What if Trump Wins: My Final Thoughts

 

In short What if Trump Wins believes there are four constructive responses:

• Protect people being targeted
• Defend existing institutions
• Envision what happens after Trump
• Strategize forms of resistance

The authors offer several alternatives for each category, presumably not intended to be exhaustive.  They favor national networks of all these options, but recognize that national networks are made out of local chapters, so a local focus is also valid.  And they believe that whether our democracy survives will depend on whether the resistance groups and the non-resistance opposition can join forces when the ultimate showdown occur.  And they assume that make-or-break moment will happen before the semi-quincentennial -- July 4, 2026, a date less than a week away!

Thinking it over I am not sure there is a single make-or-break moment.  Rather, there may be times when democracy fails or lives to fight another day.  The authors

implausibly propose a make-or-break moment over attempts to shut down electric vehicles.  And they optimistically assume that this one dramatic defeat will break Trump's power.  I think that our democracy really has survived one potentially fatal moment -- when Trump considered sending the Army into Minneapolis but ultimately backed down in the face of public outrage.  That convinced Trump to stop dramatic immigration blitzes and to get ICE off the front pages, which is all fine and good, but it is not the end of our peril by any means.*

But it is the other scenario, the attempt to stay in power after the 2028 election that I can't let go of.  

It is not so far from my own fantasy on that score.  My fantasy goes something like this.  The Democrat wins the election for President in 2028.  Trump orders the military to seize the ballot boxes.  The military refuses the unlawful order.  The Pentagon effectively goes on sit-down strike.  He gives similar orders to the Department of Justice.  The DOJ also goes on sit-down strike.  Then he gives the order to ICE and Border Patrol.  We all know they won't refuse.  But they are just not numerous to subjugate a country of over 300 million.  People turn out in the streets in mass.  Democratic governors call out the National Guard to protect ballot boxes, and then to protect the state capitols as they certify the results.  Congress does not dare set foot in Washington, DC, so the Governor of Maryland offers the Maryland capitol and calls out the Maryland National Guard to protect Congress.  Neighboring states send in their National Guards, and huge crowds turn out.  Congress certifies the Democrat.  The Democrat names Secretaries of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security and heads of ICE and Border Patrol ahead of his inauguration.  The Senate hastens to confirm.  On January 20, under the protection of the National Guard of several states and the crowds in the street, the Democrat is sworn in as President.  His heads of Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, ICE, and Border Patrol are sworn in immediately after.  The President orders ICE and Border Patrol to stand down, and orders the Army and federal police to stand up if Trump attempts to stay in power.  Trump flees.  I would not want this to happen because the necessary show of force is easy for Trump's supporters to portray as a coup, but at least it has a satisfying finality and ends in Trump's defeat.

But that is over two years away.  I agree with the authors that out democracy is unlikely to survive two more years of Trump's unchecked power.  The authors' chronology just doesn't work.  If you don't join the resistance Trump consolidates power by July 4, 2026.  How is that supposed to work?

But it can be made to work if instead of an attempt to rig the 2028 election, we see an attempt to rig the 2026 midterms.  The midterms rate a single mention in the book -- something you worry about if you decide to protect elections.  But the attempt to steal the midterms -- through gerrymandering, the SAVE Act, executive orders on mail-in ballots, and truly alarming developments.  And we are in the home stretch now, with the midterm just over four months away.  The attempt will undoubtedly intensify over the next four months.  We don't know yet whether it will succeed, much less what Trump will do if the attempt fails.  

The chronology for What if Trump Wins works much better if it is about an attempt to rig the midterms.  The resistance can approach the non-resistance early in 2026 with warnings of such a plan.  If the non-resistance declines to join forces, we could have the resistance crushed by July 4, the rigged election go through, and Trump end the last embers of independence in Congress and use the same mechanism of rigging elections to rig the 2028 elections and all elections in the future.  It seems all too plausible.

The problem is what if we defeat the attempt?  Then what?  As with ICE backing down in Minnesota, it will not be the decisive triumph of democracy.  It will just mean that democracy lives to fight another day.

Consider my scenario.  Suppose the Army and the Justice Department refuse illegal orders to stage a coup in 2026.  Trump will still have two more years to subvert them.  Even if we suppose that Congress impeaches Trump for the coup attempt, which he will certainly deserve, what difference will it make?  There is simply no way that Republicans in the Senate would vote to convict.  And even if they did, JD Vance would be next in line, and it is far from clear he would be any better.  Pete Hegseth would still control the military.  Todd Blanche would still control the federal police.  And as for Homeland Security, the less said the better.  It would just mean two more years to learn from past mistakes and get the bugs out of the system for 2028.  

As for What if Trump Wins, well, maybe they could hold onto hope that the failed coup will reduce Trump to a lame duck, even if he stays in power.  I wish I could be so optimistic.

