Author: hamilton1788

Ron DeSantis is trapped. If he criticizes Trump, he risks losing support from the base; if he doesn’t, there is no rationale for his candidacy. Is there any way out of this dilemma?

Yes. The Hungarian Candidate needs a surrogate who has little or no chance of winning the nomination on his own to destroy Trump at the debates. DeSantis could then say little or nothing and pick up the pieces at the end of the process.

The logical person for the job is Liz Cheney, but she probably isn’t interested in helping DeSantis. Chris Christie would be my second choice; he has shown some interest, and he has some form, having ripped Rubio a new one at a debate in 2016.

Better get on the phone with him ASAP.

It’s almost May, and Biden hasn’t announced he’s running for re-election yet. Why? I suspect it’s largely because he wants to know the state of the GOP race before he makes a final decision.

My guess is that he feels completely comfortable running against Trump, but not against DeSantis. Trump is consistently polling well ahead of DeSantis at this point. If the Hungarian Candidate continues to spin his wheels, Biden will run. And he should.

David Brooks notes the migration of talented young people from blue states to less expensive, more business-friendly blue cities in red states, but worries that the GOP is killing the golden goose by imposing reactionary rules on these engines of growth. Is he right?

Yes. Most of these states–even Texas–were once run by pragmatic PBPs who put money into infrastructure and education, but the reactionaries are now completely in charge, so anyone who wants to move to a red state will be knowingly trading freedom for lower taxes and cheaper real estate. These days, it isn’t even that much cheaper; Austin, for example, has become very expensive.

It doesn’t sound like a great bargain to me.

Citing a famous Latin proverb most recently used to ill effect by Matt Damon, Ross Douthat argues that Ron DeSantis has to run now, or let his best opportunity slip through his fingers. There is an element of ideological self-interest to the argument; Douthat probably views DeSantis as the closest thing to his 21st century William Jennings Bryan that is on offer. That doesn’t necessarily make him wrong, however. Would DeSantis be making a mistake by declining to run?

Let’s analyze it. If he doesn’t run, Trump is far more likely than not to be the GOP nominee. If he wins the general election, he is likely to discredit right-wing populism during his administration even more than he has already, which would operate to the detriment of DeSantis. If, as is more likely, he loses to Biden, the way would be open for DeSantis in 2028, but would the GOP be looking for a warmed-over Trump after yet another loss by the real thing? Would the war on wokeness still have the resonance it has with the base today? Would DeSantis, now out of office, still be the man of the hour for the base, or will the party have passed him by?

I don’t know the answer to those questions, but my best guess is that Douthat is right. DeSantis has plenty of money and lots of potential support, if he plays his cards shrewdly, which he has not, to date. If he doesn’t run after building himself up for such a long time, he won’t just look like a fool: he will be one.

In the early stages of the “special military operation,” Putin was making little effort to mobilize public support for the conflict, largely because he didn’t think it was necessary. It was logical at that time to take the position that any NATO response should be similarly restrained in order to avoid escalation from the Russian side.

But things have changed. Putin has now taken every imaginable measure to win the war short of the use of weapons of mass destruction, which he has to assume is a red line for NATO. He has also shown no interest in any meaningful form of negotiation, probably because he thinks the GOP will ultimately hand Ukraine to him on a platter. How can he be driven to the bargaining table under these conditions?

You can argue that openly providing Ukraine with the weapons necessary to recapture Crimea would do the trick. There would obviously be risk involved; Putin might respond by using weapons of mass destruction or attacking NATO rather than by offering a reasonable deal that would avoid the potential of a humiliating defeat. Would the risk be worth it? It’s debatable.

The Electoral College will operate in the GOP’s favor in 2024, of course. In addition, the Democrats will have to defend a majority of the contested Senate seats. We don’t know what the economy will look like at the time of the election, or where the war will stand. On its face, there are plenty of reasons for pessimism. Do the Democrats have any offsetting advantages?

Yes. The GOP, regardless of who their nominee is, will be running as the party that wants to take your rights away. An essentially conservative electorate is skeptical of new government programs, but it won’t respond favorably to any attempts to deprive it of what it already has.

If DeSantis is elected president in 2024, you can be sure that he will be coming to Washington with lots of legislation attacking wokeness in his back pocket. Once there, he will run smack into the filibuster, whose most prominent advocate is one Mitch McConnell, a member of his own party.

