Cromwell

In 2020, the polls suggested a blue wave was imminent, but it did not happen. Biden won the popular vote comfortably, but the electoral vote was decided by a relative handful of votes in swing states. The Democrats won a tiny majority in the House–I believe they actually lost seats–and a second tiny majority in the Senate due to a favorable playing field.

In 2024, Trump won a small victory in the popular vote and a larger one in the Electoral College. With the advantage of a favorable playing field, the GOP won a majority by taking three Senate seats in bright red states and a fourth by a microscopic margin in Pennsylvania. The composition of the House basically remained exactly the same.

What conclusions should we draw from this? That while most votes in presidential elections are cast on the basis of ideology and identity, the actual outcome is determined by perceptions of the state of the country on the date of the election. In 2020, the wild card was Trump’s covid response; in 2024, it was inflation. The electorate, however, does not blame members of Congress for the perceived performance of the president. House races, in particular, are determined purely by ideology and identity.

What does this mean for 2028? That Trump and the GOP, having promised voters that a radical reactionary program will recreate the economy of 2019, had better deliver, or the pendulum will go right back to where it was in 2020.

He argued that building walls around his country would make it great again. At first, it worked, at least in a political sense; he won a smashing electoral victory by appealing to a coalition of social conservatives, business interests worried about the hard left opposition, and frustrated blue-collar workers in depressed areas. But his government was corrupt and shambolic, and the promised growth didn’t materialize. In the end, he left office with a very poor approval rating, and the left prevailed in a big way in the subsequent election.

Is it Trump or Boris Johnson? We’re about to find out.

In my posts about a slide into an authoritarian state, I have focused largely on the possibility that Trump will simply ignore court orders that he doesn’t like. This assumes that the judiciary–and in particular, the Supreme Court–will stand up to any attempt to crush liberal democracy. But is that judicial opposition inevitable?

Far from it. The Court’s limited power rests on its legitimacy in the court of public opinion, which has waned in recent years. The Court has also shown a willingness to overturn well-established precedents. What if John Roberts decides that he can’t prevail in a battle with Trump, so the best way to preserve at least the shell of judicial independence is to avoid a showdown by reinterpreting the law in radically new ways that facilitate an authoritarian state?

It could happen.

The Fugitive Slave Act galvanized public opinion in the North against slavery because it compelled individual citizens to become agents of the slave power. In a similar vein, it is clear that, even with the unlawful assistance of the military, Trump will have to rely on state and municipal governments to help identify illegal immigrants for deportation. How will the blue states react?

One of the themes of the next four years will revolve around Trump’s efforts to use federal funds, the judiciary, and possibly the military to force blue state governments to cooperate with the deportation scheme. They are already gearing up to resist. Call it the new Underground Railroad.

The previous Trump administration was corrupt, divisive, and shambolic. The last of these characteristics was due partly to the man on golf cart’s unusual management style and partly to the fact that he had no agenda other than to take a four-year victory lap. What can we expect this time around?

The new administration may even be more corrupt than the previous one, given that Trump knows now that he can get away with anything. His use of the pardon power and his control of the DOJ mean that his friends will enjoy the same kind of immunity. That 2.0 will be at least as divisive as its predecessor goes without saying. But while Trump’s chaotic management style hasn’t changed, he has a clear agenda this time–to reward his friends and punish his enemies. As a result, 2.0 will be somewhat less shambolic, but only in a bad way; you can expect him to be more ruthless and methodical in his efforts to suppress dissent.

RELY ON ECONOMIC SANCTIONS TO IMPOSE YOUR WILL, NOT WAR: Trump has the facially odd idea–probably because he was a businessman, not a soldier–that the true test of manhood comes through negotiations, not war. To him, every interaction has a clear winner and loser, and he always wins. His weapon of choice in this approach is economic sanctions.

