Cromwell

Harris continues to tie Trump to Project 2025 even though the man on golf cart has repeatedly and loudly attempted to distance himself from the document. Is it fair for her to do so, and will it work?

The answer to the first question is yes, because: the document was written by a group of people with very strong ties to Trump; parts of it are completely consistent with statements he has made over the years; and he has never indicated which parts of it he disagrees with, although it is safe to assume that the section on reproductive rights probably fits that bill. In any event, Trump lies virtually every time he opens his mouth. Why would any sane person rely on his promises this time around?

The answer to the second question is also yes, but with a caveat; fact checkers who are foolish enough to accept Trump’s repudiation of the document at face value will say she is lying, which will reduce her credibility on other issues. It will be important for her to explain why she feels entitled to talk about Project 2025 during the debate before she actually does.

The Democrats are a liberal party; they believe in removing the legal and practical barriers to legitimate individual choices. Some families would like to have more children but are prevented from doing so by soaring costs. Hence, the need for a larger child tax credit.

The GOP, on the other hand, is split. The majority consists of right-wing liberals, who support the right of women to choose their number of offspring but put a higher priority on limiting the size and cost of government than on increasing the size of families. The minority, represented most conspicuously by J.D. Vance, sees tariffs and deportations as the principal means by which the Godly Society can be recreated. More children will be the inevitable result of the Godly Society. The child tax credit, while somewhat helpful, is at best a distraction in their eyes; it may do some good in the short run, but it props up the unholy status quo, which tolerates the illegitimate choice of limiting family size, in the long run.

If you were wondering why a party that purports to be “pro-family” opposed the tax credit, look no further than that.

The supposedly pro-family GOP shut down the increase in the child tax credit a short time ago. J.D. Vance, Mr. Childless Cat Lady himself, didn’t even bother to vote. Is this evidence of his hypocrisy on family issues?

Not exactly, if you understand his ultimate objectives. For Vance, the goal is the Godly Society, as I have defined it in previous posts. Having more children–the right kind of children–is the natural consequence of the Godly Society. The child tax credit doesn’t lead us to the Godly Society; it is just putting a band-aid on a broken back. As a result, it wasn’t worth the effort.

In other words, Vance isn’t exactly a hypocrite; he’s an extremist social conservative who is doing his best to conceal his extremism, because he knows it won’t fly with the American public. It has to be introduced by stealth and then imposed by force.

Every day, it seems, I read another story about a Biden administrative initiative that has been blocked by a federal court. From student loan forgiveness to climate change mitigation to transgender rights to gun regulations to immigration reform, the lower courts, mostly but not exclusively in the Fifth Circuit, are making sure that the blue team agenda is stuck in the mud. The Supreme Court is always there as a backstop, too, thanks largely to Trump and his appointees.

It’s good that the Democrats are filled with joy, but the fact of the matter is that the McConnell Project will prevent them from exercising power even if they win. Legislation–other than through negotiations over the expiration of the Trump tax cuts–will be impossible due to the filibuster, and anything the courts view as a major administrative change will run aground almost immediately. As a result, judicial reform is going to be a major topic in the next Democratic administration, whether in 2025 or afterwards.

Beyonce didn’t show, but otherwise, the DNC was a complete success. What are the next potential inflection points for the campaign?

Hold on to your hat between September 10 and the 18th. The debate is scheduled for the 10th. Harris needs to use her considerable legal skills to take Trump apart and keep him looking scattered and small. On the 18th, the Fed is expected to lower interest rates, which will give a boost to the Harris campaign. And the same day, Justice Merchan may sentence Trump on the fraudulent documents charge. In the past, Trump has profited politically from his appearances in court, because the base buys into his martyrdom narrative. This time, the audience will be, not the base, but undecided voters motivated primarily by economic self-interest, and the outcome will be very different.

It’s official: Harris is running for Biden’s second term. That’s OK! Biden’s agenda and accomplishments were never unpopular; it was the man himself that the public disliked, mostly because they thought he was too old. That problem has now been remedied.

