Cromwell

Having argued that the expansion of NATO to Eastern Europe made his Ukraine invasion a matter of national life and death, Putin is now faced with the likelihood of Finnish and Swedish membership. A bogus cause has turned into a real effect. But from the American perspective, is expansion a good idea?

In my opinion, the following criteria should control:

1. Is the applicant country democratic and stable enough to be worth protecting?
2. Does it have the resources and will to carry its weight within the alliance?
3. Is it likely to become a tripwire that could lead to World War III?

Sweden meets all of these standards with room to spare. Finland creates issues with #3, but both the Russian Empire and the USSR had limited strategic objectives there, so the likelihood of a Russian invasion would be relatively low. The Ukrainian request for membership, however, comes with few advantages and immense risk to the alliance. The Ukrainians certainly aspire to a liberal democracy, and have shown the willingness to do whatever it takes to maintain their sovereignty against great odds, but does Ukraine meet the first and third standards? I would say not.

Snyder thinks we should be willing to call out Russian fascism for what it is. Is he right?

Yes. Some years ago, I did an analysis of fascism and applied it to Putin’s Russia. At the time, I argued that Russia was in a gray area between an extreme version of illiberal democracy and fascism, given that Putin was still showing some limited respect for elections and the rule of law. As a result of the war, he has moved out of the gray area. He is a fascist, period. We should not be afraid to say so.

Imagine that you are the leader of a large Third World country. You didn’t approve of Putin’s invasion, but you refused to openly condemn it because you rely on Russian weapons, you have doubts about the reliability of the US, and (ahem) you have some authoritarian leanings yourself.

The problem is that the war is doing your country enormous harm. Food prices are soaring. Capital is leaking out of the country as the US raises interest rates to combat inflation that is related, in part, to the war. Your people are getting desperate, and your hold on power is getting shaky. Something needs to be done.

Wouldn’t it make sense to get together with some of your influential non-aligned friends and demand that Putin end the war? If enough of you join the effort, he won’t be able to ignore you.

Something like this has to happen in the near future unless China is willing to support the war by paying to feed the entire Third World, which seems pretty unlikely.

Notwithstanding its overwhelming advantages in men and firepower, the initial phases of the Soviet attack on Finland were a humiliating disaster. At one point, Hitler even offered to help. The Soviets made adjustments, however, and ultimately crushed the Finnish defenses. Finland didn’t completely lose its sovereignty, but it had to sign a painful peace treaty.

Obviously, this is the scenario that has to concern Ukraine’s friends, even after its initial successes. Thus far, however, it isn’t happening. There are two factors that distinguish this conflict from that one. First, Ukraine is far larger than Finland relative to its opponent; second, it is getting extensive assistance from NATO. The Finns didn’t get any help from anyone.

Will that be enough to dictate a different result? I would say yes, but we’ll see.

C: Do you know why you’re here?

S: To talk about Brandon?

C: I suppose you have one of those flags?

S: You bet! I have a t-shirt, too! I thought about wearing it today, but I figured it would piss you off.

C: You figured right. Am I safe in assuming that you think Biden is the worst president ever, and that Trump would be infinitely better?

S: Absolutely!

C: We’re going to deconstruct that opinion. Where, in your view, has Biden failed the country?

S: Where do I begin? We’ll start with Ukraine. He hasn’t been tough enough on Putin.

C: So says a supporter of the man who called Putin a genius just before he invaded, who openly said he believed Putin over his own intelligence services, and who withheld weapons from Ukraine in an effort to blackmail its president. Biden has sent billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine.

S: Trump didn’t mean any of that stuff. He just sucked up to Putin in an effort to keep him under control. When Biden stopped doing it, trouble began.

C: So you think appeasing Putin is the way to keep him happy?

S: Only if Trump does it. He’s the only one who can keep him under control.

C: Let’s move on. What else?

S: Afghanistan, man. The way we left there was a disgrace.

C: But Biden was just following an agreement signed by Trump.

S: Trump didn’t mean it. He would have bombed the crap out of those people, and things would have been different.

C: How do you know that? Even assuming that Trump would have broken his own agreement, how would bombing have helped once the Taliban had persuaded the Afghan military to give up?

S: The Taliban would have been too scared of him to challenge him. He’s a bad dude, you know.

C: Yeah, right. What else?

S: Inflation is terrible. We didn’t have that under Trump.

C: How did Biden cause supply chain problems?

S: He and the Democrats spent way too much money. That’s the reason we have inflation.

