How to Stay Sane in the Face of Donald Trump

I would put the chances of Trump winning the next election somewhere between 50 and 70%.  How to stay sane under these circumstances?

1. Have a Plan B.  Recognizing that all is not lost if Trump wins, and having a plan to hit the ground running if it comes to that makes the prospect of him winning less panic-inducing.
2. Get news from mainstream sources.  Yes, this is very square advice, but it is also useful.  Cruising the Net for obscure sources bombards your mind with massive amounts of conflicting data, which is itself highly paranoia-inducing.  You get numerous obscure tidbits.  Some of these turn out to be important and you got a scoop ahead of time.  Others are just tidbits and never turn out to be significant.  And others turn out to be wild rumors and inaccurate.  Let someone else vet these obscure tidbits for you.  I learned this the hard way during the war in Ukraine.  Reading about what was actually happening was never as terrifying as reading speculation on what might.
3. Understanding the phenomenon of catastrophizing is the best way to avoid it.  Catastrophizing means imaging the worst and convincing yourself it is inevitable.  This means not just a Trump victory, but what would follow.
4. Turn off the news after a certain hour.  If it is important it will be there in the morning.  You lose nothing by waiting a few hours.
5. Watch comedies instead. Laughter is very stress-relieving.
6. Do not check the news when you are stressed for unrelated reasons.  Somehow the prospect of a Trump presidency always seems most catastrophic when I am stressed about something else.  And whatever I am stressed about becomes more overwhelming when I consider to prospect of a Trump presidency.
7. Stay busy doing something constructive.  That may mean working to defeat Trump, working on Plan B, or doing something totally unrelated to politics.  Constructive activity concentrates the mind and keeps it off catastrophizing.
8. Find a non-political hobby to enjoy.

So, do I follow my own advice?  Of course not.

 

Understanding Trump's Appeal

It isn't difficult really.  For the first three years Trump was in power, nothing particularly bad happened.  The economy grew at a healthy pace; unemployment, inflation, and interest rates stayed low; crime stayed low; and no major wars broke out.  News junkies like you or me saw problems, but they just didn't affect most ordinary people's lives.

And yes, people are over-idealizing Trump's presidency.  It is not just that they airbrush out 2020 altogether.  They forget the little problems that happened, just like they happen with any President.  I had a coworker who claimed there were no mass shootings when Trump was President.  My boss blamed a missed trash delivery on Biden.  Our country also attributes a certain mystique to successful businessmen and thinks they are particularly good stewards of the economy.  And Trump developed an absurd image of hyper-competence from The Apprentice.  

As for threats to freedom and democracy -- well, they didn't happen last time, so a lot of people dismiss the whole thing as so much hysteria, and nowhere near as important as gas prices.  And if he praises Hannibal Lecter at a rally?  Well, everyone knows Trump says nutty things sometimes.  But at least when he was President gas prices were low.

You know what really would hurt Donald Trump?  His pledge to cut off funding for schools with vaccine mandates.  "Donald Trump wants to defund the schools!"  Why aren't Democrats shouting this to the rooftops?

On to Specifics

So, considering in general the President's powers and limitations, what about Trump's specific plans.  He discussed some of these with Time magazine. In general, he is either lying or badly informed, sometimes to the point of being delusional.  He is also often incoherent, and it is hard to escape the suspicion that some of the incoherence is deliberate, when caught in that usual awkward bind of having to choose between alienating the party base or alienating the general public.

Immigration:  Trump has made immigration his signature issue, so naturally the interview starts with it.  He is particularly delusional on this subject, believing (or at least claiming to believe) that we are experiencing a huge crime wave, driven by illegal immigrants, many of them sent from jails and mental hospitals.  (The point of his recent bizarre ramblings about Hannibal Lector was to compare immigrants to an insane serial killer).  Thus he believes crime will massively fall if he engages in mass deportations. His proposal remains, in effect, to build the wall, which he claims he almost completed until Biden undid it, halt all illegal immigration and all asylum claims from the Global South, and deport all 11 million or so people in the country illegally.  He says he sees no need for widespread detention, as Stephen Miller has proposed, since he will deport everyone so quickly there will be no need.   He will engage local law enforcement and call up the National Guard when local law enforcement does not cooperate.

 Fact:  Crime really did spike following the pandemic, lockdowns, and riots.  It took a few years to fall, but is now mostly back to the pre-pandemic baseline (except for car jacking and crime in Washington, DC, which remain elevated).  There is no spike in immigrant crime.  Immigrants actually have lower crime rates than the general public.  But that rate is not zero, and in a country as large as the US, there are bound to be at least a few serious crimes committed by illegal aliens for Fox News to sensationalize.  Diverting law enforcement resources to immigration could cause crime to increase, depending on how much diversion there is.  (I doubt that federal diversion would make much difference, but if Trump diverts local law enforcement as well, it could make a difference).  About 450 miles of wall was built along a 2000 mile border. 

But I don't expect these facts will make much difference.  Crime may not fall at all, but if Fox stops sensationalizing it, crime will seem to fall.  Few people will actually traverse all 2000 miles of the border to see just how much of the wall has actually been built.  Much of Trump's secret to success has been to recognize that facts are largely irrelevant, except in extreme cases.  If he seriously attempts to deport so many people, this may turn out to be a case where facts are actually too overwhelming to ignore.  The logistics of deporting 11 million people will not be something that can be easily brushed aside.  And it can cause serious labor shortages.  Undocumented immigrants have been estimated to make a third of the work force in construction and over 40% of the workforce in agriculture.  Anything even approaching the sort of crackdown Trump and Miller are proposing will quickly drive home the point just how much we depend on immigrant labor. 

Generally looking at Trump's plans, the President's unilateral powers on immigration are vast, but not unlimited.  Trump can:

• Cut the number of refugees admitted to zero
• Revive his Remain in Mexico plan for asylum seekers
• Revoke all humanitarian parole and Dreamer status
• Proceed with deportations while his actions are under review with the courts
• Federalize the National Guard for enforcement
• Invite local law enforcement to join
• Threaten to withhold federal funds from ones who do not

But there are limits.  He cannot:

• Detain so many people unless Congress pays for detention facilities
• Compel local law enforcement to cooperate
• Use the Alien Enemies Act (1798!) to deport without due process
• Be everywhere at all times and know everything

Police Immunity from Prosecution:  This is a bizarre one, but Trump has been calling for police to have immunity from prosecution, even if they commit crimes, and defending this as necessary for them to do their jobs. When pressed, he had no idea how to actually do that.

