Category: Uncategorized

The great would-be emperor Xi

Took a plane to the land of the free.

He talked about peace;

Said that tensions should cease.

Will this help with the South China Sea?

Consider this scenario:

1. Trump wins Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina with a strong plurality, but not a majority.
2. Christie and Ramaswamy drop out after New Hampshire.
3. Desperate to avoid a humiliating defeat in his home state, DeSantis concedes after finishing third in South Carolina.

Haley is now Trump’s only remaining opponent. She has the anti-Trump lane to herself. Can she unite the 55-60 percent of the party that will at least consider an alternative to Trump, or is it too late for her?

I think it’s too late; he has too much momentum. My guess is that he wins the remaining primaries by a vote of about 55 to 45 percent. It would be fascinating to watch, however, and it might even force Trump to start debating, which would benefit everyone in the country except him.

You will recall that Trump’s purported concerns about NATO during his presidency revolved around the failure of our allies to spend enough money for defense. As he saw it, or said he saw it, America was paying disproportionately for the protection of the Europeans, who were using their savings to outcompete us on world markets.

Well, as a result of the decision by Trump’s buddy Putin to invade Ukraine, European defense budgets are going up significantly. The man on golf cart can no longer plausibly argue that the Europeans aren’t carrying their weight. What will he say now?

Of course, the spending argument is, was, and always will be a pretext. Trump really hates NATO because it stands in Putin’s way.

Lindsey Graham has once again made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. Trump is feeling good about all those recent polls, so he keeps Graham waiting for an hour and a half.

T: Linseed! Good to see you! How about those polls!

G: They do look good, Mr. President.

T: And I told you I would kick DeSanctus’ butt. I’m not sure you believed me.

G: He was a far worse candidate than I expected. He chased the wrong voters and chose positions on issues like abortion that either made no sense or were unpopular.

T: He thought the base would respect him if he just said he agreed with me on everything. He thought Jack Smith would deliver the election to him, and he wouldn’t have to fight for anything. He didn’t know Jack, in more ways than one.

G: But you still have to worry about the criminal trials.

T: Nothing to worry about. I’m so much smarter than those prosecutors, it would make your head spin. Besides, they’re making my case to the voters.

G: Why do you say that?

T: Instead of having to travel around the country and make speeches at rallies about what a victim I am, I get to do it on the stand. Every time I show up at a courtroom, it just proves how evil the deep state is, and how determined it is to get me. The base loves that. It rallies around me and sends me more money. It’s great!

G: Plus, the MSM covers your martyrdom instead of those speeches where you talk about putting Democrats in jail and creating concentration camps for illegal immigrants. That helps, too.

T: We’ll focus on that stuff later.

G: Aren’t you worried about being convicted? Some of the polls show that would matter to the voters.

T: I’m not just an average guy. I’m bulletproof. I’ve gotten out of plenty of tight legal spots before. My lawyers will always be able to find at least one Trump voter in the jury pool. Anyway, I can pardon myself after I win the election if the lawyers let me down.

G: You can’t pardon yourself for violations of state law.

T: My lawyers and my Supreme Court will take care of that.

G: Are you going to do any debates?

T: Not until the general. I have no reason to do them now.

G: Aren’t you concerned at all about Haley? What if she unites the part of the party that hates you? It’s about half of the voters, you know.

T: Republican voters are not going to choose a brown woman who took orders from me over the man who promises to be their retribution.

G: Are you serious about that retribution stuff? It makes you sound like a dictator.

T: You know me. I’m always telling jokes. Just like the ones about January 6.

(Graham leaves)

I’m fascinated by Rishi Sunak’s decision to bring David Cameron back into the cabinet. This can’t just be about the Foreign Ministry; it appears to be a signal to the Conservative Party, and to the electorate in general, that he identifies himself with Cameron’s years as PM. That, of course, implies a rejection of everyone who came after him.

On the one hand, running as a change candidate as the representative of a party that has been in power for over a decade is very difficult; this is one way to do it. On the other hand, Cameron notoriously opposed Brexit. Does Sunak think that doesn’t matter at this stage, or is he consciously flipping the bird at Boris and the populist right? Either way, there’s going to be plenty of opposition to this in his own party.

I don’t think this gambit will work, but Sunak has no good options at this point, and it shows some imagination. Also, Cameron is competent, which helps.

Mike Johnson, like his predecessors, is not a magic man. He doesn’t possess some special secret that permits him to unite the moderates and the extremists in his caucus. As a result, we are heading for the pointless shutdown I expected a month ago.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating–this is a fundamental difference between the two parties. In the Senate, for example, the Democrats have only a tiny majority, and their ideologies run from Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin. They still manage to govern, because everyone is committed to using government to help the American people. The extreme right of the GOP, on the other hand, has no interest in governing; it just wants to get on Fox News and stick it to the left. It’s not the same thing at all.

The GOP field is finally consolidating, but not fast enough. There has never been a rationale for Ramaswamy, but he appears to like the limelight, so there is no telling when he will give up. Christie will get out, but not until after New Hampshire. DeSantis should quit before he completely embarrasses himself in Florida, but whether he will or not is an open question. The only reasonably viable Trump alternative at this point is Haley.

The mere fact that escalation isn’t in the best interest of any of the parties doesn’t mean it can’t happen. If you don’t believe me, just ask Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

If it does happen, it will probably be the result of attacks by Hezbollah or pro-Iranian militias in Iraq or Syria which require a much larger American response than what we are seeing today. That, in turn, could cause the Iranians to participate directly in the war. Would America and Israel tolerate that without retaliation? Probably not.

