Cromwell

Leaving aside the obnoxious attempt by Elon Musk to be their boss, the sticking point with the latest version of the CR was the attempt to exempt the first two years of Trump from Democratic leverage on the debt ceiling. Why not double down on the issue? Get rid of the debt ceiling altogether! That would do the Democrats a lot more good in the long run than preserving it for use in the short run.

WE’LL SHUT DOWN FOR CHRISTMAS

We’ll shut down for Christmas.

You can count on us.

You should know

The bill won’t go

It fills us with disgust.

____________

Christmas Eve will find us

Sending out pink slips.

We’ll shut down for Christmas

‘Cause Musk just let it rip.

Bret Stephens is done being a Never Trumper. He still recognizes Trump’s shortcomings, of course, but he has decided the left is far worse. All those smug coastal cultural elitists looking down on the working class–they deserve their comeuppance.

The Never Trumpers have hit a dead end. You can understand why they would be trying to return to the fold, particularly when Musk and Ramaswamy represent hope for their tax cutting and deregulatory ideology. But please spare us the crap about the elites, Bret. If someone wanted to take a picture of a prominent, wealthy coastal neoliberal who has nothing but disdain for struggling American workers, it would look just like you.

Why did Trump win? He somehow persuaded the voting public to ignore the cataclysmic events of 2020 and to use 2019 as a baseline. Inflation and interest rates were worse in 2024 than in 2019, so he could claim that Americans were better off under him than under Biden.

Of course, Trump took over a growing Obama economy with low unemployment and inflation and only made it very slightly better. That was the baseline in 2016. Everyone ignored that, too.

The Democrats need to make a big effort to publicize the actual baseline economic numbers for the second Trump term. If the numbers are worse in 2028 than they are today–a very real possibility, given the problems the tariff and deportation regime will create–the left needs to hang them around J.D. Vance’s neck.

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown fading lame duck blues.

You have to be aware of it; it’s all over the news.

I’ve got to keep extremists out, but now I have to choose.

If, under pressure, I resign, my candidates would lose.

__________

I have to do all that I can to beat Marine LePen.

The showdown is approaching soon; I just don’t know quite when.

I lost the last election, so I don’t have many friends.

The center isn’t holding; my PM might fall again.

________________

I’ve got the blues.

The neo-Vichy blues.

The center has been voted out.

For that, there’s no excuse.

We’re standing on a precipice

Between the two extremes.

That’s our new reality;

It isn’t a bad dream.

CLs: Tariffs are an unwarranted expansion of central government power. They drive up prices and encourage arbitrary treatment and corruptions. We hate them. Fortunately, Trump is just bluffing when he talks about using them.

PBPs: Ditto, and they screw up our supply chains and reduce profits, too. Fortunately, Trump is just bluffing when he talks about using them. His economic team will see to that.

Reactionaries: Tariffs and mass deportations are the cornerstone of the Godly Society. Trump consistently promised them during his campaign. We’re sure he will keep his promises.

As you can see, tariffs are the quintessential issue on which half of the Trump supporters hope he will keep his promises and half are certain he won’t. Someone is going to be very disappointed here. Based on Trump’s record over several decades, it’s going to be the CLs and the PBPs.

During the second Obama term, GDP grew at roughly 2.5 percent per year. Inflation was minimal. Trump ran in 2016 on a promise to use tax cuts and deregulation to increase the growth rate substantially. On its own terms, the huge tax cut was a failure, as it did not result in a significant increase in investment. The tariffs did not bring back manufacturing jobs, either, and the deficit exploded. On a more positive note, the tax cut did, in fact, create a small boom in consumption. On the whole, 2017-2019 saw a very slight increase in the rate of GDP growth from the Obama years. Then came the pandemic, and the economy fell into recession.

The postscript to the pandemic was inflation, which was exacerbated a bit by Biden’s spending. The spending increased growth rates, however, and inflation today is almost normal. GDP growth during the Biden years has been virtually identical to the figure during the Trump years if you toss out the impact of the pandemic on both 2020 (Trump) and 2021 (Biden).

Trump is once again promising a huge increase in growth from tax cuts, deregulation, tariffs, and deportations. Based on the historical record for the first two and common sense for the last two, why would anyone believe that?

The 1914 analogy, of course, assumes that America is playing the role of the UK–the imperial status quo power in slight decline. The UK, however, fought and won World War I with the assistance of powerful allies. Trump is more interested in offending allies than making them. As a result, he looks a lot like Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose inept attempts at a bullying form of “diplomacy” left Germany with only the feeble Austro-Hungarian Empire to help fight the war in Europe (the Ottomans didn’t contribute there). In the final analysis, that probably doomed the German war effort.

