Category: Uncategorized

The GOP Speaker named Mike

Made a deal that the right didn’t like.

They scream and they swear

But it gets them nowhere.

It’s like riding a Peloton bike.

Ron DeSantis the candidate could use a personality transplant. That much was known prior to his decision to run for president. In addition, he made serious strategic mistakes that, in the end, doomed his candidacy; I’ve listed those on many occasions. But is there more to the story than that? Was he unlucky, as well?

Yes, in two instances. First, the decisions to indict Trump played into the man on golf cart’s martyrdom narrative and made it that much more difficult for the base to desert him. Second, the DeSantis brand was created by his actions during the pandemic. Rightly or wrongly–probably plenty of both–Floridians gave him credit in the 2022 election for keeping things open when other states were closed. By the middle of 2023, however, most Americans had forgotten about the pandemic. The DeSantis brand evolved from fighting for freedom from government overreach to battling wokeness, and we all know how that turned out.

In other words, DeSantis has the same problem with Trump, timing, and the pandemic that Biden does. There is some irony in that, to be sure.

The case for attacking Iran has never been stronger. Its proxies have murdered over 1,000 Israelis and are currently endangering freedom of navigation; it has launched missiles into Iraq and Pakistan; it is closer to getting a bomb than ever before, thanks to Trump’s decision to scrap the nuclear agreement; and it has become an ally of Russia in the Ukraine War. Does that mean it will happen?

Probably not, for two reasons. First, Biden clearly dislikes the idea of going to war in the Middle East, based on recent historical experience. Second, attacking Iran will only unite the country under its current leadership at a time when a succession crisis may bring about a dramatic regime change. Why risk it?

As I noted in a previous post, Haley and DeSantis like to argue about their respective records, but they really don’t disagree on many points of policy other than Ukraine and Social Security. Does that mean Haley will inherit the DeSantis voters after he drops out, as he must fairly soon?

No, because supporters of the two are very different demographically even if they are fundamentally similar in many respects. Haley has the more highly educated Never Trumpers; DeSantis is the spokesman for anti-anti-Trumpers and for devout evangelicals. My guess is that a large percentage of the DeSantis voters will migrate to Trump in spite of their obvious qualms about the man.

Haley will have to find a way to patch that up if she is to have any chance at winning, even if Trump is convicted in the federal elections case.

The Israelis like to justify the civilian deaths and destruction in Gaza with an analogy to Nazi Germany. After all, the Allies devastated Germany and killed millions during the last two years of the war. Holding Israel to a higher standard is unfair, right?

Leaving aside the fact that the standards of civilized behavior have improved with time, the analogy doesn’t work. Nazi Germany was Europe’s preeminent military power; it controlled most of the continent in 1942. Its entire population was mobilized for the war effort. Hamas, on the other hand, is a military pygmy–a terrorist group–that hides in the civilian population instead of mobilizing it. Its signal accomplishment was occupying parts of Israel for a few hours.

Not the same thing at all.

The anti-anti-Trumpers are heartsick. They thought they had the perfect candidate: an electorally and legislatively successful governor of a large state who could unite the Never Trumpers and the Maybe Trumpers and win a majority of the GOP voters, even without the base. Today, his campaign is in ruins. What could DeSantis have done differently?

Four things:

1. It was probably necessary to fight at least some of the war on wokeness (the Disney part excepted) within Florida in order to protect his right flank, but after that, he should have pivoted immediately to the issues that really motivate the GOP electorate: inflation; China; and the border.
2. He should have picked positions on abortion and Ukraine that were more acceptable to GOP mainstream voters. That’s what Haley did.
3. He needed to define himself more sharply as an alternative to Trump, not a surrogate. That meant taking a clear position on January 6 and Trump’s criminal issues. Instead, he pandered to the base–a group he had no chance of winning–and alienated the donor class, which switched to Haley.
4. He never provided any sort of positive vision for America. Haley did that, with her Reaganite ideas about small government; Trump does it, in a deranged way, with his plans to impose tariffs, withdraw from NATO, cut taxes on business, and deport millions of illegal immigrants; but DeSantis never did. Using the power of government to make trans people as miserable as possible does nothing to make the life of the average voter better. What did he offer, other than a grim reactionary ability to impose his will on the left through new statutes and regulations? Not a damn thing.