C: What, like the stimulus payment?

S: Yeah.

C: Do you realize that Trump supported the stimulus?

S: I don’t believe it.

C: It’s true. And would you give yours back in exchange for a slightly lower rate of inflation?

S: Of course not. My stimulus payment wasn’t the problem. It was the payments to the other, undeserving people that caused inflation.

C: This is getting more entertaining by the minute. Anything else?

S: Joe Biden is way too woke. Trump would take care of that.

C: I will admit that a small portion of the Democratic Party is woke, and that Trump definitely isn’t. I would like to know, however, what exactly Biden has done that was woke. He’s an old white guy, after all.

S: He appointed that black woman to the Supreme Court. Trump wouldn’t have done that.

C: Point conceded. However, there would have been no vacancy to fill if Trump were president. Breyer wouldn’t have retired.

S: Biden’s still woke, because his party is. He has to take responsibility for everything his party says and does, because he’s the boss.

C: So, by that standard, Trump is a white Christian nationalist who murders black people in Buffalo and tries to overthrow the elected government.

S: We’re done here.

The Stalin biography that I am currently plowing through also contains a detailed sketch of Hitler’s personality. According to the book, in contrast to the workaholic Russian tyrant, Hitler was lazy. He enjoyed manipulating the people around him and demanded that they suck up to him. He was capricious–or, as he would have put it, flexible in his tactics. He preferred to rely on his own instincts rather than the opinions of experts and the available data. He had an intense belief in his own infinite awesomeness. And, of course, he lied all the time.

Is this ringing any bells?

I doubt anyone would say that Reconstruction, and the occupation of the Confederacy by the Union Army in particular, was a ringing success. Based on that experience, you probably would have assumed in 1945 that the occupation of Germany after World War II would be a colossal failure. You would have been wrong. How do we account for the difference?

In both cases, the devastation of the occupied land was nearly total. It would seem, however, that the embittered residents of the Confederacy were more emotionally invested in their antebellum society than the Germans were in the Third Reich. In addition, the Allies felt they had carte blanche to try to remake German society, while attitudes towards the Confederates were still softened by feelings of national unity and respect for property rights and constitutional norms.

Just as the events of January 6 were the logical result of Trump’s campaign against the “rigged” election, the Buffalo Massacre is a logical response to repeated public statements about the “Great Replacement.”

Do you think Tucker will express any remorse for this? I’m not holding my breath. In fact, he will probably portray himself as a victim of some sort, because that’s what he does.

One other observation–a good guy with a gun can’t stop a bad guy with a gun who is wearing body armor. Could the NRA be persuaded to permit the regulation of armor, in lieu of guns? I doubt it, but they should be asked.

Rich Lowry, like countless other anti-anti-Trumpers, has embraced reactionary social ideas, but sees Trump as an unreliable vessel for them. Ron DeSantis is the man, he says. He’s competent and serious; he will pursue the reactionary agenda in a single-minded fashion; but he doesn’t really hate blue people the way Trump does, and he doesn’t have weird ideas about pulling out of NATO or pursuing industrial policy. The left, he thinks, is wrong to view DeSantis as worse than Trump. Is he correct?

It depends on how you look at it. It is unquestionably true that Trump’s narcissism and affection for dictators present a unique danger to our liberal democratic system. It is also true, however, that DeSantis has not expressed any opinions on issues such as tariffs, industrial policy, and NATO simply because they are above his pay grade as a mere governor; it is a mistake to assume that his silence means he disagrees with Trump and the base on these points. In addition, DeSantis has done nothing in Florida to suggest that he is just another tax cut and deregulation governor with a big mouth on social issues. He’s not Rick Scott, trying to drown Florida government in a bathtub for the benefit of business; he has ungratefully splashed the cash provided to him by Biden all over the state, while focusing his public comments almost exclusively on issues that warm the hearts of social conservatives and anger the left. He has shown over the last 18 months that he is a pure reactionary with nothing but disdain for the Constitution (hence, the frequent losses in court) because, in his view, that’s the path to the presidency.

Should I prefer an American Orban to a completely erratic guy who would overthrow the system to protect his ego, but who is more interested in adulation than power? That’s a tough call I would obviously prefer never to make.

Mitch McConnell has insisted for years that the filibuster is an indispensable element of the American constitutional system, even though it doesn’t appear anywhere in the Constitution itself. The Senate, according to Mitch, is the saucer where hot ideas go to be cooled. Deliberation results in wise moderation, and wild swings in policy are avoided. Democratic attempts to abolish the filibuster must, therefore, be resisted at all costs.

