Cromwell

Fifty percent of America despises Donald Trump. Ten percent–the part that won him the election–is persuadable but dislikes the direction the country is going. The remaining forty percent is unequivocally pro-Trump; it watches Fox News or Newsmax, both of which are cheerleaders for the counterrevolution.

If the new owners of CBS decide to follow the Orban playbook and make their network another mouthpiece for Trump, they will be rejecting the majority of viewers and chasing the segment that is already committed to Fox and Newsmax. That sounds like commercial suicide to me.

The bottom line here is that CBS can only afford to move slightly to the right if it wants to retain any viewers. It will probably wind up opposed to both wokeness and the counterrevolution.

The American version, not the Chinese–Trump is trying to use National Guard troops from red states to occupy cities he hates in blue states. As you would expect, Texas is more than willing to assist. I would expect Florida to be next in line; DeSantis won’t miss such a great chance to suck up to the base.

This is Little Rock, and perhaps Appomattox, in reverse. That’s why the red states are so enthusiastic about it. Of course, if a large hurricane hits the Gulf while the Guard is deployed elsewhere, that might be a problem, but you only live once.

People are transmitters of electromagnetic energy. How do I know that? From the personal experiences I described in previous Metaphysical Monday posts and from medieval paintings, which invariably show religious figures with auras. And consider why people usually pray on their knees with their hands together. Doesn’t that resemble a transmitter? Isn’t sending a message to the other side the whole point of prayer?

What this suggests to me is that the other side, like cyberspace, is all around us; it consists of spirits operating like ultraviolet light. We can’t experience them directly under normal circumstances, but they are all around us, and when our senses are inactive, our brains can communicate with them.

Ross Douthat may have doubts about Donald Trump, but about the reactionary mission, he has none; “progressivism” has taken over our institutions, and it must be rooted out by state action. Is he right?

Here are my reactions:

1. The leaders of the evil “progressivism” he identifies in his NYT column are foreigners and businessmen. There are no–none, zip, nada–prominent woke American politicians.
2. The cultural lurch to the left that Douthat deplores so vigorously had nothing to do with Democratic control of the federal government. The universities radicalized when Richard Nixon was president. It was a conservative Supreme Court, not Barack Obama, that found gay marriage to be a constitutional right. The New York Times published and promoted “The 1619 Project” when Donald Trump was president. The backlash to George Floyd’s death also occurred during Trump’s first term.
3. To the extent that “progressivism” took over American institutions, it was partly due to self-selection (leftists don’t gravitate towards business) and partly because they won the argument in the eyes of the public. Douthat and his reactionary friends want to use the power of the federal government to overturn that victory. By using force, they will only encourage the left to dig in.
4. The GOP’s priority over the last 50 years has been to cut taxes for rich people and hold the line on the welfare state, not to do battle with cultural elites. On these issues, the right has been consistently triumphant. Douthat has nothing to say about that.

Following Francis, Pope Leo made a strong statement against climate change skeptics a few days ago. J.D. Vance likes to portray himself as a faithful Catholic. How will he defend Trump’s ongoing efforts to wreck the planet from the Pope on this issue?

I’m guessing he’ll tell Leo to shut up about climate change and stick to what really matters–abortion.

Trump would appear to have the public relations edge in the battle over the shutdown; after all, it is Congress that failed to pass the CR, not him. That’s the way it has always worked for Democratic presidents in the past. But will the same dynamic prevail this time?

Trump would have to portray himself credibly as the powerless protector of the federal workforce and the public interest to win public sympathy. Since he prefers dominance to powerlessness, at least while he is in office, he is instead using the occasion to threaten public employees and punish blue states and cities. Is bullying helpless victims likely to win the GOP more votes in 2026? The elections in Canada and Australia and the polls in Brazil suggest the answer is no.

So the government shutdown is here.

Only CLs have reason to cheer.

Now the nation must choose–

Who will win, who will lose?

Will it end by the end of the year?

At first glance, the deal offered to several prominent universities doesn’t look that egregious. Most notably, the administration isn’t trying to impose its will on hiring and admissions practices. Freezing skyrocketing tuition costs sounds like a good idea. Does that mean we should breathe a sigh of relief?

No, for three reasons. First, even though Trump isn’t trying to micromanage the universities, he is showing an open preference for conservative ideology, which is a violation of the First Amendment. I didn’t see any corresponding requirement for Hillsdale College to provide protection for liberal students. Second, the deal ignores the public interest by creating funding preferences based on conservative ideology instead of results. Finally, I am not aware of any legal authority for this kind of a deal. If the universities agree to it, what’s next?

