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During the 2015/16 campaign, Donald Trump performed what I would consider a public service by laying bare the differences in ideology among the various factions of the Republican Party.  The GOP cannot actually govern, however, unless those differences can be resolved, or at least papered over.  Some of that task can be delegated to Ryan and McConnell, but some of it is up to Trump.

He can’t do it.  His personality, to say the least, is abrasive, not soothing or placid. He doesn’t have positive relationships with enough members of Congress to sway votes.  His poll ratings don’t indicate that he can rely on the bully pulpit to intimidate wayward GOP members.  Finally, he knows practically nothing about policy, so he can’t help with the detail work.  All he can do is call meetings at the White House and fruitlessly demand victories for himself.

It certainly doesn’t bode well for the future.  He needs a war or a terrorist attack to turn things around, and soon.

As I’ve noted before, there are two largely inconsistent threads of Bannonite thought:  the internationalist war of civilizations against Islamic extremism; and the nationalist battle against countries with large trade surpluses with the US. You could sort of harmonize the two if you could fairly assume that Europe would be taken over by nationalist parties, but right-wing populism has apparently hit the wall, based on the outcome of the Dutch, French, and UK elections.  So where does Bannon go from here?

The result of Bannonite thought can be seen today:  inglorious isolation.  We can alienate our erstwhile friends with our positions on free trade, climate change, and human rights, but we can’t make any new ones.

The new White House guru named Steve.

He says things you wouldn’t believe.

He wants to build walls.

He has Trump in his thrall.

And the world thus has reason to grieve.

Both the House and Senate bills are, at their core, naked attempts to get a majority for something that can be called a repeal of Obamacare, not expressions of philosophy about the delivery of health care in the US.  The question for today is, if you could divorce the need to “win” from the equation, what would a GOP health care bill say?  The wide range of answers explains why it is so difficult for the GOP to agree on a single piece of legislation.

Here are the options, as I see them:

1.  Repeal Obamacare, and return to the status quo ante:  This would be relatively simple from a technical perspective, and would have strong support from the base.  Advantages, from the GOP’s point of view:  completely eliminates a new entitlement program enjoyed largely by the undeserving poor; sends a message that health care should be treated like any other commodity in the market.  Disadvantages:  Probably deprives about 30 million people, many of them GOP voters, of health insurance;  health care providers (often GOP voters) lose big bucks; countless job losses in the health care field; individual insurance markets may go into a death spiral.  Overall assessment:  CLs and some Reactionaries support this approach, but no one else does, because the down sides far outweigh the advantages.

2.  Maintain most of Obamacare’s architecture, but replace community rating with high risk pools:  This is contemplated in the House bill.  Advantages: lowers premiums for young and healthy people; moves the focus of health care back to personal responsibility.  Disadvantages:  if (this is unlikely) the high risk pools are adequately funded, the GOP is maintaining a very expensive entitlement program;  if not, GOP voters with pre-existing conditions will be turned into unsuccessful beggars.  Overall assessment:  unlike the poor, prosperous GOP voters with pre-existing conditions are sacred cows.  There is nothing in the history of high risk pools which suggests that the funding would be in any way adequate to the task.

3.  Create a system of universal catastrophic insurance:  The Senate bill moves tentatively in this direction.  A somewhat workable system would include prefunded HSAs for the poor, tax advantages for HSAs for everyone else, and tax credits adequate for the purchase of high deductible plans for all.  Advantages: this approach essentially eliminates the use of insurance for daily care, which, in the eyes of the GOP, will reduce waste and ultimately cut unit prices. Disadvantages:  keeps an expensive entitlement program in place; will have a very limited impact on pricing.  Overall assessment:  there is some merit to this approach, but without substantial government intervention to drive down prices, as in Singapore, it won’t work.

Both philosophically and practically, there are very large differences among these three concepts.  That is why getting 50 votes is so difficult, even for a magician like McConnell.

Mitch McConnell doesn’t seem to care much about America, but he definitely does care about the Republican Party and the Senate.  Unlike most of his contemporaries, he is capable of taking the long view, and he understands very well that what goes around comes around.  As a result, you can probably rely on him to resist any efforts to eliminate the legislative filibuster, and Trump won’t necessarily be able to count on his support in the civil rights crackdown that will follow a war or major terrorist attack.