There are two ways to look at the Trump victory. On the one hand, he campaigned far less than his rivals, alienated all of the state’s power brokers, and still won by 30 points. On the other hand, Iowa is a perfect demographic mix for him, and he considers himself to be an incumbent, but he only got 51 percent of the vote. There are plenty of GOP voters out there who are ready to be consolidated if one of the two remaining candidates can find the key.

One conclusion shouldn’t be controversial: for Iowa to vote for the representative of a white Christian nationalist on MLK Day is brutally offensive to anyone who believes in American liberal democracy.

Do you remember the pandemic? The million or so people who died? Wearing masks, and limiting your movements? The collapse of the economy that was only mitigated by bailouts by the federal government? And do you remember how Trump responded? Do you recall his attempts to avoid responsibility and to downplay the disaster that was unfolding in real time? Does eating bleach and taking horse tranquilizers ring a bell? Do you remember Trump refusing to wear a mask for fear of offending his base and participating in superspreader activities? In short, do you recall how dire our condition was on the date of the 2020 election?

If you do, it appears that you are a member of a small minority. When the American public thinks of the Trump economy, it focuses on 2019, not the rapid increase of unemployment in 2020. In Biden’s case, he gets no credit for getting us through the pandemic; instead, he is blamed for the inflation that directly resulted from the virus even though it was a worldwide phenomenon. It is as if the public thinks the pandemic never happened, to the benefit, on both ends, of Trump.

This has to change. That is the responsibility of both the Biden campaign and the MSM.

Trump and the GOP view themselves as the true heirs of MLK. Why? Because, in their eyes, MLK was only interested in getting rid of de jure segregation. Once that was done, the government should have treated racial differences as irrelevant, and he would have gone into a comfortable retirement. Instead, we got forced busing, affirmative action, reparations, and the 1619 Project, and then . . . well, you know the rest. White people are the true victims of American government today, and Trump is the new MLK.

That this is a dangerous load of crap is demonstrated vividly by the fact that King was murdered while assisting black sanitation workers in Memphis with a strike. Still, it makes you wonder–what would a White Civil Rights Museum look like? What would the narrative be?

Here’s my theory:

Room 1: Antebellum South: White people generously share the fruits of civilization with their happy black servants, who are treated much better than wage slaves in the northern states. Nevertheless, a storm is brewing. Noisy, irresponsible abolitionists are trying to impose their values on us.

Room 2: War of Northern Imperialist Aggression: Lincoln wins the 1860 election. Since the Constitution, based on Lincoln’s campaign promises, is no longer in effect, the South, having no choice, secedes. The North, without provocation, launches an invasion of the South in order to destroy its values and change its economy. The South fights back bravely but is ultimately defeated by superior resources.

Room 3: Crucifixion and Redemption: Union troops destroy society and bring chaos and anarchy to the reeling South. Brave heroes emerge to fight back. In the end, order is restored, and the occupying enemy goes home. The South rises again.

Room 4: The Civil Rights Uproar: Black people fight for their supposed rights against the established order, and not just in the South. They are assisted by pointy-headed federal bureaucrats and politicians and by activist liberal judges. White people fight back but are overwhelmed. The federal government falls into the hands of the left, which uses the tax money of struggling white workers solely for the benefit of blacks and minorities.

Room 5: Reagan and Trump: Reagan begins the battle against the soft totalitarianism of the new order but is too focused on the Cold War and the economy to make much of a difference. The war goes to another level after America somehow elects a black man as its president. In the aftermath of the Obama disaster, Trump takes on the deep state in order to help its white Christian victims. He is brought down by the deep state during the pandemic, but bravely continues the fight even after he is indicted. He wins the 2024 election! The deep state is destroyed, and life returns to normal.

