Cromwell

Donald Trump thinks America has interests, but no permanent friends. He doesn’t believe in anything like a community of values. He argues that our supposed allies do nothing but rip us off. As a result, he will go out of his way to offend them after he takes office. He will once again withdraw from the Paris agreement, impose universal tariffs for spurious national security reasons, and treat NATO as a protection racket.

The problem is that America needs allies in its struggle for predominance against China. How does Trump square this circle? By assuming that America has the military and economic power to force its former allies to toe the line. By behaving as a bully, in other words.

This tactic reminds me of the plan designed by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tirpitz to bully the UK into alliance with the German Empire prior to 1914 by building the German “risk fleet.” How did that turn out?

Biden’s hole card has always been Trump’s manifest unfitness for office. Realizing that, the man on golf cart and his party have been struggling to find reasons to argue that Biden was equally unfit over the last few years. The most obvious example of this was the abortive attempt by House Republicans to get enough votes to impeach the president. None of it succeeded with anyone except the Fox News crowd until the debate.

Today, when Biden argues that Trump is a criminal and a potential dictator, the GOP can credibly respond that Biden is not physically or mentally up to the job. Expect to see commercials to that effect on regular rotation between now and November. As of today, the voters seem to agree; don’t expect that to change anytime soon. A dictator, in the eyes of swing voters, may be a safer bet in a dangerous world than a man whose lucid periods reportedly end in the late afternoon.

If Biden remains in the race, which seems inevitable at this point, his argument on fitness will fall on deaf ears, which will only leave him with differences with Trump on policy. An energetic candidate might be able to win on that alone, given the obvious weaknesses in the Trump agenda. Is Biden up to that task? Given that he plans to cut back on his schedule in order to avoid more public senior moments, the obvious answer to the question is no.

The president of Heritage was quoted yesterday, I believe, as saying that a Trump victory would result in a “Second American Revolution,” which would be bloodless if the left did not resist it. The Trump campaign, justifiably worried about the inflammatory language, tried to put distance between itself and Heritage without actually disavowing anything specific in the Project 2025 agenda.

Given Trump’s erratic behavior and thought patterns, it is reasonable to assume that Heritage will not be dictating terms to him. However, the organization is full of friends and true believers, so anything it says must be taken both literally and seriously. In light of that, you have to wonder if the fragment of the electorate that will vote for Trump purely out of concern about Biden’s health, or out of a misplaced desire to bring back the economy of 2019, knows that it is actually giving its consent to a “Second American Revolution.” And what about the “bloodless” part? Is Heritage telling us that legal dissent to its program will be met with force?

I can’t read it any other way.

On its face, the Trump economic agenda will be devastating for American agriculture. His universal tariffs will invite universal retaliation against American farm products, which will dramatically reduce exports. In addition, the mass deportation campaign will deprive American farmers of their primary labor source. There will be no one left to pick crops. Food prices will soar, and many farms will simply go out of business.

None of which will cause the farmers to vote against Trump, since he is viewed as the only man who can save them from godless liberalism. And he will hear them. He will use the proceeds of the tariffs to write them giant checks. They will survive as entitled wards of the state while the rest of us struggle to deal with the higher cost of food.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republican for which it stands.

One nation, under Trump

With no immigrants, and with misery and death for all liberals.

George Washington, in Freudian terms, was all superego. His superpowers were patriotism and self-discipline. He aspired to be a gentleman, a leader of men, and a figure similar to the heroes of the Roman Republic. By force of will, he succeeded in all of these things. The America of today would be unrecognizable without him.

Lincoln’s superpowers, on the other hand, were empathy and a form of simple eloquence that still touches the hearts of Americans today. The price he paid for his empathy was written all over his face. You’ve seen the pictures, so you know what I mean.

When Trump looks at America, on the other hand, he sees only himself. Unlike Washington, he is pure id. Unlike Lincoln, he has no feeling for anyone but himself. We will see the fruits of that if we are crazy enough to elect him.

Happy Independence Day! Enjoy it, because next year, we may be “celebrating” something completely different.

I don’t exactly feel sorry for Rishi Sunak; after all, he supported Boris and Brexit. Given his party’s dismal record in government over the last 14 years, however, selling himself to the electorate was an impossible job. No one should be surprised that he couldn’t do it.

After tomorrow’s bloodletting, what’s left of the Conservative Party will have to decide where it goes next. Recent history tells us that the party is malleable enough to accept leadership from any of the factions; after all, Boris was a Reactionary, David Cameron, Theresa May, and John Major were CDs, Mrs. Thatcher and Liz Truss were CLs, and Rishi is clearly a PBP. So what will happen this time around?

My guess is that, in the short run, you will see an alliance of CLs and Reactionaries running the party. When that doesn’t work, the Conservatives will turn back to the center.

Donald Trump just invents things out of thin air. He’s a used car salesman on a bad day. He spontaneously takes credit for “accomplishments” that clearly have nothing to do with him. But you can’t say he undersells himself.

On the other hand, the public consistently tells us it has no idea what Biden has done in 3+ years in office. It gives him no credit for expanding the welfare state, or growing the economy, or keeping unemployment low, or cutting student debt, or reducing inflation. It insists that we are in a recession, and that things are far worse than they were when both unemployment and inflation were actually much higher. How can this be?

