More Adventures In Orbanism

 Trump is setting up a taxpayer funded slush fund to pay his foot soldiers from the January 6th insurrection. It is easily the single most corrupt act in a corrupt presidency, simply because he's brazenly stealing your dollars in the open to pay his criminal cohort.

Krugman's position is that this is a sign that Trump isn't expecting Democrats to overcome his gerrymanders. While it is true that we have an uphill fight against these gerrymanders, the lesson of Hungary is that public outrage at corruption is greater than even the most severe attempts to destroy substantive democracy.

More likely is simply that this is a mad dash to plunder as much as possible before Democrats take control of the Congress. For Trump himself, he has never faced real consequences for his lifelong lawlessness, why should he fear it now, when he's the sitting president? Also, it seems pretty much like he's fading into senescence. Why wouldn't those around him loot as much as possible before he strokes out? Park it in a Cayman Islands' bank and move to a country without an extradition treaty and hope you get better lawyers than Alina Habibi. 

I've been screaming it for months, but the corruption is the main issue that will depress Republican turnout and drive independents towards Democrats. 

An Evangelical Christianity Problem

 Richardson lays out the case against presuming America is a "Christian Nation." This is - ironically - against the backdrop of another one of Trump's grifts, this one surrounding the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Trump and his creatures are trying to hijack the celebration of America articulating the idea of limited, representative government to create a cult of personality around Trump and elevate the ahistorical idea that America was founded for White Christian Men. (Ok, yes, men, but still.)

When thinking about "conservatism" in general, we should understand that conservatism has a preference for established hierarchies. That's not always bad, but it obviously can stand in the way of human progress, which is the essential tension in most democratic politics.

Trumpism and the modern GOP is not even "conservative" in that sense. They are not trying to protect established hierarchies, they are trying to revivify old ones - ones that previous generations disassembled. An obvious example is the effective ending of the Voting Rights Act, in order to re-establish White Supremacist government in the South. 

This twisted form of Christian Nationalism that Trump and his cadre of institutional arsonists are trying to create is a deference to a hierarchy that Americans have never really cottoned to: one that deifies the sitting president. Trump routinely calls members of the press who challenge him on anything - even questions of fact - "traitors" because in this mindset, questioning the president is treason to the country, because l'Etat c'est moi.  

This blinkered, chauvinistic version of Christianity is a fringe sect, but it still constitutes millions of Americans and the very bedrock of Trump's support. If you believe that a literal angel sits on your shoulder and protects you from the temptations of demons, I guess you can believe that Trump is a savvy businessman sent by God to redeem this nation. 

Max Weber referred to the period when America wrote its founding documents - the period known as the Enlightenment - as the "disenchanting of the world." The magical thinking Christians wish to re-enchant the world. This blind deference to authority is not only deeply un-American, it is a prime grifting opportunity, a tradition that goes back to the fictional Elmer Gantry and the very real Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart and however many youth pastors who raped children. 

Eat Your Own

 The defeat of Bill Cassidy in the Republican primary in Louisiana is a sign of where the Republican Party is, and it's not good. Cassidy was decent Republican by the standard of the Republican South. He voted to convict Trump of his very real offenses on January 6th, and that was that. Even after being the deciding vote that gave us the trainwreck of RFK, Jr, his offense of holding Trump to the most minimal of standards was too much for Trump, and the cult that exists in the remains of what was once the Grand Old Party.

For existing Republicans, the fates of Cassidy and Thomas Massie are reminders of what happens when they cross Trump and expect that he be held accountable for his crimes. If you cross him, you will lose your primary, no matter how well you've served your constituents. 

However, the ultimate test of this will occur in November. It's unlikely that a Democrat can win the Louisiana Senate seat, because it remains a very conservative state. However, if Blacks turn out in protest of Callais, and the GOP is seen as representing Trump and billionaires...a guy can hope!

Like A Fiddle

 Trump's trip to China was...something. China stage managed the optics and the protocols to make the US and China look like peer countries. This has been China's goal for a while now. China remains a relatively poor country; it's GDP per capita is close to Mexico's. It is clearly a Great Power, but it's goal is to be seen as the next superpower to stand equally with the US. 