As I’ve noted innumerable times before, you would have great difficulty finding any prominent Democrat who supported defunding the police or accepts the more extreme claims made by trans activists. And yet, the GOP has succeeded in tarring the entire blue team with these extreme positions. The GOP, on the other hand, has never paid a similar price for the views of its extremists. What can the Democrats do about this?

Refusing to talk about culture wars isn’t the answer. Democrats at all levels need to make it clear that they don’t believe in using the state to oppress or discriminate against unpopular minorities, but that doesn’t mean they accept every argument made on X on their behalf.

If you’re a trans person, David French feels your pain. He thinks the GOP’s vilification of trans people during the campaign was deplorable. And yet, he supports Tennessee’s position on the treatment of trans children, because he finds that the state has a right to override the preferences of doctors and parents, and because he believes the evidence on the proper treatment of trans children is unclear. Is he right?

I have some issues with his arguments. If you accept that the medical evidence is disputed–and I do–prohibiting the treatment regimen preferred by most doctors isn’t exactly a good way to generate evidence and get to the truth. In addition, Tennessee is taking away a potential remedy without offering anything in return. Finally, and most importantly for this post, the argument that the state has the right to override parental wishes on a variety of issues, while legally correct, is fundamentally inconsistent with the GOP’s campaign supporting “parental rights” on a host of other matters.

What the GOP really means is that it only supports the rights of reactionary parents to exempt themselves from the rules of a liberal state. Liberal parents in red states need not apply.

The big tech companies are falling all over themselves to suck up to Trump. Why?

Because, in spite of Trump’s complaints about them, he is their natural ally in many respects. He will cut their taxes, call off the antitrust dogs, and treat them as national champions in his dealings with Europe. In addition, they never wanted to engage in content moderation, which costs them money and alienates customers. Trump will give them the perfect excuse to let right-wing extremism rip.

There is, of course, the little problem with Trump’s immigration policies, but the man on golf cart might tone that down when it benefits him politically. We’ll see.

There has been a pro-Russian thread to German foreign policy ever since it became a single unified nation in 1871. Bismarck had the Reinsurance Treaty; the Weimar Republic made a secret deal with the Bolsheviks to facilitate rearmament; Hitler agreed to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939; and some German politicians promoted Ostpolitik during the Cold War days.

Trump and his advisers plan to slap tariffs on German exports and to bully the Germans into spending far more on defense than they do today. What if Putin offers them cheap gas and a non-aggression pact in exchange for acquiescence to Russian dominance in Ukraine and a refusal to rearm? It would save the Germans a lot of money at a time when their economy is struggling.

Trump probably believes this option is unthinkable, so the Germans will ultimately have to kiss his ring. History and common sense tell us he’s wrong about that.

You’re probably familiar with the World War I analogy in which the US plays the role of the principal status quo power–the UK–and China is Germany, the up-and-coming revisionist country. But who would play the other roles in the analogy?

The EU would be the Austro-Hungarian Empire, because it is a multi-national entity in relative decline that is very difficult to govern. India–not really aligned with either alliance and looking for the best deal–would be Italy, of course. Japan and South Korea–large economies that are nonetheless dwarfed by an aggressive neighbor–would be France. And Russia? It would be, well, Russia–an economic pygmy with a fearsome military and imperial ambitions.

Who will play Serbia? Probably Taiwan.

An article in the NYT notes that the belief that the FBI is dominated by left-wingers who unfairly targeted Trump is now GOP orthodoxy. Does that make sense?

It makes about as much sense as saying that our universities are controlled by right-wing intellectuals, or that our captains of industry are communists. Jobs in law enforcement are typically populated by order-loving conservatives, not flaming liberals. Why would the FBI be any different?

It isn’t. In case you forgot, the agency followed its protocol by keeping the Trump investigation secret during the waning days of the 2016 election, while making its actions regarding Clinton’s e-mails extremely public. That breach of normal procedure undoubtedly helped Trump win the election.

Oh, and Christopher Wray was appointed by Trump, not Biden.

Christian Democrats and Reactionaries have similar views about using the government to restore traditional moral values. So what makes them different?

CDs believe in liberal democracy and its processes. They worry that pushing the envelope too hard against the views of the immoral majority will result in either tyranny or a powerful backlash against the movement. As a result, they support cautious and incremental change. Reactionaries don’t share their scruples or their fears; to them, the hour for the counterrevolution has come, and must be exploited to the fullest regardless of the risks.