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The Russians and Iranians have fled Syria along with their client, just as the Russians were forced to leave Afghanistan decades ago. It doesn’t just happen to Americans, folks; nation-building in the Third World usually doesn’t work, but giving the keys to the most competent thug you can find can fail, as well.

The Iranian forward defense approach is in tatters. Its proxies have been neutered. Its air defenses don’t work against Israeli attacks. The public despises the regime, the economy is in bad shape, and a succession crisis looms. What happens now?

The Iranian government has two choices: it can build a bomb, call for more Russian aid, and double down on repression and austerity at home; or it can make a deal with the Americans and Israelis that imposes more limits on its ability to project force than the previous nuclear deal in exchange for a promise to forego war and regime change. Which will it choose?

In the short run, expect mixed signals in an effort to buy time. After that, I make no predictions. The Supreme Leader will want to double down, but even he may conclude that is no longer a viable option.

In a blast from the past, the Syrian rebels are back! They’re meeting minimal resistance and apparently heading for Damascus. The Iranians and Russians are already busy and can offer little help to Assad.

It is, of course, possible that an Islamist regime in Syria could be even more beastly than Assad’s, which would be saying a lot. On the other hand, it is certain that the fall of Assad would be a major blow to both the Russians and the Iranians. That sounds like a gamble worth taking.

Wouldn’t you love to hear a discussion between Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard on this topic? That would be worth the price of admission.

It was obvious from the beginning that Hegseth lacked the basic qualifications to head the DOD. Then we started hearing about his views on female, gay, and trans soldiers and on war criminals, which made things even worse. Piled on top of that were allegations about excessive drinking and running nonprofits into the ground. An article in yesterday’s NYT, however, raised issues that are far worse than any we had heard previously.

If the NYT is correct, Hegseth views himself as a “crusader,” i.e., a Christian nationalist at war with other religions and the secular American left. That is the profile of a man who would run off everyone who isn’t a white male fundamentalist Christian and turn the military into a pro-Trump militia. If that happens, autocracy is inevitable.

Even DeSantis would be a huge improvement over that. The Senate must not approve Hegseth–period.

I have little doubt that Trump plans to use the military to crush dissent in the blue states, probably starting in California. Crime and illegal immigration (to Trump, a single phenomenon) will be the pretext. But when will this occur? Will it happen right away, or will he decide to ratchet up the pressure bit by bit to make the outcome seem inevitable and more acceptable?

Trump isn’t known for his patience. He’s an old man in a hurry. He wants his vengeance to be served piping hot. My best guess is that the crisis will come in the first few months of his administration, when the public is still convinced he has some sort of mandate for revolutionary change.

We managed to get through a rough ’24.

Whatever your feelings, it wasn’t a bore.

Through Helene and then Milton, we watched and we prayed.

Our hometowns were battered, but we were unscathed.

___________________

We took a day trip east to blue Chapel Hill.

Seeing the well was a limited thrill.

We then drove to Baltimore and Brandywine.

There was plenty to see, and we had a good time.

_________________

After Helene we flew to the Southwest.

It’s not easy to say just what sight was the best.

The art was intriguing; the canyon was grand;

The vistas amazing–a magnificent land.

___________________

We lost the election, to no one’s surprise.

The outcome was clear; at least nobody died.

The specter of fascism now haunts the land.

We’ll have to stand firm if things get out of hand.

____________________

America wants to go back to ’19.

It’s not going to happen; it’s only a dream.

Just surviving the next years will count as success.

Keep holding your nose and just hope for the best.

Ross Douthat gives us three theories of the Trump cabinet: a group of disrupters; a coalition of different ideologies; and a pack of talking heads. Is there merit to any of them?

Yes, but I would put it somewhat differently. Here is my take:

1. GOOD COP, BAD COP: Trump’s new foreign policy and Treasury teams come from the establishment, as they did last time. That doesn’t mean he’s giving up America First or the tariff and deportation scheme; it means he wants to disarm his critics, while keeping his options open. The essential functions of government will continue on two tracks–one traditional and bureaucratic, and one personal and idiosyncratic–just as they did during the first term.
2. RETRIBUTION: The jobs that involve inflicting pain on his enemies and the deep state went to complete loyalists.
3. COALITION OF DISRUPTERS: The jobs that aren’t important to Trump were allocated to supporters representing a wide range of views, most of them inconsistent with expert opinion.

It would appear that being good on TV was a consideration, too, but that was just a tiebreaker. The bottom line here is that Trump himself will be the disrupter on foreign policy and economic issues, and that the coalition of differing ideologies exists only in areas that don’t interest Trump much.

Furious opposition from the legislature, the media, and the public defeated the attempt by South Korea’s president to impose martial law. Since Trump is perfectly capable of trying the same thing, are there any lessons in this episode for him?

The message here is that liberal democracy will be defended vigorously by the citizenry. It is more likely, however, that Trump will conclude that the keys to maintaining control over widespread public opposition are the unconditional loyalty of the military and the willingness to use lethal force ruthlessly against large crowds of unarmed protesters.

Both Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are Republicans with no sympathy for the MAGA movement. How are they different?

Murkowski represents a red state; her objections to Trump are intense and personal. Collins, on the other hand, comes from a blue state. Her brand, out of necessity, is independence. She can’t afford to be too close to Trump for fear of losing her seat.

