Author: hamilton1788

The GOP House members from swing districts historically have rolled over for the extremists in the name of party unity even though the Freedom Caucus is effectively its own party with its own separate nihilistic agenda. The removal of McCarthy seems to have aroused some strong feelings, however, and the outcome of the election of a new Speaker is very much in doubt. Could this be the time the moderates actually stand up and insist on their right to control the party? Will they use the threat of cooperation with moderate Democrats to bend the extremists to their will?

I don’t know about you, but I’m not holding my breath. My guess is that they would rather put their own seats at risk in a general election than arouse the wrath of Fox News, Trump, and the far right.

By any reasonable metric, Israel is an overwhelming success. The tiny nation dominates the Middle East both economically and militarily. And to whom does it owe its success? The establishment, which has governed it up until recently, fights its wars, makes its money, and pays its taxes.

The current government, on the other hand, consists of a bunch of incompetent right-wing populist bozos who think they can do anything they want for their ideological constituency without putting the country at risk. Its leader is a man who consistently puts his own welfare and his desire for power ahead of the national interest. If he hadn’t been distracted by his own petty concerns, the disaster of the last few days would never have occurred. It’s time to stop the rot!

That will be the opposition narrative after the brief moment of unity caused by the war comes to an end. There will be a lot of truth to it, too. Will the shock of the day be enough to cause a revolution in Israeli politics? And has the American public seen what happens when right-wing populists are given the keys to the car in a dangerous neighborhood?

We’ll see.

Historically, the Conservative Party has been, well, conservative: it resists rapid change; reacts to problems in a flexible and non-ideological way; and emphasizes deference, property rights, competence, and traditional values. But Brexit and Boris Johnson took the party in a completely different, populist direction; this resulted in a smashing electoral success, but shambolic government driven by leaders with more interest in performance than results. This was followed by the extremely brief, classical liberal, Liz Truss era. Where does Sunak fit in this picture?

Sunak is a return to standard conservatism. He is about as far from a populist as he can get. His problem is that the condition of the UK is considerably less than great, which means he is effectively obligated to run against Johnson and Truss, his Tory predecessors. Can that possibly work? Will he be given credit by the electorate for being a change candidate when the baseline is his own party, which he supported loyally at the time?

Don’t hold your breath.

Unlike the Egyptians in 1973, Hamas doesn’t have the ability to free Gaza, or to take and hold territory; it can only kill and take hostages. The timing of the attacks was clearly tied to the ongoing negotiations between the Israelis and the Saudis; in other words, the audience for this drama consists primarily of one man–King Salman. What happens next? Are the negotiations necessarily dead?

It depends on the scale and effectiveness of the Israeli response. If the Israelis quietly grind down the militants without causing widespread civilian casualties, the Saudis will probably see the attack as an unsuccessful attempted provocation and continue with the negotiations. If the Israelis either look weak or fill televisions all over the world with images of slaughtered civilians in order to satisfy outraged public opinion at home, that will be a different matter. I make no predictions either way.

Kevin McCarthy zigged and zagged; he attacked Trump, and then embraced him; he made promises he knew he couldn’t keep, and then unashamedly broke them. Nobody on either side of the aisle trusted him. When he offered the Democrats nothing in return for their support, they cut him loose. But what now?

The next Speaker will have the same dilemma that McCarthy did; the GOP doesn’t really have a majority in the House, just as the Democrats don’t really have a majority in the Senate. The Freedom Caucus is effectively an unreliable partner in a right-wing coalition that exists only to keep the left out of power and its members on TV. The GOP cannot govern with the extremists, but it cannot keep the left out without them. It loses either way. So what happens next?

The best possible outcome for America is a bipartisan coalition involving moderates of both parties. The much more likely outcome is a GOP Speaker who uses the same tactics as McCarthy to try to keep both the endangered moderates and the extremists united. If that happens, things will only get worse.

WE ARE THE VICTIMS

We are the victims, my friend.

And we’ll keep on fighting till the end.

We are the victims!

We are the victims!

No time for liberals

‘Cause we are the victims

Of the woke.

