Cromwell

Deport illegal aliens.  Stop sanctuary cities.  Drain the swamp.

Those are the predominant themes in the campaign ads in South Carolina, where there are no sanctuary cities and very few illegal aliens, and where the swamp is colored bright red.

Can’t these people come up with something a bit more original?

The line on what is acceptable and what isn’t on TV is, admittedly, moving fairly rapidly, but there are still a few words that are entirely too vulgar to be used to describe anyone, and she used one of them.  The problem wasn’t her vehemence; it was simply bad taste.  That makes her case different than Roseanne’s; racism isn’t tasteless–it’s evil.

And why bother linking Ivanka to her dad’s views on immigration?  If you want to complain about, say, her business dealings, fine, but does anyone believe she could change his position on dealing with “animals?”  I just don’t see it.  Save your ammunition for issues on which Ivanka really could make a difference if she tried harder.

I will be on vacation for the next few days.  Postings will resume late Wednesday.

There is support in both political parties and in Europe for a stronger stance on trade issues with China.  In the face of that, Trump imposes tariffs on . . . steel and aluminum from Canada, Mexico, and the EU!

It only makes sense if you understand that Trump believes the following:

1.  Values do not matter in international relations–only interests do;
2.  Trade deficits are the scorecard by which international relationships are judged;
3.  Our so-called allies are among the worst offenders, and are no better than China; and
4.  Our financial and market power are so strong, we can bring the rest of the world to heel simply by playing hardball.

In the entire country, you can probably count the number of other people who believe these things on your hands.  They’re the ones making the decisions, however.

This is going to do enormous damage to our country.  By the time Trump leaves office, Israel and Saudi Arabia will be our only allies.  Obama wanted to encircle China;  after NAFTA collapses and Mexico and Canada turn on us, we will be the nation encircled by hostile nations.

 

My wife is on Facebook, but I’m not, and never will be, for the following reasons:

1.  No one outside my family has any reason to take any interest in the details of my life;
2.  While the use of the internet inevitably leads to some loss of privacy, Facebook takes that to a whole new level;
3.  Facebook’s business model requires them to sell information you would ordinarily think is confidential for a profit, which means that any reforms on their part can only be nibbling around the edges; and
4.  The “like” feature encourages unhealthy competition and imposes conformity within groups, both of which can lead to depression, particularly among teenagers.

The power of social media by the government to enforce both legal and informal norms has barely been explored, but you have to believe it will happen.  Imagine that you live in China and Xi is on a Chinese service similar to Facebook.  Wouldn’t you be afraid not to be his friend?  Wouldn’t you be afraid not to be on record liking his postings?

1984 is on the horizon, but I don’t plan to be a part of it.

Political correctness is commonly understood as an unwarranted hypersensitivity to slights tied to race, appearance, religion, or sexual orientation.  To many Reactionaries, however, it really means that the left refuses to accept and debate the “fact” that ethnic and religious minorities are a grave threat to the well-being of the country.

Of course, their use of the term “political correctness” in place of overtly racist words is an implicit concession that public displays of racism are unacceptable.  It is, therefore, itself a manifestation of PC.

That’s Kim Kardashian, of course, who apparently met with Trump at the White House to discuss prison reform.

Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up.  For his next act, I fully expect Trump to ignore his North Korea experts and call on Dennis Rodman for advice.  Since Rodman, unlike the experts, actually knows Kim Jong-un, talking to him would actually make some sense.

There are times when Trump looks like a dog peeing over Obama’s marks.  Is that really true, however, or is he primarily motivated by standard GOP positions, and by his own weird ideology?