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*I expect immigration to be back on the front pages soon if ICE seriously attempts mass deportations of Haitians.

Also on the MOU

I will also comment that, of course, I think it was stupid to negotiate a settlement that depending on Israel's compliance without consulting Israel.  However, when you get to be my age, you recognize it as not an extraordinary, unprecedented sort of stupidity, but as a perfectly ordinary, routine stupidity that we have fallen into all too often.

Back in Cold War times it was an absolute dogma that we must learn the lessons of Munich.  Diplomacy did not work in dealing with Hitler and therefore would not work in dealing with [fill in the blank].  Some actors were deemed morally unworthy of talking to lest it convey some sort of legitimacy on them.  This meant that diplomacy had not place in our toolkit in dealing with certain actor, but was deemed "appeasement," which didn't work at Munich as therefore must never be attempted again.

Of course, some bad actors were so big there was just no getting away from negotiating with them.  The Soviet Union was the prime example.  We included diplomacy in our toolkit in dealing with the Soviet Union at least since Stalin died in 1953.  For a long time Communist China was deemed morally unworthy to talk to, so we firmly insisted on turning our backs on the world's most populous country, waiting for it to go away.  It did not oblige, and after Nixon went to China in 1972, we opened ourselves to talking to China.  Certain remnants of this outlook remained when Obana undertook negotiations with Iran.  To many people, the details of the agreement were not the point; the point was the act of talking to the Iranian government at all.

This sometimes had absurd results in our foreign policy -- attempting to negotiate the end of a war but refusing to talk to an important belligerent because we deemed them morally unworthy of negotiations.  Unsurprisingly, it didn't work.  Realistic options would have included either talking to bad guys, or else admitting you were not trying to end the war, but only to form an alliance by all other factions to defeat the bad guys.  But we regularly claimed to be negotiating to end a war without talking to one of the sides and failing. 

A prime example to my mind also involved Israel and Lebanon when Ronald Reagan was President and George Schultz -- an eminently serious and highly respected figure -- was Secretary of State.  Lebanon has been wracked by civil war since 1975.  Syria (ruled by a hard left, pro-Soviet government) intervened and occupied large portions of Lebanon.  In 1982 Israel invaded to rout out the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO, forebear to today's Fatah).  The US (always acting through intermediaries because the PLO was one of the groups we could not talk to) negotiated the PLO's withdrawal.  The State Department, under command of George Schultz and acting through a first-rate, highly respected Arab American diplomat, negotiated Israel's withdrawal and a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon.  Unfortunately, they made the peace settlement contingent on the Syrian forces also withdrawing and neglected to consult the Syrians on the matter, since they were another of the parties who were unworthy of our negotiating with.  It worked about as well as you would expect, with civil war continuing to rage until 1990, Israel remaining in the country until 2000 and Syria until 2005.  (Hezbollah arose out of resistance to the Israeli occupation).

An obvious objection presents itself.  Granting this to be true, clearly Israel has never been one of the countries we refuse to speak to, so the situation is not comparable. In this case, though, we should see the Iranian government as the one that refuses to see Israel as legitimate and therefore refuses to talk to it.

But another phenomenon was also common at the time.  When we were unwilling to talk to a small country or faction, we might instead talk to its sponsor (typically the Soviet Union) and put pressure on the sponsor to put pressure on their client to end the war.  In the Cold War, we might put pressure on the Soviet Union to put pressure on an Arab country, while possibly putting pressure ourselves on Israel.  Here, the equivalent would be us putting pressure on Israel and Iran putting pressure on Hezbollah.  Except I have no idea whether Iran is actually putting pressure on Hezbollah at all.

In short, trying to end Israel's invasion of Lebanon without talking to Israel about it was stupid.  But that, at least, was not stupid in an extraordinary, unprecedented way.  I was just normal stupidity.

What If Trump Wins: Protecting People Being Targeted

Category	Activity
Protect people being targeted	Mutual aid society Fundraising for nonprofits Underground railroad
Defend existing institutions	Outreach to veterans/families/military Citizen scientist to assist EPA Find grants to strengthen elections
Envision what comes after Trump	Cultural/psychological grounding Constitutional convention
Resistance	Paperclip movement among civil servants Strikes Tax resistance

So, having addressed the predictions in What if Trump Wins, I want to move on to their prescriptions.  The authors comment that their categories of actions are not so distinct as they may seem, and I agree.  In particular, most* of their proposals really are geared to building new institutions that the authors hope will survive if Trump is defeated.  The authors would presumably like to see a society with a dense network of mutual aid societies and fundraisers for local non-profits, with federal regulatory agencies supplemented by citizen scientists, a clearinghouse for election-related grants, with the sort of cultural grounding they propose, and with not just their proposed constitutional reforms, but the democratic method they think the convention should follow.  And, at the same time, the proposed courses of action give us some idea what they think likely to happen under Trump.

So, without further ado, here we go.

