Category: Uncategorized

That’s Kim Kardashian, of course, who apparently met with Trump at the White House to discuss prison reform.

Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up.  For his next act, I fully expect Trump to ignore his North Korea experts and call on Dennis Rodman for advice.  Since Rodman, unlike the experts, actually knows Kim Jong-un, talking to him would actually make some sense.

There are times when Trump looks like a dog peeing over Obama’s marks.  Is that really true, however, or is he primarily motivated by standard GOP positions, and by his own weird ideology?

I would break it down this way:

1.  Taxes and deregulation:  He has just adopted the default GOP position.  That includes his stance on Obamacare, which is shared by most of the party.
2.  Energy and the environment:  His position on climate change is also standard GOP fare.  Another Republican president might have chosen to stay in the Paris Agreement, but quietly refused to implement it;  making lots of noise is a reflection of his personality.  His affection for fossil fuels, particularly coal, is largely motivated by his personal thing about jobs done by brawny men.  Reducing the size of Obama’s new monuments, however, appears to be an effort to attack his legacy.
3.  Relationships with democrats and dictators:  He is primarily motivated here by his unique affection for strong men and his idiosyncratic beliefs about trade deficits.
4.  Russia:  Another weird, personal thing having nothing to do with the GOP or Obama.
5.  Middle East:  The attacks on Syrian chemical weapons facilities were a clear effort to distance himself from Obama.  His policy with regard to IS and the Syrian government is just a more confused version of what Obama did.  His rejection of the Iran deal was probably partially motivated by his desire to destroy an Obama accomplishment, but Saudi flattery and Israeli lobbying were more important factors.  Moving the embassy to Jerusalem was a rejection of longstanding policy, not just a slap at Obama.
6. The TPP:  Turning his back on Obama’s deal was consistent with his longstanding belief that the US should use its market power to impose its will on other countries on a bilateral basis.  He would have done it regardless of who negotiated the deal.

And so, the bottom line is that obliterating Obama’s legacy is not as important a consideration as ideology, whether his own or his party’s.

 

The most important thing to remember about Italy is that it is not Greece, for the following reasons:

1.  Italy has a much larger economy, and is much more important to the EU;
2.  The Greek crisis was essentially a Third World debt and hot money issue caused in part by the euro and exacerbated by the inability to devalue, as, say, Argentina would under similar circumstances.  Italy’s problems are chronic, and were not caused by the euro.  Getting rid of the euro will not make them go away, but would cause unimaginable short-term pain.
3. The Germans have far less control over the EU today than they did in 2015.  Bailouts, however, are no more popular now than they were then.

So where is this going?  Here’s my fearless prediction:

1.  The new government will not propose to get rid of the euro, but will run much larger deficits;
2.  Interest rates will go up substantially, but not to Greek levels;
3.  The EU will not take any effective action to bring the government to heel.  On the other hand, there will be no bailout, either; and
4.  Ultimately, the Italian people and the government will have to decide whether the pain of significantly higher interest rates is worth it.

State government in Florida has been dominated by the GOP for more years than I can remember.  You would think, as a result, that Republican candidates would emphasize the glories of living under Republican rule.  Instead, you get this:

1.  Adam Putnam, the Florida establishment candidate for governor, is running commercials in which he portrays himself as a humble fifth generation farmer supporting regular working people against the claims of a liberal elite that thinks everyone should go to college.  In reality:  Putnam went to the University of Florida; he is apparently worth about $30 million, which clearly was inherited; he has been a politician for a large part of his adult life; and the liberal elites he so despises are nowhere to be found in Tallahassee.  Any objections he might have to the way the state has been run need to be directed at Republicans.
2.  Rick Scott, the current governor, is running for the U.S. Senate.  His commercials call on the electorate to elect a businessman to drain the swamp in Washington.  Of course:  Scott has been a politician, not a businessman, for many years; the D.C. swamp is completely controlled by Republicans; and Trump was elected partly on the basis of his business background, which hasn’t exactly helped him drain the swamp.

What does one take from this?  The angry right-wing populist narrative is such an important element in GOP thinking, it has to be emphasized even when it doesn’t make any sense.

The country was settled largely by people fleeing religious persecution in Europe.  The indigenous people fought back, but were overwhelmed.  They ultimately wound up in semi-autonomous political areas with few resources and no political power.

