Cromwell

Take up the white man’s burden.

Hispanic folks must pack.

America is ours again.

White beat brown and black.

Our people built the promised land.

They made the country great.

I hope Trump turns the ship around.

I pray it’s not too late.

Brad DeLong has a lengthy article on Vox.com which absolutely demolishes the notion that bad trade agreements are a major factor in the decline of American manufacturing employment.  His graphs showing American and German manufacturing employment as a percentage of total jobs from the 1950’s to the present are particularly persuasive.  It should be required reading for Trump, but, of course, it’s way too long for his attention span.

David Brooks had a column in the NYT last week in which he argued that chaos in the Trump Administration should be more of a concern than authoritarian behavior.  In this, he was following the lead of his colleague Ross Douthat, who proposed a graph with an axis running from chaotic to authoritarian.

Both of them have missed the point.  There is no doubt that the Trump Administration will be chaotic;  Trump likes chaos, because it makes him unpredictable and increases his freedom of action.  Given his short attention span and lack of interest in ideology, I am also convinced that he has no plan to institutionalize repression.  What I do expect, however, is that chaos and failure will lead to unpopularity, which in turn will cause Trump to lash out at his critics periodically in ways that only a man on golf cart could admire.  And so, it is perfectly possible that Trump can be both authoritarian and chaotic;  he just can’t do it in a systematic way.

Trump has directed the military to come up with a plan to destroy ISIS, which leads to the following observations:

1. What is the point of this exercise if he already has his own secret plan?  Could it possibly be that the “secret plan” was just a lie?
2. The military already has a plan, and it’s working.  The “caliphate” won’t survive the year.

Trump probably expects his Press Secretary to be his alter ego, but he’s a tough act to follow.  No normal person could be expected to concurrently charm, lie to, and wage war on the MSM on a daily basis.

The only person who could pull it off, to my knowledge, is Alec Baldwin, but I don’t think he’s available.

When our beautiful Australian Shepherd was a puppy, we took him to herd sheep just to see how he would do.  He confronted the sheep with more energy and enthusiasm than discretion.  When he was done, the guy in charge said that he had good instincts, but was “too rough with his mouth.”

That, in a nutshell, is the conservative case for Trump.  Yes, they say, he can be a bit coarse at times, but that is just a symptom of the strength of his commitment to the cause;  at heart, as the story goes, he is just a conventional Republican.  A Mitt in wolf’s clothing, if you like.  To the extent he might be tempted to veer off the rails, he will be kept under control by our wise and brave GOP legislators, like Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio.  And, if all else fails, the judicial system will make sure he doesn’t turn into a man on horseback.

Let’s examine each of those arguments, in order:

1.  Trump is really a conventional Republican:  Really?  Does a conventional Republican call for tariffs, berate businessmen who are just doing their job, describe our alliances as “obsolete,” cozy up to Putin, attack non-politicians on Twitter, and lie all of the time?  Would a conventional Republican refer to the current state of the country as “American carnage?”  I don’t think so.

2.  GOP legislators will keep him under control:  Marco Rubio just announced that he’s going to support Tillerson in spite of his reservations about the man. What does that tell you about his willingness to take on Trump?  And that is before the big regressive tax cut for which Paul Ryan would happily sell his mother.

3.  The judiciary will maintain order:  Trump thinks following rules is for chumps.  His disdain for the judicial system was openly displayed during the campaign.  Judges don’t have an army behind them.  Who is going to stop him if and when he flouts court orders he doesn’t like?

No, I can assure you, the sheep are in for a very rough four years.

WHO NEEDS THE TPP WHEN YOU’VE GOT NUKES?

Three suggestions for the Democratic Party:

1.  Take Michelle’s advice.  You can’t win a race to the bottom with Trump, so don’t try.  When he goes low, be responsible and go high.

2.  Remember your target audience.  There are millions of people out there who had serious qualms about Trump, but supported him because they thought the alternative was worse.  They are your audience;  take care of them.

3.  Don’t get frustrated if you can’t convert the “deplorables.”  Trump was right about one thing:  some of his supporters will remain in his camp no matter what happens.  You can’t reach them, so don’t spend any time worrying about them.

 

1.  In the long run, will Trump’s foreign policy be conventional or unconventional?  That it will be truculent is a given, but to what end?  Trump and Flynn seem to be wedded to neo-mercantilism and the Unholy Alliance, but the country, the GOP, and even members of his own cabinet will resist.  The early returns are not encouraging, but we have four long years to go.

2.  Which of the three economic scenarios will come to pass?  The variables here are the intensity of the trade wars and entitlement cuts;  a huge regressive tax cut and interest rate hikes are givens.  Trade wars will make the Trump slump much worse; entitlement cuts will reduce the deficit and interest rates, but focus the pain on the poor.  Neither of these is inevitable.

3.  How much damage will be done to our political system?  Trump cannot abide the idea of “losing.”  Don’t expect him to sit by idly while his program (such as it is) bogs down in Congress, and is unpopular.  He’s going to lie about the facts, do his best to muzzle the media, and ignore court orders.  He will probably demand more law enforcement powers, and get them, as soon as there is a domestic terrorist attack.  How far will this go?  Nobody knows yet.

The new White House counsellor named Conway

Was offended by crowd counts on Friday.

Her opinion was backed

By alternative facts.

She said it’s her way or the highway.

She wrote songs that were poignant, full of puns and memorable turns of phrase, wickedly funny, and feminist to the core.  Think Elvis Costello, but from a woman’s perspective, and with a bit more polish.

If you’ve never heard of her, and chances are you haven’t, you don’t know what you missed.

Now I have a new reason to grieve, as if I needed one.

If Barack Obama was the moon and the stars, Michelle was the earth:  strong; direct; fiercely intelligent.  She navigated more minefields than we can imagine and left the White House with a higher approval rating than her husband.  She will be missed.

Comparisons to JFK were ubiquitous when Obama ran in 2008.  Now that his term is over, how do the two stack up?

                                JFK               v.             Obama

Trailblazer           Catholic                  African-American

Great Speaker      Yes                          Yes

Russian Foe          Khrushchev          Putin

Foreign Failure    Bay of Pigs            Syria

Foreign Success    Test Ban Treaty    Iran Deal

Crisis                       Cuban Missiles     Great Recession

Civil Rights Issue   Segregation          Police Tactics

Endless War           Vietnam                Afghanistan

 

And the winner is . . . Obama.  While we don’t know how much of his legacy will survive Trump, he will always be the guy who steered us out of the Great Recession.  JFK’s principal legacy, to be blunt, is the Camelot myth.

 

FTT #3

CROOKED MEDIA DOCTOR PHOTOS TO MAKE ME LOOK UNPOPULAR.  I’M MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS.  SAD!

FTT #4

NO TENS AMONG MARCHING WOMEN.  PROBABLY ALL THREES AND FOURS.

Today, I’m unveiling a new feature:  fake Trump tweets!  Take them seriously, but not literally.

FTT #1

AN AMAZING DAY!  JACKIE E KILLED IT!  WHO NEEDS BEYONCE AND ARETHA–THEY’RE SUCH LOSERS!

FTT #2

TIME TO UNITE THE COUNTRY!  GET BEHIND ME, OR I’LL KICK YOUR ASS!