Protect people being targeted

This is the section that talks by far the most about immigration, which makes sense, because immigrants take first place among people being targeted.  But it does not focus exclusively on immigration.  It paints a general picture -- large-scale immigration raids, summary deportations with little to no due process (no mention of a massive prison network, although that was mentioned before the election), loss of funds for health departments, increased workplace violence and hate crime, with a corresponding reduction in prosecutions.  Accurate enough except for the hate crimes and workplace violence, and even an understatement for immigration. As options, it offers mutual aid societies, emergency fundraising for non-profits, and an underground railroad.  In all cases, the authors aim for realism by starting small.  In all cases they also have a significant focus on immigration at the start but move on to other topics as well. 

I previously said that the authors appear to regard staying small, nimble, and local; scaling up on a local basis; and forming a national network all as valid options.  Looking back on it, that is only partly true.  It is true that the issue of whether Trump is defeated does not rise or fall on any of these decisions.  But scaling up does accomplish more than staying small, and if the goal is to build new institutions meant to survive whether Trump is defeated or not, then these things matter.

Mutual aid society:

This version has you start by preparing a spreadsheet of needs and offerings.  It starts very slowly, and you spend much of your time cleaning up the spreadsheet and researching to find resources for unmet needs.  An elderly couple gets help building their wheelchair ramp and pays it forward with music lessons.  The society starts offering weekly community meals that draws attention to their work.  Things speed up with an ICE raid on a local plant after the owner reported his own workers just before payday.**  The work is not initially seen as political and draws volunteers broadly across the political spectrum.

And here we go.  If you don't scale up, more and more people come to you for food after a plant closing (watch these plant closing, there will be a lot of them).  The system is even more stretched after a climate change-caused fire (watch these climate change-caused fires.  There will be even more of them).  If you scale up locally, you still have food needs, a plant closing, and a climate change-caused fire.  But you talk more about problems with the system at community meals.  Two volunteers leave the group, saying it is becoming too politicized. You add new programs like tree planting and visiting people in nursing homes.  Finally, if you build a national network, you get to see how other mutual aid societies across the country work. The network helps your community with the plant closing and climate change-caused fire.  Your community, in turn, helps out other communities when the Mississippi floods.  You are even interviewed in national news.  

So, what conclusions can we draw from this.  Well, for one thing, neither the Trump Administration nor rightwing militias appear to see the mutual aid networks as a threat or make any attempts to bother them.  Members are not afraid to give interviews to national news.  Expanding to a national network allows communities across the country to help each other.  But taking the option of a national network does not leave as much time to contribute to your own local community, with tree plantings or visits to senior homes.  I think the authors' point here is to encourage national networks, but also to recognize that a national network is necessarily made up of local chapters.  In other words, building a national network and growing your local organization are both good options.  Some should do one and some should do the other.  But do try to expand on one level or the other.

Joint emergency fundraising

The authors assume, accurately enough, that Trump will cut assistance to non-profits everywhere.  They also assume that larger nonprofits can make up the difference with high profile fundraising, but smaller groups are feeling a serious pinch.  A bunch of small groups band together to do joint fundraising and have a community funding source decide how to distribute.  In a gesture toward realism, it starts very slowly and you spend more time that you expected answering details about who get the money, when, and how.  The ICE raid when the local plant owner turns in his workforce** makes another appearance.  Joint emergency fundraising is also not initially seen as political and draws people from across the political spectrum.

If you stay small, the climate change-caused fire puts in another appearance, along with a rightwing militia burning down local (presumably minority-owned) businesses.  Resources are strained.  You decide to become more political, offering for each militia member to raise $100 for progressive causes.  Two members quit to protest the politicization, but the fundraising ploy works.  Scaling up on a local basis is not too different.  In this case, the expansion allows you to offer no-interest loans to businesses to rebuild much faster than the city.  It also means running an op ed denouncing the militia.  Finally, if you go national, you become a national fundraiser regranting to local groups.  There are tradeoffs -- speed versus accountability.  Thoroughly vetting groups lead to delays; moving quickly leads to mistakes and money being poorly used.  But you opt for speed, counting on a group's good local reputation.  The climate-change fueled fire and militia burning Black businesses make another appearance.  The differences in scaling up are less clear here.

Underground railroad:

This one naturally focuses heavily on immigration, though not exclusively.  It begins with an undocumented community member whose neighbor put all her contact information online and called ICE on her three times.   It seems uncommonly naive to expect (as the authors apparently do) that she could escape arrest with that much exposure.  And the authors sound equally naive saying that the cases "aren't numerous."  They do increase when we again meet the plant owner who calls ICE on his workforce right before payday,**  Naturally work speeds up a lot at this point.  Operational security is vital, of course, but many "conductors" are remarkably open about their work to allow people in need to find them.  Security means moving people on to the next "station" and not knowing what becomes of them after.

