Category: Uncategorized

Trump is going to wear his decision to make Vance his running mate like an albatross around his neck for two reasons. First, Vance’s pungent criticisms of him over the years will feature prominently in commercials and at the debates. Second, Trump will be saddled with Vance’s far right positions on issues such as abortion and “cat ladies” whether he agrees with them or not. Any attempt to distance himself from his partner will only make his judgment in selecting him look that much more questionable.

Trump didn’t have to choose someone with such a long paper trail. His decision not to go with a completely obsequious cipher is what overconfidence looks like.

In 478 BC, the Athenians and a number of other Greek city-states entered into a military alliance to deal with the ongoing Persian menace. At first, the idea was that each member of the alliance would provide a fixed number of ships for a fleet. Over time, it became more convenient for the allies to provide money instead of ships; it was paid into a central treasury in Delos. The Athenians subsequently moved the treasury to Athens and started using the money for their own purposes, including the construction of the Parthenon. The alliance had evolved into a protection racket, usually described by historians as the Athenian Empire.

Does this sound a bit familiar? Do you suppose that Donald Trump, that well-known classical scholar, is aware of this story? Could his plans for NATO be based on the Delian League?

No. Trump got his ideas from gangster movies. The result is the same, however.

For all of his swagger, divisiveness, and focus on culture war issues, Trump governed as an orthodox Republican on the issues of tax cuts and deregulation during his first term. Some pundits are assuming that the Vance nomination means Trump 2.0 will lean more towards national conservatism and the protection of workers; in other words, he will be a real populist, not a faux opportunistic one. Are they right?

Not really. First of all, Trump is too personally volatile to adhere permanently to any kind of overriding ideology. Second, he loves to surround himself with people with different opinions in order to keep his options open. Vance will be only one of many voices in the room on issues affecting workers. Finally, to the extent that Trump actually does have fixed views on economic matters, they include the usual business tax cuts, opposition to unions, and deregulation in addition to tariffs and the creation of labor shortages through deportations. As a result, his policies are likely to be a mishmash of the old and the new, with predictably chaotic results.

Mike Johnson has warned GOP candidates not to launch attacks on Harris based on race or gender. Will they listen?

Of course not! White male supremacy is at the heart of MAGA ideology. The chief spokesman has made a living engaging in identity politics. He feeds red meat to the base about as often as he breathes. Do you really think he’s going to stop now?

It’s worth repeating the basics here. The Israeli military has clearly identified Hamas, not the Palestinian population as a whole, as the enemy in Gaza. It wants a cease-fire and a reasonable plan for governing Gaza from the cabinet. It feels overstretched in light of the threat from Hezbollah. In all of these things, it is correct.

But the government does not agree, for two reasons. First of all, Bibi knows that he faces a reckoning from the Israeli public for his failure to prevent the Hamas attack as soon as the war is over, so he has every incentive to keep the conflict going as long as possible. Second, the Israelis are traumatized and feeling very sorry for themselves. Like the government, they think the Palestinian population is complicit in October 7 and are therefore indifferent to the suffering of civilians. As to the future, they prefer to postpone thinking about it seriously until the war is over.

To the extent that there is any kind of a plan for postwar Gaza, it is that an independent civilian group of moderate Arabs will do the job for the IDF. This “plan” is pure fantasy. No Arab country is going to pay for the privilege of cleaning up mountains of rubble and being Israel’s jailer. America–even one under Trump–isn’t going to do it, either. The Israelis are facing an occupation of indefinite length, along with a significant degree of anarchy in Gaza, at their own expense.

That may not sound like a problem to the Israeli public today, but wait and see what it thinks five years from now.

Harris has promised to prosecute the case against Trump. Does that mean Trump can get an order from Judge Cannon stopping her on the ground that the prosecution isn’t authorized by federal statute?

Just kidding–sort of.

It won’t be enough for Harris to argue that Trump is a felon and a fraudster–everyone already knows that. The case against Trump has to look forward to deal with his plans to raise prices for middle-class consumers, abandon Ukraine, ignore climate change, isolate America, build huge deportation camps, and give wealthy businessmen another big tax cut. In the end, it is future prospects and perceived self-interest, not moral judgments, that will decide the election.

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown, senior moment blues.

You have to be aware of it; it’s all over the news.

I had a bad debate last month, and then I had to choose.

The polls were looking bad; if I continued, I would lose.

___________

I did my best to soldier on, but no one had my back.

The MSM went after me, and no one cut me slack.

The donors wouldn’t give to me, and things were looking black.

Nancy and Obama said the party should change tack.

____________

I’ve got the blues.

The Lyndon Johnson blues.

I wish I could keep fighting on

Lord knows I’ve paid my dues.

The torch has passed to Harris now

Her chances don’t look great.

I hope this doesn’t turn into

A 1968.

Imagine that you are Gretchen Whitmer and you are thinking about mounting a campaign for the nomination. Since the delegates were originally pledged to Biden and he has endorsed Harris, your chances of success are slim. If you fail, you will be roundly attacked for being divisive and damaging the party in the existential battle against Trump, which will hurt your chances in 2028. If, against the odds, you succeed, you will have to put together a national campaign in record time even though you have no experience running outside of Michigan. You will have to do something to deal with the anger of the Harris supporters, who will feel their candidate is entitled to the nomination. In addition, you would be starting the campaign as a big underdog, given the current state of the polls.