The founders of the country were firm believers in Enlightenment values, both at home and abroad.  The country prospered and grew.  As time went on, however, its leaders started to view the world less in terms of rules, and more in terms of pure power.  Liberal democracy started to fray.  The public became more and more accepting of extreme actions if they were deemed necessary to protect their system, while the country became more isolated abroad.

Is it Israel or America?  You decide.

America is SEC football, and patriotic parades, and Blake Shelton on The Voice.

America is Silicon Valley, and the Metropolitan Museum, and the NBA.

America is Dolly Parton and Florida Georgia Line.

America is Lady Gaga and Kanye West.

America is hot dogs and apple pie.

America is pizza and tacos.

America is Dale Earnhardt at the Daytona 500.

America is LeBron James in Game 7.

America is John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.

America is Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

America is West Virginia coal miners.

America is Uber and Tesla.

America is the plains of Nebraska.

America is the Manhattan skyline.

America is Ronald Reagan.

America is Barack Obama.

 

America isn’t just some of these things–it’s all of these things.

Enjoy your Memorial Day holiday!

I had an idea driving home a few days ago that was either brilliant or hopelessly banal–I can’t decide which.

The thread which holds Trump’s reactionary core together is fear:  fear of Muslim terrorists; fear of African-Americans; fear of immigrants, and their alien culture; fear of violent crime; fear of lost status in the face of claims from women; fear of lost government benefits; fear of unemployment or underemployment; and fear that traditional rural and Christian culture is being swamped by urban values.  This fear easily morphs into anger, which is why anger is such an important feature of right-wing talk radio.

These people find Trump’s swagger comforting.  Trump’s stock in trade is fear and anger.  In that respect, he differs from Reagan, who also swaggered, but had a genuine message of hope tied to tax cuts and limited government.  Trump thinks the world revolves around power, and the shining city on the hill is a fairy tale; he wants to be Batman, not the second coming of Thomas Jefferson.

There is an important message here for the Democratic Party.  If you want to win these voters back, it isn’t enough to talk about policy, or even about respect for traditional values–you have to come across in such a way as to make the fear disappear.  That means, above all, looking strong and certain.

 

It’s easy to understand the motivations behind “Made in China 2025.”  Communist states were practically designed for mercantilism.  There are no ideological issues with the government picking winners and losers; for the Chinese, it is the nation as a whole that matters, not any individual company.  The Chinese will not feel truly sovereign until they are self-sufficient in tech.  Finally, the future, if China is to continue to progress economically, is not in low wage work, for which there are plenty of potential competitors.  If the “Chinese dream” is to be realized, tech will have to be a big part of it.

As I noted long ago, Trump has legitimate concerns about “Made in China 2025,” but his chances of persuading the government to give it up are slim and none.  The question, then, is how should America respond?  What would “Made in America 2025” look like?

It would certainly involve significant restrictions on Chinese purchases of American tech companies.  That is already happening.  The biggest change would be to increase the amount of money spent on basic research, and to subsidize, as necessary, American tech champions, just as the Chinese do.

The problem with this, of course, is that a program of tech financial support would look exactly like the clean energy subsidies in the Obama stimulus package that drove the Republicans crazy.  If you’re going to invest public money in the private sector, you’re going to have to pick winners and losers, and you’re going to have some Solyndras.  That’s just the way it is.

The Chinese accept that, but we don’t, which is why it won’t happen.  The best you can hope for is an increase in the money spent on basic research, but the GOP’s hostility to government spending on anything but the military is such that even that would be difficult.  Our ability to compete with the Chinese, with all of the national security implications that come with it, will continue to depend on the barons of Silicon Valley, not the government, barring a major change of attitude about intervening in the free market.

If you get a chance, do a search for “Trump handwriting” and look for a 2015 article in Politico about the handwriting of the presidential candidates.  The section of the article analyzing Trump’s signature describes his personality perfectly.  You’ll love it.

When you come right down to it, the North Korea story can only end one of three ways:

1.  War.  North Korea is destroyed at an unfathomable cost.
2.  Containment.  There is no deal and no war.  The status quo more or less continues, except the North Koreans finish work on their ICBM, the enforcement of sanctions weakens, and we place more military assets in South Korea to prevent the unraveling of the alliance.
3.  Trump settles for a deal for a phased, partial rollback of the North Korean nuclear and missile programs in exchange for sanctions relief and promises of future economic aid.  Kim accepts the sanctions relief and ultimately (and predictably) chooses to keep the nukes he considers essential in lieu of taking the aid.

