Cromwell

Trump is fully responsible for the riot, according to Mitch McConnell. Somebody needs to do something about it. Just don’t ask him to be part of the solution, because he has too much at stake to take that kind of a risk. After all, who else can hold the mainstream and extremist wings of the GOP together? Better to make empty gestures to appease both sides, and then move on.

If you ever wondered how a small, but ruthless extremist minority can win in the end, this is your answer.

Every day, it seems, I wake up to a new article about the Biden recovery bill which makes the following points:

1. The bill is a form of disaster relief, not a stimulus. As such, it is necessary to spend as much as necessary to address the disaster. The price tag is irrelevant.
2. Sure, the $1,400 checks aren’t well targeted. So what? They’re only a quarter of the bill.
3. These ain’t the seventies. Stagflation is a distant memory. Conditions have changed. Learn to love deficit spending; as long as interest rates remain as low as they are today, there’s no real down side to deficits,

The bottom line is that there is no dispute anywhere on the left about #1, which means that most of the ink spilled over this issue is pointless. The problem is limited to #2. The checks can’t be justified as disaster relief, because millions of them will go to people who aren’t suffering, and they aren’t helping to win votes from GOP senators, so what purpose do they serve? They are either a form of stimulus, even though the bill isn’t being sold as a stimulus package, or they are just an outright bribe to the electorate. And even if they are just a quarter of the package, that constitutes a huge sum of money that could be spent on something far more useful.

This wouldn’t matter if we could be absolutely certain that the unnecessary stimulus won’t result in higher interest rates. It is possible that it won’t under today’s conditions. But the laws of supply and demand haven’t been repealed, so we don’t know that for sure; what we do know is that higher interest rates will cause the markets to fall and will boost the GOP. Does the benefit justify the risk?

Imagine that you, and not Jefferson, are in charge of writing the Declaration of Independence. How is it similar, and how is it different?

Here is how I would have written it, with the advantage of over 200 years of hindsight:

1. You would, of course, include a long list of grievances with Great Britain, and explain how you tried to resolve them peacefully. Jefferson did that. It constitutes the bulk of the document.
2. You would use some form of contract theory to justify the rebellion. Jefferson did that, too, although it is more implicit than explicit.
3. You would make it clear that government is a human institution, subject to change at the will of the people, not an arrangement sanctioned by God which cannot, therefore, be revised. Jefferson makes that point pretty emphatically.
4. You would make the case that America, due to its unusual origins, cultural diversity, and physical distance from Great Britain, is a separate nation entitled to run its own affairs. Jefferson did not make that point. The Declaration is written as a statement made by individual sovereign states in what might be a temporary alliance, not a manifesto written on behalf of a new, united American nation. In other words, the distinction in the document is subtle, but the clear emphasis is on “states,” not “united.”
5. The Declaration talks about natural laws, the “God of nature,” and a “Creator.” Those are emphatically not orthodox Christian terms; they are Deist. I have no issue with that; neither did Jefferson’s compatriots. White Christian nationalists in today’s America would disagree.
6. The most enduring and influential statement in the Declaration is that “all men are created equal.” Regardless of its merits, I really don’t see why Jefferson felt compelled to say it, because it isn’t essential to his argument, unless he was just trying to say that the (white) American colonists had the same natural right of self-determination as residents of Great Britain. The Declaration was designed to win hearts and minds in Europe as well as America; the French king was probably less than impressed. One thing is certain; natural equality is hardly a “self-evident” proposition.

On the 46th president Joe.

He’s the new FDR, don’t you know.

His plan won’t be cheap;

The price tag is steep.

Will the Congress provide him the dough?

The British constitution, as we know, is unwritten. It includes a variety of statutes, judicial decisions, charters, and generally-accepted norms established over the centuries.

The Founding Fathers had no choice but to create a written document, given that they did not have hundreds of years of precedents from which to work; accepting the British system as a whole was obviously not a viable option in 1787, given the very different circumstances in the former colonies. Today, however, we do, in fact, have over 200 years of experience. Things have changed, and large gaps have been filled.