DeSantis will be screaming for the abolition of the filibuster; extirpating wokeness is far more important than maintaining checks and balances to him. Will McConnell and the other GOP PBP senators give in?

My guess is yes, but it would be interesting to watch, in the same way that it is interesting to watch car crashes. We will be far better off if it never happens.

Several influential Republicans, including Trump, are on record proposing some sort of special American military excursion into Mexico to put an end to the smuggling of illegal drugs. Some of these people don’t see anything wrong in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Is this a reasonable solution to an admittedly serious problem?

Of course not. It might make some sense if the military could put an end to the drug trade by dropping a bomb on some enormous factory, but the business of manufacturing and smuggling drugs isn’t that centralized. Identifying a wide range of culprits is as important and difficult as catching and punishing them. This is a matter for law enforcement, not the military, which is not trained for that purpose.

To put it another way, Pancho Villa died about 100 years ago. The American and Mexican economies are highly and increasingly interdependent. The idea of sending in American troops in violation of Mexican sovereignty was controversial even when a power vacuum of sorts existed in parts of Mexico; to do it today, given the importance of our relationship with the Mexican government, would be ludicrous.

One of them is a communist who apparently believes that history is on his side, and that his country will overcome the decadent West and dominate the world. The other is an angry revanchist who wants to reverse his nation’s collapse and defeat and make it great again. They are, at least for the moment, allies. Are Xi and Putin the Stalin and Hitler of the 21st century?

Not exactly. Putin doesn’t have the economic and military resources that Hitler did, and Xi’s form of communism is based on Chinese exceptionalism and state capitalism, not Marxist ideology, terror, and militarism. They don’t present the same kind of threat that Hitler and Stalin did. Still, the historical precedent suggests that making a deal with Putin to contain Xi would be a serious mistake.

Fortunately, Biden doesn’t carry an umbrella. Trump and DeSantis might, however.

Most right-wing American political figures who support Putin do so out of a belief that he is their ally in the culture wars. Against all of the evidence, they see Ukraine as just another front in the common battle against wokeness. There is a more sophisticated intellectual thread, however, to the effect that containing China is our overriding objective, and that Putin can be flipped to our side through appeasement. Does this approach make sense?

Only if you make the unjustified assumption that Putin’s territorial dreams end in Ukraine. In all likelihood, appeasement would require giving him the Baltic states and at least part of Poland, as well. That would mean an end to NATO as we have known it. Europe would be staring down the barrel of a Russian gun with no assurance of American help. Would that be a fair trade for some level of Russian assistance containing China?

No, and if you think this analysis sounds a lot like the disastrous calculation made by some British right-wing political figures about Hitler and Stalin prior to 1939, you’re right. I will have more to say about the analogy to the thirties in a subsequent post.

In 1941, FDR gave a speech in which he identified four freedoms that, in his opinion, should be universal: freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom from want; and freedom from fear. Today, the right has its own list of four freedoms, but they only apply to white American Christians. These are:

1. FREEDOM NOT TO BE OFFENDED: Are there things in your community that really bug you: drag shows; transgender people; books with sexual references? Ban them! You made this country great, so why should you have to put up with this kind of filth?
2. FREEDOM TO BE OFFENSIVE: You, on the other hand, have the right to say anything you want about the other side without fear of being labeled a bigot on social media. Enough of this PC crap!
3. FREEDOM TO ENDANGER OTHERS: It’s all about you, not your neighbors. If you want to spread the virus or terrorize people with assault weapons, that’s your right. They just have to live with it.
4. FREEDOM TO IMPOSE YOUR VALUES ON OTHERS, EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE MAJORITY: Again, you made this country great, so you’re entitled to run it in your own interest, regardless of whether you speak for the majority. If that means engaging in unscrupulous tactics or even violence, so be it. The ends justify the means.

Don’t you find this inspirational?

Kevin McCarthy is meeting with four GOP House members to discuss the ransom note for the debt ceiling increase. They include: a CD from a Biden district in New York; a PBP from a reliably Republican district in Indiana; a reactionary from a rural district in Nebraska; and a CL from a bright red district in Texas. Let’s listen in!

M: I called you all here today to talk about our demands for the debt ceiling increase.

CL: We absolutely have to get spending under control. This is our chance. Nothing should be off the table.

M: So, what do you suggest?

CL: Go where the money is–Social Security and Medicare. They should be privatized, or at least cut dramatically.

R: What, are you crazy? My constituents are totally dependent on those programs. They paid into them for decades. It would be political suicide.

