Cromwell

The Democrats will still retain control of the Senate even if Herschel Walker, in spite of his innumerable personal weaknesses, somehow wins the runoff in December. Does that mean the runoff doesn’t matter?

No, for reasons that have more to do with 2024 than 2022. This time around, the playing field was tilted towards the Democrats, because the Republicans were defending a large majority of seats; in 2024, however, the Democrats will face challenges in Ohio, Montana, and West Virginia (yes, Manchin is still better than the alternative). As a result, if you were a betting man, you would put your money on GOP control of the Senate after the next election regardless of the outcome of the presidential race.

Having an extra seat in the Senate today will help after 2024. Even if the GOP has nominal control, Collins and Murkowski will still operate as swing voters for some purposes, so 49 seats wouldn’t be a disaster. Victory in Georgia would be a step in the right direction.

The FBI Director had a difficult decision to make prior to the 2016 election. If he followed protocol and refused to make any public statements about the Clinton e-mail investigation, and Clinton subsequently won the election, he knew the Trump camp would go nuts, and the reputation of the FBI and the government in general would suffer for it. If he didn’t, he would be setting a precedent for the FBI inappropriately interfering in the electoral process. What should he do?

As we know, he decided to go public, because he assumed Clinton would win the election, anyway. That didn’t turn out too well.

Today, Merrick Garland faces a similar choice. Should he indict Trump, and make the ensuing criminal case a huge part of the man on golf cart’s campaign against the “deep state” over the next two years? On balance, it would probably strengthen–not weaken–the far right. Or should he let Ron DeSantis do the dirty work for him, and keep the DOJ out of it, even if it sends the dangerous message that Trump and his followers are above the law?

There are no good choices here. I’m betting he picks Option 2, which is looking more viable after the midterms.

UPDATE: About an hour after I posted this, Garland found another way around the problem by appointing a special counsel. Trump, of course, is describing this effort to depoliticize the process as a political hatchet job.

Realistically, after the attack on her husband, it was time for her to go. But what a ride it has been! She will go down in history, not just as one of the great Speakers in history, but as the single most successful politician of her age. She was always there when Obama and Biden needed her. One way or the other, she could always find the votes.

If you don’t think that’s impressive, wait until you see how Kevin McCarthy performs as Speaker. His idea of leadership is to let the inmates run the asylum.

If the Murdochs have finally and irrevocably turned on Trump, it won’t trouble Tucker Carlson much; he’s more of a reactionary ideologue than a fan of the man on golf cart. Laura Ingraham is insignificant. But what happens to Sean Hannity? He’s completely identified with Trump. He’s Boswell to Trump’s Dr. Johnson; Bundini Brown to his Muhammad Ali; Sancho Panza to his Quixote. How in the world is he going to make a U-turn?

It’s going to be really hard. Poor little guy.

As we know only too well, Donald Trump demands complete, unquestioning loyalty from his supporters, while giving none of his own. Not to the United States, and certainly not to the GOP, which he sees only as an instrument answerable to him. What happens if the intellectual and political leadership of the party turns on him, and openly supports a different candidate during the primaries?

He’s not going to take that lightly. The Democrats have only had limited success dividing the crazoids from the more respectable wing of the GOP, but Trump could do the dirty work for them. For that, for the first time, he would deserve our thanks.

A note to my readers: I will be out of town until Friday. Regular posts will resume at that time.

“Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.” Something to be grateful for this Thanksgiving.

I was looking at an NYT map which showed the margins of victory in all of the House races this morning. What I found, at least for my home states, was that there were only a few races in which the loser was even in shouting distance of the winner. What does that tell us about our system, and the future?

The combination of natural sorting, gerrymandering, and the predominance of culture wars means that wave elections are an endangered species. The pandemic and the resulting economic slump didn’t do it in 2020, and inflation didn’t do it this time. There just aren’t enough marginal seats, and enough voters willing to support change for economic reasons, to make it work.

Bill Clinton was famous for the statement “It’s the economy, stupid.” That was true when he was running, but it isn’t anymore. The result of this election proves it.

What could change the equilibrium? A decision by Trump to burn down the GOP if it doesn’t fall into line. It could happen. I will discuss that further at a later date.

