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The GOP claims to be the party of the working man, but it is really the party of low wages, as evidenced by its passionate opposition to a higher minimum wage and unions. Further evidence was provided recently by GOP governors and legislators cutting off federal UI before the September deadline, even though it cost their states nothing. What is going on here?

Obviously, all of the GOP’s DNA is pro-business, not pro-labor. Higher wages mean, in many cases, lower profits for their donor class. The problem isn’t just with business, however; consumers benefit from low prices, and investors (often not business people) enjoy higher asset prices. Many of these people are elderly, a key support group for Republicans.

The bottom line is that there is a large constituency, not limited to business people, for low wages. Unless Biden manages to thread a needle, any successful efforts to increase wages are going to have negative impacts on other groups that vote in large numbers. I’m not sure the country is completely prepared to deal with that turn of events.

We are taught from an early age that we won our “freedom” during the American Revolution. What, exactly, does that mean?

For the patriots, it had two distinct and different meanings. For some, it was about self-determination; a new nation would chart its own course independent of Great Britain. This did not represent any kind of judgment about how the new nation’s powers would be organized and used. For others, the issue was limiting the power of the central government; the point of the war was to resist oppressive rule, not just to change the identity of the rulers.

The first group supported the ratification of the Constitution and, for the most part, would be Democrats today. The second group were Anti-Federalists and, for the most part, are Republicans determined to resist any increase in the powers of the federal government today.

You may not know that July 4 is not the birthday of the United States of America. The Declaration proclaims that the colonies are “free and independent states;” it does not say that they are united as a single independent country. That is undoubtedly why Jefferson did not base the argument for independence on the emergence of a new American nation separate from Britain, as one undoubtedly would do today, and Hamilton probably would have done even then.

The Declaration could have been the precursor to an “America” that was just a temporary military alliance of the states, or even less. The legal reality of the “United States of America” was first articulated in the Articles of Confederation. Without the Articles, each of the individual states would have been required to sign the Treaty of Paris as a separate combatant in 1783, which would have been absurd.

If you want to celebrate the birth of our nation, you will consequently have to wait until November. If you are satisfied with just celebrating the break with Great Britain, have a great July 4!

To a certain kind of reactionary, MLK is actually a hero. You’re laughing, but I’m completely serious. Hear me out.

As the narrative goes, slavery and de jure segregation were genuine evils that needed to be eliminated. MLK and his followers accomplished this, and are to be celebrated for it. As a result of their triumph, it was no longer necessary for the government to treat whites and minorities differently; every man is to be judged based on his ability and character, not the color of his skin. Today, it is the minorities who are the oppressors, by demanding special treatment from the government, and the white people who are oppressed by their demands and their persistent, but unfounded, cries of racism. In that sense, the true heir to King’s mantle is Donald Trump, with Lindsey Graham, the white man who refused to be silenced, in the role of Rosa Parks.

This is, of course, a total load of crap. Affirmative action programs are nowhere near as pervasive as reactionaries believe they are. All of the pertinent statistics show that blacks are far worse off than their supposed victims, which leads to some uncomfortable questions for reactionaries about why that should be the case. Finally, King’s interest in racial justice did not end with paper solutions to legal, political, and economic disparities between the condition of white and black people. After all, he was in Memphis trying to help with a garbage strike when he was assassinated.

In short, the attempt by reactionaries to appropriate the accomplishments and rhetoric of black civil rights leaders is a parody of the real article, and deserves to be treated with contempt.

There are two prongs to the battle, first, for LGBTQ rights, and now for transgender rights. The first is a legal/political fight to prohibit discrimination; the second is a more nebulous public relations campaign to establish that the group in question is “normal.” These are major issues in the culture wars, and have polarized the nation to a dangerous degree. Where do they stand, and where are they going?

The LGBTQ crowd turned its legal/political battle around and won it with stunning speed. In 2004, the GOP used anti-gay referenda to boost conservative turnout; today, protection for gay rights is a done deal, subject only to likely Christian carve-outs to be created by the Supreme Court. As to the “normal” question, it is hard to say, but based on the portrayals of LGBTQ people in the MSM, it is likely that they have made progress there, too.

