Cromwell

Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” had diplomatic and military components, but its centerpiece was the TPP, which was designed to have significant geopolitical as well as economic consequences. He never succeeded in selling the TPP to his own party, and Trump immediately repudiated it. American policy towards China today is mostly characterized by capriciousness and an absurd fixation with our trade deficit.

How would the 2020 Democratic nominee change this state of affairs? I see no evidence that any of the upper tier candidates have given serious consideration to China other than as a human rights violator and a source of cheap manufactured goods. The Chinese challenge goes far beyond that. One hopes that we will see a greater degree of sophistication from the candidates as the campaign progresses.

David Brooks says it’s Cory Booker’s moment because he’s a healer, not a fighter. Is Brooks right?

You need to keep in mind that this is the pundit who kept insisting, against all of the evidence, that Barack Obama wasn’t trying hard enough to work with the GOP during his first term. That aside, my reactions are as follows:

1. Trumpism is the enemy, not just Trump himself. As a result, civility doesn’t represent unilateral disarmament; it is actually the best way to fight back.
2. For a variety of reasons, the Democrats would be wise not to try to demonize the GOP or its followers.
3. That doesn’t mean they have to be naïve about the legislative process if they win the election. Mitch McConnell is going to be every bit as obstructionist as he was in 2009. Not demonizing the GOP doesn’t mean having an unreasonable expectation of bipartisan cooperation.

As for Booker himself, I’m keeping an open mind. He’s clearly qualified for the job, and he has some reasonable and interesting ideas. Whether he is the right man at the right time remains to be seen.

Donald Trump announced his plan to invade Canada at a rare news conference yesterday afternoon. He gave a variety of rationales for the invasion, including: Justin Trudeau had just pissed him off too many times; the invasion and subsequent annexation would eliminate our trade deficit with Canada; take the oil! take the oil! take the oil!; keeping the Stanley Cup in the US in perpetuity would help make America great again; every president is entitled to one foreign adventure; and annexing Canada would reduce America’s average daily temperature and thus help fight global warming, if it really exists.

Attorney General William Barr announced that, as a wartime measure, the internet would be censored, all TV networks except Fox News would be shut down, war opponents would be sent to Guantanamo Bay, and habeas corpus would be suspended. When asked about this, he explained that Lincoln had done more or less the same thing during the Civil War, and Trump was ten times the man that Lincoln was.

Twelve Republicans in the Senate formally complained about the invasion and the censorship, but their objections were ignored. The remainder privately expressed serious reservations about it, but chose to stay silent in public for fear of offending the base.

We can’t possibly have a second referendum, says Theresa May. We would be disrespecting the wishes of the British people! It would be undemocratic!

Well, if that’s the case, what’s up with the multiple MVs?

Barack Obama didn’t see any meaningful moral difference between the Iranian and the Saudi regimes, and he could not imagine any American interest in taking sides in what amounts to an Islamic civil war. Freed to some extent from dependence on the Saudis by fracking, he hoped to chart a middle course between the two countries. The Saudis hated him for it.

Ironically, Donald Trump, whose foreign policy has been purely transactional in virtually all other respects, went all in with the Saudis. For a variety of reasons, few of which are defensible to the average American, he gave MBS a blank check. The latter repaid him by committing murders, kidnapping a head of state, imprisoning female activists, and engaging in a brutal and inconclusive war in Yemen. Congress, including Republicans, howled, but Trump was undeterred. After all, they were selling us oil on the cheap! Right? Right?

Well, not exactly.

The Democratic nominee, whoever he or she is, is almost certain to revert to the Obama model if elected. Saudi Arabia is too important to be ignored, but we don’t need to be writing them any more blank checks.

I’ve never interviewed Elizabeth Warren, and I probably never will. But if I did, it would go something like this:

C: Is this the very kitchen table where you did the David Leonhardt interview?

W: Yes, it is.

C: Where’s Bailey?

W: He’s at the vet today, I’m afraid.

C: That’s disappointing. He looks incredibly cute in his pictures.

W: Maybe next time.

