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Religious reactionaries–the genuinely pro-life people–won’t make deals on the availability of abortion. Human life, in their eyes, is not negotiable. But they are willing to talk about beefing up the welfare state in order to make abortion less necessary. They won’t insist on it, mind you, but they are open to it.

The more secular reactionaries–the ones primarily motivated by racial, cultural, or economic grievances–dislike abortion because it empowers women and disrupts their traditional views about the leadership of society and the family. They are not genuinely pro-life. As a result, they have no interest in expanding the welfare state to improve the lot of involuntarily pregnant women (creating misery is the point, after all), but they see a national abortion ban as an obstacle to overcome in the overriding objective of winning power, so they are willing to compromise on it.

In other words, both sides are willing to make a deal on the issue the other side won’t put on the table. Since the religious reactionaries are a small minority within the GOP (just ask Mike Pence, who has now dropped out of the race), they are losing the argument within the party.

Leaf season in the NC mountains is always poignant, but this year, the colors have been spectacular. The yellows and oranges have been particularly impressive. But, as always, it is a sign of impending death. It is the last blaze of abundant life in the face of mortality. Winter is coming. It is the opposite of Easter.

We are heading back to DeSantistan tomorrow out of necessity, as it will be very cold here next week. At least I have the satisfaction of knowing that the Hungarian Candidate is a much-diminished figure, even in his home state, and anyway, the legislature in North Carolina is every bit as reactionary as the one in Florida. It just doesn’t get the same amount of publicity.

Trump said a lot of harsh things about China during the campaign, but the questions remained: would he fixate on the trade deficit instead of human rights and Chinese aggression in the South China Sea; walk away from Biden’s policy of flexible containment with local allies; and offer to hand over Taiwan in exchange for increased agricultural exports? After all, Trump had always seen our relationship with China in economic, not geopolitical, terms, and he viewed our allies in the regions as being parasites.

The answer to these questions was yes. Once again, Trump’s concept of “America First” meant America alone, largely because he simply assumed, against all advice, that anything Biden did to contain China had to be wrong. We would face China with no meaningful assistance from Japan, South Korea, Australia, or India.

A few days ago, I predicted the new Speaker would be someone with a skimpy enough record to pass muster with the entire House GOP. I was right. By all accounts, Johnson is a kind of genteel reactionary, which gives hope to both sides.

Will he govern like McCarthy–making lots of promises to everyone, providing drama for the right, but making deals with Democrats when the chips are down? Or will he be a chaos agent, driving the GOP into shutdowns in an effort to make government by a right-wing strongman more appealing?

Nobody, including me, knows the answer to those questions. That’s why he won the election.

Michael Cohen has just testified that Trump directed the reverse engineering of his financial disclosures without regard to actual facts. Trump, of course, says Cohen is lying. Will that be enough to win the case?

Trump has a serious dilemma on his hands. If he doesn’t testify in this case and successfully rebut the state’s testimony as to his involvement and intent, he could lose a large part of his empire, which would be a huge blow to him, even if it didn’t cost him his freedom. If he does, he is exposing himself to cross-examination. And wouldn’t you love to be the attorney cross-examining the man who told tens of thousands of lies while in office?

My guess is that he will not testify. He will write off the proceeding at this stage and hope to prevail on appeal. That’s a high-risk strategy, but everything is high-risk for him at this point.

Trump had always said that we didn’t have a country if we didn’t control our borders, so it was no surprise that he took drastic action immediately after his inauguration. Not only did he announce that he would use funds appropriated for other purposes to finish the wall; he directed the Border Patrol to shoot anyone coming across the border outside of a regulated crossing point on sight. He justified this by saying that only massive cruelty would put an end to the immigration problem; with an appropriate program of deterrence, the incentives to cross the border illegally would disappear, and the asylum seekers would be forced to remain at home.

The new program, was, of course, a violation of both international and American law, but as far as Trump as concerned, the previous year had shown that the law was an ass, and power was all that mattered. He ignored a barrage of court orders telling him to stop. The public was outraged, but the base was delighted.

