Cromwell

Like Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis had little tolerance for criticism. Unlike Trump, he was determined to do something about it. And so, with his re-election assured, he persuaded the Florida Legislature to pass a bill creating a cause of action on behalf of specified state officials (local officials, some of whom are Democrats, were not included) for “unfair criticism” on the internet. The burden of proof on “unfair criticism,” a vaguely defined term, was placed on the defendants.

Criticism of the governor on the web immediately ceased, to the delight of the Hungarian Candidate’s base. When the inevitable First Amendment challenge came, the District Court enjoined enforcement of the new law in a blistering opinion, all but calling DeSantis a fascist. The Eleventh Circuit was split on predictably ideological lines, however, and the case went to the Supreme Court, where Thomas and Alito were itching to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan. A divided Court followed the Fifth Circuit’s decision in the Texas social media case and held that the internet was fundamentally different than other forms of media; as a result, according to the Court, the free speech protections in Sullivan did not apply. Furthermore, the Florida law could be enforced against residents of states other than Florida who dared to criticize DeSantis.

As usual, the other red states fell into line and adopted similar regulations. Liberal democracy in America was effectively dead.

Monster Hurricane Ron hit Florida this morning. With almost surgical precision, it devastated Broward County, a Democratic stronghold, and then veered back out to sea. Hundreds of thousands of blue voters were killed, and millions were left without power. The red voters of Palm Beach, including Trump, were spared.

Safe in his Tallahassee mansion, Governor DeSantis was exultant. “That’s what those people get for hating God and me,” he said. “Now they’re getting their reward for being pervert groomers. They’re burning in Hell, and I’m going to be re-elected. Dead men can’t vote.”

“Who said that climate change is a bad thing? It’s even more effective than the pandemic in getting rid of liberals. Now we can get on with the job of making Florida a paradise for real Americans, and really stick it to any liberals who are left.”

As of today, it looks like Ian is headed more or less straight to our Florida house. The question is, will DeSantis even care? Can he take a day or two off from fighting the culture wars to actually try and protect the lives of Floridians? Or would he prefer that all of the blue people get washed away, so they can’t vote against him in November? Is that part of his “freedom” agenda?

Nancy Pelosi has come to the White House to talk about the campaign.

B: It looks like we’ve done it!

P: Done what?

B: Turned it around! The latest projections even give us a decent chance of holding the House.

P: We haven’t done much of anything, except benefit from lower gas prices and lots of headlines about Trump. Oh, and lots of lousy Republican candidates. And abortion, of course.

B: Maybe we should send Alito flowers. He’s done more than anyone else except Trump to help us out here.

P: The Republicans don’t seem to understand that America doesn’t really agree with them about anything except inflation. They’re better off when they’re the dog that can’t catch the car.

B: What do you think of the McCarthy agenda?

P: The fake one or the real one?

B: The fake one. We know the real one is to burn it down.

P: It’s certainly interesting that it doesn’t say anything meaningful about abortion, or Russia, or inflation.

B: It’s just a bunch of soothing malarkey intended to persuade America that the GOP doesn’t really want to burn it down, which, of course, it does. At least the extremists do, and McCarthy will do anything they say in order to be Speaker.

P: Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’m too old to be the Minority Leader again.

B: What should we do in the meantime?

P: Two things. First, talk about how the Republicans want to take away your constitutional rights. That includes, but isn’t limited to, abortion. Second, emphasize everything we’ve accomplished in the last year or so–including infrastructure, climate change mitigation funding, and legislation protecting us from the Chinese threat–and point out the lack of GOP solutions to inflation.

B: No matter what they say today, they’ll want a tax cut if they win, because that’s what they do, regardless of the circumstances.

P: Yeah, and look at how well that’s going over in the UK. Not that the Republicans care. For them, tax cuts for the rich are a kind of religion.

B: Well, let’s just hope we don’t have any unexpected drama between now and November. I’m guessing the polls are right this time. I feel pretty good about where we are.

P: Me, too, but you never know until it’s over. (She leaves)

I admired Thomas Cromwell long before it was cool. Mantel made it cool.

The books are remarkably good even if you don’t care about Cromwell as an historical figure. If you haven’t read them, you’re missing something you shouldn’t.

“Hey, hey, Mr. Putin

Ain’t it time to stop the shootin’?”