CL: There would be some short-term pain, but it would be worth it in the long run. Trust me.

PBP: Cutting entitlements is nuts. It would cost me my seat.

CD: Me, too.

M: OK, that one’s off the table. What’s next?

CL: Defense. Other than entitlements, that’s where the money is.

R: We’re not cutting defense with the Chinese breathing down our necks.

CD: Agreed.

PBP: Second.

M: That one doesn’t work, either. Next?

CL: Food stamps. We need to get the lazy minorities out of their hammock of dependency.

R: I’m sympathetic, but food stamps are part of the farm bill. My constituents depend on that bill. We can’t go along with that.

CD: Food stamps keep lots of hard-working people out of abject poverty. I can’t agree with that.

PBP: It doesn’t look like this one’s going anywhere, either.

M: Any other ideas?

CL: Foreign aid?

PBP: We can’t compete with the Chinese in world markets without making an effort to help foreigners. They buy lots of our products and help us diplomatically. Anyway, it’s a drop in the bucket.

CD: He’s right.

M: What else?

CL: Cutting IRS agents?

CD: I can go for that.

R: Me, too.

PBP: It’s unanimous.

M: OK, then. We are resolved to balance the budget by cutting spending on a program that actually increases revenues and reduces the deficit.

ALL: Right! (The meeting ends at this point)

What will America look like when the vast majority of Boomers are gone–say, in 2050? Here are some predictions:

1. THE DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEM IS GONE: With the Boomers dead and lots of new immigrant workers in place, the issues involved in paying for the welfare state have disappeared.
2. THE RACIAL ISSUE HAS CHANGED: Woke members of Gen Z are now running the country. They went to integrated public schools and are contemptuous of racists. The influx of Hispanic immigrants, however, has created a society in which immigrants do all of the hard work and Anglos reap most of the benefits. This presents serious political and social problems for the future.
3. CHRISTIANITY IS A SPENT FORCE: America has seen periods of religious fervor at seemingly unlikely times in the past, but no longer. The corrupt bargain between reactionary politicians and Christians which empowered the latter in the short run has destroyed any enthusiasm for Christianity among members of Gen Z and their children. The chickens have come home to roost.
4. CLIMATE CHANGE MEANS CLIMATE CHANGES: The Southwest is almost uninhabitable. Parts of California have been depopulated. Florida now belongs exclusively to the wealthy and to tourists, neither of whom are present during hurricane season. Mountain property values are skyrocketing. The Northeast and the Midwest are becoming more popular. Lots of new climate regulations are in place, too; government seems to be everywhere these days.
5. THE SEARCH FOR A HAPPY MEDIUM CONTINUES: America needs both ample incentives for entrepreneurs and a large, stable middle class. Finding just the right balance of incentives and regulations to produce both results has always been a difficult task. It still is.

You have probably noted that the America I have described is a nightmare for reactionaries. That is why they are trying today to turn the clock back, and why they will fail in the long run.

Brexit meant different things to different people, but more than anything else, it meant limits on immigration. The Conservative government that implemented it has largely delivered on the promise. As a result, the UK is short of essential workers, most notably in the NHS and agriculture. Both businesses and consumers have suffered.

Ron DeSantis wasn’t watching this–or, perhaps, he just didn’t care. Florida’s economy, which is based on tourism, construction, and the care of elderly people, depends on immigrant labor, but the Florida GOP is about to approve a series of measures to make the lives of immigrants as miserable as possible. The base hates immigrants, so the outcome is not in doubt, even though business interests are objecting. The ultimate result will be skyrocketing costs and labor shortages, as in the UK.

This is just one of a series of anti-business measures that have been approved as part of the Florida GOP “freedom” agenda. Why, the next thing you know, DeSantis will be going to war over wokeness with a huge employer that attracts millions of tourists to the state. Oh, right!

It is clear that DeSantis believes the GOP base is looking for a more electable, more competent, more conventional version of Trump. He can provide tangible results on wokeness; Trump only provides noise and drama. Is he right?

No, because Trump’s base relishes his transgressions. They respond emotionally to his endless cycles of outrage, blue team response, and cries of victimization. What most of us see as corruption and incompetence assures them that he will never sell them out. They will cheer him on when he burns it down; that is what they want, too.

DeSantis’ plodding style says “establishment” to the base. No matter how much red meat he delivers to them, he can’t speak for them the way Trump does. He would be wise to stop trying.