What did this accomplish? Since asylum seekers don’t carry fentanyl, it did nothing to reduce the flow of drugs across the border. American prestige around the world plunged–not that Trump cared. Most of the American electorate was appalled, and Republicans took the blame, which was only right. After all, they had never wanted a solution to the immigration problem; they just wanted to milk it for all it was worth, which at this point, was nothing.

Marx famously said that history repeats itself twice–first as tragedy, and then as farce. But what about the third time? The fourth? The fifteenth?

My vote is for insanity. What else can it be?

Doo doo doo.

Another one bites the dust.

Doo doo doo.

Another one bites the dust.

And another one gone, and another one gone.

Another one bites the dust.

Etc.

It was, of course, no surprise that Trump immediately announced that he would refuse to provide the appropriated money to the Ukrainian government upon taking office. He justified this decision by explaining that the Ukrainians were a bunch of corrupt thugs who had attempted to rig American elections against him, and that Putin was our friend. We needed him to combat China. Besides, the Russians needed a big, splashy new hotel in the middle of Moscow.

When the rest of NATO yelped, he then announced we were pulling out of the alliance. When he was told that we could not withdraw from the treaty without overwhelming support from the Senate, which would not be forthcoming, he decided we would remain on paper, but withdraw all of our forces from Europe, and refuse to fund or cooperate with any of the alliance’s activities. We would also ignore our responsibilities under Article 5. NATO quickly fell apart as a result, and the Russians, after inhaling Ukraine, started growling about the Polish border and the Baltic states.

The mainstream of the GOP was appalled by this, but did nothing in response, as usual, for fear of offending the reactionary base. “American First” would mean America alone, just the way Xi and Putin wanted it.

An overwhelming sense of victimhood, accompanied by violence and lots of swagger. This is based on the belief that God is on their side, even though the evidence strongly suggests that history isn’t.

Oh, and they both hate wokeness, too. You would think the two would be natural allies, but because Hamas isn’t Christian and doesn’t fit in the Christian narrative, they aren’t.

Trump dominated the airwaves between the day he came down the elevator and the end of his presidency. But have you seen much of him lately? Me, neither. Events and the lack of a suitable mouthpiece have put the spotlight elsewhere. And guess what? It’s helping him in the polls, which should be viewed as a referendum on Biden, not him.

I can’t imagine this will last for long. Once he is the nominee, he will be back in the spotlight, and we can focus on what a disaster a second term would be instead of grumbling about the border and inflation.

Nate Cohn looks at the votes and concludes that: 40 percent of House GOP members unconditionally supported Jordan; 50 percent were open to, or preferred, other choices, but would acquiesce to Jordan; and 10 percent would not vote for him under any circumstances. Are these numbers significant? Are they representative of the GOP as a whole?

Yes, because they are completely consistent with Trump’s polling numbers, and Jordan is a surrogate for Trump. If you’re a moderate Republican, and you can’t stand the MAGA crowd, you can’t win without uniting the other voters.

The difference between Jordan and Trump, however, is that Jordan needed unanimity in the GOP caucus to get elected. We won’t be so lucky in the primaries.

Plenty of pundits are advising the Israelis to avoid following the 9/11 precedent, where we allegedly overreacted out of anger without fully considering the consequences of our actions. Is the analogy correct?

Not exactly. The part about not fully considering the consequences of our actions is correct, but the part about blind anger is not. The Afghanistan military campaign was justified and limited in scope; it was what happened with nation-building in the 20 years thereafter that was the mistake. The Iraq War was not a reflex; it was a cold-blooded effort to carry out the George W. Bush agenda for the Middle East. It started long after 9/11. If you consider it a crime, it was premeditated murder, not an unjustified emotional overreaction that would qualify as second degree murder.

You would think that a Muslim fundamentalist organization that kills civilians with incredible brutality would score pretty low on the wokeness scale, but apparently, you would be wrong. The extreme left has embraced the group on the basis that, regardless of its reactionary beliefs, it represents the oppressed against the oppressor; on the other hand, Ron DeSantis, who would fit very nicely as the head of an American Taliban, thinks it should be completely exterminated. He’s not alone, either.

So maybe they are woke after all. Go figure.

On the wannabe Speaker named Jim.

His chances of winning were slim.

So he threw in the towel.

The right let out a howl

But the House wasn’t that into him.