What Comes Next?

 Let's assume that every indicator is right and Democrats win control of both Houses of Congress - and that the new Congress is seated. I think that happens, but I can't say with 100% certainty of anything anymore.

We have a Trump Administration that has been engaged in a smash-and-grab campaign of thuggishness and graft. What's more is that Trump is already crashing out. What will he do if faced with a hostile Congress? 

Trump is mentally unwell. Yes, he is not intelligent AND suffering age-related cognitive decline. Yes, he's an example of what happens to the emperor when no one says, "no." However, the narcissistic wound that he might be about to receive is potentially mortifying.

Trump was not greatly restrained during his first term, but he was mostly constrained. Now, he's surrounded by so many toadies and creatures feeding his id, that the potential for intentional harm is very real.

Not Sending Their Best

 Today, we have two stories of incompetence rising and crashing down among the grifters, clowns and incompetents that populate Trumpistan.

We have Kimberly Guilfoyle - shape shifting gargoyle that dated both Gavin Newsom and Don Junior - resigning as Ambassador to Greece because she got caught soliciting bribes. Was Guilfoyle qualified to be ambassador to Greece? Of course not. Was she corrupt? Naturally. Was she more corrupt than Trump? Heavens no. What was her sin? Getting caught.

Meanwhile we have a truly WTF moment featuring new Blonde Chatbot Katie Zacharia. Marshall's piece digs into her likely false claims about being a lawyer in China (China?) but the real story is that she gives off the Ms South Carolina vibes of someone whose personality comes from her hair dye. This is the official press secretary of the fucking White House. She seems largely incapable of reading her cue cards. Saturday Night Live should just quit, if this is the reality we live in.

We have levels of incompetence riddling our governing institutions. I have no idea what a Democratic House and Senate can do to stem the dismal tide of so much stupidity and greed.

Will It All Come Out?

 It is unclear exactly why Donald Trump is so slavishly devoted to the political, economic and military well being of Vladimir Putin. The evidence that he is devoted is overwhelming at this point. As others have noted, if Trump wasn't a Russian asset what would he be doing differently. There is his contempt for the US-led post World War II order that largely relegated interstate war to the margins of world politics. Prior to 2016, wars between states were rare, and the deadliest conflicts were intrastate wars and the collapse of fragile states into civil war. The deadliest war of the 21st century - the Second Congo War - is unknown to most Americans, because it did not involve countries that we typically pay attention to. 

Trump's contempt for the "rules based order" has reopened the box of wars between states. His support for Putin and contempt for Zelensky could have many explanations. People love Zelensky and hate Trump, and he's a simple minded creature who operates on the emotional level of a maladjusted 3rd grader. He admires power, but his definition of power is simply more similar to the ways that Putin and Xi Xinping exercise it than democratic leaders do. He wants the adulation of the crowds, but he doesn't want them to exert any control over him. He wants the parades of Kim Jong Un, not the plaudits of an electorate.

Still, it's hard to escape the evidence that Russia has some sort of grip over him. After the fall of the Soviet Union, we learned exactly where the KGB had infiltrated American society. I hope we have that reckoning for Trump.

Corruption

 There have been more and more stories of the overwhelming corruption of the Trump Administration coming out recently. The problem is and always has been a polluted information ecosystem where most Americans simply don't interact with the news. In some ways, who can blame them? Why would you subject yourself to the firehose of misery and trauma that constitutes the daily news? In fact, learning about how corrupt the Trumpists are would just make people more miserable. The farrago of outrage is how Trump survives. First, it means no story really develops legs and penetrates the veil of ignorance that most Americans cocoon themselves in. Second, it helps weave that veil, because "the news is just so horrible." Then, when you have a Democrat like Bob Menendez, it allows the media to run with a Man Bites Dog story and deepens the cynicism of the electorate.

There was an interview in the Times about our postliterate society. People CAN read and read all the time, but in short snippets that don't require much cognitive effort. The torrent of short-form video also degrades the ability of people - especially but not exclusively kids - to actually read for meaning. I'm certainly discovering that my students struggle to understand the actual meaning of what they are reading. They tend to glance across the surface of it. I ask how many read more than one book for pleasure over the summer and one kid in each class raised their hand. 

