The Smirnov Indictment -- So Shocking, It's Actually Suprising, but Can We Please Not be Paranoid?

The operative phrase for Donald Trump since he first came down the escalator is "shocking but not surprising."  Donald Trump and his associates do shocking things all the time, in the sense that they are outrages against all accepted norms and morals and often laws. But it is not surprising because when someone does shocking things all the time, he ceases to surprise.  Every once in a while, something comes along so shocking that it actually does have the power to surprise (a highly subjective determination, I realize).

But every time something comes along so shocking that it ought to surprise, our side promptly overreacts, finds a Russian plot lurking behind -- well, just about everything, Trump says "Russia, Russia, Russia" and "hoax" and the whole thing is discredited.  And here we are, doing it all over again with the Smirnov indictment. I refer to numerous people on our side claiming that the discredited report accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of accepting bribes is Russian disinformation, as opposed to simple lies.

The Whole Episode is Shocking

The account set forth in Special Counsel David Weiss's indictment is certainly shocking.  During the 2020 election, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Western District of Pennsylvania, led by US Attorney Scott Brady was tasked with investigating tips from the "public" -- meaning primarily felgercarb from Rudy Giuliani -- about the Bidens' activities in Ukraine.  Besides investigating these tips, the District apparently went digging through old reports for anything that might be related.  One such report was a report from Alexander Smirnov dating back to 2017 that made a "brief, non-relevant" discussion of Hunter Biden's role on the Burisma board of directors.  For no discernable reason, the District asked Smirnov's handler to follow up with him about that report.  The handler may have been somewhat reluctant.  One month earlier, Smirnov had been expressing confidence that he could find recordings to prove that the Bidens had been bribed, although all he actually managed to produce was a picture purporting to show Joe and Hunter Biden playing golf with Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky.  The indictment says that the photograph did not show what it claimed, but did not say what the photograph did show.  Smirnov said, "I'll meet with the guys as soon as I will be able to fly."

Be that as it may, the handler spoke to Smirnov and got a report alleging four conversations Smirnov had with Zlochevesky -- in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 -- in which Zlochevsky said he paid the Bidens $5 million each, laundered so well as to be untraceable, and that he had texts and recordings to prove it.  Oddly enough, Smirnov, though working as an FBI informant, had never seen fit to report any of this before, and Zlochevsky was conveniently on the run and not reachable.  The handler nonetheless asked Smirnov for his travel records and presumably determined that he was lying.  At least, when the Special Counsel looked at the records, provided by the handler, Special Counsel had no difficulty determining that the meetings never took place.  The disproof was presumably why the Western District of Pennsylvania closed the matter.  The FBI nonetheless kept Smirnov on as an informant, presumably because he had valuable ties to Russian intelligence that were not easily replaced.

That should have been the end of it -- disturbing, obviously, but closed, so one might say no harm, no foul. In 2023, when Republicans retook control of the House of Representatives, they learned (under unknown circumstances) about the report and made it the centerpiece of their investigation of Hunter Biden, with a presumed eye to impeaching his father. The reopening also led to a curious dispute.  Jamie Raskin said that the investigation had been closed.  Trump's Attorney General William Barr disputed that and said that the matter was referred to the District of Delaware (where the investigation of Hunter Biden was taking place) for further investigation.  That leaves two possibilities -- either Barr was lying or the matter was sent to Delaware, but no one in Delaware saw it as worth pursuing.  Marcy Wheeler of Emptywheel appears to favor the latter explanation. Her reconstruction of events is that the Western Pennsylvania District determined the matter to be without merit and closed it in July, 2020.  In October, Trump demanded more material on Hunter from Barr, so Barr directed the Western Pennsylvania to forward the matter to Delaware.  The Delaware District took no further action until it came under pressure from Congress.

All of that sounds fairly shocking to me, and suggests that anyone concerned about weaponization of government may have better places to look than Twitter's refusal to link to a story from the New York Post.  

But is it surprising?

OK, I'll admit it.  One reason I was surprised by the whole thing is that I wasn't paying attention.  I sporadically follow Emptywheel, but it is hard going. A typical Emptywheel column starts out with a subject that sounds interesting and soon trails off into incomprehensible minutia which leaves me wondering whether she is going too far into the weeds for me, or if this is descending into outright paranoia.  I stopped following some time ago.

Scott Brady

Which is s shame, it turns out. What I found most shocking (to the point of being surprising) about Smirnov's report was that the district tasked with investigating Giuliani's felgercarb saw fit to direct Smirnov's handler to interview him based on an innocuous mention of Hunter and Burisma in 2017.  If I had followed Emptywheel, I would have learned that this was not a new discovery.  Emptywheel devoted a column back in November devoted to the analysis of US Attorney Scott Brady's testimony to the House Judiciary Committee (191 pages).  I had a vague memory that such testimony occurred and that Brady said they had been able to verify Smirnov to the extent of establishing that he was in the places at the times he alleged. We now know that is not correct.  

During his interview, Brady testified that as part of the investigation of reports from the "public" about the Bidens in Ukraine, he directed the FBI to search their files for information on Hunter Biden and Burisma, and they came across a 2017 report from Smirnov in the Washington Field Office.  Under questioning from Democrats, Brady switched his story to say they were searching for information on Zlochevsky.  Either way, apparently an isolated, innocuous reference to Hunter Biden and Burisma three years earlier was deemed important enough to follow up on.  This really looks like using the FBI for opposition research.

So far as I can tell from the Emptywheel article, no one on the committee asked Brady the bleeding obvious question.  Smirnov was coming forward with explosive revelations about the Bidens that he purportedly received as much as five years earlier.  He sent regular (and purportedly reliable) reports to the FBI.  Did anyone at the FBI ask why didn't he see fit to disclose any of these shocking allegations until now?!?!  (I suppose I should go through all 191 pages to see if it is in there).  

As I understand it, Brady said that the FBI had been able to verify parts of Smirnov's report, such as establishing that people were present at the places and times alleged.  If I wanted to be charitable, I would say that this is accurate -- for the 2017 report.  But Weiss's Special Counsel's office was easily able to refute the 2020 report based on travel records.  Furthermore, its source for these travel records was Smirnov's handler. It surpasses belief that Brady and his team were not also able to figure out, based on his travel records, that Smirnov was lying to them  My own, uninformed guess is that the FBI did figure out that Smirnov was lying and that was the reason they closed the investigation.  But they kept him on as a source because his network of contacts was too valuable to throw away.

So for that, at least, we can reasonably be surprised.  Or can we?  Emptywheel offers a clear tell from the interview.  Brady's attorney directed him not to answer specific questions about what investigation he performed to verify the information in Smirnov's report.  Generally speaking, when a suspect says not to look under the floor boards, it means that is the place to look. Asked in general about the vetting he did, Brady answered:

I think what our broadly, without going into specifics, what we were looking to do was corroborate information that we could receive, you know, relating to travel, relating to the allegation of purchase of a North American oil and gas company during this period by Burisma for the amount that’s discussed in there. We used open sources and other information to try to make a credibility assessment, a limited credibility assessment. We did not interview any of the subsources, nor did we look at public statements by the subsources relating to what was contained in the 1023. We believed that that was best left to a U.S. attorney’s office with a predicated grand jury investigation to take further.

