He Can't Hide

 Trump may have fired the BLS head, but the bad news is still the bad news.

There is certainly the "vibes out there" of a poor labor market, especially for young college graduates. I've written ad nauseum about the demand constraints that Trump is imposing on the economy. If you A) put tariffs on lots of goods B) reduce the labor force via deportations C) introduce massive uncertainty in the economy D) hammer tourism as a sector by being an absolute prick to the rest of the world E) prioritize the rich over the working classes with your fiscal policy F) fire large numbers of public sector workers..

...then you should probably not be surprised by slackening overall demand leading to less hiring. 

Krugman noted something called Dornbusch's Law: The crisis takes longer to happen than you can possibly imagine, then happens quicker than you can possibly imagine."

Just saying.

Lethal Stupidity

 IRL friends or long time readers may know that I had a very serious case of Covid during the Delta wave. I was hospitalized, then went home, then re-hospitalized, then airlifted to Mass General, then nearly sent to the ICU before I spent three days laying prone to avoid being intubated. For whatever reason, when I got the Pfizer vaccine I did not have the typical reaction of feeling like shit for a few days as my immune system adapted. Since then, I've had a few cases that have responded well to Paxlovid, but today I got my booster because Covid sucks and because it has a serious impact on my colleagues when I'm out of work for a week.

When I went in, I had to have an "existing medical condition" in order to qualify, since I'm not 65. I guess luckily I have borderline high cholesterol, so they gave me the shot.

As we know, Florida has ended required vaccines for school children; RFK has crippled the CDC and attacked the idea of vaccines in general. All of this was, of course, predictable. RFK is a vaccine skeptic who lied to the Senate in his confirmation hearing and then did exactly what he always wanted to do: eviscerate arguably the most successful health measure in human history - rivalled only by antibiotics. 

(Let's pour one out for irony, as Florida is saying that people shouldn't have vaccine mandates because "their body, their choice" as they strip abortion rights away from people.)

This extends beyond Covid. Childhood vaccines - a literal health care miracle - will be reduced in uptake in red states like Florida. This will lead to a return in measles and many older people have declining immunity from their own childhood vaccines, so they will be vulnerable. Measles, mumps, rubella will all spread from Florida to other states as herd immunity declines. It would be just if this was simply a case of FAFO, but people who can't take vaccines or people with compromised immunity or people with reduced immunity because it's been decades since they were vaccinated are all at risk.

I'd like to believe that there will be consequences for people like RFK but the best I can hope for is that he dies of a treatable disease, because he won't face consequences in our corrupted court system.

Not Dead, But Not Well

 Trump is not dead. He appeared (late) to a press avail flanked by his minions in the Oval. Given his atypical disappearance, there was perhaps more parsing of his words and actions than usual. He was not drooling, but it was still deeply unhinged. Of course, most of his public utterances are just...nuts. He sounds like a fourth grader who was called on in class, but who didn't do the reading. The absolute blathering stupidity is just breathtaking for those with eyes to see. Trump's feral grip on his supporters and the presumption of expertise he has as a "business man" has hidden the fact that two-thirds of what he says is either false or bonkers or both.

On policy, we already have one state compact on vaccines on the Pacific Coast (and I hope soon in the Northeast). Richardson notes the fact that Courts are starting to be heard on a lot of his lawless actions and it's going poorly for Stephen Miller's plans for a fully fascist America. Epstein stuff exploded in the House today.

I try to live in a guarded hope for the future. My gut and experience tells me that there is a reckoning coming for the corruption and incompetence. I was watching the Spike Lee documentary on Hurricane Katrina, and it just feels like we are ripe for some catastrophe that will be made worse by the idiots running our government.

What seems especially clear is that Trump's diminished physically and cognitively. Maybe the media won't report on it, but it sure seems apparent to the naked eye. As that happens, it empowers people like Miller and Russell Vought. And they truly are odious creatures whose ideas are toxic. This past week suggests that Trump - whose one skill is "dominating the discourse" - could be losing that ability as he declines. 

Oh, Look. Corruption

 One of the funniest things I know is that Martha Stewart has spent more time in jail than her BFF Snoop Dogg. The reason was because she engaged in insider trading. We had an insider trading scandal with members of Congress during Covid. Most- but not all - of the apparently guilty were Republicans, but the idea that someone like Nancy Pelosi may have used some insider information about the economy in general to make investment decisions was treated as a scandal. It probably helped sink Kelly Loeffler in her Georgia Senate campaign.