It occurred to me this morning that the Chief Justice plays roughly the same role on the Supreme Court.  He’s a GOP partisan to the core, but he cares deeply about his personal reputation within the legal community and about the Court’s reputation in the country as a whole.  It is unlikely, therefore, that he will do an abrupt 180 and become a vocal proponent of federal power, particularly executive power, over the rights of Congress and the states.  He will probably continue to make deals with the Court’s liberal wing to advance his agenda incrementally,  while maintaining the appearance of the rule of law.

Gorsuch’s vote on the travel ban case strongly suggests that, at least for now, he plans to be a stooge for the Trump Administration.  If there is a new vacancy on the Court, we have to assume that it will be filled by a fourth stooge.  Roberts may be all that is standing in front of a judicial counterrevolution.

If you accept the Trump/Bannon premises that we are engaged in a existential clash of civilizations with radical Islam, that trade deficits are inherently evil, and that culture and nationality must prevail over supposedly universal ideas inherent in liberal democracy, then it follows logically that Putin should be our ally, and that our erstwhile allies in Europe are really the enemy.

The problem is that Putin doesn’t really see the world that way.  His objective is to weaken the US, not to fight Islam.  He just makes opportunistic arguments to get his way.

And so, the ultimate outcome of this will be an isolated America, with Putin and Xi as its beneficiaries.

Donald Trump strides confidently into a hotel room, where Putin is waiting for him. Trump gives him the obligatory crushing handshake.  Putin briefly considers throwing a judo move, but wisely decides against it.

VP:  Mr. President!  It’s so good to meet you at last!

DT:  But we’ve met before! Or maybe not.  I’ve told so many different stories, I can’t remember which one is true.

VP:  Congratulations for beating that bitch Hillary Clinton like a drum!  The victory was all yours.  Your media gave me way too much credit.

DT:  Fake news!  Fake news!

VP:  I invented fake news, you know.

DT:  No, I did.

VP:  No, I did.

DT:  No, I did.

VP:  Whatever.  Anyway, congratulations.

So how did your meeting with Merkel go?

DT:  She’s worse than Clinton.  She’s always in my ear with boring stuff about free trade and human rights.  And she’s a two at best.  At least Clinton’s a three or a four.

VP:  Life’s too short to be spending time with ugly women.  To the victors go the spoils, eh?

DT:  You got that right, bro.

VP:  If you need any help with her, I can offer you the use of my dog.  He freaks her out.

DT:  That would be funny, but I don’t like dogs, either.

VP:  I have to say, we’ve gotten off to a disappointing start.  I thought we were going to be friends.

DT:  It’s not me, it’s Congress and my cabinet.  Now that Flynn’s gone, no one except Bannon understands the game plan.

VP:  You need to assert yourself, Mr. President.  If you’re going to talk like a strong man, be one!  Show everyone you’re the boss.  That’s what I would do.

DT:  I thought it would be easy, but it’s not.  Our system is complicated.

VP:  Here’s what works for me:  have lots of pictures taken with your shirt off wrestling people and doing manual labor.  It shows everyone how tough you are.

DT:  I only play golf.  The optics wouldn’t work.

VP:  I suppose not.  So let’s talk business.  What can you do for me in Ukraine?

DT:  My new Polish friends tell me you need to stop destabilizing the situation there.

VP:  Screw the Poles–they’re just losers.  There’s a reason their country is always being occupied.  Ukraine belongs to us.

DT:  But you can’t just go around invading all of your neighbors.

VP:  Why not?  If you have to invade Mexico after their next election, I promise I won’t say a word about it.  Mexico belongs to you.  Ukraine belongs to us.

DT:  I’ll think about it.

VP:  What about Syria?  Why can’t we cooperate there?  Assad is a great guy when you get to know him.  He’s one of us.

DT:  But you’re effectively supporting Iran, and we can’t live with that.

VP:  The ayatollahs aren’t as crazy as you think.  But here’s a deal:  you can have a free hand with Iran if you’ll give me one in Ukraine.  Does that work?

DT:  That sounds like a deal.

VP:  Can you do anything about sanctions?

DT:  Can you help with North Korea?

VP:  No can do with that, bro.  We don’t have any influence there.

DT:  I understand.  Even Xi hasn’t been able to help.

VP:  Anything else?

