An Autocracy Of Dunces

Paul Krugman is a Nobel winning economist, but the man can turn a phrase. 

Clowns

 The unprecedented gathering of America's top military officers in one place to listen to Fox News Personality Pete Hegseth engendered legitimate fears about either an impending stupid war or some sort of military coup or purge. Aspiring authoritarians - and Hegseth and Trump are cut from that same cloth - need loyalty in the national security apparatus, and the worry was that this would be the first step in creating those conditions.

Didn't quite turn out that way.

As Richardson notes, Trump in particular was lost when speaking to a room full of people who do not respond the way his rally goers or even protestors respond. While Hegseth's vile and stupid remarks are worthy of their own post, the focus really needs to be on Trump. Hegseth is a clown. All those generals and admirals know This Guy. He's the reservist who thinks he's Rambo. Pretty sure Hegseth does not have his Combat Infantry Badge. Generals and Admirals are pretty smart people; most if not all have graduate degrees. Their job is to study actual war, not war movies - which is apparently what Hegseth does.

Trump, however, is the Commander in Chief. Hegseth's primary danger is the sort of incompetence that we saw with the Signal Chat fiasco last spring. Trump's danger is to the constitutional order that every soldier takes an oath to defend. It feels close to inevitable that at some point, they will be asked to forswear that oath in favor of one for Trump.

I think yesterday actually worked against that. Trump had prepared remarks that were likely written or molded by Stephen Miller: the typical American Carnage and the need to destroy domestic enemies. In case you need access to Richardson's post and don't have it, let me cut and paste some of Trump's remarks:

“They looked at (Biden) falling downstairs every day. Every day, the guy is falling downstairs. He said, It’s not our President. We can’t have it. I’m very careful. You know, when I walk downstairs for, like, a month, stairs, like these stairs, I’m very—I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just try not to fall, because it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen and it became a part of their legacy. We don’t want that. You walk nice and easy. You’re not having—you don’t have to set any record. Be cool. Be cool when you walk down, but don’t—don’t pop down the stairs. So one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a President, but he would bop down those stairs. I’ve never seen it. Da-da, da-da, da-da, bop, bop, bop. He’d go down the stairs. Wouldn’t hold on. I said, It’s great. I don’t want to do it. I guess I could do it. But eventually, bad things are going to happen, and it only takes once. But he did a lousy job as president. A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. This country was going to hell.”

What the actual fuck?

The thing is, he looks and sounds like shit, especially since he disappeared for a few days around Labor Day. So, let's say you might be a senior military leader who is torn between his oath to defend the Constitution and the chain of command. Do you really want to bet it all on this idiot who is decaying in front of your eyes? Similar to his rambling weird speech to the United Nations, these aren't rallies; these are very smart, observant people. Forced to stay in their seats for this verbal diarrhea do you really think they came out of that ridiculous, unnecessary confab thinking; "This guy's got it on lockdown"?

As we head into a government shutdown, the whole thing rests on the fragile ego of a demented old fool. Sadly, I think the best hope we have is that he is, in fact, a demented old fool. This is why the cretinous fascists like Miller are rushing to destroy what they can of America. The clock seems to be ticking. 

UPDATE: Tom Nichols makes roughly the same point.

UPDATE 2: This is a telling line from Hegseth: “It all starts with physical fitness and appearance,” Hegseth said. “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in combat units with females who can’t meet the same combat-arms physical standards as men.” Sure, yeah, the sexism. But the focus on superficial appearance is befitting an administration that just wants to look good on Fox rather than do the actual job.

What The Hell Is In Those Files?

 The decision by Closeted Gay Leprechaun Mike Johnson to NOT swear in Adelita Grivalja to the House seat that she just won is just another striking example of the GOP flop sweat over the Epstein Files. Once she is sworn in, the discharge petition will have 218 votes and whatever is in there is SO bad that Johnson won't even swear in a duly elected member.

The New Mutually Assured Destruction

 In the midst of Trump and Hegseth's ridiculous hectoring of America's senior military command, we get this column from Thomas Friedman about how Trump's Gaza peace plan is a great peace plan except for the fact that it's Gaza and the people in charge are awful. Really, "It's a great plan as long as the world were different." He also notes how drones have transformed future warfare. At the bottom of this post is a tweet about how Hegseth's made-for-TV leadership and doing pushup and warrior ethos is all bullshit, when you look at Ukraine who is punching way about their weight with a bunch of middle aged drone pilots and female coders.

As military planners consider the next few decades, they have to consider that disproportionate impact that drones are going to have on future wars. They are cheap - both in dollars and the risk to human life - and they are ubiquitous. For decades, America has ruled the world with the Predator drone - expensive but able to reach around the globe without imperiling American lives. Pretty soon everyone will have that capability.

With the advent of nuclear arsenals, wars between super and great powers became unthinkable. Drones might be the next step in making wars too punishing to contemplate.

Unless you are a dumbass dumbfuck like Donald Trump or Pete Hegseth.

Electricity

 Yglesias makes one of his arguments that I actually agree with: We should focus on building MORE clean energy, not on making LESS hydrocarbon-based energy. Basically, there is a strong degrowth element to a lot of environmental activism. This is fundamentally a moral or ethical choice from people who want to rollback capitalism, consumer consumption and the impact that has on the planet. Yglesias is right that is so politically toxic, it's not even worth considering. Yet that is a big part of climate and environmental activism. 

A great example of this is nuclear power. Since Three Mile Island, environmentalists have advocated for shuttering nuclear power plants. Germany - for some damned reason - did exactly this and became dependent on Russian natural gas. Nuclear power, however, is carbon neutral and can produce a TON of electricity. There is a ceiling on renewables like solar and wind and batteries. Nuclear can punch through that ceiling. 

What's more, Yglesias is also right that we should not be trying to get "enough" energy for 2030. We should be trying to have so much electrical generation power that we can do things like create hydrogen to make cement and steel - two processes that are big carbon polluters but have no feasible way to decarbonize until we become awash in electricity.

Of course, this is one of those columns that makes a lot of us go "Really dude?" Trump has actively been trying to kill even basic renewables. He has a pathological hatred of wind power and doesn't seem to like solar either. A lot of this is that he is trying to actively resurrect the fortunes of coal mine owners and fossil fuel companies. Killing the tax credit for rooftop solar is just terrible policy.

The reality is that we are increasingly electrifying our economy. Add in the massive demands from data centers and AI and we saw electrical costs go from roughly $0.13 a KwH in August of 2020 to $0.19 five years later. That's an almost 50% increase. If you further constrain supply, that price will continue to rise, which is really bad! Unless you're a fossil fuel company, I guess.

And isn't that the point?

Not Friends

 Josh Marshall makes an important point about how the GOP has been acting like thugs but now expect Democrats to "come to the table" as adults. Yes, Democrats are overly reliant on "norms" and worry about how they will look to Very Serious People, and that makes them predisposed to treat this very aberrant moment as just the usual shit.

Trump posted a racist AI video of Jeffries standing next to Schumer that includes Schumer using vulgarities and Jeffries has a sombrero and mustache in a crude caricature of a Mexican. This is supposed to be the GOP talking point that the Dems are shutting down the government to give health care to illegal aliens. (I don't think that's going to work, especially if ACA subsidies DO collapse, which will impact Americans directly.)