I would submit to my readers that ideas such as a depoliticized DOJ, which cannot be found anywhere in the written Constitution, but which are essential to the proper operation of our political system, should be treated not just as “norms” which can be broken without penalty, but as a sort of supplement to the written document that should be treated with considerable deference by all three branches of government.

Plato and Aristotle agreed: oligarchy is a decadent form of aristocracy. “Aristocracy” is rule by a small number of virtuous, enlightened citizens; “oligarchy” is rule by a self-perpetuating group of wealthy people in their own selfish interests.

Oddly, both the extreme right and left in this country would agree that our government is an oligarchy, and that the solution is a form of populism. In the case of the right, the “oligarchy” consists of snooty left-wing professionals and cosmopolitan business owners; the solution is white Christian nationalist populism. For leftists, the “oligarchy” is a small group of extremely wealthy business people, and the solution is a populism based on minority identity politics and the financial interests of workers.

Who’s right? How about neither? The right-wing version is more dangerous, since it has no regard for our institutions, but neither is a solution to what ails America. We need more enlightened gatekeepers, not less–an “aristocratic” element (in the classical sense) in an otherwise democratic state.

The Republican leader named Mitch

Gave it out that his vote could be switched.

But it wasn’t, of course.

In the end, he’s a horse

Of a color decidedly mixed.

For the Democrats in 2022, Trump should be the gift that keeps on giving. His activity in the election will help Democratic candidates paint his open supporters as insurrectionists, while the few GOP figures who supported impeachment and conviction will probably face long, expensive primaries from Trump allies. If there is a down side to this for Democrats, it has escaped my attention.

How big a factor will Trump be? I can’t answer that right now, but here are the key known unknowns:

1. HOW MUCH ENERGY WILL TRUMP HAVE TO CONDUCT A REVENGE TOUR? He will certainly be motivated, but he will have plenty of other things to worry about over the next two years. The revenge tour could well fizzle.
2. WILL OTHER ISSUES SUPERSEDE OUR CONCERNS WITH TRUMPISM IN 2022? Not if all goes well, but it rarely does.

The bottom line is that McConnell and Trump are poised to engage in a very bloody proxy war for control of the GOP in 2022. For what it’s worth, my money is on Mitch, at least at that stage in the process. The presidential campaign is an entirely different animal; it is very possible that Trump, if he actually runs, will only meet with token opposition, since most of the other potential contenders are terrified of him and his base.

Not Trump. He can’t plausibly claim to be the victim of a partisan witch hunt after seven GOP senators voted to convict him. The images of the riot will haunt him for the rest of his political life.

Not the GOP. It is still officially the POT (Party of Trump), with some isolated dissenters who are looking at primaries in 2022.

Not the country. The GOP has shown, yet again, that impeachment is a broken reed. If Trump had shot a man in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue, they would have found some pretext to acquit him.

Not the rioters. Trump sold them out. Any attempt they might make in a future judicial proceeding to use Trump’s words to justify their behavior will fly in the face of Trump’s legal arguments.

The Democrats? Maybe. They put on a convincing case and widened the split in the GOP. They exceeded expectations by getting seven GOP votes (I predicted five several weeks ago). In the end, though, they didn’t get what they asked for, in spite of everything.

The correct answer to the question is “nobody.”

If you lived in western Europe during the Cold War and you had any sense at all, you knew what awaited you if the USSR successfully invaded your country: a drastically lower standard of living and a police state. As a result, the NATO allies could be relied upon to back America in the Cold War, notwithstanding the occasional row about, say, Vietnam, Suez, or missiles in Germany.

China presents a completely different kind of issue. The Chinese are not a looming military threat to the Europeans, and they don’t aspire to force EU residents into collective farms. The Chinese objectives are far more limited: to prevent any criticism of their regime; and to turn Europe into what amounts to an economic colony by fostering dependence on Chinese markets and products.