The absence of a compelling and energetic salesman for the administration’s accomplishments has always been the hole in the middle of the campaign. After the debate, we now understand why.

Creating immunity for former presidents out of thin air creates the danger of a president completely out of control. To the Chief Justice, however, that is only a minor concern. The real problem that needed to be addressed was the potential harassment of the president after he leaves office, which could force him to govern without the requisite energy.

Roberts probably thinks he can keep Trump within the guardrails, but he doesn’t have any power–only the rapidly diminishing public respect for his office. He stands to be the American Von Papen the way things are going.

Oh, and by the way, Trump reposted some items on Lying Psycho yesterday calling for Liz Cheney and other political opponents to face military tribunals. I wasn’t kidding when I talked about Trump’s Michael Corleone moment; he’s already warning us it’s coming.

If the RN wins an absolute parliamentary majority in the second round, it will be entitled to govern, but only within the limits created by Macron. There are two possible results to this unsavory cohabitation: either the RN will make a mess of it, in which case they will be punished during the next presidential election; or they will find success in enforced moderation and have an incentive to continue with it. Either way, the Macron training wheels will keep them under control.

I suspect that was Macron’s thinking when he opted for the snap election. Let’s hope he was right.

The French left and right come from very different places. The left is urban, cosmopolitan, anticlerical, and anti-capitalist; the right is rural, anti-immigrant, Catholic, and culturally conservative. The two sides have common enemies, however; they hate Macron and the liberals, and they are deeply suspicious of change and powerful foreigners.

It is highly likely that the next French government will try to open the spending taps, which will provoke a strong reaction from both the markets and the more frugal countries in the EU–most notably, the Germans. Then what? Will there be riots in the streets? Will there be an EU constitutional crisis? If the latter, will the French electorate stumble into a Frexit that even the RN didn’t support during the campaign?

All of these are real possibilities, and right before the Olympics. Hang on to your hat.

As I predicted after the oral argument, the supposedly originalist Court ignored the text of the Constitution, all of the relevant legislative history, and case law and created law out of thin air. The Court doesn’t want to follow the will of the Founding Fathers; it wants to be the Founding Fathers. As a result, there is no chance the Trump case will go to trial before the election. The Court has put its thumb on the scale for purely partisan reasons.

But, believe it or not, that’s not the worst part of this opinion. At this point, we need to worry more about a future Trump dictatorship than the madcap attempt to overturn the 2020 election. There is plenty in this opinion that will make sure he has never held accountable for any such hypothetical future actions.

The Court correctly finds that the president has a few core powers under the Constitution which can be exercised without any meaningful review. None of them have any relevance to the facts of this case. The opinion goes on to say, however, that all other presidential actions that are plausibly official in nature are presumptively immune from prosecution, and that the presumption can only be rebutted if the intervention is not “intrusive.” That is a completely new standard, and a frightening one.

Based on the opinion, any attempts by Trump in office to, as he put it, “terminate the Constitution” will most likely be immune from prosecution if they involve communications with the AG and the military that have some plausible nexus to national security or law enforcement. The trick will be to make sure that the interactions leading to the coup only involve officials who are answerable to the president. Trump screwed up last time by involving private parties in his plotting; next time, we won’t be so lucky.

If the RN wins as expected, it will have an opportunity to prove that it can govern competently. If it fails and chaos ensues, America will notice. If it succeeds, it may serve as a precedent for us and other countries in the EU.

And how will the left react? The Olympics will begin about three weeks after the second round. Will we see massive demonstrations and blood on the streets of Paris? It could happen. Will it? I don’t know.

An excerpt from Trump’s 2025 inaugural speech:

“Everyone knows that Lincoln called for malice towards none and charity for all in his Second Inaugural Address. That was weak. The president needs to punish his enemies. He needs revenge and justice. The country’s enemies need to be exterminated. Only then can we move on as before.

You’re probably familiar with the scene in “The Godfather” where Michael Corleone settles all of his existing scores with his enemies. In that vein, even as we speak, I am ordering the arrests of all of the vermin who stole the country away from me and real America. The entirety of the Biden crime family, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Fani Willis, Justice Merchan, Alvin Bragg, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith are all being transported to Guantanamo Bay this morning. They will never see America again. They will die in jail next to ISIS terrorists.

Why? Because they’re terrorists, too. They’re horrible people. Horrible. They interfered with our election. They prosecuted the innocent tourists who brought such love to the Capitol on January 6. They stole the country away from the real people. Now they’re getting their just desserts.

Oh, and by the way, anyone who comes out and complains about this will either join them or be shot by my great military. I’m not Biden. I’m strong. We have our country back now. We’re going to make it great again.

Per Justice Gorsuch:

1. Homelessness is a complicated policy issue that can and should only be addressed by local legislatures. If judges intrude, they can only take an arrow out of the local government’s quiver, which is counterproductive.
2. Sleeping in public is “camping” whether it is done voluntarily or not. The ordinance in question was fair because it treated all campers similarly.

I have some sympathy for #1, but #2 sounds like something Javert would have said to Jean Valjean, which is exactly what you would expect from someone like Gorsuch. This decision is morally obnoxious, and it more logically should have been based on the Fifth Amendment, not the Eighth. I assume it was the existence of favorable case law that drove the petitioners in the direction of the Eighth.