Cromwell

Harris has promised to prosecute the case against Trump. Does that mean Trump can get an order from Judge Cannon stopping her on the ground that the prosecution isn’t authorized by federal statute?

Just kidding–sort of.

It won’t be enough for Harris to argue that Trump is a felon and a fraudster–everyone already knows that. The case against Trump has to look forward to deal with his plans to raise prices for middle-class consumers, abandon Ukraine, ignore climate change, isolate America, build huge deportation camps, and give wealthy businessmen another big tax cut. In the end, it is future prospects and perceived self-interest, not moral judgments, that will decide the election.

I’ve got those dirty, lowdown, senior moment blues.

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

I had a bad debate last month, and then I had to choose.

The polls were looking bad; if I continued, I would lose.

___________

I did my best to soldier on, but no one had my back.

The MSM went after me, and no one cut me slack.

The donors wouldn’t give to me, and things were looking black.

Nancy and Obama said the party should change tack.

____________

I’ve got the blues.

The Lyndon Johnson blues.

I wish I could keep fighting on

Lord knows I’ve paid my dues.

The torch has passed to Harris now

Her chances don’t look great.

I hope this doesn’t turn into

A 1968.

Imagine that you are Gretchen Whitmer and you are thinking about mounting a campaign for the nomination. Since the delegates were originally pledged to Biden and he has endorsed Harris, your chances of success are slim. If you fail, you will be roundly attacked for being divisive and damaging the party in the existential battle against Trump, which will hurt your chances in 2028. If, against the odds, you succeed, you will have to put together a national campaign in record time even though you have no experience running outside of Michigan. You will have to do something to deal with the anger of the Harris supporters, who will feel their candidate is entitled to the nomination. In addition, you would be starting the campaign as a big underdog, given the current state of the polls.

Is it any wonder she is not, in fact, mounting a campaign for the nomination? Running against a highly unpopular J.D. Vance in 2028 sounds like a much better bet.

With the Biden withdrawal and the attempt on Trump’s life, the 1968 analogy became even more compelling over the last few weeks. Are we doomed to a violent convention and a Republican victory in November?

No on both counts. The Harris candidacy probably reduced the likelihood of widespread Gaza protests in Chicago, there is no war to divide the Democrats, the wannabe assassin missed, our cities still aren’t burning, and Trump is an even less likely unifier than Nixon was. Harris may not win, but she provides hope. That’s the first thing the blue team needed.

In my opinion, Joe Biden, for the most part, was an excellent president. Given his current condition and the likelihood of further deterioration, however, it would have been irresponsible for the Democratic Party to make him its nominee. Biden has now taken that option off the table. We thank him for his decision and his service.

Where do we go from here? I would prefer an open convention with Harris as the presumptive nominee, but I don’t think that will happen. I suspect Harris will lock up the nomination as the only possible unity candidate within a matter of a few days. At that point, she can start thinking about defeating Trump.

Trump probably can’t wait to take her on. He will portray her as a weak affirmative action baby with strong woke leanings who bungled the border and pandered to BLM protesters. That will obviously go over well with the Fox News crowd, but they won’t decide the election. The outcome in November will be determined by people who are either waiting to see the state of the economy on Election Day or who plan to vote for the least unsuitable candidate. Biden’s withdrawal removes his physical and mental condition as an issue and gives the Democrats a chance with the latter group. It means the blue team has hope again if it plays its cards right.

Most of our food is produced in America, so unless the immigrant deportation campaign ruins American agriculture (a real possibility), I don’t think the Trump tariffs will result in large price hikes. There are exceptions to this rule, however. Some agricultural products simply cannot be produced in America. Think chocolate, for example.

It makes absolutely no sense to drive up the cost of products that cannot be made here, and yet the Trump scheme has been described as “universal.” If that is true in practice, you can expect the cost of chocolate candy to go up significantly next year for no good reason. Will Americans welcome that? I doubt it.

Imagine that the Trump tariffs have been imposed, and that you are an entrepreneur with plenty of money to invest. You are considering starting a business that will manufacture and sell big screen televisions. What factors will you consider, and will you do it?

Here are the two biggest concerns you will have:

1. Your very large investment will only make financial sense if you are certain that the tariffs will remain in place for quite a long time. Are you sure of that?
2. You will need to hire hundreds of workers at a time when the labor market is extremely tight. The wages you pay them cannot be so high that your product will be uncompetitive even with the tariffs in place. Are you certain this can be done?

If I’m the entrepreneur, the answer to both questions is no. As a result, I’m not making the investment.

The Peter Gabriel album that is best known for the songs “Biko” and “Games Without Frontiers” also contains a song called “Family Snapshot.” The song is about a man who assassinates a political leader, not because he despises the guy’s political views, but because he desperately wants the attention he was denied when he was a child.