If that's where we are - Trump posting juvenile videos of the minority leaders in Congress - then I don't think we have to expect Dems to "come to the table" with a compromise.

The Very Online, by the way, are lambasting Schumer and Jeffries for using the typical language of the minority party. "We hope Republicans do the right thing." "We are hopeful we can find common ground and compromise for the American people." I get that people are hungry for performative combat like we see from Newsom's communications team. When you say "We hope that Republicans do the right thing" you are not expecting that they will. You are making sure that the sundry ignoramuses that make up both the electorate and the media will see your side as wanting to make government work and the other side as petulant toddlers.

Schumer and Jeffries do not have illusions about who Trump is or what the GOP has become. They are, however, trying to win over the mushy middle. That doesn't require them to behave like assholes and trolls. In fact, the more serious and normal they look, the more Trump and his childish minions look like the assholes they are.

Muscle Memory

 There has been some sniping (and by sniping I mean a full scale artillery barrage) directed at Democrats for their shutdown strategy. Because this is arguably the only leverage point that they have until and unless they get back control of one branch of the government, people want them to try and undo all aspects of Trumpism. 

That's not going to happen.

At least it appears that Democratic leadership is prepared to fight this time. The capitulation this spring was dispiriting, but this time people will be complaining about HOW they are fighting, as opposed to WHETHER they are fighting, which...progress, I guess.

The terrain that the Democrats have chosen is the expiring ACA subsidies. Krugman lays out how devastating the expiration of ACA subsidies will be. This graph shows what will happen in Ohio:

That's bad!

Note who gets really screwed: families and people nearing retirement. Now, the people in the exchanges are people who don't get insurance through work - independent shop owners, contractors, farmers, you know...Republicans.

I get my insurance through work, but I can expect the sky rocketing costs to shrink the number of insured people, which will lead back to the dynamic of using people who DO have insurance to help cover the costs of those who don't. 

Meanwhile, the Sundowner In Chief was posting AI slop videos about a QAnon conspiracy about "medbeds." Laser focused, Donny Boy.

There is an argument that Democrats win this war whether or not they lose this battle over keeping the government open. Health care is an issue people trust them on and the reduced salience of that issue has likely helped Republicans peel off Democratic votes. Arguing about insurance is a good way to remind people about the OBBB - which they hate. If Democrats win, they have "exerted dominance" over Trump. If they lose, people will be pissed about health care costs and know that Republicans are to blame.

Fighting this fight is the Democrats relying on muscle memory to get them out of a slump. 

Europe Is Our Only Hope

 There are obviously so many concerns about Trump's assault on American Democracy. This is likely to be a feature of this space for the next three years. However, liberal democracy is not just an American project. We took the lead during and after World War II, but as we see with the emergence of China and rise of Trump, Orban and Erodogan, that progress is not linear nor inevitable. I think in the long run, Americans will not want to live under a dictatorship, but then again, we are pretty stupid.

If there is an entity that can take our mantle of leadership in the fight for liberal democracy globally, it has to be Europe. Krugman does one of his long posts about how the European economy is much stronger than we usually think. The standard measurements of things like GDP per capita don't measure the actual wealth of Europe. What he points out is that Europe has simply made different priorities.

For instance, much of American productivity advantages can be attributed to how many more vacation days Europeans take. That's neither good not bad, but different. Additionally, the US has vaulted ahead in technology, but that technology has also exacerbated wealth inequality. It's not just the Silicon Valley ecosystem of tech millionaires and billionaires, it's the degradation of working class income as it's replaced by automation. America is more "productive" than Europe because we prize that and create technologies that enhance it. Europe tends to focus on things like life expectancy and quality of life. You can't go to Europe and not be impressed with just how...nice it is.

So Europe is not as "rich" as America, but it's still a very wealthy society. However, the very open question is whether Europe is willing to take the steps to replace American global leadership. This would require two big things.

First, they are going to have to integrate more. Krugman touches on this, in that America has innovation ecosystems in places as diverse as Silicon Valley, Austin, Boston and Pittsburgh. Europe doesn't really have centers of innovation - like a biotech hub that serves all of Europe. 

Second, they are going to have to assume some burdens that the US had traditionally borne and that could impact that quality of life balance. Namely, the EU has benefitted from robust (even excessive) US defense spending. The situation in Ukraine and Estonia is a stark reminder that they need to be step it up when it comes to defense spending. Taking nukes off the table, Europe as a whole could crush Russia in a shooting war, but they need to be so strong that Russia won't even risk it, and I think that's an open question.

Especially in the international arena, we are fucked up and broken. Everything that "made America great" has been tarnished, trashed or totaled. It's going to be up to the EU to lead, at least for the rest of the decade. 

Genius Has A Plan, Stupidity Has A Cause

 This quote is so important to understanding Trumpism. Trump is not a bright guy, especially now that he's clearly in cognitive and physical decline. The people who are willing to do his bidding are often not very bright. Kristi Noem and Kash Patel were not picked for their brain power. Trump's handpicked lawyer tapped to indict James Comey is not a prosecutor. I would be surprised if the indictment isn't thrown out on summary judgment. 

The speed with which Trump and the Trumpets implemented Project 2025 has taken people aback. The venom that Trump routinely spits at his enemies is even worse than the first go 'round. The reason that Trump usually loses in the lower courts is that his plans are bad and stupid. The compliant Supreme Court notwithstanding, the Courts require evidence to prove your allegations, and evidence isn't a strong suit of an administration that blames autism on Tylenol and cancer on windmills.

This fundamental unreasoning does not mean that Trumpism isn't lethally dangerous, precisely because it has a cause. This is why Trump's most fervid supporters are usually evangelicals. They are already on the cause of overturning decades of social progress; Trump is just a conduit for that cause. True believers, by definition, are impervious to evidence and logic. That's what makes them true believers.

The Worm, Is It Turning?

 Two threads that basically wonder if we are in a new reality here in Trumpistan. The first is Josh Marshall noting that Democrats are not only now joining the fight, they are joining the fight on terrain that seems favorable to them. 

The second is a compiled Thread from Bluesky about opposing authoritarianism. Basically, it lays out the many hurdles Trump would actually have to clear to end democracy. It was true three weeks ago, but it seems more realistic now. By design, there are so many veto points on the road to autocracy, that Trump would struggle to overcome them in the best of circumstances for him.

One of the points he makes was actually made about, wait for it, Star Wars. Do you know how many Stormtroopers you would need to suppress the galaxy? That number is massive. The author points out that the Nazis original stormtroopers number 400,000 in 1932 and then exploded to 2,000,000 the following year. The entire DHS has 240,000 employees and most of them are office drones. ICE and Border Patrol have a total of 90,000 people. Even if they triple in size, that's a pitiful number in a nation of 340,000,000. 

Trumpism requires assent from everyone. It has largely gotten that from corporate elites - whether in the C-Suite of in a law firm - but there comes a point when popular outrage overwhelms them - see the Kimmel fiasco.

Trump is objectively unpopular. He is also spending his time ranting about UN escalators and Tylenol. Because no one will give him bad news, he's only going to get increasingly out of touch beyond the stark and stark raving made confines of MAGA world.

