Category: Uncategorized

The sad truth is that Donald Trump would be nothing without his mass of like-minded followers. Thanks to the 2016 primary and general elections, and the current polls, we know that about 30 percent of the American electorate consists of reactionaries who are far more wedded to their values than to our political system. If they are ever forced to make a clear choice between the two, things could get really ugly in this country, really fast.

What can be done about this? There are essentially three ways to address the problem:

1. TRY TO CRUSH THE REACTIONARIES: America clearly needs to be more woke! The obvious answer is to win power and use it to destroy the more obnoxious forms of red culture. To which I say, good luck with that. The harder you try, the worse the backlash.
2. FEEDING THE ALLIGATORS: Avoid conflict by making it clear that you represent the interests of the entire American public, not just the woke part. Show sympathy for Christians, and even support limited exceptions to civil rights laws for them. Enforce the immigration laws in a fair but conspicuous way to build trust. And so on.
3. RELY ON ATTRITION: The majority of reactionaries are old white guys who are going to die fairly soon, anyway. Don’t confront or appease them; just wait them out.

So what would I do? A combination of the last two options is the only viable approach.

Theresa May was a conventional politician whose government depended on the votes of the DUP, so she naturally refused to consider an EU offer on Brexit that screwed them over. Boris Johnson is anything but a conventional politician, and he has already lost his majority, so he made a deal which effectively puts the border between the EU and the UK in the Irish Sea. The DUP, of course, will not support this arrangement, which will have implications that go far beyond Brexit, but Boris doesn’t care; all he wants to do is leave the EU and win the coming election. Anything else is just collateral damage.

The government lost the vote on the Letwin amendment, but that doesn’t mean it won’t win in the end. Boris can probably count on every vote he got this time around, and some of the Letwin voters will almost certainly support his deal once they are certain that no-deal is completely off the table. Will it be enough? The final vote will be extremely close, and I make no predictions, except to say that the government probably has as much credibility now in Northern Ireland as Trump has in Syria, and that may matter even more than Brexit in the long run.

If there is one American institution that reactionaries still respect, it is the military. As a result, if conspicuously apolitical military figures start telling the public in large numbers that Trump is an unfit commander in chief, that could be a major problem for him.

Of course, the other possible outcome is that Trump convinces his base that the military is just another component of the “deep state.” If that happens, the health of our political system will be on life support, because there will be no barriers left between 30 percent of the American public and fascism.

Bernie Sanders loves organized labor; it’s his natural habitat. You can easily imagine him as a turn of the century labor organizer fighting to overcome racial and ethnic divisions and unite the working class against the predatory capitalists. He was just born a hundred years too late.

The problem for Bernie is that he is also committed to a hugely expensive climate change program that will cost hundreds of thousands of workers their relatively high wage jobs. As you can imagine, they aren’t too keen on that. The prospect of leaving a coal mining job and becoming a solar panel salesman making far less money doesn’t appeal, for some reason.

If Bernie were somehow elected president, this would be an excruciating decision. Fortunately for him, and us, it is one he will never face, barring a complete economic collapse between now and the primaries.

Back in the days of the Russia investigation, I opined that there would be no significant legal action taken against Trump in the absence of clear evidence of a quid pro quo. As it turned out, there wasn’t even enough evidence of collaboration to make out a case for a conspiracy, so the issue of the quid pro quo never came up.

Today, in addition to his argument that he is above the law, Trump is defending himself by maintaining there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine. The evidence, however, includes the following:

1. The rough transcript itself strongly suggests Trump was offering a deal;
2. What would you expect the co-author of “The Art of the Deal” to propose?
3. There is no evidence that Trump had any ongoing interest in Ukrainian corruption outside of issues that affected him personally;
4. There was no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either Biden;
5. Why would it have been necessary for Trump to operate a shadow foreign policy outside of the State Department and the NSC if he just wanted to talk about corruption in general?
6. Mulvaney’s “defense” just indicates that the deal involved investigating baseless conspiracy theories about 2016 as well as the Bidens.

Michael Cohen made it clear that Trump frequently uses barely veiled threats in the manner of a mob boss. The letter to Erdogan is of the same vein. Why would any reasonable person, under these circumstances, believe there was no quid pro quo?

Instead of working with the various interested parties in the Middle East to accept our ideas to create regional peace and stability, we can unite them in disgust at our craven, inept “diplomacy,” which has effectively ratified the Turkish annexation of northern Syria. Now, that’s an unintended consequence we can all embrace!

Trump’s latest argument is that the Kurds are basically terrorists who assisted us in the battle against ISIS solely out of self-interest and who aren’t worthy of our support. If that is true, why didn’t we withdraw years ago, and why are we imposing (completely ineffectual) sanctions on the Turks?

As far as I can tell, our objectives in Syria are to offend everyone and look ridiculous, because that is exactly what is happening.