The difficult task for Harris is to run both as an incumbent and a change agent–to take credit for what the administration got right, and to distance herself from the unpopular parts. She can do this–and is doing it–by being Biden on substance and herself on style.

If you don’t believe me, ask Trump; he’s been presenting himself as a Reactionary in style and a PBP on substance for years.

I don’t see any reason to believe that Harris disagrees in any significant way with Biden’s approach to the war. But what if she wins, and the war continues to drag on? Will she agree to some sort of major escalation in order to break the deadlock? Conversely, will she nod to American war-weariness and put more pressure on the Ukrainians to settle?

I honestly don’t know the answers to those questions. I doubt she does, either.

Sure, he was unconventional. Angry, even. He would stop at nothing to get revenge for the wrongs done to him. He skirted the boundaries of the law, and sometimes went over it. But he was just what America needed when it had turned into a dystopia overrun by enemies both foreign and domestic. Only he had the strength and the ruthlessness to save us from the overwhelming evil. And he did.

No, America was a beautiful, prosperous land, still full of promise. People of all sorts lived in harmony. The problem was an evil magician who afflicted them. A plucky, innocent young woman, with the help of her loyal friends, used her courage and her wit to defeat the evil one and brought back the golden age. Things went back to normal, and everyone rejoiced.

Yes, this campaign is a battle between two movies–“Batman” and “The Wizard of Oz.” Which do you prefer? As for me, I’m off the see the wizard.

Joe Biden, an old white guy from the East Coast, had no natural sympathy for tech companies. As a result, progressives who argued that the tech companies were monopolists gorging themselves at the expense of the public welfare had a willing listener in the White House. Harris, on the other hand, is younger, comes from San Francisco, and has friends in tech. Would her administration be different on this issue?

Possibly, for two reasons. First, in an increasingly protectionist world, it is going to be very tempting to view the big tech companies as American national champions. Second, the giants are starting to move out of their well-defined sphere of influence to compete with one another. That makes antitrust concerns less compelling.

The Harris plan to restrain grocery price increases falls well short of price controls. It was enough, however, to inspire Trump–a man who says he can cut electricity prices across the country in half, without describing how–to call Harris a communist.

Well, if Harris is a communist, then so was Richard Nixon. That would probably come as a surprise to Roger Stone, the unabashed right-wing admirer of both Nixon and Trump.

The only point of a convention in the 21st century is to sell the candidates to the public, right? So why did Trump’s speech start well after 10:30 and run past midnight, and why was Biden on so late last night?

A cynic would say that the less the public sees of those two elderly gentlemen, the better. If the blue team can’t impose enough discipline to have Harris and Walz finish by 11:00 EDT, however, that would meet my definition of insanity. It makes no sense to fill valuable time with shots of blathering nonentities and partying delegates when America needs an introduction to the candidates on the most favorable ground possible.

A few days after Biden announced that he would not accept the nomination, he came out in favor of Supreme Court reform. Was that a coincidence?

No, because the campaign changed the minute Harris became the nominee. Biden, fittingly enough for a man of his age, was running as a genuine constitutional conservative against a guy who wants to trash American liberal democracy. Supreme Court reform was inconsistent with that message of stability and preservation. Harris is a new, younger face with a program of change, albeit of the incremental type. The blue team agenda cannot advance very far without a different Supreme Court. Hence, the shift in position.

In other words, I predicted Supreme Court reform would become a major issue for the left the day after the election. Biden’s withdrawal simply accelerated the process a few months.

Reactionaries are suddenly in a tizzy about the birth rate. Should we take their concern at face value?

No, because of the limits on it. They still don’t want immigrant children. They don’t support IVF. And they certainly don’t want teenagers to start having sex and kids out of wedlock. Those children are a burden on society–that is to say, on their wallets.