But sanctions didn’t prevent Iran from moving closer to a bomb. Sanctions against Russia didn’t force Putin to abandon the war. Sanctions against Venezuela have done nothing to prevent Maduro from consolidating his power. Over sixty years of sanctions against Cuba have not resulted in a revolution against the regime. The bottom line is, they rarely succeed; more often, they make the helpless population miserable without creating the desired political outcome.

Notwithstanding the sound and fury, both Biden and Trump agree that the Ukraine war will end with Russian control of some Ukrainian territory and the Ukrainians remaining out of NATO. Does that mean they support the same policies?

No, for two reasons. First, Trump wants to impose an unfavorable peace on Ukraine by withholding assistance. Biden’s changing stance on particular weapons at particular times had some of the same effect, but it was motivated by a fear of World War III, not by any desire to force Zelensky to accept a bad deal. Second, Biden almost certainly would agree to American security guarantees to Ukraine as part of any deal. Trump probably won’t. That represents the difference between South Korea after the cease-fire agreement and Czechoslovakia after Munich.

Trump literally could not have picked an AG nominee with less chance of getting confirmed than Matt Gaetz. That clearly was the point; the man on golf cart wanted to see if the Senate had any lines at all when it comes to his behavior. The answer, we are slightly relieved to see, is yes.

But two questions linger. First, we need to know if Gaetz is the only one over the line; will the Senate accept DOD and National Intelligence nominees who are clearly unfit for their positions and will put national security at risk? Second, who will Trump nominate as his second choice AG? Will it be a GOP grandee with expansive views of executive power (i.e., someone like Barr), one of his personal attorneys, a right-wing ideologue who fought for him after the 2020 election, or someone decent and respectable?

The least likely option is the last one.

UPDATE: Trump has nominated Pam Bondi, who falls into my second and third categories; she has personally represented Trump and said irresponsible things on TV about the 2020 election. That said, she is actually qualified for the job, and she–at least to my knowledge–hasn’t taken any outrageous positions in court. She will and should get some hard questions during the confirmation process about taking direction from Trump and prosecuting his opponents, but my guess is that she will be approved fairly easily.

Life in the time of Trump.

His AG pick was Gaetz.

He really wants to own the libs

And shatter the deep state.

But Matt was tripped up by his past

And now he has dropped out.

Will Trump select another clown?

He still has norms to flout.

Imagine that you are Vladimir Putin. In a sense, the war in Ukraine has been a huge strategic failure; you only control about 20 percent of the country’s land mass (not the most valuable part) after suffering huge losses, and NATO has been expanded to try to stop you. You have also lost influence to the Chinese in the near abroad. And yet, your economy is humming, you’re gaining ground, and you succeeded in creating the thoroughly fascist state you always wanted in response to the war. It’s a mixed bag, to be sure.

Trump is trying to impose a deal on you and the Ukrainians that ratifies your gains and keeps Ukraine out of NATO. Should you go for it?

On the one hand, your country could use a break, and if Ukraine is genuinely left without any guarantees of NATO support in the future, you can swallow it later. On the other hand, if peace breaks out, your people will be demanding some relief from your new restrictions, which is a minus for you. In addition, Trump will be taking credit for the peace. Why not just keep going, particularly since Trump is bound to cut off American aid to Ukraine regardless of what you do?

Both choices have some appeal. It probably comes down to the degree to which the Americans promise not to aid Ukraine in the future. In other words, does the agreement look more like the ceasefire in Korea or Munich? TBD.

WE’RE REALISTS, EXCEPT FOR ISRAEL, WHICH GETS OUR UNQUALIFIED SUPPORT: A realist would look at the Middle East and see that our interests are limited to preventing terrorism and keeping the oil flowing. The GOP, however (this is not limited to Trump) wants to give a blank check to Israel; Nikki Haley even argues that America needs Israel more than Israel needs us, which is ludicrous, as Iran only represents an existential threat to the Jewish state. Why are the Israelis so exceptional?