When the Whigs spoke of "corruption" they meant a rot in the entire system. I fear that we now have that form of corruption in our entire society. Trump's graft is corruption that is enabled by the corrupted nature of our shared discourse, reduced to Trump's trolling videos and misleading social media posts.

Democracy only works with an informed populace and we are both angrier and more ignorant than we have been in a long, long time. 

Madness

 Richardson runs through Trump's deranged spewings on social media and at one of his rallies. It's really unhinged stuff, even for him. Some of this - obviously inviting Iran to nuke LA and San Diego - are his febrile mind doing his outrage schtick. However, we have some evidence that some of his social media posts are by Stephen Cheung and Natalie Harp. The White House support staff might be mimicking Trump's outrages, because they, too, are trapped in the downward spiral of Trump's unpopularity. 

In order to serve Trump, you have to serve his festering id. You warp yourself into his image. That's true of his staff, his Cabinet and the Republican Party writ large. As he decompresses, the GOP will decompress with him. They will echo his outrageous claims. They will double down on his absurd allegations. Unless someone finally breaks with him (and survives politically) the feverish madness within the GOP will not break. 

For this reason, I am optimistic that this "charisma" of Trump's will not be transferable to any of his heirs. Trump is no longer the insult king of 2016. His insults are cruder both in dignity and structure. He doesn't have the same juice. He's a tired old man, and he has to rely on the memories of the more agile (if still crude and cruel) man of his run in 2016. 

Let's say - hypothetically - that Trump has a health issue before Election Day. He's in the hospital. There is no reason to think that his minions won't try and continue his efforts to sabotage and destroy electoral democracy in this country. The question is: Is the entire GOP so far gone as to support that?

Secretary of Defenestration

 This is a pretty good summary of the worst Secretary of Defense the nation has ever had. 

Now, there were - ironically, not ironically - a number of Secretaries of War back in the 19th century were pretty terrible. William Belknap was among the most corrupt people who were hangers on of the Grant presidency. He quit before he was impeached, but the House impeached him anyway. The Senate fell short, because of course it fucking did.

William Eustis and John Armstrong over saw the absolute military shambles that was the War of 1812. Eustis quit in the first months and Armstrong quit after Washington DC was burned to the ground.

So, that's the company Hegseth is keeping.

The difference is that the 19th century Secretary of War was largely unimportant unless there was an actual war going on, which was fairly infrequently back then. They pretty much killed Indians and distributed some patronage. Hegseth sits astride a colossal organization with trillions of dollars in resources and he's managed to murder some small boat operators in the Caribbean and mire the US and the world in a pointless, drawn out, expensive and perhaps economically ruinous war with Iran. In response to his manifest incompetence, he's laser focused on rooting out beards among the troops and doing pushups.

Among the central truths of Trump 2.0 is how the government has been turned over to toxic internet fuckwads who should not be given authority over the carpool schedule.

FWIW, if the House had remained in session, I think Hegseth gets impeached, and I think there's a decent chance he gets removed by the Senate as Republicans try to save their hides before the midterms. With Speaker Moses sending everyone home, there is no way for Republicans running for re-election to distance themselves from this absolute dumpster fire, because it might enrage the collapsing narcissist who gorges himself on social media trolling and culture war grievances.

Derp State

 Yesterday, we had a really comical turn of events in the Senate. Eric Schmitt - who I think used to be a DA - was grilling Jack Smith about his work in trying to prosecute Trump for a few of his many crimes. He sprung a "gotcha" moment on him about attending an Atlanta Hawks game and conspiring with Atlanta DA, Fani Willis. Smith was perplexed, while Schmitt railed and called him a dirtbag.

Amy Klobuchar - and I LOVE that it was a woman who had to explain sports to this huffy He-Man - noted that Smith was at an Iowa HAWKEYES game, not an Atlanta Hawks game. I mean the HBO series Veep was not intended to be a documentary.

This is in some ways a failure of staff. Schmitt absolutely should apologize (but won't), but his staff likely put this Goat Rodeo together. The two goombahs holding up the visual aid for Schmitt's attack certainly look like freaking morons.