As a result, China stage managed everything. Xi did not meet Trump at the airport, sending lesser functionaries instead. He referenced the Thucydides Trap (I'm trying to imagine how many times his aides tried to explain to Trump who Thucydides was), which explicitly posits that China is rising and the US is declining. In fact, he got Trump to sign off on this, when Trump blamed it - as he does everything - on Biden.

This image is worth more than an aircraft carrier to China.

Trump, of course, came home blathering and boasting about "deals" that will probably evaporate - if they ever existed in the first place. Fox and similar outlets will fluff him endlessly. Sure, there's the endless fanboying from Trump towards any dictator, but this was deeper. Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines and South Korea are all now deeply aware of how little they can rely on the US to stand with them, should China become belligerent. 

Just as Presidents have more latitude to act in foreign relations, they have the capacity to do more damage in that arena, too. Trump is turning his back on our allies, including Europe. He is Orban on a superpower scale.

Let's hope we get an Hungarian Solution to this newest Orban.

Let Them Eat Ballroom

 Paul Krugman points out that Trump's "big win" in China is that China will start buying more American petroleum....which will further drive up the cost of gasoline here in the US. This is just rudimentary market stuff. Oil is famously fungible; it's a global market and every gallon sold to China or Europe is a gallon not sold in the US, reducing supply and driving up costs.

As Trump and Republicans try and dismantle democracy via partisan gerrymanders, they have to contend with the idea that Trump's cratering approval rating will create a dummymander, where they take reasonably safe seats and dilute them with Democratic voters in order to crack open Democratic districts. At the moment, the Democratic Party lags Trump's disapproval rating, because Democrats have zero levers to constrain Trump and therefore "look weak." I would anticipate that - if current trends continue and I see no reason why they wouldn't - Democrats will make gains on the generic ballot. Of course, Senate seat can't be gerrymandered, and I would expect Democrats to do particularly well there in places like Ohio, Iowa and Alaska that aren't typically seen as battlegrounds. Gerrymandering itself is likely to motivate Black voters in particular in places like South Carolina and Georgia that should only help Democrats.

In the midst of rampant inflation directly caused by Trump's war in Iran and now prioritizing oil sales to China, Trump has also devoted his true energies to really unprecedented levels of corruption. Trump has benefited from the cynicism most Americans feel about politicians, but his destruction of the East Wing of the White House and his continued desecration of the nation's capitol to assuage his fragile ego has created an easily understandable image of monarchical corruption - just in time for the 250th celebration of America throwing off monarchical rule.

Trump, of course, seems oblivious to his political peril, when he says things like "I don't think about Americans' financial situation." Now, there's a context for this about weighing the impact on the American economy and preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but he can't deliver a coherent sentence, because he's a senile old dipshit. The result, is a perfect soundbite to play on repeat (if Democrats get their shit together).

Trump extorting the Executive Branch, trading favors for payouts and generally prioritizing the wealthy over Americans is the precise conditions of a Blue Tsunami, powerful enough to overcome Republican gerrymandering efforts. 

Art Of The Steal

 Trump is in Beijing, where he was met not be Xi Jinping but by cheering children, which I have to think is subtle Epstein shade being thrown by the CCP. 

Here is what I fear is going to be the outcome: Xi will agree to help extricate the US and the world from the Iran Fustercluck in return for the US selling out Taiwan. For Xi, Taiwan is a similar obsession as Putin felt for the former Soviet Republics that are moving to integrate with Europe. He wants it "back" and seems intent on making that happen. 

Trump - who is absolutely without morals or loyalty - would sell Tiffany Trump to a human trafficking organization if it would help him assuage the narcissistic injury he's suffering through with regards to Iran. Selling out Taiwan for an off ramp would be something he would jump at.

What Trump the Idiot fails to understand is that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be similar to America's attack on Iran. Taiwan holds a central position in the global economy as the computer chip maker to the world. While Xi no doubt wants Taiwan for reputational reasons, effectively monopolizing chip manufacture would vault China's global prominence clearly ahead of a declining Trumpist America. 

Taiwan, though, has no doubt looked at the looming mainland threat and Ukraine's spirited defense and begun to prepare a drone force to thwart a Chinese invasion. If Xi really is that reckless, the resulting conflict would basically throttle off the majority of the world's supply of chips. 

Dictators are often cagey and capable as they ascend to power, but once in power, they can be captured by their own hubris. It's happened to Putin; it happened to Orban; it happened to Trump. Has it happened to Xi?