C: OK. I’d like to start by asking the obvious question: why should people vote for you instead of one of the other clearly qualified Democratic candidates?

W: I’m the right person at the moment. The biggest problem facing this country is the little guy being screwed over by the big guy. From my academic work on bankruptcy to my books to my work as a senator, I’ve made trying to help the average person my life’s work. It’s a calling.

C: So if we were facing World War III, you would look at it differently?

W: Let’s just say I wouldn’t try to run as Winston Churchill.

C: Most of my questions today are going to revolve around the relationship between your candidacy and two other famous Democrats.

W: I bet I can guess which ones.

C: The first is Hillary Clinton.

W: Bingo on that one.

C: I’m sure you know that a lot of Democrats are afraid you’re not electable because you look and sound too much like Hillary. How do you respond to that?

W: I’m not going to say anything bad about Hillary. Bless her heart, she has always fought for the right side, and she basically ran a good campaign. But she had a lot more scar tissue than I do, and a lot more baggage. The e-mail thing obviously didn’t help. Neither did her obvious ties to Wall Street. She was the wrong person at the wrong time–that’s all.

C: What’s your theory on what happened in 2016? Was it some sort of massive counterrevolution, or was it a fluke based on Comey, e-mails, and the public being tired of Democrats?

W: Some of both. I think part of Hillary’s problem was being identified too closely with the establishment, and having small ball solutions to equality problems. For all that, however, she still would have won without Comey and the e-mails.

C: So you think you differ from her in that you don’t have as much baggage, and you don’t play small ball?

W: Something like that, yes.

C: That brings us to the other prominent Democrat.

W: Let me guess–Bernie Sanders.

C: Two for two. Let me start by saying that, from a wonk’s perspective, you have been absolutely crushing it. You should be way ahead. And yet, Bernie is far ahead of you in the polls. Why do you think that is?

W: Name recognition. People obviously remember him from 2016.

C: But you’re also a well-known national figure. That can’t be the only reason. Don’t you think there is something else going on?

W: Like what?

C: People just relate to him better than they do to you. It might be sexism. It might be the idea that you patronize people, and he doesn’t. I’m not saying that’s true, necessarily, but it could well be a common perception.

W: I have to hope that the American people are better than that. If they aren’t, we’re all in trouble.

C: Bernie calls himself a socialist. Do you think that’s accurate?

W: By the dictionary definition, definitely not. He doesn’t support widespread nationalizations. He wants a larger and better welfare state, less inequality, and more control of business. For that matter, so do I.

C: You have been careful to call yourself a capitalist. Why the difference?

W: First of all, I truly do believe in capitalism. Second, the word scares the hell out of a lot of Americans. It’s a tactical mistake to use it.

C: Do you think it is a distinction with a difference?

W: Yes. It’s not just semantic. Bernie views things through an ideological lens. I’m more data driven. We’re both determined to make America work better, but I relate more to FDR making capitalism succeed, and Bernie wants to make America look like Denmark.

C: In a tactical sense, you do agree with him on the “revolution,” don’t you?

W: If what you mean by that is a class-based appeal to people who either haven’t voted in the past, and to people who don’t vote their economic interests, yes. We can’t win and get a truly progressive agenda through the system without it.

C: Do you view the wealthy as your enemies? Take, for example, Michael Bloomberg. He’s a social liberal, and he’s spending a fortune to elect Democrats. Should he be viewed as a bad guy?

W: Here’s one of the areas in which I don’t agree with Bernie. Bernie would see him as a class enemy, period. To me, there’s nothing wrong with being a successful capitalist. Unlike Trump, Bloomberg actually built his own empire, and has done a lot of good with it. I think we as a nation should celebrate that, not condemn it. That said, I also think we need to limit his wealth to avoid corrupting the democratic process. That’s a practical, not a moral, judgment.

C: The other side of that coin is what we call the white working class. How do you plan to appeal to the kind of people that Hillary called “deplorables?” They violently disagree with you on values issues–how can you possibly change their minds?

W: It’s a tough issue, no doubt. I think the key is to avoid playing small ball on economics, and to offer them something they genuinely think would significantly improve their lives. That’s the only hope.

