Cromwell

The Know Nothings, of course, were an anti-immigrant nineteenth century American political party. For obvious reasons, they are frequently analogized to today’s GOP.

It is my understanding that some Republicans are attacking Biden’s cabinet choices on the basis that they are members of the intellectual elite, not proper populists. Leaving aside the fact that Trump frequently boasted about the Ivy League credentials of his appointees, that’s taking the concept of Know Nothing to an entirely new level.

Democrats have been beating themselves up for the underperformance of their House and Senate candidates since the November 3 election. Instead of focusing on the mistakes allegedly made by the losers, I think it is useful to reframe the question. Why did millions of Americans–most likely, Republicans and independents–choose to vote against Trump, but for Republican congressional candidates?

When you put the question that way, the answer is obvious–the public blamed Trump, but not the GOP as a whole, for the absurdly inadequate response to the pandemic. That was a perfectly reasonable position for the electorate to take. It’s not as if Mitch McConnell was encouraging people to eat bleach.

If I’m right, and I think I am, the battle between progressives and centrists after the election has been pointless. In all likelihood, the only thing the Democrats could have done differently was to obstruct the big bipartisan bailout package and hope the GOP took the blame for the ensuing misery and unemployment. That kind of decision is not within the DNA of the Democratic Party. It just wouldn’t have been right, even if the GOP, in the same position, probably would have done it without hesitation.

“Godfather II” is unusual in that it is both a sequel and a prequel. There is a good reason for that. In the prequel section, we see that the Mafia arose in America to meet a variety of needs of a vulnerable minority. In the sequel section, Italian-Americans are no longer powerless, and the mob is an anachronism. While Vito Corleone made himself a patron by providing services to his community, his son devolves into an unprincipled thug who seeks wealth and power at the expense of everyone around him, including his family. There is no longer any social value in him or his organization.

I couldn’t help but think about this as I watched the fourth season of “The Crown.” The English monarchy obviously began its life as the very real source of all political power. By the end of the 17th century, it mostly existed because it was the cornerstone of a highly hierarchical society which would have been in danger of flying apart without it. When the hierarchical society expired, the purpose of the royals became purely to serve as symbols of unity for the entire country. They are born to be human flags, not people. Is it any wonder that many of them rebel against this constraint, even if the other side of the bargain is wealth and privilege?

The monarchy will be in good hands with William, and will clearly outlive me. I’m not sure it will last forever. At some point, it will be the monarch himself, not just a remote family member, who decides he can’t live with the restrictions, and then what? Can the system survive another Duke of Windsor in a more democratic age? Maybe not.

As I’ve noted before, if you want to succeed in dragging your medieval country into modernity against its will, you had better be on a par with Peter the Great or Frederick the Great. MBS looks more like Mohammed the Mediocre; his “accomplishments” include starting a bloody and inconclusive war in Yemen, attempting to hijack the government of Lebanon, and murdering a prominent journalist with strong ties to your most important ally. It’s hard to see anything great in that.

Nevertheless, MBS has his heart in the right place in some respects, it is still early in his career, and his country is too important to be rejected or ignored. Saudi Arabia will continue to be an American ally of sorts while Biden is president. The days of unconditional love and the blank check, however, are over. It will be strictly business for the next four years.

The election told us–or, perhaps, reminded us–about three features of American politics:

1. The culture wars and the unequal geographic distribution of power create the framework for our system. Urban and suburban residents whose vision of America is a tolerant multi-racial liberal democracy vote for Democrats; exurban and rural residents who think of America as a white Christian country under threat from other races and cultures vote for Republicans. The former group is a clear majority of the country; the latter enjoys disproportionate power, in spite of its minority status, due to the workings of our federal system and the Electoral College.
2. Trump’s failures with the pandemic, attacks on our political system, and obvious personal shortcomings ultimately swayed just enough votes to cost him the election. That they were not sufficient to create a blue wave is a testament to the overriding importance of #1 above.
3. The idea, much cherished by the left, that there is an army of left-leaning apathetic voters who are just waiting to be mobilized is false. Unprecedented efforts to get out the vote by both parties resulted in something close to a deadlock. Millions of the previously apathetic voters turned out to be Trump supporters, not closet socialists. Bernie, Liz, and AOC, take notice.

During the Trump era, this country had two wildly different approaches to Russia. While Trump openly fawned over Putin and did his best to legitimize Russia’s behavior, the State Department continued to operate as if nothing had changed in the White House. As a result, American sanctions and ongoing aid to Ukraine are still in place. Russia did not receive any concrete benefits from Trump’s outrageous behavior.

The dissonance will end the day Biden takes office. Will he seek to retaliate for Russia’s intervention in our elections? Probably not. Putin may have the ethics and skills of an organized crime boss, but he isn’t the devil, and there are times when you have to do business with him. Biden is a grown man, and he will understand that.

Everyone expects–and with good reason–that Trump will abuse his pardon power between now and Inauguration Day. But will he pardon himself? What about his family and cronies?

If he were planning to head off into the sunset, I have little doubt that he would pardon himself and everyone around him who remained conspicuously loyal. Remember, however, that this is a man who still maintains that his Ukraine call was “perfect;” as far as he’s concerned, he’s never done anything wrong. In addition, acceptance of a pardon would constitute a blot on the record of the recipient, many of whom, like Trump himself, still have political aspirations of some sort.

And so, it won’t happen. The pardons won’t go to him or his inner circle; they will go to more distant figures who provided services to him at one point or another.

For most incoming presidents, with limited international contacts, it’s the Secretary of State, who serves as his window to the world. In Biden’s case, given his vast experience, that is unnecessary. He already knows everyone and what he wants.