Here expansion is not just a matter of scale, but of openness.  It also moves into other areas besides immigration.  The authors envision a rightwing militia burning Black businesses and the owner finding a bomb planted in his car and has to be moved to safety.  If you choose to stay local, the authors also envision smuggling a high-ranking EPA whistle blower who has been fired and doxed.  And, again, if the assumption about immigrants totally fail to foresee how bad it would get, the militia attacks are mercifully something that has not happened.  I am less sure about the whistle blower.  There do appear to have been doxing and threats toward a wide range of government officials who stood up to Trump, though actual physical violence appears to be much less common.  That is about it if you stay quiet and local.  Another option is going local but more public -- running an op ed in the local newspaper about the general nature of your work, without, of course, the operational details.  This brings in more work.

The authors propose that going national starts with attempts at online training that are not very successful.  Instead, the most effective way to work is through somewhat countercultural religious organizations -- Black churches, Quaker meetings, synagogues and mosques.  This is interesting as being to sole mention of religion in the book.  I do believe that organized religion can be a valuable ally on behalf of immigrants.  Many immigrants will be members, after all.  It is a shame that the authors do not consider this any further.

In background news, the authors propose Trump sending the Texas National Guard into California to take the place of uncooperative local police, and ICE raiding a house full of immigrants and 200 neighbors coming to their defense and some of them being shot by ICE, though not fatally.  This sounds accurate, all right.  It also proposes Stephen Miller as the head of ICE (plausible, though not what happened), the underground railroad smuggling the targets to safety (not feasible, alas, there is no safety, but there are ICE watchers disrupting operations), and a veterans' network including retired generals denouncing politicization of the National Guard (also not quite what happened, but reports are that National Guard members were unhappy with being deployed against fellow citizens, and the Supreme Court eventually put at least a temporary stop to the practice).  It also envisions Liz Cheney being arrested and the underground railroad moving the rest of the January 6 Committee to safety, along with some 2000 other targeted whistle blowers.  Trump's Department of Justice has, indeed, being showing and increasing and alarming tendency toward political targeting -- though still well short of 2000 cases (so far as I know).  On there other hand -- where is safety?  Canada?

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*Some might argue all, but I disagree on some of the more resistance-minded, less legal options.
**I have my doubts about this.  I do not doubt that many unscrupulous employers wage theft and other highly exploitive practices with an undocumented workforce that does not dare report the abuses.  Indeed, who can doubt that many unscrupulous employers hold the threat of deportation over their employees to force compliance.  But calling ICE on your workforce right before payday requires recruiting and training a whole new workforce, no doubt with delays and down time while doing this.  It does not seem like a sustainable model.

Some Obvious Points About Donald Trump

 

Trump famously embodies the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby people who know very little about a field think they know much more than they actually do.  He is also the walking embodiment of H.L. Mencken's maxim that complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.

That is, of course, a major source of his appeal.  He appeals to people who don't know any more about policy questions than he does and assume that there are simple solutions out there that politicians have not adopted because they are too stupid, corrupt, or weak-willed.  Trump claims that he will cut through the red tape and fix everything by not being half-hearted about it.  Of course, when his profoundly ignorant claims run up against reality, things tend not to go so well.

In his first term, Trump appealed to people's complaints about Obamacare.  "We'll have great health care at a fraction of the cost and it will be so easy."  It was, after all, what people wanted to hear.  After working on it a while, Trump complained, "Who knew health policy was so complicated."  Not many people, Donald, just anyone who knows anything at all about health policy.  Admittedly, this is a fairly small portion of the total population.  He ended up with a plan to repeal Obamacare with no replacement and thereby strip 20 million people of their health insurance.  I think even the least informed members of the pubic would have noticed that.

Much the same applied when Trump agreed to a summit with the North Koreans.  He only cared about the pomp and pageantry and was not interested in trivial details like what agreement they might reach.

For his second term, Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine in one day.  Presumably he believed that his friend Pooty, would happily end the war as a personal favor.  To the extent the Ukrainians were unwilling to agree to Putin's terms, a little arm twisting should bring them into line.  Well, this failed for much the same reason -- Trump thinks of foreign policy solely in terms of personal relationships and has no idea that countries have interests that transcend the individuals in charge.  

So too with the Iran war.  The Iranians' clear wish up until February 28 to avoid war with a much stronger country made Trump think they were pushovers and easily intimidated.  What he didn't understand was that the regime was never going to agree to its own destruction, or that it would fight fiercely when cornered, although both points should have been obvious.  He appears to have believed that Iran would be intimidated into submission by the mere presence of US forces or, failing that, that he would have been able to swap out the name at the top for someone more compliant, just the way it has worked in Venezuela.

