Cromwell

There are three reasons why gas prices are so much higher than they were a year ago. First, the strong and unexpectedly rapid recovery has boosted demand. Second, the Ukraine war has impacted supply. Finally, supply has also been reduced by a lack of investment in refinery capacity and new drilling, which in turn has been caused by perfectly reasonable doubt that putting money into a product that is supposed to be phased out ASAP makes economic sense.

Biden obviously has no regrets about the speed and magnitude of the recovery, which may now be faltering, in any event. He can’t do anything about the war unless he’s willing to sell out the Ukrainians, which he isn’t. That leaves the investment problem. Can the government help with that?

Yes, if the will exists. Gasoline is a transitional fuel. We’re going to need it for the next several years. Since the private sector has little incentive to invest in additional capacity for use for such a limited period of time, the government can either provide guarantees and subsidies to the private sector to increase capacity and keep prices low on an interim basis, or stand back and tolerate high prices until the transition is complete.

Both approaches would work, in different ways. It will come down to politics, as usual.

A column in yesterday’s NYT introduced me to an extreme right-wing ideology called Seven Mountains Dominionism, which holds that white American Christians are entitled to rule America by divine right, and must do whatever is necessary to gain control of every aspect of American society, including the media, the educational system, and government. According to the column, these ideas, like the “Great Replacement Theory,” are becoming increasingly mainstream in the GOP.

While I was reading this, I was contemplating an article in Politico which described the ferocious ongoing battle between J.K. Rowling and some trans activists about trans rights, and wondering what planet these people live on. This is the kind of vacuous dispute which divides and discredits the left and provides fuel for the far right. It will make the victory of the Seven Mountains people much more likely.

Do you hear the strains of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” in the background?

The purpose of Orbanization is the acquisition of permanent political power and the liquidation of effective and meaningful dissent through the following means: extreme gerrymandering; the identification and vilification of straw man enemies, both at home and abroad; opportunistic corruption; the politicization of administration, the legal system, and law enforcement; and the elimination of opposition media through acquisition and harassment. The GOP as a whole is taking care of the gerrymandering part, with some assistance from a friendly Supreme Court; Trump’s first term featured all of the other elements except the elimination of opposition media.

Since Trump has no interest in policy, Orbanization is likely to be the focal point of a second term. The real questions here are:

1. How open will he be about his desire to destroy liberal democracy during the campaign?
2. Will his lesser vices–laziness, vanity, and an inability to focus–inhibit his ability to effectively Orbanize America?

I don’t know the answers to those questions for certain, but my best guesses are that he will be very open about his disdain for constitutional government, since the base agrees with him on that point, and that the extreme right-wingers around him will keep the project on track this time.

I will give you a break from pessimism and suggest a plausible scenario for the GOP in 2023-4. Liz Cheney runs for president, not because she thinks she can win, but because she believes she can take down Trump. And she does. She turns him into a mass of quivering jelly during a series of debates. Trump’s approval ratings plunge, and several other GOP candidates jump into the race. American politics become slightly more normal.

Sounds a bit like a GOP version of McCarthy in 1968, no?

Let’s face it: I don’t know if inflation will be a real problem in 2024, and neither do you. Trump undoubtedly hopes it is, because it will give him a large stick with which to beat the Democrats. If it is, however, it will also betray the vacuousness of his economic thought, and those of his fellow Republicans.

The logical solution to excess demand is enforced austerity. Trump doesn’t do austerity; he’s a populist, after all. It is highly unlikely that he will embrace his inner Rick Scott, if one even exists. Instead, he will call for more tax cuts, which would only make things worse, because that’s what Republicans do. In addition, if the Ukraine war is still going on, he would probably argue that changing sides and aiding Putin would reduce gas prices. More on that in a later post.

For virtually my entire adult life, there was always at least one swing justice on the Supreme Court. First, it was Justice Powell, and then it was Kennedy. They gave both sides hope that the system could be made to work in their favor. The reasonable possibility of success gave the system legitimacy.