No, the most important hire for Biden will be his Attorney General, whose first task will be to suck Barr’s political poison out of the DOJ. Our journey back from a banana republic to a genuine liberal democracy starts there.

Look for Biden to pick someone who is highly respected on both sides of the aisle. He won’t be a Republican, but he won’t be an abrasive partisan, either.

Doug Jones, perhaps?

Bush 41, Bush 43, Clinton, and Obama all tried to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions with a mixture of carrots and sticks. To that end, all of them attempted to pressure or persuade China to use its unique leverage with the regime. Unfortunately, all of them were unsuccessful. The North Korean threat did nothing but increase with time.

Trump tried a different approach: freewheeling personal diplomacy. In practice, this meant legitimizing Kim in exchange for a slowdown in the nuclear program. This approach ultimately didn’t work, either. The program still exists, with no end in site.

So what will Biden do? The legitimacy genie is already out of the bottle, so it can’t be used as a negotiating tool. My guess is that, under the new circumstances, Biden will have no objection to meeting with Kim, but that the element of unpredictability which existed under Trump will be removed. If any meetings take place, they will be preceded by the usual extensive staff groundwork.

In the end, probably none of it matters. The bottom line is that diplomatic and economic pressure don’t work with the North Koreans, and that the costs of a preemptive strike are prohibitive. Ultimately, we will have to live with a nuclear North Korea, and use standard deterrence principles to avoid war, if the regime remains (wrongly) convinced that the nuclear program is a guarantee of its survival.

Biden’s cabinet picks thus far, predictably, are highly competent, moderate veterans of the Obama administration who will undoubtedly be confirmed even by a Republican Senate. There will be no Betsy DeVos in this crowd–just lots of the deep state.

It’s so . . . conventional. It’s so . . . Biden.

After four years of pointless chaos, ain’t it great?

Like many people, I thought the relationship between Trump and AMLO would be poisonous and dangerous. That did not happen, largely because Trump’s fire was trained on immigrants from Central America, not Mexico. In the end, Trump settled for a renegotiated NAFTA that was little different than its predecessor. Life went on pretty much as before.

Still, Trump added an element of volatility that was clearly undesirable. Biden will eliminate that. Everyone on both sides of the border will be grateful.

On the 46th president Joe.

His quest has just two months to go.

Trump thrashes and sues.

In the end, he will lose

And the race will have gone to the slow.

Biden, like most Democratic presidents, is determined to make his cabinet “look like America.” How important is that? Let’s consider three propositions:

1. HAVING A DIVERSE CABINET GUARANTEES THAT THE PRESIDENT WILL HEAR A WIDE RANGE OF PERSPECTIVES: Not really. Most cabinet members don’t have significant influence on the president’s decisionmaking process on a day-to-day basis, and just providing ethnic and sexual diversity doesn’t in any way provide assurance of a range of opinions, particularly in a party with a fairly well-defined agenda.
2. HAVING A DIVERSE CABINET SENDS AN INSPIRING MESSAGE TO AMERICANS THAT MEMBERS OF HISTORICALLY POWERLESS GROUPS CAN MAKE IT, TOO: That only applies to very visible positions. Providing diversity among Supreme Court justices, for example, might matter. But do you think that anyone is inspired by Elaine Chao? How many people even know what she does?
3. MAKING A SPECIAL EFFORT TO DIVERSIFY THE CABINET ELIMINATES WELL-QUALIFIED APPLICANTS AND THUS REDUCES COMPETENCE: This isn’t like filling a local government post, with a small number of potential applicants. There are over 300 million people in America. Even if you limit yourself to, say, black women, the pool of qualified applicants will be large enough that competence won’t be a problem.

My conclusion? Diversity is meaningful to some activists, but not really to the country as a whole, either pro or con.

For Netanyahu, the Trump administration was the gift that kept on giving. Move the embassy to Jerusalem? Check. Recognize the annexation of the Golan Heights? Yes, sir! “Mediate” by applying pressure to the Palestinians? We’re on it. Tear up the Iran deal? But of course. Work out deals for recognition by Arab countries? You can count on us! Acquiesce to settlements? Coming right up!

Bibi, of course, was only too happy to reciprocate. The identification of the Israeli and American right is now complete.

Well, the party’s over, and the hangover is about to start. Biden himself is too moderate to make any kind of break with the Israeli government, but there are plenty of people in his party who have come to despise Israel for multiple reasons. That will be a big problem for both sides.

Biden isn’t going to move the embassy back, and I don’t expect him to say much about the Golan Heights. He’s not going to do anything to stop the Israelis from fighting a low intensity war against Iran in Syria. But he will return the US to its traditional role of being an independent mediator with the Palestinians, and he will try to recreate the nuclear deal, although that will be difficult, in light of changed circumstances. They won’t erect any statues of him in Tel Aviv.

A Bagehot column in a recent issue of The Economist makes the case that Princess Diana brought a more emotional style to British politics that endures to this day. The author thus sees a direct line between Diana and Boris Johnson. I’m a little bit skeptical of that thesis, but it suggested another one to me that has application here as well as the UK.

Populism, like its big brother nationalism, is more of a feeling than an idea; it is romantic, not classical. The whole point of populism is to exalt sentiment, belief, and will over reason and expertise. It cannot be refuted with logic–only results.

If you accept that populism is a romantic concept, you may find that in a sense reassuring, because the history of art tells us the pendulum inevitably swings back at some point. The down side is that the populists can do a tremendous amount of damage while they’re in control. If you don’t believe me, just think about the thirties and forties.