We are getting some REALLY juicy insider trading stories running below the surface. This one is crazy.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick used to run Cantor Fitzgerald, a notably mercenary Wall Street law firm. His crotch spawn "runs" it while he's in government "service." Now we have news that Cantor Fitzgerald has been buying tariff refund futures. Basically, if DynaCorps paid $40 million in tariffs and the tariffs are ruled illegal, the government would have to refund that money. Cantor is going in and buying that future refund at about 20% of its' worth. They pay $8 million today against $40 million if the tariffs are illegal.

The tariffs are illegal.

Still, the bullying nature of the Trump Administration means that companies cannot be sure about retribution or simply ignoring the Supreme Court if it rules according to the letter of the law. This presumes the corrupt SCOTUS still cares about the letter of the law.

As hedges go this seems normal. The fact that it's Lutnick is just brazenly corrupt. It might not be the most corrupt thing to happen this week, but it would be the most corrupt thing to happen under almost every American president.

Something Is Up With Trump

 It's been about six days since he spoke in public. He's still at the White House, as there was a photograph from distance of him getting into the limo. What's more, the White House has released photos of him golfing and meeting people that are recycled pictures. Rather than quell the growing rumors, they have not had Trump speak with the press. As Scott Lemieux and Garrett Graff note, the media silence on this is baffling. 

Graff helpfully runs down the litany of strange health portents. Trump's bizarrely bruised and then covered up hand. The break in his rituals. The assumption of lies, perhaps particularly about his health. The even more garbled syntax and the constant falling asleep in meetings (even his trial from over a year ago). The swollen ankles. 

All of this, of course, takes place within the context of the media's absolute shitstorm over Biden's age and health. The silence is really something, and perhaps it's yet another example of no media company wanting to anger the White House. Which AGAIN is a really, really troubling development. The press SHOULD be angering the White House. That's entirely the point of a free press.

Still, Trump can't shut the fuck up for 14 years, pushing his bloated, orange face into our TV and laptops at every moment and suddenly he's media shy? We obviously can't trust the White House to be honest and we can't rely on the media to press the matter. 

This is when conspiracy theories bloom.

So put me down for a transient ischemic attack or perhaps an actual stroke.

If it is, in fact, neurological but not fatal, we are in a perilous place, as Trump and his Cabinet are not about to reach for the 25th Amendment even for temporary incapacity. The Cult Leader cannot be ill, it's not possible. 

Maybe Melania will smother him with a pillow.

Renewables

 I know I basically have turned this exercise into a reflection of whatever Heather Cox Richardson and Paul Krugman wrote about for today, but apparently I'm going to do it again.

Richardson is writing about how Trump's war on renewables is actually a war on workers. Krugman is writing about stagflation as part of his series on the topic and mentions rising energy costs.

There are just so, so many ways that the Trump administration is deeply stupid that trying to catalog them is pointless. The war on renewables is just so fucking pointless that it boggles the imagination. There could be a (poor) argument for withdrawing subsidies or making permitting harder. That would be within the normal parameters of political stupidity. The Right not wanting to subsidize solar and wind because budgets; the Left wanting more permitting to protect the environment from new building. It's dumb, but it's normal dumb.

Trump's killing of existing renewable projects is just stupid in ways that rival RFK Jr's assault on public health. Meanwhile, SURPRISE!, electrical costs are skyrocketing, as data centers create a building bubble and a need for massive amounts of gigawatts. Also, SURPRISE!, China is set to leapfrog the US in renewable building and use, because if Trump wasn't an agent of the Russian and Chinese he really wouldn't be doing anything differently.

It is true that these actions will make stemming climate change harder. I'll be curious to see what the impact is on rooftop solar. We are building a house, and hopefully we will get the panels in before December 31st, because the tax credit is going away. However, given rising and unpredictable electrical costs, we will be putting them in regardless. 

Richardson makes a key point. Extraction industries have always been highly plutocratic. Whatever the substance being extracted - even cotton, as she mentions - it focuses economic power in the hands of a few people. Renewables - at least solar - can be more "democratic" in their dispersal.

This could be a helpful way to counterattack Republicans on this issue. "They are raising your electrical costs to benefit their billionaire friends."

The CDC

 The assault on the Centers for Disease Control is both sadly predictable and completely baffling. What is the constituency - besides conspiracy addled cranks - for destroying the CDC? 