Theoretically, he can:

• Direct the DOJ not to undertake any criminal or civil action against police for civil rights violation
• Pardon any police currently convicted of federal civil rights violation.
• Ask Congress for legislation exempting the police from the Civil Rights Act.  

He cannot:

• Stop any state action, criminal or civil, for police abuses
• Pardon police convicted of state crimes
• Stop or pardon any private civil action against police for civil rights violation
• Pass a federal law that would exempt police from state laws

This is best dismissed as meaningless blather.

Abortion:  This is one subject Trump desperately wants to run away from.  His usual answer to Time was to say it is a state matter and the federal government has nothing to do with it.  When pressed about federal restrictions on abortion medications, he managed to be completely incoherent.

Imports taxes:  Trump proposes to place a 10% tax on all imports and a higher tax on some.  He refused to be pinned down as to exactly what he was proposing.  He does not consider such taxes to raise consumer prices.  And it is true that during his first term, Trump imposed significant protective tariffs without damaging the larger economy.  (There was some damage to specific areas, but the economy was strong enough to absorb the damage without overall impact).

What Trump can and cannot do here is a bit unclear.  The Constitution clearly gives Congress the sole authority to raise taxes.  However, Congress has passed laws giving the President unilateral authority to charge imports taxes for reasons of national security, or against countries that discriminate against US products, or in retaliation.  Just how far the courts would uphold such actions is anybody's guess.  My own guess -- courts will bend with the political winds and allow Trump to impose whatever imports tax he wants -- unless it gets really unpopular.

Foreign policy:  There is very little anyone can do to constrain the President in foreign policy.  It Trump wants to abrogate treaty obligations and refuse to defend allies, very little can be done to stop him.  As for what he actually plans to do, he served an undigestible word salad.

Prosecuting political opponents:  What the President can and can't do in this regard is a major theme of my last post. Trump's interview was deliberately vague on the subject except to say that (1) he considered all the cases against him as political persecution, and (2) if the Supreme Court did not declare Presidential immunity, he would prosecute Biden, largely over policy differences and mistakes.  I am inclined to think the Supreme Court should set some parameters to presidential immunity to reign in Trump.

Ending civil service protections:  I am not going to go into the weeds with all the details of Project 2025, the plan cooked up by the Heritage Foundation.  Suffice it to say that much of it is a sufficiently radical overhaul of government and law that would have to pass Congress.  Congress has not impressed me of late with its penchant for radical reforms.  Moreover, much of what is being proposed would be wildly unpopular and almost certainly fail.  What has received most attention, and what might be doable without legislation, is to withdraw civil service protections for much of the federal middle management and replace them with ideological allies.  The most common number I have heard being replaced is 15,000, although some estimates put it higher, in the "tens of thousands."  Needless to say, the prospects of Donald Trump finding 15,000 people to fill the federal middle management are approximately zero.  So the Heritage Foundation (and other right wing groups) are doing the recruiting for him.

The obvious question is -- is this feasible.  Currently there about 4,000 at-will employees in the federal government, and that alone is slow and difficult to fill. The process may speed up with 15,000 (or more) Heritage Foundation recruits waiting in the wings. Some have argued that there is a sufficient wonk gap in favor of liberals that Heritage is unlikely to find enough qualified applicants.  Others believe that Heritage has lined up a highly qualified team.  

I must admit to not knowing enough to weigh in, but I will venture an opinion nonetheless.  I don't see any way to fire all of middle management and replace them, even with highly qualified candidates, without seriously disrupting the organization.  Even the most qualified candidate, if new to the job, has some learning to do. Recall when the entire management at the Department of Justice threatened to quit if Jeffrey Clark were allowed to pursue his claims of election fraud.  The threat was effective, not just because mass resignations on such a scale would attract attention and make a strong statement, but because it would make the Justice Department essentially unmanageable.  No doubt things would go more smoothly if there were replacements ready to take over.  But it surpasses belief that there would not be at least short-term disruption.

Of course, I am not clear how much that sort of disruption would be noticed by ordinary citizens who do not normally follow the news.  Nor do I know how long it would take for the confusion to work its way out and an ideologically committed civil service to start effectively imposing their agenda.

Trading policy favors for campaign contributions:  This is Trump's latest outrage.  I have little doubt that, if elected, he will, indeed, exchange policy favors for campaign contributions.  Of course, this had been going on for a long time, just not quite as blatantly.  I do believe that if anyone else offered policy concessions to oil executives in exchange for campaign contributions, public opinion would be outraged.  For Trump, the public will probably applaud in the belief that it will lower gas prices.

Ending Obamacare, cutting Social Security or Medicare:  This would take an act of Congress. I do not expect it to pass because Congress is not suicidal.  Trump will not ask to cut Social Security because he isn't suicidal either.  He might seek to repeal Obamacare despite not being suicidal, because he is to dumb to realize he would be committing suicide.

Or, in the alternative, he might do nothing at all and say he did.  Trump's plan for solving our economic problems is to assume that his name will carry enough power to make them all go away.  Why not do the same thing for, say, all those illegal immigrants from prisons and mental hospitals supposedly sacking and pillaging our cities?  Prosecute a few high profile cases and then announce that all the others were so intimidated that the fled the country.  Or just have Fox stop talking about the subject, and soon everyone will forget.  I have little doubt that if Trump comes to power and does as little as possible, it will actually work quite well, because our country is in reasonably good condition.  

It is exactly what he did last time.

What Donald Trump Wants to Do, What He Can Do, What He Can't, and What Can We Do About It?

 

There has been ample talk about what Donald Trump plans to do if reelected, most recently in his interview with Time magazine. Any realistic assessment of what Trump can do and what he cannot is essential to forming a Plan B for how to deal with him.

