The Trump DOJ is conditionally dropping its investigation of Eric Adams. The condition has nothing to do with the merits of the case; the DOJ has made it clear that Adams will go unscathed as long as he cooperates with Trump on illegal immigration and keeps his mouth shut.
It sounds like something out of a gangster movie, except the DOJ is operating as the gangster. One hopes the good people of NYC will respond appropriately and vote Adams out of office as soon as possible.
To the surprise of precisely no one, it has become clear over the last two days that Trump has no intention of using his available leverage to get better terms from Putin; instead, he plans to impose a peace on Putin’s terms on Ukraine and its European allies. The essential terms of the agreement will be as follows:
The first two elements of this plan were inevitable based on the facts on the ground. The last is shameful. As I’ve said many times before, the presence or absence of an American security guarantee represented the difference between a Korean and a Munich peace. Trump is choosing Munich.
When threats of tariffs, sanctions, and military invasions don’t work, soft power may keep your allies in line. Unfortunately, Trump doesn’t believe in soft power. As a result, he is busy destroying whatever reservoir of goodwill we have left with his chaos and random bellicosity.
When we reach a crisis and call for allied support, who will be left to listen to us? Israel? Hungary? El Salvador?
Even the worst wolf warriors in China aren’t that stupid.
Trump, as we know, equates loyalty and white reactionary identity politics with competence. Isn’t it ironic that the incompetence of his appointees, particularly within the DOJ, may prevent the accomplishment of his objectives?
Braxton Bragg was a Confederate general. Unlike, say, Lee and Jackson, he was also a consistent loser. Those are two really good reasons not to name an American military base after him. As a result, Biden did the right thing and changed the name of Fort Bragg to Fort Liberty.
Trump, on the other hand, thinks reactionary politics and meritocracy are the same thing. His government has decided to change the name back to Fort Bragg. The fig leaf behind the change is that the Bragg in question is supposed to be someone different than the Confederate loser.
LOL. No one is going to be stupid enough to believe that.
I was listening to the CD of Newman’s greatest hits this morning. Songs like “Sail Away,” “Rednecks,” and “Political Science” used to sound hopelessly dated. Today, they sound like America in 2025.
I guess Newman was a prophet, not an historian.
The Chinese Empire was surrounded by vassal states, which acknowledged their military and cultural subordination in the form of tribute payments in exchange for protection and some degree of autonomy in domestic affairs. It is reasonable to assume that Xi and the CCP aspire to something similar in China’s back yard today.
It would appear that Trump does, too; his aggressive behavior towards Canada and Mexico serves no purpose except to deliver the message that he is the boss. Based on Vance’s speech on AI, it seems that the EU is about to get the same treatment; we will agree to provide protection from Putin and the Chinese in exchange for acceptance of American dominance in trade and technology.
The message won’t go over well in the EU. The irony, of course, is that the reactionary European nationalist parties that purport to be allied with MAGA will lead the charge against American hegemony. Does Trump really think that Marine Le Pen wants to make America, and not France, great again?
Trump is doubling down on his plan to own and redevelop Gaza; as I predicted, he’s threatening to cut off aid to Egypt and Jordan if they don’t go along. King Abdullah will be meeting with him in the next few days. His survival as the head of the Jordanian state is on the line, so they will have lots to talk about.
Trump is threatening to destabilize the entire Middle East. He’s arguably even more extreme than the Israeli far right. And make no mistake, this could get worse; if he somehow succeeds with his ethnic cleansing scheme, the precedent will be set, and the West Bank will be next.
Call it the no state solution–the best way to destroy American influence in the Middle East that you could possibly imagine.
As I’ve noted many times before, the problem with Venezuelan refugees was largely the result of the unsuccessful effort by Trump and Rubio to get rid of Maduro. Having used the refugee issue to batter Biden, Trump now has to resolve it himself. Could he do it with an agreement in which Maduro agrees to accept millions of Venezuelan deportees in exchange for a promise not to engage in regime change?
Any such agreement would be heartless, cynical, and disgraceful. It would be a huge embarrassment to Rubio, and it would cost the GOP votes in Florida. But if Trump’s overriding objective is to deport people, it could be done.
Don’t be surprised if it happens.
Bret Stephens is right about two things: Maduro is a really bad guy who is responsible for immiserating his people; and neither carrots nor financial sticks have done anything to budge him. Stephens draws the conclusion that we should send in the military and depose him. Is that a good idea?