Yesterday, CDC workers walked out to give an ovation to the ousted administrators, and then they returned to work. I'm beginning to wonder if they should.

Generally speaking, my posture a few months ago was the seasoned public servants should keep their heads down to keep the lights on, as it were. Now, I'm beginning to think massive resignations are actually our best option. Maybe not in every public sector, but if the "CDC you knew is over" why not pull the plug on it completely?

What's more, this is a moment when asymmetric federalism can step up. A consortium of New England and Pacific Coast states can create a CDC in exile and poach the resigning CDC staff. What's the point in "keeping the lights on" at this juncture? This same tactic could be used for the EPA, FEMA and other federal agencies.

In Trump 1.0, he was protected by both the "adults in the room" and the professional civil service. As the adults are no longer there, the civil servants have no protection. What's more, if they try and abide by the law and do their jobs, they will eventually get fired by the vindictive twatwaffles in the White House.

Resign now and create a Blue State shadow government. This might actually be a moment when "heightening the contradictions" is the only play.

Empire

 There's a fashionable framework in the academic left to refer disparagingly to the United States as an imperial power. It's intended to make us seem like the prime malefactor in the world.

As Paul Krugman points out, but many others have noted, America's "imperial" power comes from the lightness with which it influences - rather than dictates to - other countries. This isn't perfect. One of the many tragedies of the Iraq war was how it squandered this presumption that America might be powerful, but it constrained itself with the same rules it applied to others. Even Vietnam was in defense of a sovereign (if malignant) government in South Vietnam.

The point of Krugman's post is to note how Trump is destroying the system of alliances upon which America's largely benign empire rested. What's darkly hilarious is that Neocons like John Bolton began the process of destroying that conception of American Empire during the Iraq War, yet they hate Trump for...accelerating that destruction? I don't think we should assume intellectual consistency from that crowd.

It's a cliche that Americans are strikingly ignorant of the rest of the world. I've written plenty about Murc's Law within the context of American politics. There's also the corollary about how only America has agency on the international stage. This is how Joe Biden and Kamala Harris become responsible for Netanyahu's war crimes. 

Trump takes this concept and warps it even further. Ignorant of everything about foreign policy concepts, he sees everything as a mafia-style shakedown. He understands power dynamics in a crude, bullying way, but he does not understand the basic idea of sharing and friendship. This has worked to cow the Republican Party and disorient everyone else, but the application to other sovereign nations is problematic.

Is this the end of "American Empire"? Rome famously governed loosely in times of peace (and was even more brutal in times of war). Rome had emperors far worse than Trump (at least so far), and they trundled along. The question is whether our allies can ever look at us as reliable partners again? There's "a lot of ruin in a nation" as Adam Smith said. We can survive this (though there are no guarantees). Whether we can see the Pax Americana survive is very much a different question.

Sea Change

 Yglesias' contrarianism can be tiresome. However, sometimes it allows him to see things others won't look at, and today that is the important shift in voting patterns.

For decades, Democratic voters tended to be low propensity voters. They were part of the working classes that suffered under Republican plutocratic policies. Higher educated voters tended to vote for lower taxes and fewer regulations. It requited preternaturally charismatic candidates like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to mobilize those voters.

Today, Trump has upended that dynamic. His rampant destruction of American governmental institutions tends to be noticed by highly informed voters who think more abstractly about things like liberty or rights. The social changes of the last quarter century have been embraced by more educated and informed voters. 

Yglesias feels this means that Democrats need to target their voter registration drives, and that's likely true. However, I think it also means that we can't predict what will happen to the Trump coalition, absent Trump. How much are these infrequent voters going to vote without him on the ballot? We are already seeing it in the elections of 2018, 2022 and 2023. In 2020, the election was closer than polls predicted and then obviously he overperformed in 2024 again. 

It remains to be seen whether the new Trump voter will vote without Trump on the ballot. It also remains to be seen whether a Trumpist candidate could win against a male Democrat, since at least some of Trump's overperformance has to stem from this latent misogyny.

The 2026 elections will determine whether America remains a democracy. The people most likely to vote on that issue are the new Democratic coalition. If Trump's policies are the disaster that they certainly seem to be, then at best many of his voters will stay home. Some of the marginally engaged will shift to Democrats just to check his powers. 

It's incumbent that Democrats realize that this is their new base and work to only increase their margins among demographics that they know will show up at the polls for them. It's OK to bargain away some things like voter ID in return for other things

Don't Want To Get Your Hopes Up, But...