C: Thanks for your time. I’ll be back next week to ask you about some of your specific policies.

W: I’ll try to have Bailey here next time.

Starting tomorrow, every Wednesday will be Warren’s day! Yes, we’ll be examining the Warren candidacy from every possible angle in the coming weeks, starting with the first part of a two-part fake interview with Queen Elizabeth herself tomorrow!

You can’t wait. I can tell.

Even under normal circumstances, the Democrats would have ample reason to despise Vladimir Putin: his kleptocratic regime; the military adventure in Syria; Crimea and Ukraine. Add to that Putin’s support for Donald Trump in 2016, and Trump’s weird, obsequious attitude towards him, and you have a recipe for conflict ahead.

At a minimum, the Democratic nominee is going to promise to “normalize” our relationship with Russia, and everyone, possibly including Putin himself, will be relieved. The question is, will the Democrats overreact? Will their loathing of the man cause them to become overly aggressive in areas like Ukraine? After all, Putin may be a thug, but he isn’t the devil, and we have to do business with him on occasion.

I don’t think it will be a problem. The Democrats’ default position on foreign policy is to avoid interventions. I suspect that will override their personal feelings about Putin.

Paul Krugman blames policy choices, not automation, for wage stagnation in the United States. Is he right?

Partly yes, but mostly, no. Consider the plight of the coal miner who, like thousands of others, loses his job to a machine. If he lives in West Virginia, his state suffers from poor infrastructure, and the education system is lousy and perpetually underfunded. The national shift to an economy based on human resources isn’t doing him any favors.

If he stays in West Virginia (and he might, as his entire support system is there) he’s going to have great difficulty finding a job that pays him a similar wage. Assume for the purposes of argument that he winds up in a fast food restaurant. Krugman’s theory apparently is that the fast food job doesn’t pay because there is no fast food union. The reality of the situation is that our protagonist is competing for that job with a host of other people, including teenagers, with few skills; in simple terms, low wages in the fast food industry are a product of an oversupply of unskilled labor.

Stagnant wages are a fact of life throughout the developed world, including countries such as Germany that are far more unionized than we are. Legislation is a factor, but automation is a bigger one.

Memories, even incredibly vivid ones, fade with time. And so, it was inevitable that, for younger Americans, the Holocaust would come to seem less exceptional, and the image of plucky democratic Israel making the desert bloom and miraculously surviving in 1948, 1967, and 1973 would be replaced by the picture of a semi-colonial power with its boot on the necks of the Palestinians. Since the Democrats, by and large, are the party of youth, the change is most apparent with them.

But Netanyahu has made this situation far worse than it needed to be. Historically, the Israeli government of the day has always worked to maintain a positive relationship with both American parties in order to protect its interests both in the present and the future. Netanyahu rejected that approach; by treating Barack Obama with contempt, rejecting American peace initiatives, openly aligning his party with reactionaries in the GOP, and attempting to force America into a war with Iran that is against our national interests, he has won the enmity of the Democratic Party. From Israel’s perspective, that’s fine as long as Trump is president. But what happens when he leaves office?

The Democratic nominee in 2020 is going to be more pro-Palestinian than any American president in my memory; it is only a question of degree. If he or she wins, look for the US to re-engage with Iran and use its economic and military aid package to apply pressure on Israel to move forward with the peace process.

Angelina Jolie is smart, tough, and, of course, glamorous. She’s also a political figure of sorts. Today’s thought experiment is, what would happen if she ran for president?

Fox News and the right-wing trolls on the internet would go nuts, just the way they have with AOC, only to the nth power. Angelina has lived with that for entire career, however, so it probably wouldn’t trouble her too much. The real question is, how would American men in general respond to her candidacy?

We can’t know, of course, but my best guess is that they would be supportive for the most part. It’s the middle-aged women who remind them of noisy, bossy Aunt Bea that they can’t stand.

Replace “Angelina” with “Kamala Harris” and you have a real life scenario, only in lower case. It’s a dynamic we’ve never seen in a national election. I have to admit, it intrigues me.