______________

Parody of “We Are the Champions” by Queen.

Having correctly seen that the only way to avoid a shutdown was a bipartisan CR, McCarthy introduced one this afternoon. It passed solely due to Democratic votes. Ukraine money was excluded from the bill in a sop to the Freedom Caucus. McCarthy will undoubtedly argue to them that he accomplished one of their primary objectives, so they should hold off on a motion to vacate. It is highly unlikely that they will acquiesce this time.

What we have in the House is a situation where the right-wing rabble rules 99 percent of the time, but a bipartisan coalition excluding the extremists prevails when it really matters. Should the Democrats continue to tolerate this state of affairs, particularly when they know that McCarthy is desperate to keep the gavel?

No. It’s time to make some demands. If McCarthy is going to remain Speaker with Democratic votes, the blue team deserves something important from him in return. An end to the impeachment inquiry, which is only making the red team look stupid in any event, would be a logical place to start.

It isn’t really directed at McCarthy, although for Matt Gaetz, it might be. It isn’t really about spending cuts, either. There was no concerted effort to cut spending during the Trump years.

No, this is about the mouthpieces for the reactionary base attempting to impose their will on the rest of the GOP, the Senate, Joe Biden, and the American people. They may represent a small fraction of the electorate, but they think they speak for “real America,” and for them, that’s all of the justification they need.

Trump never makes any effort to attract anyone outside of the base, and it works for him, at least within the boundaries of the GOP. Why wouldn’t his most devoted disciples do the same thing?

A note to my readers: I will be on vacation next week. Regular posts will resume the following week.

Ross Douthat observes that wealthy Americans, by and large, have stable marriages and wonders why working and middle-class people don’t. Can we help him out here?

First, let’s put this in historical perspective. Back in the day, the marriage contract was a bargain in which the man worked for wages and provided economic stability, while the woman did the work around the house and took care of the family. While this state of affairs could seem oppressive at times, the bargain was reasonably equal, and made sense.

Fast forward to today. Consider the position of two hypothetical characters, Jim and Anne. Jim has a blue collar job that pays him about $30,000 a year; Anne is a teacher making $40,000 a year. The two can save on some expenses by getting married and living together, but Anne will have to serve both as the primary breadwinner and the person doing most of the housework. If you were Anne, is that a bargain you would make, particularly if Jim’s employment is insecure?

Probably not. The bottom line is that this problem is being driven both by the evolution of the knowledge-based economy and a cultural issue regarding work around the house.

There were always two plausible ways to resolve the debt ceiling crisis: an agreement between Democrats and a few moderate Republicans; or the use of the Fourteenth Amendment. Initially, I thought the first option was more likely; later, I changed my mind, because I thought the Fourteenth Amendment route would serve McCarthy’s interests better. As it turned out, I was right the first time. The agreement was reached, and McCarthy kept his job, but just barely.

This time, there’s no Fourteenth Amendment option as a Plan B. The only way the imminent shutdown ends is with an agreement between House Democrats and a few moderate Republicans based on the CR supported by the Senate. McCarthy has now done everything he can to move his plan forward, and failed, so the way is clear for the bipartisan approach.

When will that happen? When the political pain starts kicking in for the moderates, and not a minute before. Look for McCarthy to oppose bipartisanship vehemently in public to keep his support with the right, while actually encouraging it in private.

Donald Trump wants to rebuild the economy of the 1950s–lots of strong, burly men working in mining and manufacturing jobs that either have disappeared, or are going to in the near future. It is hardly an agenda that would appeal to tech bros. And yet, some of them are his vocal supporters. Why?

Two reasons. First, they see Trump as a chaos agent who will disrupt an unacceptable status quo dominated by unimaginative bureaucrats who keep their genius under strict control. The highly questionable assumption in this scenario is that power will fall into their hands, not the hands of the reactionaries (ask the industrialists who backed Hitler how well that worked out for them). Second, both they and Trump believe that successful entrepreneurs are economic supermen who deserve to be set free and need more respect from the public. In that sense, they are natural allies.