John McCain was a hard libertarian conservative, but he retained enough independence to tank Trump’s effort to destroy Obamacare. Mitt Romney was the GOP nominee for president in 2012, but he voted to remove Trump from office on two occasions. We owe both of these men a debt of gratitude, but they are no longer in the Senate. Is there anyone left who can replace them?

Collins and Murkowski, for different reasons I will discuss in a future post, have little sympathy for MAGA, so Trump has always known he can’t rely on them. As to the others, the most promising candidates are McConnell and David McCormick, the new senator from Pennsylvania. The former, while a GOP partisan to the core, fundamentally disagrees with Trump on issues relating to the Constitution and foreign policy; the latter won by a microscopic margin in what is still a blue state, so his continuing political survival will depend on his ability to separate himself from Trump when the latter gets out of control.

Is it likely that the DOJ would have thrown so many resources into prosecuting a perpetrator of victimless crimes who wasn’t the president’s son? Not really. Based on his use of the pardon power in his first term and his law enforcement nominees to date, wasn’t Trump already determined to use the criminal justice system for his own political benefit? Clearly, yes.

There was, therefore, a plausible rationale for the Hunter pardon. It will, however, be a disaster for the nation and the Democratic Party, because Trump and the GOP will be throwing it in our faces whenever we complain about Trump’s efforts at authoritarian government. It will provide cover for actions that threaten liberal democracy.

And so, for the record, I need to say that, while I don’t think Hunter deserved a particularly harsh sentence, I don’t support the pardon. I believe it was a profoundly selfish act that will taint Biden’s legacy forever. It will have the negative impacts of Ford’s Nixon pardon (albeit on a smaller scale) without the nobility.

I guess Biden believes his party and his country owes him one for winning in 2020 and standing down in 2024. Is he right? You decide.

Matt Gaetz is a preening, self-important clown who would have spent more time spewing lies on Fox News than on “reforming” the DOJ. Pam Bondi is a fierce Trump loyalist who, as far as I know, has retained her sense of professional ethics. Kash Patel is something else entirely. He is a completely dedicated, totally ruthless, and possibly competent Trump acolyte. If confirmed, he won’t simply purge the FBI of the people responsible for the Russia investigation; he will turn federal law enforcement into a purely partisan process. He will give Trump’s friends effective legal immunity and manufacture cases against his opponents based on shaky legal theories and implausible evidence. He is the tip of the authoritarian spear.

Given his combative personality, I can’t imagine him denying much of this during his confirmation hearings. Will the Senate acquiesce? If it does, expect the jails to be full of prominent Trump opponents very quickly.

The increase in violent crime began on Trump’s watch and has largely subsided over the last two years, but you would never know it if you watch the news. Why? Because, as Don Henley once said, it’s interesting when people die. Crime stories dominate the local news and get plenty of attention on national broadcasts. Why wouldn’t people be afraid?

But Trump will do his best to persuade people that he alone has succeeded in getting crime under control. Will the national and local TV stations buy into this narrative, or will it be business as usual? I’m guessing the latter, but only time will tell.

As with inflation, the MSM bought into the GOP narrative on illegal immigrants in 2024. Day after day, we saw stories that focused on the hordes of asylum seekers crossing the border and their impacts on real Americans; the barbarities of Trump’s plans for raids and massive deportation camps received far less attention, since they were hypothetical at that stage. What can we expect once Trump is in office?

Three observations are pertinent here. First, the left-leaning MSM tend to focus on the problem of the day and miss the bigger picture, so I would expect them to run lots of poignant stories about the raids and the camps once they become a feature of everyday life. Second, the millions of Fox viewers will never see those stories and will be oblivious to them. Third, you can expect Trump to do his best to prevent the MSM from providing images of raids and the camps. I doubt he will have much success, but he is bound to try.

By any objective standard, the American economy was the envy of the world on the date of the election. The misery index was at a paltry six percent. The markets were riding high. Inflation had fallen almost to the Fed’s two percent target. Interest rates were coming down, and real wages were going up. And yet, Trump and the GOP prevailed on the basis that the economy was terrible. Why?

Part of it, of course, was lived experience with inflation prior to 2024. Part of it was the assumption on the part of poorly informed Americans that their pay increase was due purely to merit and rising prices to the failures of their government. But a big part of it was the result of the message one heard every night on the national news, and not just on Fox. The MSM constantly reminded us that inflation was out of control and did little to put that story into a larger narrative of worldwide supply chain problems, rising wages, and low unemployment. The public consequently responded by telling pollsters that their own finances were fine, but economic conditions as a whole were awful. Biden and Harris never found a way to deal with that attitude.

What will the MSM tell us about the Trump economy? Will they use today’s conditions as a baseline, or put on a parade of witnesses to tell us that things are so much better than they were in 2022, and Trump deserves the credit?

We’ll see.

When Trump plows through the guardrails, the issue will ultimately wind up at the Supreme Court. Thomas, Alito, and (probably) Gorsuch will support him, while the three liberals will oppose him. The outcome will be up to Barrett, Kavanaugh, and most importantly, the Chief Justice. Will Roberts stand up for the system, or will he, as I suggested in a previous post, twist himself into a pretzel in order to preserve the shell of judicial independence?

Roberts is a political animal, so I think the answer will depend largely on the polls. If Trump is popular, the Chief Justice will be strongly tempted to give him whatever he wants in order to avoid a constitutional conflict the Court might well lose. If not, the middle three will be more confrontational.