As I've said before, as a teacher of government I would say, "Be afraid." As a teacher of history I would say "Be patient."

Finding Out

 With all the focus on Charlie Kirk/Jimmy Kimmel/acetomopeneneagin, there is a serious crisis building under the surface of the news. Trump's trade wars have destroyed the international market for American agricultural goods, especially soybeans, and subsidies for the Affordable Care Act are being slashed, which will raise insurance rates for millions of Americans.

Meanwhile, Trump is planning on bailing out Javier Milei's failed policies in Argentina. Why? Because Milei says nice things about Trump, unlike the starving kids in Africa that are dying because Trump killed USAID. 

Which brings us to the Democrats. Right now, we are barreling towards a government shutdown, and the main Democratic demand to keep it open is to re-fund those ACA subsidies. At some point, we can anticipate a bill to bail out American farmers who are getting crushed by Trump's trade wars.

This is the "finding out" phase of Trumpism. Those working class constituencies - farmers and some small independent operators like hair dressers - are about to get crushed. They did, in fact, vote for this, they just weren't paying attention.

What obligation though do Democrats owe these folks? What's more, why should Democrats work to undo the damage Trump is doing before the 2026 midterms? The assumption is always that only Democrats have agency; if the government shutters, it will be their fault. If farmers get crushed and people lose their health insurance because of Trump's policies, then it will somehow be Democrats' fault.

The broad middle of American politics who swung from Trump to Biden and back to Trump does not typically follow politics that closely. They are vibes voters and they roughly "get" that Democrats want government to "do more" and Republicans want government to "do less." If people's economic status declines - as it already is doing - then they will blame the party in power. Biden didn't cause inflation, but Harris likely lose the election because of inflation.

Democrats - to their credit - want to make people's lives better. They want to use the institutions of political power to make things better for the average person. However, if we are to save American democracy, we may have to immiserate people first.

They fucked around in November 2024. They will have to find out by November 2025.

Kimmel

 The monologue was pretty good - emotional, concise, pointed. As Krugman noted, this is a sign that authoritarianism of the type Trump wants to impose on America is brittle and breaking. Democratic backsliding requires that the wannabe dictator is actually popular. It was amazing that even people like Ted Cruz could see the terrible overreach in using threats from the FCC to take Kimmel off the air.

The breakneck speed of Trump's lawless overreach is precisely because they fear an accountability moment. It should be the midterms, but they are working to rig those as best they can. They WAY they are rigging things  - gerrymandering - suggests that they realize the futility of trying to rig the counting or to rely on massive, militarized vote suppression. 

It's a long, long march through Trumpistan. Take some solace and shelter when you can.

That Was Wierd

 Trump's bizarre, rambling, inchoate speech to United Nations was one of the many recent moments where we see Trump slipping deeper into what would appear to be madness. The most cogent and concise response was the shared tweet by United Nations' diplomat: "This man is stark raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?"

Then there was Trump trying to pronounce Acetaminophen. I have a hunch these moments are going to start to add up in public consciousness.

Debate v Argument

 Josh Marshall takes a run at the centrist sanewashing of Charlie Kirk. The Ezra Klein argument that Kirk "did politics the right way." Marshall points out that Kirk was not a "debater" but a "debate me, bro" guy. The latter are provocateurs who use rhetorical pugilism to entertain. Lots of strawman arguing and so forth. Marshall says debate is good, but debate bros are useless.

I'm circling in on something else that I'm refining for a school talk in January.

Debate, actually, is kind of bad. Debate is a sport. There are tactics - of which people like Kirk and Ben Shapiro are good at - that can "win points" and "win" the debate. It's a zero sum exercise - as much of our politics is.

Instead, I think we need to argue more and debate less. Arguing seems angrier, but I don't think that's the way to look at it. When I would get into arguments in college, it was fun! Even arguments with my dad were engaging. The key thing, though, is not see at argument as a win-lose situation. When you argue, you have to defend your position. To the degree that you attack the other person's position, it should be from the perspective of trying to actually understand what they are saying, rather than creating a strawman to disassemble. 

The best arguments that I have had are ones where I come either better understand their position and better understand my own. It's a process of discovery, not a zero-sum contest. 

Losing that has crippled public discourse. 

That ICE Shooting In Chicago

 Unsurprisingly, it seems like an excessive use of force.

The Cover Ups Continue To Baffle Me

 When it comes to the Epstein Files, the evidence to murder Venezuelans in small boats or the video of Tom Homan accepting bribes, I remain puzzled by the Administration's actions. Not that they are refusing to release the evidence; that seems perfectly in character.

What puzzles me is that these fuckers feel free to make every batshit statement that pops into their febrile heads - like Tylenol causes autism - without thinking twice. 

Why not simply fake some Epstein Files? Or manufacture evidence that Al Qaeda is smuggling drugs through Venezuela? Cook up a video of Homan refusing the money? It's not like they are respecting the law in other realms. They lie and fabricate crap all the time. 

Now, at this point, I doubt anyone will believe them it they released a fake Epstein Files that has Epstein lamenting how it was Trump that ratted him out to the Feds. But his base would swallow it whole. Scott Fucking Jennings would crow about it on some stupid fucking panel show on CNN. Part of the media strategy is to flood the zone with bullshit, so why aren't they flooding the zone? It's not because these are people scrupulously following the law.

Either there are some internal guardrails that are actually holding and we don't know about, or there has to be some sort of kill switch mechanism that if Trump released fake evidence, the real evidence would come out. But that doesn't make any sense either. Trump has survived by exploiting the idea of "competing narratives." At this point, everyone assumes there's incredibly damaging information in those files, so why not create a second narrative with fake files? 

Maybe they are just too incompetent, but I don't know. This is a head scratcher for me.

The Conspiratorial Style

 Richardson's daily cataloguing of the atrocities focuses on recent attempts to destroy various forms of fact gathering and journalism. The Trump administration really seems to believe that if you just suppress bad news that no one will think things are getting bad. We have already seen a steep decline in consumer sentiment, and whether it's hiring freezes or rising prices, people very much aware that the economy is struggling some. Things feel off. 

Some of this is the full frontal assault on expertise seen in the visa scam recently unveiled. There are a lot of smartish people who run or help run important companies. Everything is fucking nuts right now, and not having trustworthy economic data or not being able to know what tariff or immigration policy will be next week (much less next year) makes planning impossible. The very steps that Trump is taking to make it seem like things are going great will only make things get worse.

In this weird attempt to canonize Charlie Kirk, I was struck by the seemingly bizarre way that evangelicals in particular saw him and the world. This nutso idea that Kirk "loved his enemies" is just contrary to fact. They are even saying that he "stopped the bullet that would've killed someone else" because he's literally Superman. This just feels like almost medieval superstition.

But when you think about superstition, how different is it, really, from conspiracy theories? Both are just cognitively flawed ways of looking at cause and effect. Both are not able to understand what evidence is really telling you. Both want to ascribe elements of random chance to some overarching power or plan.

We live in a messy world. The reason we rely on doctors and statisticians and forecasters is that the future is a dark room, and we need to know where to find the light switch.

