Category: Uncategorized

George W. Bush famously promised us a humble foreign policy in his Inaugural Address. What we actually got, after 9/11, was a foreign policy based on the premise that liberal democracies could not exist safely until autocracy had been eliminated everywhere. We know how that turned out.

The Bolsheviks similarly believed, in the early days of their revolution, that they could not survive capitalist hostility without revolutions elsewhere in Europe. While the Communist regime ultimately imploded, the system did not fail simply because capitalism thrived in Europe and the United States. On that point, Stalin was more correct than his Old Bolshevik opponents.

Putin, by contrast, appears to think that his illiberal kleptocracy cannot survive on its own, and that authoritarian regimes in countries close to Russia must be created or propped up, regardless of the cost or the ineptitude of their leaders. This is Bush/Bolshevik thought applied to reactionary–not liberal or revolutionary–ideology. Russia can’t afford it, any more than we could afford Bush.

It’s time to check in with some of our favorite New Right luminaries! Given that they have openly admired Putin for his anti-gay posture (whether the cuddly ex-KGB agent takes his bigotry seriously or not is another question), the Ukraine invasion has been a bit of an embarrassment. How are they handling it?

The consensus seems to be to convince us that they are foreign policy realists, not pro-Putin bootlickers. They don’t support the invasion, but they fear the consequences of doing much about it. Furthermore, they are extremely concerned that they will be treated as traitors and pariahs if they don’t rock along with the wave of popular sentiment against the Russians. As they see it, the left is always out to shut them up; the invasion will just give them a plausible excuse.

The second point, as usual, is pure projection; like Trump, the New Right is always ready to falsely accuse the left of the kind of censorship that it openly longs to impose on those who don’t support what they would call traditional religious values. On the first point, I don’t buy it; most of these people supported the Iraq War at the time (some say they have repented of it). They aren’t pacifists or realists; they just want to fight their battles against liberals and gays at home and Muslims and the Chinese in the rest of the world, not against someone they see as a fellow traveler.

Germany has decided to suck it up and increase its defense budget dramatically, both now and in the future. In light of the, shall we say, difficult history involving Russia and Germany, a well-armed and hostile German state is the worst possible scenario for Putin short of nuclear war or a coup at home. It means he will be the loser even if he gets everything he wants in Ukraine.

Ukraine has recruited an international volunteer IT army to fight Russian disinformation. Have the Chinese noticed? If they decide to attack Taiwan, it isn’t just the Taiwanese and the Americans with whom they will have to contend. This is a completely new phenomenon, and it shifts the balance of power against illiberal military aggressors.

India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE declined to openly condemn the invasion. The latter two are sending the message to us that they demand unconditional support for their military adventures, and that keeping the price of oil sky-high is more important than American friendship. The first is telling us that it still values its historic relationship with the Russians. Whether that translates into neutrality in a dispute with China remains to be seen.

Some commentators argue that we drove Putin to desperate measures by expanding NATO to Russia’s borders. Is that correct? Would he have invaded Ukraine if the expansion had not occurred?

A month ago, I took the position that Putin was focused on dividing NATO, and would continue to turn the pressure on and off in lieu of invading. An invasion would only unify NATO and turn European public opinion against him. He must have known that, but he invaded anyway. That tells me his real objective was to inhale Ukraine at any cost, and that NATO expansion was just a pretext.

His Plan A having flopped ignominiously, assume Putin is already moving on to Plan B, which could well be to encircle and starve the defenders of Kyiv. The historical analogies are obvious: Paris in 1870; Leningrad in 1941; and, of course, Berlin in 1948. How would we respond?

We, and the rest of the world, would not intervene to prevent an assault on the city, but we would not let its defenders starve. We would organize an updated version of the Berlin Airlift, using planes from neutral countries in an effort to avoid a military confrontation. Technically, it can be done. But what if Putin, unlike Stalin, shoots down the planes?

The US would have to wipe out Putin’s anti-aircraft capabilities. Americans would have to kill Russians. At that point, anything, including nuclear war, is a possibility. We have moved from Berlin in 1948 to the Cuba Missile Crisis.

“My fellow Americans, I ran for president as an innocuous old white guy who could get votes from identity voters and save the country from Donald Trump. My sales pitch worked; that’s why I was the nominee, not because I ran a great campaign. But the virus, and the Georgia elections, changed everything. Suddenly, it seemed possible to turn America into a more worker-friendly country. We could replace the dollar store economy with a system that worked for everyone–not just wealthy businessmen. Those were heady times.