Xi doesn’t want to hear it. He hates all of this noise about “lying flat.” He wants young Chinese people to “eat bitterness,” take menial jobs for which they are overqualified, and work long hours for minimal pay. Oh, and by the way, they’re supposed to be getting married, having lots of children, and taking care of their parents, too. Good luck with that.

Most of the problems with the Chinese economy can be resolved if the government starts to understand the need for a dramatic expansion of the welfare state. The CCP–a communist party, the last time I looked–has resisted that to date, partly because it has concerns about debt, but mostly because it doesn’t want to encourage the Chinese people to lounge in the hammock of dependency. In that sense, Xi is more Victorian than communist.

Paul Ryan would be proud.

I managed to last about an hour and a half on this one. My reactions are as follows:

1. The moderators asked good, pointed questions that the candidates routinely ignored. They then did very little to keep order, which made the event largely unendurable.
2. The MSM make the problem with candidates talking over each other worse by using speaking time as a metric of success.
3. No one candidate really stood out. DeSantis and Scott were a little bit more effective than last time, but so what? Neither of them made any headway against Trump, and neither made meaningful gains against his opponents.
4. You can’t beat Trump, or even the other candidates, if all you do is mouth standard GOP talking points. The others are doing that, too. If you want to look better, sound different–more thoughtful and innovative.
5. If you believe these candidates, tax and spending cuts are the answer to all economic questions, even if that makes no sense. Will tax cuts reduce inequality? Will tax and spending cuts reduce the cost of child care? Maybe on the planet Zoltan, but not here.

The status quo of lots of equally matched candidates grasping for the Never Trumper and AAT votes will clearly continue for the next few months. The sorting process won’t begin until the primaries start.

A column in today’s NYT suggests that the judge’s decision in the fraud case will hurt, because it goes to the heart of Trump’s identity as a successful businessman. Is that correct?

No, for two reasons. First of all, the business titan angle to Trump’s candidacy was meaningful to a lot of voters in 2016, but not now. Today’s he’s an angry reactionary politician vowing vengeance on his enemies, not the guy who fired people on “The Apprentice.” Second, Trump and his followers believe that a successful fraud is evidence of the man’s overwhelming intelligence; to them, there is no moral issue involved. If he screwed people over in business, more power to him!

Mitch McConnell has come to Kevin’s office to discuss the impending shutdown.

MITCH: Kevin, you’ve got to get better control of your caucus. The crazoids are embarrassing our party.

KEVIN: It’s not that easy. You try dealing with the Freedom Caucus for an afternoon. It’s worse than herding cats. It’s more like herding mosquitoes.

MITCH: Don’t forget that I have to deal with Ted Cruz.

KEVIN: Cruz is just an abrasive, ambitious opportunist. He’s not crazy, like my people.

MITCH: I think you’re giving Ted too much credit. Anyway, you need to get these people under control one way or another. You know we never win shutdowns, right?

KEVIN: Right.

MITCH: So, what’s your plan?

KEVIN: When we get really close to the cliff, we’ll reach an agreement with the extremists that includes virtually all of their demands. We’ll present that to the Senate. When the Senate says no, we’ll say the shutdown is the fault of the Democrats in the Senate.

MITCH: What about the part where you’re reneging on the debt ceiling deal?

KEVIN: We’ll say those cuts were a floor, not a ceiling.

MITCH: Oh, right. I’m sure the public will be on board with that. What then? How do we get the government back open?

KEVIN: After a short shutdown, the bad press will persuade the crazoids to make a reasonable deal.

MITCH: But they’re crazy. They can’t be reached. The only way you make a deal is to split your caucus, defy Trump and DeSantis, and accept the Senate budget. That makes you basically the head of a coalition of moderates in both parties that opposes the most likely nominees in our party.

KEVIN: Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, but if it does, it does.

MITCH: Then how do you keep your job?

KEVIN: The Democrats will keep me in power.

MITCH: For a price, of course.

KEVIN: For a price. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

MITCH: This sounds like a disaster in slow motion to me. (He leaves)