I missed large parts of the debate due to a lousy internet connection, but here are my reactions to what I actually saw:

1. Bernie looked and sounded much better. Good! He deserves a chance to lose on the merits, not on his health.
2. I don’t think we will see any major shifts in the polls until the field is cut to, say, five or six.
3. The principal battle was between Warren and the moderates. I just wish Biden could be as effective as his potential replacements—particularly Klobuchar.
4. I will be commenting on a number of Warren’s statements in the coming days. For now, I will simply say that I wish someone had slid in the knife when she (accurately) argued that Beto’s mandatory gun buyback plan was unrealistic and an obstacle to real progress. What happened to having the guts to fight for big, bold ideas? That’s the entire basis for her candidacy.

According to the WaPo, there is a viral video on YouTube featuring Elizabeth Warren ripping a supporter of traditional marriage a new one. Warren fans love it, and why wouldn’t they? St. Liz slays the dragon of bigotry! What could be more thrilling! Over to you, Trump and Biden!

This video will be a Trump campaign commercial if Warren is the nominee. There are probably a hundred million Americans who agree with that guy, and they have thousands of years of history on their side. To treat them with contempt—as the new “deplorables”—will convince lots of them that Trumpian fascism is a better alternative than the coming PC dictatorship.

It isn’t a good way to win an election. Still less is it a good way to run a badly divided country.

And so, we have withdrawn from Syria in the most sudden and chaotic way imaginable, thereby leaving our former allies in the lurch. Trump is now threatening to impose sanctions on the Turks, which would anger them without actually accomplishing anything. What has the Great Negotiator won for us in return? As far as we know, the answer is nothing—not even the usual promise to buy more weapons. The whole episode is such a disgrace that even the right is appalled.

Many pundits are predictably arguing that we are destroying our credibility with present and future allies by selling out our friends. To me, the question is a bit different—why would any sane person put any faith in America’s commitments as long as it is run by a man who lies as easily as he breathes? This is just a case of the chickens coming home to roost, and it won’t be the last such episode.

A completely fictional, yet essentially true, account of an exchange with Elizabeth Warren:

C: The nation is more divided now than it has been in fifty years. There is even talk of a second Civil War. What will you do as president to bring the country together?

W: I have a plan for that. I will fight divisiveness everywhere I see it. I will use the bully pulpit every day to heal the nation’s wounds. I’ll take the fight to Fox News. I’ll never give up.

C: That sounds more like the problem than the solution to me.

I advised Bernie Sanders not to run long before the effective beginning of the campaign. He ignored me, and the results are plain for all to see. He’s stuck in the polls, he’s bleeding support to Warren, and now he’s had a heart attack. His only chance of winning is a colossal recession. Things could hardly be worse.

What if he quits? Does that hand the nomination to Warren?

Not necessarily. Bernie may despise identity politics, but a large number of his followers are identity voters who would support Biden over Warren. It would probably be a net gain for Warren, but not a huge one.

Paul Krugman is exactly right; if the system survives this episode, it will be due largely to Trump’s laziness, egotism, and lack of political skills. I would go a step further and say that means the system is failing, and we need to make changes to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

In the long run, there is only so much you can do with legislation, but we have to try; reliance on longstanding norms hasn’t worked. We need to start by depoliticizing the Supreme Court and the DOJ, because they are the last line of defense against the authoritarian state.

It sounds like a worthy project for President Warren.

His protestations notwithstanding, Richard Nixon really was a crook. He did, however, have at least some sense that the national interest was larger than his own. He resigned rather than put the country through a painful and divisive impeachment trial.

Would Donald Trump do the same? Of course not. Trump can’t conceive of any interest that could possibly exceed his own. America, to him, is nothing more than the stage on which he exercises his genius. We’re all just extras in a drama in which he is the one and only star.

Stonewalling the impeachment process is a typical Trumpian tactic. It is also a ghastly mistake, for the following reasons:

1. Trump is effectively preventing friendly witnesses from testifying at the hearings. Only people who are willing to resign and testify against him will appear. As a result, the House will have to find that there was a quid pro quo, and the GOP will have to defend him on the basis that the quid pro quo was perfectly acceptable behavior, not that it didn’t happen.
2. Trump clearly intends to defy subpoenas in this process. The Democrats will attempt to enforce the subpoenas through the judicial system. Trump is going to lose that litigation; even his Supreme Court won’t save him. Then what? He will be in the same position that Nixon was in with the tapes. If he then ignores the court order, he will unquestionably be committing an impeachable offense, based on the Nixon precedent.
3. The most likely outcome at that point is a vote for acquittal, but with several GOP senators voting for conviction. That is the record he will have to rely on during the campaign. No one will believe that the process was a purely partisan witch hunt. The voters will respond accordingly.