Category: Uncategorized

I’ve never interviewed J.D. Vance, and my chances of doing so in the future are extremely slim. If I did, however, it would run something like this:

C: Thank you for your time.

V: No problem. I always look forward to owning members of the liberal establishment.

C: You’re the one who went to an Ivy League school, not me.

V: You’re the liberal, not me. What do you want to discuss?

C: I want to see how you reconcile what I think are contradictory ways of thinking.

V: OK. Go ahead.

C: I think it’s clear that you have two mentors of a sort–Peter Thiel and Donald Trump. You worked for Thiel, received aid from him during your campaign, and consider him a friend. Trump’s influence on you is obvious.

V: Wouldn’t disagree with that.

C: Thiel is what I would call a conservative libertarian. He looks forward, not back. He thinks that America would be much improved if we took all of the tax and regulatory shackles off of people like him and let them run the country. His ideal America is a sort of techno-aristocracy. Trump, on the other hand, is a reactionary. He wants the economy of the 1950s, with lots of steelworkers and coal miners. He wants jobs for burly men who bring home the bacon for compliant housewives. And he thinks only he can speak for real America. He doesn’t believe in an aristocracy.

V: I’m not sure I completely agree with those descriptions, but they’re largely accurate. What’s your point?

C: They represent mutually exclusive visions for America. How do you reconcile them?

V: It’s only a problem in the long run. Thiel and Trump both think America as it exists today needs to be completely changed. They agree on burning it down. We’ll deal with what happens afterwards when we get there.

C: Which side are you on?

V: I’ll worry about that when we get there.

C: So you either don’t know or won’t say. My next question is about labor and capital. Like many members of the center-left, I would argue that the McConnell version of the Republican Party existed to transfer money and power from workers and government to judges and capitalists. He used the filibuster, conservative judges, and gerrymanders to accomplish this. He got workers to vote against their self-interest by feeding them social conservatism. What’s your reaction to that?

V: I don’t identify with McConnell. I think his version of the GOP is dead as a doornail. I support workers, not woke bosses.

C: But what have you actually done to support labor, besides showing up on a picket line on one occasion? Do you oppose the Trump tax cuts?

V: No.

C: Will you vote to reauthorize the tax cuts for the wealthy?

V: I don’t believe in tax increases.

C: Do you support legislation and rules strengthening organized labor/

V: Too much of organized labor supports Democrats. So, no.

C: Do you have any plans to cut taxes just for working people?

V: Not yet.

C: You don’t actually do anything for workers, but you’re big on attacking wokeness. That sounds exactly like McConnell.

V: I put workers first, not bosses. And you haven’t figured out my plan to help them.

C: Which is?

V: Tariffs and the deportation of illegal immigrants will create labor shortages, which will drive up wages faster than anything a union can accomplish.

C: It will also result in inflation. I thought your party hated inflation.

V: Only when we can blame the Democrats for it. It’s like the deficit. I know there will be some pain in the short run, but it will be worth it.

C: The tariffs will crush the forward-looking and prosperous part of the American economy. That sounds reactionary to me.

V: We’ll support the economy of the future with income tax cuts, subsidies for businesses who support our program. and deregulation.

C: Last question–you sometimes say that culture wars are class war. What do you mean by that?

V: Look at the people who hold left-wing culture war beliefs. They’re all part of the coastal elite. They’re the problem with our country.

C: So, in your view, workers and incredibly rich businessmen are on the same side, fighting a class war against highly-educated doctors and teachers and scientists?

V: Exactly!

C: How do the doctors and teachers and scientists keep the wages of workers down?

V: They don’t, but they keep them feeling inferior. It’s the same thing.

C: Thank you for your time.

The standard libertarian formula is to grant freedom to people as long as they don’t use it to hurt others. It is a reasonable and humane approach to both ethics and politics.

But reactionaries want to be free to oppress others. That is the freedom they cherish the most; they deeply resent any efforts to restrict it.

Marx turned Hegel on his head. Reactionaries turn Mill on his head.

The Israeli government insists that it has no viable alternative except to blow up all of Gaza and kill tens of thousands of civilians; otherwise, Hamas will reemerge and will win the war. Is that true?

No. Here is how I would deal with Gaza at this point in the campaign:

1. Construct one or more large refugee camps in the northern part of Gaza–the part that is already under Israeli control. Make sure these areas can be easily supplied and provide a decent quality of life.
2. Herd the civilians in the Rafah area into the camps. If they are clearly safe and adequately supplied, this should not be difficult. Vet all of the civilians before they are allowed in. Police work is an important part of the job.
3. Do whatever you have to do with anyone who remains in Rafah after the exodus is over.