An important caveat here.  Just because Trump can do something does not mean that he will.  In fact, I do not expect him to do all the things suggested here.  But I so expect him to attempt at least some of these things, and do not know enough about the man to guess which ones.  And really, for him to attempt even one of these things is troubling enough.

Things Trump can do:

• Circumvent the Constitutional requirement of Senate concurrence in executive appointments by appointing "acting" officials
• Appoint MAGA friendly judges, if approved by the Senate
• Enlarge ("pack") the courts if approved by Congress
• Pardon any federal crime whatever
• Give illegal orders or engage in criminal conspiracies and shield all participants from prosecution by pardon
• Direct the Department of Justice (DOJ) not to prosecute certain offenses or individuals
• Direct to focus on particular offenses, or to prosecute particular individuals
• Seeking to withdraw civil service protections from some 15,000 executive officials with some "policy making" authority.  This one is contested.
• Give policy making jobs to big campaign contributors
• Harass political rivals (including organizations) with selective regulatory actions
• Issue federal contracts and other benefits on a patronage basis (contested)
• "Impound," i.e., refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress, create a test case on whether statutes banning the practice are constitutional
• Withhold funds from state and local government that do not do what he wants (contested)
• Incite angry followers to threaten and harass anyone who stand in his way
• Pardon such angry followers if they commit federal crimes.
• Federalize the National Guard to act on his behalf.

Clearly these are formidable powers.  Again, it seems unlikely that he will do all of these things, at least all the time, but even one occasion is alarming.  But before panicking too much, let us also consider the political power in the US is extremely diffuse, and consider what Trump cannot do.

Things Trump cannot do:

• Circumvent the need for Senate approval of federal judges
• Expand the judiciary without an act of Congress
• Pardon state crimes
• Pardon civil judgments 
• Prevent state or local officials from prosecuting people who commit crimes on his behalf.  (At least private citizens.  There is some dispute for federal officials).
• Commandeer local government to carry out his wishes
• Prevent judges from dismissing criminal charges that lack merit
• Force grand juries to indict when there is no merit
• Override a criminal acquittal at any level
• Fire state or local officials
• Prevent suits to release improperly withheld funds
• Unilaterally take a wide range of actions that require an act of Congress
• Legislate in a wide range of areas reserved for the states
• Be anywhere near as smart or as competent as he thinks he is

So, keeping all of this in mind, what makes sense to for us to do to stop Trump?

• Keep the Senate in Democratic hands to block inappropriate judicial appointments.
• If that proves impossible (and it will be tough going), at least take back the house to keep him from passing any crazy legislation
• Elect local District Attorneys and Attorney Generals who are willing to prosecute law breaking by Trump supporters
• Elect other local officials who will not do his bidding
• Study how to manage without the federal funding he is threatening to withhold
• Write to your members of Congress, local officials, etc and show up at town hall meetings
• Sue, both to block actions and for damages
• Fund raise
• Volunteer
• Publicize the most unpopular actions
• And remember rule number one of successful authoritarians -- don't take unpopular actions unnecessarily.  I suspect Donald Trump will break this rule.  We need to be ready to pounce.

More to come on specifics.

What Would the MAGA Party Look Like in a Multi-Party System?

So, what would happen if we became a multi-party system?  My guess is the Democratic Party would splinter into several different parties that would generally form a coalition.  These would clearly include an authoritarian Left -- call it the Hamas Party.  But I would expect the Hamas Party to be small and easily marginalized, at least within the corridors of power.  (It might take to the streets as a way of making up for that, which would only add to its marginalization).  But I would expect the other parties to be harmless -- a bit overly nannyish at times, but not really dangerous.

I could see the Republicans splitting several ways.  They might become the Republican Party and the MAGA Party, or the Economic Royalist Party, the MAGA Party and the Theocratic Party.  But I have no doubt that the MAGA Party would be large enough to be significant, quite probably the dominant party on the Right.  Also clear -- so long as Donald Trump leads the MAGA Party, it would be authoritarian.  That is necessarily so because Trump is, by nature, an authoritarian who is incapable of grasping democracy, the rule of law, or anything but his own advantage.

 But Trump will not be with us forever, and civic virtue is not dead yet among our Republican elite. Could a MAGA party without Trump become a democratic conservative party, either driving out the authoritarian elements or containing them?  Or is it inherently authoritarian.

Consider the graph above.  It evaluates the electorate from the 2016 election on two axes.  One is economic liberalism/conservatism, and one is social liberalism/conservatism.  Unsurprisingly, Clinton won the economic liberal/social liberal quadrant and Trump won the economic conservative/social conservative quadrant. It is no doubt not surprising that the economic liberal/social conservative quadrant was more contested.  But, significantly, Trump did much better in this quadrant.  Also significant -- the economic conservative/social liberal quadrant is almost empty.

That last is significant because elites calling for a third party invariably talk about a third party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal -- sort of libertarians lite.  But there is no appetite for such a party among the general public. The call for such a party is a purely elite phenomenon.  No wonder so many third parties fail!

But the opposite quadrant, the economically liberal/socially conservative quadrant is one that our political elites have largely overlooked.  When a candidate has appealed to that quadrant, it has usually been a demagogue like Donald Trump or George Wallace.  This quadrant is often called populist, which is often simply used as a synonym for authoritarians, and certainly figures like Trump or Wallace are authoritarians.  But the more charitable reading is that this combination is simply Christian Democratic, that its anger is driven mostly the marginalization of such views from the corridors of power, even as large swaths of the population (the graph suggests, about a third) hold such views.  By such a charitable reading, Trump's appeal is that he was the first leading figure to actually offer such an outlook and that if members of this quadrant are given political influence commensurate with their numbers, they might take their place as a democratic conservative party -- a swing party, even.

With Donald Trump out of the way (dead, or too feeble to lead), what would such a party look like?

It would be moderate on most economic issues.  It would be opposed to either shrinking our expanding our existing welfare state.  It would be eager for tax cuts for itself, indifferent to hostile to large cuts at the top, and indifferent to mildly in favor of tax increases at the top or imports taxes.  It would oppose any consumer oriented regulations that caused it any sort of inconvenience.  It would favor NIMBY-ish land-use regulations to preserve the character of neighborhoods, protectionist measures, and E-Verify to prevent hiring of illegal immigrants.  My guess is it would be largely indifferent to any other economic regulations, with no very strong feelings one way or the other.