McConnell is now expressing a willingness to abolish the filibuster in order to facilitate a national abortion prohibition, which, of course, tells us that he never really meant any of that stuff about deliberation and wild swings of opinion. What he really meant was that the filibuster prevented left-leaning legislation on social and economic issues, but did nothing to stop GOP tax cuts, so it had value to him as long as Roe was in place. In about a month, that will no longer be true.

Are you surprised?

Food prices are soaring all over the world due to the Chinese-backed invasion of Ukraine. Authoritarian governments with impoverished populations that are supported by China may be put at risk as a result. What does Xi have to say about that?

Very little, to date. As time goes on, he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do.

One possible outcome of the war in Ukraine is that the conflict just peters out, with no political settlement. That would look a lot like Korea. Who would lose the most under those circumstances?

It would be a disaster for Putin. He would have failed to accomplish any of his political objectives, he would have to continue to pay to keep his troops mobilized, sanctions on his economy would remain in place, Finland and Sweden would probably join NATO, and Europe would make more determined efforts to cut itself off from Russian oil and gas. Russia would become completely dependent on Chinese political, economic, and military assistance. All for a few worthless square miles of ground in the Donbas.

The bottom line here is that Putin needs a deal as soon as the situation on the ground would permit him to call himself a winner. Is he aware of that yet? He’s dumber than I thought if he isn’t.

Let’s address the two questions I left hanging, in order:

1. AS A PRACTICAL MATTER, WOULD MUSK BE ABLE TO RESIST THE CALLS FOR CENSORSHIP BY THE LEFT AND RIGHT? With the left, Musk would be a hostage to events; if an insurrection or mass murder or some other disaster that could be tied directly to Twitter occurred, the calls for reform would be very loud indeed. The right, on the other hand, is going to try to expand the government’s power to override the owners of the internet companies and impose censorship on the woke left. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will. That’s the regulatory frontier for reactionaries. You’re already seeing a version of it in authoritarian states.

The best possible censorship option is an open, transparent, and democratic system, but, given the lack of trust between the right and left in our society, relying on independent billionaires may be our best option at the moment. Let’s face it–wouldn’t you prefer Musk to DeSantis?

2. CAN CLASSICAL LIBERALISM WORK IN THE CONTEXT OF THE INTERNET? Publishers and editors acted as gatekeepers during John Stuart Mill’s day. There were different gatekeepers in 20th century America, but they still existed. Musk’s vision of the internet doesn’t really include any, which pretty well guarantees that Twitter will turn into a cesspool of extremism and fraudsters.

As I noted in my last post, Musk clearly believes that the truth will prevail in an open and fair fight over the long run, and that lies and garbage will be driven out. That kind of optimism is quintessentially American, and is in our nation’s DNA; even I feel it on occasion. But our country has a short history, and has been fortunate to be separated from danger by two oceans. The experience of other nations, and our own during the Trump years, suggests to me that Musk’s optimism is misplaced. Lies and libels circulate too fast on the web to be contained without censorship, and the results can be catastrophic.

Ross Douthat argues that Elon Musk’s views are neither left-wing nor conservative; he is best understood as a man who believes in dynamic change, and thinks unfettered speech is necessary to get us there. Is Douthat right?

I would say yes. Musk strikes me as a typical techno bro libertarian who thinks that history is made by geniuses like him, who should therefore be freed of government regulation to the maximum extent possible. Or, to put it more generously, Musk is a classical liberal, who believes the truth will prevail and mankind will progress only if the marketplace of ideas is left wide open. Sure, there may be some backsliding at times, and some vulnerable people may get hurt in the process, but in the end, it will work out for the best.

Musk is clearly positioning himself as a man above party who can resist pressure to censor from both the right and the left due to his vast wealth and strength of character. That is a legitimate viewpoint, and admirable in its way. But is it realistic? Can one man, however rich and powerful, really fend off public opinion and the government by himself? And, given the unique qualities of social media, does the classical liberal position on free speech still work?

For my responses to these questions, tune in tomorrow.

For Democratic candidates, the virus is a bit like January 6; it depends on the quality of the GOP opposition. If the Republican candidate is a militant anti-vaxxer, that issue should be featured prominently in the campaign; whip up the anger of the pro-vax majority by accusing your opponent of depriving responsible citizens of their freedom and having blood on his hands. If he isn’t, then you’re probably better off letting it drop. There is no real advantage to bringing it up.