What do these three issues have in common? All of them have solutions that are obvious to everyone. In the case of the shutdown, the answer is a credible commitment by the GOP leadership, including Trump, to hold a vote on extending the Biden Obamacare tax credits in the next few weeks. There is every reason to believe the extension would pass. What is currently lacking is the will to see it through. In this instance, it is because the leadership knows the vote will exacerbate the rift in the party between fiscal hawks and moderates.

With that in mind, when does it happen? Probably when the public becomes painfully aware of the price increases that are on the horizon which will disproportionately impact relatively old and affluent Trump voters.

Trump gave a completely inappropriate partisan speech to the military brass earlier in the week. He received no response, which must have been very frustrating to him. What conclusions should we draw from this?

Turning the military into a completely committed right-wing militia will take more time than Trump and Hegseth would like, which is a small source of comfort to the rest of us.

The PRC has now lasted longer than the USSR. How did that happen?

I think there are two reasons. First, the PRC leadership was far more willing to show flexibility on economic policy than their Soviet counterparts. Admittedly, if the USSR had adopted a state capitalist, export-driven approach to prosperity, it would not have been embraced by the capitalist world, but a significant reshaping of the economy might still have been possible without giving up political control; after all, even Lenin was willing to tolerate the NEP. Second, the USSR wasted a lot of resources and a lot of international credibility trying to impose its uninspiring political and economic model on the rest of the world. The Chinese believe too strongly in their own exceptionalism to try that.

Based on the experience of the Warsaw Pact countries, we knew what to expect in a world dominated by the USSR: collective farms; minimal private property; no First Amendment rights; no political freedom; and an economic system in which the needs of the USSR predominated. It was a terrifying, and therefore unifying, vision.

There is no evidence that China aspires to anything like that; the Chinese feel too strongly about their own exceptionalism to dictate terms to the rest of the world. What does the CCP actually want? As far as I can tell, here is the list:

1. COMPLETE SOVEREIGNTY OVER TAIWAN: The Chinese claim to Taiwan is not as strongly based in history as the government insists, but to Xi, the island is to China as Northern Ireland is to the Irish Republic–a sore thumb that needs to be eliminated.
2. SOUTHEAST ASIA IS AN UNDISPUTED CHINESE SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: Japan and South Korea would be permitted to keep their economic and political systems, but would no longer be independent actors in foreign policy.
3. ECONOMIC SELF-SUFFICIENCY: No more long and vulnerable supply lines.
4. KEEP THE REST OF THE WORLD VULNERABLE AND DEPENDENT: This particularly applies to the EU.
5. REWRITE INTERNATIONAL LAW AND REFASHION INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS TO BE MORE FAVORABLE TO CHINA: This project is already ongoing.
6. LEADERSHIP IN ALL TECH FIELDS: While the Chinese economy as a whole is struggling, the country is meeting the standards first set out in “Made in China 2025.”

Ezra Klein is tearing his hair out. He thinks the left needs to be willing to engage with millions of Americans who don’t share their values and visions of a just America, but he doesn’t want to compromise those values, either. Can those ideas be reconciled?

History shows that successful missionary work is based on three principles. First of all, do everything you can to maximize points of agreement before you try to push on the points of dispute. Second, focus your attention on the individuals who can make the biggest difference; in the Dark Ages, that meant kings, but today, it probably means pundits and influencers. Finally, if you have some sort of technology or magic trick you can use to show the superiority of your ideology, display it as quickly as possible. In today’s world, that probably translates to economic successes on the left and failures on the right.

If you were to ask Xi Jinping why the USSR imploded, he would probably give you two reasons. First, Gorbachev was a wimp; he wasn’t willing to use massive amounts of military force against his own people. The CCP didn’t make that mistake. Second, the Soviet government either couldn’t or wouldn’t make the necessary economic changes to improve the lives of the people. The CCP learned that lesson, and the rest is history.

Xi would be right about the first item, although it would hardly do him credit. Two observations are pertinent as to the second: the USSR would never have received the international support for a liberalization program that the Chinese did; and Gorbachev was a better Marxist than Xi, because he believed that a transition to a capitalist society would inevitably result in dramatic changes to the government. The CCP, in effect, proved Marx wrong on that point.

Life in the time of Trump.

The retribution’s here.

The DOJ is lashing out

To fill the left with fear.

Jim Comey is the first in line

He likely won’t be last.

So keep your head down if you must

Until the storm has passed.