 We are flipping Iowa districts by 20 points from last November. Let's assume that this trend remains, though perhaps it is not so strong by the midterms. I can't find the Partisan Voting Index for the new Texas map, except this one. It suggests that the efforts to reduce the number of Democratic seats could actually imperil some Republican incumbents, as their districts may have gone from R+15 to R+7. If you get a ten point swing, then that district just came into play.

I would personally love it, if the efforts to gerrymander a Republican majority winds up costing them even more seats.

Shameless

 We had one of Trump's periodic tongue baths from the sycophants and opportunists who make up his Cabinet yesterday. I cannot, for the life of me, understand someone who would debase themselves like that for tangential access to power, but I guess that's why I'm not a Republican.

The self-destructiveness of Trump's policies are so driven by splenetic hatred of Democrats - take the killing of Revolution Wind just as it's being completed - that I guess these people are helpless before Cleek's Law, and they will therefore do anything to gain the ability to stick it to anyone to the left of Lisa Murkowski. They will swim through a river of shit to take away a poor kid's school lunch.

Trump looks terrible, and there is all sorts of speculation about his life expectancy. I just can't see people fawning over JD Vance like this, and if it comes to it, I hope I'm not wrong.

Nope

 Trump has no authority to fire Lisa Cook. Media need to stop repeating what he says like he's a normal politician. He says he's ended seven wars? You don't need to repeat that. He says he has a trade deal with Japan? Let's see the deal. 

It is now an open question whether Trump is lying or confabulating - which is to say getting confused, because he's old and stupid. What is not an open question is whether to repeat what he says without LEADING with the context that he's lying/wrong/confabulating.

Also, firing Fed Governors was explicitly ruled out, even by the rubber stamps of the Roberts Court. They ruled it out, because while they are gleeful spectators of his destruction of the administrative state, they are not so keen on his destruction of the US economy.

What's Next With Martial Law?

 As Trump's job approval spirals near historic lows, even before the economic cost of his policies is levelled, he seems to be doubling down on military takeovers of local governments.

Much of this is performative. Unlike the masked goons in ICE, the National Guard isn't particularly juiced to become Stormtroopers for Trump. The argument that this is supposed to "normalize" armed soldiery on street corners could be true, or it could be that he's just hoping for a violent response to allow him to crack down further on any dissent. Certainly, deploying troops to Chicago would fit his blinkered view of American Carnage and the hope that some dumb gang member shoots at a Guardsman. 

This is all illegal, of course. Congress returns soon, and in addition to dealing with Epstein, they will have to address the DC takeover. Republicans have a seven seat majority today but that number falls to five by September 23rd after special elections fill empty seats in Democratic districts. That means that four Republican House members or four Republican Senators are all that's needed to end this bullshit "emergency."  In the Senate, I think this could be an issue that unites Collins, Murkowski, McConnell and Paul. A similar mix of what passes for moderates (Don Bacon?) and libertarians in the House could make a coalition to end this.

We can see the lawlessness of the Trump Administration in their moves to deport Kilmer Abrego Garcia again, even as he awaits trial. This is a blatant violation of Garcia's rights, just as the first deportation was. They arrested him after his court hearing, because of course they did. This is not about enforcing the law, but creating precedents for violating it. 

If courts rule that Trump's martial law attempts in California or possible future attempts in Illinois are illegal (which they are), what happens next? The Abrego Garcia case shows that they are unconstrained by judicial rulings. Intimidation is the only law they follow.

In all this, of course, is the supine Republican Congress.

Trump Slump And Long Term Prospects

 Professor Krugman has Part II of his primer on stagflation, and it ponders the degree to which a stagflation period under Trump will be bad or fucking terrible.

Bad looks like a temporary surge in prices caused by a combination of deportations increasing labor costs; tariffs increasing the price of consumer goods and electrical costs hitting everything all at once. This seems to be combining with a massive boost in AI data centers that has kept overall economic numbers growing, but are likely not being felt by many Americans. For most Americans, prices are rising, everything seems uncertain and they are naturally cutting back on spending.

This should be understood in terms of Keynes' concept of overall demand in an economy. It consists of Consumer Spending; Business Investments (new factories and the like); Government Spending and (Exports minus Imports). 