Democrats on the committee, not knowing that Smirnov's travel records contradicted his report, focused on Zlochevsky's and other Ukrainians' public statements denying any improper influence on the Biden's, as well as Zlochevesky's non-pubic answers to Giuliani.*

So it seems fair to say that we should have recognized the FBI did not properly vet Smirnov's report and not been surprised that it turned out to have serious problems.  But we are at least entitled to be surprised that the FBI had travel records in its possession proving that Smirnov was lying and did not reveal that the whole thing had been decisively refuted.  

It also appears true that, under pressure from Trump and Barr, the West Pennsylvania District passed this disproven and closed report on to Delaware for possible criminal investigation. And, again, that is not just shocking, but I think we are now entitled to be surprised that West Pennsylvania had proof the report was false when they forwarded it.

But can we please not get paranoid

So, yes, all of this looks bad.  Probably bad enough to warrant, once again, asking the Inspector General to investigate the investigators.

But can we please drop the claim that Smirnov's allegation of bribery was Russian disinformation. It was nothing of the kind, just a plain, old-fashioned lie.  Smirnov, after all, was not passing on some third- or fourth-hand rumor from a Russian connection.  He was purporting to report on conversations that he personally took part in. He most certainly knew that these conversations never took place and that he was making them up out of thin air.

It is true that about a month before coming up with these stories, he was attempting to chase down evidence, which he believed genuinely existed, of Biden taking a bribe (Indictment, paragraphs 8-11).  It is true that Smirnov had a text exchange with his handler which concluded with Smirnov saying, "I'll meet with the guys as soon as I will be able to fly."  (paragraph 11).  Smirnov did not indicate who the "guys" were.  It does seem plausible that the "guys" were his Russian connections, and that they failed to yield anything of value.  Nor does it seem too much of a stretch to suspect that this failure to find any real information was what convinced Smirnov to lie.  

But, first of all, this is pure speculation on my part and, second, this is not Russian disinformation.  It is just the opposite.  If true, this would mean that it was the lack of useful disinformation that persuaded Smirnov to lie.  And this is an important distinction to keep in mind because our side genuinely did fall for Russia disinformation in the Steele Dossier, which the right wing in general and Trump in particular have seized on to dismiss as "the Russia hoax" or "Russia, Russia, Russia."  The result has been that every time our side says Russian disinformation, the right wing has a Pavlovian reflex to dismiss it as a hoax and much of the mainstream media goes along.  For that very reason, we must not say Russian disinformation when 2020 report was not, in fact, Russian disinformation.**

______________________________________
*And here is where Emptywheel slips into paranoia, or at least rank speculation.  According to Lev Parnas, Giuliani offered to intercede for Zlochevsky with the DOJ if Zlochevsky would give him dirt on Hunter.  The original 2017 report by Smirnov was part of an investigation of Zlochevsky under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which was ultimately dropped in December, 2019.  She speculates that Zlochevesky gave Smirnov dirt on the Bidens in 2019 in return for the investigation being dropped. Granted, she made this speculation in November, 2023, before the indictment landed.  But, aside from being wholly unsupported, there is an obvious problem with this speculation.  Smirnov alleged that Zlochevsky made his bribery allegations well before 2019 and only gave new details in 2019.
**Admittedly, Smirnov did pass on Russian disinformation after he was caught, alleging that the Russians had recorded Hunter while staying at the Premier Hotel in Kiev. At least, he attributed this information to Russian intelligence sources, and the FBI was able to confirm that the Premier Hotel was a nest of Russian espionage.  But they also knew the story was false because Hunter had never been to Kiev and did not even bother with further investigation.  My own, uninformed speculation, is that at this point the FBI realized the Russians were on to Smirnov and were feeding him deliberate lies, making him useless to them, and that this played a major role in their decision to indict.  Others, better informed than I am, have speculated that it was the 2020 report going public that tipped the Russians off.

In Which We Learn a Little Bit More About Smirnov

Smirnov is the one in the middle

We know a little bit more about Alexander Smirnov now, based on the government's detention memo. He is a dual US-Israeli citizen, presumably one of a large flood of Soviet Jews who moved to Israel when the ex-Soviet Union dissolved into chaos.  This is confirmed by the statement that he lived in Israel from 1992 to 2006. His parents are still alive and live in Israel. He (presumably) moved to California in 2006 and since 2022 he has lived in a $1.4 million condo in Las Vegas owned in the name of his wife/ girlfriend.  His employment is somewhat shady.  Even his wife/girlfriend does not appear to know what it is. The memo appears to think he is a venture capitalist. Another possibility, of course, is professional informant.  Whatever Smirnov does, he is apparently successful at it.  He has some $6 million in liquid funds.

We even have a picture of Alexander Smirnov now, of sorts. He is not the first defendant to cover his face while doing the perp walk, after all.  (The woman in the picture is presumably his wife/girlfriend).  

More significantly, the memo also alleges that Smirnov has extensive contacts to Russian intelligence officials, some of them quite high-ranking.  One controls groups that are engaged in overseas assassination efforts.  He also appears to be involved in attempting to negotiate a resolution of the Ukrainian war.  And he knows Russian intelligence officials who intercept calls by US officials and may use them in an effort to influence the election.  Three of his contacts have direct, immediate access to Russia's ruling circles.  One has a father in Russia's ruling circles.  The details are mind-numbing, but they do make clear why the FBI kept Smirnov on as an informant, even after they caught him blatantly lying to them.  That kind of access can't be easy to find, and must be worth a few lies now and then, even really outrageous ones.  

In the murky world of espionage, it is not always clear who is spying on who; who is doing the manipulating and who is being manipulated.  In Smirnov's case, the FBI began to view his contacts as "not benign."  In September, 2023 (when the FBI interviewed Smirnov two months after opening the investigation), he claimed that Hunter has stayed at the Premier Palace in Kiev and been filmed and recorded by Russian intelligence.  He claimed to have this information from four different Russian officials.  The FBI knew these stories were false, since Hunter had never been to Kiev.  The report sees this as an attempt to tamper with US elections.

It is not clear from this account whether Smirnov is knowingly working for the Russian intelligence service, or whether they are merely playing him for a fool.  Either way, the Russians are clearly onto Smirnov, and his usefulness to the FBI is at an end, hence their willingness to prosecute him.

The Smirnov Indictment

US Attorney David Weiss

 So, Republican allegations about corrupt dealings by Hunter Biden largely relied on a 2020 report by an FBI informant claiming that Mykola Zlochevsky, president of Burisma, claimed to have paid Joe and Hunter Biden each a $5 million dollar bribe to have Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin removed from office so he could not investigate Burisma.  Problems with this report included that it rested on the unsupported word of a single witness who was on the run and could not be found, that it went against what the same witness told Rudy Giuliani, that it went against much of the public record on the actual ouster of Shokin, and that a long-term FBI informant somehow neglected to tell his handler about these events until several years after they allegedly occurred.  But that last point is somewhat ambiguous because the report says that in 2017 the informant "reported the foregoing," which leaves open the possibility that he might have reported these allegations earlier.

