn’t apply to land close to America’s borders and that he is replacing Maduro with a leader who actually won an election. He will also insist that keeping large numbers of troops in Venezuela will be unnecessary once Maduro is gone and that millions of Venezuelan refugees in America will be able to go home. I expect most of MAGA to accept these rationales.

MAGA often sounds like a Second Amendment absolutist group; after all, Charlie Kirk said quite clearly that dead school children were acceptable collateral damage. But is that an accurate view of MAGA’s position?

No. MAGA believes in rights for me, but not for thee. The Second Amendment is no different in that respect than the First. Trump is already thinking about depriving trans people of the right to bear arms and is boasting about illegal gun seizures in D.C. Expect more such efforts to control gun ownership in the future, particularly in cities in blue states.

And when it happens, the NRA may suffer some heartburn, but you can bet Clarence Thomas will say it’s OK.

It was always debatable whether a shutdown at this time was a good move for the Democrats. The record will show that I was slightly inclined to the no side. Having opted for a confrontation, however, the Democrats can’t afford to cave. Why?

Because Trump and the GOP are treating the crisis as a test of dominance rather than an opportunity to persuade swing voters. If the blue team gets rolled when it appears to have the public on its side, everyone will draw the conclusion that it cannot be trusted to provide meaningful opposition to Trump’s usurpations of power. That in turn will cause the left to go to the streets, which will lead to violence, further military actions in our cities, and the end of liberal democracy in America.

In short, the pain caused by a shutdown will be real, but the pain caused by caving will be much worse.

As I predicted long ago, Trump is starting to talk seriously about bailing out his loyal farmers. On its face, this would require action from Congress, which is currently shut down. The Democrats would therefore appear to have a new point of leverage in any discussions about ending the shutdown. Will it really work that way?

I suspect not, because Trump will illegally and unilaterally find a source of money–presumably his tariffs– to use for the bailout even if the shutdown continues. He will want the farmers to know that he alone is responsible for the bailout, which makes sense in a way, because it is his trade wars and deportations that created the problem in the first place.

The latest French government collapsed after less than a month. The French electorate is increasingly viewing Macron, not the rowdy and divided opposition, as the source of instability. What should he do?

France needs a new parliamentary election, and Macron needs to make a positive case to the French public that the center is the only reasonable option instead of allying himself with the left against the RN. If the RN wins, so be it. Better to have them run the country into ruin with adult supervision in foreign affairs today than to win the presidency tomorrow.

Fifty percent of America despises Donald Trump. Ten percent–the part that won him the election–is persuadable but dislikes the direction the country is going. The remaining forty percent is unequivocally pro-Trump; it watches Fox News or Newsmax, both of which are cheerleaders for the counterrevolution.

If the new owners of CBS decide to follow the Orban playbook and make their network another mouthpiece for Trump, they will be rejecting the majority of viewers and chasing the segment that is already committed to Fox and Newsmax. That sounds like commercial suicide to me.

The bottom line here is that CBS can only afford to move slightly to the right if it wants to retain any viewers. It will probably wind up opposed to both wokeness and the counterrevolution.

The American version, not the Chinese–Trump is trying to use National Guard troops from red states to occupy cities he hates in blue states. As you would expect, Texas is more than willing to assist. I would expect Florida to be next in line; DeSantis won’t miss such a great chance to suck up to the base.

This is Little Rock, and perhaps Appomattox, in reverse. That’s why the red states are so enthusiastic about it. Of course, if a large hurricane hits the Gulf while the Guard is deployed elsewhere, that might be a problem, but you only live once.

People are transmitters of electromagnetic energy. How do I know that? From the personal experiences I described in previous Metaphysical Monday posts and from medieval paintings, which invariably show religious figures with auras. And consider why people usually pray on their knees with their hands together. Doesn’t that resemble a transmitter? Isn’t sending a message to the other side the whole point of prayer?

