Cromwell

As I’ve noted before, the Democratic Party is essentially a coalition of victims opposed to the white Christian patriarchy.  The various elements of the coalition have few claims against each other, which means the Democrats don’t have the same kind of factional issues that the GOP has.  That doesn’t mean they agree on everything, as noted below:

1.  Realos vs. Fundis:  The terminology comes from the German Green party.  Realos  (Obama, Clinton) think that making promises that cannot plausibly be kept due to current political realities is a mistake, because in the long run, it just frustrates the base.  They also worry about the cost of new government programs and the deficit.  Fundis (Sanders) believe that the best way to inspire the base and ultimately move the needle is to demand what you really want regardless of whether it is attainable today;  they also agree with the GOP that deficits don’t matter.
2. Open vs. Closed:  Democratic Party centrists (Obama, and Clinton when she’s being honest about it) believe in free trade and liberal immigration policies, which actually poll well among Democrats.  Ironically, the Sanders wing agrees with Trump that free trade is a sucker’s bet for workers, and logically should have concerns about immigration, although Sanders did not say much about that during the 2016 campaign.
3.  Identity vs. Class:  The mainstream of the Democratic Party sees the fundamental struggle of American history as being between socially disadvantaged groups (minorities; women; gays; seculars) and the white male Christian establishment. Representatives of the mainstream (again, Clinton and Obama) are happy to accept votes and donations from affluent professionals, even those who work on Wall Street, who agree with them on this.  Sanders, on the other hand, believes that everything ultimately revolves around class distinctions, spurns the assistance of affluent people, and wants to win back Reactionary white workers by proposing government programs to be paid for by wealthy people.
4.  The Individual vs. the Community:  This split exists in both parties, but is more obvious in the GOP.  You see it in the Democratic Party on issues like privacy and terrorism.  There was no clear difference between Clinton and Sanders on this point.

Where will the party go in 2020?  Given the importance of female and minority votes in the primaries, the likelihood of a class-based approach succeeding is very low.  My best guess is that Trump will discredit protectionism to the point where it is safe for the Democratic candidate to openly espouse free trade, although that remains to be seen.  The realo vs. fundi debate could go either way, and what happens with the individual/community split probably depends on whether we have a large scale terrorist attack between now and 2020.

 

                  Life’s Been Good

I have a hedge fund; I roll in the dough.

‘Cause I’m a big job creator, you know.

Live in a high rise; the views are just great.

You want to see me; you’ll just have to wait.

 

Poor people suffer, but I don’t really care.

‘Cause they ain’t nothing, nohow, nowhere.

Life’s been good to me so far.

 

Don’t ride the subway; my limo’s just fine.

I’ve got a cellar of really good wine.

My wife’s jewels sparkle like light on the ice.

Summer in Como is really quite nice.

 

It’s fun to be more important than you.

I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do.

Life’s been good to me so far.

 

I go to parties; drink expensive booze.

Rules seem to change, but I win and you lose.

I’ve learned to handle good fortune and fame.

Trump or Obama, it’s still the same game.

 

Lucky I’m still sane after 2008.

Things weren’t too good then, but now they’re just great.

Life’s been good to me so far.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Parody of “Life’s Been Good” by Joe Walsh.  On a related note, check out Jimmy Fallon’s parody of “Fire and Rain” (“Fire and Fury”) on NBC’s web site.

There has been considerable discussion recently about the possibility of a limited “bloody nose” attack on North Korea.  The idea presumably would be to send a message of American resolve without starting a wider war.  One assumes it would look like last year’s attack on the Syrian airfield.

The dangers of escalation inherent in a “bloody nose” attack are obvious.  In addition, to me, launching an attack of such limited scope is a sign of weakness, not strength.  It would send a message to the North Korean regime that we are afraid of fighting a real war.

There is no point in a “bloody nose” attack, in my view, unless it draws some real blood.  That means the destruction of the North Korean nuclear program, their missile program, or both.

No issue divides the Republican Party quite like immigration.  Here is how it shakes out:

1.  Reactionaries:  Immigrants are destroying America.  They’re taking our jobs, driving wages down, swamping our culture, committing terrorist acts, and voting for Democrats.  They must go!
2.  PBPs:  Immigrants are an economic boon to America.  They take jobs Americans either can’t or won’t do, from high tech to picking fruit.  We need their labor.
3.  CDs:  Assistance to the downtrodden is a Christian duty.
4.  CLs:  We can’t support increasing the size of government for any purpose, much less this one.