I would break it down this way:

1.  Taxes and deregulation:  He has just adopted the default GOP position.  That includes his stance on Obamacare, which is shared by most of the party.
2.  Energy and the environment:  His position on climate change is also standard GOP fare.  Another Republican president might have chosen to stay in the Paris Agreement, but quietly refused to implement it;  making lots of noise is a reflection of his personality.  His affection for fossil fuels, particularly coal, is largely motivated by his personal thing about jobs done by brawny men.  Reducing the size of Obama’s new monuments, however, appears to be an effort to attack his legacy.
3.  Relationships with democrats and dictators:  He is primarily motivated here by his unique affection for strong men and his idiosyncratic beliefs about trade deficits.
4.  Russia:  Another weird, personal thing having nothing to do with the GOP or Obama.
5.  Middle East:  The attacks on Syrian chemical weapons facilities were a clear effort to distance himself from Obama.  His policy with regard to IS and the Syrian government is just a more confused version of what Obama did.  His rejection of the Iran deal was probably partially motivated by his desire to destroy an Obama accomplishment, but Saudi flattery and Israeli lobbying were more important factors.  Moving the embassy to Jerusalem was a rejection of longstanding policy, not just a slap at Obama.
6. The TPP:  Turning his back on Obama’s deal was consistent with his longstanding belief that the US should use its market power to impose its will on other countries on a bilateral basis.  He would have done it regardless of who negotiated the deal.

And so, the bottom line is that obliterating Obama’s legacy is not as important a consideration as ideology, whether his own or his party’s.

 

The most important thing to remember about Italy is that it is not Greece, for the following reasons:

1.  Italy has a much larger economy, and is much more important to the EU;
2.  The Greek crisis was essentially a Third World debt and hot money issue caused in part by the euro and exacerbated by the inability to devalue, as, say, Argentina would under similar circumstances.  Italy’s problems are chronic, and were not caused by the euro.  Getting rid of the euro will not make them go away, but would cause unimaginable short-term pain.
3. The Germans have far less control over the EU today than they did in 2015.  Bailouts, however, are no more popular now than they were then.

So where is this going?  Here’s my fearless prediction:

1.  The new government will not propose to get rid of the euro, but will run much larger deficits;
2.  Interest rates will go up substantially, but not to Greek levels;
3.  The EU will not take any effective action to bring the government to heel.  On the other hand, there will be no bailout, either; and
4.  Ultimately, the Italian people and the government will have to decide whether the pain of significantly higher interest rates is worth it.

State government in Florida has been dominated by the GOP for more years than I can remember.  You would think, as a result, that Republican candidates would emphasize the glories of living under Republican rule.  Instead, you get this:

1.  Adam Putnam, the Florida establishment candidate for governor, is running commercials in which he portrays himself as a humble fifth generation farmer supporting regular working people against the claims of a liberal elite that thinks everyone should go to college.  In reality:  Putnam went to the University of Florida; he is apparently worth about $30 million, which clearly was inherited; he has been a politician for a large part of his adult life; and the liberal elites he so despises are nowhere to be found in Tallahassee.  Any objections he might have to the way the state has been run need to be directed at Republicans.
2.  Rick Scott, the current governor, is running for the U.S. Senate.  His commercials call on the electorate to elect a businessman to drain the swamp in Washington.  Of course:  Scott has been a politician, not a businessman, for many years; the D.C. swamp is completely controlled by Republicans; and Trump was elected partly on the basis of his business background, which hasn’t exactly helped him drain the swamp.

What does one take from this?  The angry right-wing populist narrative is such an important element in GOP thinking, it has to be emphasized even when it doesn’t make any sense.

The country was settled largely by people fleeing religious persecution in Europe.  The indigenous people fought back, but were overwhelmed.  They ultimately wound up in semi-autonomous political areas with few resources and no political power.

The founders of the country were firm believers in Enlightenment values, both at home and abroad.  The country prospered and grew.  As time went on, however, its leaders started to view the world less in terms of rules, and more in terms of pure power.  Liberal democracy started to fray.  The public became more and more accepting of extreme actions if they were deemed necessary to protect their system, while the country became more isolated abroad.

Is it Israel or America?  You decide.

America is SEC football, and patriotic parades, and Blake Shelton on The Voice.

America is Silicon Valley, and the Metropolitan Museum, and the NBA.

America is Dolly Parton and Florida Georgia Line.

America is Lady Gaga and Kanye West.

America is hot dogs and apple pie.