Trump seems prone to this sort of conspiratorial thinking, not as a way to engage with his base, but because he shares their fascination with it. He rose to political prominence on birtherism. Yeah, it was racist, but it was also a conspiracy theory. Trump is a narcissist who has two failed marriages, numerous bankruptcies and has won the popular vote once. All of those things must be someone else's fault or things that were stolen from him.

Trump is not - in any way - a religious man. Yet his stranglehold on white evangelicals is total. It's not because they share a theological understanding. It's because they share the need for some form of thinking that is conspiratorial. It's based on "faith" in the sense that it is not based on evidence. Jesus' face did not appear in a storm cloud, and gas is not $2.00 a gallon. 

Obviously, the Trumpist war on facts is part of the authoritarian playbook. But the reason they have to do it is not just to make themselves look more popular. I don't think reality will let them get away with that. Hiding the economic data will not change the price of groceries or make it so you don't get laid off. I think that - at least in part - the war on facts is because the crave the certainty of their bizarre beliefs and they want to wall off any information that might disturb that.

Yes, it's Authoritarianism 101, but it's also a desperate attempt to stave off cognitive dissonance. 

This Seems Important, Up To A Point

 The decision by more and more countries to recognize a Palestinian state is a direct result of the increasing brutality of Israeli actions in Gaza. This is really a massive "own goal" by Israel, who enjoyed a window of international support after October 7th but has more or less completely forfeited that since. As Israel moves further and further from international law, it risks becoming even more a pariah state. Unlike other dysfunctional and cruel states in the Middle East, Israel doesn't have oil and is therefore more dependent on international goodwill than Netanyahu perhaps realizes.

Of course, the US - especially under Trump - will use their veto to thwart full UN recognition of Palestinian statehood, but that could create a ticking clock for Israel. If we assume - and it's an assumption at this point - that we will have free and fair elections in the future and Democrats will once again gain power, why would they wish to protect Netanyahu, who has openly allied himself with the GOP? Yes, Jews are an important constituency for Democrats, but arch-Zionists in America have likely already moved to the GOP. Recognizing Palestine (or at the very least not using the veto) would be A) the right thing to do B) pay back for Netanyahu being a complete prick and C) lay the groundwork for real Palestinian autonomy.

As the US becomes isolated in its full bore support for the Likud government and its policy of ethnic cleansing, I'd like to thank the pro-Palestinian voters in the US who told us there was no difference between Harris and Trump.

Grand Theory of Trumpistan

 There has been a lot of talk of what Democrats "need to do" in order to regain some measure of power and save America from its descent into authoritarianism. One of the underrated problems is that are simply too many targets to focus outrage on. Masked goons are roughing up people on American streets! Government censors are kicking people off the air! Medicaid and ACA spending is being gutted! Food assistance is being removed! America's health infrastructure is being dismantled! Tariffs are hurting the economy! Corruption is everywhere!

Trying to find a thread to all this can be challenging. However, it seems as if Democrats are slowly coming around to a theme: Trump's authoritarianism is aid and comfort for plutocrats.

If they haven't landed on this, they should. The "persuadable voter" is an ignoramus. They don't follow the news; they don't ponder the nature of liberal democracy. They do know the price of groceries. They can also see Trump's defacement of the Oval Office with gold shit everywhere. They know the job market sucks and they are already seeing Trump's tariffs as being bad for inflation. The fees for H-1B visas will likely be waived for companies that pay Trump a bribe. 

It's the naked corruption that serves no other purpose but to enrich Trump and the people around him while at the same time hurting average people that creates a "populist" message that Democrats can use. 

If we accept that this current populist moment is about inchoate rage against the changing nature of the world, then blaming this on an oligarchy of fat cat billionaires sure seems like a winning message. There has always been a reluctance among Democrats to go after tech billionaires in particular. But when you've lost someone like Bezos, why even bother to give those fuckers the benefit of any doubt?

The corruption feeds into that, but so does the authoritarianism. Trump is the boss that can't be joked with; he's the boss that fires you for making fun of him. He needs to stop you from voting because if you do, you will stop him from rewiring America even more for the superrich. 

Lots of people are pissed, because they feel the game is rigged. It shouldn't be hard to get them to see that Trump is rigging it even more.

Authoritarianism Is Not Popular

 Richardson reminds us that Trump isn't popular. I mentioned yesterday that Trump seems to exist in some bizarre echo chamber of minions dripping honeyed flattery into his ears. He is either unable, unwilling or unprepared to listen to bad news. Perhaps he does hear it and simply thinks he can control the narrative by simply repeating his bullshit.

The Jimmy Kimmel thing has actually earned a rebuke from people like Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz. They sort of get that this is "bad" in terms of civil liberties. Picking visible fights with people like Kimmel is more impactful than illegal shit happening just out of frame. 

There is also some evidence that Democrats in the Senate "get it" in terms of the Continuing Resolution fight. We shall see.

On Bullshit And Sycophancy

 Trump has always been a bullshitter. What that means to refresh your memory is that Trump does not care what the truth is. A liar does and actively does the opposite, whereas a bullshitter is really just seeing what he can get away with. 

It seems every day we see Trump saying more and more things divorced from any sense of reality. He said he was going to bring down prescription drug prices 1000%. If you understand math, I'll give you a moment to weep quietly. He says that gas is $2 a gallon. He says that America has taken in trillions in tariff duties. 

On the one hand, we can chalk this up to him being a bullshitter and simply not caring. This, however, feels inadequate to the moment. He's WAY beyond bullshit here. This is delusional stuff. If I had to guess we have his habitual bullshitting and we have the fact that no one will call him on anything. If there is a salient fact that distinguishes Trump 2.0 from Trump 1.0, it is the absence of anyone pushing back on his bullshit.

This gives us the Mad King vibe we see in his pronouncements. This gibbering nonsense, the frequent explosions of word salad, all of this is the actions of a not terribly bright man who is slipping into senescence but who has no one to tell him that he's full of shit. You think Melania will? Anyone of the toadies who congregate around him? 

The problem is that it's not only his rhetoric that's nuts. Is anyone willing to tell him the cost of the Hyundai raid? Is anyone going to point out the lunacy of RFK Jr's purge of actual health experts? We know he doesn't give a shit about civil rights and liberties, but will anyone tell him that what's used against Jimmy Kimmel can be used against conservatives?

Republican congressfolks won't do it. The media won't do it. I have my doubts about the courts, once it gets to the Supreme Court. 

It will have to be us.

Kimmel

 Even Yglesias is freaked out and pissed off by the FCC coordinating with conservative groups to force Jimmy Kimmel off the air. (True, it takes a lot of bothsidesing for Yglesias to get there, but whatever.) Richardson places all this within the striking irony that this assault on the First Amendment took place on Constitution Day. I doubt this was on purpose, but...damn.

There is some thought that maybe the fascists have overstepped this time. Even Tucker Carlson thinks this is over the line. I doubt it, though, for most Republicans. They are cowed and complicit.

What's more, while the most pressing issue is the wholesale assault on freedom of speech, I hope that people are taking note that this is only possible when a very few voices have control of most large media organizations. It's barely necessary for Trumpets to lean on ABC and use coercive power, when they can just call Disney and silence opposition across multiple media and outlets.