For Theresa May, the fourth time was the charm; her deal passed by a slim two votes, as the majority of the Brexiteers came home, and a few Labour dissenters broke ranks and voted yes. More exhausted than triumphant, she called for unity and reconciliation. In the same vein, Corbyn demanded that Labour rally around him, as he looked forward to a general election that he could fight on his favorite issues of austerity and runaway capitalism.

But for the two of them, it was far too late. May’s “accomplishment” had been to jam a solution that 75 percent of the country rejected down Parliament’s throat. The wounds from that were too deep, and too fresh, to ignore. The ERG demanded, and got, her resignation in short order. Having disregarded the strong preference of his party for a second referendum, and staring at a huge deficit in the polls, Corbyn was forced to follow suit a few months later.

The EU was disgusted by the whole affair, and not disposed to make the new government’s life any easier than necessary during the negotiations on the trade agreement. There was discussion on the UK side of ending the negotiations and simply living with WTO standards. Nothing, it seemed, had really changed.

Following Lenin, Sanders believes that an America that is dominated economically and politically by big capitalists will inevitably have a foreign policy that is aggressive, militaristic, and interventionist. Following Vladimir Putin, Sanders thinks that unchecked American power is mostly a force for evil and instability throughout the world. As you would expect, he is determined to change that.

The pillars of the Sanders Doctrine are as follows:

1. A sound foreign policy begins at home. Build a more equal, more fair, and more genuinely democratic America, and the world will take note.
2. No more military interventions! Cut the defense budget and use the funds to build a better welfare state. Rely on moral force, diplomacy, and economic sanctions to protect America’s interests abroad.
3. Call out strong men, particularly of the right-wing variety, for their human rights violations. Left-wing dictators are struggling against the odds to build a more equal and better society, so they should be treated with a bit more respect.
4. Strengthen our alliances with social democratic forces overseas to build a friendlier world based on shared values.

A shorthand way to say this is that Sanders wants America to look more like Denmark, so it follows that we should have Denmark’s foreign policy, too.

How would this differ in practice from the Obama and Trump Doctrines? I will be discussing that in the next several Sandersday posts.

The British government plans to hold MV3 (assuming the Speaker permits it) next week. How will it turn out? Here is my analysis:

1. The government’s approach has always been to keep all options on the table in order to play one side against the other. The vote to eliminate no deal, at least temporarily, means that the PM has leverage against the Brexiteers, but not Labour. Most of the ERG will vote for the deal this time in an effort to avoid the greater evil of an indefinite delay, but some of them won’t, and Corbyn will be able to keep his troops in line. The vote will be very close, but May will lose.
2. The power then switches to the EU, which can refuse an extension, make it short enough just to accommodate MV4, or grant a very lengthy extension in order to facilitate a second referendum or a different deal.
3. If the extension is denied, or is very short, MV4 will follow almost immediately, and this time, the pressure will be on Labour to vote for it, as the party will be blamed for the chaos that will result from no deal. In all likelihood, Labour will crack, and the deal will pass.
4. If it is a lengthy extension, half of the Conservative Party will be in open revolt, and there will be a leadership crisis of massive proportions.

In other words, assuming MV3 fails, much is riding on the decision of the EU. I do not believe they will completely reject an extension, but I make no prediction as to its length.

When I see a picture of O’Rourke, the first name that pops into my head is Robert F. Kennedy. It’s the combination of looks, idealism, and a sort of sheepish youthful charm, I suppose. It is to Beto’s advantage, and he milks it for all it is worth.

The difference between the two is that RFK was qualified to be president when he ran in 1968. He had been the AG and a senator; more importantly, he knew where the bodies were buried, because he had created more than a few corpses himself. He had a well-deserved reputation as a ruthless political operator. That wasn’t entirely to his credit as a man, but as a politician, it meant he would have been prepared to deal with Brezhnev on day one of his administration.

A successful president has to be a combination of idealism and clear-eyed pragmatism. He has to be able to pass the Putin’s dog test. Beto has a lot to prove to me and the rest of the world on that point.