I wish someone would tell Trump that this phrase makes no sense. The word “rigged” is only intended to apply to some sort of a competition whose outcome has been unlawfully predetermined. A “witch hunt” is not such a competition.
The Mueller investigation could in theory be a “witch hunt,” but it can’t be a “rigged witch hunt.” The revelations and the guilty pleas that have arisen from it prove my point.
To the average person, “draining the swamp” means reducing the access and power of lobbyists, and eliminating corruption in government. To Trump, it clearly means no such thing; lobbying activity in Washington, by all accounts, has increased, and the amount of inappropriate self-dealing by Trump and his officials has reached levels never before seen in my lifetime.
So what did he mean by “draining the swamp?” In retrospect, we can see that he meant the destruction of prevailing political and ethical norms, and the firing of anyone who dares to use the law to stand in his way.
Trump maintains that the Manafort trial has nothing to do with him, which, on its face, is completely true. He also argues that Manafort was only his campaign manager for a very short period of time, which isn’t.
If you accept his statements as true, then why is he going ballistic about the case and demanding that Sessions immediately fire Mueller–something he knows isn’t going to happen, given that Sessions’ one slightly redeeming quality is his sense of professional ethics? Why doesn’t he just ignore the trial if it has no legal implications for him?
It’s a question with significant ramifications. One hopes Mueller answers it for us.
There are obvious similarities between the American election of 2016 and the outcome of the Brexit referendum. In both cases, right-wing populists raging against technological changes, globalization, and immigration prevailed over a more cosmopolitan establishment. In both cases, chaos has ensued, just as the establishment predicted.
The difference is that the British government is trying to ride out the chaos, with very limited success. Trump, on the other hand, revels in being a chaos agent. America is now an unapologetic force for instability throughout the world.
Neither will end happily. It’s just a question of how well the damage can be contained between now and then.
Predictably, Brexit is turning into an economic and political disaster for the UK. Economically, it has led to uncertainty, a loss of investment, and reduced growth; politically, it is likely to result in the demise of the government sometime between now and the 2019 deadline, and could ultimately put Corbyn in Downing Street.
The paradox is that right-wing populist victories elsewhere in Europe are moving the EU away from “ever closer union” and back to a looser coalition of nation-states with different values and political systems. When it is all said and done, Brexit may well prove to have been unnecessary as well as damaging.
As the saying goes, you campaign in poetry, but govern in prose. Both the balance and the sequence are important. If you can’t master the poetry part, you turn into Hillary Clinton: an uninspiring candidate with a laundry list of modest ideas who can’t win an election. If, on the other hand, you can’t deal in prose, you wind up like today’s GOP; having made unrealistic, contradictory, and essentially dishonest promises to the electorate, you have no idea of how to keep them once in power, and you accomplish very little.
The key for the Democrats in 2020, therefore, is to nominate someone with sound and politically possible ideas who can nonetheless inspire the voting public. What would such a platform look like? Here are some ideas:
1. Medicare for More: Obamacare has helped with the cost of health insurance and co-pays, but not nearly enough for many middle- and working-class people. An actuarily sound program permitting people to buy into Medicare, with higher subsidies, could help a lot. As I’ve noted before, Medicare for More doesn’t create the same political objections as single-payer, it is based on an existing and popular program, and it doesn’t have the same impacts on the budget. It has a reasonable chance of passage.
2. Increase the EITC: A working class tax cut would have some support from the GOP, and would help to reduce inequality.
3. A modest increase in the minimum wage: The EITC is a better way of improving the lives of struggling workers than the minimum wage, since it doesn’t require any interference with the market, but a modest increase, based on the available data, wouldn’t cost jobs, and would be popular.
4. Greater antitrust enforcement: Stagnant wages may be tied in some cases to an increase in market power on the part of a handful of firms.
The first two could be paid for by increasing the corporate tax from 21 to 25 percent, and by getting rid of the egregious pass-through entity deduction that serves no obvious economic purpose. It would not require the complete repeal of the Trump tax cut.
If you think this list is too modest, remember one other thing: one of the benefits of having such an obnoxious president is that it should be possible to inspire the base in a colorful way without having an irresponsible platform.
Steve Bannon apparently has been ripping the Koch brothers–telling them to get with the program, or else. The Kochs do not seem overly impressed. Why is that?