Among the many, many things Democrats will need to do if they are ever allowed to get control of government again is massive anti-trust action.

Men

 The trendlines for Democratic support from men - especially young men - are troubling, given the implications of voting for MAGA. Trump's wholesale attack on democratic institutions continues at a fevered pace with yesterday's First Amendment-violating attack on ABC and Kimmy Kimmel. It's important for Democrats to reduce their electoral liability among men, so how do we do it?

Paul Krugman makes the first important point: Men really have seen their economic prospects erode. It is the nature of zero-sum thinking that if Democrats were to acknowledge and speak to that, it would represent a failure to help the ease the hurdles that women still face. That seems like faulty thinking to me, but it's real. I'm a reasonably well off white dude, but I certainly feel like being a white guy in secondary education did not help me at all in my career advancement. There's the strong push to take a school that historically has been staffed by white men and make it more diverse. As a result, we have a male head of school, but almost all the major administrative posts are held by women. I get the sentiment, but I still feel walled in.

For a young man, it can probably feel pretty hopeless.

There was a focus group going around of Hispanic Trump 2024 voters. Almost all of them regret their vote. Trump's support among Hispanics is cratering. Yet none of those voters would - if they could - go back and vote for Harris. 

We are seeing the downside of identity politics. It was used to create solidarity among disadvantaged groups, but now white men and men in general see themselves as disadvantaged by an economy that prizes less traditionally masculine jobs. This creates in-group solidarity.

We need to wrestle with the fact that these men are not interested in voting for a woman, because of this version of identity politics. They might vote for a man, especially if Trump's terrible policies kick them in the teeth, but we can't just issue a white paper about men's employment. We have to acknowledge that men really ARE facing disadvantages and that is creating a male identity politics that extends beyond policy.

What Would Donald Trump Do...

 ...if he were alive today? Do you think he would be angry at that ambulatory sack of hate Stephen Miller for starting a status war with South Korea? I mean, Trump's whole thing is bringing back manufacturing jobs, presumably.

There are a number of reasons that democracy is preferable to autocracy, and one underrated one is that democracies are better at self-correcting. If someone in a normal administration had fucked up as bad as Miller did with this Hyundai raid, he'd be fired. But you can't fire someone if your whole shtick is being Dear Leader.

Let's see if foreign companies get the message.

Today In Oligarchy

 The news that Trump ally Larry Ellison of Oracle is trying to buy TikTok and Time Warner is a great example of the actual impact of Trump's corrupt authoritarianism. On its face, this looks like a clear anti-trust issue, but if you think Trump is going to let the letter of the law impede his friend's ability to create a media monopoly to choke off anti-Trump stories...well.

TikTok is a malignant force in young people's live in a lot of ways. It destroys attention spans; it pushes divisive and damaging narratives; it warps their understanding of the world. That China controls it is objectively bad. I don't doubt they are pushing divisive content.

Giving it to a Trump-aligned oligarch is not the damned solution.

"Trump is on the side of billionaires" is a pretty damned effective message if anyone wants my two cents.

A Stefon Story

 Bill Hader had a recurring character on SNL called Stefon who touted night clubs with the line "This club has it all.." before rattling off a list of impossibly bizarre features. I think we need to start looking at stories about Trump's administration that "have it all" and this one qualifies. 

The contours are this: The United Arab Emirates is looking to diversify its economy by getting into AI. America leads the world (for the moment) in AI chip technology. The UAE is also pretty friendly to China, so the Biden Administration and even national security officials in the first few months of the Trump Restoration were very, very reluctant to give UAE access to the Nvidia AI chips. 

Enter Steve Witkoff, Trump's new consigliere who has no relevant experience to the multitude of jobs that he has been given. He comes out of New York real estate, the same moral sewer that produced Jabba the President. Witkoff, working with techbro oligarch David Sacks, tried to make an end run around the national security concerns and got a huge assist from extreme MAGA gargoyle, Laura Loomer. Basically, they overrode security concerns to export 500,000 of the advanced chips, and then the UAE invested over a billion dollars into Trump aligned crypto.

This story has everything: corruption and personal enrichment by Trump and tech bros, selling out national security interests, Laura Loomer, incompetent people ignoring expert advice and the growing international web of rich people who exist beyond the interest and control of governments.

It also has implausible denials from "White House spokespeople" who say ridiculous things that often don't deny anything. "The Trump administration is the most honest in history" North Korea media type shit.

Crypto doesn't need to exist. It performs no real useful function that money can't perform, except money laundering, drug and human trafficking and fraud, all of which is removed from banking oversight. Crypto has no intrinsic value, but as we see in this story, it's really good for bribing people under the guise of "investing." Meanwhile, China is almost certain to get their hands on these chips and we will lose that advantage, whatever that's worth in our coming AI dystopia. However, for the international tech bro club, who cares if it's the US, the UAE, China or whoever, as long as you get yours. The startling amorality of tech libertarians is almost its own pathology at this point. 

Does this "make America great again"? Of course not. Anymore than the criminal treatment of South Korean engineers by ICE makes sense. However, the swirling chaos, corruption and incompetence of Trump-world means that as long as someone gets what they want - Witkoff's millions; Loomer's vendettas; Sack's techno-stateless utopia - it can proceed, even if it reduces efforts in another area.

Like I said, this story has everything.

The Most Dangerous Man In America

 Stephen Miller is Trump's sword hand, if the sword hand acted independently of the user. He's our effective president, unleashing terror against Trump's enemies, as the old man dodders around from press conference (seated of course) to golf course. As some of the pieces at the link suggest, he seems pretty much emotionally unbalanced, and of course cruel. Historically speaking, that's not sustainable.

Relatedly, we have had some career death watches in the Trump White House already, with most surviving them (not Hegseth, but Waltz was canned for SignalGate). There are rumors that Kash Patel has impressed quite a few people that he is so far over his head that he might be canned. We shall see. But that's the problem with being performatively cruel. It's a shit management plan.

Oh No

 Not Robert Redford...

Today In The Trump Economy

 South Korea is pissed and getting more pissed over the revelations of how their nationals were treated by ICE goons. Let's be clear, as the post above notes, this is a confluence of MAGA. You have the racist ICE agents calling Korean engineers "Rocket Man". You have the contempt for batteries and renewable energy. You have the rank chaos of having shit posters in positions of power.

Meanwhile, in other rural parts of Trumpistan, the trade war with China is crushing soybean farmers. In Pennsylvania, farmers can't find laborers, because of deportations. 

As Krugman notes, we have a genuine housing crisis created by supply constraints. Some Blue states are easing zoning laws to build more dense housing, but Trump's policies are to deport workers and levy tariffs on Canadian lumber. 

I "get" the Democratic strategy of assuming that Trump is driving the American economy off a cliff and the best thing they can do is try and mitigate the damage. Voters will likely reward them anyway. However, we are mired in this period of partisan polarity and narrow elections like the late 19th century. It's going to take a crisis to break that and usher in a new Progressive Era, where we can change the fundamental rules surrounding things like wealth taxes and access to important public goods. Plus, we will have to fumigate the temples of democracy from the spread of Trump's malignant authoritarianism. 