The song should resonate today, because it is becoming increasingly likely that it is a good description of the guy who shot Trump. The near success of the wannabe assassin should particularly concern the right for three reasons. First, the right almost always attributes mass murders to mental illness; this guy wasn’t obviously crazy. Second, the place was crawling with good guys with guns, but they still couldn’t stop him. Finally, the shooter wouldn’t have had access to an AR-15 if it had been up to the blue team. It is the friends of the victims who would defend the shooter’s right to own an assault rifle.

Most of the discussion about Biden’s candidacy has revolved around polls and the issue of electability. Biden continues to insist that the shift in public opinion has been small, and that he can recover. Many other Democrats disagree.

But that is the wrong question to be asking at this point. There is no guarantee that any of the other possible nominees would fare better than Biden, even though that seems very likely to me, given that all of them are better positioned to make the argument about Trump’s unfitness than he is. The real issue is whether it is responsible for the Democratic Party to nominate a man who, based on the most recent evidence, is barely physically and mentally able to govern today to run the country for the next four years.

Most of the voters say the answer to that question is no, and with good reason. America is entitled to better than something akin to the last years of FDR or Woodrow Wilson.

There are two kinds of Trump speeches. The first kind, of which “American Carnage” is the best known, is the Batman speech, in which Trump paints a picture of American dystopia, grits his teeth, and vows revenge against the forces of evil, which include everyone who disagrees with him. The second kind is a kind of unhinged used car salesman patois. Trump invents “facts” on the spot, identifies everything about him and his allies as the greatest ever, and assures us that we can trust him to solve all of our problems through his general awesomeness. Ideas and expertise are unnecessary in this universe; all that is required is strength and the will to use it.

With the exception of the long section on illegal immigration, which was to be expected, this was a car salesman speech. Trump specifically disclaimed any desire to be an authoritarian. He actually boasted about his lack of policy ideas at one point in the speech. The economic section focused on tax cuts, not tariffs. On foreign policy, he basically just told us that he would terrify the world into submission by projecting strength and making demands on friends and foes alike. That’s the plan, I guess.

Two observations are pertinent here. First, most of America finds even the car salesman to be unsettling, so running past the bedtime of most of the viewers might have been an unintentional stroke of genius. Second, just because he left Batman at home for the night doesn’t mean he is gone for good. He’s just around the corner. Believe me. Believe me.

In an interview with Ezra Klein, the right-wing populist pundit Oren Cass concedes that the Trump regime of deportations and tariffs would create short-term pain in the form of higher inflation, but insists it will be worth it in the end. He also points to the revenue raised by the tariff as an unacknowledged part of the equation. Is he right?

Yes and no. Joe Chamberlain supported tariffs in the late 19th and early 20th century in an effort, not just to bind the British Empire more closely together, but to pay for the beginnings of a welfare state. I see no evidence that Trump has any such plans. Based on his rhetoric to date and his past behavior, the revenue will be used to compensate farmers and other businesses that are impacted by foreign retaliation for the tariffs and to cut taxes for the wealthy. Average Americans will pay higher prices for consumer goods and receive nothing in return.

In a pathetic attempt to emulate Trump, Biden has been arguing that the efforts to get him to stand down are being orchestrated by the “elites,” while he has support from the blue base. Is he right?

Trump unquestionably has a base. It represents about half of the GOP. Biden, on the other hand, was the nominee in 2020 solely because both the party leadership and the voters correctly perceived that he was the candidate who was the least vulnerable to a Trump identity onslaught. He doesn’t have a “base” that is large enough to take seriously, and the current principal rationale for his candidacy–that he, unlike Trump, is fit for the presidency– disappeared during the debate. So why continue, except as some sort of an ego booster?

Trump has been very open about his plans to use law enforcement to harass his political enemies and to replace thousands of apolitical experts in the federal government with political hacks. Those initiatives, however deplorable, do not make him a fascist. The weaponization of law enforcement goes back to Richard Nixon; the changes to the bureaucracy have a pedigree that extends all the way back to Andrew Jackson.

The line between Nixon and fascism will be defined by the answers to two questions:

1. Will Trump ignore court orders that he dislikes?
2. Will he use his emergency powers and the Insurrection Act to crush dissent?

Even Nixon didn’t do anything like that. Crossing that line makes America a fascist country.

I don’t know the answers to my questions. What I do know is: Trump is angry and wants revenge; he frequently expresses his contempt for the judicial system, most recently by violating the gag order in his criminal trial; he openly mused about using the Insurrection Act during his first term; he frequently uses language associated with dictators to describe his opponents; he encouraged the use of violence to overturn the results of the 2020 election; he will be surrounded by people who will egg him on instead of trying to stop him in his second term; Republicans in Congress will do nothing to keep him in bounds; he cannot be removed from office through the impeachment process; and he is effectively immune from criminal prosecution if and when he leaves the White House. Why would I give him the benefit of the doubt under those circumstances?