It would oppose immigration, especially from the global South.  My guess is that any serious attempt to exclude immigrants would quickly teach the MAGA Party just how dependent we are on immigrant labor and they would make their peace with work visas, so long as the visas were strictly for work and did not offer the possibility of citizenship or permanent legal residence.  They would generally oppose family migration or asylum migration.

They would be tough on crime, pro-police, pro-gun, and anti-affirmative action.  They would generally wish to avoid foreign wars, foreign allianaces, and any sort of foreign entanglements. My guess is that there would be a religiously oriented wing opposed to gay marriage and abortion.  I would also guess that this wing would learn that hard way that this was political suicide and focus instead on carving out religious exemptions from gay marriage and opposing abortion by moral suasion. 

So, could such a party become a serious democratic conservative party, respect the rules of the game, accept defeat, apply the rule of law in an even-handed manner, and focus on cultural cohesion without giving way to bigotry?  Or would they just be the Bigot Party under another name?

Is the Two Party System Destroying our Democracy?

This post was more timely a few weeks ago, but I expect it will come back many times.  How much of the threat to our democracy lies in the two party system.  Or, perhaps more accurately, to what extent would a multi-party system overcome our problems?

I agree with Daniel Ziblatt that when authoritarian parties threaten democracy, the best way to fight them is for the pro-democracy elements to cling together in a frail coalition until the danger passes.  I also agree that this is extremely hard to do, requiring participants to set aside their ordinary policy preferences in the face of the all-consuming mission to preserve democracy.  It is especially hard if you are the one being asked to make such sacrifices.  All too often, mainstream parties form coalitions with authoritarian parties that are ideological kindred, allowing democracy to fall.

Traditionally, it has been easier to exclude authoritarians in the US because the binary nature of our system makes it easy for the mainstream parties to exclude authoritarian challengers, while adopting enough substantive policy proposals of third parties to coax their members back into the mainstream.

But this advantage is reversed when authoritarians take over one of the two parties.  At that point forming a coalition of pro-democracy elements means that one of the parties has to deliberately lose!  That being said, such things are not absolutely impossible.  Louisiana Republicans did just that in 1991 when their candidate for governor was David Duke.  But the David Dukes of politics are not very common, and deliberately losing an election for governor is one thing; deliberately losing and election for President is another.

This issue becomes increasingly significant as Congress (particularly the House) starts looking more and more like a multi-party system.  Democrats and moderate Republicans have teams up to prevent a debt ceiling breach, to avoid a government shutdown, to send military aid to Ukraine (perhaps to late to save the day), to expel George Santos, and to prevent the removal of Mike Johnson as Speaker.  This is not the same as true coalition politics in a multi-party system, which would mean parties making a formal alliance and voting together on a wide range of issued.  This is just a case of the sane members of Congress informally joining forces to do the bare minimum needed to keep the lights on.  But it counts for something.

At the same time, Republicans are resigning from the House in a manner seemingly calculated to harm their party.  And the right wing of the Republican Party has been kept in line at least partly by fear that if they oust Johnson, enough moderate Republicans would resign to put the House in the hands of the Democrats.*

It is, of course, the sense that the two-party system is destroying US democracy that led No Labels to propose running a third party candidate -- a project eventually abandoned when no one was willing to take the job.  In this, No Labels totally fails to understand how our system works.  Of course they are not alone in that.

No Labels is wrong at numerous levels. They fail to recognize the extent to which third party candidates serve as spoilers. They fail to recognize just how diffuse US political  power is, and the folly of putting all their eggs in the presidential basket.  And they fail to understand what is really behind our two-party system.

Underlying our two party system is the system of first past the post elections.  This system creates districts, each of which elects a single representative, and whoever gets the most votes wins.  First past the post systems have a marked tendency to have two-party systems.  Only one candidate can win any given election.  This tends to create pressure for all but two candidates to drop out, since third parties only act as spoilers. This has the effect of limiting voter choice.  Much depends on how districts are apportioned, since carefully apportioned districts can allow a party to hold the majority of a legislature despite not winning a majority of the popular vote.  In short, anyone wishing for a multi-party system has to overcome the effects of first past the post

The alternative is a system of proportional representation, intended to ensure that each party gets a number of seats roughly equal to its proportion of the vote.  This makes for multi party systems, but multi party systems have their own problems.  They tend to rely on frail and ever-shifting coalitions, which tend to behave very much like our House of Representatives has been behaving lately.

Various plans have been proposed to overcome the two-party duopoly without causing all the problems associated with multi-party systems.  One such system is an open or "jungle" primary, in which all candidates compete regardless of party.  Anyone achieving a majority in the primary wins.  Otherwise, if no one achieves a majority, there is a runoff between the top two vote-getters.**  Another alternative is ranked choice voting, in which multiple candidates run and voters rank them in terms of priority. If no candidate wins a majority, a winner is decided by some formula of determining who was considered next-best. The right wing of the Republican party opposes both alternatives because both undercut its basic strategy -- to have the most right wing candidate win the Republican primary and then win the general by appealing to Never Democrat voters.

But my point here is not to argue the merits of such a system for candidates other than President.  Either one may or may not be a good idea in choosing Congress,  governors, state legislatures, local offices, etc.  The Presidency is necessarily first past the post.  That is not just because there can only be one President.  That is significant, of course, and distinguishes the US from multi-party parliamentary systems, which allow the ruling party to change Prime Ministers without holding new elections.  (Again, something similar is happening in the House today).  The Constitution (Twelfth Amendment) requires a candidate to win a majority of the Electoral College to win the Presidency.  Failing a majority in the Electoral Colleges, the House of Representatives, voting by state, chooses the next President.  Again, a majority is required to win.  Under these circumstances, a third party candidate necessarily serves as a spoiler.***  And if a third party candidate did win enough electoral votes to present an Electoral College majority, the result would be go guarantee a Republican win.  That is because the House of Representatives would vote by state, rather than individually, for a President, and Republicans can be expected to control a majority of states for the foreseeable future.