Is it any wonder she is not, in fact, mounting a campaign for the nomination? Running against a highly unpopular J.D. Vance in 2028 sounds like a much better bet.

With the Biden withdrawal and the attempt on Trump’s life, the 1968 analogy became even more compelling over the last few weeks. Are we doomed to a violent convention and a Republican victory in November?

No on both counts. The Harris candidacy probably reduced the likelihood of widespread Gaza protests in Chicago, there is no war to divide the Democrats, the wannabe assassin missed, our cities still aren’t burning, and Trump is an even less likely unifier than Nixon was. Harris may not win, but she provides hope. That’s the first thing the blue team needed.

In my opinion, Joe Biden, for the most part, was an excellent president. Given his current condition and the likelihood of further deterioration, however, it would have been irresponsible for the Democratic Party to make him its nominee. Biden has now taken that option off the table. We thank him for his decision and his service.

Where do we go from here? I would prefer an open convention with Harris as the presumptive nominee, but I don’t think that will happen. I suspect Harris will lock up the nomination as the only possible unity candidate within a matter of a few days. At that point, she can start thinking about defeating Trump.

Trump probably can’t wait to take her on. He will portray her as a weak affirmative action baby with strong woke leanings who bungled the border and pandered to BLM protesters. That will obviously go over well with the Fox News crowd, but they won’t decide the election. The outcome in November will be determined by people who are either waiting to see the state of the economy on Election Day or who plan to vote for the least unsuitable candidate. Biden’s withdrawal removes his physical and mental condition as an issue and gives the Democrats a chance with the latter group. It means the blue team has hope again if it plays its cards right.

Most of our food is produced in America, so unless the immigrant deportation campaign ruins American agriculture (a real possibility), I don’t think the Trump tariffs will result in large price hikes. There are exceptions to this rule, however. Some agricultural products simply cannot be produced in America. Think chocolate, for example.

It makes absolutely no sense to drive up the cost of products that cannot be made here, and yet the Trump scheme has been described as “universal.” If that is true in practice, you can expect the cost of chocolate candy to go up significantly next year for no good reason. Will Americans welcome that? I doubt it.

Imagine that the Trump tariffs have been imposed, and that you are an entrepreneur with plenty of money to invest. You are considering starting a business that will manufacture and sell big screen televisions. What factors will you consider, and will you do it?

Here are the two biggest concerns you will have:

1. Your very large investment will only make financial sense if you are certain that the tariffs will remain in place for quite a long time. Are you sure of that?
2. You will need to hire hundreds of workers at a time when the labor market is extremely tight. The wages you pay them cannot be so high that your product will be uncompetitive even with the tariffs in place. Are you certain this can be done?

If I’m the entrepreneur, the answer to both questions is no. As a result, I’m not making the investment.

The Peter Gabriel album that is best known for the songs “Biko” and “Games Without Frontiers” also contains a song called “Family Snapshot.” The song is about a man who assassinates a political leader, not because he despises the guy’s political views, but because he desperately wants the attention he was denied when he was a child.

The song should resonate today, because it is becoming increasingly likely that it is a good description of the guy who shot Trump. The near success of the wannabe assassin should particularly concern the right for three reasons. First, the right almost always attributes mass murders to mental illness; this guy wasn’t obviously crazy. Second, the place was crawling with good guys with guns, but they still couldn’t stop him. Finally, the shooter wouldn’t have had access to an AR-15 if it had been up to the blue team. It is the friends of the victims who would defend the shooter’s right to own an assault rifle.

Most of the discussion about Biden’s candidacy has revolved around polls and the issue of electability. Biden continues to insist that the shift in public opinion has been small, and that he can recover. Many other Democrats disagree.

But that is the wrong question to be asking at this point. There is no guarantee that any of the other possible nominees would fare better than Biden, even though that seems very likely to me, given that all of them are better positioned to make the argument about Trump’s unfitness than he is. The real issue is whether it is responsible for the Democratic Party to nominate a man who, based on the most recent evidence, is barely physically and mentally able to govern today to run the country for the next four years.

Most of the voters say the answer to that question is no, and with good reason. America is entitled to better than something akin to the last years of FDR or Woodrow Wilson.

There are two kinds of Trump speeches. The first kind, of which “American Carnage” is the best known, is the Batman speech, in which Trump paints a picture of American dystopia, grits his teeth, and vows revenge against the forces of evil, which include everyone who disagrees with him. The second kind is a kind of unhinged used car salesman patois. Trump invents “facts” on the spot, identifies everything about him and his allies as the greatest ever, and assures us that we can trust him to solve all of our problems through his general awesomeness. Ideas and expertise are unnecessary in this universe; all that is required is strength and the will to use it.

With the exception of the long section on illegal immigration, which was to be expected, this was a car salesman speech. Trump specifically disclaimed any desire to be an authoritarian. He actually boasted about his lack of policy ideas at one point in the speech. The economic section focused on tax cuts, not tariffs. On foreign policy, he basically just told us that he would terrify the world into submission by projecting strength and making demands on friends and foes alike. That’s the plan, I guess.

Two observations are pertinent here. First, most of America finds even the car salesman to be unsettling, so running past the bedtime of most of the viewers might have been an unintentional stroke of genius. Second, just because he left Batman at home for the night doesn’t mean he is gone for good. He’s just around the corner. Believe me. Believe me.