We got some important stuff done. We reduced poverty, brought back lots of jobs, and improved the safety net. But in the long run, we didn’t have enough votes in the Senate for the centerpiece of my agenda, the virus persisted, and inflation started to rage. I lost a lot of ground in the polls. Today, things look grim.

So, today, I’m announcing a reset. I won’t talk about being FDR anymore. Now I’m Bill Clinton, trying to get small, popular stuff done. Everything I suggest will sound reasonable and helpful to the average American. Then I’ll sit back and watch the Republicans destroy themselves by sounding like the dangerous extremists that they are.

I know this will disappoint the left. I share their disappointment. But what else can we do? I’m not an alchemist. I can’t conjure votes out of nothing. This is the best we can do. Learn to live with it.

Oh, and how ’bout them Ukrainians! Aren’t they awesome?”

In a sense, Putin has made writing Biden’s SOTU much easier; he’ll lead with support for liberal democracy in Ukraine, and get lots of bipartisan applause for it. It’s the kind of unifying theme that works perfectly in a SOTU. It will certainly play better than arguing for patience on inflation, or for bringing back the BBB.

The real question is, will Biden connect the dots between Putin’s threat to liberal democracy in Europe and Trump’s actions at home? Will he dare to lay out the equation Putin =Trump and call for the protection of our electoral system from thugs and opportunistic right-wing politicians?

My guess is that he will decide the SOTU is the wrong time and place to make that kind of divisive argument. While that may be correct, it remains a valid point, and it needs to be put forward between now and the election.

Jamelle Bouie says it is the conservatives and moderates in the Democratic Party, not the Squad, that are to blame for the government’s unpopularity, as they are responsible for the failure of the BBB. Is he right?

Yes and no. Instead of blaming “moderates,” he should name names–just Manchin and Sinema, both of whom are better described as independents than Democrats. Everyone else is on board with the BBB, so blaming a large group of people instead of two holdouts is inappropriate. That said, the Squad is not to blame, either, because its members are more interested in expanding the welfare state than in winning culture wars. It is the Twitter left, not anyone in Congress, that must take responsibility for raising the issues that the GOP loves to discuss: “defunding the police;” misguided attacks on the Founding Fathers; and cancel culture.

As plenty of Russians have told us, this is Putin’s war, not theirs. They were not consulted. There was no outpouring of support for it. With that in mind, what should we be attempting to accomplish with sanctions?

Obviously, the best case scenario would be a popular uprising and regime change. The government’s powers of repression make that highly unlikely. Nor is it likely that Putin will feel sufficiently threatened to change course; like Trump, he doubles down when he meets resistance for fear of looking weak. So what can we actually do?

The sanctions directed at Putin and the oligarchs should stay. Measures which make it clear to the Russian public that their country is an international pariah, and that their government is not as powerful as it claims to be, are also useful. It would be a mistake, however, to keep sanctions that impact the average Russian citizen’s ability to function at a basic level indefinitely. The Russian financial system, given time, will learn to adjust, and will no longer be vulnerable to international pressure; better to turn sanctions on and off to retain the current dependency and maximize the psychological impact to the public.

We don’t have a flagpole in our yard. If we did, I would fly a Ukrainian flag with “Let’s Go Putin!” superimposed on it and see what the neighbors think.

As you can see, I’m unusually invested in the Ukrainian resistance. Part of this, of course, is support for an underdog and contempt for Putin and his imperialism. Honesty compels me to note, however, that part of it is tied to Trump; Putin and his war are a proxy for the illiberalism of the man on golf cart.

It isn’t just because Putin did his best to get Trump elected. It isn’t even because Trump sucks up to Putin at every opportunity. No, it is because it is becoming obvious that Trump and his reactionary friends view Putin’s Russia as a role model for our political system. Constant lies, attacks on the press, contempt for liberal democratic norms, whining aggression, toxic masculinity, attempts to rig the system, scapegoating outsiders–it’s all there.

And the new right thinks that’s ok, as long as he says he hates immigrants, gays, and trans people. What a great bargain!

TRUMPISTS

Last night I saw Donald Trump on a TV show

With some smartass New York Jew.

And the Jew laughed at Mr. Trump.

The audience laughed at him too.

Well, he may be a crook, but he’s our crook.

If they think they’re better than him they’re wrong.

So I went to the park and I took some paper along

And that’s where I made this song.

_____________

We talk real funny out here.

We pray too much; we watch Fox News.

We’re too dumb to make it in no blue state town.

But we’re keeping the liberals down.

______________

We’re Trumpists.

We’re Trumpists.

And we don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground.

We’re Trumpists.

We’re Trumpists.

And we’re keeping the liberals down.

________________

We got no neck oilmen from Texas.

White Christian people from Tennessee.