Some people suspect that is what No Labels intended from the start.

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*Democrats may fear that just as much as Republicans do and wonder if their own equivalent of MAGA will prove just as obstructionist.
**This system is not without its flaws. I was what created the unpalatable choice for Louisiana voters between David Duke and Edwin Edwards in the first place.
***George Wallace did not serve as a spoiler to Nixon in 1968, an indication of just how strong Nixon's lead was.  With the electorate as divided as they are now, a third party candidate would necessarily be a spoiler.

Civic Virtue Is Not Dead Yet

Civil virtue in the US is not dead yet, although I am far from ready to say that it's getting better.

So what is civic virtue?  Generally speaking, it is the ability to put the general good above one's personal interests.  Country above party is what people usually speak of, although putting party above self can be civic virtue, as can any sort of public spirit.

And here is the thing. Civic virtue is one of those things that you never appreciate until it is gone.  It loses its effectiveness the minute anyone becomes aware of it and is only truly effective if everyone simply takes it for granted and never gives it a second thought.

And the US has -- and has traditionally had -- quite of bit of it, in various forms.  

Back in the golden days of blogs, someone wrote asking non-American readers what makes Americans unusual.  And one of the most common answers was that Americans have remarkable respect for private property.  Restaurants leave condiments sitting on the table and they don't get swiped. Stores put supplies of pumpkins and firewood out in front and people took them inside to pay.*  Self-checkout means placing a great deal of trust in customers.  Indeed, one of my law school books commented, stores used to keep all merchandize behind a counter.  The invention of open shelves for customers is itself a considerable show of trust (and, it must be admitted, of wealth).

That is civic virtue.  And it is best that we are not aware of it, or we would be insufferable.

Our civic virtue extends into the political realm.  Before Donald Trump came along, politicians who lost elections routinely conceded defeat and acted gracious for at least one day.  And they acceded to the rules, even when the rules did not operate in their interest.  One can question the wisdom of electing vote-counting officials, such as county clerks and secretaries of state, but they did count votes honestly.  

Trump's fake elector scheme has been compared unfavorably to rival slates of electors in Hawaii, 1960.  In Hawaii, 1960, the vote was too close to call.  Nixon appeared to be winning over Kennedy by a little more than 100 votes.  However, the Kennedy campaign called for a recount, and litigation ensued.  Republican and Democratic electors each cast votes, intending the votes to go to the ultimate winner when one was declared. And, as it happened, Kennedy was ultimately declared the winner, the Democratic electoral voters were certified, and Nixon, then Vice President, duly certified the votes and a Kennedy win.

Mike Pence has explained that in presiding over Congress counting votes, he was greatly influenced by the 2000 election. Pence had just been sworn in to his first term in Congress when the 2000 election came up for certification. Al Gore, also serving as Vice President, had fought a bitterly contested election in Florida that fell within a few hundred votes and was extensively litigated until the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bush. Gore went on to preside over the vote count and find in favor of Bush.

And, for that matter, at Trump's second impeachment trial, his lawyers showed footage of the certification of the 2016 election.  Various Democrats protested certification, and then-Vice President Joe Biden gaveled them down as out of order.

And here is the thing. No one saw any of those as heroic displays of civic virtue.  They were simply what Vice Presidents did.  Now when we look at people like Rusty Bowers, Brad Raffensperger, Brian Kemp, or Ruby Freeman facing immense political pressure, and harassment and threats, even at their own homes, simply for doing their jobs, what was once taken for granted has now become heroic civic virtue.

That being said, civic virtue is not yet dead in this country.  After Trump contested the 2020 election, I greatly feared that Republicans in general would follow his lead.  They have pleasantly surprised me since, and the precedent appears to be established that candidates not named Trump, running for offices other than President, will accept unfavorable outcomes.

And we have seen civic virtue above and beyond that. House Republicans undermined their already razor-thin majority by expelling George Santos.** Republican Secretaries of State have joined forces to promote confidence in elections.  When the Biden campaign was in danger of missing a filing deadline, the Alabama Legislature unanimously changed law to let Biden on ballot.***

Thus far we have not seen a post-Trump Republican run for President and lose, so we do not know what the outcome would be.  But on the whole, it is way too premature to give up hope on this country, so long as Trump is not in the picture.

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*Another commenter remarked that these things are large, heavy, and cheap -- difficult to steal and not much of a loss if stolen.  But the fact remains that most customers take these things inside to pay.
**Some people have argued that House Republicans do not deserve credit and were simply expelling Santos because he had become a political liability.  But that simply means that House Republicans were convinced that civic virtue was not dead in the general public.
***Cynics might call this an empty gesture of magnanimity, since Biden has no chance of winning Alabama anyhow.  But even empty gestures are worth something.

We Need a Plan B

Can we face facts?  This last week two events (arguably three) occurred that have likely secured the election for Trump.

First, the economy showed clear signs of softening with inflation still above target, and consumer sentiment tanked.  (Is that one event or two?)  Second, our college campuses broke out in riots, occupation, and police crackdown, creating a general impression of chaos and the desire for a law and order candidate.

All of this means that Donald Trump is most likely to win in November.  I do not mean we should stop trying to defeat him.  But it does mean we should start making a Plan B.  

Most people I have talked to when asked about a Plan B have said move somewhere else.  That is defeatist and just turns the country over to Trump by draining it of his opponents.  

So, can we please get some perspective and start thinking what comes next?

When this country was founded, the iconic example of democracy failing was Rome. Today it is Germany.  But, while Weimar is worth considering as an example how how democracies die, these analogies can be taken too far.  Trump is not Hitler.  Nor is he Putin.  He is not even Recep Erdogan.  More plausibly, he is Viktor Orban, a fairly mild dictator.  Orban did not consolidate power overnight.  Neither did Erdogan (or Putin, for that matter).  

Furthermore, we have two advantages over Hungary or Turkey.  One is that political power in the US is extremely diffuse and our independent institutions are extensive, leaving numerous point for resistance.  

