Cromwell

Pay no attention to the man with the twitchy Twitter fingers, say some pundits and members of the Trump Administration;  Trump is actually governing as a fairly conventional Republican.  His tax cut ideas were driven by the GOP majority in Congress.  The worst of the travel ban was eliminated by the judiciary.  He hasn’t violated court orders, destroyed NATO, engaged in trade wars, or left NAFTA.  His attacks on the press are just an effort to curry favor with his base and blow off steam; they haven’t led to any First Amendment violations.  In short, his worst authoritarian impulses are being constrained by the system and his own laziness, and will continue to be so.

Not so fast, say other commentators.  Trump is dividing the country, damaging its credibility overseas, and trashing institutions that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support:  the FBI; the judiciary; even the NFL.  That’s bad enough as it is, but wait until we have a genuine crisis, and he demands unconstitutional actions against his opponents.  Who will come to our rescue then?  Can we count on Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell to stand up and be counted, or will they simply clear their throats and try to change the subject?

Count me in the latter camp.  Trump and his base have little respect for constitutional norms.  If a crisis comes, and the GOP still has complete control of Congress, things are going to get really ugly here.

 

The renowned gymnast Aly Raisman had the following quote in the most recent edition of Sports Illustrated (yes, the swimsuit issue):  “Women do not have to be modest to be respected.”  That sounds like a manifesto.  What did she mean, and is she right?

If her intent was to argue that women are entitled to the same rights of self-expression and sexual freedom as men, I’m on board.  If she was just trying to say she’s proud of how she looks, that’s understandable, too.  But if it was a broadside against modesty in general, I don’t agree.

We didn’t create ourselves.  We’re all mortal.  We live on the intellectual and physical capital that were created by our predecessors.  The best we can do is add to it a little, and leave the place better off than when we entered.  Right now, I’m not sure we’re even doing that.

Those are all good reasons for everyone to be modest.

1.  It is my understanding that the trend in Third World countries (most notably India) that subsidize food is to move away from in-kind benefits to cash payments.  This is because experience shows the in-kind approach damages markets and leads to widespread corruption and waste.
2.  The Harvest Box approach is completely inconsistent with that trend.
3.  The GOP professes to be the party of maximum consumer choice, free markets, and the primacy of the private sector.  The Harvest Box idea flies in the face of all three of these ideas.
4.  The people behind this concept, therefore, are either complete hypocrites, or they have an agenda which overrides notions of efficiency and ideological consistency.
5.  The correct choice is B.  Grinding the faces of the poor (the real goal of the Harvest Box) makes the Reactionary faction of the GOP happy.  The nanny state is perfectly OK as long as it only operates on people you dislike.

I spent three weeks in China in 2012, and another week last year.  I’ve also read lots of books on the country.  I’m not stupid and arrogant enough to think that makes me a China expert, but there are some observations I’m qualified to make on the Chinese and their culture, so here goes:

1.  Are you aware of the repressive state while you are in the country?  If you try to read the NYT on the web, yes; otherwise, no.  You have to go through metal detectors to ride the metro, but that could happen in a liberal democratic state, too.  In most places, the security people are just ornaments.

2.  What are the Chinese people like?  They are loud and friendly.  They don’t put up with any crap from anyone.  They’re intensely proud of their history and culture.  They’re very pragmatic.  And they’re very resilient.  They’ve lived through disasters the likes of which we cannot even imagine, and they never even complain about it.  That’s the advantage of being part of a civilization that has been through just about everything, and sees time as being cyclical.

3.  How do the Chinese feel about Americans?  Trying to get taxi drivers to pick you up on the street can be a problem.  In more provincial areas, some people will openly stare at you.  By and large, however, they will make you feel reasonably comfortable.

Happy New Year!  Sort of.

The bombastic, divisive, right-wing leader was facing criminal charges.  He responded by lashing out at the establishment and complaining about a “deep state” that opposed him at every turn.  His fans and the right-wing media cheered him on, while the rest of the country was appalled.

Is it Trump or Netanyahu?  You decide.

Apparently the NRA was encouraging people to buy guns for their significant others for Valentine’s Day.

A Gun For Your Honey

Buy a gun for your honey.

It shows that you care.

It may sound kind of funny

But it’s not really rare.

 

Buy a gun for your kiddies

Take if off to school.

Show it off to their homies.

Be the Kings of Cool.

 

Only guns can stop bad guys.

Happens every day.

So ignore MSM lies

And what liberals say.

 

A day after the Shaun White victory in the halfpipe, we have another school shooting.  We’re numb to that.  It would be downright tedious if it weren’t so tragic.

Let’s face it:  there are enough people in this country who treat guns as religious icons to prevent any meaningful progress on this issue.  As far as they’re concerned, the lives of a few kids here and there are a price worth paying to protect their rights.  And so the story goes on, and on, and on. . .

It’s still Hot Stove League season, so here’s the diplomatic equivalent:  China agrees to cut off all oil supplies to North Korea, and to try to engineer a coup, in exchange for an end to US arms sales to Taiwan.

