Cromwell

In light of my previous two posts, I have been scanning American history to determine whether there are precedents for a candidate running purely as the mouthpiece of the incumbent. Madison (Jefferson), Monroe (Madison), Van Buren (Jackson), and George H.W. Bush (Reagan) don’t really fit the bill, because they were politicians of considerable reputation in their own right. Vance, as a national figure, had about as much heft as Dan Quayle before Trump chose him as his running mate.

The closest precedent would be Taft, who ran and won as TR’s anointed candidate. You will recall that the Taft episode didn’t end well for the GOP. TR ultimately turned on him and ran as a third-party candidate, thus handing the presidency to Wilson in 1912.

As I’ve noted many times before, Harris couldn’t run on Biden’s record, because it was unjustly unpopular. She couldn’t run as a credible change agent, either. That left her with nothing except Trump’s record and the threat he posed to liberal democracy, which wasn’t enough.

J.D. Vance will be in a slightly different position in 2028. He will have to defend every inch of Trump’s record. Any initiatives of his own will have to be described as logical extensions of Trumpism. He will be running as a perpetual outsider who is actually responsible for the condition of the country.

Will it work? Only if Trump is viewed as a roaring success by the electorate, which seems highly unlikely.

When Elizabeth I was asked why she wouldn’t designate a successor, she said people worshipped the rising, not the setting, sun. Trump almost certainly understands that, which is why he persists in talking about a third term.

Consider what this means for J.D. Vance. He won’t be able to start his campaign until very late in the process. Neither Trump nor the base will forgive him if he puts any distance at all between himself and the president. In fact, I suspect he will have to portray himself as a puppet for Trump in order to get the nomination. That will be awkward, to say the least.

Where does that leave Vance if Trump is viewed as a failure by a majority of Americans? Oh, right. He’ll still have the military and the DOJ. That might be enough.

With regard to the blue team’s ostensible objective–forcing the GOP to make a deal on Obamacare subsidies–it is already clear that the shutdown has been a failure, as nobody has openly broken ranks on the issue. The most you can say is that the public’s consciousness has been raised on the issue, and the GOP will be blamed if, as is likely, the government does nothing to solve the problem after it reopens.

There are a number of dates in the near future that could trigger the end to the crisis. Open enrollment starts on November 1. The end of SNAP payments in many states will start on that date. The election is a few days later. There is no obvious reason to go on after that, because the country now knows that the Democrats have no leverage in Washington on health care or any other issue, with the possible exception of farmer aid. Period.

Will the base be satisfied with a surrender in the face of millions of poor people going hungry? I’m guessing most of it will. The real danger is that the activists will conclude that the only possible answer is on the streets and behave accordingly, because Trump will meet them with force if they get violent.

If Trump’s principal objective in Asia is geopolitical–the flexible containment of China–he should be making deals to cut tariffs with China’s neighbors. If his overriding goal is not geopolitical, but to create a lasting trade deal with China, he should nonetheless cozy up to our traditional allies in order to create leverage with the CCP. If his goals revolve around trade, however, and he makes no distinction between our allies and the Chinese, there is no reason to deepen our relationships with anyone in Asia. Which option will Trump choose?

Option #1 is unlikely. I can’t tell if he prefers Option #2 or Option #3. Chances are, he doesn’t know himself.

You will recall that Cass noted a month or so ago that it was time for kindly Uncle Donald to stop wrecking things and acting capriciously; he needed to put his program on a more stable and lasting basis through legislation, which meant working with Democrats. How is that working for him?

Just within the last week, Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on Canada because the PM of Ontario ran a commercial that pissed him off. He bulldozed the East Wing after promising he wouldn’t. He’s openly talking about regime change in Venezuela without any authorization from Congress. And, of course, he won’t bend on the shutdown, because he can’t tolerate the thought that his political opponents have any leverage over him.

In other words, as I predicted, kindly Uncle Donald is about as plausible as Uncle Joe Stalin.

The much-ballyhooed Gaza “peace agreement” is actually a cease-fire with some vague aspirations for the future. There is good reason to doubt that Phase 2 will actually be implemented. Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize, however. He won’t get one for the little that has been accomplished to date. As a result, he may be willing to push Bibi harder than usual to get the international validation he so desperately craves.