When that failed, Trump's advisors apparently convinced him that if he blockaded the straits, pressure would build up in Iran's oil storage and threaten to blow up in a matter of days, which would presumably force their capitulation.  Well, spoiler alert, that didn't happen either.  Trump now seems to believe that if he threatens and cajoles enough the Iranians will agree to his terms in a matter of days.  He has no patience for the long, drawn-out process of diplomacy.  

In the case of Obamacare, the dying John McCain made one last appearance in the Senate to save his party from itself and vote down repeal.  No deal was reached in either Korea or Ukraine, so the situation continued -- bad, but ultimately something most Americans could live with.

Well, the war in Iran is looking to be the most intractable problem yet.  Continuing that status quo is clearly not acceptable and bound to get worse, but there is no easy out.

Maybe next time don't elect President Dunning-Kruger.

Reflections on the Gerrymanders

 

The original gerrymander

I was confused by reports on the latest Supreme Court outrage.  A decision that allows states to gerrymander to reduce minority representation but not to increase it???  How does that work?

It appears that the answer is that the Supreme Court held that states may not take race into account in drawing voting districts may may consider partisanship.  The practical effect of this was to remove the last barrier to Republican gerrymandering in southern states.  Up till now, Republican legislatures in the South were not allowed to deliberately break up Black districts.  They are now free to do so, so long as they claim to be setting boundaries for partisan, rather than racial, reasons.  Presumably Democratic states could do the opposite -- maximize minority representation so long as they claim partisan motives.

Naturally Republicans are cackling gleefully, boasting about redrawing their districts to ensure that Republicans have permanent control of Congress.

Just last week, Republicans were outraged that Virginia had redrawn its districts to move Democrats' advantage from 6-5 to 10-1.  And given the general makeup of the Virginia electorate, that move, taken by itself, would be egregiously unfair.  But Republicans are ignoring their own behavior leading up to the Virginia move, redrawing electoral maps in Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina, with Florida next in line.  

And no, this is not two children on the playground yelling about who started it, or a game of tit for tat. This is about whether Democrats will unilaterally disarm, giving Republicans a complete free hand to draw districts to their advantage while Democrats refrain.  Last week Republicans were denouncing how unfair the Virginia gerrymander was and pointing out other Democratic states that were gerrymandered (sometimes even denouncing states with just one Representative for not having a proportionate share of Republicans!) while totally ignoring the gerrymanders in Republican states.  Now Republicans are boasting about redrawing districts so as to ensure that Democrats can never hold Congress again.  

Sigh!  I know Republicans don't read my blog.  (Neither does anyone else, really).  But simply put, the options are like this:

No one gerrymanders	Republican gerrymander Democrats don’t
Democrats gerrymander Republicans don’t	Both parties gerrymander

So far as I can tell, Democrats, given the opportunity to rank their preferences, would do it as follows:

1. No one gerrymanders	4. Republican gerrymander Democrats don’t
3. Democrats gerrymander Republicans don’t	2. Both parties gerrymander

Republicans, by contrast, appear to rank their preferences as follows:

4. No one gerrymanders	1. Republican gerrymander Democrats don’t
4. Democrats gerrymander Republicans don’t	4. Both parties gerrymander

It is not even clear to me that Republicans are able to distinguish among the other three options.

Not Very Original Thoughts on the Iran War

 

I don't have anything very original to say about the war in Iran, but it is hard to think about anything else these days, so let me offer some unoriginal thoughts.

Beware the cornered animal.

Obviously not an original observation, but Trump did not expect this kind of retaliation.  He did not expect it because he had hit Iran before, fairly hard, and not received a strong response.  In his first term, Trump killed Qassim Suleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Iran made only the most token retaliation.  Last year he launched the 12 Days War to wreck Iran's nuclear program and Iran barely even made that.  This led Trump to assume that the Iranian regime was made of pushovers who would not strike back no matter what.  What he failed to take into account was the desperation of a government that truly has nothing to lose.  When you tell an enemy that you want their head on a platter and will not settle for anything less, you can expect an extremely hostile and belligerent response.  

Iran's response may be an extreme example, but the phenomenon is universal.  It is also a thing to keep in mind when we consider the merits of punishing Trump, his inner circle, and ICE.  Yes, they all richly deserve it, and yes, it has value as a deterrent.  But many a dictator has been allowed to escape punishment to avoid triggering the cornered animal response.  A thing to consider.

Harsh measures can strengthen resolve.  This cuts both ways.

By destroying the top leadership and making clear we considered the regime's existence unacceptable, we made it resolve to resist at all costs because there was no alternative.  Maybe the people will rise up if we destroy the Iranian military but spare civilian targets.  But heavy bombing is not normally conducive to domestic rebellion.

