Cromwell

We all know the pattern: Trump creates a crisis; exacerbates it by taking extreme positions; then backs down when he gets resistance and claims a “victory” by putting a hold on the issue of his own making. The question for today is, could BoJo, who negotiates in a similar style, reverse course and sell his party and the country on something like the May deal?

It would be very difficult, for two reasons. First, Boris has done his best, and with considerable success, to persuade a majority of his party that the only acceptable outcome is no-deal. Second, Boris has no national mandate to just be Boris. He’s accountable to his party, and completely dependent on it. In addition to being an even more deft and experienced liar, Trump won a national election on his own, so he can reasonably claim that the electorate chose him to be whatever he chooses to be.

It’s not completely impossible, but don’t hold your breath.

When David Cameron was the PM, the Conservative Party was dominated by its versions of the PBPs and CLs. Budget cutting, austerity, deregulation, and social liberalism were the order of the day.

Today, the situation is completely different; Reactionaries are in charge. The script has flipped; George Osborne’s austerity is over, conservative social policies are all the rage, and the interests of business are getting short shrift in the interests of delivering Brexit.

Can a Tory government grounded solely on a single faction–albeit the largest one– survive? In the long run, probably not. You can expect Boris to attempt to reunify the party once Brexit is a done deal. He will have self-interest and Labour extremism as allies, so it will probably work.

The kingdom’s vulnerability to low-tech warfare has been exposed. MBZ is already starting to back away from the ghastly war in Yemen. Will MBS (and Trump, by extension), see the problem, change course, and start looking seriously for a negotiated solution? Or will they double down?

Trump typically doubles down in his never-ending quest for leverage, but he has shown the ability on occasion to retreat and spin it as a victory. I haven’t seen MBS do that. My guess is that he will double down, and the situation will become even more perilous for everyone.

The GOP’s intense antipathy towards unions has always been a potential point of vulnerability for Donald Trump. He needs union votes to win in the swing states in 2020; anything that emphasizes the battle between capital and labor isn’t going to help him, as Scott Walker would be happy to tell you.

On the Democratic side, expect to see all of the candidates lined up to support the union. Don’t be surprised to see Bernie Sanders on a picket line, and he may well have company.

It’s a no-lose situation for the Democrats, even if it emphatically isn’t for the UAW.

Not what we needed.

Like many other right-wing strongmen, but with less excuse, Donald Trump has no understanding of basic economics. Until recently, however, investors have been eager to give him the benefit of the doubt. The theory has always been that the “good” Trump–the one who supports tax cuts and deregulation for business–could always be trusted, while the bad, capricious, tariff-loving Trump would ultimately be restrained by the adults in the room and his own self-interest.

Personally, I never viewed this as a good bet, and the chickens are coming home to roost. The point of this post, however, is that investors aren’t going to give Bernie Sanders the same benefit of the doubt. If they were wrong in thinking Trump was one of them, they aren’t going to have any illusions about Bernie, because he makes no bones about despising them. And so, if you vote for Sanders, you do so with the certain knowledge that he’s going to damage the value of your investments if he wins; it’s only a question of how much, and for how long.

A note to my readers: I will be out of town for a few days rediscovering my roots in Ohio. Regular posting will resume on Monday.

1. Would someone please slap Julian Castro for me?
2. No debate should last more than two hours.
3. This version of Beto was far more compelling, but it’s too late for him.
4. Klobuchar and Mayor Pete are sensible and articulate, but they don’t stand out.
5. Booker had an excellent night. To me, he is the most plausible of the Biden replacement group. I don’t think he made up much ground, however.
6. Sanders did his usual thing, but he looked and sounded old and tired.
7. Warren didn’t impress me. She once again conspicuously avoided the question about raising middle class taxes for Medicare-for-All, when even Bernie admits it is necessary. She used the same kind of simplistic rhetoric about the rigged system and the evils of big (fill in the blank) that Bernie always does. I didn’t hear any reason to prefer her to the real deal.
8. Biden had easily his best night. Sure, he rambled at times, but he will have reassured his donors. He made the realo case quite well, particularly on the question about what happens to wages under Medicare-for-All, which needs to be discussed at some length.

On the whole, I don’t think you will see any dramatic changes in the polls, which is effectively a win for the three front-runners.

There is an ongoing dispute within the Democratic Party as to whether the best way to win in 2020 is by converting swing voters or by mobilizing the base. My position, of course, is that history supports the swing voter approach. The question for today is, what exactly does “base mobilization” mean, in practice?

The term itself is somewhat misleading; the actual “base” consists of ideologically-driven activists who typically vote regardless of the identity of the candidate, and who can be relied upon to vote against Trump under any circumstances. The real unknown is not whether that group will vote, but whether it can be expanded to include people who are potentially sympathetic to the cause, but too apathetic to vote under normal conditions. The question which follows is, who are those people?