The bottom line is that bipartisan immigration reform would pass Congress easily but for the Hastert Rule.  The GOP leadership is unlikely to bring anything forward that could split the party this badly.

Whether you loathe Steve Bannon or just dislike him, you have to give him credit for espousing an ideology that is surprisingly consistent and coherent.  He is a pure Reactionary, and his cocktail of walls, tariffs, social legislation, isolationism, and targeted tax cuts is directed directly at rural whites.

Bannon’s problem, in the final analysis, was that Trump didn’t buy into the part of the vision that applies to the economy.  Trump is proud of being a businessman, admires other successful businessmen, and genuinely believes in the PBP concepts of tax cuts and deregulation.  He also seems to understand the transactional nature of the support he gets from PBPs.  As a result, his program is the familiar one of regressive tax cuts for business and gestures for the Reactionary base.  What sets him apart from his predecessors is the frequency and the violence of the gestures, not the fact that they exist.

Can Bannonism survive?  His dismissal from Breitbart, presumably at the behest of its wealthy patron, suggests not.  While the Reactionaries are the biggest GOP faction, they don’t represent a majority of the party, much less the country as a whole.  The financial and voting support of the PBPs is just too important;  Trump realized that, even if Bannon didn’t.  As a result, Bannon was compelled to support cranks and fringe figures even before he broke with Trump.

What would it take for Bannonism to revive?  A charismatic leader with limited ties to business, but a strong understanding of the desires and fears of the elderly and poor white workers;  an economic disaster; and the evolution of the Democratic Party into a socialist party that truly threatens the interests of businessmen to the extent that they would support a Reactionary over a Democrat even if it means trade wars and limits on immigration.

If that sounds a lot like Germany in 1933, that’s not a coincidence.

I’m working today, as I always do on MLK Day.  It’s not that I disrespect the holiday;  it’s that I don’t think I’m morally entitled to the day off, just as I don’t take Veterans’ Day off.

Here are my thoughts on the holiday in 2018:

1.  It’s too bad that King was born in January.  We don’t need another holiday now, and the cold weather makes marching far less pleasant.
2.  The holiday is really going to resonate this year.  Expect more enthusiasm than usual and lots of hard anti-Trump rhetoric at the rallies.
3.  As a result, you can also expect some effort on the part of Reactionaries to eliminate the holiday altogether.

A shutdown is more likely than not at some point during the Trump years.  If it does, will the winner be:

1.  Trump, because it shows him to be a strong leader trying to drain the swamp?;
2.  The Democrats, because the Republicans are in control of Congress, and saving DACA is a popular cause?; or
3.  None of the above.

I vote for #3, because a shutdown, at this point, is likely only to reinforce the views that everyone already has about the current administration.  Both bases will be happy, for the reasons cited above.  The general opinion of government will fall slightly further, but neither Trump or the Democrats will win or lose.

The real losers will be Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, who will have proved, yet again, that they cannot control their own side.

Life in the time of Trump:

Bob Mueller’s on his tracks.

Subpoenas here;

Indictments there;

He’s digging for the facts.

Trump screams there’s no collusion

But his claims may not be true.

Will his foes move to impeach him?

Will the red turn into blue?

As authoritarian regimes around the world understand only too well, our liberal democratic values have been an effective source of soft power for decades.  They can be promoted in the following ways:

1.  Most American governments have been vocal advocates for our values.  Visible support for dissidents within authoritarian regimes, criticism for human rights violations, and even military intervention to stop humanitarian disasters are part of this package.
2.   If the need to support authoritarian regimes against greater evils makes talking about our values impractical in particular instances, our system can at least serve as a shining example of the success of those values.

Trump doesn’t do either of these things.  He made it clear almost immediately that America would no longer lecture friendly authoritarian governments;  human rights are only a stick with which to beat Iran, North Korea, and Cuba.  As to the shining example, Trump has consistently maintained that we have a “deep state,” that our media put out fake news, that our tactics overseas are no more scrupulous than our competitors’, that the judicial system is biased against him, and that the rule of law is a fraud.