That is no longer true. There are no swing justices on the current Court. Roberts and Kavanaugh are on the same train, with the same ultimate destination, as the other four reactionaries; the difference is that they occasionally believe the train needs to slow down a bit to maintain public support for the Court.

So how will the left react when it realizes it can’t win culture war cases? First, with sullen acceptance; later, by proposing significant constitutional change and by refusing to comply with obnoxious federal court orders. It’s just a matter of time.

Unlike most of his supporters, Trump is highly conflicted on the issue of abortion. On the one hand, his sexual history speaks for itself, and he clearly thinks that prohibiting abortion will cost him votes among suburban women. On the other hand, his Supreme Court justices made Dobbs possible. No one is more responsible for the current state of affairs than he is.

Trump’s desire to stay in lockstep with his base will prevail over any other considerations, his vanity excepted. If he wins, and the GOP has a majority in both houses of Congress, it is highly likely that we will see a national abortion bill speeding through the system, and that he will sign it. Would he make any efforts to tone it down? Quite possibly, but they will be quiet and behind the scenes.

Putin may be all-powerful in the political sphere in Russia, but even he can’t control the sun and the wind. Neither can MBS. As a result, there is no necessary conflict between American efforts to fight climate change and reach energy independence.

The Ukraine war has given this old issue new urgency. While the private sector has made progress on its own, it could use some help in funding innovation and the infrastructure for electric cars. Unfortunately, due to the GOP and its cult of self-reliance, none is likely to be coming at the federal level.

California can’t do anything about the use of fossil fuels in power plants in Texas, but it has a large say in the kind of cars we buy and drive. If the state uses its regulatory power to push the car companies to move faster, and some of its budgetary surplus to fund a system of charging stations, that will serve as a powerful example to the rest of the country, and will change the economics of electric car ownership. Let’s hope they do it.

Happy Independence Day!

When you compare the first 18 months of Biden’s administration to the last years of the Trump regime, you are struck more by the amount of continuity than by the differences. The tone is completely changed, of course. But the following items were not, due to a lack of votes in Congress and a high level of concern about political blowback:

1. Biden complied with Trump’s Afghanistan withdrawal agreement;
2. The Trump tax cuts have not been repealed;
3. Trump supported the 2021 stimulus;
4. The Trump tariffs on China are still in effect; and
5. Biden has not entered into a new agreement with Iran.

Where would we be today if Trump had actually remained in office? Inflation and unemployment would be at about the same levels, and our position in the Middle East would be roughly the same. The big difference, of course, is our willingness and ability to work with our partners in both Europe and Asia to contain China and Russia. Trump would have done his best to help Putin in Ukraine, and would have tried to take on the Chinese on his own.

Since Biden does not present an easy target for Trump’s identity politics gambit, and the man on golf cart has little interest in policy, his campaign is bound to be primarily about the “corrupt” establishment and the “rigged” 2020 election. He will grumble about inflation and falling markets, but say little about what he would do to improve matters. In short, it will be a campaign heavy on personality and owning the libs, and extremely light on any vision except of the man with the orange face in the mirror. Just like 2020.

I had always assumed that Trump would wait as long as possible before making an announcement about his candidacy. That way, he could get more people to kiss his ring, and keep his options open. The NYT, however, has reported that an announcement could be imminent, which surprises me.

Maybe it shouldn’t. Announcing early has some clear advantages for Trump. It makes it easier for him to argue that any potential prosecutions are politically motivated. It gives him a larger megaphone with which to shape public impressions of the work of the January 6 committee. Anything that attracts attention is always welcome, of course, and he absolutely loves running for president (being president, not quite so much). Finally, and most importantly, it would mean that DeSantis could not blunder into running against him. Trump will be the presumptive nominee the minute he announces, and anyone who dares to take him on will be fully aware of the consequences.

