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During the late 1970’s, it was fairly common for critics to refer to Elvis Costello as the “Cole Porter of Punk.”  That didn’t really mean anything to me at the time, but after I saw the movie “De-lovely,” everything became clear.

The two shared a strong sense of pop craftsmanship and a love of word play.  In my opinion, however, their differences are more significant than their similarities. Porter wrote exquisitely polished and urbane songs which became standards, while Costello’s songs have a much rougher edge, both lyrically and musically.  There is no Costello song that is as instantly memorable and accessible as, say, “Night and Day,” but there is no Porter song that seethes like “Watching the Detectives” or “Lipstick Vogue.”

I don’t think anyone has put adolescent male sexuality to music as artfully as Costello.  Anger, moral and aesthetic disgust, and frustration, mixed with more than a little irony–the entire package can be found in his first three albums.  The amazing thing to me is that he was married at the time he wrote those songs.  I honestly don’t get that.

I think Woody Allen provides a better analogy than Porter to Costello, for the following reasons:

1.  Both of them are in love with language;
2.  Both created geeky, frustrated loser personas in their early days;
3.  Both presented sexual issues with a mixture of anger and humor, although Costello tended to emphasize the anger, and Allen the humor;
4.  Both had popular successes early in their career, but subsequently tapered off, and ultimately became elder statesmen; and
5.  Costello has appeared in movies (“De-lovely”, appropriately enough, being one of them), while Allen is a reasonably accomplished jazz musician.

It is not, therefore, a coincidence that I am a huge fan of both.

In honor of last week’s trip to Newport and the upcoming GOP convention, this week will be dedicated to an analysis of the old and new Gilded Ages.

                                    Money

Money

Not enough

Don’t give away so much free stuff.

 

Money

Check the facts.

We don’t want to pay more income tax.

 

Money

Don’t despair.

We’re going to make the system flat and fair.

 

Money

It’s all mine.

Undeserving poor don’t get a dime.

 

Money

More for me.

I’ve got friends in the GOP.

 

Parody of “Money” by Pink Floyd.

1.  There is plenty of evidence to suggest that African-Americans are treated unfairly by law enforcement and the judicial system.  It is logically impossible, however, to know if racism is responsible for any given police shooting, because you cannot know if the officer would have responded to a white man in a different way.  It is a little bit like attributing hurricanes and tornadoes to climate change;  you know that global warming makes them more likely, but you can’t know if they would have occurred in any event.
2. The MSM frequently appear to buy into the notion that the life of a policeman is more valuable than the life of an innocent civilian.  That really irritates me.  Why do we grieve more for someone who is paid by the taxpayers to put his life on the line than someone who isn’t?
3.  It is frequently necessary in this world to make choices, but this isn’t one of those occasions:  I don’t have to pick between the police and the community.  I don’t want policemen to use unnecessary force, but I certainly don’t want anyone to shoot at them, either.
4. Here is the bottom line:  (a) the police have a difficult and dangerous job, and it is inevitable that mistakes will be made that will cause loss of life on occasion; (b) some of these events may be attributable to racism, but some of them probably are not; (c) there are issues with racism in the system that need to be addressed on a community-by-community basis, but that information is best derived from comprehensive studies, not individual events; and (d) the police are not immune from criticism, and there is nothing wrong with peaceful protests.

My mother, who was kind of an old school Republican (she would have voted for McCain and Romney, but never for Trump), had the best description of Bill Clinton’s conduct in the Lewinsky affair that I have ever heard:  it was a “low crime and misdemeanor.”  Her point was that Clinton’s behavior was deplorable and arguably illegal, but it was not sufficient to warrant impeachment.  The majority of Americans agreed with her, as did I.

I was reminded of this phrase when I heard the FBI Director talk about Hillary and the e-mail issue.  My initial reaction to the use of private e-mail was that it was stupid and arrogant, but essentially inconsequential.  I still think so, but I can’t help but be troubled by the public misstatements that she made to defend herself.  They don’t go far enough to disqualify her as a candidate, but they certainly don’t bode well for her Presidency, if there is one.

