Cromwell

By all rights, the 2020 election should be a referendum on Donald Trump–the almost casual corruption, incompetence, divisiveness, racism, narcissism, authoritarianism, capriciousness, contempt for the rule of law, and support for plutocrats, just to list a few lowlights. If the election is framed that way, the Democrats will win, even if the economy is going great guns in November, which is unlikely at this point. But is that inevitable?

No. The Democrats can redefine the stakes of the election by overreaching. If they run as the party of reparations, no hamburgers, and socialism, the election will be a referendum on that platform, not Trump, and the incumbent will be able to portray himself as the safer choice to conservative swing voters who are begging for a simple return to decency, not a revolution. Under those circumstances, the only hope for the Democrats is a sharp recession. It could happen, but they had better not bet the ranch on it.

In some circles, Joe Biden is being analogized to Reagan; both are seen as elderly, genial, disengaged guys who survive repeated gaffes because of their sheen of fundamental decency. For Biden, the analogy is a mixed bag, at best. Is it accurate?

Only up to a point. Reagan’s certitudes were based in nostalgia and hard right ideology; they didn’t call it the “Reagan Revolution” for nothing. He was viewed as a dangerous extremist even by many members of his party in 1980. Biden is a centrist determined, at least based on his public statements, to bring about moderate change with the assistance of members of both parties and to purge our system of the fleeting evils of Trumpism. He is essentially a conservative, not a “revolutionary.”

In other words, he is more like Eisenhower than Reagan, which is no bad thing, from my perspective. If you want a left-wing Reagan, vote for Bernie Sanders.

The NYT breathlessly promised us an inside story we had never heard before, but relatively little of it was really new. We learned that Obama was negotiating with the Iranians behind the backs of the Israelis, but he certainly had his reasons. The rest of it was pretty familiar.

The question that remains is whether Netanyahu was truly prepared to go to war with Iran on his own, or whether the whole thing was a bluff to get the Americans to do his dirty work. Given the divisions within Israel’s security establishment, and Bibi’s general unwillingness to use massive force against Iran’s proxies, I think the more plausible answer is that he was bluffing. The truth is, however, that only he knows for sure.

For months, Jeremy Corbyn has been braying for an election in the mistaken belief that the UK is crying out for socialism. Today, he is using the Fixed-Term Parliament Act to prevent one, at least until after October 31. Does that make sense?

From a tactical perspective, absolutely. Having pushed through legislation requiring the government to seek another Brexit extension, the opposition/majority has put BoJo in a terrible bind. He must either: (a) blatantly defy the law, impose a truly chaotic Brexit over the will of Parliament, and then face an election; (b) relinquish power; or (c) alienate his hard line supporters and lose votes to the Brexit Party by doing what the law requires.

But what about the cost to the nation? Is it wise to put the UK in this position? Lord, no.

It made no sense to have an election when the two parties were both split on Brexit. BoJo has changed that by purging the Tories of the rump of Remainers; as a result, a general election prior to the deadline could operate as an imperfect version of the second referendum, which is better than no version at all. For the sake of the country, Corbyn should let that happen.

He won’t, of course. BoJo is likely to ignore the law, and the UK is going to tear itself apart in the next 60 days.

The most admirable thing about Bernie Sanders is that he always makes it about the “revolution,” and never himself. He has no interest in power and celebrity for its own sake. He has nothing but disdain for the personal, and for identity politics. If you get him and his ideas, fine; if not, he just moves on. It’s your choice; he’s not going to do much to try to tip the scales in his favor.

In that respect, he couldn’t be less like the current narcissist-in-chief. Bernie’s problem, however, is that identity politics prevail in this country, and his base is far too small to get him the nomination, let alone the presidency. If he won’t kiss babies, and he won’t move to the right on social issues, how can he expand his constituency beyond left-leaning white working class male millennials?

He has exactly one path to the presidency: a massive recession which destroys America’s belief in capitalism. That’s it. Don’t hold your breath.

The British PM they call BoJo

Thinks Brexit is moving in slow mo.

The Commons stands tall.

Will the king take a fall?

Or will he enjoy the last ho ho?

According to the Daily Telegraph, BoJo has announced that he will defy Parliament and refuse to negotiate a delay in the October 31 Brexit date. Frankly, I’m not surprised; it is, of course, another attempt to force Labour into agreeing to an early election.

The events of the last few weeks have had a whiff of the Stuart monarchy about them. Proroguing Parliament? Isn’t that something Charles II used to do? Now, with this direct refusal to follow the law, Boris is heading into Charles I territory.

Will he suffer the same fate, in a purely political sense? I’m guessing not. Like Trump, Boris understands his base, and most of the rest of his party is terrified of them.

Conservative Libertarians oppose redistribution because it inevitably results in an increase in the power of the state, and a decrease in freedom. Are they right?

It depends on how you define “freedom.” Redistribution is, in fact, associated with additional legal restraints on individuals (particularly wealthy ones) within society; that is commonly known as “negative freedom.” However, due to the operation of the principle of marginal utility, which I discussed in a previous post, redistribution may actually increase the practical alternatives available to members of society as a whole; that is called “positive freedom.”

A negative freedom guy argues that a poor person and a rich person are equally free to buy a Lexus in a just society, because the government puts no legal barriers in front of either one of them. He would further maintain, in all likelihood, that redistribution is a slippery slope, and once you start it, you’re on the road to serfdom. Personally, I would say that experience shows we have enough judgment to stop before we reach serfdom, and the marginal utility/positive freedom position is the stronger of the two. That’s why I’m not a CL.