If the GOP position is based on the fact that Israel is an island of democracy in a sea of despotism, it violates the realist principle that I discussed in a previous post. I think it is more likely that Israeli exceptionalism is grounded in two things: first, the fundamentalist base loves Jews, as long as they are in Israel and not here; and second, the GOP admires swagger, and the Israelis are very good at kicking ass in their neighborhood.

It is worth noting that while Trump will give the green light to Israeli military adventures, it is far from certain that he will want to join them. Bibi clearly doesn’t want to take on Iran without active American involvement. As to that, we will have to wait and see.

I was charged with identifying and eliminating unnecessary regulatory overlap for a local government about thirty years ago. That makes me unusually qualified to give my old friends Elon and Vivek some unsolicited advice about dealing with “waste” at the federal level.

There are two kinds of “waste.” The first–and this is you find the real money–is in expensive federal programs that CLs think are unnecessary. The problem here is that the decision to get the federal government involved in these fields was made decades ago, has been ratified by Congress many times over, and typically was intended to address a legitimate market failure. In short, these are political, not technical, issues that should be addressed by Congress rather than the DOGE. The best Elon and Vivek can do is to make a clear case for getting rid of the programs and turn the issues over to the politicians.

But there are also issues relating to process that should be addressed. In some cases, money is actually wasted because the government’s ability to use technology to find facts is inadequate; in others, there may be problems with overstaffing or overlapping org charts that don’t really make sense. Elon and Vivek will be doing the public a service if they can address these problems. They will need help, however, from insiders who are actually familiar with the issues. Outsiders with a limited understanding of the way government works will just be thrashing around without results if they go it alone.

One other thing: to the extent that obsolete technology is the problem, it will have to be addressed by spending more money up front. Eliminating waste in the long run may well not provide immediate gratification for fiscal hawks.

BIDEN OVEREXTENDED AMERICA BY PUTTING TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON THE PROTECTION OF DEMOCRACY. WE NEED TO PULL BACK AND FOCUS ON CONTAINING CHINA: On its face, there is some merit to this argument; Biden did in fact use rhetoric about protecting democracy on a regular basis. In reality, however, the argument fails, because Biden’s actions were frequently at odds with his words. Biden changed course on Saudi Arabia, embraced an increasingly illiberal India, and said very little about human rights violations in China. His support for Ukraine was based more on concerns about imperialism and the international rule of law than supporting democracy. He also made far more effective efforts to contain China through the use of alliances than Trump did. Whether the new Trump team will continue these efforts or isolate America by offending our Asian friends remains to be seen.

Trump made it clear yesterday that he has every intention of using the military to build deportation camps and conduct raids. It is highly likely that a federal district court–probably one in the Ninth Circuit–will enjoin him from doing this. Then what?

I expect Trump to ignore the court order and move forward. At that point, having blown through the rule of law for what he considers a higher purpose, there will be no obstacles to despotism except his imagination and the willingness of the American people to risk their lives for the cause of liberal democracy.

If that doesn’t chill you to the bone, you haven’t read enough Hitler books.

THE ALLIES NEED TOUGH LOVE: While Trump frequently makes comments about how our allies just rip us off, his acolytes insist that America First doesn’t mean America alone; the man on golf cart just has a colorful way of telling the allies that they need to contribute more to their own defense. Tough love, in the long run, is actually in their interests. Does this ring true?

Trump doesn’t just complain about having to pay for the defense of our friends; he plans to impose large tariffs on them, force Ukraine to make a bad deal that they will oppose, and roundly ignore their concerns about climate change. This doesn’t sound like tough love; it sounds like outright hostility to me.

I suspect Trump believes, in the long run, the allies have to fall in line, because they have no other viable options, given their unwillingness to pay for military protection. That isn’t true. China does not present a military threat to the EU, so it could start taking positions on economic issues that are closer to China’s than ours. Japan and South Korea could decide that becoming Chinese vassal states is safer than supporting America. Then what? America First will, in fact, mean America alone.