DT:  No, but it’s been fun. Let’s go and have our pictures taken by the fake news.

The photos are taken, and Trump leaves.

You could understand this sort of thing when the neoliberal consensus prevailed, but what does it mean after Trump and Brexit?  Are these people actually, probably without knowing it, demonstrating for Donald Trump’s nationalist and protectionist agenda?  Or are they clamoring for the return of communism? Good luck with that.

Either way, it doesn’t make any sense.

The US and Canada have far more in common than a border:  both are nations of immigrants within land usurped from indigenous people with bountiful natural resources, wide open spaces, and political and religious traditions taken from the UK.  That said, they are also very different places:  the US is much larger, more religious, more individualistic, less equal, and far more violent.

So it would seem that geography is not always destiny; accidents of history are equally important in the creation of a nation.  Why are the countries so different?  Part of the answer has to be that Canada would have no reason to exist if its culture simply emulated its vastly more powerful neighbor.  Part of the answer is that Canada didn’t have a revolution and so has less small government DNA than we do.  Finally, part of it has to do with the structural differences in the two political systems themselves.  The Trump phenomenon simply can’t happen in a parliamentary system.

Islamic terrorists and the liberal fake media:  very bad!

Russia:  sort of a problem to be addressed through friendly negotiations.

Western European leaders:  wimpy losers lacking the will to fight Islam.

Polish right-wing populism:  my kind of guys as long as you take Russia out of the equation.  I’m sure that can be worked out.

By Canadian standards, Stephen Harper was impeccably right-wing;  he sympathized with social conservatives, aggressively pursued Canada’s interests in fossil fuels, and appeared to prefer hard to soft power.  For all that, his government never reached the kind of level that we are seeing in the US today: he never tried to “repeal and replace” the Canadian health care system; he never took an ax to the welfare state; and he never denied climate change, at least to my knowledge.

In short, American “conservatives” are different, even from their erstwhile allies elsewhere on the same continent.  Why?

I think there are three basic reasons:

1.  The US was created as an act of rebellion against the British state;  the Canadian nation was not.  As a result, we have more small government DNA than the Canadians do.

2.  There is no Canadian equivalent of Fox News.  Canadians do not have to deal with “alternative facts.”

3.  Right-wing religious beliefs are more of a factor in the US.  No elaboration is necessary.

The most recent edition of The Atlantic contains a lengthy and thorough article discussing our military options with North Korea.  To no one’s surprise, the author ultimately concludes that all of the proactive options are far too risky, and that deterrence is the best choice.

I doubt Trump sees it that way.  He is far too invested in “winning” by putting an end to the North Korean nuclear program.  He simply can’t tolerate looking like a loser.  So, given the alternatives of humiliation or hundreds of thousands of dead South Koreans, which do you think he’ll pick?

If I lived in South Korea, I would be really, really worried.  The best hope is that Trump will blame Obama for the mess and thus, at least in his own mind, avoid the “loser” tag.

                 O Canada

O Canada

Your air and streets are clean.

The wind may be cold,

But your people are never mean.

 

Gretzky and Sid; Orr and the rest

Your hockey’s still the best.

Trump makes us ill.

O Canada, where sanity reigns still.

 

God keep your land

A place where we can go.

O Canada, we long for Justin Trudeau.

O Canada, we long for Justin Trudeau.

 

Blogging will resume next Wednesday.

In those very limited circumstances where the terrorists are segregated from the general population, they can be eliminated by the ruthless use of physical force. Otherwise, successfully fighting terror requires patience and fortitude more than anything else.  Effective police work, cooperation with the public, and control of the ideological narrative are essential, and overreactions must be avoided. Terror will stop when it becomes clear that it won’t work.

You can’t discredit your opponents; they can only discredit themselves.  I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to put terrorists on TV and have them interrogated by people who know the subject much better than they do. Watching an Islamic terrorist make a fool of himself in public talking about his religion would do more than anything I can imagine to deter wannabes.

As I noted on Tuesday, acts of terror can accomplish political goals when they drive the government to overreact and force waverers to choose sides.  Imagine how this will play out with President Trump, who has a simple-minded belief that toughness is the solution to all political problems.

When the next big terror attack comes in this country, Trump is going to go nuts, and things will get very ugly in a hurry.  It’ll be awful.  Believe me.  Believe me.