However, this isn't just an issue with Schmitt's staff. Among the many aspects of Trump's attack on his own country is the evisceration of competent people who simply work for the government. Forget the rank incompetence of RFK or Hegseth, government runs on staffing and bureaucrats and having good ones really does matter. Trump, being an idiot, has elevated idiocy as a prerequisite for working in the GOP. Sure, there are a bunch of stupid GOP Senators - Ron Johnson, Tommy Tuberville, Mike Lee and now Eric Schmitt - but their staffs are also apparently a bunch of morons, too.

Some of this isn't unique to the GOP. Mary Peltola's staff was apparently full of Gen Z whiners. But the stupidity? That's a hallmark of Trumpistan. 

Debtor's Prison

 David Frum - a conservative conservative, not a Republican/Trump conservative - make the case that among the myriad crisis brought by Trump and the GOP, the looming issue of debt is perhaps the most critical. Trump - who made a living off declaring bankruptcy - seems to want to do the same with the United States. The result would be catastrophic, but hey, why should we worry that Trump would do something stupid and self-destructive.

The rise in interest rates are going to hit everyone. This is...bad, and the next Democratic President will have to be a Bill Clinton-type who can extricate us from this disaster and then reap no goodwill for doing so until his presidency is over.

Deranged Trump Syndrome

 Krugman was famously called "shrill" for his warnings about - I believe - the Iraq war. Today, I'm sure there are still people who think he's shrill, and apparently that includes the editors of the NY Times who fired him.

Today, I'm sure there are those who have found him shrill and alarmist when he talks about Trump. Yglesias is an example of someone who will concede that Trump is really bad, but not that he is dangerously bad, even insane. Krugman isn't afraid to call Trump deranged, because he's not afraid of being "shrill."

There are two problems with treating Trump as a normal political phenomenon. The first is that Trump has always been a dictatorial dick. He was somewhat restrained in those impulses his first time through, but now he has the GOP so cowed that he has been able to shit all over the Constitution. 

The second is that he is so surrounded by sycophants that he's unable to relate to reality in a meaningful way. The more bad news he gets about his personal status, the more unhinged he becomes. 

Breaking Ranks?

 Richardson notes how many Republicans are starting to break with MAGA. She doesn't front this point, but this is a variation of the the "scheming vizier" or "bad boyars, good tsar" idea. This is a meme, really, from centuries ago, where anything good that happens is because of dear leader, but anything bad is because of the advisers around him. 

The Republicans who are endorsing Democrats aren't breaking with Trump. They are breaking with some policies - like mass, indiscriminate deportations or the Iran war - that poll poorly, and blame them on misguided advisers. They realize that they cannot attack Trump directly, or they will lose their office like Thomas Massie and others who have stood up to Trump. "Gosh, whomever decided that we needed to wage trade wars sure was misguided, and Trump should stop them from advising him anymore." This is so self-evidently stupid, I don't know what to say.

The thing is, Trump isn't exactly on the ballot. The embattled GOP reps who are trying to distance themselves from Trump's catastrophic reign of error are having to tie themselves in knots. I do wonder if anyone will buy it. MAGA will be pissed for calling out the obvious racism and misogyny in their ranks, but I don't know if doing that will win the dissenters any votes.

Still, 35% approval is too high for these vicious clowns.

Proroguing The House

 Thomas Massie (Gadfly-KY) introduced articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth. There is no rational reason why anyone would support this colossal failure's continued tenure in the War Defense Department. Mike Johnson would have been forced to have a vote on those articles, because they are "privileged." 

Instead, he sent the House home until after the election.

Of course, the Republican Caucus itself is in a state of apparent open civil war. Johnson was likely faced with internecine fights and ugly roll call defeats and on and on. Republican House members can read the polls; they have to be looking for an exit.

What is interesting is that there was an avenue for the GOP to put the squeeze on Democrats. They could have arranged a bunch of show votes on things like "Give every American a puppy" or "castrate child rapists (who aren't in the GOP)" or "repeal all taxes because affordability." 

Instead, they have to go home and "face" a furious electorate and explain why A) they deserve another two years in office and B) why they haven't even worked during the last two years.

Tantrums

 If there is a theme to Richardson this morning, it is the extraordinary tantrums that Donald Trump (and by extension, Mike Johnson) are throwing daily. Trump's idiocy has come face to face with reality and the feedback he is getting is bad. Sycophantic minions like Natalie Harp have cocooned him from reality for a while, but feedback on the Kennedy Center, interest rates and the Iran War have forced him to confront his own putrid record.