The way you defeat guerrillas is by separating the fighters from the populace. The Israelis have somehow lost sight of that objective. Along with their lack of planning for the end of the war, that needs to change–and fast.

If you’re a genuine pro-life reactionary–in all likelihood, a devout Catholic–you believe fervently that a fertilized egg is a human being. As a result, you agree with the decision of the Alabama Supreme Court on IVF, even though you may concurrently think that America’s birth rate is far too low. Your answer to that problem, in all likelihood, is to ban birth control.

But, as I’ve said many times, most reactionaries aren’t really pro-life; they think abortion restrictions are necessary to provide a deterrent for immoral sexual behavior. The wages of sin is birth, in other words. If you’re in this camp, putting an end to IVF makes no sense, because it is a deterrent to nothing except wanted pregnancies.

The fact that the GOP is moving so swiftly to support IVF legislation is proof that the second group is in charge, not the pro-lifers.

The anti-anti-Trumpers are back in Egypt–they’re living in denial. Having supported DeSantis during the primaries, they are back on side. Trump 2.0, they say, will be the same as the first version. Sure, he’ll be a little rough with his mouth, but he’s no threat to liberal democracy. The guardrails will hold. They always have, and they always will.

That was to be expected. What scares me is the prospect that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party might agree. I think some of them view the first Trump term as an age of clarity in which the party was driven to the left on issues we now refer to as “wokeness.” One more strong shove from the right, they think, and the party will be theirs. It’s worth the risk, right?

Like the AATs. they lack imagination. The best case scenario for Trump 2.0 is a scatterbrained Viktor Orban; the worst is Putin. And he’ll be coming first for the woke left, not for people like me. He will do his best to shut them up for good. He may shoot them down in the street if they demonstrate against him. Then what?

It’s not worth the risk.

In previous years, I posted about right-wing recycling: Trump cut taxes for the wealthy; the deficit soared; and the wealthy financed the debt instead of investing in new businesses. Trump 2.0 will give us a new form of recycling: Trump imposes tariffs; our trading partners retaliate; American businesses dependent on exports suffer; and Trump responds by bailing out the suffering businesses that support him (e.g., farmers) with the proceeds of the tariffs. The beneficiaries of the bailouts become grateful wards of the state and vote for Republicans in spite of their business reverses, while we enjoy higher prices and slow growth.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Roger Lowenstein acknowledges that Biden might be politically wise to oppose the acquisition of US Steel by a Japanese company, but, from a wider perspective, he finds this unfortunate manifestation of economic nationalism silly and counterproductive. After all, Japan is not a threat to national security, and this kind of pointless protectionism only costs jobs and offends our allies. Is he right, and should we expect more from Biden?

Yes, he is right, but no, we don’t have any good reason to expect more from a president who desperately needs the support of steelworkers to win Pennsylvania. Would it really be worth it to take an unpopular stand on free trade that could throw the entire election to Trump and put American liberal democracy in danger? I think not.

Biden needs to pick and choose his battles on free trade. Opposing the massive new Trump tariffs provides him an opening based on America’s loathing of inflation; he definitely should take it. Arguing about the fate of US Steel, on the other hand, is a vote loser. If he had a huge lead, it might be worth trying, but not now.

Donald Trump may be ahead in the polls, but he needs money badly. And so, according to Ross Douthat, he has been telling donors with deep pockets that his second term will look like the first one. Sure, there will be plenty of white noise to keep the base happy–that’s his brand, after all. But he will actually govern as a typical Republican. Ignore the populist sound and fury; just pay attention to what he actually does in office.

Should they trust him? Should we trust him?

Of course not! This is a man who told 30,000 lies during his term of office. Furthermore, we know from his first term (and, to some extent, from his history before that) that he hates Ukraine, the EU, and NATO, despises the law and the MSM, loves dictators, rejects the whole idea of climate change, and embraces tariffs as a way to bring back the economy of the 1950s. This time, he will be surrounded by advisors who know better than to try to restrain him, and he is angry at his opponents and desperate to avoid prison. Why should anyone believe that he will govern as a man of moderation?

Just in case you were looking for another historical precedent, German industrialists ultimately decided to ignore Hitler’s extreme racist and nationalist rhetoric and back him as the lesser of the evils, too. How did that turn out?