You shouldn’t be surprised. The Kochs are CLs; they believe in a radically smaller state, which excludes tariffs and stronger immigration controls. That is obviously in their economic self-interest, but, to be fair, they have also shown strong concerns about issues such as criminal justice reform that have no direct impacts on their bottom line. Bannon, for his part, is a Reactionary; he wants a swaggering, more powerful state that showers benefits on white native-born Christians and kicks everyone else’s butt.
The two mix like oil and water. They are only part of the same party because they both hate and fear the libs.
The following statements are, I believe, demonstrably true:
Some commentators and members of the administration are taking the position that Trump is using thuggish, but justifiable tactics to advance a radical free trade agenda with the EU. If my premises are true, completely free trade will not in any way eliminate trade deficits and thereby accomplish Trump’s ultimate objective of returning ill-gotten wealth to the US. As a result, I can only conclude that the argument about Trump being a free trader is false, and that his objective must really be managed trade, not free trade.
I’ve had the privilege (?) of watching GOP campaign commercials in several states over the last few months. With one notable exception, they are all the same; they all hit on Trumpian themes, whether they make sense in the context or not. Illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, and “draining the swamp” should not have any resonance in states that are completely controlled by the GOP. And yet, there you are.
It has even gotten to the point that the candidates whose opponents have been endorsed by Trump are trying to sound like him. As you can imagine, that isn’t working too well.
Will openly and emphatically tying yourself to Trump prove successful in general elections in purple states, like Florida? We’ll see, but it’s telling that even Rick Scott (the exception) is trying to portray himself as an independent voice, not a Trump clone.
As we know only too well, one of the guiding principles of Trumpism is to keep the base motivated by constantly triggering the libs on Twitter. Hey, it works for Fox News–why not him?
Let’s leave aside whether it is good for the country, and even moral, for him to be as deliberately divisive as he is. The question for today is, is it a sound electoral strategy? What happens if you trigger so many libs that they all go to the polls in November and outvote your base?
I guess we’ll find out in a few months. If the blue wave crashes even with a roaring economy, it’s all on him.
Life in the time of Trump.
He’s built a golden crutch.
He thinks the farmers should be glad.
The farmers–not so much.
The tariff war will stagger on
With no off-ramp in sight.
He thinks the war’s an easy win.
Will he ever see the light?
Having needlessly damaged the economic interests of key members of his base with his tariffs, Trump wants to mitigate the damage by using taxpayer money to bail them out. Senator Ben Sasse, a Never Trumper, has memorably described this idea as “golden crutches.”
This proves, yet again, that Trump and his allies only object to “welfare” when it goes to people other than hard-working white Christians. I’m going to make a wild guess here and speculate that the farmers won’t be required to take drug tests as a condition of receiving the subsidies.
If we have a financial crisis and a bank bailout is necessary, the same thing will happen. Trump will support the bailout, and while some of his CL supporters will howl, they will ultimately go along with it, because the mainstream of the GOP is now whatever Trump says it is.
Much is being made of a recent poll which apparently shows that younger people are suspicious of capitalism, and receptive to socialism. This has (reasonably) been attributed to their experience with the Great Recession.
Is calling your ideas “socialism” consequently a winning political strategy? No, because older people, who are more reliable voters, are generally terrified of anything called “socialist.” That’s my personal experience, and it is supported by another recent poll which indicated that 75 percent of voters would never vote for a “socialist.”
Notwithstanding the drivel one hears on Fox News, expanding the welfare state is not “socialism.” In virtually every case, therefore, it is a mistake for Democrats to tie their ideas to the “socialist” label.
I’ve got those dirty, lowdown, Donald Trump blues.
You have to be aware of it; it’s all over the news.
Trump really wants to help me out, but the Democrats refuse.
Election’s in November, and the GOP might lose.
Sure, I took Crimea, and I hold part of Ukraine.
I did it all with lots of stealth so I wouldn’t take the blame.
I’ve murdered lots of people and inflicted lots of pain.
But that’s the way it works if you want to play the game.
I’ve got the blues.
The US sanctions blues.
It feels like I’m still winning
But with every win, I lose.
I’m working hard in Europe.
I’m making lots of friends.
But America still rules the roost.
The battle never ends.
It’s fun to speculate about 2020, and I will continue to do so, but the task at hand is to win in 2018. There is plenty of angst about divisions in the Democratic Party, but my message is, do whatever it takes to win in your district and provide an effective check on the man on golf cart. We’ll sort out the ideology later.
2018 is about only one thing: are you a Trump enabler or a Trump checker? If you are the latter, it doesn’t matter if you follow the blue dog or the red star. Just win, baby!