For the GOP, an early announcement prior to the midterms would be a disaster. It would put Trump and January 6 in the foreground of the campaign, which is the last thing McConnell and McCarthy want. It will increase turnout among otherwise disaffected Democratic voters. It will also attract attention to Trump’s idiosyncratic views about Russia and Ukraine at the least appropriate time. For Trump, however, concerns about the welfare of the party will always take second place to the interests of the man in the mirror.

So what would Trump actually say on the stump? Even more importantly, how would he govern, if he wins? I will be addressing the likely events of a second Trump term throughout the week.

Question presented: Can a state government completely ban the sale of AR-15s to private citizens?

For the would-be sellers and owners: Hey, everyone owns an AR-15! They’re as common as Japanese cars! That makes them analogous to 18th century muskets. They can’t be prohibited.

For the state: Are you high? The AR-15, in addition to having no legitimate public purpose when owned by a private citizen, has destructive power far greater than a hunting rifle, which is the appropriate analogy for a musket. It’s destructive power that controls here, not the number in circulation. The state can ban AR-15s.

How do you suppose Justice Thomas disposes of this one?

If Trump does, in fact, have to run against DeSantis, he is bound to lose at least some of the primaries. As in 2020, would he attribute his defeats to “rigged” elections, even if they are run by Republicans exclusively for Republicans?

Of course he would! He did it when he lost to Cruz in 2016. And the gap between him and the remaining respectable members of his party would widen even further.

At a summit also attended by leaders from Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, NATO revised its mission statement to discuss the “challenge” presented by China. The document is also harshly critical of Chinese behavior in a variety of ways. The Chinese responded, as usual, by suggesting that the US is leading the rest of the developed world by the nose and threatening consequences for Europe, a key trade partner.

Xi has to be alarmed; encirclement is becoming more of a reality every day. But what did he expect? Did he think that China could engage in belligerent “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, throttle the rights of people in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, continually threaten Taiwan, and openly support Russian aggression without provoking a response from the liberal democratic world? Did he believe that China has so much money, it can buy off even countries with far larger per capita GDPs?

We used to be told that China was sensitive to the analogy putting it in the position of the German Empire prior to World War I. Xi seems to have forgotten that lesson. Having effectively given Putin a blank check in Ukraine, he increasingly resembles the blustering Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1914.

The first phase of the Ukraine war–the blitzkrieg that wasn’t–was a disastrous failure for the Russians. The second phase–terror, slow and indiscriminate destruction, and strangulation–is coming to an end, and will almost certainly end inconclusively. What happens in the third phase?

It will focus on the international and political elements of the war. Putin will be hoping that the increased cost of gas and food will dampen the enthusiasm for the war among NATO members, and that he will have support from starving Third World countries. Biden’s job will be to prevent that. So far, he has done well.

Trump held off making his announcement as long as possible, because it was his way of attracting attention and exerting authority over the other candidates. Finally, DeSantis had had enough. He announced his candidacy in the summer of 2023, explaining that he assumed that Trump had decided not to run, and sounding as deferential as possible to the man on golf cart.

Trump was outraged, as anyone would have predicted. He announced that he would take on the ungrateful “Ron the RINO” within days. He attacked DeSantis, amusingly enough, for being irresponsible on the “Trump vaccine.” He claimed DeSantis was a closet environmentalist who was soft on fossil fuels. He said DeSantis didn’t really care about illegal immigration and had presided over an increase in violent crime. But mostly, he went on and on about how DeSantis had failed to support him adequately on January 6. DeSantis was not a true counterrevolutionary, he fumed. He had to go, along with all of the rest of the corrupt establishment.

DeSantis, for his part, was much more moderate in tone, but as the campaign got uglier, he took stronger stands on Trump’s failures in office and on his irresponsibility on January 6. Tucker Carlson was appalled; to him, this was the right-wing equivalent of Sanders fighting with Warren. Couldn’t they just work together and get along? The answer was no; there was too much at stake.

In the end, the GOP voters split pretty evenly over the January 6 issue. Biden waited in the wings to take on a badly divided party.