Mike Johnson basically prorogued the House rather than let Thomas Massie's articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth come to a vote. That means that they would certainly pass. What's interesting is whether it would have acquired the 67 votes in the Senate. If you were a vulnerable Senator running for reelection, why wouldn't you create some distance between you and the toxic war that is sending gas prices spiraling. 

So, yeah, all Trump is offering is the whining, petulant cries of a toddler who has been told, no.

The Saga Of Bo French

 Bo French is a Texas Republican. He once seemed to model himself on George Bush's "compassionate conservatism." Now, he's a Trump-style racist and xenophobe. 

Here's the question that is going to be really important to the immediate future of this country: Was French always this racist? Or did Trump show him that being really racist could win you elections?

It sure seems like the Texas GOP has taken Trump's racism as a roadmap. Adam Serwer famously said that not all Trumpists were racists, but that racism wasn't a dealbreaker. French and many in the Texas GOP seem to think that, no, we are racists and we need to front that message.

The position French is running for is...whatever. However, a complete rejection of Asian immigrants or second and third generation Asian-Americans is going to be litmus test for the future of the GOP. If he wins...there's no penalty on the Right for this vile hatred. If he loses, maybe there's hope for the country yet. 

Armageddon

 HCR summarizes Michael Luttig's argument that the GOP will simply try to end American democracy rather than let a Democratic Congress be seated. It's important to realize that the GOP will need near unanimity in both Houses to pull this off. It's not a question of Trump just leaning on Mike Johnson - he will need to have the complete House GOP caucus behind him.

The language used at last week's Snooze-apalooza where Trump got his fragile ego coddled was certainly alarming. However, it really is the case where he says a bunch of shit, and you can't tell if he's planning January 6th or threatening to invade Greenland. He's insane, and his public ramblings are most likely quite different from what the mass of Republicans are prepared to execute in his name. 

When it comes to things like Luttig's dooming, I am also of two minds. We probably should be bulletproofing everything we can for not just November, but January, when the new Congress will be seated. On the other hand, I really don't like the idea of doom being in the background of people's minds when it comes to exercising their franchise.

I know, for instance, that I've been very reluctant to contribute to Democrats, because I'm sick to fucking death of the apocalyptic text messages. More than happy to give what I can, when I can. But STOP FUCKING TEXTING ME ABOUT HOW EVERYTHING IS GOING TO SHIT UNLESS I PITCH IN $20, $50 or $100 TODAY.

Someone needs to sit down with Johnson and a host of these other Weak Creatures and lay out an alternative. If Trump tries to stop this election from occurring or from being certified, then we need to talk about secession. The Northeast and Pacific Coasts can break off and - in an ironic twist - join Canada.

UPDATE: Martin Longman points out that Trump is doing everything he can to antagonize voters. Pundits will seek the deeper strategy that Trump is pursuing, but I think he's just big mad and angry at the voters and telling them to fuck off. There's no one around him capable of telling him just how poor his instincts are. 

Power Doesn't Panic, Part II: Electric Boogaloo

 How is Trump responding to cratering approval polls? He's launching a troll offensive. How is he responding to rising costs? He's admitting potentially tainted beef from Brazil.

As Krugman notes in the second link, Trump and the contemporary GOP has no use for expertise. This goes back to things like the response to Hurricane Katrina, when Bush had a rankly unqualified person as the head of FEMA. This is why educational status is increasingly a predictor of voting behavior. The end result of populism is contempt for expertise and a hollowing out of state capacity.

The broader theme of Trump lashing out is still valid though. His torrent of AI slop - including a video of him attacking Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (who was an actually good hockey player) - reeks of flop sweat desperation. Consider the following:

- Voters are pissed at him.
- He has surrounded himself with sycophants.
- He has absolutely nothing to offer voters, because he has no policy chops.
- His lizard brain goes straight to the only thing he knows how to do: attack and insult.
- He doubles and triples down on the same frantic insults, since there is literally nothing else.

Again, I don't want to imply that this isn't dangerous. Trump is a cornered rat, and we saw what that looked like on January 6th. Still, this doesn't seem like someone who is confident that he has the election fixed. 