Second, Donald Trump is an absolute idiot who knows nothing whatever about policy and wants to do numerous things that will be either impracticable or wildly unpopular.  And yes, I know he has people working with him to throw off the constraints of our bureaucratic institutions (the "Deep State") that restrained him last time. That will mean throwing off the constraints that protected the country from Trump, but also the constraints that protected Trump from himself.  That will be what undermines him most.  President FAFO.

So, I have some advice on what to do and what not to do.

Not to do:  Give up, flee the country, riot, smash things, block traffic, occupy public spaces and set up camp, train militias for armed resistance.

To do:  Donate to organizations that plan to resist Trump, such as the ACLU.  Volunteer for such organizations.  Support Democratic candidates and anti-Trump Republicans at all levels of government.  Organize election campaigns.  Protest peacefully.  Figure out an protest style that discourages bad elements.  Get the word out what is happening.  And do what you can to make society better through non-governmental channels.

PS:  Details to come.

Lev Parnas Interview

 

Denver Riggleman, former Air Force intelligence officer, Republican Congressman and data man for the Select Committee on January 6, has two interviews of Lev Parnas on his podcast that are intentionally incomplete, describing only a part of Parnas' adventures and Rudy Giuliani's point man in Ukraine, presumably as a teaser to entice listeners into buying Parnas' book setting forth his adventures in greater detail.  

I found the first half interesting and the second half wildly implausible.

By Parnas' account, Giuliani was traveling throughout Ukraine in 2018 looking for evidence of Ukrainian "interference" in the 2016 election.  He did not go into detail on this, saying that he was not involved in that part.  Joe Biden was not on Giuliani's radar screen for most of 2018.

The focus on Biden apparently began in November, 2018, when Giuliani heard the recording of Biden's speech to the Counsel on Foreign Relations in which he boasted about getting Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired.  The actual speech took place on January 23, 2018, but Giuliani apparently did not learn about it until that November.  For reasons that are not clear, Giuliani jumped to the conclusion that Biden demanded the firing for corrupt reasons.*   He promptly tasked Parnas and Parnas' friend Igor Fruman to find Shokin.  

The two were successful and sought to bring Shokin to the US, but Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch denied him a visa.  And I honestly do not know enough to say whether this was or was not appropriate on her part, but it certainly contributed to Giuliani's general hostility to her.  Instead, Giuliani and his associates talked to Shokin by Skype in January, 2019.  While Shokin was able to describe Hunter's activities in highly suggestive and sinister terms, nothing he described was actually illegal.  Giuliani, experienced lawyer that he was, recognized this and cut the conversation short, demanding to know what Hunter did that was actually illegal.  Shokin could only say that he did not find anything illegal, BUT he was sure that was just because he was fired before he found it and that the proof was somewhere in the Prosecutor General's office.**

The sensible thing to do at this point was realize that Shokin was stringing them on.  Naturally, Giuliani did nothing of the kind, and instead decided to find Shokin's successor, Yuri Lutsenko, to see what he had to offer.  So when Lutsenko contacted them two days later to say that he was in the US and wanted them to arrange a meeting with Bill Barr, Parnas was inclined to think it was not a coincidence.  

Actually, to judge from the conversation, it probably was just a coincidence. The conversation was about a wholly unrelated corruption matter that Lutsenko was investigating that involved US players and that he seemed interested in pursuing.  Giuliani was uninterested in anything that did not promote Trump's personal fortunes and said he had no interest in anything that did not involve Hunter Biden, but would be willing to arrange a meeting with Barr for $200,000.  Parnas says that Lutsenko had looked to the US in general and Giuliani in particular as heroes of honest government and was shocked at the shakedown.  On the whole, Parnas appears to treat Lutsenko and the President, Petro Poroshenko, as good faith actors who were serious about fighting Ukrainian corruption.*** 

Nonetheless, Lutsenko took the hint and the next day brought financial records that proved that Hunter had worked for Burisma and that Burisma had paid him, but nothing proving actual criminality.  Trump actually called during the conversation to see how it was going and demonstrate how important it was to him.

Their next meeting took place in the week of Valentine's Day, 2019 and was in Poland because Giuliani did not want to be seen traveling to Ukraine. (Parnas says they met in a bar and drank over $8000 worth of whiskey, which sounds positively lethal!).  The most significant event was that Lutsenko arranged for Parnas to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Poroshenko, then running for reelection against Zelensky.  After some cloak and dagger maneuvers to conceal the meeting, Parnas offered Trump's endorsement for reelection if Poroshenko would give him dirt on the Bidens. Poroshenko was skeptical, saying that last time they met, Trump had offered his endorsement if Poroshenko would buy coal from a particular town in Pennsylvania so Trump could boast about it at a campaign rally.  Poroshenko obliged and got nothing in return, so he refused to commit.

Again, Parnas seems to see Poroshenko as a good faith actor.  It also makes Zelensky's refusal to bend to Trump's demands for dirt seem somewhat less remarkable.  Both men were trying to clean up Ukrainian governance and being undermined by the US President.

It was interesting and revealed things I had not previously known.  In part 2, Riggleman promised more shocking details, but the whole thing sounded frankly paranoid.  Parnas said he started hearing in February about getting access to Hunter's laptop. This was significant because it took place before Hunter dropped off the laptop at the repair shop that April.  Riggleman also teased out details about meetings with actual agents of Russian intelligence, but none of this was actually discussed in the interview (teasing for the book, I assume).

Instead, they skipped over directly to Parnas' arrest on October 9, 2019, just about the time the first impeachment inquiry was heating up.  Parnas said he believed that he was arrested at the order of William Barr to prevent him from blowing the whole thing open and revealing information that would have left the Senate with no choice but to convict.

That makes no sense at all, on multiple levels.  First of all, it is abundantly clear that Republican Senators' refusal to convict had nothing to do with the evidence.  Donald Trump could have shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and Republican Senators would not have voted to convict.  (The second impeachment is proof of that).  Second, at the time of his arrest, Parnas was fulling in the tank for Trump, refusing to release subpoenaed documents.  If summoned in front of the investigating committee, he would undoubtedly have taken the Fifth.  Finally, Parnas an Fruman were arrested for campaign finance violations, and Riggleman makes the point that arrests for such charges are almost unheard-of.  What both men avoid discussing is that Parnas and Fruman were arrested at the airport with one-way tickets out of the country.  In other words, it appears that they were arrested to keep them from fleeing the country to avoid testifying against Trump!