Part of the war on expertise is a war on the status quo. For many people, the status quo is not what they want, so they feel eager to overturn things like "globalization" or "liberal economics" or "the liberal postwar order." Once it's gone, though, they might realize what it is that they have lost.

Expertise

 Krugman notes that the Trump Administration's floundering can be traced back to the willful rejection of expert opinion. Whether on tariffs, Iran, climate change and energy policy or diplomacy, Trumpist populism married to Trump's personal enthusiasm for corruption means that anyone who might actually know how to solve a problem will be sidelined and denigrated.

As Krugman admits, experts are not always right. Here's the thing. If I (a few years and several pounds ago) were to take 100 swings at a major league pitcher, I might be able to make contact a few times. That doesn't make me Tony Gwynn. Gwynn may fail 60% of the time, but he's still so much more capable than some schmuck like me. Same deal with expertise: you aren't guaranteed success, but your odds improve a LOT.

It also goes to the basic advantage of democracy - that again, Trump rejects. Democracy has the capacity to self-correct, because it receives feedback from the populace. Expertise in some ways is simply using a broad base of knowledge to understand feedback and predict consequences. "Hey, if we go to war with Iran, they could try and shut down the Straits of Hormuz and that would be really bad." People with a basic respect for expertise - not even of global markets and maritime law specifically - would listen. 

This is why people calling for a "Democratic Trump" as so misguided. There cannot be a populist figure like that in a party that still respects the concept of expertise. Trump's electoral strength is based on idiots who think "common sense solutions" is anything more than a bumpersticker. His failures as a governing figure stem from exactly what won him elections in the first place.

Again, Trump is the symptom, not the sole problem.

Enablers

 Buried in this Sidney Blumenthal op-ed is a reference to the famous "adults in the room" during Trump's first term. 

In Trump’s first term, he was relatively constrained through an alliance struck between the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon, and the secretary of defense, James Mattis, former commander of US Central Command, who filtered the options that would be presented to Trump, insisted on the importance of Nato, and argued to keep the US within the Iran nuclear agreement.

Gary Cohn, the former director of the national economic council, stopped Trump from signing executive orders that would cause economic and national security “catastrophes”, and prevented him from withdrawing from the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the North American Free Trade Agreement. “I stole it off his desk,” Cohn told an associate, as Bob Woodward reported in his book Fear. “I wouldn’t let him see it. He’s never going to see that document. Got to protect the country.”

The “committee to save America”, as they were dubbed, included the chief of staff, former general John Kelly, who made a pact with Mattis that one of them would always be in the country to keep tabs on Trump’s impulsivity. Kelly would reflect that Trump did not understand the constitution and had “nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law”.

Not enough credence was given to this basic fact when Trump ran again in 2024. The median American voter was upset by nominal prices and they didn't like Harris' laugh, so they voted not just for Trump, but Unconstrained Trump. The result has been unprecedented corruption, skyrocketing inflation, illegal tariffs, the shooting of unarmed Americans on the streets of Minneapolis, a disastrous war of choice in Iran, slowing growth, the literal destruction of part of the White House, the collapse of the Atlantic Alliance, the murders of people in boats in the Caribbean, and that's all I can come up without googling it.

The recent string of absolutely lawless Supreme Court decisions that have basically enabled Republican mid-cycle gerrymandering while striking down Democratic efforts is an attempt to deny voters the ability to hold Trump accountable for his many crimes and incompetencies. We have to hope that Trump's incredible malice, incompetence and corruptness will overwhelm the banks of the gerrymandered districts.

What Could Trump Do To Get Out of His Iran War?

 Trump has committed the US to a disastrous war of choice that has left the other side militarily defeated by political stronger. Iran has learned how to choke off the world economy at their whim. That's...not good.

So, what can we do.

1) Ground Invasion. I doubt this will happen, and it would go poorly. Ask the Russians.

2) Surrender. Most likely outcome, though the amount of psychic death Trump would experience would be profound. Could he sustain himself if he lost this war?

These aren't great options.

The final option is one that might be available to someone other than Trump. 

3) Establish a multinational force to insure freedom of navigation of the Straits of Hormuz. Create lasting security guarantees for the Iranian government, but use the combined pressure of the EU/NATO and China to re-open the straight. 