The indictment clears up the ambiguity, and is really quite disturbing.  The indictment also follows the usual, and faintly absurd, federal practice of not naming anyone other than the defendant.  It does refer to the Obama-Biden Administration, but always refers to Joe Biden as "Public Official 1" and his son, Hunter as "Business Person 1" as if we didn't know perfectly well who he was referring to.

The informant is international businessman Alexander Smirnov.  No photograph available so far; all the pictures I have found are of a figure skater by the same name.  Smirnov, of course, is a Russian name, and the fact that he spells it Smirnov instead of Smirnoff is a strong indication that he is a first or second generation Russian-American, not one whose ancestors moved here in the 19th century.  That he spells his first name Alexander instead of Aleksandr may be an indication that he was born in the US, although he may have anglicized his name as well.  Another indication that Smirnov is an American of recent vintage -- he speaks Russian, an obvious advantage doing business in Eastern Europe. 

 Smirnov has apparently been an FBI confidential source since 2010 (indictment, paragraph 4).  He has also been authorized to engage in illegal activity for purposes of investigation on several (possibly five) occasions (paragraph 5).  The indictment clears up the somewhat ambiguous paragraph in the 2020 report, saying that Smirnov "reported the foregoing," but also that he "briefly discussed" Hunter Biden in a manner that was "not relevant" to the main subject.  The essence of the report was that Burisma was seeking to acquire a US petroleum business and might have overstated the value of its assets.  It is not clear what the report said about Hunter Biden, other than that he was on the Burisma board of directors (paragraph 7).  The indictment outlines Smirnov's activities with Burisma during 2017 and 2018 (all after Trump had become President), which appeared to be an unsuccessful attempt to interest them in US cryptocurrency.  There were US associates involved who did not speak Russian and therefore did not understand all the meetings. (The indictment does not directly say that Smirnov knew Russian, but that is certainly implied).  The details are rather dull, but make the point that Smirnov's dealing with Burisma began in 2017 (i.e., after Biden left office), they were completely unremarkable, and had nothing to do with Hunter Biden (paragraphs 30-31).  The association appears to have ended in 2018, after Burisma officials said they were not interested in cryptocurrency.

That was the last Smirnov's handler heard about Burisma until May 19, 2020. That was after the first impeachment had failed and after Biden's pressure to fire Shokin had been thoroughly examined and determined to be backed by a broad bipartisan and international range of actors, and after Biden was clearly on track to be the Democratic nominee.  An article came out in the Washington Post in which a pro-Russian Ukrainian lawmaker released "edited fragments" of Biden's conversations about firing Shokin. While the tapes showed Biden linking loan guarantees to firing Shokin, the Post was clearly skeptical, saying that the tapes "shed relatively little new light on Biden’s actions" and were used to make "an array of accusations not proven by the tapes."  The Post also commented that the tapes contained no mention whatever of Hunter or Burisma.  

Trump fans saw the tapes in a different light. Donald Trump, Jr. posted, “Yikes!!!! This is not a ‘perfect conversation.’”  Smirnov saw the tapes as clear proof that Biden had been bribed and texted as much to his FBI handler.  (Texts included in the indictment, paragraphs 8-21).  The handler was skeptical, saying that his accounts showed no link between firing Shokin and Burisma (paragraph 12).  He asked whether Smirnov was claiming "bride (sic) payment" to Biden or the aid withheld (paragraph 13).  Smirnov texted back that he would find "those other recordings" of Hunter telling "Boriama (sic)" that his dad would take care of Shokin, and a bribe to Joe and Hunter Biden (paragraph 15).  The handler answered "That would be a game changer." (paragraph 16).  Two days later, Smirnov offered what he claimed to be the evidence -- a photograph purporting to be Joe and Hunter Biden with Zlochevsky, all apparently holding golf clubs (paragraph 21).  The indictment said the picture was not what it purported to be.  The faces are blacked out, so there is no way to tell from the indictment.

That should have been it.  Smirnov was showing clear signs of paranoia and reporting plots without evidence. But at least he was attempting to chase real leads.  Next comes the truly disturbing part. The Western District of Pennsylvania had been tasked with investigating information "from the public" about Ukraine (paragraph 22).  As a practical matter "the public" largely referred to Rudy Giuliani, who was combing Ukraine for information, generally of a most dubious nature, that could be used to harm Biden's campaign.  What are we to make of the decision to investigate?  It is hard to say.  Recall that Republicans' general response to "Operation Crossfire Hurricane," the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia was to say that Trump was running for President for the opposition party and therefore should be exempt from any investigation whatever. No less an authority than John Durham, the special counsel tasked to investigate the investigation of Trump, refuted that view in his Report (page 54).  Durham confirmed that the FBI investigation began with a report from the Australian ambassador to Britain, saying that a suspected Russian agent had reached out to one of Trump's advisors with an offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton.  "As an initial matter, there is no question that the FBI had an affirmative obligation to closely examine the . . . information."  Durham did criticize the FBI for opening a full investigation, rather than an assessment or preliminary investigation

Well, if what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, then I suppose the FBI had an obligation to do at least an assessment of the felgercarb Giuliani was sending them. Again, Trump supporters generally agree that when Christopher Steele presented his memos, the FBI should have covered its eyes and run screaming from the room upon learning that it came from Trump's political rivals.  Rudy Giuliani was Trump's personal lawyer and certainly wanted to promote his candidacy against Biden. But if working for a political rival did not automatically disqualify information from Steele, then I suppose it would not automatically disqualify information from Giuliani.  And I suppose it made at least some degree of sense to task just one office with sorting through Giuliani's felgercarb so as not to waste anyone else's time.

This was public knowledge for those inclined to care well before news of Smirnov's report broke.  My initial thought at the time was that it was at least one point in favor of the report that it did not originate with Giuliani, but was independently provided by a long-time informant.  Not quite.  It appears that the Western District of Pennsylvania was not just passively accepting felgercarb from Giuliani.  It was also combing through old files for anything that might relate to Joe or Hunter Biden in Ukraine.  In the course of its investigation, the Pittsburg FBI ran across Smirnov's old 2017 report and noticed that it contained a brief, non-relevant mention of Hunter Biden serving on the Burisma board of directors.  The FBI reported that finding to the US Attorney, who directed Smirnov's handler to talk to him and learn more (paragraph 23).  In other words, the Pittsburg FBI and US Attorney's officer were not just investigating any rumors, however implausible, that came their way.  They were actually seeking to scrounge up information on Hunter from their files.  In other words, the "deep state" was being employed to do opposition research.  Let people alarmed by "weaponization of government" take note.

Smirnov's handler called him on June 26, 2020 and Smirnov gave his extraordinary report, alleging for the first time that Zlochevsky had told him that he paid Joe and Hunter Biden each a $5 million bribe to remove Shokin as prosecutor, and that the money was laundered so well that it would take ten years to trace (paragraphs 24-26).  The indictment does not say so, but it seems a safe assumption that the handler was skeptical.  This was a man, after all, who had been an informant for ten years, suddenly coming forward and alleging four reports of highly criminal behavior by the Bidens, in conversations that supposedly took place in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 that he was only now coming forward to report.  In fact, just a month earlier, Smirnov had made clear that he believed these stories, but did not claim any personal knowledge, only that he would find the tapes to prove it. 