The problem is that there is not, and never was, a reasonably plausible alternative.  If Sanders had articulated an agenda that was directed at modernizing the welfare state to address issues created by technological change and globalization, I would have taken him more seriously, but all he wanted to do was bash banks and spend tax money mindlessly on programs like “free public college.”  Like Jeremy Corbyn, he has a mindset that is stuck in the radical politics of the 1960’s and 1970’s.  Trump, on the other hand, is a blowhard strongman wannabe who not only lies every time his lips move, but views lying as a legitimate campaigning and negotiating tactic.  I have discussed the likely implications of that to the world economy in previous posts.

I miss Obama already, and he isn’t even gone yet.

Some commentators and Sanders supporters have speculated that Bernie could become the leader of a left-wing opposition faction analogous to the Tea Party after the election.  It won’t happen, for the following reasons:

1.  Sanders doesn’t have enough friends in Congress to create a faction of any respectable size.
2.  The Tea Party has the ability to wreak havoc because shutting down the federal government is completely consistent with its anti-government ideology.  A left-wing, pro-government faction logically can’t do that.  In other words, you can’t plausibly expect to increase the size and power of the government by threatening to paralyze it–what would happen to the people you are trying to help in the meantime?

                   It’s Over

Rivals both

Till the end.

It’s time to stop the fighting now.

You have to break before you bend.

 

So shut it down

In Philly town.

No more jabs and no more frowns.

It’s time to take on Trump the clown.

 

Why can’t you just get it through your head?

It’s over; it’s over now.

Can’t you hear me clearly now?  I said

It’s over; it’s over.

 

I’m just really sick of you.

You might say that I can’t take it.

I can’t take it.

Lord, I swear, I just can’t take it no more.

 

Parody of “It’s Over” by Boz Scaggs.

When Hollande was elected, he was confronted with the following clear and fundamental choices about the future of France and its economy:

1.  Should France join Germany in promoting austerity, or align itself with the southern European states in supporting Keynesian policies within the EU?
2.  Should France emulate Germany in adopting reforms to make its economy more capitalist-friendly, or soak the rich and continue to protect labor insiders?

In the event, when he approached the fork in the road, he . . . took it.  He supported German efforts to impose austerity on Greece, but offered to lighten the Greeks’ load a little bit.  He ran deficits in excess of those permitted by the EU, but not by much, and fought the battle to do so not openly, but in a passive-aggressive way.  He supported a supertax, and then backed off.  Today, he is in a desperate struggle with the unions for labor market reforms that are too watered-down to make much of a difference in the French economy.

France has not performed badly over the last eight years relative to most of the countries in the EU.  The problem is that the French compare themselves, not to Spain or Italy or Greece, but to Germany, and the German economy is growing much faster than theirs.  No one takes France seriously as an equal partner to the Germans anymore.  That is unacceptable to the French.

When it is all said and done, Hollande’s inability to make up his mind is likely to split his party and will put Le Pen into the second round of the election in 2017. At that point, anything can happen;  do not assume that she has no chance of winning.

The GOP nominee Don.

His friends wonder what’s going on.

He’s got little cash.

His campaign smells like trash.

It’s no lumiere, too much son.

While a few members of the GOP establishment (e.g., the Bush family; Mitt Romney) have conspicuously refused to endorse Trump, the predominant opinion appears to be that Trump is not a real Republican, but a kind of independent and unaccountable force of nature, like an earthquake or a tornado. He is their ally in the all-important battle against Hillary, so he has their support, but he is not one of them, and they bear no responsibility for him.  They are free to criticize him as they see fit and to pursue their own interests and ideology through the campaign.

The obvious rationale for this approach is that it protects the GOP brand–low taxes for the wealthy, “freedom,” etc.–in the likely event that Trump implodes. The logical problem with it, however, is that it ignores the wishes of the large proportion of GOP voters who clearly prefer swaggering government to limited government.