The same applies to Iran's opponents.  The Arabian Gulf states warned against war because they feared that they would be targets.  Now that they have been hit, Gulf Arabs are understandably furious at Iran. Iran hitting hotels and apartment buildings was a clear war crime.  Indeed, even the Iranian leadership appears to have recognized such strikes as counterproductive, apologized, and promised to stick to military targets. But even if we make the dubious assumption that the Iranians will keep their word, the Arabs are still in an extraordinarily awkward spot.  They invited US military bases to protect them from Iran.  The bases led them to be targeted.  But what choice do they have now?  If they kick the US out, they will be completely vulnerable to Iranian domination.  And this is to say nothing of Iran's attacks on Arab oil production.  The laws of war are unclear on the matter, and the devastating effect on Arab economies is all too obvious.  Again, Arabs are furious over this.

Israelis are also understandably furious.  And so is much of the rest of the world at seeing its economy attacked.  Which leads to a closely related point.

Wars like this are easier to get into than out of.

Look, given the balance of forces, it seems safe to assume we will eventually emerge with something that could be called victory.  My guess is that if there were a face-saving way for Trump to declare victory and stand down, he would take it.  The problem is that neither Iran nor Israel appears willing to agree to such an arrangement any time soon, and that so long as the opposing party is willing and able to strike back, the war is not ended.

Worse yet, things like this tend to spread.  After all, it is not just our economy that is being affected by this war; it is every oil importing economy across the world.  Given how Trump has been treating our allies, it is entirely understandable that they may not want to join us in forcing open the Straits of Hormuz.  Given the stakes, they may not have the choice.

Even worse -- we have used up so many anti-missile defensive weapons that we are being forced to move them out of South Korea.  It seems likely that the North Koreans will take advantage of the situation.  Suddenly, we are starting to get a WWIII vibe.

Russia

I don't believe that Trump undertook this war as a favor to his friend Pooty to build up Russia's war chest against Ukraine.  There would be easier ways to assist Putin, such as just lifting sanctions, cutting off intelligence sharing with Ukraine, or even directly assisting Russia.  All evidence points to Trump being genuinely caught off guard by spiking oil prices and wanting to bring them down.  That being said, he may very well view any advantage this war gives Putin as a side benefit.

Also, I don't think it is crazy to dismiss Russian intelligence assistance to Iran as an ordinary incident of war -- an expected response to our intelligence assistance to Ukraine.  And yes, the situations are comparable.  Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine.  We are the aggressor in Iran.  Both sides appear to be giving intel on appropriate military targets.  Admittedly, the Iranian regime is much worse than the government of Ukraine and more deserving of being overthrown.  But then again, the Russian homeland has been hit.  Ours has not.

So I understand Trump declining to be outraged over Russia's assistance to Iran.  On the other hand, all of this point to the strategic incoherence of pursuing a policy that is simultaneously pro-Russian and anti-Iran.  Maybe, just maybe, this war will drive home even to Trump the incoherence of such a policy.  That would be a good thing.  Unless it leads to WWIII.

Domestic politics.

Domestic politics clearly are a factor here.  This does not mean that the war is just a ruse to distract from the Epstein files.  The whole obsession with the Epstein files is just a replay of the error we made in Russiagate -- looking for the one silver bullet that will slay the Trump monster.  There is no such silver bullet.  But I do believe that Trump is focusing on foreign policy at least in part because of growing signs that his domestic power is slipping.  The Epstein files are part of that, but by no means all.  Consider:

• More and more material is being released from the Epstein files, including credible evidence that Trump physically and sexually assaulted a girl under 16.
• The House Oversight Committee has issued a bipartisan subpoena to Pam Bondi to testify about the Epstein files.
• High power law firms appear to be prevailing in their suit to keep Team Trump from punishing them for their opposition.
• Universities are also prevailing in their suits against Trump,
• The Supreme Court has largely blocked deployment of the National Guard without the consent of governors.
• The Supreme Court has also blocked Trump's tariffs, at least in their most arbitrary and capricious form.
• Prosecution of political opponents has failed.
• Anthropic is defying the Pentagon and taking it to court.
• Thus far, Senate Republicans are refusing to yield to Trump's pressure to block the filibuster to pass the SAVE Act.
• Republicans are clearly bracing for large-scale losses in the midterms.
• Opponents of ICE have landed their first Cabinet-level scalp in Kristi Noem.* Admittedly, her proposed replacement is not better, but we have proven that sufficiently intense and sustained outrage can remove a Cabinet Secretary, which may have an effect on her successor.
• ICE appears to be behaving marginally better, at least for now.

This is not to say that all is well.  ICE continues to expand in personnel, budget, prison network, and surveillance capabilities, and to treat opposition as terrorism.  Democracy is not safe until that ends.  And we don't yet know what tricks Trump has up his sleeve for the midterm elections, or how he will respond if he loses.

And let's face it.  This war just might be what Trump needs to revive his domestic fortunes.  Consider:

The war has proven to be expensive and Trump is seeking new funding.  Democrats have pledged to oppose it, but does anyone seriously believe that Congress will deny our troops funding for the munitions they need to defend themselves while they are being shot at?  Particularly if Iran shows no willingness to stop shooting?