I understand why you would want to help stop this, because you're a good person and wanted to become a Congressperson to help people. Still, you cannot help Trump escape the hole he's digging for himself. 

I would think that was obvious.

Who Would A Shutdown Help?

 Yglesias makes the argument that the actual point of a shutdown could be to get Republicans to eliminate the filibuster - a rule that typically makes it hard to impossible for Democrats to govern. Ultimately, I doubt Republicans do that for just that reason. The other issue is how much Republicans are counting on Democrats to save them from the consequences of the One Big Beautiful Bill. Do they want the fig leaf of Democratic opposition to help them escape the draconian cuts to health care? Maybe. Would they cross Trump to do this? Doubtful. Does Trump want to eviscerate ACA and health care? Unclear.

As we are seeing with the fallout from the raid on the Hyundai plant in Georgia, the right hand doesn't know what the far right hand is doing most of the time. So, maybe Trump would be OK with restoring ACA subsidies.

Yglesias kind of waves away the idea that Democratic voters are desperate for some signs of fight from their party. I think that's wrong, and most Democratic rank and file voters are craving some spine from Washington. Right now, governors are the only ones fighting back, mostly because they are the only ones who can on a day to day basis. The budget is the ONE leverage point Democrats have in the minority and they show every sign of blowing it. 

If I were coming up with a list of demands, it would start with outlawing recissions (again). There is zero point in negotiating on a budget if Trump is just going to ignore it and do what he wants with the money.

Any discussion of ACA subsidies cannot under any circumstances be a patch. They have to be made permanent. Pushing the pain off until after the midterm is just idiotic. If it's going to hurt, make it hurt sooner rather than later. 

Demand Congressional approval for National Guard deployments against local wishes.

Then, if you wanted to throw a few "cosmetic" victories like demanding Hegseth or RFK be fired, go for it.

The idea that Democrats would be blamed for shutting down the government when Republicans control all three branches seems a stretch. Yes, Republicans will blame them, but who cares. They are blaming them for Charlie Kirk without a shred of evidence. If you're argument is that we can't do anything because Republicans might say something mean about us, you've lost.

Democrats need to fight in this moment. This is not normal.

Pretty Good Analysis

 Click through to Elon's hellsite to watch a pretty interesting video on Tyler Robinson.

Vulgar Monetarism

 Krugman takes on more bad arguments - something he has been calling "zombie lies" for as long as I've been reading his work. In this post, he addresses the argument from Scott Bessant that basically the only cause of inflation is an increase in the money supply. In other words, if the Fed keeps interest rates high the tariffs and deportations can't be inflationary. Let's pause for a moment and addresses something Krugman doesn't: Trump wants to CUT interest rates. That's why he's falsifying charges against Lisa Cook. 

Now, printing lots of money IS a cause of inflation. It's simply not true that it's the only one. One of the biggest causes on inflation is a supply shock. In fact, I argue in class that probably the leading cause of the debilitating inflation of the 1970s were the rolling oil shocks. Given the centrality of oil to just about all economic activity, oil embargoes hit everyone everywhere all at once. The other issue (that Krugman addressed weeks or maybe months ago) is that once inflation takes root, it's very hard to get rid of.

Back to 2025, the Trump administration has been actively creating a supply problem along the two major axes of its policy. The first is, of course, tariffs. They are fundamentally inflationary by design. If tariffs aren't raising the price of imported goods, then they cannot achieve the hallucinatory goal of returning manufacturing to the US. 

The second is the Stephen Miller pogrom against immigrants or really any non-white people. Food prices should spike because the migrant workers are being rounded up. Same goes with construction costs, which is a shame, because there's some real political will to override a lot of NIMBY regulations and boost the stock of housing via more dense construction. 

Then you have the dual problem of the ICE raid on Hyundai plant in Georgia. This seems to combine the anti-immigrant policies of Miller with the effort to force foreign companies to build in the US. We shall see if Hyundai abandons the plant. I certainly would (if I could afford the sunk cost). Regardless, all the chaos means that no one will hire based on policy uncertainty.

As we marinate in the unreality of the flood of mis- and disinformation surrounding the Charlie Kirk assassin, just remember that this unreality is also informing the right's economic policy. In the end, supply and demand are simply too powerful and economic force to be talked around. Tariffs reduce the supply of goods; deportations reduce the supply of labor. Reduce the supply, the price goes up. No amount of Scott Bessant or Donald Trump arguing otherwise will change that. 

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

 Kirk's assassination was immediately pinned on the Left by Republicans, because Republicans have moved so far from a deference to actual facts that waiting even a day or two is irrelevant. Why constrain yourself and wait, when you have a political movement that routinely and repeatedly lies about known events? 

The behavior by the media is more troubling. It's not just the weird hagiography you get from people like Ezra Klein, rather it was reporting falsehoods from a politicized FBI without waiting to check them. The early reports of "pro trans markings" on the bullets were either wildly wrong or a misinterpretation. Meanwhile, there are reports that Robinson himself has said he's part of the Groyper movement. As someone said, Kirk should be seen as a victim of gang violence between his faction and Fuentes's.

The logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc seems to have warped press coverage. Because Kirk was an important conservative voice his death must be a boon to liberals and the left, therefore the liberals and the left killed him. As some calmed voices pointed out, most political violence comes from the right. What's more, the sordid deep swamps of things like 4Chan and Groypers have all been quietly erased from coverage in fear of appearing "unbalanced" or Dog forbid "woke." 

The inevitable corrections that will follow - if Robinson's leaked confession is true and not another internet rumor - do not erase the first narrative that often defines these moments. The power of a logical fallacy is that it often overrides more reasoned reflection. This is something Trump has really seized on. If you can lie before the truth is established, then the lie will have grabbed hold and created the dynamic of competing truths rather than truth vs falsehood.

It is difficult to catalogue all the ways in which institutions are failing us and have failed us in the Trump Restoration and Vengeance Tour. The failures of the news media are high on the list.

In Other News...

 There are a number of ironies surrounding Charlie Kirk's death. (He was being asked a question on gun violence when he was shot, for instance.) One of them is the baying of Trump and Trumpets about law and order. This is rich. Trump is, after all, a convicted felon.

The contempt for the law permeates so much of Trump's actions. Now we have a perfect example of Trump's rampant lawlessness: His intention to remove Lisa Cook as a Federal Reserve Governor.

The case for removing her was that she falsified mortgage documents for tax purposes. Subsequent investigations have shown that members of the Executive Branch have done this.

Recent revelations show that Cook did NOT claim her second residence as a primary residence (the "crime" that she was accused of). 

Removing a Fed Governor is a startling aggregation of power in the Presidency. The Fed is walled off from this sort of pressure by design, and even the Roberts Court, when it gave Trump power to fire other protected members of the Executive Branch, denied him the power to fire Federal Reserve Governors.

Again, this would have been a major scandal before Trump. Like so many things, Trump's vulgar disdain for democratic checks and balances and his assumption that laws don't apply to him only his enemies is a fraught moment in American democracy. Just as fraught, I would argue, as some Groyper, 4Chan asshole shooting a public speaker.

The Shooter Was Turned In By His Family

 The FBI didn't "get him" because they were running around spreading false shit about trans stuff on bullet casings. 

