Cromwell

Marco Rubio told a group of European security bigwigs in Munich that Europe and America are united by culture, ethnicity, history, and Christianity. Liberal democracy did not make the cut. Does Rubio’s formula make sense?

Ignore the fact that few Europeans are practicing Christians. Disregard the vast differences in ethnicity between 21st century America and Europe. Focus, instead, on the role that Russia plays in the formula. If Rubio is right, Russia should be on the same team as the rest of Europe, and there should be no war with Ukraine.

But there is. To the extent we share characteristics with the Europeans, the story has to revolve around the battles against Nazi and Russian despotism, not language, ethnicity, or religion.

On the one hand, Trump has cut the auto manufacturers’ regulatory costs, created new tax incentives for new car purchases, and negotiated slightly more access for sales in Japan and South Korea. On the other hand, he has increased their costs with tariffs, wreaked havoc with their supply chains, and destroyed the value of billions of dollars of investments in electric car production. Is Trump a blessing or a curse to the carmakers?

In the long run, Trump clearly wants them to build gas-powered cars. Since the rest of the world is going electric, complying with his vision will make the American companies uncompetitive everywhere but here. My guess is that they will respond by hedging their bets. Since they are already behind with electric cars, this will be the worst of all worlds.

At first glance, the NSS looks reassuring to Taiwan hawks, because it emphasizes the need to maintain freedom of navigation in the sea lanes east of China. The basis for Trump’s concern, however, has nothing to do with the vulnerability of Japan and South Korea; it revolves solely around potential Chinese rent-seeking for vessels traveling to and from the US. What does this mean for our allies in the Pacific?

It means a spheres of influence agreement that excludes their interests is still very much in play for Trump.

All American presidents prior to Trump would have defended Taiwan on the basis that it is a friendly liberal democracy facing a totalitarian aggressor. Trump couldn’t care less about that. He identifies with the powerful predator, not its potential victim.

Trump’s predecessors would also have valued Taiwan as a capitalist state with a vital role in the world economy. Trump sees Taiwan’s chip industry and wants it for himself.

That leaves the defense of the sea lanes around China as a potential reason to defend Taiwan. More on that in my next China post.

J: Hey Alex! Happy Presidents Day!

H: Thinking about Washington and his legacy gives me great pleasure. I wish I could say that about the current president.

J: I’m guessing we agree on what has happened in Minneapolis.

H: It’s what you would expect from an ignorant, narcissistic thug. He just wants to terrorize the population to prove he is the boss.

J: Isn’t that what you and Washington did in response to the Whiskey Rebellion?

H: The country was in its infancy then. We had to take strong measures to make sure everything didn’t fall apart. Washington basically pardoned everyone afterwards. It wasn’t the same thing at all. Anyway, you did the same thing.

J: Me? I tried to limit federal power to the absolute minimum.

H: Not during the embargo, you didn’t. You exercised federal power to an extent that I only dreamed of. And it didn’t even work.

J: I was just trying to keep the country out of a war we had no chance of winning. You have to agree with me on that.

H: The embargo was a bad idea, but I will concede your good intentions. I won’t do the same for Trump.

J: In the end, we do agree on that. Enjoy the holiday.

Assume I am right. Assume that tens of millions of Americans are now unemployed due to AI, but the capitalists are unwilling to pay for a vastly expanded welfare state. What will the government do to maintain social peace?

Use the military to plunder the wealth of the rest of the world, of course. Hey, it worked for the Romans and the Spanish, among many others.

Trump is a great student of history, so I’m sure that’s what he has in mind.

Ai will undoubtedly increase productivity and wealth in our country as a whole. But what impact will it have on average workers? Will it create more good jobs than it destroys? Who will get the benefits from the additional wealth? And how long will the process take?

Nobody really knows the answers to these questions. The one prediction I feel comfortable making is that the techno-aristocrats will not voluntarily share much of their new wealth. This is based on two observations: first, they are contemptuous of average workers; and second, the beneficiaries of globalization refused to compensate the losers, with results we are feeling today.

I can easily imagine a world in which the fabulously rich aristocrats hire millions of newly superfluous workers to serve as retainers in lieu of creating a better welfare state. Welcome to the feudal system, 21st century style.

It was a foregone conclusion that Trump would overturn the endangerment finding on greenhouse gases. The interesting thing is how he did it. Instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel for outlier opinions on climate change, the administration is attempting to reinterpret the law in a manner that has no support in the text or the case law.

Trump is clearly swinging for the fences in the expectation that the Supreme Court is fully on board with his deregulation agenda. He might well be right. On the other hand, he will almost certainly lose in the lower courts, and the Supremes should be reluctant to overturn a recent Roberts Court precedent. If they do, it will be another reason for the next Democratic president to go to war with them.

A District Court judge wrote a ringing opinion granting Mark Kelly a preliminary injunction against Hegseth’s attempt to impose military discipline on him. In addition, it has come to light that a grand jury has refused to indict six Democratic members of Congress, including Kelly, for the same comments about disobeying unlawful orders.

Six members of Congress sounds a bit like the case against the seven bishops, don’t you think? The James II analogy gets stronger every day.

It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that some of our most prominent and successful athletes are the children of immigrants. You know, the kind of people that J.D. says are second-rate Americans.

Someone should ask him how he feels about that. Does he only root for “Heritage Americans”? The nation wants to know.

He was an authoritarian who refused to pretend otherwise. To him, life was all about power; nothing else really mattered. He surrounded himself with sycophants and humiliated them at every opportunity. Anyone who dared to oppose him was crushed, typically in a great spectacle of brutality.

Is it Trump or Caligula? You decide.

David French, who would know, compares the authoritarian streak of MAGA to a river; when it is stopped by a dam, it seeks a way around it. What does that mean for Trump and ICE?

It means the spectacle of dominance in Minnesota will end, but it will be revived in a blue state that creates a more popular target. Bet on California, Pennsylvania, or New York, the last being the most obvious choice.

On the Trump private army called ICE.

Its tactics you’d hardly call nice.

A new shutdown looms

Over Trump and his goons.

Screw me once, that’s on you, but then twice?

Reining in ICE is an objective worthy of a shutdown. The cause appears to be popular, and the Democrats’ demands are reasonable. Recent history shows us, however, that shutdowns have negative side effects, and the blue team wants to avoid another “defund the police” episode. So how does this end?

Both sides will be motivated to settle. There will be a brief shutdown, followed by a compromise, followed by repeated attempts by ICE to avoid the new restrictions.

Trump and Rubio are predicting the implosion of the Cuban regime following the loss of its last major benefactor. We’ve been hearing that prediction for 60 years, however. Is this the time it comes true?

Life in Cuba is even more wretched than before. If misery alone caused communist regimes to fall, however, the USSR would have died in the 1920s, and Mao’s government would have collapsed during the Great Leap Forward. Obviously, the answer lies elsewhere.

The regime will fall when the leadership doubts the merits of the system, loses its taste for repression, and tries half-measures of reform. That’s what happened to the USSR.