The risk of Iranian terrorist attacks will massively increase pressure on Democrats to fund the Department of Homeland Security.  There have already been three terrorist attacks -- all apparently isolated instances not backed by the Iranian regime, but alarming nonetheless.

And there is some evidence that support for the war is rising and the rally-round-the-chief effect is taking hold.  And here is the thing.  A long, drawn-out war almost always becomes unpopular, but the effect can take years.  A quick and easy victory can give a leader a boost, but it is rarely more than a short-lived sugar high.  But US bases being attacked, troops being killed, terrorist attacks at home, and the like -- well, see the first point above about initial hardship strengthening resolve.  A serious war may be just what Trump needs to revive his domestic popularity.  Yes, it will eventually decline if the war drags on for years, but that is a remote concern.  And it may not last long after a successful conclusion -- see GHW Bush, Churchill, etc.  But that just gives Trump incentive to prolong the war, at least in the medium term.

Buckle up, folks.  Things could get rough.

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*Really, their second scalp counting Greg Bovino.  And there is a third scalp as well in that ICE Barbie appears to be taking her ICE Ken with her.  But Noem is the only Cabinet-level scalp so far.

An Obscure But Vitally Important Provision in the Constitution

 

So, as I have struggled to understand our insane system of budgeting, some major defects have come into full view.  Does it make any sense at all to require a super-majority in the Senate for annual appropriations and allow a simple majority for appropriations that can last up to ten years?  It would make infinitely more sense to me to pass ordinary legislation, including annual budgets, by a simple majority and require a super-majority to anything that commits us for an extended period of time.  Yet Senate rules have decided differently.  

To be clear, this requirement is not part of the Constitution, nor is it a statute.  It is a Senate rule that can be changed any time.  And as we face the extremely dangerous prospect of a lawless paramilitary with enough funding to last over seven years without further appropriations, I begin to fully appreciate an obscure but important provision in the Constitution and wish that it could be brought up to date to face our current situation.

The Constitution does not expressly authorize mandatory spending in the sense of spending that is required to continue for an extended length of time, often with a special fund to finance it.  But it does implicitly authorize mandatory spending by banning it in only one instance.  

Article I of the Constitution establishes Congress as the legislative branch of the Federal government.  Section 8 of Article I sets forth Congress's enumerated powers.  And Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 contains the only restriction on the duration of funding, giving Congress the power, "To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years."

Congress is not allowed to commit funds to support an army for any duration longer than two years, i.e., one House term.  Note that this provision does not place such a limit on all military spending, only on spending on an army.  Article I, Section 8, Clause 13 authorizes Congress, "To provide and maintain a Navy" with no equivalent restriction.

The reasons for this provision are well understood.  The Framers of the Constitution distrusted standing armies but also recognized that unilateral disarmament was suicidal.  The two-year restriction was a compromise.  If an army started to look menacing, Congress would have the option of defunding it.*  Presumably the threat of loss of funds would also serve as a deterrent to any army with dangerous aspirations.  No equivalent restriction was placed on navies because navies posed no such danger.

Fortunately, that situation has never come about.  Unfortunately, the Framers did not include a similar provision for paramilitaries, a contingency they presumably did not foresee.  Well, here we are.

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*Not addressed: What to do about a well-armed and trained body of men starting to act menacing and then are suddenly deprived of their funds.  It is a prospect I am apprehensive about if we feed ICE into the woodchipper, but still better than the alternative.

Homeland Security Funding Battle

 

I am still struggling to understand the Congressional funding rules.  It appears that the House passed the final four bills, agreeing to vote on Homeland Security separately from the others, but then stitched all together and sent to the Senate to approve or reject.  In other words, they are not about to give up their hostages.  Since the Alex Pretti shooting, Democrats have vowed not to vote for the Homeland Security bill.  There has been talk of passing the other bills and allowing only Homeland Security to close, although I cannot see why Republicans would agree to that.

But even if they do agree, Democrats are in a difficult spot.  First of all, refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security would not just defund La Migra.  The Coast Guard and FEMA are also included.  Furthermore, the proposed ICE budget is $10 billion.  Funds given to ICE in the One Bad Bloated Boondoggle -- $75 billion.  In other words, even if Democrats were to cut off all funding for ICE, they would have a war chest large enough to last to the end of the Trump Administration and the first term of a hypothetical future Democratis Administration!  