All of which very strongly suggests that it was not, in fact, brought at Barr's direction, but the work of DOJ professionals with the Southern District of New York, acting very much at cross-purposes from Trump.  In other words, this was yet again the work of the so-called "Deep State."

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*Hunter Biden's role in Burisma was well known and much criticized at the time, so presumably that is the answer. 
**Parnas, it should be noted, is ambiguous about whether Burisma was actually doing anything corrupt, or whether Shokin was simply using investigations as an excuse to shake them down.
***This is actually surprising, in light of documents Parnas previously released, which seemed to indicate that Lutsenko was hostile to Yovanovitch because of her aggressiveness on corruption and demanded her firing as a condition of giving any dirt on the Bidens.  In this interview, Parnas treats Lutsenko as a good faith actor and the initiative as coming from the US side.  Another data point in assessing his credibility.

Memo to Campus Protesters: It Isn't Working

 

Memo to campus protesters:  I am not quite sure what you are trying to achieve, but if it is anything more than just draw attention to yourself, it isn't working.  Certainly you are not achieving anything in terms of ending the war.

So far as I can tell, most of the campus protesters have given up on actually ending the war and are focusing on getting their colleges to divest from any companies that do business with Israel.  Needless to say, the impact of such divestment on the immediate humanitarian crisis will be essentially zero. Nor will divestment lead to the destruction of Israel, which appears to be the end game.  So what is the point?  If the point is to avoid being complicit in moral evil -- well there are a whole lot of moral evils left in the world that you will still be complicit in.

The usual response of protesters to any criticism whatever is that whatever conduct you are criticizing is trivial compared to "genocide" in Gaza.  And just for the record, I actually agree that it is not inconsistent or hypocritical to protest this war and not numerous other wars going on in the world today.  Other wars may have a higher total death toll, but that is out of a larger baseline population, and over a longer time span. The damage to housing has been described as "unseen since WWII."  And certainly it is fair and reasonable to focus more effort on a war being fought with US weapons and funding that we have considerable leverage to stop than one where our role and our leverage is minimal.

But these protests are less than worthless and ending the carnage.  Before the student protests, there were numerous stories about the suffering in Gaza, Israel's obstructive inspections of humanitarian aid and the like.  The protests have moved the focus here and taken it off the actual war.

Underlying the whole escalation is a flawed assumption that the more extreme the measure, the more effective.  If marches and demonstrations don't turn public opinion against Israel, try camping out in the quad. If that is not effective, then seize buildings. If that doesn't work, bar access to the school to anyone who does not support your cause and block traffic. The assumption seems to be that being in a miles-long traffic jam will finally alert people that the war is wrong.  Sorry, dudes, it doesn't work that way.  It just makes you, rather than the war, the story and makes people angry about the disruption.

At this point, protesters may ask what do I suggest as an alternative.  What could they have done?  Well, so far as I can tell, while the rank and file protesters are ill-informed newbies who were recently focused on some other cause de juer, the leadership of the movement seems to consist of actual Palestinians -- mostly women.*  This gives the movement a real authenticity and refutes people dismissing it as mere "cosplay."

So here is my suggestion.  Why not hold teach-ins and give these women the chance to tell their stories. Palestinians in the US, whether citizens or students on visas, invariably have family members killed in the war, homes destroyed, people who fled their homes, only to be bombed in supposed safe refuges, and so forth. With today's instant communications, these family members have presumably sent photographs and videos to relatives in the US.  So tell their stories, show the pictures and videos, bring this war home to people., make it real. Make this an exercise in citizen journalism.  Invite the college newspaper to attend and publish the stories.  Invite your local newspapers to do the same.  Publish this on social media -- Twitter, Tik-Tok, Facebook, You-Tube, podcasts, etc.  Set up websites and old-style blogs.  Urge readers/viewers/listeners to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to funding of the war.  Provide a link to find who your member of Congress is.  

These actions may be of limited value.  Evidence suggests that the real secret to reaching a large audience is to tape in to one of the major communications nodes that draws large numbers of viewers.  But that is where being part of an elite institution really matters.  Presumably at least some of these students have the sort of elite connections that give them an inside line to major communications nodes.  Use them to contact these nodes and get your story out.  That is how you build the sort of political pressure that might actually force our government to stop supporting this war.

PS:  The latest word on negotiations is that Netanyahu is telling Hamas that if they will release hostages, he will delay a few weeks before he moves in to finish them off.  Needless to say, this is just another way of saying he has no desire for a negotiated end to the war.

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*So where are the Palestinian men?  I don't know, but my guess is they are the ones harassing Jews on the street.

A Few Notes on the Trump Criminal Trial in New York

I have not been following the Trump criminal trial closely.  Given the efforts made be federal courts to prevent him from being tried on anything else, I have become more sympathetic than before to the idea that this is a case of prosecuting Al Capone for tax evasion.

But the case still troubles me. It is an allegation of cooking the books to conceal "election interference" in the form of National Enquirer's plan to suppress any stories that might be damaging to Trump.

It is amply clear that Trump cooked the books, but is a trivial matter like perjury or tax evasion, generally only prosecuted if there is a serious underlying crime than cannot be reached.  And I am having trouble seeing the underlying crime here.

Basically, David Pecker of the National Enquirer agreed to pay hush money to anyone who had a story that could hurt Trump, and to run hit pieces on his political rivals.  That is not illegal.  To be clear, not all of it is protected by the First Amendment. Pecker admitted to falsifying a photograph of Ted Cruz's father to make a fabricated story linking him to pro-Castro Cubans and even to the John F. Kennedy assassination.  Telling knowing lies of that kind is not protected by the First Amendment. It is textbook defamation and is civilly actionable (although presumably the statute of limitations has expired), but it is not a crime.

The National Enquirer coordinated carefully with the Trump campaign.  Pecker met with Trump to discuss what stories out there might be dangerous, how to spot them, how to suppress them, and what to say about Trump's rivals.  This goes against accepted journalistic ethics, which do not allow publications to act as propaganda arms unless they openly proclaim themselves to be so (such as the Daily Worker, openly proclaimed propaganda sheet for the Communist Party). Other political campaigns have made clear that they have never had such an arrangement and that such things are absolutely not normal.  But that is not the same as saying that such things are a crime.