The problem with (3) is that it requires Trump not to be Trump. What's more, as this piece lays out, Trump has gone from "unpredictable" to "unreliable." There was a sort of efficacy to Trump's unpredictability, in that it forced opposing actors to be on constant alert for changes in direction. It functioned as a sort of variation on the Madman Theory. "Who knows what that crazy bastard will do?"

Now, however, Trump is accurately seen as simply unreliable. There is no secret plan. What's more, you cannot rely on him to abide by his agreements. This is why he crashed out of NYC real estate. No one would work for him, because he wouldn't honor his contracts. He stiffed people, sued for no reason and was a general asshole. That is a strategy of diminishing returns.

Trump's chaotic unreliability means that no one - and I mean no one - can rely on the US to honor its agreements. That's a real problem for global peace and it makes any solution to the Iran stalemate impossible.

Not Sending Their Best

 The hantavirus outbreak is unlikely to bloom into a full grown pandemic. However, as Yglesias rightly notes, we are likely living in a world where the next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. Connectivity has exploded and that allows a virus to travel around the world quickly. This hantavirus outbreak could be tricky, because it takes a while to develop symptoms. 

Of course, the real issue is that literally the absolute worst people in the world are in charge of American health care right now. The anti-vax movement has largely captured American health institutions and they are actively working to undermine both pandemic response and vaccine development. 

We are seeing in the Iran conflict how the idiocy of this administration can put even a military superpower into a losing situation against a third rate military power. It's bad, but it's not pandemic bad. 

So much of modern life has coasted along on expertise that has largely been operating outside of the public eye. Trump's wholesale assault on competent governance, very much including DOGE, has led to some seriously bad results, but if we get to pandemic territory again...

The Hungarian Solution

 Richardson's run down of the news from yesterday is...quite something. The following news stories dropped or were expanded upon:

- The Secretary of Transportation has spent a great deal of his term filming a reality show (his background) on a road trip.
- A No-Bid contract awarded to a Trump crony to paint the bottom of the reflecting pool to mirror an aboveground pool.
- The Iran War's stated cost of $25 billion is simply an equipment cost, not the various other costs that the war has incurred and will continue to incur.
- FEMA is denying aid to states run by Democrats.
- Trump us using "national emergency" to gut the Clean Air Act without letting Congress weigh in.
- Trump's latest tariffs were ruled illegal.
- Trump's cultists unveiled a 22 foot gold statue of Trump at his Florida golf course, in order to get more crypto lucre.

She then concludes with the lead story, which is the Virginia Supreme Court, on partisan lines, ruling that the new gerrymandered maps - which were approved by the Virginia electorate - was unconstitutional under Virginia law. 

In terms of partisan politics, this latest iteration of courts denying Democrats the same relief that they routinely provide Republicans is a gut punch to Democrats hoping to impose a political cost on Republican efforts to destroy majority rule in this country.

The only solution is the example that Hungary offers. Orban entrenched his rule even more soundly than Republicans have, but a massive wave overwhelmed his gerrymander and negated his control of the media. The lived experience was greater than efforts to control the narrative and people threw him out.

The overwhelming corruption of the Trump Administration is going to be increasingly difficult for Fox News to cover up. Gas prices aren't coming down. Food is going to become more expensive. Meanwhile, Trump is squandering money on ballrooms, reflecting pools and wars of choice.

The news from Virginia and about the Voting Rights Act was a gut punch. As Josh Marshall keeps reminding us, the Courts are currently handmaidens to the death of American Democracy. (Not ALL of the Courts, but enough and obviously the Supreme Court.) However, without the consent of the governed, government is illegitimate. Hopefully in November, the Blue Wave is high enough to swamp any barriers put in its place. 

Unequal To The Moment

 Jesus Christ, Elite Lawyer Brain is going to be the end of democracy in this country.

DOJ-In-Exile

 Josh Marshall has been arguing that we need a Department of Justice-In-Exile. The idea is that there is obviously a massive amount of law breaking going on, and the Trump DOJ is simply not going to look into it - unless it's a Democrat. In fact, Democrats likely don't even have to break the law to warrant investigation and prosecution. If we are going to fumigate the Executive Branch and DOJ, we will need a repository of evidence so that we may hold people accountable. The signal failure of the Biden Presidency was not throwing Trump in jail on January 21st, 2021.