What this suggests to me is that the other side, like cyberspace, is all around us; it consists of spirits operating like ultraviolet light. We can’t experience them directly under normal circumstances, but they are all around us, and when our senses are inactive, our brains can communicate with them.

Ross Douthat may have doubts about Donald Trump, but about the reactionary mission, he has none; “progressivism” has taken over our institutions, and it must be rooted out by state action. Is he right?

Here are my reactions:

1. The leaders of the evil “progressivism” he identifies in his NYT column are foreigners and businessmen. There are no–none, zip, nada–prominent woke American politicians.
2. The cultural lurch to the left that Douthat deplores so vigorously had nothing to do with Democratic control of the federal government. The universities radicalized when Richard Nixon was president. It was a conservative Supreme Court, not Barack Obama, that found gay marriage to be a constitutional right. The New York Times published and promoted “The 1619 Project” when Donald Trump was president. The backlash to George Floyd’s death also occurred during Trump’s first term.
3. To the extent that “progressivism” took over American institutions, it was partly due to self-selection (leftists don’t gravitate towards business) and partly because they won the argument in the eyes of the public. Douthat and his reactionary friends want to use the power of the federal government to overturn that victory. By using force, they will only encourage the left to dig in.
4. The GOP’s priority over the last 50 years has been to cut taxes for rich people and hold the line on the welfare state, not to do battle with cultural elites. On these issues, the right has been consistently triumphant. Douthat has nothing to say about that.

Following Francis, Pope Leo made a strong statement against climate change skeptics a few days ago. J.D. Vance likes to portray himself as a faithful Catholic. How will he defend Trump’s ongoing efforts to wreck the planet from the Pope on this issue?

I’m guessing he’ll tell Leo to shut up about climate change and stick to what really matters–abortion.

Trump would appear to have the public relations edge in the battle over the shutdown; after all, it is Congress that failed to pass the CR, not him. That’s the way it has always worked for Democratic presidents in the past. But will the same dynamic prevail this time?

Trump would have to portray himself credibly as the powerless protector of the federal workforce and the public interest to win public sympathy. Since he prefers dominance to powerlessness, at least while he is in office, he is instead using the occasion to threaten public employees and punish blue states and cities. Is bullying helpless victims likely to win the GOP more votes in 2026? The elections in Canada and Australia and the polls in Brazil suggest the answer is no.

So the government shutdown is here.

Only CLs have reason to cheer.

Now the nation must choose–

Who will win, who will lose?

Will it end by the end of the year?

At first glance, the deal offered to several prominent universities doesn’t look that egregious. Most notably, the administration isn’t trying to impose its will on hiring and admissions practices. Freezing skyrocketing tuition costs sounds like a good idea. Does that mean we should breathe a sigh of relief?

No, for three reasons. First, even though Trump isn’t trying to micromanage the universities, he is showing an open preference for conservative ideology, which is a violation of the First Amendment. I didn’t see any corresponding requirement for Hillsdale College to provide protection for liberal students. Second, the deal ignores the public interest by creating funding preferences based on conservative ideology instead of results. Finally, I am not aware of any legal authority for this kind of a deal. If the universities agree to it, what’s next?

What do these three issues have in common? All of them have solutions that are obvious to everyone. In the case of the shutdown, the answer is a credible commitment by the GOP leadership, including Trump, to hold a vote on extending the Biden Obamacare tax credits in the next few weeks. There is every reason to believe the extension would pass. What is currently lacking is the will to see it through. In this instance, it is because the leadership knows the vote will exacerbate the rift in the party between fiscal hawks and moderates.

With that in mind, when does it happen? Probably when the public becomes painfully aware of the price increases that are on the horizon which will disproportionately impact relatively old and affluent Trump voters.

Trump gave a completely inappropriate partisan speech to the military brass earlier in the week. He received no response, which must have been very frustrating to him. What conclusions should we draw from this?

Turning the military into a completely committed right-wing militia will take more time than Trump and Hegseth would like, which is a small source of comfort to the rest of us.