If America and Israel contemplated attacking Iran at that point, they would have to consider Putin’s position. In years past, it would have been safe to assume that Putin would have acquiesced to an assault on Iran as long as he received something valuable in return. Today, however, conditions have changed; the Russians are tied up in Ukraine, but the Iranians are actively assisting them. Would Putin stand by and watch the destruction of his ally without threatening some form of escalation? If not, what could he do? Would he risk attacking NATO forces helping Ukraine? Would he send hypersonic missiles against the Israelis? Would he even consider using nukes against either the Americans or the Israelis?

Let’s hope we never find out.

1. IRAN AND ITS PROXIES THINK THEY’RE WINNING AS IT IS: Mass martyrdom, with all of its political implications, was always the point here. Why mess with a good thing?
2. IRAN AND THE OTHER PROXIES WEREN’T CONSULTED BEFORE HAMAS ATTACKED: It’s their war, so why bail them out?
3. IRAN NEVER PUT MUCH FAITH IN THE MILITARY CAPABILITIES OF HAMAS: Hezbollah is a far more competent fighting force. Hamas is just about ideology and politics.
4. HEZBOLLAH ISN’T REALLY DESIGNED FOR AN OFFENSIVE WAR: It is very difficult to beat in Lebanon, but it doesn’t have the ability to take and hold Israeli land. That is particularly true if the US gets involved, which is a real possibility.
5. A WAR WITH ISRAEL, AND POSSIBLY THE US, WOULD PROBABLY RESULT IN THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ISLAMIC STATE: Would you really put your regime at risk for Hamas? Didn’t think so.

Joe Manchin hasn’t written off the possibility of running for president. Ross Douthat thinks he should give it a try. Does that make sense?

Let me ask you a different question: how does he distinguish between himself and Biden? As I have stated on many occasions, it was Manchin, not Biden, who was the most powerful Joe in America during the first two years of Biden’s term. Every legislative accomplishment of Biden’s contains Manchin’s fingerprints. Every significant appointment of Biden’s had Manchin’s approval. In short, Biden’s record is Manchin’s, too.

That means, to justify his candidacy, Manchin would have to argue that Biden is secretly woke, and he isn’t. Really? Does he think the American public believes the elderly president is a woke warrior?

LOL.

For two decades now, the Israelis have refused to take risks for peace, because, well, it was so darn risky. You couldn’t trust your Palestinian partner, and even if you could, there would be serious political violence at home. There would be assassinations–maybe even civil war. Better to rely on conflict management–try to avoid provocations, quietly change the facts on the ground, and cut the grass when necessary.

Call it the Netanyahu consensus. It seemed to work. The Israeli left withered and mostly disappeared. The far right did better, but it never ran the show. Until now.

As I have predicted many times, the Palestinians have a vote. The Netanyahu consensus has been blown to smithereens. As a result, when the war is over, there will be a lot more space for wildly different opinions–either a sincere search for a two-state solution or ethnic cleansing. There will be an open window for a more imaginative approach to the Palestinian issue.

But if and when it fails, the Israelis will go back to conflict management, because, you know, taking risks for peace is so darn risky.

A column in Politico informs us that the WaPo has reported that Trump is already planning to use the Insurrection Act from his first day in office to prevent any demonstrations against him. And, of course, he’s already made it clear that he wants his critics to be prosecuted. And, of course, there is his proposal to impose the 10 percent tariff on all imported goods. Just to name a few.

You would think the moderators at the various debates would want to explore these topics. Do the Trump alternatives support his plan to drive the country into a friendless dictatorship? Does the GOP as a whole think that massive tariffs, even on goods imported from our allies, are a good idea? Don’t the candidates want to use these issues as a way to create distance between themselves and Trump?

Silence.

To me, “Born to Run” in its entirety sounds like a musical. “Jungleland” by itself would make a great musical–something like “West Side Story.” It makes very ordinary people sound heroic. Is that the entire message?

No. Springsteen is not a fool; he knows he’s creating a myth, not describing reality. The biggest line in the song–“But they wind up wounded, and not even dead”–is his way of telling us that.

But that line, devastating as it is, is a form of CYA. The grandness of the music and the narrative overwhelms it. The average listener comes away with the message that street kids in New Jersey are larger than life. That’s why the song is so popular.

I could spill a lot of ink on this topic. I could tell you that Chris Christie had a solid, if low energy, performance; that DeSantis, probably inspired by his home crowd, was better than before; that Haley lost me with her deranged answer to the border question; that Ramaswamy was just as annoying as usual; and that Tim Scott embarrassed himself and should leave the race as soon as possible. But what’s the point?

The mission is to defeat Donald Trump. All of the candidates were given a microphone, a large audience, and an opportunity to explain in detail why Trump is completely unfit for office. Not a one of them took it. So why bother even showing up?

The abortion issue clearly fueled Democratic victories in Kentucky, Virginia, and Ohio last night. GOP leaders have consoled themselves by arguing that abortion will play a less important role in the 2024 election, which will have a much different electorate. Who is right here?

Both, and neither. It is true that abortion, by itself, will probably play a smaller role with a larger electorate in 2024. If the Democrats include abortion in an overall narrative in which the GOP is coming for everyone’s rights, however, it is likely to resonate with the voters. Americans may be reluctant to support new government programs, but they generally hate efforts to take away rights they have enjoyed for decades.