The indictment set forth at least seven "routine business contacts" between Smirnov and Burisma, all during 2017 and 2018, which Smirnov presumably duly reported to his handler (paragraph 31). The only mention of Hunter Biden in these contacts was that in the "spring of 2017," Smirnov sent a link of the Burisma board of directors to an American cryptocurrency businessman who he (Smirnov) wanted to introduce to Burisma.  Smirnov pointed to Hunter's place on the board as evidence that Burisma was someone his colleague could do business with (paragraph 30).  Presumably the source for this was an e-mail the FBI retrieved, although it might also be an interview with the associate.  Either way, given that the only mention of Hunter in the reports was a "brief, non-relevant" discussion on March 1, 2017, it seems likely that the "brief, non-relevant" discussion was the use of Hunter's role on the board of directors to reassure Smirnov's associate. 

Skeptical though he may have been, the handler asked Smirnov for his travel records (paragraph 39).  The indictment goes into painstaking detail about how Smirnov's alleged contacts with Burisma were contradicted by his travel records (paragraphs 27-29, 32-34, 36).  Presumably the travel details disproved Smirnov's allegations when he handler requested them in 2020 as well. However, the indictment does not go into that.  It simply says that the FBI closed the case in August, 2020.  Obviously, no charges were brought.  As someone who knows nothing whatever about how the FBI handles confidential sources, I have no idea whether charges were warranted at the time.  One would think, however, that such a blatant lie would at be grounds for firing.  It appears, however, that Smirnov was not fired at the time.  The indictment lists him as continuing to be an informant up through 2021, 2022 and 2023.  

The indictment does not say what happened after the case was closed.  Instead it jumps directly from closing the case in August, 2020 and reopening it in July, 2023. This apparently happened right after Republicans in Contress released the report (paragraph 43).   The FBI's first action was to interview the handler, in August.  The handler confirmed that he spoke to Smirnov after Republicans released the report, and that Smirnov stood by his story (paragraph 43).  The handler also showed the FBI Smirnov's travel records and e-mails to associates, which clearly contradicted what Smirnov had said (paragraph 44).  It surpasses belief that the handler had not figured that out.  Most likely, the handler closed the assessment because it did not check out, but kept Smirnov as an informant.  The FBI then interviewed Smirnov, who stood by his story (paragraphs 45-46).  When confronted with contradictory travel records and e-mails, he became slippery and changes his story several times (paragraphs 47-50).  

Smirnov also said that Hunter had stayed at the Premier Palace Hotel in Kiev, that the hotel was wired by the Russians, and that they had incriminating evidence on him. He said that this information came from four high-ranking Russian officials (paragraph 51-53).  The FBI knew that Smirnov was either lying or a useful idiot, because Hunter Biden had never been to Ukraine and only attended Burisma board meetings in other countries (paragraph 53).  

Aside from its painstaking detail about how Smirnov's story was contradicted by his travel records, the indictment also takes pains to point out that Smirnov made some remarkable changes in his story in just one month.  After all, in May, 2020, Smirnov was confident that the recordings being released of Biden's phone conversations proved that he had been bribed and pledged that he would find the complete recordings.  But he never said that he had any inside information about the Bidens being bribed (paragraph 37).  Obviously that would have been highly relevant information!  Yet a month later, when approached, Smirnov made all sorts of sensational allegations that he had never seen fit to mention before.  

And here is where the temptation of paranoia becomes strong.  Because it is hard to escape the conclusion that during that one-month interval something persuaded Smirnov to stop searching for evidence and start fabricating it.  And if that is so, then something sounds very much like a euphemism for someone.

Hunter Cleared of the Worst Accusations

US Attorney David Weiss*

So, in the latest news today, Russia is poised to overrun Ukraine, Donald Trump is favored to be elected and invite Russia to conquer the rest of Europe, but it won't matter in the long run because global warming is about to stop the Gulf Stream and turn all Europe into a frozen wasteland.  It seems frivolous to rejoice about such a small thing, but David Weiss, the US Attorney/ Special Counsel tasked with investigating Hunter Biden, has indicted the informant who accused Hunter of taking a bribe, charging him with lying to the FBI.

For anyone with better things to do, the back story is this.  Republicans in Congress really want to impeach President Joe Biden for profiting off his son's business activities and illicit foreign influence, if they could just find some sort of evidence to support their accusations.

Exhibit A in their evidence was a 2020 report (called a 1023) by a hitherto unnamed confidential informant to the FBI alleging that Joe and Hunter had each received a $5 million bribe from Mykola Zlochevsky.(president of Burisma).  According to the report, the informant met with Burisma executive Oleksander Ostapenko in Kiev in late 2015 or early 2016 to discuss a merger with a US company and was told that Hunter Biden was on the board of directors "to protect us through his dad from all kinds of problems."  The informant met with Ostapenko and Zlochevsky in Vienna about two months later, around the time Joe Biden publicly called Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin corrupt and called for his removal.  While Zlochevsky said that Shokin was investigating Burisma, and while this was an obstacle to the planned merger, "Don't worry, Hunter will take care of those issues through his dad."  When pressed, Zlochevsky said he had paid $5 million to one Biden and $5 million to another.  He also said that Hunter was stupid and useless, but his father insisted that he be on the board.  After the election and during the transition, Zlochevsky expressed fear about being found and said that he was pressured into making the payments and had tapes and texts to prove it.  Finally, the informant said that he met with Ostapenko in London in 2019 and spoke to Zlochevsky, then on the run an in an unknown location, on the phone.  Zlochevsky mentioned the then-current news about investigations into the Bidens and said he had laundered the money so well it would take ten years to trace.

Such was the report the Republicans offered as their prime piece of evidence of corrupt activities by the Bidens.  Plenty of people at the time, most notably Jamie Raskin (ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee), raised serious questions about the report.  Were there problems with it?  Let me count the ways:

1. It looked suspiciously like an attempt to breath life into a debunked rumor.  Shokin, in fact, has blocked British attempts to seize Burisma assets and seemed generally uninterested in prosecuting corruption. A wide range of players unrelated to Burisma, -- including Ukrainian anti-corruption activists, the US embassy, members of Congress from both parties, the EU and the IMF -- were all seeking Shokin's ouster.  What need for a bribe?
2. The whole thing was unverified and seemed calculated to make verification impossible.  It purportedly dealt with oral conversations between Zlochevsky and the Bidens with no witnesses, and money transfers so well hidden as to be virtually untraceable.  Yes, Zlochevsky allegedly had tapes and texts, but he was the sole witness and was conveniently on the run, location unknown.
3. For bonus value, Raskin even released a questionnaire completed by Zlochevsky to Rudy Giuliani denying any sort of dealings with Joe Biden, or any improper dealings with Hunter. And yes, obviously this was self-serving.  Zlochevesky was hardly going to admit to wrongdoing.  On the other hand Donald Trump was President at the time, so it was also in Zlochevsky's interest to offer any dirt on the Bidens that Giuliani wanted.  In any event, at least the questionnaire was hard evidence of what Zlochevsky said.  The informant's report was not even that.
4. To me, however, none of these were the real red flag that something was wrong here.  The most obvious problem with the report was the date -- June 30, 2020.  Let me get this straight.  This man had been an FBI informant for years.  He heard vague insinuations about Hunter in late 2015 or early 2016.  Two months later he heard a flat-out accusation that Hunter and Joe Biden each took a $5 million bribe.  In late 2016 or early 2017, he heard that there were texts and tapes proving coercion.  And in 2019 he heard that the payment was so well laundered as to be virtually untraceable.  And in 2020, after the first impeachment made the whole matter public, he finally got around to telling the FBI about all this?!?  If I were the FBI, I would have serious problems with that. Still, the report did have one somewhat ambiguous passage raising the possibility that he might have mentioned some of this before:

This leaves open the possibility the the informant might have reported all this "the foregoing" in 2017, but also that in 2017 he said that Zlochevsky only discussed Hunter "briefly" and that "the topic was not relevant."