It’s not Giancarlo Stanton to the Yankees, but it has sizzle, no?

The Taiwanese are worried that Trump plans to use them as a bargaining chip in his dealings with China.  Since there is no moral dimension to “America First”  (morality is for suckers, after all), they have good reason.

So let us give praise to Mikaela.

You knew that she just wouldn’t fail-a.

No matter what race

Not for her, second place.

Count on her to deliver the mail-a.

I’m not a big X Games guy, but I have to admit that watching Shaun White win on the halfpipe last night was pretty exhilarating.  You could view it as an exhibition of American individualism at its finest.

It’s a mistake to think that the Chinese are automatons, because they’re anything but.  However, the emphasis on the collective over the individual that is baked into Chinese culture makes it impossible for me to imagine a Chinese version of White.

There is a lesson in geopolitics there:  play to your strengths, and ours is the joy of individual freedom.

Three comments on the Trump budget:

1.  Budgeting is hard, tedious work.  In light of that, does anyone really believe that Trump has actually read his own budget?  Does anyone think he even has a vague idea of what’s in it?
2.  Since Mulvaney is a CL, it is not surprising that the budget is CL-friendly.  Of course, it’s going nowhere in Congress, but at least the Kochs should be pleased with this evidence of Trump’s apparent good intentions.
3.  Trump will wear this budget, and its successors, in 2020.  It will be entertaining to watch the Democratic nominee attack the proposed cuts to anti-poverty programs at the debates, because Trump won’t even know what they are.

As I’ve noted previously, Trump had two options with infrastructure.  The first was a bipartisan plan with lots of new federal money that the CLs would hate; the second was a small CL-friendly plan focusing on privatization and state and local funds that the Democrats would hate.

The plan is Option B.  To sum it up from Trump’s perspective, you build a bridge, I provide a small sum of money for it, and you name it after me.

It’s hard to see why he would even bother to do this.  The plan isn’t going anywhere, the public isn’t impressed, and he’s not going to be able to run on it.

Donald Trump was treated to a big extravaganza inside the Forbidden City while I was in China.  The flattery clearly worked.  He took it as an affirmation that the Chinese government thinks he’s as great as he does.

Both he and the MSM missed the point.  By holding this event in the Forbidden City, the Chinese government was sending the message that they were at the center of civilization and their guest was a barbarian, albeit an unusually important one.

Of course, they were right about the barbarian part.

As I’ve noted before, the “Chinese dream” and the “American dream” are fundamentally different.  The latter revolves around limited government and the legal and moral right of the individual to pursue happiness in any way that doesn’t negatively impact society;  the former is based on the wealth and power of the collective, which presumably trickles down in some manner to each individual.

The policy elements of the “Chinese dream” are as follows:

1.  Mercantilism:  The Chinese government imposes tariffs, controls the value of its currency, subsidizes industries it considers of national importance, and requires foreigners to turn over technology in exchange for access to its markets.

2.  Political stability:  In every dynamic economy, there are bound to be winners and losers.  The Chinese government uses every tool at its disposal to make sure that the losers don’t endanger the stability of the state.

3.  Increased military power:  This focuses on control of the area immediately outside of the country’s borders.  The militarization of the South China Sea is part of a plan to guarantee access to raw materials during wartime, while threatening to cut off those materials to South Korea and Japan.

4.  The war on corruption:  In the absence of a multi-party system, a free press, and an apolitical criminal justice system, the only hope of keeping corruption under control, and thereby maintaining support for the regime, is by applying continuous pressure from the top.

The American response to this, in a nutshell, can either be to beat ’em or join ’em. Traditionally, we have competed with Communist countries by emphasizing the great benefits that come from an open society with limited government and the rule of law.  Trump doesn’t appear to believe in any of that;  he seems to want to turn our country into a second-rate version of an authoritarian state which features tariffs, walls, and a strong military.  The rest of the world is not impressed.  As a result, Chinese power is on the rise.

Here’s how the factions would rate Trump to date:

CLs:  Positives:  Deregulation efforts; tax cuts; no major protectionist actions so far; eliminated the individual mandate.  Negatives: Signed off on a budget plan with lots of new spending.  Grade:  B.

Reactionaries:  Positives:  Gorsuch; work requirements for Medicaid; daily tweets triggering liberals; Muslim ban; no amnesty.  Negatives:  Filled his cabinet with Wall Street plutocrats; tax plan favored the wealthy; no real protectionist actions yet; showing some flexibility on immigration.  Grade:  B.

PBPs:  Positives:  Delivered on tax cuts and deregulation; no real protectionism to date.  Negatives:  Looks like a corrupt, incompetent bozo, which ultimately endangers our tax cuts; protectionism could be on the horizon.  Grade:  B.

CDs:  Positives: Some needed social spending in the budget; Gorsuch.  Negatives:  Tax plan favors plutocrats;  tweets are tearing the country apart; incompetent and corrupt.  Grade:  D minus.

What this shows you is that the CDs are gone, but the rest of the GOP will stand behind him, barring a disaster.