Do you really believe you have the legal right to deport asylum seekers who have complied in every respect with federal immigration law? And what will you do if the Mexican government refuses to accept the deportees? Use your paltry law enforcement resources to start a war with Mexico?

Texas decided to stop being a sovereign state in the 1840s because it didn’t have the resources to protect itself. It’s time to accept that fact, once and for all. The best you can hope for is to be an American equivalent of Viktor Orban doing battle within the EU.

Even though I completely agree with him, I think it was a mistake to call for elections and a new Israeli government. That looked more like meddling in Israeli internal affairs than a statement about American interests and sentiments.

The rest of the speech was right on point. The Israelis need to understand that they are in grave danger of losing support from even its best friends in the Democratic Party, which will have impacts on them both now and in the future. A substantial portion of the blue team sees Israel, not as an imperiled island of democracy in a sea of Arab extremism, but as the bully in the neighborhood. The more the Israeli government treats vast numbers of Palestinian civilian deaths as acceptable collateral damage, the less material and diplomatic support it can expect from us in the foreseeable future.

Trump’s initial response to the terrorist attack was to blame Bibi. This was done purely because Bibi recognizes that Biden won the 2020 election. More recently, however, Trump is demanding unconditional support for the Israeli invasion and accusing American Jews who disagree of being untrue to their religion. It’s the usual toxic stew of personal grievance and political opportunism.

But consider that Trump’s only real overseas friends in his first term were Bibi and MBS, and that his one diplomatic success was the Abraham Accords. How is encouraging Bibi to bounce the rubble going to play in Saudi Arabia? How would Trump 2.0 finish the job of creating a regional alliance by offending public opinion in the Arab world?

Let’s hope we never find out.

It is likely that the principal objective of Hamas on October 7 was to disrupt the negotiations between the Israelis and the Saudis. If that is your measuring stick, are they succeeding?

Let’s put it this way: if Israel doesn’t change course, it will face complete diplomatic isolation and lose any hope of a regional alliance with moderate Arab states for the foreseeable future. It will also be on the hook for all of the costs of an expensive occupation that it cannot afford. For all of that, it probably won’t be able to destroy Hamas, because killing lots of people and persuading them of the fallacy of an idea are two different things entirely.

That sounds like a Hamas victory to me.

The Trumpist right purports to believe that China is an existential threat. If you accept that premise, the logical response is to seek out as many allies as possible to contain the Chinese. Trump, however, has made it clear that America neither has nor needs any real allies; his program, including universal tariffs, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, and the abandonment of Ukraine, could not possibly be more offensive to our friends. What will come of this, if he is elected? How will America be able to project military, diplomatic, and economic power in the Pacific without friends?

The inevitable result of “America First” is a division of the world into spheres of influence. Japan, South Korea, and Australia will become Chinese vassal states–still democratic, but without the ability to conduct an independent foreign policy. Taiwan will fall completely into Chinese hands. Europe will become a free agent, pursuing its own interest apart from either America or China. America’s predominant influence will be limited to the Western Hemisphere.

Of course, if we go to war with Mexico, even that will be in jeopardy.

Christianity basically consists of two components–ethics and metaphysics. What does this look like on a graph, and what does it mean for American politics?

The first quadrant includes people who genuinely believe in both Christian ethics and metaphysics. These are the true Christians; they used to be CDs and voted overwhelmingly for Republicans. Today, they don’t really have a home in either party; they reject both Trumpism and the secular elements of the Democratic Party. Most of them will vote for Biden.

The second quadrant contains people who accept the ethics, but not the metaphysics, of Christianity. They are mostly liberals; they believe in a strong, secular state with a healthy safety net. They will vote for Biden.

The third quadrant has people who accept Christian metaphysics, because they think Christianity supports a state controlled by white male Christians, but reject Christian ethics. They are great haters, and Trump voters.

The fourth quadrant consists of pure pagans. These people have little regard for humanity, but great regard for themselves. They think they have a right to remake society in their own image. Most of our tech bros, Bronze Age Pervert, and Trump fall into this quadrant.

A recent study indicated, to no one’s surprise, that Trump’s first round of tariffs was an extremely inefficient way of saving profits and jobs but was nonetheless popular. That’s why Biden left most of them in place.

The Trump 2.0 tariffs would be different, because this time, the consumer would feel them directly in the form of increased prices on retail goods. The public is more sensitive to inflation now than it was in Trump’s first term as a result of our experience over the last few years.

Biden really needs to make a major issue of this tax increase on the poor and the middle class during the campaign. I have to believe he will.