None of these alternatives includes Kim voluntarily giving up all of his nukes.  That simply isn’t going to happen.  Bolton has figured that out.  I doubt Trump has yet.

 

Based on Trump’s behavior, ZTE is a hostage, not a lawbreaker.  That’s Trump’s favorite way to negotiate.  Don’t be surprised if you see this again.

Life in the time of Trump.

The summit’s off, then on.

No one knows how the wind blows.

All sanity is gone.

He’s truly shown that he’s the man.

His world spins like a top.

It’s like a seasick circus ride

We don’t know how to stop.

In honor of the Irish referendum today, here’s my analysis of the abortion issue, which revolves around three questions:

1.  When does a fetus become a person?  This is frequently framed as a question about when life begins, but that’s stupid;  a fertilized egg is alive, but it may or may not be a person.  There are two perspectives on this question.  The traditional religious view is that a fertilized egg is, indeed, a person;  this is based either on the assumption that a human soul (which is, of course, intangible) is created at conception, or on carrying forward the historical ignorance of the biology of a fetus.  The second model is biological, and revolves around the ability of the fetus to function as a human being independent of the mother.  That requires the fetus to have all of the usual human organs, and for them to work.

2.  What are the interests to be considered in the debate?  There are four parties with interests to be considered and balanced.  The fetus itself has an interest in its own life;  that interest becomes more compelling as it grows and becomes more functional on its own.  The mother has a myriad of emotional, physical health, and financial interests in the decision to give birth;  for some, these include the argument that abortion rights are necessary to give her the same sexual autonomy that a man enjoys.  The father has a less compelling interest in fatherhood.  Finally, society, in addition to all of these other interests, has legitimate concerns about public costs inevitably attributable to unwanted children, and may want to either encourage or discourage children based on demographic and environmental issues.

3.  Who makes the decision?  In some countries, this decision would be left primarily to religious institutions.  For the most part, it is a question left to the legislature.  In the US, authority over the issue was divided between legislatures and the judicial system after the Roe decision.  In Ireland, the question is being addressed in a referendum.

Where do I stand?  I support the biological model, think the interests of the mother and society are paramount in the relatively early stages of the development of the fetus, and believe that balancing interests is a task for legislatures.  In other words, I would characterize Roe as wise, but legally inappropriate, judicial intervention in the political process.  If I were Irish, I would vote yes in the referendum.

Putin undoubtedly viewed his intervention in the 2016 election as a low cost, low risk, high reward gamble.  After all, he could outsource the hacking to cybermercenaries who didn’t cost very much, and he could easily disavow them if they were caught.   Victory was highly unlikely, but the prize was alluring:  a bumbling, clueless, wannabe strong man who admired him as his principal adversary.

Against the odds, Trump prevailed, and Putin has in some respects reaped the benefits.  America is discrediting liberal democracy and trashing its alliances on a daily basis; he could not have hoped for more.  He also has gained plenty of admirers among the crowd that unquestioningly follows Trump and Fox News.  On the other hand, the political class has united against him, sanctions have not been lifted, and America is becoming, if anything, more aggressive in its support of Ukraine.  American troops in Syria are killing his private sector soldiers.  Finally, while Trump is easily manipulated, he loves being unpredictable, so one can’t be sure that he will stay on board for his entire term.

The bottom line is that, from his perspective, Trump is a mixed blessing.  Be careful what you ask for, because you might get it.

So, it appears that Trump’s desire to dominate everyone around him and to be the most unpredictable man alive has at least temporarily overcome his lust for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The clear winners in this are Kim and the Chinese.  The biggest loser is South Korea, which is now facing the possibility of war again.  We come next; it’s hard to imagine the rest of the world ramping up and enforcing sanctions when Trump was the one who called off the meeting.

Personally, I think this is a temporary condition.  On Korea, Trump wants attention and a “win,” not war.  Nothing he says or does should be taken seriously until he signs on the dotted line–here, or anywhere else.

This will end with him giving away the store and demanding credit for it.