There will be a lot of bullshit, lies and misconceptions in the next 24 hours as they piece this guy together and figure out why he did it. The early returns appear to show at...wait for it!...highly confusing set of beliefs and actions. There are rumors he's a registered Republican who donated to Trump's campaign. There are rumors he's a groyper, which is a fringe neo-Nazi group led by Nick Fuentes and famous for the Pepe the Frog meme. Fuentes and Kirk were enemies for a time.

We see all the usual signs: excessively online, too many guns and a valorization of gun culture, at least a little alienated.

What we do not see is a trans person, a blue-haired bisexual barista, a cringey liberal wine mom, a Democratic official, an immigrant or a racial minority. 

I would not be at all surprised if we find out he had some left wing views on something like wealth inequality. Horseshoe theory and all that. However, the disgusting smear by just about every member of the Trump Administration that this was "radical left lunatics" is - at first blush - completely untrue.

UPDATE: It seems that there's a very, very good chance that this guy was indeed a Groyper. My worry is that a politicized FBI will not allow that conclusion to reach the living rooms of the average American.

Not The Same

 We still don't know who assassinated Charlie Kirk, and given the rank incompetence of Kash Patel's FBI, we might not catch the guy. At this point, we have to hope some local police make the case. The leak of lies that there were "trans markings" on the bullets shows where the priorities are from the top of the FBI and whatever remains of the rank and file after Trump's purges.

As Marshall points out, the simple fact is that the MAGA Right is deeply steeped in and tolerant of violence. The obvious example is January 6th, but Trump's language is always infused with violent imagery and threatening language. That does not limit his appeal in certain segments of the Right, but increases it. The poll Marshall cites says that only 39% of Trump supporters agree with the statement that political violence has no place in American society. For non-Trumpers, that number is 66%. 

There have obviously been cases of left wing violence, but the volume and intensity from the right is higher across the board. The Butler would-be assassin was not apparently driven by political beliefs, but the whacko in Florida who tried but never got off a shot has some amorphous left wing views but is mostly just nuts. (He's representing himself in his trial that just started and it's going about as well as you might expect.)

Just recently, we had the assassination and attempted assassination of two Democratic state legislators in Minnesota and the fire bombing of the governor of Pennsylvania's house. 

Because the appeal to violence is so much more prevalent on the right, we really do have to hope that Kirk's assassin has either crazy views or far right views (but I repeat myself), not so much for partisan advantage, but because it will derail (though not end) the calls from violence on the right. 

It's Utah. It's not just Utah but Provo, which is REALLY conservative. Idaho ain't that far away. The shooter clearly was adept with a rifle to hit Kirk in the neck from that distance. He's a white dude. The only clear sign that he might be to the left is the target. Kirk, however, had enemies to his right. 

In much the same way that Butler was perpetrated by some cookie cutter school shooter type which led to Trumpists being somewhat impotent in their anger, we had better hope that whoever shot Kirk is not a dyed in the wool leftist, because Trump and his myrmidons are baying for blood and perfectly willing to engage in slaughter in their holy war against pronouns and windmills.

The Gathering Dark

 The assassination of Charlie Kirk is morally abominable. He was, it must be said, an asshole provocateur, and he was literally trolling his questioner with a smirking remark about gun violence when he was shot. This in no way justifies anyone killing him.

There were a few voices online who went for Edgy Internet Asshole at his death. Essentially every elected Democrat or prominent Democrat spoke out in horror at the events in Utah. I doubt that will matter, as Trump has already vowed vengeance on Kirk's killer or killers, despite not knowing what the motives of the shooter were, as the shooter is still at large.

Trump and others have escalated the rhetoric of violence around this act for two reasons. The first is that they tend to do that reflexively. Trump's every instinct is to attack and dehumanize. His opponents are "scum" and "animals" not people with whom he disagrees. 

The second is that they see this to their advantage. One commentators lacking in rudimentary self-awareness said that Democrats were to blame for calling Republicans Nazis, and then immediately said that they could use this as their Reichstag Fire to destroy their enemies.

The increasing sense that the other side is not just wrong but inhuman is impossible to maintain in a civic democracy. It is also difficult to avoid, when the other side is engaging in behavior that seems antithetical to everything you believe. However, the job of an American President should be to calm things down, and we only have a Republican President, not one interested in healing or bringing together the diverse peoples of this country.

We will no doubt see some Edgy Internet Asshole become the True Voice of Democrats when portrayed on Faux News. But hopefully we find the assassin soon. My guess is their politics will be weirder and more confusing than we imagine right now.

UPDATE: I don't think quoting Kirk's actual words constitute being an Edgy Internet Asshole.

This Is Terrible

 I know. It requires context.

Russia has made a major encroachment into Polish airspace. This has happened in small ways before, but this is clearly a major event. It might have been caused by drones getting "disoriented" by Ukrainian electronic warfare efforts, or it might have been just a stupid mistake. However, it's Putin, so maybe he's probing the resolve of a NATO that cannot rely on the United States under Donald Trump. 

The Poles, it must be noted, are not shy about thinking the worst about Russia, and they only do so because of centuries of history.  The only time Poland and Russia got along was when Russia dominated Poland and denied them self-government.

What happens now? Poland has invoked Article IV, which requires NATO to take up the issue. What will Putin's Bitch in the Oval Office do?

More to the point, where is Putin's head right now? Presuming that this was NOT a deliberate provocation, the problematic logic of dictatorship is that he cannot admit a problem. We see this all the time in Trump, but it's a consistent thread throughout dictatorial rule: The Leader Is Never Wrong. Maybe he sacks some people as scapegoats; I don't know if he can blame it on Ukrainian electronic warfare, because that might require him to acknowledge that the Ukrainian defenses are improving. What he absolutely cannot do is say, "Hey, wow, our bad. We're really sorry."

I think we've all been disgusted by the saccharine sycophancy of Trump's Cabinet meetings and the lapdog nature of the Republican Congress. It's appalling. 

It's also dangerous. 

Leaders have to be able to receive contradictory input. They can't just get there and suck up the praise. This is the fundamental advantage of democracies. Trump's brittle ego and vindictive nature has ended the ability of those around him to give him bad news. Putin is in the same boat.

There is a school of pundits who praise dictatorships for their ease of action. "Look at what China has done in high speed rail." The problem for dictatorships is not whether they can make hay while the sun shines. The problem is that they will refuse to acknowledge that it's raining.

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

 Both of my muses, Krugman and Richardson, write about the possibility that Trump and his legions will end American democracy in the next fifteen months. Neither, I fear, are being alarmist. With Trump, there is always the dynamic of "kidding on the square" where he throws out some outlandish thing - annexing Greenland? - and then sees what happens. With the Greenland thing, he hasn't followed through on that and his attention wandered to other things, but his current outward musings about using emergency powers in American cities seems to be a clear precursor to interfering in the 2026 midterms.

Trump knows that if he does not radically disrupt the democratic process, he will lose the House and possibly the Senate, even with a favorable map. As he did in 2020 election, he is musing about extralegal measures to make this happen. The difference is that in 2020 there were a handful of Republicans willing to stand up to him. That is simply not the case now. 