Bringing back the draft was the obvious way for Putin to escalate without creating a risk of counter-escalation by NATO. It was also a measure he desperately wanted to avoid, because it meant telling the Russian public that, notwithstanding his personal infallibility, the war was going badly, and that all of the previous state propaganda about the success of the invasion was a lie. That in turn created the danger of a higher level of opposition to the war, and by extension, to his rule, since the war belongs completely to him, and not the Russian people.

It was the draft that really mobilized the opposition to LBJ and the Vietnam War. Putin’s security services are obviously more powerful and pervasive than LBJ’s, but the risks are similar. Russian men aren’t going to want to die in Ukraine for a cause that means nothing to them.

When I was reading the Huntington book, it occurred to me that Ukraine and Canada are extremely similar. Both were once part of a political entity that also included its larger neighbor; both have populations that use two languages, one of which is shared with the larger neighbor; both are large, geographically, and have vast natural resources; and both have plenty of culture in common with the larger neighbor. The difference, of course, is that America hasn’t invaded Canada since the War of 1812, while Russia is doing its thing in Ukraine today. Why?

It all comes down to the caprices of one man: Vladimir Putin. That proves individual agency is very much alive and well, even in the 21st century.

Some of the results of the 2022 elections will have a major impact on 2024. Consider the following:

1. DO THE TRUMP ANOINTED CANDIDATES WIN? Trump endorsed apparently weak candidates in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Ohio. They are not polling well at this point in time. If they win, GOP leaders and voters will attribute their success to Trump’s involvement, and assume he still has plenty of clout with the electorate as a whole in spite of his obvious personal shortcomings and his failure in 2020. If they don’t, he’s going to be blamed, and DeSantis is going to start looking a lot better to right-wing 2024 primary voters.
2. DOES DESANTIS EXCEED EXPECTATIONS? If DeSantis wins a resounding victory in a state with a history of agonizingly close races, it will increase his appeal for 2024. If not, he’s just another guy, and the GOP may want to look elsewhere.

There are two things that can be said with reasonable certainty about Iran. First, the Iranian regime doesn’t enjoy the support of the majority of Iranians; second, the repressive elements of the regime are firmly united in their desire to wield power by both ideology and grubby self-interest. Dislodging the regime will, therefore, be extremely difficult.

The Supreme Leader will not live forever. The most likely outcome of his death will be a seamless transition to someone just as awful–just think of Cuba after Fidel. That is not a done deal, however. It is at least conceivable that there could be competing candidates for the job and that the regime could show some cracks that could be exploited by the opposition.

If it is ever going to happen, it will be then. Pressure from the West has not, and will not, result in regime change, but divisions at home might.

Thanks to Trump and Bibi, America is in a position of choosing between a bad Iran deal and no deal. The first alternative reduces the danger of an Iranian bomb, but not to the extent that the previous deal did, and provides the regime with more resources to build ballistic missiles and support its allies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. The second alternative means there is no way to stop an Iranian bomb except war. There is no good choice here; which is worse?

The regime needs whatever money it can get to improve the lives of its citizens. Its ability to do mischief outside of its borders is constrained by the fact that the vast majority of Arabs are Sunnis. To my knowledge, its ballistic missiles will have difficulty penetrating Israel’s Iron Dome system. On the other hand, an Iranian bomb might cause MBS to want one of his own, and God knows what happens after that. In addition, it would call Israel’s ability to intervene in Lebanon and Syria into question, as the Iranians could plausibly put their allies under their new nuclear umbrella. Finally, a war to stop the bomb would be exactly what America doesn’t need at a time when we should be focusing on containing Putin and Xi.

On balance, I would say the no deal option is worse, although I would concede that reasonable persons could differ on this issue. One thing is for sure–Biden has no incentive to make the decision until after the election, particularly in light of the illness of the Supreme Leader and the new unrest in Iran.

DeSantis has a very full record on culture war issues, but not much of one on fiscal and economic questions. If he runs against Trump in 2024, will he be tempted to wear the mantle of national conservative?

It would make sense on a variety of levels. First of all, it would obviously set him apart from Trump, who is a completely orthodox GOP proponent of tax cuts and deregulation for business. Second, it would open up a populist avenue of attack that would distinguish him from every possible opponent except Hawley with the reactionary base, which has no inherent love for big business. Finally, there is nothing in his background or personality which suggests that DeSantis is in love with business. By all accounts, he hates chasing campaign contributions; that sort of donor stroking is best left to his wife.