I think J.D. Vance’s ideas about foreign policy are irresponsible. His position on abortion is extreme. His plans for tariffs and illegal immigrants make no economic sense under today’s conditions. He completely disregards climate change as a problem. He defends Trump’s actions on January 6. And yet, I find his selection as the GOP VP nominee to be slightly encouraging. Why?

Because my concerns about Vance are purely about policy. He understands the concept of public service; I haven’t seen any kind of authoritarian streak in him; he’s not an obvious racist; he’s driven by ideology, not personal hatreds or arbitrary whims; he’s not a habitual liar; he has some history of working across the aisle; and he seems to have some genuine concern about the welfare of working people. Making him the automatic frontrunner for 2028 in a sense normalizes the MAGA movement; we can examine his ideas and agree or disagree with him instead of viewing him as an existential threat to liberal democracy in America, which is the way the system is supposed to work.

Besides, how are the alternatives better? Ron DeSantis made his name by depriving us of our First Amendment rights. Tom Cotton would start wars abroad and shoot protesters at home. Josh Hawley is–well, you remember the photo. And we don’t have to worry about a Trump monarchy, with Don Jr. as his successor.

The fake interview continues after Vance is announced as Trump’s VP choice.

C: Congratulations! Or would you prefer condolences?

V: Well, the job has been described as a bucket of warm spit.

C: Why do you think Trump chose you?

V: You really should ask him that question. If I had to guess, I would say it’s because we’re ideologically compatible, and because I just like the guy. It also didn’t hurt that his son likes me.

C: Why did you agree to it? Do you really want to relive the Mike Pence experience?

V: Pence was obsequious, to be sure, but he really wasn’t on the same wavelength as Trump. I am. I won’t have to suck up to Trump because we believe the same things.

C: Lots of people–Bolton and Barr particularly come to mind–thought that Trumpism was an ideology, and they could help refine it. They found out that Trumpism was just about Donald Trump, with all of his many weaknesses included. Why would your experience be different than theirs?

V: Let’s break that down into chunks. As to Bolton, he never really agreed with the premises of Trump’s foreign policy. Trump just used him as a bad cop. Barr was a bit different, but in the end, he thought the law should prevail over politics. He didn’t understand that everything was about power, and you had to do everything you could to hang on to it.

C: Trump will love that last response. He doesn’t have any respect for the law. You’re a lawyer by training, but it appears you agree with him.

V: I’m not in law school anymore. I’m a realist. The left cares about nothing but power. We have to fight fire with fire or die trying.

C: Do you see your job as creating a coherent reactionary ideology out of Trumpism, as opposed to relying on the whims of one dude?

V: Yes, although I don’t think it will be that hard. On the big issues, we’re in complete agreement.

C: Those being Ukraine, China, tariffs, the border, and revenge against the left?

V: Yes.

C: As everyone knows, there was a time when you despised Trump. And your book made the case that the problem was with white workers themselves; the government was only guilty of sticking its nose where it didn’t belong. How do you explain your total change in position, which looks like opportunism to lots of people?

V: I had an epiphany. Read the Douthat interview. It explains everything. I didn’t want to be on the side of businessmen who wanted to screw over their workers.

C: Like Peter Thiel?

V: Peter isn’t like that.

C: You claim to be pro-worker, and yet you support tax cuts for the wealthy and oppose unions. How does that make sense?

V: We’re going to raise wages through tariffs and the deportation of illegals.

C: Tariffs don’t result in higher wages–just inefficiency and higher profits for big business. Have you read anything about the 1890s?

V: Enough to know what I know.

C: Lots of prominent economists have said that tariffs and deportations will cause inflation and higher interest rates. Do you claim to know more than they do?

V: They’re just members of the entitled elite. They’ve been wrong about everything else. Why wouldn’t they be wrong about this?

C: Because logic tells you that will happen. The labor shortages of 2021 and 2022 are recent proof. How did that turn out?

V: We’ll bring millions of people back into the workforce with higher wages. That will solve the inflation problem.

C: Yeah, I can just imagine going back to work at age 66 in a meatpacking plant because they’re paying $25 an hour. There is no pool of unemployed workers except–unfortunately for you–immigrants. How ’bout them apples?

V: There may be some short-term pain. In the end, it will be worth it. We need to take our country back. That’s more important that economic growth.

C: How will you respond when the Democrats use your words from 2016 against you and Trump? Particularly about dictatorship?

V: Trump won’t be a dictator. His first term proves that.

C: But he was talked out of any number of authoritarian actions by the adults in the room. They won’t be there in a second term. He’ll be free to do whatever he wants as long as the military follows his orders.

V: The judicial system will restrain him.

C: What, the man who violated the gag order ten times?

V: You just have to trust us. We’ve earned your trust.

C: Thanks for your time. I may want to ask questions about foreign policy at a later date.