Bernie Sanders almost certainly thinks they are poor workers who can be motivated to vote by a program which appeals strongly to their economic self-interest. Elizabeth Warren, on the other hand, undoubtedly believes that her pool of new voters comes from millennials; her program consequently offers them quite a lot. On balance, I think she has the better argument; the poor white workers are frequently moved more by conservative values than by money, and they are more likely to vote for Trump than any Democrat, whereas the millennials have strong economic grievances and far less attachment to traditional social values.

In today’s political climate, anyone who worries about the deficit is immediately labeled as a crank and a bore. After all, the deficit is soaring under Trump, and where are interest rates now? Look at Japan, with its monstrous deficit and low inflation! This is the new normal; its continuing existence can be taken for granted, and debt is just a talking point for hypocritical GOP congressmen.

The part about GOP hypocrisy is true, but the rest isn’t. Japan gets by because its debt is held internally, and because the Japanese people have confidence in their political system. A large percentage of our debt is held overseas, and while the world still has confidence in our system, it is being tested every day. Who is to say that four more years of Trump might not kill it off altogether?

Argentina is proof that the law of gravity has not been repealed. Even in a world marked by secular stagnation, when the public loses confidence in your government, your currency falls, inflation and interest rates rise, and lots of pain ensues.

The UK could be next. We’ll see.

Absurd and trivial as it may seem, it’s important to make Trump pay a price for each of these authoritarian episodes. It’s the public ridicule that makes the difference between a man on horseback and a man on golf cart.

Here’s what we know about the debates, so far:

1. Elizabeth Warren is the most skilled debater of the lot, by a large margin.
2. There are too many people on stage to have anything more than a superficial discussion of the issues.
3. The format is predictably driving the candidates to the left, to the ultimate benefit of the GOP.
4. No potential Biden replacement has emerged to eclipse the real deal.

Here’s what we don’t know:

1. Can Warren somehow annihilate Biden without turning off his supporters or pushing the party way too far to the left?
2. Is it too late for any of the other realo candidates to get into the top tier?

We’ll know a bit more after Thursday night, although the sheer number of people on stage will probably prevent anyone from landing a knockout blow.

There was an article in Politico a few weeks back which suggested that Warren needed to build some credibility with moderates by attacking extremism within the Democratic Party. A Democratic version of “Nixon goes to China” sounds plausible. Could it happen?

It wouldn’t be easy. Warren has put a lot of effort into avoiding any daylight between herself and Bernie Sanders. Furthermore, she is a conviction politician; if you put “Nixon” and “conviction” in the same sentence, it has an entirely different meaning.

Nevertheless, it could be done. Warren could give a speech extolling the virtues of a better-regulated capitalism and calling out “democratic socialism.” Would she actually try it? Probably not until she has the nomination in her hands.

I would call Ross Douthat a principled reactionary. His ideas are grounded in medieval Catholicism, not white nationalism. He’s embarrassed by racists in the GOP. He dreams of a populist, but color-blind, version of the GOP run by fellow principled reactionaries in the interests of working people, not business. His Republican Party would represent “national conservatism,” but without the racism.

Unfortunately for Douthat, Trump’s victory in the 2016 primaries proves that a plurality of Republican voters, if not a majority, consists of white nationalists. How are they to be expunged from the party? Where would they go? And, most importantly, how would the GOP operate as a viable party on a national basis without the tens of millions of votes that they provide?

Douthat cites the George W. Bush administration as a hopeful precedent. It is true that Bush 43 didn’t run or govern as a racist. The reality, however, is that most GOP members view him as a sort of crypto-Democrat, and have long since repudiated him and “compassionate conservatism”. As a result, the only way the GOP can rid itself of racism is to be annihilated in a national election which is viewed by everyone as a referendum on white nationalism; under that scenario, the status quo would no longer be seen as a plausible alternative by anyone on the right. I can imagine that happening in, say, 2030, due to demographic changes, but it isn’t going to happen in 2020, or any time in the near future.

Michael Flynn’s corrupt crony and election brother-in-arms routine collapsed after a few weeks. McMaster tried to turn traditional American foreign policy concepts, a few shards of Trumpian ideology, and Trump’s erratic impulses into a coherent vision; that was a miserable failure, too, because Trump is only defined by himself, not any ideas. Now Bolton and his bad cop act are out the door, hardly to be missed.

I can’t wait to see what’s next.

US AND THEM

Us and them

And after all, I’m an extraordinary man.

Me and you

The world knows which is which, and who is who.

_______________

Black and white

And when it’s done, only one can win the fight.

Up and down

And in the end, it’s only round and round.

__________________

Down and out

It can’t be helped, but there’s a lot of it about.

With, without

And who’ll deny it’s what the fighting’s all about.

_________________

Out of the way

It’s a busy day

The election’s on my mind.

I’m desperate to win.

If I don’t, it’s a sin

And the whole country dies.

Parody of “Us and Them” by Pink Floyd.