The great birth rate panic is really a proxy for the desire for the Godly Society, as I described it in a previous post. Trump has upended the old rules and made fundamental change in American society look possible again. It is now imaginable to the right that the federal government could use its power to force people to live in the sexual world of the 1950s again. More children–the right kind of children–would be the inevitable result.

Lindsey Graham is worried. He has come to Bedminster to talk about the campaign. Trump keeps him waiting for an hour this time.

T: Linseed! Why are you here? Why aren’t you out campaigning for me?

G: I’m concerned about your campaign.

T: Why? I’m way ahead. I can’t lose. Unless, of course, the Democrats cheat again. We’ll be ready for that this time.

G: The polls say you’re behind now.

T: The polls have always been wrong about me. Don’t pay any attention to them. The country loves me.

G: They might be right this time.

T: America is not going to vote for a black woman. Or Asian, or whatever she is today. It depends on the audience.

G: That’s part of the problem. You’re spending too much time on identity stuff, and not on the issues. You should be talking about inflation, not giving Harris nicknames.

T: That’s what you don’t get, Linseed. The base wants entertainment. It doesn’t care about issues. It wants me to be me, because it has faith in me. Inflation is boring; criminal illegal aliens aren’t.

G: The base isn’t America. You need votes from the center to win.

T: I’ll win as long as the base remains loyal and votes. Business will follow because it has nowhere else to go. The rest of the country is a minority. That’s why I always win.

G: What about 2020?

T: I won in 2020. You forget–the election was rigged.

G: Oh, right. I forgot. There are reports that the crowds at your rallies are getting bored. They want to hear something new. Something that will improve their lives, not just yours.

T: Let’s put it this way. When the Stones are out on tour, do the crowds want to hear “Angry?” No! They want to hear “Satisfaction.” That’s why I give my fans the classics. They still love them. That’s why my crowds are much larger than Harris’. Much larger. Trust me on that.

G: How many times can you say nasty things about illegal immigrants? That gets old.

T: Not to my fans.

G: And do you have to call immigrants “animals?” That makes you sound like Hitler. The left thinks you mean it.

T: Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t. That’s the great thing about being an insult comic–nobody can really tell. I can tell the donor class that I don’t mean it. Who knows?

G: Well, do you mean it?

T: You’ll find out after I win the election.

G: Just remember–the electorate in 2024 isn’t the same one you won with in 2016. A lot of really old white guys who voted for you back then are dead. You can’t take anything for granted, particularly with Biden out of the race.

T: Yeah, that really pisses me off. He was entitled to run against me, and I was entitled to kick his ass. That was a crime against him, and America, and me. It was election interference. It was yet another attempt to rig the system against me. Guess what? I’m going to win anyway. As I said, America isn’t going to vote for a woman–particularly a black and Asian woman. It wants a strong leader. That’s me.

G: I hope you’re right. I’m not so sure. (He leaves)

Biden initially positioned himself as the most moderate of the Democratic candidates in 2020, but he decided he would run as a new FDR after he received the nomination. This was for three reasons: he needed to maintain unity with the left to accomplish the overriding objective of defeating Trump; the pandemic made huge public investments and social programs that would have been unthinkable under normal circumstances plausible, and even inevitable; and the left had learned from the Obama years that it was essential to go big early in order to avoid a sclerotic recovery and increased levels of inequality. In the end, Biden’s efforts to fundamentally reshape the economy failed, due to a lack of votes in the Senate and inflation. He made a difference, particularly with regard to green energy and infrastructure, but he was no FDR.

Harris has shown no inclination to take on the dollar store thus far. Her proposals to juice the economy have been small-bore and targeted at particularly significant voting blocks. Why? Because there is no scenario in which she would have enough votes in Congress to do more than that. This in turn is a reflection of the fact that the electorate, for all of its grumbling, is not violently opposed to the dollar store, which, for all of its shortcomings, does have benefits (low prices for imported consumer goods; high stock values) for the average American.