Recently, he attacked Bombardier - a small airplane manufacturer with plants in Canada and Kansas. Senator Moran of Kansas actually pushed back against this. As we get closer to the election and Trump insists on centering his insults as the midterm message, Republican politicians are going to be cross pressured to get him to shut up, while needing his support to fire up the base.

Let's say the trends are accurate and Democrats win control of both Houses of Congress. The next crisis will be seating the new Congress with Democratic majorities. Trump will try and stop it, but are there enough Republican Members to basically tell him to fuck off? I think there might be, and I think that's especially true the further he sinks into his ranting madness.

November

 I don't think - within the context of January 6th - that it is an exaggeration to say that the future of the American Republic is on the line this midterm election. Given that context, it's tricky to brush aside the threat that Trump could pose at any step of the election process. We are already seeing him attack voting by mail. We hear dark whispers of ICE at polling places. We've obviously seen the mid-decade gerrymandering.

My take is that there are legitimate threats, but that we need to take a deep breath. Republicans can see the polls, but there is a real question as to whether Trump actually sees unfavorable polls of whether Natalie Harp prevents him from getting bad news. The behavior from a lot of Republicans is that they know they are going to get pummeled and they are preparing themselves for that. Even Trump seems to be aware of that. We don't see the behavior of people who have it fixed so that they can't lose.

The two biggest threats are overall voters suppression and efforts to void the election after the fact. The first is very real, I fear, as Republicans will use the bullshit excuse of voter fraud to justify targeting Democratic constituencies. They won't and can't cancel elections, but closing polling stations and setting up ICE checkpoints near those polling stations could depress voter turnout. However, anti-Trump voters are INCREDIBLY fired up, and I hope there will be an effort to circumvent those measures. For instance, if you vote by mail, you better turn your ballot in in person.

Efforts to void the election after the fact - January 6th Part II - seem less likely to succeed. The idea will be to caterwaul about voter fraud and delegitimize the election in order to placate the cultists surrounding Trump. Hardcore Trumpists are already predisposed to distrust objective reality, so that will work as an effort to keep Cult 45 happy. 

However, are there enough Republicans in Congress to actively take measures to end American democracy? The number isn't zero, which is appalling, but I don't think it's more that dozens in the House and fewer in the Senate. As we saw with the pre-riot January 6th actions, only a handful of Republicans supported Trump's fabulist claims. Also, given the nature of cults, the loyalty of MAGA lies with Trump, not the GOP. Having a Democratic Congress isn't going to provide the same motivation that existed with "Stop the Steal." 

It's objectively not great. We shouldn't be having these discussions. However, I do think that Democrats will take the House and probably the Senate. I think there is a groundswell of anger out there over Trump's naked corruption and manifest incompetence. I think his supporters are dispirited and many will stay home. 

Hopefully that will be enough.

In 1951, as American troops moved largely unopposed up the Korean peninsula after the Inchon landings, Stalin reportedly sighed and said, "I guess the Americans will be on our borders." (Korea shares a small border with Russia.) Even Stalin bent to reality, though Mao decided to throw hundreds of thousands of troops into the conflict. My point is simply that even dictators surrounded by sycophants often bend to reality.

Masks Or Rather Hoods Off

 The decision to end TPS status for Haitians is tightly linked to the increasingly obvious racism of the Trump Administration, especially the imagery they are using. Haitians in this country have been offered the protection from danger that they would face at home, because that used to be what America offered the world. 

Of course, that wasn't always true. In the 1920s, the US - really for the first and only time - deeply restricted immigration. They set quotas designed to dramatically decrease the number of immigrants from "undesirable" places like Italy, Greece and Eastern Europe. Under the apartheid-like delineation of race under "scientific racism" those people were considered different races than more Nordic, Northern European races. 

The engine backing this legislation was the "Second Klan" which drew on anti-Catholic, antisemitic and anti-Black prejudices to become briefly very powerful across the nation, not just in the South. Donald Trump's father was arrested at a Second Klan rally in NYC.

The dynamic seems to be this: Trump is losing his juice. He's unpopular across broad swaths of the public. His supporters are upset with him. He has backed himself into a losing war with Iran and a stupid trade war with Canada. The alarm bells are going off among Congressional Republicans, as a Blue Wave seems to be building across America. Democrats are slightly favored to win statewide races in places like Texas, Iowa and Alaska.

