Cromwell

It is becoming increasingly clear that tens of millions of Americans look back longingly at the Trump economy of 2019. The events of 2020 have been somehow erased from their brains. It is incumbent on Biden and his friends to jog their memories.

But simply attracting attention to Trump’s unsavory past isn’t enough; he needs to be asked about his vision for the future, and how he plans to get there. How, exactly, does he think he can bring back 2019? Won’t massive tariffs cause inflation? Where will we find the workforce to staff all of the new manufacturing plants he wants to see, given the current unemployment rate, particularly in light of his plan to deport millions of workers? How can we afford another tax cut, given the current deficit? Why does it make sense to invest in dying rather than growing industries? And so on.

EU markets are about to be flooded by relatively cheap Chinese EVs, says The Economist. And a good thing, too; they will help fight climate change and inflation. If domestic car companies are damaged by the exports, so what? History tells us they’ll adjust. If the Chinese want to pay Europeans through extensive subsidies to drive their cars, God bless them.

The argument makes a certain amount of sense, even if it is politically tone deaf. The bottom line, however, is that you can make the same arguments about the American efforts to promote the domestic production of green products, but The Economist thinks those are an appalling example of protectionism.

I sense a double standard here. The Chinese are just being Chinese, so we don’t expect much from them, but the Americans have an obligation to stand up for free trade even when no one else will do so due to the toxic politics.

David French thinks Congress represents the truly democratic element of the federal government. He, like many other commentators, also believes it is broken. His solution? Overturn Chevron, and things will get back to normal. Is he right?

Not in this case. The reasons for congressional dysfunction–the filibuster and a right-wing party that is more interested in drama and oppressing half the population than good governance–have nothing to do with Chevron, and will not go away if it is overturned.

If Chevron completely disappears, two things will happen. First, power will flow from unelected experts (bureaucrats) to unelected, increasingly partisan non-experts (judges). That’s not exactly a win for democracy. Second, the validity of all of our administrative rules will be back on the table, which is a recipe for chaos.

We just have to hope that Roberts and Barrett succeed in limiting this decision to issues that don’t really require special expertise. That is possible, but hardly a given.

Nothing good, as you probably guessed.

By quitting early in the process, DeSantis is trying to improve his chances for 2028; he is, in effect, engaging in damage control with the reactionary base. If he wants to be Trump’s heir, he needs to feed the base red meat on the regular basis. That means a steady diet of anti-wokeness legislation as long as he remains in office.

You can’t wait, I know.

Nikki Haley pretty much has to win New Hampshire. If she doesn’t, she’s likely, in Chris Christie’s words, to get smoked in South Carolina, and that will be that.

But don’t expect her to drop out, like DeSantis, because, unlike him, the Indian woman knows she will never win the hearts of the base. She has nothing to hope for from either Trump or his supporters. She is fighting for an alternative version of the GOP, not to be Trump’s heir.

She also has plenty of money and a clear field. Trump could go to jail, or choke on a cheeseburger. Why not fight on? Miracles do happen sometimes.

As far as DeSantis is concerned, God created him to be president, and who is he to deny the divine will? He has consequently convinced himself that the reactionary base still loves him; it only wanted him to wait his turn. As a result, he has dropped out earlier than expected and endorsed Trump. His reward, he imagines, will be the nomination in 2028.

DeSantis isn’t Ted Cruz; I fully expect him to do everything in his power to elect Trump between now and November. Nevertheless, I think he’s kidding himself if he believes the base will forgive him for his presumption in challenging their hero. In addition, he will be out of office by the beginning of 2027. Where will he go to generate headlines and win free time on Fox News?

His time has come and gone. The GOP nominee in 2028, if we even have an election at that point, won’t be one of the Class of 2024.

With the support of Mike Johnson, the usual coalition of Democrats and semi-sane Republicans have kicked the budget can back to March. We’ll undoubtedly do the same thing again in two months. This time, however, there is relatively little talk of defenestrating the Speaker, or of demanding concessions to keep him in office. Why?

For two reasons. First of all, both the Democrats and the Republicans have come to understand that there are no plausible better alternatives to this bizarre status quo until the election in November. Second, the GOP thinks it is going to win a crushing victory in November. Why look like a bunch of nihilists and put the election in jeopardy just for a premature rush of dopamine?

The belief of GOP voters that victory is imminent and inevitable is going to present a huge problem in November if, as in 2020 and 2022, it doesn’t happen. For now, however, it is working in the public interest.

Donald Trump believes that negotiations are a test of manhood, and that there can be only one winner. In his world, there is no win-win; there is only I win, you lose. How do you win? Mostly by creating and using leverage as ruthlessly as possible.

With that in mind, you would think he would be talking up Ukraine, and threatening to escalate American assistance, if he wants to make a deal with Putin. He is, of course, doing no such thing. What does that tell us?

Trump is a Putin fanboy, and he hates Ukraine. That’s what’s motivating him here. He doesn’t want to make a deal on Ukraine, and extract concessions from Putin in return; he just wants to prove his worth to the killer in the Kremlin.

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.