Xi surely can’t believe his good fortune.  He cultivates soft power;  Trump throws ours away.

Yesterday, our fearless leader entertained us with the following:

1.  He tweeted in opposition to a surveillance bill supported by his administration in response to some comments on “Fox and Friends.”  He later took it back, while denying that he took anything back.
2.  Having provoked an unnecessary crisis by revoking legal protections for Dreamers, and having called for a bipartisan resolution to that crisis, he apparently rejected the bipartisan approach that was offered to him.
3.  He gave a deranged interview to the WSJ in which, among other things, he implied that he had contacted Kim Jong-Un directly, which is almost certainly not true.
4.  And, of course, he damaged America’s reputation around the world with his racist comments about Haiti, Africans, and Norwegians.

Today, he may put us on the fast track for a war with Iran.  Or not.  Who knows? That unpredictability is a feature of his government, not a bug.

A local weatherman used to describe our winter weather as “JAPDIP,” which stood for “just another perfect day in paradise.”  If you see “JAADIT” on this blog in the future, it means “just another average day in Trumpworld.”

Now they tell me that mountains and rivers make it hard to build the wall.  Who knew?

There was an old commercial (I think it was for an insurance company) in which a pregnant woman and her husband are waiting for a doctor in a hospital room. Buster Posey, the catcher for the San Francisco Giants, appears instead and offers to assist with the delivery, based on the supposed similarities between catching and the medical profession.  The husband wants to go for it, but his wife says no.

I think of this commercial when I contemplate the notion of President Winfrey.

Being a politician is a job that requires a particular skill set.  Some of these skills, like basic intelligence and the ability to communicate with the public, are probably common among celebrities.  Others, such as a grasp of policy, aren’t.

As a result, you can color me unenthusiastic about the prospect of an Oprah candidacy.  We already have a completely unqualified celebrity as our president, and the implications are now obvious to everyone.  She would be better, but I’m looking for a real politician, not Buster Posey.

As we know, what came to be known as Obamacare had its intellectual roots in the bowels of the Republican Party.  The GOP ultimately turned on it, however, for the following reasons:

1.  Anything supported by Obama, by definition, had to be bad;
2.  The individual mandate to purchase private insurance was viewed as an inappropriate and unconstitutional intrusion on personal liberty; and
3.  The redistribution of wealth inherent in the subsidies, community rating, and  Medicaid expansion were anathema to CLs and Reactionaries.

The GOP has addressed #2 in the tax bill.  In doing so without repealing the rest of the program, however, they have placed additional burdens, not on the undeserving poor, but on old and relatively affluent people who do not qualify for Medicaid or for subsidies.  It will also be more difficult for them to repeal the rest of the program without the individual mandate as a lightning rod.

And so, by accomplishing one of their objectives, the GOP has made accomplishing the other two much more difficult, and has increased costs for people who disproportionately vote Republican.  Nice going, guys.

It is, of course, completely hypocritical for Trump to be playing so much golf when he criticized Obama for doing the same thing, but I don’t agree with the people who think he should be spending more time working–in fact, I think he should be encouraged to spend as much time on the course as possible.  After all, it’s hard to work on a plan to blow up the world when you’re grinding over a three-footer for par on 18.

I’m not as enthusiastic about “executive time.”  Those are the periods in which he gets the bogus information from his friends and Fox News that he apparently uses as the basis for his decisions.

Maybe they should remove the televisions from the White House and build a driving range, instead.

Here is where the factions stand on cuts to “welfare” programs:

1.  CLs:  You can put it on the board . . . yes!  John Galt would be a happy man tonight.  Those people need to be kicked out of their hammock of dependency.
2.  Reactionaries:  Absolutely, yes.  We’re all about defending the interests of hard-working white Americans against the claims of the undeserving poor, many of whom are minorities who don’t belong here, anyway.
3.  PBPs:  We agree in concept, but we’re concerned that we’ll get bad press, that a backlash will result, and we’ll lose our tax cuts.  Proceed with caution, if at all.
4.  CDs:  Taking money from the poor is morally wrong.

The votes for this are there in the House, but the Senate would be a slog.  It would look a lot like Obamacare repeal.  My best guess is that it won’t happen.