Will moderate swing voters buy into the idea that the GOP is actually Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and not Trump and the rank-and-file in congressional and state races?  If Trump should somehow prevail in November, will the congressional GOP leadership continue to treat him as an independent, or will the two forces unite?  These are extremely important questions, and no one will know the answer until after the election.

The GOP nominee Don.

In Cleveland he’ll take the baton.

He’s now in the news

For his friends who hate Jews.

That’s not how the race will be won.

 

 

I’m going to half defend Trump here.  No, really:  hear me out.

Yes, Saddam was a brutal dictator who invaded his neighbors for no good reason, oppressed the Shiites and Kurds, and basically killed people for sport.  No, the record shows that Trump didn’t oppose the invasion from the beginning, regardless of what he says today.  And no, the people Saddam butchered weren’t terrorists; that is a typical piece of Trump misinformation.  The real point, however, is that there weren’t any Iraqi terrorists for him to kill, which brings up two legitimate questions:

1.  Would Iraq be a better place to live today if Saddam were still in power?
2.  Would the world in general be a better place if the Iraq invasion had not occurred?

Here are my responses:

1.  It depends on who you are.  If you’re a Shiite or a Kurd and you’re far from the action, you are clearly better off today than you were 15 years ago.  If you’re a Sunni, and you were good at keeping your head down and your mouth shut, Saddam wasn’t a huge problem, and you are living with IS and a Shiite majority today.  If you are a Sunni or a Shiite on the front lines of terrorism, you have far more freedom, less reliable electricity, and less security than you did before the invasion.  It’s definitely a mixed bag.
2. While Saddam was dangerously unpredictable, he kept Iran in check, and IS would not exist today if he were still in power, since it relies heavily on military expertise and assets obtained as a result of the invasion.  On balance, I think you would have to say the world as a whole would be better off if the invasion had never occurred, and that doesn’t even factor in the horrific costs of the invasion itself to the US and to the Iraqi people.

So, while he was (as usual) wrong about the specifics, in my opinion, Trump got the bigger picture right.  I guess “truthful hyperbole” can actually contain some truth every now and then.  Considering the source, you could call it a germ of truth.

 

             Buildin’ Up the Wall

When you think the world’s your oyster.

The establishment is finally beaten down.

This is only the beginning.

Gonna show those folks who think you’re just a clown.

 

Bashing Muslims; tweeting night and day.

Running crazy; that’s the only way.

 

So tonight

Gonna leave those old ideas up on the shelf

And just enjoy yourself.

Oooh

When the madness of the message gets to you.

Life ain’t so bad at all

When you’re buildin’ up the wall.

 

Parody of “Off the Wall” by Michael Jackson.

I have noted previously that the best insight I ever had into politics came when a character in a dream told me that voters didn’t really expect politicians to solve their problems–they just needed to know that the candidate’s heart was in the right place.  Based on that, I have speculated that Trump voters don’t really think he can force Mexico to pay for the wall or ban Muslims from the country;  it is intent that matters, not results.

Both the NYT and the WaPo have run articles over the last two weeks about surveys of Trump voters which show precisely that.  QED.

I will be on vacation until next Wednesday, so blogging will be discontinued until then.  I should have plenty of fresh material when I return.

Never a dull day in the UK.

To the extent that there is a military solution to the Syrian problem, it would revolve around the use of the Turkish Army.  The combination of American air power and Turkish infantry would be more than a match for Assad’s forces and IS, and the ultimate political resolution could be left to the Turks, who presumably would be happy to rearrange the affairs of their neighbors to their liking.

There are basically two reasons why this hasn’t happened.  First, the Turks do not appear to believe that the benefits from reshaping the Syrian government and eliminating IS are worth the risks (a confrontation with the Russians being one of them).  Second, the Turkish government, for domestic political reasons, puts a much higher priority on fighting Kurdish militants than on getting rid of Assad and IS.  That puts them in conflict with US policy, which generally supports the aspirations of the Kurds, who are viewed as our most reliable ally.

The only way this equation is going to change is if IS starts becoming much more destructive within Turkey, so the government has to change its priorities.  That isn’t impossible, based on recent events, but it isn’t likely, either.