The old joke in the Soviet Union was to the effect that the workers pretended to work, and the bosses pretended to pay them. That’s the inevitable result of creating a system with minimal material incentives for excellence. It’s a problem that socialist societies never solved.

Of course, people work for reasons other than material rewards, and systems with too much inequality tend to be politically and economically unstable, so there are arguments in the other direction, as well. It’s a balancing act, and different countries handle it differently. The United States tolerates more inequality in exchange for more dynamism than, say, Denmark. It’s a spectrum, not a black and white issue, and where you stand on it probably dictates the way you vote.

One of the central themes of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign was his response to “You didn’t build that.” Romney’s argument, when stripped down to its essence, was that the hard work and brilliance of American businessmen were responsible for their (and the nation’s) prosperity, and it was unjust to take their hard-earned rewards away from them.

Is it a violation of natural justice to tax the wealthy on their earnings and to give the money to the less fortunate? Of the arguments made against redistribution, this one is the least persuasive, because:

1. The wealthy did not create themselves, in a biological sense;
2. Nor did they educate themselves;
3. Nor did they create the physical, social, legal, and political climate in which their businesses were permitted to thrive. As I’ve noted many times, all that brilliance and hard work goes to naught if you live in South Sudan;
4. The wealthy rely more heavily on the legal system than poor people do to defend their assets and rights, so it is fair for them to pay more for it;
5. A large percentage of the assets owned by the wealthy were not created or earned by themselves; and
6. Someone has to pay for government, and you can’t get money from people who don’t have any.

Obama was right; individual initiative plays a part in the creation and growing of business, but it can’t and doesn’t happen outside of a nurturing environment for which all of us, not just the wealthy, are responsible. Redistribution to prop up and improve that environment is not, therefore, unjust.

At one point during the 2008 presidential debates, John McCain responded to an Obama comment by saying, essentially, “Aha! You support redistribution!” He acted like a guy who had just scored a touchdown and was spiking the football. It was self-evident, to him, that the American public hated any notion of redistribution.

Today, things are very different; a substantial degree of redistribution is supported by the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Here are the principal justifications for it; an analysis of the objections will follow during the rest of the week:

1. SIMPLE HUMAN COMPASSION: No elaboration is necessary.
2. IT’S NECESSARY FOR THE PROPER WORKINGS OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM: If inequality becomes too great, the system inevitably is “rigged” in favor of the wealthy. Sanders and Warren would say we’re already there today.
3. IT’S A MATTER OF MARGINAL UTILITY AND POSITIVE FREEDOM: A dollar in the hands of a plutocrat doesn’t really enable him to do anything he can’t already do, whereas an extra dollar in the hands of a poor person can make a very real difference in his life.
4. A HOLLOWED-OUT MIDDLE CLASS IS BAD NEWS FOR THE ECONOMY: A substantial measure of redistribution has the potential to revive the American middle class, and thereby increase consumption and economic growth over the long run.

Elizabeth Warren’s signature policy proposal, the wealth tax, is probably unconstitutional. Her innumerable plans are seriously flawed, and have little chance of becoming law. Her insistence on “fighting” about everything will simply exhaust and further divide the American people. She has no meaningful experience in foreign policy, and what few ideas she has on dealing with the rest of the world sound like left-wing Trumpism. So is there a case for electing her?

Yes. As everyone knows, she’s very bright. She’s capable of changing her mind if the facts require it. Given the difficulty of her upbringing, she’s tough, and her heart is in the right place. She knows as much as anyone could know about personnel and the workings of the administrative state. She would be able to handle Putin’s dog. Her personal morality is beyond reproach. Overall, she would make a decent president.

And so, I will vote for her if she is the nominee, even though she is far from my first choice.

“Corbyn better than no-deal Brexit, say investment banks,” in the Daily Telegraph. Need I say more?

Whether you support them or not, you have to admit that the Tories have been a genuinely conservative party; they support property rights, traditional values, adherence to longstanding constitutional norms, incremental change, and balanced budgets. Until now, of course.

The new version of the Conservative Party under BoJo is nothing of the sort. It believes in tax cuts, deficits, risk-taking, and trashing constitutional norms. It is a revolutionary organization determined to bring about fundamental change in the UK at all costs.

In other words, it sounds a lot like the GOP.

America is about freedom, first and foremost. Millions of people, the vast majority of them from Europe, came to this country to escape oppressive governments and to embrace new economic opportunities. Thanks to a system of limited government, they built the most prosperous and powerful nation on the planet. Anything that pokes a hole in this story is just a footnote.

America is exceptional, all right. It was born in slavery and the theft of property from Native Americans. The Founding Fathers were slave-owning hypocrites. The system was racist from the beginning and remains so today. American prosperity was built on slavery; American capitalism even today retains a whiff of the brutality of slavery. Anything that pokes a hole in this story is just a footnote.

America is an imperfectly realized ideal. Many of the Founding Fathers might have been racists and slaveholders, but the ideas and the system they created contained the germ of a better, fairer, more democratic tomorrow. The system has evolved over time, and will continue to improve with experience, a few hiccups along the way notwithstanding. America, for all its flaws, has been the final guarantor of peace and prosperity throughout the world. Today, it is more diamond than coal.

Pick one. Everyone else has.