Obama

 Last night, my wife and I went to see Barack Obama speak in Hartford. He had one insight that was new to me: he felt that among the many impacts of smart phones was the ability of people in poorer parts of the world to see the richer parts. In America, this led to the resentment that poorer rural areas have for the coasts but in the rest of the world, it doubtless fueled the migrant surge of the past 15 years. I had never thought of that last bit.

The rest of his comments were not especially revelatory. He remains a formidable speaker. I remember when he said something was pernicious, and I struggled to imagine Trump even being able to define that word. He speaks in measured cadences, considering every word that leaves his mouth. Going there, I resigned myself to the fact that he was too smart to say anything especially controversial, and he did couch everything in terms of "that guy" or "some people" in keeping with the norms that former presidents butt out of current politics. I do find that annoying, in the sense that one side abiding by norms while the other tears them up seems like asymmetric warfare. 

Still, his criticisms were real, and he made the unassailable argument that the members of our current government are not loyal to the ideals of American democracy that stretch back to World War II and again further back to our founding. He reiterated his position that there are two stories in America. While he didn't mention him, I would argue that it's the two stories present within the person of Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson, the democrat, who believed in the natural rights of all people. Jefferson, the slaveholder, who limited the universal rights because he simply could not see Blacks, Natives and women as equals.

Of course, Trump and the entire GOP are loyal to the story that there are some "real Muricans" and then there are vermin. Trump's American Carnage, his language about cities and Democrats, the rhetoric just this weekend about the assassinations in Minnesota, his ridiculous invocation of "Marxists" and "lunatics" are all part of the caste system that has always been part of the American story.

(I think Heather Cox Richardson, the moderator, asked maybe four or five questions over the course of an hour and a half. Dude can talk.)

He also echoed a thought I've had for years, which is that we have so balkanized our public life that there is no common civic language. He specifically and pointedly noted the abandonment of factual truth by Trump and the GOP, but he rightly noted that this is deeply cultural. 

In all, it was a defense of the sort of postwar and post-Cold War liberalism that has brought great good to the world, but has also led to disruption, as free trade has left some people and regions behind. It was intelligent, coherent, wise and completely at odds with the current leadership of this country. It was also, I need to say, an argument that Joe Biden simply could not make in 2024. It was an argument that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris articulated forcefully, but latent misogyny led to it falling on deaf ears.

I miss the guy.

Hiding

 Trump left the G-7 Summit early, leading many to speculate that he has returned to DC because we are about to go to war with Iran. That is certainly plausible.

However, I agree with Richardson that there might be another explanation. Trump was out of his depth and looked clumsy and foolish next to the other leaders. The DC Press Corpse has largely rolled over for Trump, and his briefings are filled with sycophants and lackeys from places like NewsMax. The international press corps has no such compunction to roll over for him. 

Trump is old. Trump is stupid. Trump is in obvious decline. Going to something like the G-7 Summit exposes this. The comical moment when Trump dropped his "trade agreement" and Prime Minister Starmer stooped down to pick them up made him look like the feeble old man that he is. (He also seemed to confuse the UK with the EU, a slip that would have dominated news coverage for a week if Biden did it.) When you place Trump next to normal people, his abnormality becomes more manifest.

Trump falls asleep in public and during meetings. He forgets things that no one who is president should forget.

I await Jake Tapper's lengthy report of Joe Biden's age.

So Much Stuff

 The argument that news networks put their fingers on the scale for Trump comes down to their motivations to have "content" that improves ratings. Trump is good for ratings! Fuck democracy.

My sojourn on foreign shores was certainly a deluge of "content." There was the Trump-Musk uncivil war; the LA protests; the police assault on Senator Padilla; the Israeli-Iranian war; Trump's laughable parade and the No Kings Protests, the assassination of Minnesota legislators. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things.

I was gone for twelve days.

Having the ability to step back and not comment immediately has led me to see Trump's deluge of horseshit as being a demonstration of his fundamental weakness. The capper is of course the massive protests that drowned out his feeble parade.  

Trump requires a steady barrage of outrage, but his manifest incompetence and rampant lying actually blunt his effectiveness at creating a true dictatorship. He's manifestly unpopular and his low-information voters aren't likely to show up to vote or they will swing against him. He's hemorrhaging support from Hispanics, independents and the young men who helped him win in November. He might not care, but at some point Republicans will have to.

This is all very chaotic and unpleasant, but I think the lesson of the last two weeks has been about Trump's inherent weakness. 

Soooooo

 Anything happen while I was gone....

When WERE We A Serious Country?

 Krugman offers up the argument that we are "no longer a serious country" as we embrace the idiocy of Trump's manic policy making. Richardson begins her piece by noting Joni Ernst's sociopathic response to Medicaid cuts being irrelevant because we all die anyway.

It is tempting to place the cascading disasters of Trump's policies at his feet alone. He is, after all, that toxic combination of moron and narcissist. But it wasn't Trump's idea that tax cuts will lead to so much growth that they would pay for themselves. It wasn't Trump's idea that cutting people off from government health insurance would make them lazy. It wasn't Trump's idea that America just needed to return to "Biblical principles."

A lot goes back to Reagan, but you can back further to the Birchers and McCarthy, to Calvin Coolidge and Andrew Mellon.

America has never felt respect for bureaucrats, perhaps because our original bureaucracy was staffed by the spoils system (a system Trump is trying to resurrect). Other countries feel that their government is a tool to help the most people that it can; it is an instrument of the common good. We don't feel that way, and a large strain of us have never felt that way.

I understand why even center left commentators and especially bothsides types would not want to stare this fact in the face, but America has always been unserious. We have thrived, because democracy allows us to self-correct. 

Let's hope we still have democracy by 2028.

Heading On The Road

 Taking a quick trip to Yurp. Blogging will be lighter.

Where Did The New Gilded Age Come From?

 Krugman takes a look at what killed the Great Compression - a four decade period where inequality in the US was notably low. The Great Compression began in 1940 and ended more or less in 1980.

There are multiple efforts by academic economists and historians to explain this, and they roughly fall into several categories. One school that sort of supports Trumpist politics is that globalization stole all the jobs. Another says that computers and automation stole all the jobs.

The most persuasive to me has been that those two things helped create more inequality, but the real culprit was the anti-statist politics of Reagan. In fact, while Trumpist politics follows the anti-globalization, actual policy hews closer to Reagan's plan for deregulation and tax cuts.

When Eisenhower left office, the top marginal tax rate was 93%. That more or less precluded the existence of an Elon Musk or Warren Buffett. I'm not sure that a 93% tax rate is actually a good thing, but the idea of a wealth tax is something that the next Democratic trifecta - presuming representative government survives - should take a long look at.