I still doubt he will have the nerve to run against Trump if push comes to shove, and I can’t be sure he would take the next step and antagonize the powers that be in the GOP by preferring workers to capitalists. I have to believe he will give it serious consideration, however. He is making his name by throwing red meat to the base; this would be another way of doing it.

Unlike Trump, who needs the MSM to serve as a foil, Richard Nixon genuinely hated left-wing media figures. He used all of the powers at his disposal to bring them to heel. But he was never in a position to legislate their rights away, and the judicial system was there as a backstop against First Amendment rights violations. The danger he presented to free speech was, therefore, pretty limited.

DeSantis appears to have roughly the same level of animosity towards any media that lean to the left of Fox News. Unlike Nixon, he has shown that he can push legislation restricting the rights of media companies through the system, and he has a friendly judiciary standing behind him. Would the First Amendment rights of blue people be protected if he is elected president? You would be a fool to assume so.

It can be hard to remember now, but for the first two years of his term, Ron DeSantis was an innocuous, forgettable governor. He didn’t hate government or state employees, like Rick Scott. He actually appeared to care a bit about water quality. His initial responses to the pandemic were within the mainstream, even if he seemed to put more emphasis on protecting the elderly, who were members of his political base, over other at-risk groups. So what happened?

I think the poorly researched story accusing him of corruption in the pandemic, and the response from his base, was his a-ha moment. He went from imposing his will on businesses and governments over masks to fighting for the interests of the unvaccinated to questioning the value of the vaccine. He then took the next step and started using the power of state government to roll back the constitutional rights of his critics–turning tweets into legislation, you could say. Now he is flying refugees at state expense to Martha’s Vineyard. What’s next?

DeSantis will be running for president, either in 2024 or 2028, as America’s most rigorous proponent of Orbanization. It is up to Florida’s voters to make it clear that Orbanization is not a political winner for the GOP.

Steve Bannon sounds a lot like a Huntington disciple. When he isn’t bashing wimpy liberals and calling for reactionaries to “burn it down,” he’s arguing that China is an existential threat to Western civilization. He has major issues with Islam, too. Would Huntington approve of him?

Not really, for two reasons. First of all, Huntington clearly distinguishes between the West and Orthodox civilizations, whereas Bannon does not. Bannon consequently sees Russia as a logical ally against America’s enemies, which doesn’t necessarily follow from Huntington’s analysis. Second, Bannon has a nationalist strain in his thought that logically makes mobilizing the entirety of Western civilization against its adversaries impossible. The EU and NATO embody Huntington’s views; Bannon wants to break them up.

I spent a good portion of last week reading Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations.” If you’re interested in geopolitics, and you haven’t read it, I will tell you that I can’t imagine a book that is more important than this one. As a result, I will be posting about it throughout the week.

The book was written in 1996, but it essentially foresaw, in one way or another, everything that has happened in the last 25 years. The rise of China, Islamic fundamentalism, identity politics both here and abroad, Russian imperialism–it’s all there.

Huntington divides the world into nine civilizations: West; Orthodox; Islam; Sinic; Latin America; Japan; Africa; Hindu; and Buddhist. Each of these civilizations comes with an identity that is non-negotiable when threatened by another group. Conflicts between civilizations–particularly between the West on one hand and the Sinic and Islamic groups on the other–can lead to disaster.

Huntington basically anticipated every geopolitical fault line that is in the news today, but his predictions about some of them turned out to be wildly incorrect. These include:

1. Ukraine: Huntington says Ukraine will either fall slowly into the Orthodox sphere of influence (i.e., become a Russian vassal state) or break up. He didn’t anticipate Putin’s invasions and the resulting rejection of Russian hegemony.
2. Japan and Korea: Huntington puts Korea in the “Sinic” zone as a unified whole. He also predicts that Japan will move away from the West and closer to China. In reality, South Korea and Japan have edged closer to the West in response to aggressive Chinese and North Korean behavior.
3. Islamic fundamentalism: Huntington identifies this as a trend, even before 9/11, but does not foresee its ultimate failure as a ruling concept. The Islamic world is notable more for its divisions than its unity today.
4. Soft and hard power: Soft power does not inevitably follow hard military and economic power. The Chinese have less of it today than they did a decade ago.

What you should take away from these faulty predictions is that ideology, individual agency, and big power politics sometimes prevail over issues involving corporate identity. I don’t think Huntington would have disagreed with that. The validity of the book’s thesis is still intact.