Now, we have good evidence that Consumer Spending is going down because of higher prices caused by Trump's policies - especially deportation and tariffs, but also electricity which is only somewhat his fault at the moment, but will grow as renewable energy projects like the one off Rhode Island are killed by spite. Government Spending is also cratering, except for the narrow band of spending on ICE agents and gulags. Business Investments are slowing because of Trump's crazy on-again-off-again economic policies. That leaves what should be a mild boost from fewer imports, but it's unclear if American exports won't also be hurt by the trade wars Trump is starting.

Basically, we look to be headed towards a real slow down in demand, with the exception of the AI boom, which feels much more like a bubble than an economic paradigm shift that its acolytes foresee.

What's more, the primary supply side boost - tax cuts - seem tailored for the wealthiest Americans who don't spend nearly as much money on goods (demand) as less wealthy Americans do. Additionally, the decimation of food aid and ACA subsidies will pull more money out of working class and poor families that will, in turn, lead to less demand.

When demand collapses, you get a recession. If you get a recession while prices are rising, you get stagflation. We sure seem to be headed towards Bad at the very least.

What does Terrible look like? Terrible is entrenched inflation. That's what we saw in the 1970s, and Krugman's first primer does a good job explaining that. With entrenched inflation, we get a self-reinforcing death spiral of businesses assuming that prices will keep rising, so they keep raising prices. With hyperinflation (WORSE THAT TERRIBLE) you get prices that rise monthly or weekly, even daily. With entrenched inflation, prices rise at 3-12 month intervals, depending on a million variables. A business doesn't want to raise its prices every other month, so it holds off and then raises its prices not to where they need to be for that moment, but to cover losses from the previous month and to anticipate rising prices in next few months.

There are a ton of signs we are entering stagflation, and if the AI and/or Crypto bubbles collapse, then we will tilt into a full blown recession. Trump's policies that are inflationary - tariffs, deportations, killing renewable energy - will come into conflict with the deflationary impact of a recession - lost jobs, lost wages, lost spending power. 

The good news - if that's the right term - is that there two of the three primary inflationary drivers are easily reversible: tariffs and deportations. The bad news is that Trump (and Miller) seem unlikely to reverse course. The collapse of the AI bubble would reduce electrical demand somewhat, but the move to more renewables can't be flipping on like a, well, light switch.

If the Trump Slump hits this fall (recessions seem to be fond of starting in the fall), then Trump's authoritarian impulses will grow bigger as his popularity recedes even further. At the same time, unpopular dictators wind up before firing squads.

How Enfeebled Is Trump?

 Richardson's daily post is about the increasing tempo of authoritarianism in the Trump Administration. It is certainly true and very troubling. We have the assaults and planned future assaults on American cities. We have the retribution campaign against anyone who doesn't genuflect before Trump and his twisted narrative.

However, there are other signs that aren't as good for the Mad King. First, there's the weakening economy that seems only propped up by an AI bubble that seems bound to burst sooner or later. All the stagflation lights are blinking. He's not popular - though polling seems all over the map. 

The bigger issue for me at this moment are the rumors of poor health. I pondered on what happened in the Alaska Summit that had his aides so rattled, but it occurred to me later that maybe Trump fell asleep or demonstrated clear signs of dementia in front of Putin. There's the recurring photos of his right hand covered in makeup to conceal the bruising that could come from IV blood thinners and other drugs. He looks like shit, he sounds like shit, he can't walk in a straight line, he has the BMI of the Stay Puff marshmallow man and he was dumb before age-related cognitive decline hit him.

What if he's in really bad health? Hell, I'm not quite 60, and I can say that I just don't bounce back like I used to. I work out rigorously, I feed my brain, I try and eat well, and I can feel it. He's 79 and in obvious decline.

How much of the authoritarian framework depends on Trump personally? That's the trillion dollar question. His bizarre fixation with tariffs seems unique to him. His vice like grip on the GOP seems unique to him, whereby he utters some stupidity about annexing Greenland and his wee toadies fall in line, then forget it when he does.

Still, the worst actors are the Miller-Vought-Patel-Noem-Kennedy-Hegseth-Gabbard-Bondi types who implement his authoritarian impulses. If he dies or becomes so incapacitated that even they can't deny it, what happens then? JD Vance has no more principles than a sea cucumber, but is that a good thing or a bad thing? Would he try and double down on Trumpism or try and seize the center? Both bring peril to a guy with the charisma of, well, a sea cucumber.

Otto von Bismarck said that "God has a special providence for fools, drunkard and the United States of America." It would be something if the thing that saves our democracy is the fickle finger of death landing upon the Mad King.