It makes more sense than occupying Panama, because we can justly argue that we are putting the guy who actually won the latest election in power. Given Trump’s rhetoric, however, it is unlikely that anyone in Latin America will accept a liberal democratic justification for the intervention. Everyone will assume that Uncle Sam has gone back to being an imperialist gringo again, the continent will move closer to the less threatening Chinese, and we will have to use force again and again to stop it.
Ross Douthat invited the would-be techno-aristocrat Marc Andreesen to describe his political evolution in a column a few weeks ago. The narrative ran like this:
Two observations are pertinent here. First, Andreesen simply refuses to acknowledge the many negative impacts of tech that became obvious over the past decade; the left had good reason to react the way it did. Second, the tech barons, Andreesen among them, clearly have an adversarial relationship with their workers. That explains the support for Republicans and the interest in increasing the number of visas for immigrants.
In a column that ran in the NYT a few days ago, Robert Lighthizer suggested a new two-tiered approach towards world trade: the outer circle (primarily China) would be subjected to stiff new tariffs by the inner circle; and smaller tariffs would be used within the inner circle to eliminate trade surpluses and deficits caused by regulations other than tariffs. Probably not coincidentally, Trump just announced that he would be imposing reciprocal tariffs on the rest of the world in the near future. Can these schemes work?
The Trump plan won’t work, because as Lighthizer correctly notes, trade imbalances are often created, not by tariffs, but by subsidies, regulations, and other subtle government mechanisms that may be difficult to find and quash. The Lighthizer plan wouldn’t work because most trade imbalances between, for example, Germany and the US are attributable to different national attitudes towards working, consumption, and saving, not government regulations which discriminate against foreign products.
To: Elon Musk
From: Cromwell
Date: Today
Re: Fork in the Road
Elon, you’ve been a great success as an entrepreneur, even though some of your businesses haven’t done too well lately. Your calling card is breaking things. That’s fine in the private sector; you and your investors make money in the long run by learning from your mistakes, and no one outside of a small circle gets hurt.
But America is not a small start-up. Its president is not a CEO of a closely held company. It has citizens, not stockholders and employees. It was created and defended by average people–not by you–to further their collective interests, not just the interests of a handful of tech bros. Breaking things, in the context of government, could result in millions of people getting hurt, not just you and a few investors. What makes you think they will stand for that?
Overreaching will result in a backlash. By this time next year, the midterm elections will be just around the corner, and you will be the most unpopular man in America. At that point, you will have to make a choice. Will you moderate your behavior, or will you encourage Trump to double down on his autocratic tendencies?
I know you’re contemptuous of average Americans, but before you answer the question, consider two facts. First of all, for all of its faults, it was American liberal democracy that made you the man you are today. That would not have happened anywhere else in the world. Second, the powers you give the presidency can be turned against you in the future. Is it worth the risk?
Trump and the techno-aristocrats don’t actually agree on that much; the former is basically a reactionary who wants to recreate the economy and the society of the 1950s, while the latter want to go to Mars. They do agree, however, on the great man in history theory. As they see it, the fate of mankind rests in the hands of a few geniuses whose efforts should be freed from regulation; the rest of us are just flotsam and jetsam who can and should be ignored.
It is no wonder that openly anti-democratic ideas are flourishing on the right. The problem, of course, is that aristocracies and monarchies have their shortcomings, too. For every Henry V, there is a John; for every Edward I, there is an Edward II; for every Venice in 1200, there is a reactionary aristocracy in the reign of Louis XVI.
In other words, sometimes the great man in history is just a guy on a golf cart.
Another day, another injunction; the lower courts are pushing back against several of Trump’s unlawful actions. But the consensus among left-leaning commentators seems to be that it isn’t enough; the Democrats should be doing more to stop the Trump onslaught. Is that true?
Let’s be real here–the public heard the argument about Trump being a threat to liberal democracy and rejected it. In addition, the Democrats don’t have a single leader who can command the internet and the airwaves the way Trump does. The resistance won’t have any political legs until the American people start feeling the negative effects of the Trump counterrevolution. For now, all we can do is point out the errors of Trump’s ways and rely on the courts to keep him under some degree of control.
Of course, if he starts violating court orders, that will call for different tactics.