In response, all he has left is the racism that exists deep within his DNA (The Central Park Five anyone?) and to unleash the foulest creatures in his administration. Just as the Adults In The Room, who prevented him from disastrous and illegal policies in his first term, are gone, they have been replaced with just the absolute dregs of society: racists, Nazis, and an army of trolls and sycophants.

Look, this November shouldn't be close. Democrats should win in places like Kansas and Kentucky if the American people had a shred of sense and decency about them. Trump isn't telling you who is, he's screaming it. If we don't course correct, that's the end of America as we know it.

Lying Liars

 Richardson's run down today focuses on the rampant lying of the Trump Administration. One of Trump's political insights going back to 2016 is that people have such low opinions of politicians that they will assume the worst about them, so he can behave terribly and more importantly openly terribly and lots of people will just shrug it off.

"All politicians are liars" is a popular trope, that up until Trump was largely untrue. Politicians have always promised things that they would struggle to deliver once in office, though if a politician ran on a specific platform, often they would try to pass that platform. Given the nature of our political system, if you ran on ending legal abortions or universal healthcare, you would not be able to achieve that if you won. That's not exactly lying, but you can see why people return to "All politicians are liars."

Even more so, this is true if "All politicians are corrupt." This builds on the above idea, if Senator Smith runs on slashing the defense budget to pay for better schools, and then is unable to achieve this, the lazy assumption is that Smith was paid off by defense contractors. 

What Trump has done is to take these ideas - which are far more prevalent the further you move down the education pyramid - and supercharge them. In 2016, he famously said, "I alone can fix it." Much of his evangelical support began with the idea that this deeply flawed man was their champion precisely because he was deeply flawed. His own corruption would allow him to fight the corruption in DC.

Obviously, that was some weapons grade bullshit.

It is reasonable to wonder how much longer his naked greed and mendacity will be tolerated by even his supporters. People would rather chew their own foot off than admit they were wrong about something like that, so there's a real good chance that he continues to hold onto a fair amount of the electorate. Still, what is that fair amount? 35%? 27%? Can he go lower than the Crazification Factor?

This doesn't mean that his voters will vote for Democrats. However, if millions of them stay home....

Debt

 Paul Krugman and Jared Bernstein have a long discussion about the exploding national debt. Basically, the important thing is the ratio of debt to GDP and Trump's massive explosion of the debt has knocked us into an unhealthy place economically. The absolute number - $40 trillion - is eye-grabbing, but it's the ratio that's key and that is bad. Because economic growth is stagnating and possibly the start of stagflation that means the debt is growing up while much of the economy is a bit moribund. Take data centers out of the equation and things get really grim, really fast.

The obvious question then is: What is to be done? Both Bernstein and Krugman are pretty liberal, so neither one wants to embrace Austrian austerity. Ideally there are ways to get more revenue by taxing the rich and increasing enforcement of existing tax laws. There are likely a lot more ways to tax capital gains progressively, too.

However, one thing I've never seen anyone mention about trying - in 2029 - to increase social programs AND reduce the debt is the role that health care plays in everything. It's considered politically toxic to raise taxes on the bulk of the middle class, because they are struggling. Taxing them would work counter to the affordability issue that many see as Democrat's best lever. (I still think that corruption is lever number one, but affordability is right behind it.)

However, if we offered a public option in Medicare/Medicaid. that both individuals and corporations could access, we could shift what we currently spend on private insurance to the public programs without raising "taxes." People buying the public option would be replacing their Aetna premiums with Medicaid premiums. Most likely this system would be a hybrid, with most basic care being administered through tiered Medicaid/Medicare but then private insurers would allow for more boutique care and things like vision and dental. This is pretty common in countries with "universal" coverage. The same could be true here.

Ideally, the public option could raise revenue for the single most expensive part of the budget - healthcare - without being a "tax." 

Unless I'm missing something, which I wouldn't know, because I'm missing something.

The New Gilded Age

 Look, if you're not reading/listening to Heather Cox Richardson, I don't know what to say. 

Today, she makes explicit the resurrection of Gilded Age ideas about wealth and health care, two things we should understand as being intrinsically linked. No need to summarize it; read it yourself.