America is pizza and tacos.

America is Dale Earnhardt at the Daytona 500.

America is LeBron James in Game 7.

America is John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.

America is Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.

America is West Virginia coal miners.

America is Uber and Tesla.

America is the plains of Nebraska.

America is the Manhattan skyline.

America is Ronald Reagan.

America is Barack Obama.

 

America isn’t just some of these things–it’s all of these things.

Enjoy your Memorial Day holiday!

I had an idea driving home a few days ago that was either brilliant or hopelessly banal–I can’t decide which.

The thread which holds Trump’s reactionary core together is fear:  fear of Muslim terrorists; fear of African-Americans; fear of immigrants, and their alien culture; fear of violent crime; fear of lost status in the face of claims from women; fear of lost government benefits; fear of unemployment or underemployment; and fear that traditional rural and Christian culture is being swamped by urban values.  This fear easily morphs into anger, which is why anger is such an important feature of right-wing talk radio.

These people find Trump’s swagger comforting.  Trump’s stock in trade is fear and anger.  In that respect, he differs from Reagan, who also swaggered, but had a genuine message of hope tied to tax cuts and limited government.  Trump thinks the world revolves around power, and the shining city on the hill is a fairy tale; he wants to be Batman, not the second coming of Thomas Jefferson.

There is an important message here for the Democratic Party.  If you want to win these voters back, it isn’t enough to talk about policy, or even about respect for traditional values–you have to come across in such a way as to make the fear disappear.  That means, above all, looking strong and certain.

 

It’s easy to understand the motivations behind “Made in China 2025.”  Communist states were practically designed for mercantilism.  There are no ideological issues with the government picking winners and losers; for the Chinese, it is the nation as a whole that matters, not any individual company.  The Chinese will not feel truly sovereign until they are self-sufficient in tech.  Finally, the future, if China is to continue to progress economically, is not in low wage work, for which there are plenty of potential competitors.  If the “Chinese dream” is to be realized, tech will have to be a big part of it.

As I noted long ago, Trump has legitimate concerns about “Made in China 2025,” but his chances of persuading the government to give it up are slim and none.  The question, then, is how should America respond?  What would “Made in America 2025” look like?

It would certainly involve significant restrictions on Chinese purchases of American tech companies.  That is already happening.  The biggest change would be to increase the amount of money spent on basic research, and to subsidize, as necessary, American tech champions, just as the Chinese do.

The problem with this, of course, is that a program of tech financial support would look exactly like the clean energy subsidies in the Obama stimulus package that drove the Republicans crazy.  If you’re going to invest public money in the private sector, you’re going to have to pick winners and losers, and you’re going to have some Solyndras.  That’s just the way it is.

The Chinese accept that, but we don’t, which is why it won’t happen.  The best you can hope for is an increase in the money spent on basic research, but the GOP’s hostility to government spending on anything but the military is such that even that would be difficult.  Our ability to compete with the Chinese, with all of the national security implications that come with it, will continue to depend on the barons of Silicon Valley, not the government, barring a major change of attitude about intervening in the free market.

If you get a chance, do a search for “Trump handwriting” and look for a 2015 article in Politico about the handwriting of the presidential candidates.  The section of the article analyzing Trump’s signature describes his personality perfectly.  You’ll love it.

When you come right down to it, the North Korea story can only end one of three ways:

1.  War.  North Korea is destroyed at an unfathomable cost.
2.  Containment.  There is no deal and no war.  The status quo more or less continues, except the North Koreans finish work on their ICBM, the enforcement of sanctions weakens, and we place more military assets in South Korea to prevent the unraveling of the alliance.
3.  Trump settles for a deal for a phased, partial rollback of the North Korean nuclear and missile programs in exchange for sanctions relief and promises of future economic aid.  Kim accepts the sanctions relief and ultimately (and predictably) chooses to keep the nukes he considers essential in lieu of taking the aid.

None of these alternatives includes Kim voluntarily giving up all of his nukes.  That simply isn’t going to happen.  Bolton has figured that out.  I doubt Trump has yet.