Was the ICE raid on the Hyundai plant in Georgia a warning sign to Governor Brian Kemp? Maybe. If you cross Trump, you will feel his wrath. (This is one way that Trump's death and replacement with Vance would - I think - be an improvement. Vance has no principles, but he lacks that feral vindictiveness that is the core of Trump's being.)

Trump is manifestly unpopular. Trump's sinking deeper into the Epstein scandal. The economy is weakening. This makes him more dangerous, not less. Something I hope that Democratic Senators understand.

All Of The Strawmen

 Yglesias makes a point about how "National Conservatism" is deeply un-American. In his piece, though, he nods at a reality that hampers Democrats. He does a reflexive attack on some Leftist frame of American history as being representative of Democratic politicians. This is the same frame that has a questionnaire that Harris filled out about Trans rights becoming the entirety of her governing priorities. Even more so, it's taking something a fringe academic might have said and making it the Democratic Party platform.

The asymmetry here is that at this moment the very most extreme fringes of "movement conservatism" are pretty much running the Republican Party. Yes, the trend of calling every little thing racist definitely blunts the impact of that word. However, the actual GOP is pretty damned racist right now.  

To make your point to be about how Democratic politicians have to embrace American patriotism is just a weird place to plant your flag in September 2025.

From Danger To Danger

 This moment in American history is rife with danger, and not always from Trump's current actions and the current state of our weakened and battered democracy. What he has done in the seven and a half months in office is really bad, but if every Republican in Congress were to be killed in a tragic blimp accident where Trump and Vance were piloting, then we could probably recover fairly quickly. As Adam Smith said, there is a lot of ruin in a nation, which means that we can absorb a lot of terrible things, but we can still bounce back. 

There is not, however, an infinite amount of ruin in a nation.

Krugman, for instance, lays out the potentially catastrophic impact of politicizing the Federal Reserve. Trump's - and really any Republican's - budget is a fucking mess. It pays for tax cuts with deficit spending. Cynically, this means that when Democrats regain power, one of the things that they have to do is rein in the fiscal mismanagement that they inherited. This means they can't do all the things they might like. 

Side note: Our town has almost always been run by Republicans, and they incurred a massive debt to the nearby city who supplies our water. Waterbury raised their rates after building a new water treatment plant, raised the rates for everyone to whom they supplied water and we just decided not to pay the new rates. Two court cases later, and we have to issue a bond to cover tens of millions in debt. People are pissed and this could lead to Democrats winning control of the Town Council...just in time to face the massive tax increases needed to pay off the bonds. This is GOP governance 101.

If Trump succeeds in politicizing the Fed, then he could really punish the American economy in ways that could take a decade to recover from. If we take the inflation of the 1970s as an example, it took a punishing recession to finally snuff it out. For both fiscal and political reasons, Trump wants to inflate the currency. It will make the debt smaller and give a boost to a faltering economy. The problem is that we have a faltering economy because of inflationary uncertainty. Reducing interest rates will add fuel to the inflationary fires that were created by tariffs and deportations.

The other important factor is that - despite his wild and easily falsifiable boasting - Trump is becoming more and more unpopular. A new NBC poll has him at 43-57 approval. 

If you dive into the actual policy stuff, he has approval rates of 41% in trade and significantly 39% on inflation. Even on border security, he's at 47%, and that's his strongest issue. The two most important issues for Americans are the economy and threats to democracy, followed by health care. In other words, these are all issues which Democrats could see people turning to them, if Trump's actions tank the economy. When you break down the economy, it's inflation that has people most concerned. 

For that matter, 78% of Americans support vaccines. This is a poll of over 30,000 people. This is a high confidence poll. We are already seeing slackening in demand and economic uncertainty lead to an uptick in unemployment and employment for recent college graduates is terrible. 

The reason this is bad - beyond the fact that it is prima facie bad - is that as Trump becomes more desperate, he will take more and more desperate actions. Yesterday, he seemed to threaten war against Chicago, which should be impeachable. JD Vance applauded the war crimes that America seemed to commit this past week against that Venezuelan boat. Needing to retain the support of MAGA as his support elsewhere collapses, he will double and triple down in illegality and cruelty. 

"Democratic backsliding" is helped by the autocrat being popular. Putin was at first. Orban was. Erdogan was. By the time they destroy the last few remnants of democracy and become unpopular, it's too late. The good news is that Trump is not popular. The bad news is that this will likely accelerate his most lawless instincts. 

Epstein, Epstein, Epstein

 Josh Marshall has read some reports and come up with an interesting theory. We had Mike Johnson's bizarre statement that Trump was actually the informant that worked with the FBI to take Epstein down.

What?

Marshall looked at Michael Wolff's previous interviews about what he claims to know about Epstein. I'll just let him cook:

Wolff said that Epstein suspected that Trump was the guy who ratted him out to the authorities. So maybe some version of Johnson’s claim isn’t that far-fetched. But of course this isn’t actually exonerating at all. In fact, it implicates Trump about as badly as anything we’ve heard to date. You can’t tell what you don’t know. Trump was in a position to rat out Epstein because he knew all about his operation and had for years.

So, why did Trump rat out Epstein? Especially if it implicated him?

The timeline looked like this:

Epstein was trying to buy a South Florida estate. He brought Trump along to see it one time. A short time later Epstein found out that Trump had gone behind his back and placed a higher and ultimately successful bid on the property. He’d snatched it out from under him with a much higher bid. The problem was that Trump’s entire empire in 2004 was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It made no sense that Trump was coming up with $41 million to buy this property. Epstein suspected that Trump was acting as a front for a Russian oligarch as a money-laundering scheme. And in fact Trump did purchase and flip the estate two years later to a Russian oligarch named Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million, or a profit of over $50 million dollars.

Epstein was pissed for his own reasons (he wanted the estate). But he also suspected the money laundering scheme. So he threatened Trump that he would bring the whole thing out into the open through a series of lawsuits. Right about this same time authorities got a tip about Epstein’s activities which started the investigation that led to his eventual 2008 plea deal.

Now, if this is true, then we have a number of stories converging:

- Trump knew about Epstein's crimes, because he was at least somewhat a participant. At the very least, he knew about them for years and only came forward when he was trying to kneecap Epstein.

- We are pretty sure that he was laundering money for the Russians. This could be damning in its own way. You're basically tying together the "Epstein hoax" and the "Russia hoax" in one big ugly ball. 

Whatever is in those files has certainly got Donnie spooked.

Lighting Money On Fire

 There are a lot of ways to oppose the actions of the Trump administration, because they are so indefensible. "They're wasting money" seems too mild considering the full bore assault on constitutional governance, but still...

Two examples of simply lighting money on fire:

- The idiotic move to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. This seems less than it appears (as so much of Trump's blather is) but it will still cost millions of dollars. If Congress approves it, it will cost billions.

- They are trying to kill a couple of satellites that report on climate change for the obvious reason that they don't want to report on climate change. This will basically flush away the millions of already spent money.

There are a thousand ways that Trump is causing problems with the national fiscal situation. His OBBB will explode the debt, which will require massive interest payments. His cratering the economy will then explode the debt even more.

Still, directly spending millions, even billions, on bullshit vanity culture war shit would seem to be a way to appeal to so-called fiscal conservatives.

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