The bottom line is that European support for American diplomatic and trade initiatives directed at China cannot be taken for granted. Rebuilding our relationships with the Europeans will take some hard work. Scrapping tariffs would be a good start.

They openly lied, took words out of any reasonable context, and insulted the jurors. They showed little or no concern for the victims of the assault. It appeared that they were more interested in playing to the base than winning votes for acquittal.

Yes, Trump’s lawyers put on a case that only the man on golf cart could love. The only thing they left out that would have made it more obnoxious was an argument about voter fraud. Are you surprised?

Of course not.

The prevailing GOP doctrine on economic issues can be described quite simply: take money and power away from workers and the government and provide more “freedom” to business. Why? Because workers and the government are too inept to know where and how to invest their money, of course. Businessmen know how the world works. They will invest wisely; the productive capacity of the nation will soar; and everyone will prosper.

That’s the theory. Under some circumstances, there may even be some merit to it. Under today’s conditions, however, here is the result:

1. The tax and regulatory “freedom” granted to business, when combined with technological change and globalization, has resulted in a hollowing out of America’s middle class, and an ongoing shortfall in demand.
2. With few people except themselves in a position to buy anything, the wealthy invest in dollar store chains and government securities. They do not create new businesses with their cash mountains; instead, they squeeze rents out of the ones they already have by using their political and economic power, and they drive up the price of existing assets by competing for them.
3. The public sector is starved of investment. Infrastructure suffers, even when it is essential to economic growth. The logical response to a move towards a knowledge-based economy is to put money in education, but the wealthy view all kinds of public expenditures as inherently wasteful, and refuse.
4. Any attempt to bring the welfare state up to date through increased taxation of the wealthy is attacked as “socialism” and crushed by using superior contacts and resources and ratcheting up culture war issues.

But danger lies ahead for the beneficiaries of the current regime. Business interests have lost control of the GOP, largely due to its failures to help voters who don’t look like them; after all, you can’t eat culture wars. Economic nationalist ideas which threaten “freedom” are on the rise in both parties, and the legitimacy of the political system that protects property is in question.

Sometimes, you have to be wise enough to give ground in order to save what you value the most. There are some indications that elements of the business community are beginning to understand that. How far will that go, and how long will it last? Based on the events of the last forty years, it’s hard to be optimistic.

The House managers have done a good job putting the events of January 6 in historical context and connecting the dots between the rioters and Trump. They also appear to be winning the public relations battle. Now it is up to Trump’s attorneys.

They cannot avoid selling out the extreme right. Expect plenty of denunciations of the rioters. You can also expect plenty of partisan attacks on Democrats for allegedly doing the same thing, which is patently false. When it’s all done, Trump will have lost some support on both the left and the right of the GOP, but not nearly enough to be convicted. Will he retain enough fans to be the frontrunner in 2024, if he really wants the nomination? Probably.

The country was highly industrialized–the workshop of the world. The bulk of the economy was controlled by private businessmen. Inequality was soaring, with a lukewarm response from the government. The safety net was minimal, in order to save money; the government simply put the onus on individuals and families to protect themselves. Labor unions were controlled by the state. The government valued stability and prosperity above everything else; cries for economic justice from struggling workers were mostly ignored.

So what would Marx say about China? That it is ripe for revolution, of course! Chinese workers, you have nothing to lose but your iPhones!

I can’t help wondering how Trump’s attorneys plan to use their allotted time. There is no point in rehashing the constitutional argument that was fully addressed on Tuesday. Parsing Trump’s specific words at the rally and arguing they don’t constitute incitement can’t take very long. What else do they have to talk about?

I understand they will be showing video of Democrats saying provocative things about Trump, albeit in a completely different context. Will they shade into the argument that the election was stolen? I suspect they will find it difficult to avoid bringing up that explosive topic unless they are willing to rest after an hour or two.