The trans wars have, alas, just started. Given that trans people represent a tiny fraction of one percent of the population, the practical stakes in this one are pathetically low. The war is being waged by people on the left and right who simply can’t get enough of being culture warriors, and don’t know when to stop. The left wants to win a complete victory and plant its flag, figuratively speaking, on Mt. Suribachi again; the right currently sees the issue much as it did gay rights in 2004–opportunistically, as a vote mobilizer for other purposes. So far, conservatives seem to be prevailing, but, as with LGBTQ rights, it is early days.

Is there middle ground here that could prevent the country from cracking up over nothing? Yes! The left wins the legal/political battle on discrimination, but concedes the point on “normalization.” That is my position. I have accepted the left’s reasoning on discrimination; I have made my peace, for example, with gay marriage. But don’t ever expect me to embrace the sweeping new arguments made by trans people that there is no such thing as “normal,” that gender is a fluid concept beyond anyone’s moral judgment, and that I am just an unenlightened “cisgender” oppressor. That will never happen.

It is certainly trending that way, and you can see some evidence of conflict within the organization as a result. A few columnists have left the paper, complaining about young woke reporters. There was the dispute about the Tom Cotton “shoot the protesters” op-ed. And, of course, there is the 1619 Project (the ultimate woke icon), which the paper has promoted vigorously and uncritically over the objections of the right and plenty of commentators from the center.

Nevertheless, there is little to fear at this point. There is no evidence of wokeness in the news articles. Liberal columnists still predominate, if by a smaller margin. And the bottom line is that the paper has a readership that is too old, affluent, and white to embrace identity determinism. For the NYT to shift completely to the cultural left would be financial suicide.

If you enjoy the woke perspective, I recommend Vox. The liberal old guard there is gone (many to the NYT), and has been replaced by woke millennials. Reading their material on cultural issues can be an eye-opening, if not altogether pleasant, experience.

Three important legal developments announced yesterday:

1. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court set Bill Cosby free on the basis that the government had violated his due process rights by breaching an old agreement not to prosecute him. Cosby subsequently told the world that he was just another innocent black man who had been railroaded by a racist system. Umm. . . no. Nothing in this decision suggests the jury verdict was incorrect. In no way is this any kind of a vindication.
2. The Trump Organization is being charged with violations of criminal law in New York. The allegations apparently involve untaxed fringe benefits, not fraud. One has to assume that this is just a first step in an effort to bring a larger case against Trump himself, because the allegations, by themselves, look fairly trivial.
3. A federal judge has enjoined the enforcement of the new Florida law aimed at the big tech companies on the basis that it probably violates the First Amendment. Of course it does! The new law wasn’t actually intended to do anything except hurl a large chunk of red meat at the reactionary base.

As I’ve noted before, there is a fundamental difference between the American dream and the “Chinese dream” described by Xi. The former focuses on the ability of individuals to reach their full potential with the assistance of a limited, predictable state; the latter revolves around China becoming more politically and economically powerful, with each individual Chinese citizen enjoying a microscopic piece of that success.

That difference is one of America’s chief advantages in a soft power battle with the Chinese, because it is a model with a proven track record around much of the world. Its appeal is consequently universal. Chinese exceptionalism offers nothing to anyone except the Chinese.

To put it another way, when was the last time you read a story about desperate migrants from adjoining countries fleeing poverty and oppression to get into China? Never? Consider the issues at our border to be a backhanded compliment.

I will take credit, unhappily, for predicting the demise of Hong Kong as we knew it years before the event. I was wrong, however, when I suggested that the Chinese victory would be won with blood. What happened?

I think the answer is that the pro-democracy forces didn’t take the Hong Kong government seriously, but they genuinely (and correctly) fear Xi and the Communist Party. In addition, Xi guessed right when he concluded that the vast majority of Hong Kong residents would prioritize their economic well-being over a doomed fight for civil rights when push came to shove.

I can’t blame them, but I have to admit I’m slightly disappointed. In effect, the CCP is profiting from the atrocities of 1989.

Republicans constantly warn us of the threat posed by the two heads of the Democratic monster: socialism and “political correctness,” by which they mean the woke cultural agenda. They treat the two heads as identical. Are they?

No. The cornerstone of socialism is economic determinism (i.e., your thoughts and behavior are driven by your economic class, which is established by your relationship to the means of production), while wokeness is a form of identity determinism (sex and race are all-important).