Ross Douthat thinks that Dobbs is best understood as an opportunity for the pro-life side to persuade the rest of us that abortion is both wrong and unnecessary. I agree. However, his dream will never come true, for the following reasons:

1. As I have noted innumerable times, the genuinely “pro-life” component of the opponents to abortion is relatively small. Reactionary red state politicians interested only in making the lives of “wayward” women miserable consequently are not politically compelled to pay any attention to pro-lifers who want to make them better. That is why the states with the most restrictive abortion regimes typically have the flimsiest welfare states.
2. Douthat imagines a scenario in which the pro-lifers join the left to expand the welfare state to improve the lot of pregnant women. Because, in addition to being a numerically insignificant group, the genuine pro-lifers are typically absolutists, there is no way they will ever reach a grand bargain with the left, which would have to include permitting abortion under some limited circumstances. So long as that kind of deal is implausible, the pro-lifers will never have any leverage with the rest of the reactionaries.

Imagine that you are a resident of Georgia. For months, you have been subjected to an unrelenting barrage of political ads about crime, inflation, and abortion. You know more about Herschel Walker’s sex life than you ever hoped to learn. You thought your ordeal had come to an end. But no! Now you are looking at another month of the same ads, quite possibly with control of the Senate at stake. The pressure will be unendurable. Will no one put you out of your misery?

You don’t need this. Neither does America. So pray that Cortez Masto takes the pressure off you by finding about 800 votes in Nevada. That would make a victory in Georgia nice, but not essential.

The news indicates that inflation is ebbing slightly. The markets rejoice. Wealthy people with money in the markets breathe a sigh of relief, and resume spending. Inflation goes up. The Fed raises interest rates. Markets slump. Inflation drops. We begin again.

The bottom line here is that, to the extent the Fed has any real control over spending that is fueled by the savings of the affluent, not borrowed money, it will be relying on its ability to crush confidence by driving down the markets. That probably means interest rates will have to rise to a level beyond what the fundamentals would say are necessary to put an end to the cycle.

No, it’s not Trump. It’s Rick Scott, who clearly believed this was another Tea Party moment that would propel him into the White House in 2024. Instead, he’s almost certainly going to be an unpopular member, on the outs with the leadership and his side’s rising star, of the minority party in the Senate. Boredom and insignificance looms for a man who undoubtedly thinks he should be the CEO of America, LLC.

Runners-up: Trump and Vladimir Putin, who also lost Kherson this week. Talk about a guy having a tough year!

Jonathan Chait described “Ron DeSanctimonious” as a “low energy nickname.” I agree. Trump uses one-syllable words; “sanctimonious” sounds like something he got out of a thesaurus. It isn’t as punchy as “Sleepy Joe” or “Lyin’ Ted” or “Crooked Hillary.” It just isn’t authentic. I’m not even sure his followers know what it means.

My advice? Go with “Ron the RINO.” After all, anyone who doesn’t openly agree that the 2020 election was rigged can’t be a real Republican, can he?

Donald Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by around 3 million votes against a highly unpopular opponent who essentially represented the status quo after two Obama terms. He only won the election because he was lucky enough to squeak out tiny victories in swing states.

In 2018, the Democrats flipped 41 seats in the House even though the economy was in relatively good shape. In 2020, Trump lost by 7 million votes even though the GOP won seats in the House and fared surprisingly well in the Senate races, where the deck was stacked against them. Now this.

Will the Republicans ever learn that Trump is a loser? That he is effectively a drag on their party? That he is the weakest possible nominee for them in 2024?

Given that they still profess to believe that tax cuts and deregulation are the solution to every possible economic problem, probably not.

On the 45th President Trump.

A bad midterm continued his slump.

A brand new nickname

Sounds to me rather lame.

Will DeSantis cause him to be dumped?

Imagine that you are Justice Alito. You could read the returns as a clear rebuke to your opinion in Dobbs, which can’t make you feel too good. Should you moderate your opinions in the coming year in order to help the GOP in 2024, or stay the course and keep waving the reactionary flag?

My guess is you choose Option B, partly because that’s who you are, and partly because you see nothing but gridlock between Congress and Biden over the next two years. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Where a void exists, the judiciary will feel comfortable filling it.