I noted during his first term that Trump’s vices are mitigated by his other vices, not his few virtues. This is a classic example of that phenomenon.

Trump is, of course, a passionate supporter of crypto, which is making him billions of dollars, at least on paper. The NYT, however, tells us today that Maduro is using crypto to avoid American sanctions and keep the Venezuelan economy afloat, at least by today’s low standards, thereby frustrating Trump’s plans to get rid of him.

The message here is that the blockchain bows to no one, not even Trump.

Trump tells the public that he won’t touch the East Wing of the White House in his effort to build a large new ballroom. Instead, without seeking the proper authorizations, he bulldozes it. The new ballroom will be funded by extremely wealthy supporters and will look like something that belongs at Versailles.

As a metaphor for his presidency, could you possibly do better than that?

What a difference a year makes! Our mountain community was wrecked by Helene in 2024, and we had no running water the week before we left. This year, the fall colors have been resplendent, and as usual, it is very painful to leave. But it is already getting uncomfortably cold, and next week will be brutal. Ready or not, we have to go.

Florida will be different, too. For once, our home will be intact. Ron DeSantis is a lame duck, largely despised by the state leadership of his own party. Wokeness has had its day; the 2026 campaign will most likely revolve around financial issues. The candidates in the governor’s race will have difficulty running the usual outsider against liberal coastal elites campaign; they will have to define themselves relative to DeSantis’ legacy. It should be fascinating.

We will have a ringside seat for it.

Oil prices are falling because the projected world demand is being crushed by Trump’s tariffs. Those same tariffs are also driving up the cost of production. The American oil industry consequently is suffering from diminished profits.

Like the farmers, oil companies are among Trump’s biggest supporters. Trump even demanded $1 billion in campaign contributions from them last year in exchange for the additional profits that were bound to roll in. What do you suppose the oil company executives are thinking now?

Maybe they’ll ask for a bailout from American taxpayers, just like the farmers. Hey, it worked for Argentina.

Trump undoubtedly wants to use tariff revenues to fund his evolving farmer aid program without any involvement from Congress. Thus far, he hasn’t been able to find any plausible legal basis for doing so. What does that mean for the future?

It is a point of leverage for the Democrats. They should demand significant concessions in exchange for opening the tariff vault to compensate farmers for the damages they are suffering as a result of the tariffs and deportations.

Ron DeSantis desperately wants to be our president, but by the end of next year, he won’t even be a governor. He can’t do much about his unpleasant personality, and he knows that his favorite wokeness horse won’t run far in 2028. What can he do to keep his hopes alive?

Focus on the issues that really motivate the base and the donor class. First, there was Alligator Alcatraz. Then he decided to support a movement to cut or even completely eliminate property taxes. And as of today, he is going back to an issue that helped inspire the Tea Party–term limits for members of Congress.

Will it work? Based on his uneasy relationship with Trump’s most avid supporters, probably not, but give him some credit for persistence.

On substance, Javier Milei’s economic program is about as anti-populist as it could be, which sets him apart from Trump. On style, however, the two are very similar. As a result, Trump is using American money to prop up the peso and offering to buy more Argentinian beef, thereby offending American agricultural interests. This level of support, however, is contingent on a victory for Milei’s allies in the upcoming election. Is that likely to work?

The Argentinians have a terrible record of paying back the IMF, and more recent history indicates that voters in other liberal democratic countries hate being bullied by Trump. You can, therefore, expect the Milei program to take an electoral battering, the peso to fall, and the failed bailout to cost us money.

If I’m right, the “America First” crowd will not be thrilled.

Most of Trump’s outrageous behavior is actually fairly predictable. Every now and then, however, he comes up with something that makes me gasp. That was the case this afternoon, when I read in the NYT that he has filed a (completely baseless) $230 million claim against the DOJ for alleged harassment starting in 2016. The fate of this claim will certainly be decided by one of his appointees, and possibly by a man who was his defense lawyer when he was out of office.

You couldn’t even make this up. Under the circumstances, I’m surprised he only asked for $230 million. Why not $15 billion, the figure he is using with the NYT?