Heartwarming, no?

It used to be that, for the GOP, every election was 1980: Ronald Reagan against the weak, ineffectual Jimmy Carter. With Trump, however, every year is 1968: the cities are burning; crime is out of control; the country is divided on culture war issues; and what is needed is the firm hand of authority. In that narrative, of course, Trump is Richard Nixon, which in its way, makes sense.

The difference is that we aren’t at war this time, and our cities aren’t burning. Will the voters see the difference, or will they believe Trump and Fox News instead of their own eyes? We’ll see.

I just finished reading a book called “The Broken Constitution” by Noah Feldman, a lawyer who, unlike most constitutional commentators, actually knows what he’s talking about. The book is about the evolution of Lincoln’s view of the Constitution, from his early days as a minor Whig politician to his advocacy for the Thirteenth Amendment. It provides a lot of useful detail regarding Lincoln’s suppression of constitutional rights during the Civil War, and the adequacy of his arguments supporting his actions. It is well worth reading.

The book was written in 2021. I don’t think Trump appears in its pages, but he haunts it nonetheless; I suspect he is the reason it was written. Would a newly elected Trump conflate the issue at the border, or urban demonstrations against his policies, or something else with the Civil War in order to justify using emergency powers against blue Americans? Would the judiciary accept his actions? Would he ignore court orders against him, as Lincoln clearly did, for the satisfaction of keeping us under his thumb?

These are not idle questions. Nobody can say with certainty that Trump doesn’t aspire to completely wreck liberal democracy in America using Civil War precedents, or, if you’re a real antiquarian, the decision for Charles I in the ship money case. That’s the risk we will be running if we elect him.

The RSA is just grandstanding; Israel is not engaging in genocide in Gaza. It is making some effort to spare civilians and provide supplies. It would be engaged in a far different kind of war if it simply wanted to kill as many Palestinians as possible.

However, some members of the cabinet clearly want to engage in ethnic cleansing, and it is perfectly possible that the government as a whole agrees with that, without admitting it to the rest of the world. The evolving facts on the ground thus far are consistent with my hypothesis.

Ethnic cleansing isn’t on the same moral plane as genocide–the lowest possible–but it’s on the way. Call it a lesser included offense.

Saudi Arabia’s attempt to intervene in Yemeni politics was a fiasco. Biden’s attack was not an intervention in the ongoing civil war; he simply wants to stop the Iranian=backed attempt to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea and thus increase prices all over the world, which is a completely legitimate objective under international law. The choice of targets was consistent with that objective.

This does not mean the war is about to widen. If the attacks were successful–and we were told that they were–the threat has been diminished, and there will be little reason to repeat them in the foreseeable future.

What’s interesting here is that the Chinese, who have as much to lose from the Houthi actions as we do, aren’t saying or doing anything to protect freedom of navigation. They are effectively putting their relationship with Iran and its proxies above their own economic self-interest in an effort to make life more difficult for America and the EU.

Trump has apparently criticized Lincoln for not making a deal that would have made the Civil War unnecessary. What should we take from that?

About 600,000 men died in the Civil War. Their lives have disappeared into the mist of history. Nobody alive today knew any of them. Trump is saying that, even from today’s perspective, their lives were worth more than the freedom of millions of black Americans. The end of slavery, in the long run, just wasn’t worth a war.

It’s easy to imagine someone who had suffered personal loss saying that in 1870, but today?

If you’re a black American and you are thinking about voting for Trump, you need to keep that in mind.

The DeSantis campaign is foundering, and Rich Lowry knows where to put the blame: on the MSM! Sure, DeSantis has run a lousy campaign, and yes, he avoided the MSM like the plague for most of it, but they should have embraced him as a safer alternative to Trump, anyway! Their stories about him were universally negative, and now you see the result.

The obvious objection to this line of reasoning, of course, is that Republican voters don’t trust the MSM–they watch Fox News. DeSantis has been a regular on Fox; Trump has not.

Now you see why I say Lowry is always wrong.