Now, the obvious problem is that Trump can and will pardon people. Some of the DOJ-In-Exile will perhaps be about sending that evidence to state prosecutors. If Trump pardons, say, Tom Homan, then perhaps Illinois could bring him up on charges under Illinois law. 

There's a separate issue that Marshall sometimes refers to, but needs to be repeated. Democrats need to be ready to go on various prosecutions on corruption and fraud outside of the Executive Branch or at least adjacent to it.

Want an example? Elon Musk sure looks like he's committing fraud so that he can become the world's first trillionaire. Given the howling void at the center of this creature in the place where his soul would normally be, his headlong pursuit of "winning" the race to become a trillionaire is naturally the sort of fraud that someone who feels that they are bigger than the law would commit. There's very little chance that Musk will get a pardon from Trump, but he might. He would have to feel that he needed one, and he may be too narcissistic to understand that. 

Anti-trust enforcement is a requirement for the next Democratic Administration. Yes, Republicans will caterwaul about "lawfare" after committing actual prosecutorial overreach. You just have to ignore that and bull right through. Biden and especially Merrick Garland were not capable of understanding that. It will require a new mindset from new leaders.

The Capo Regime

 Last night, a bunch of principled Republicans in Indiana who stood against Trump's mid-cycle gerrymandering plan went down to defeat in their primaries. As Morris points out, this is at the heart of Republican cowardice in the face of Trump. In fact, a lot of his most vocal critics in the GOP, like Don Bacon or Marjorie Taylor Greene are either planning on retiring or already have. You simply can't get crosswise from Trump and expect to retain your seat. We will see if Massie can hold on to his seat in Kentucky.

This is the fundamental problem with gerrymandering. If you think that the main obstacle to you holding on to your seat is from a primary challenger, because your district is R+10, then you cannot allow any daylight between yourself and party leadership. When your party is lead by a degenerate criminal like Donald Trump, that...well let's just say that causes problems.

The hope at this point is for an Orban-style rebuke of Trump and Republicans this fall. In this case, they will have dummymandered their way into losing seats that were previously safe. If the Blue Wave is large enough, it will not only deliver the House, but it will do so at huge margins, because Republicans took a bunch if R+15 districts and diluted them to create another R+9 district. 

Back to Trump, his fundamental managerial style is borrowed from the mafia. If you cross him, you die. Whatever your feelings about loyalty, this isn't that; it's fear. As Trump becomes more and more unpopular, lashing yourself to him will not, I hope, work out for the GOP.

Getting Worse

 Trump's war against Iran is getting worse. Trump, true to his nature, is trying to tweet his way through it. My favorite was him posting a picture of himself holding a bunch of Uno cards, saying he "held all the cards," but of course, if you have all the cards in Uno, you're losing.

Trump's leverage points on Iran do exist, but one fundamental problem is that eventually, Trump needs Iran to negotiate a peace. How do you negotiate with someone as unreliable as Trump? How can Iran trust anything this guy says? So, even if there were a deal that both sides could agree on, why would Iran trust him to follow through?

Eventually, I think, it's going to require more strikes on Iran. Quite a few more. Iran will then do as they did yesterday and strike Gulf oil facilities. Perhaps the only possible solution involves China acting as mediator - in fact, if China really is striving for global leader, what an opportunity this provides. They can fill the role that the US has filled for decades as good faith interlocutor between warring parties. 

So those $4.75 gas prices aren't coming down any time soon. If there's any potential upside to this is that Trump is now creating the economic conditions to promote renewables. Even as he tries to destroy renewables within the US, he is going to speed march the rest of the world away from petroleum. 

The worrisome thing for me is going to be food prices. Between fertilizers and diesel fuel, farming is about to go through some really tough times. That's going to hit everyone hard. 

Richardson began her post with:

According to a new Washington Post–ABC News–Ipsos poll, fifty-nine percent of Americans believe President Donald J. Trump does not have the mental sharpness necessary to lead the country. Fifty-five percent think he does not have the physical health to serve as president. Fifty-four percent say they don’t think Trump is a strong leader. Sixty-seven percent think Trump doesn’t carefully consider important decisions.

Events are moving too fast for this addled old man surrounded by sycophants who have to coddle his fragile ego rather than providing him with honest information and assessments. He's a fundamentally stupid man who is suffering from age related cognitive decline (he keeps bragging about passing dementia tests) and whose information environment makes it worse.

So, yeah, things are going to get worse before they get...worse.