The indictment cleared up this ambiguity.  More to follow.

How to Handle the Age Issue

 

I have now watched the Biden press conference, and it is not as bad as some people suggest.  It is true that Biden said "Mexico" when he meant Egypt.  The remark took place in the context of a perfectly coherent discussion of the Gaza war, specifically the subject of Egypt closing its border, to keep out refugees and stop the influx of humanitarian aid.  Guess what other border closure has been getting a lot of discussion lately.

Nonetheless, there is no dodging the age issue.  And yes, that is unfair.  Donald Trump can spew any gibberish he wants, but so long as he does so in a loud, aggressive tone, his fitness to hold office is not called into doubt.  So what can Biden do to push back on the age issue?  Here is my suggestion.

• Get out in the public eye more.  Speeches are all fine and good, but they can be dismissed as reading off the teleprompter.  Do press conferences, town halls, and especially one-on-one interviews.  The interviews seem to be his strongest suit.
• Do what Donald Trump did.  Take the dementia test, humiliating though that may be.  Have the White House doctor announce the results, just like Trump did.  And yes, I understand that passing a dementia  test will stop being a big deal when anyone but Trump does it.  But it gives you something to push back when Trump treats his own successful dementia test as a big deal.
• Argue that advantage of experience.  Tell people what you are doing all day.  Have other people who were involved vouch for you.
• Promise to submit to regular medical evaluations and step down if your doctor certified you as unfit.
• And -- most controversial here -- that means finding a Vice President who people are confident is up to the job.

And, yes, it is my view that no matter who the Democratic candidate is, he or she will become the target for massive Republican vilification.  That is the main reason I saw no reason to run an alternate candidate for President.  But sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.  So pick someone who is well qualified and not too controversial.  Even if that means another white male. 

 I will admit to not knowing of any white males off the top of my head who are are obviously qualified.  Governor Jay Pritikin of Illinois or Jared Polis of Colorado have been mentioned.  Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan also gets mentioned.   I would be fine with any of them in normal times, but times are not normal.  We are dealing with wars in Ukraine and Gaza and potential wars in Korea and even a possible future Chinese invasion of Taiwan, so I believe we need someone with more national security experience.

Garry Kasparov has recommended Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.  And not so long ago, I would have been open to that if Austin has been willing to make the sacrifice.  But Austin's recent cancer diagnosis and alarming secrecy about it seem disqualifying.  My recommendation -- Tammy Duckworth, Senator from Illinois.  Her advantages include that anyone who insists on a woman, person of color, or both, can have their way.  Tammy Duckworth is half Thai, but has never felt the need to wear her race on her sleeve.  She is a military veteran, a helicopter pilot who lost two legs in Iraq, a champion of veteran's issues, and a mother of two, including one child born when she was serving in the Senate.  She has served four years in the House and seven in the Senate, including on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees.  She has executive experience as Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs.  And comes from a solidly blue state, so there is little danger that she would be replaced by a Republican.  Her main disadvantage -- there is no evidence Duckworth is crazy enough to want to be Vice President.

But I am open to other nominees as well, including white male ones.  The point is, concerns about Biden's age are legitimate.  Even if he is completely sharp at 81, that is no guarantee he will still be sharp in 2028 at 86.  Americans' fears have to be assuaged. Otherwise we will end up with Donald Trump as President.

CS Lewis and the Christian Society

C.S. Lewis

I have mentioned that one of the main sources of calm I have found during these stressful times is C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, explaining why we should not worry too much about the future. And that, in turn, got me to thinking about his book that I read in college, Mere Christianity.  Both works focus on individual, rather than social, morality and make clear that social morality is merely a means to individual morality.

Nonetheless, Lewis gave some outlines of what a Christian society might look like, making clear that these are mere generalities, and that there is room for a wide range of particulars:

Christianity has not, and does not profess to have, a detailed political programme for applying "Do as you would be done by" to a particular society at a particular moment.. . .  [T]he New Testament, without going into details, gives us a pretty clear hint of what a fully Christian society would be like. . .  It tells us that there are to be no passengers or parasites: if man does not work, he ought not to eat. Every one is to work with his own hands, and what is more, every one's work is to produce something good: there will be no manufacture of silly luxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buy them. And there is to be no "swank" or "side," no putting on airs. To that extent a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist. On the other hand, it is always insisting on obedience—obedience (and outward marks of respect) from all of us to properly appointed magistrates, from children to parents, and (I am afraid this is going to be very unpopular) from wives to husbands. Thirdly, it is to be a cheerful society: full of singing and rejoicing, and regarding worry or anxiety as wrong. Courtesy is one of the Christian virtues; and the New Testament hates what it calls "busybodies."* 

Still, following Lewis's comments on individual morality, one can see how it might scale up to larger society.  (I limit myself to those two works; there may be others as well). To do so, I have applied a simple rule. To the extent individual morality governs an internal state of mind, there is no real way to apply it on a society-wide basis.  But when individual morality manifests itself in outward actions, we can imagine what it would look like on a social scale in what Lewis would consider a Christian society.  By all means, feel free to disagree with Lewis on any particular.  He himself admitted that most people will not like all aspects of a Christian society.

Charity

In commenting on a Christian society, Lewis says that one purpose of work is to be able to give to charity and aid people in need.  He then moves to individual morality -- that it might be best to have a society with no poor so there is no need for charity, but in the meantime everyone should give enough to feel pinched.  I will also add that any society in anything approaching the real world will have room for charity.  Let us suppose Lewis's Christian society achieves something like a society with no poor -- everyone of able body and mind works for a living, all jobs pay a living wage, and people have simple needs and tastes and do not bankrupt themselves with vices and extravagance.  Still there will be people who are unable to work due to physical and mental incapacity, feeble old people, sick people, natural disasters, and people experiencing individual misfortunes such as death of a breadwinner, serious illness, a house burning down, etc, etc.  The need for charity can be reduced, but it will never be eliminated.

Sex and Marriage

Lewis makes the rule clear -- no sex outside a lifelong, monogamous, heterosexual marriage.  He somewhat wavers on whether divorce can never be justified, or whether it can be allowed in extreme circumstances, sort of like amputating a limb. Divorce would not necessarily be illegal in a Christian society.  Moral suasion is often more effective than legal prohibition, after all.  But it would be an extremely rare, scandalous occurrence.  When a marriage seems to fail, family, friends, the clergy, and marriage counselors would all intervene to save it.