Tattooed truckers from everywhere.

They’re just fighting for what they think is fair.

Call them fascists; they don’t care.

They carry weapons, so they’re not scared.

And they’re keeping the liberals down.

______________

We’re Trumpists.

We’re Trumpists.

And we don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground.

We’re Trumpists.

We’re Trumpists.

And we’re keeping the liberals down.

_______________

Parody of “Rednecks” by Randy Newman. The song is about fifty years old, but it’s still relevant, even though the target has changed a bit with time.

When Biden was putting his cabinet together, I opined that making it “look like America” was largely a waste of time, because the vast majority of Americans don’t even know who the Secretary of Labor is, much less look up to him. Does that reasoning prevail with Supreme Court nominees?

No. Picking the first member of a large, previously unrepresented group for a position of great visibility and power matters. The Supreme Court, like the Vice President, is important. It was consequently appropriate for Biden both to make the promise to appoint a black woman and to keep that promise.

Will the GOP senators call her a nasty girl? Some will; some won’t. What we know is that there is strong feeling within the party that she is an affirmative action baby who wouldn’t have been on the short list but for Biden’s highly inappropriate commitment to appoint a black woman to the Court.

Is that fair? No, for three reasons:

1. Opinion within the GOP suggests that there is some sort of exam, or game of Legal Jeopardy, which creates a clear and lengthy hierarchy for the purpose of selecting judges. That is not the case; there are literally thousands of people who are qualified for the job (even, arguably, me). Biden was obligated to start with a reasonably large pool of qualified applicants, and to pick someone from it. He did. There is no list with an old white dude with a Harvard Law degree at the top.
2. Given that the Supreme Court is increasingly acting as the nation’s final arbiter of racial and culture war issues, rather than a group of dry technicians reviewing tax statutes, it makes perfect sense to try to make it look like America–not just a bunch of conservative white Catholics.
3. The GOP, of course, engages in its own identity politics when it gets to choose a new justice. That is exactly why the Court in no way represents the views of America as a whole–just, in the party’s view, the “real America” of wealthy white Christians.

Does the selection of a black female justice make enough of a difference in the eyes of the affected group to justify limiting the field so significantly? I will address that question in my next post.

By 2030, Europe had changed beyond recognition. NATO and the EU had disappeared, and Putin was the most powerful figure on the continent. How did it happen?

It started with the Trump victory in 2024. No longer subject to any kind of restraints, he immediately pulled the US out of NATO. With America out of the picture, Putin then attacked the Baltic states. The rump of NATO saw that it was outgunned, believed it had no vital interests in the Baltics, and refused to intervene. The former Warsaw Pact countries got the message, and NATO came to an end.

In the meantime, Putin’s allies won the elections in France and Italy. Along with his illiberal friends in Poland and Hungary, they paralyzed the EU to the point that it could no longer function. It collapsed, as well.

The Germans had a choice–rebuild their army and invest in nuclear weapons, or reach a deal with Putin. Lacking the will to spend the money necessary to create a proper deterrent, they made the deal. Putin promised to put them under his nuclear umbrella and intercede on their behalf with the Chinese in exchange for neutrality and some measure of economic aid. It was an offer they could accept.

Europe today is a highly protectionist continent, run in the interests of Russia against the United States. The American “new right” sees this as cause for celebration. “America First” means an American sphere of influence in the New World, and no commitments anywhere else. Trump’s government is now free to do what it really wants to do–make life as miserable as possible for immigrants, seculars, left-leaning women, the LGBTQ community, and racial minorities at home.

UPDATE: The Ukraine invasion isn’t helping him accomplish any of this. It’s completely counterproductive.

Putin probably thought this would be easy. A small blast of shock and awe, and the Ukrainians would give up. After all, they’re Russia’s little brothers, aren’t they? NATO would respond with its usual fecklessness and division. It would be all over in a few days.

He should have known better. Russia is now faced with Hungary in 1956, except that the Ukrainians have an army and more effective help from NATO. There will be heavy fighting in the streets, and thousands of casualties. Putin is at war with an entire nation, even if he doesn’t recognize Ukraine as one. What does he do now?

He will double down. At home, he will dive into his reserves to mitigate the impacts of the sanctions, while cutting off the internet and arresting the usual suspects. Unfortunately for him, the impacts of the sanctions will be felt immediately, while the mitigation will take time. In Ukraine, he will be forced by his military leaders to escalate in order to protect his troops. There will be massive destruction of residential areas in the cities. The optics will be terrible, and his friends in Europe will be running for cover.

It will be a public relations disaster for his Chinese enablers, too. This is the logical end of wolf warrior diplomacy.