But standards of journalistic ethics are not laws. The only enforcement mechanisms are publicity and shame, neither of which has much effect on the National Enquirer.  And so far as I can tell, the right wing media does not see these standards as binding on them. They see any claims of journalistic ethics is mere cover for liberal bias and if mainstream outlets do not blatantly coordinate with campaigns -- well, they do so implicitly and they are much bigger than the right wing media, so the right wing media has to be more direct to compete.

The question is whether any of this breaks campaign finance laws. I don't pretend to know.  There has been one attempt to prosecute payoffs to a mistress as unreported campaign contributions in the case of John Edwards.  The jury declined to convict, which is not legally binding precedent, but can reasonably be taken as a guideline on how to exercise prosecutorial discretion. 

In Edwards' case, the bribes were paid by a rich friend.  In Trump's case, the rich friend was acting on behalf of a for-profit corporation.  Apparently there are campaign finance laws restricting coordination for between a campaign and a for-profit corporation, and for obvious reasons. The room for corruption is all too apparent.  But in the case of media entities, such restrictions raise a host of difficult first amendment questions.. Is advocacy journalism really an unreported campaign contribution?  What about puff pieces, or hit pieces, that even purportedly objective publications routinely publish?  And what about editorials?  What about granting anonymity to a campaign insider with a self-serving account?  The possibilities are too extensive to consider.

On the other hand, I can't help but wonder what the reaction might be if the shoe were one the other foot.  After all, Jeff Gerth of the Columbia Journalism Review wrote a whole series denouncing Hillary Clinton's conduct in the 2016 election as scandalous for encouraging the press to publish stories about Trump's ties to Russia and drew attention to the ones that were actually published.  John Durham was in an absolute tizzy that Hillary Clinton tried to "stir up a scandal" about Trump's ties to Russia and, while he acknowledged that stirring up a scandal about your political opponent is not a crime, thinks it was definitive proof of Trump's innocence and should have been seen so by the FBI.

And, of course, when Twitter and Facebook declined to circulate the New York Post story about Hunter Biden's laptop, this led to accusations of weaponization of government, Congressional investigation, and Elon Musk buying out Twitter to prevent further acts of "censorship."  It should be noted that the Post story was still out there and anyone curious could have found it by a Google or other internet search, and that both social media companies relented within a matter of days.  But no matter, there was at least a partial attempt to halt circulation of a story that could hurt a Trump opponent, and his supporters thought the matter worthy of committee hearings.

Imagine the outcry if such a story had been completely suppressed until after the election.

More on Horseshoe Theory

 

So, is horseshoe theory -- the idea and the far right and the far left loop backward to meet each other -- true?  Looking at how many things I have generally considered left wing -- living off the grid, organic food, distrust of big pharma and big money, etc -- clearly there is something to it.  

At the same time, there are differences.  I was fascinated, for instance by this article, discussing how J. Edgar Hoover's FBI targeted not only the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, but also the Ku Klux Klan and other groups on the far right. Hoover, who presumably had experience to know, did not regard Communists and Klansmen as mirror opposites.  Communists might be persuaded by histories, pamphlets, and serious intellectual discussion.  Klansmen could not intellectually or emotionally grasp anything above the comic book level.

But I think there are other differences as well. This is my latest attempt to understand the difference between left and right, authoritarian and non-authoritarian:

	Left Thinks in terms of oppressors and oppressed	Right Thinks in terms of in-groups and out-groups
Authoritarian Aggressive and punitive toward disfavored groups	Seeks revolt on behalf of oppressed to pull down and punish oppressors	Seeks to subordinate, exclude, scapegoat, or punish out groups
Non-authoritarian Not aggressive or punitive toward disfavored groups	Seeks to include oppressed groups in the larger society on an equal basis	Seeks to build strong communities within their group. Outsiders may form their own communities.

Not here that I am expressing these viewpoints mostly from the perspective a the dominant group. Oppressed or out-groups (from the perspective of the dominant group) can weigh in at many different places in this table.  

They may ally with liberals (the non-authoritarian left), seeking to be included on an equal basis with the dominant group.  This might be considered the hopeful mode.

They may ally with the authoritarian left, seeking to pull down and punish the dominant group. This might be considered the angry or frustrated mode.

They may make a separate conservatism (non-authoritarian right), forming their own tight-knit communities and community ties separate and apart from the dominant community.

On the one hand, one might think oppressed groups could not possibly find a home in the far right, which is actively aggressive and punitive toward them.  On the other hand the whole concept that oppressor/oppressed and in-group/out-group are different approaches presupposes the perspective of the dominant group. From the perspective of the excluded or oppressed group, there is no difference.  The in-group and the oppressed group are one and the same.  From that perspective, the difference between between being aggressive and punitive towards outsiders because they are oppressors, and being aggressive and punitive towards outsiders simply because they are outsiders becomes more a matter of emphasis than substance.  The horseshoe becomes a full circle.

I also believe that the oppressor/oppressed distinction of the left carries more moral weight than the us/them distinction of the right. That may be why so many authoritarians of the right are eager to adopt the status of victim of oppression.*  

It does not explain so well why so many members of the left seem to be moving over to the authoritarian right.

PS:  I will also add that conservatives might critique my dichotomy between the liberal and authoritarian left and say that they are the true liberals, wanting to build a color blind society, while liberal activists use the language of inclusion to stigmatize and discriminate against white people.  To this I would reply that yes, lines are not always sharp and clear, that pressing too far for inclusion can tend to devalue and exclude traditionally dominant groups.  I would also say that such discrimination falls well short of, say, campus activists barring Jews from entry unless they renounce Zionism and the like. I would also say that conservative groups who focus on their own community and assume that others can do the same are being naive (sometimes willfully so) about the disadvantages minority/oppressed communities may face and ignoring the extent to which this has the real world effect of subordinating and excluding disadvantaged groups.

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*Another reason may be the distinction above -- the whole idea of applying the rules to one's in-group is oppression.