Lewis also discusses the matter of propriety -- how much flesh can be shown, and what can be talked about in polite society.  He sees no hard and fast rule here, except that there should be a hard and fast rule.  In other words, clothing may show more flesh or less, but it should never be provocative.**  Speech may be restrained or direct, but it should never be prurient.  The standards of propriety may be arbitrary and culture-bound, but everyone should follow them so as not to cause lust or discomfort.  Lewis does not address another matter -- how much Christians should rely on internal constraints in interactions between men and women, and how much on external constraints, such a chaperones.  Are these matters of chastity or mere propriety?  My guess is that Lewis would see them as matters of propriety, and that different Christian societies might have vastly different ideas about how much unchaperoned association to allow between men and women.

Another point that one can glean is that propriety will not be limited to individual interactions, but will pervade the whole culture. Clothing, art, entertainment and the like will follow the standard of propriety refrain from anything intended to provoke lust. On the other hand, presumably a Christian society will not be a Taliban society.  It will not require women to wear burkas or ban all interaction between the sexes.  In other words, clothing and art will show something of the female shape, and the society will have an aesthetic of what is an attractive female figure.  The aesthetic alone will not be seen as provocative, but it will shape what men see as sexually attractive.  And (here is the real point, emphasized in the Screwtape Letters) a Christian society's ideal of the female figure will be something like woman's natural shape and will not have corsets or fad diets or other attempts to shape the female body into something other than what it actually is.***

As for same-sex attraction, Lewis sees it as a perversion and would expect a Christian society to see it in those terms.  But the attraction is not, in itself, a sin to be repented, but a disorder to be treated.  Which leads to the next subject.

Psychotherapy

Lewis's comments on this subject were some of his most interesting and insightful. Strangely enough, it also reminds me of some of the most interesting and revealing parts of my Shakespeare study group.  We tend to assume that seeming mental processes in material terms is a modern phenomenon and that until the last few hundred years people maintained a strict body-soul dualism.  Not true.  People have been seeing mental processes in material terms at least since the ancient Greeks, and this viewpoint has infused Christian thinking as well.  If anything, we would tend to see these older viewpoints as too crudely materialistic.  They saw, for instance, the stomach as the seat of anger or the spleen as the seat of laughter.  They would also see mood disorders as a form of physical illness caused by an imbalance in the humors, and recognized that personality had a strong genetic component. In short, Sigmund Freud was simply rediscovering something that people had known for a long time -- that much of our mental process is out of our control, and what what might be called the soul or the free will is really only a small part of the mind.

Lewis also has no trouble with this.  He used it to offer the best explanation I have seen for why Christians should not judge other people, even though God is allowed to judge us. Because we do not understand anyone else's full circumstances, including the psychological material people inherited and all the biological circumstances that contribute to their personality. What matters, from a theological viewpoint, is what use we make of the psychological material we have.

When a neurotic who has a pathological horror of cats forces himself to pick up a cat for some good reason, it is quite possible that in God's eyes he has shown more courage than a healthy man may have shown in winning the V.C. [Victoria Cross]. When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing does dome tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty he might have committed, and thereby, perhaps, risks being sneered at by his companions, he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

Nonetheless, Lewis says, although bad psychological material is not a sin but merely a misfortune, it is good to seek to improve one's psychological material through therapy, if needed.  Presumably this would scale up from the individual to the larger society.  A Christian society would support psychotherapy in whatever the best form available was. It would encourage people who are unable to overcome their fears or compulsions by moral effort alone to seek professional help (presumably including medication, if indicated).  It would not see any shame in seeking such help, anymore than there would be shame in seeking help for a physical malady.  If anything would be seen as shameful, it would be refusing such help when available and continuing to live with a fear or compulsion that inhibits one's moral duties.  (That might even be seen as a sin).  Nor would the clergy see any shame in admitting if someone seeking pastoral guidance was beyond their skills and referring them for professional therapy.  Which leads to another issue.

Churches and clergy

Obviously churches and the clergy would have major influence in a Christian society.  When Lewis says such a society would demand respect for authority, he mentions the magistrates, children to parents, and wives to husbands. Presumably he would include other authority figures as well, such as employers, teachers, and, of course, the clergy.

C.S. Lewis was an Anglican, and while he did not believe that his church had any monopoly on truth, he clearly did believe that it had valuable things to teach that other churches would do well to take as a guide.  In the Screwtape Letters, he endorsed the parish organization over the congregational organization.  In other words, he approves of centralized churches in which people automatically go to the church that is geographically closest, in the belief that this can bring together people of many different viewpoints and outlooks.  Choosing a congregation based on shared likes and dislikes can encourage a dangerous groupthink, and also a sense of self-righteousness and hostility toward outsiders.

Lewis ignores the extent to which people of similar outlooks and tastes tend to sort geographically, but let that go.  The next and obvious danger is that people within the parish will form factions and resentments within their particular church over differing approaches to worship. That is presumably where the clergy come in.  Lewis approved of the Anglican Church having "high" and "low" versions, and even more of having "high" and "low" churchmen worship side by side in different forms.  One role of the clergy would be preach against becoming too focused on outward forms.  The clergy would explain that their services were not magic rituals that had to be done just right to be effective.  Instead, so long as the doctrine is sound, outward forms are of little importance and should not be grounds for conflict.  If you wish people to respect your religious scruples, you should show the same respect for theirs.  You may consider other people's religious scruples strange, or even silly.  Others may see your religious scruples the same way. Follow the outward form that your Christian conscience demands and allow others to do the same.  Do not try to make adopt your outward forms.

Of course, the clergy would do other things, such as lead prayers, conduct sacraments, offer moral guidance, and teach doctrine.  And, probably more problematically, their service would necessarily take one form or another and probably cause resentment because people would see the form as endorsement or at least favoritism.  Nonetheless, this appears to be Lewis's main criticism of the churches of his day (and maybe historically as well).  And the best way to overcome it is presumably for the clergy the preach the spirit of tolerance and individualism in religious form.

Individualism

Nor does Lewis appear to limit this spirit of individualism and tolerance to matters of religion. One gathers that he would see it as a broad guiding principle.  On issues of morality (including sex and "propriety"), a Christian society would be rigid.  On morally neutral matters, it would allow a broad scope toward individuality.  It would accept that people would have a wide range of interests and tastes and see this as part of people's God-given nature and therefore a thing to be respected.  Again, Lewis does not address this directly, but one gathers that Lewis's concept of a Christian society would generally a wide range of hobbies, so long as they were not sinful, and positively encourage people to pursue passions such as collecting stamps, building model airplanes, or walking through the countryside.  It would also encourage creative and artistic expression.

Lewis approves of such things because they show a certain humility and self-forgetfulness.  But there would be an important caveat here.  Hobbies of this type may be innocently indulged, but they should not become the center of one's life and crowd out important obligations -- religious, familiar, social, employment, charitable, etc.  

One great piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the word Temperance to the question of drink. It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things. A man who makes his golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as "intemperate" as someone who gets drunk every evening.

So any hobby is acceptable so long as it is not inherently sinful and is pursued temperately.  This seems a sound principle.

 Government

Lewis says that a Christian society would demand obedience and the outward marks of respect to "the duly appointed magistrates."  This means that a Christian society would have duly appointed magistrates.  In other words, it would have a government.  