The two concepts are thus related, but fundamentally opposed, which is why Bernie Sanders had so much trouble appealing to black voters. Think of them as two sides of the same determinist coin.

All over America, woke warriors are talking about cancellations on social media, but red state governments are actually doing it! The usual target is the 1619 Project, of which I have been harshly critical in numerous posts. Leaving aside the rampant hypocrisy of the right, is it fair for state governments to prohibit its use?

No. The 1619 Project is incomplete and, in some ways, unfair. That does not make it valueless. While racism is not the predominant, let alone the only, theme in American history, it is undeniably important. The Project is helpful when it reminds us of racist actions that have not received adequate attention in our history books and which have consequences today. There is consequently nothing wrong with using it, albeit with a large helping of caution.

If you’re a liberal, you identify with the Union in the Civil War. You see America as an ever-evolving effort to create a genuine multi-racial liberal democracy, and the Union victory as an essential part of that ongoing struggle.

If you’re a reactionary, you identify with the Confederacy. You look around and conclude that the basics of your culture–God, guns, and guts–are under attack by a vicious group of leftists with numbers and history on their side. You think you are fighting for your very survival, because Fox News says so. The logic of the Confederate cause–to change the political rules in order to guarantee permanent economic and cultural primacy for an historically privileged minority–makes perfect sense to you.

If you’re woke, the Civil War is a short, meaningless interlude between the evils of slavery and the failures of Reconstruction, so you don’t identify with either side. As far as you’re concerned, Lincoln and Davis were both racists, so there is no fundamental difference between the two. All white Americans, regardless of where they came from or their circumstances in life, are oppressors of people of color. It doesn’t matter if you were a slaveowner or a Russian Jew fleeing a pogrom with nothing on your back–you’re all the same, because you received benefits from the racist system and thus have white privilege.

You can count me in the first group, thank you.

Threatening not to sign legislation that you really want unless you also get something else that you really want isn’t credible, because it is the political equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face–a tactic favored only by extremists on both sides. Fortunately, Biden quickly reversed course, and the bipartisan infrastructure bill is back on track, although it remains to be seen whether it can get 10 GOP votes in the Senate.

It actually makes far more sense, from a tactical perspective, to send the bipartisan bill through the system before the more sweeping partisan bill. That way, if it fails, it can be folded into a reconciliation bill, and the GOP will be denied any credit for any interest in infrastructure improvements or bipartisanship.

It occurred to me shortly after I posted on Iran and the Soviet Union that the tactical dispute between the Iranians and Al-Qaeda over the spread of Islamic political ideology resembles the battle between Stalin and Trotsky over “socialism in one country.” Stalin, and the Iranians, focused on building up and protecting the homeland; Trotsky, and Al-Qaeda, thought the battle could only be won in the end by taking on and defeating the enemy in its stronghold.

What does this mean? The obvious answer is that building a single state based on ideology is a lot easier than promoting world revolution, but that the ideology may be heavily corrupted in that process.

Pakistan’s double-dealing over Afghanistan drove four presidents from both political parties crazy. On the one hand, the Pakistani government made a legitimate effort to battle the “bad” domestic Taliban, and provided some useful assistance in Afghanistan; on the other hand, the Pakistani security services gave the “good” Afghan Taliban aid and a refuge from which they could never be dislodged. It was no accident that Osama was found and killed there; Pakistan was effectively the headquarters for the enemy forces in Afghanistan, and America could do nothing about it.

With the imminent withdrawal of American and NATO forces, the Pakistanis will have “won” the war, as their clients are bound to take power sooner or later. But be careful what you ask for, because you might just get it. The “good” Taliban in Afghanistan will undoubtedly assist the “bad” Taliban in Pakistan in its efforts to overthrow the elected government. And America, which is primarily concerned with restraining China in the region, is bound to tilt even more openly towards India.

Some victory! Pakistan is going to be even more of a Chinese client state than it is today, which, given China’s behavior towards Muslims, is going to be a bit embarrassing. China, for its part, will have to take more responsibility for an increasingly unstable neighbor with nuclear weapons and an ideology that doesn’t exactly mesh with theirs. Good luck with that, guys.