What sort of government? Lewis says very little on this subject, except that it would not be a theocracy, at least in the sense that the clergy would not govern and the technocratic details of governing would not be confused with theology.**** But we might consider it theocratic in the sense that "all economists and statesmen should be Christians" and should endeavor to govern in a Christian manner. I assume that Lewis does not so much mean a test act as that in a society in which everyone is a good Christian, that would included everyone in government.

Lewis would presumably expect a Christian society to have a very low crime rate, but we are fallen individuals in a fallen world, so expecting a crime rate of zero would probably be unrealistic. So a Christian society would have a criminal justice system, probably not all that different from any other criminal justice system. One might think that a Christian criminal justice system would focus on reform and reconciliation over punishment, but Lewis appears to consider punishment to be part or reform and reconciliation. At least, when he gives advice to individuals on how to love even your enemy as you love yourself, he argues that loving yourself does not mean denying or downplaying your own sinfulness, so you are not obliged to deny or downplay other people's sins. And if you offend seriously enough, you should submit to punishment, so others can be punished as well. And a Christian criminal justice system might or might not include capital punishment. Lewis dismisses the whole concern of "Thou shalt not kill" as only banning murder, so a Christian judge can sentence a criminal to death. Nor is Lewis a pacifist. If a Christian society has hostile neighbors, it would have an army, not too different from any other army, and would use it if necessary.

Finally, although Lewis does not address this directly, same principles of individual conscience and tolerance would apply in government as in other aspects of life. People would recognize that different people, acting in their best Christian conscience, might nonetheless disagree on the best way to address a social problem. So members of a Christian government would not accuse each other of bad faith, just because they disagreed. This might imply an elective government, although Lewis never addresses the issue directly. But in any event, the society would believe in the immortality of the soul and see that as ultimately making individuals more important than societies. Lewis has called that the critical distinction between democracy and totalitarianism.

Some disturbing possibilities

Lewis says that if any of us saw a Christian society, we would all like parts of it, but very few of us would like all of it. No doubt people from my general political outlook would find it repressive in matters of sex and family. although we would like its egalitarianism in economic matters, and its respect for individualism and personal conscience.  On the whole, the foregoing description does not sound so bad to me. But there are a few things Lewis suggests in the Screwtape Letters that sound quite disturbing.  Admittedly, Lewis says not to take everything Screwtape says at face value.  The devil is a liar, after all. And Lewis does not address most of these issues in Mere Christianity, so maybe he disagrees with Screwtape here.  But the full implications of some of the things Screwtape says are quite disturbing.  More on that in future posts.

 __________________________________

*He also questions whether it would allow lending money at interest, but disclaims knowledge to reach a firm opinion.
**Lewis does not address another matter -- can a society's concept of modesty depend on context?  I our society swim wear, an to a lesser extent other athletic clothing, show flesh that would be totally immodest in a different context.  We might consider shorts acceptable in some social contexts but not others. We would consider a mini-skirt the same length as shorts as immodest in a way that shorts are not a a below-the knee skirt slit up the side as positively scandalous.  Or among the Japanese whole families or even strangers bathe together in the nude without any sense of immodesty, but would consider nudity immodest in other contexts as immodest.
***Lewis does not comment on birth control, saying that as a bachelor he might not be the best placed, but the general tone of his work seems to disapprove.  
****I am told that Lewis has gone on record as calling theocracy the worst form of government.  Presumably he regarded Communism as a sub-category of theocracy -- a defensible viewpoint.

Here's an Example of What I Mean

 

Here's an example of what I mean.

Yesterday special counsel wrote a report questioning Biden's memory.  Today it is all over the new and Democrats are in all-out panic mode, fearing this has sunk the Biden candidacy.

Today Donald Trump vowed not to protect allies from Russia. Crowds applauded.  And no doubt he will get a free pass on this one, with the public divided between people who agree and people who say Trump as just shooting off his mouth and didn't mean a word of it.  And it won't hurt him a bit.

Donald Trump Really is Captain Queeg

 

I was wrong.  Back in 2020 I wrote that a lot of Trump supporters admire him because they think he is Colonel Jessusp.  Their admiration will end only when they recognize that really he is Captain Queeg.

Colonel Jessup, warped as he is, is able to recognize that there are things larger than himself.  He expresses a coherent rightwing viewpoint that many in the audience applaud.  He is a dangerous loose cannon who thinks the military should be unaccountable, and that maintaining a base in Cuba is equivalent to waging a serious war.  But at least he can see beyond me, me, me.  And I thought that right wingers admired Trump because they saw him as an adherent to that viewpoint.

Captain Queeg, by contrast, is sunk into paranoid self-pity and makes everything about himself. Just like Donald Trump.  I assumed that would have to be off-putting.  But after looking at some of Trump's unscripted moments during his campaign rallies, I then ran Captain Queeg's courtroom scene and the resemblance is -- disturbing. 

See for yourself:

I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn.  If the crew wanted to walk around with their shirt tails hanging out, that's all right.  Let them.  Take the tow line. Defective equipment, no more no, no less.  But they encouraged the crew to go around scoffing at me and spreading wild rumors about steaming in circles and then old yellowstain.  I was to blame for Lt. Maryk's incompetence and poor seamanship.  Lt. Maryk was the perfect officer, but not Captain Queeg.

Doesn't that sound exactly like something Donald Trump might say?  And yet somehow it hasn't hurt him with the party faithful.  (After that, I admit, Captain Queeg descends into a level of paranoia exceeding anything Trump has shown so far).

Compare that with Colonel Jessup:

We use words like honor, code, loyalty.  We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something.  You use them as a punchline.  I have neither the time or the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the freedom I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way.  Otherwise I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.

That might be General Flynn or Colonel North, or maybe even Steven Bannon or Roger Stone.  But I just can't imagine Donald Trump talking like that.

Why Right Wingers are Up in Arms About Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce

 I really shouldn't waste my time on this fluff, but since everyone is in a tizzy over the right wing being in a tizzy about Taylor Swift dating Travis Kelce, allow me to explain the obsession.  And just to be clear, I am at the age that I pay no attention at all to who the latest popular singer is, and haven't followed football in many years.  But I do understand what is going on here.

Driving much of rightwing resentment is the sense that the left wing dominates popular culture to an insurmountable degree, and that conservatives are being marginalized culturally.  It follows from this that no amount of political power can ever make a difference since politics is downstream of culture.  And I suppose we should give right wingers part of a point.  Artistic and creative types do tend to lean left.  Of course, it has been that way for a long time.  But then again, conservative resentment on that point is longstanding.

At the same time, right wingers do recognize that some parts of popular culture are predominantly conservative, such as talk radio, action movies, country and western music -- and football. Right wingers tend to see these bits of conservative culture as isolated and besieged outposts surrounded by a hostile liberal army.  

Thus any sign of a liberal presence in one of these conservative outposts is seen as evidence that the enemy has infiltrated their besieged fortress and is about to lay open the gates to the barbarian hoards that surround it.  

Understand this, and a whole lot of ridiculous rightwing freakouts start to make sense.

Beer -- or at least Budweiser -- is such a conservative outpost.  Hence the freakout when Budweiser hired a trans influencer to endorse Bud Light on a You-Tube channel that presumably most right wingers had never even heard of, let alone watched.

Beauty contests are such an outpost., hence the rightwing freakout when a Muslim woman won the Miss USA beauty pageant in 2010.

Country and western music is such an outpost, hence rightwing freakout over any liberal expression by a country and western singer such as the Dixie Chicks or Dolly Parton.

And as for football, well remember Colin Kaepernick.

Recognize this phenomenon for what it is, and you will see a lot of it.

Seriously, Though

Ok, so I know it won't actually be that bad.  But the chances of Trump winning are at least 50-50 and maybe more.  So what will a second Trump term by like?

Procedurally, Trump scares the hell out of me.  Substantively, I have no doubt that some of the things he wants to do will be really bad.  On the other hand, their badness may ultimately be what undercuts his popularity and thwarts his bid for dictatorial power.  But the human suffering will be very real, and the damage to our society will not be easily reversed.

Donald Trump will go after the "deep state."  The Heritage Foundation already has a plan to make some 50,000 civil service positions appointable by the President.  (The current number is 4,000).  Note that this does not mean replacing air traffic controllers, smoke jumpers, mail carriers, VA medical providers or other popular federal employees, who number some 2.2 million.  But it refers to mid-level policy makers.  Backers of the plan argue that the federal bureaucracy is a rogue branch, unresponsive to the President, that needs to be brought into line.  They are not intimidated by fears that a Democratic President might do the same thing.  So far as they are concerned, Democrats have run the federal bureaucracy since the New Deal and Republicans just want their turn.  They may underestimate the value of a permanent bureaucracy in maintaining some degree of continuity and avoiding wild, destabilizing  swings in policy.  They may also underestimate the role of an unelected bureaucracy in maintaining the rule of law (hence the quote above), and the extent to which resistance is based on law as well as inertia. Nor does anyone know whether replacing so many mid-level managers at once will make the federal bureaucracy more responsive, make it a praetorian guard, or just make it wildly dysfunctional.

Scarier still are plans to do much the same with the military. And even scarier is the thought that, given the necessarily hierarchical, top-down nature of the military, appointing a few loyalists at the top could allow them give promotions to ideological allies and remake the entire mid-level military bureaucracy into a right-wing preserve, unlikely to accept civilian control from a Democrat.  And then there are his plans to militarize law enforcement by sending the National Guard into Democratic-led cities. Do not expect his worst high level appointments to be thwarted by the need for Senate confirmation.  By the end of his term, Trump had learned to circumvent that requirement by appointing "acting" officials.  

I am less concerned about Trump using the Department of Justice to charge his political opponents, which appears to be his top priority.  I am confident that our institutions are strong enough that even a Trump DOJ will have to allege violations of some specific law, which will be a heavy lift.  They will also come up against an independent judiciary which will throw out the most obviously spurious charges, and juries that will acquit.  Trump will no doubt successfully block any investigation of his own corrupt behavior.

All of this is scary.  Both scarier and less scary is Trump's substantive agenda -- very bad, but some of it so unpopular that it just might be his undoing.

For instance, there has been talk of a Trump Administration using the CDC to track and surveille abortion, or enforcing Comstock Laws that remain on the books to forbid interstate shipment of any medications or equipment used for abortion.  In fact, this will be an interesting test of just how much influence the party ideological leaders have on Trump.  Although he has adopted some degree of pro-life talk, there is no reason to believe that Trump has any strong principled opposition to abortion.  (Or any other principles, for that matter).  He also appears to recognize just how unpopular such a measure would be.  My guess is that Trump will limit himself to a few anti-abortion remarks and generally avoid doing anything as much as possible.

Rather more interesting are some of the things Trump clearly intends to do.  One is to impose a 10% tax on all imports. That will have to be passed by Congress, of course and will, again, be an interesting measure of how much sway Trump has with a party whose dogma is that taxes must never be increased under any circumstances.  Maybe a Republican Congress will agree to an imports tax increase if offset by a income tax reduction.  And maybe breaking the Republican Party's most absolute taboo could have some good effect in the long run.  In the short run, if such a plan passes the most obvious effect will be an increase in prices.  Nothing close to a 10% increase, to be clear.  The tax will only be on the minority of products that we import.  And it can (and is intended to be) offset to some degree by substituting taxed imports with American products that are more expensive but for the tax.  On the other hand, some of the price increase will filter up as imports are used in American-made products.  And no doubt other countries will retaliate by slapping a tax on US products, thus hurting our exports. It seems like a strange measure for someone who is proclaiming inflation during the Biden Administration and an unprecedented catastrophe.  But I am guessing that the party faithful will scarcely even notice and associated increase in prices, much less care.  The rest of the population will see it as an inconvenience, but hardly a catastrophe.

Immigration is a different matter.  Yes, on the one hand, Republican leaders who proclaim their opposition to immigration usually preface it with the qualifier "illegal."  On the other hand Trump notoriously declared his opposition to immigration from "shithole countries" and many of his supporters accept "replacement theory."  This being the case, I would expect Trump to make a serious attempt at crackdown on immigration in general and not just the illegal variety.  This will not go over well with big money interests who depend on immigrant labor (legal or illegal).  It could be an interesting contest between the Republican base and Republican donors. And given how much Trump has emphasized it, and his continued association with the odious Stephen Miller, I fully expect Trump to make a serious crackdown on longtime US residents who are in the country illegally, including widespread workplace raids and makeshift detention facilities.  

I would expect this to be highly disruptive and unpopular in farm communities that depend on immigrant labor.  These farm communities are, after all, major Trump strongholds.  As such, massive immigration raids might actually dent his popularity with an important constituency.  On the other hand, I also expect that these farm communities will make up a relatively small part of the Republican base, so it may not dent Trump's popularity with the party faithful all that much.  Needless to say, it will cause great outcry in the agriculture and construction industries and be unpopular with the big money interests.  Once again, this will be an interesting test of big money interests' ability to reign Trump in.  I would expect the effect on the wider public to mostly take the form of increased food and construction costs.  Again, given the outrage at Biden over food and housing price increases, one would expect these to hurt Trump.  But again, I would expect the party faithful either not to notice, or not to connect the price increases with Trump's policies.

And, finally, Trump is once again promising to repeal and replace Obamacare. The last attempt to do so should have proven to everyone's satisfaction that Republicans don't know how to make healthcare policy and don't much care.  What they ended up with was a repeal now, replace later.  In practical terms, what that would have meant was shutting down the exchanges, withdrawing everyone's subsidies, and kicking millions off of Medicaid.  And it came within one vote of passing.  Fortunately, a dying McCain, in his last public act, stepped in to save his party from itself.  I don't know if Donald Trump, if elected, will once again, attack Obamacare. There is no appetite for such a move, either by the base or the party leadership. This is purely a personal grudge match on Trump's part.  I have no doubt that any attempt to repeal Obamacare would, in the words of one party leader, make as much sense as diving headfirst into a wood chipper. It would mean throwing some ten million people off Medicaid and another ten million off the exchanges.  Trump would clearly and unequivocally be blamed for it.  In short, it would, well, make as much sense as diving headfirst into a wood chipper.  So I suppose the question will be first, whether Trump has the attention span to pursue this, and second, how far his party can go in saving him from himself.