All of which means that we have to face facts.  Sooner or later Democrats will climb down and agree to some sort of deal to fund DHS in order to restore funding to the Coast Guard, FEMA, etc.  Not funding ICE at all will not so much as crimp its operations.  At best, Democrats can seek to impose some restrictions on La Migra.  I have made some suggestions and can think of more.  Possibilities include:

• Outlaw arrest quotas and incentives.  This has the advantage that it would probably appeal even to ICE agents themselves and the disadvantage that it might be seen as unconstitutional micro-managing of the executive by the legislature.  But it is the wholly unrealistic arrest quotas that are driving everything else.
• Ban Border Patrol from internal enforcement.
• Strengthen Congress's authority to inspect immigration detention facilities.
• Mandate that La Migra follow the pattern of any other law enforcement agency -- any officer who discharges a firearm is to be suspended during (mandatory) investigation.
• Limit the President's power to fire immigration judges for making decisions he doesn't like.
• Require release on bond for anyone with a plausible claim to legal status who has strong ties to the community and is not a flight risk.
• Clearly define what is deemed to be proof of citizenship and require immigration agents to release anyone who can show it.
• Affirm the right of citizens to film and protest, perhaps setting more clearly defined limits of how close they can get and what constitutes "interference."
• Require a judicial warrant to enter a private space.
• Make clear that murder and mayhem on the job are prosecutable under state law.
• Create individual civil liability.
• And possibly, as a sop to Republicans, make it easier for La Migra to access arrest records and put a hold on people in custody.

Of course, I doubt that most of these would get past Republicans in Congress, let along Trump's signature.  But that it is where we, the people, come in.  Our job is to create political pressure.

Shutdown Over ICE: The Policy

 

With that being said, here is the problem.  I am all for a government shutdown of Homeland Security.  Less clear -- the ask.  Is there anything at all Democrats in Congress can do that will make a difference?  

I have heard a wide range of proposals offered for how to reign in La Migra.  But that is not the problem.  There are already all sort of laws on the books constraining La Migra.  La Migra is simply ignoring the laws, confident that there will be no consequences. So sure, there is no harm in passing more laws to reign La Migra in, but I don't see what good can come of it.  There have to be some sort of consequences.

The usual form of consequences is to use to power of the purse strings -- threaten their budget.  But that won't work in this case.  The One Bloated Barbaric Bonanza gave $170 billion for border enforcement, including $75 billion to ICE to be spent over the next four years.  By contrast, proposed budget for the entire Department of Homeland Security $65 billion.  Indeed, one article I saw (can no longer find) suggested that Republicans gave such an excessive amount precisely because they expected Democrats to cut off funding and wanted to prevent such an outcome.

Kristi "ICE Barbie" Noem

Others have proposed to impeach Kristi Noem.  Again, I see no particular harm in impeaching Ice Barbie, but no benefit to it, either.  ICE Barbie is nothing but a (purportedly) pretty face on an ugly reality.  The real power behind the throne is Stephen Miller and is wholly unrealistic quota of 3,000 arrests a day, which cannot be met without blatant illegality.  And Miller is not going anywhere.  He is the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, a position not requiring Senate confirmation. (Possibly Trump feared that even this Senate might not confirm him).  Presumably White House personnel who serve at the complete discretion of the President without the need for Senate confirmation are not subject to impeachment.  And the Atlantic ran an article pouring cold water on any hopes that Miller might be fired. Not only is he a supremely competent manager (a rare thing for this team and therefore important to keep), but his colleagues generally like him and find him easy to work with.  Miller will not be facing the sort of revolt that ousted Elon Musk.

The only other way I can think of imposing consequences is to create individual civil liability for any agent violating people's rights, or, if the agent cannot be identified, the commanding officer in the field.

PS: Actually, I can think of one thing that could possibly make a difference, although I don't know if we can ever get Republicans to agree to it.  And that is to attack La Migra from the other end -- the court and prison end.  Make it much harder for the President to replace immigration judges for not following his wishes, a blatant violation of separation of powers anyhow.  And require bond so long as the detainee does not have a criminal record, has significant ties to the community, and has any plausible claim to be allowed to stay.  It won't stop ICE outrages.  But it will soften the damage they cause, if most of the people arrested can be released relatively soon.  And it will mean more witnesses running around with a story to tell. And that will create at least some degree.

PPS:  At least one of the things that is driving this is Steve Miller's quota of 3000 arrests a day, which cannot be done without complete thuggery.  Even worse, ICE agents are rewarded for their number of arrests, even if the arrestee is later cleared and released.  Maybe find some way to disallow this.  I had some thought of introducing some sort of disincentive for wrongful arrests, but that would probably just lead to more cover ups.  But at least find a way to disallow rewarding number of arrests regardless.

PPPS:  Other suggestions:  An express statement that Migra officers are subject to prosecution under state law for murder, mayhem, and perhaps a few other very serious offenses.  A ban on the Border Patrol taking part in internal enforcement.  An express statement that La Migra may not enter private areas without a judicial warrant and that an administrative warrant is not sufficient.  Hard guidelines on the use of force.  An affirmation that the public has the right to file Migra actions and protests outside of Migra facilities, perhaps with sone sort of rule about the distance they must keep and an acknowledgement that getting too close can be obstruction.

Of course, good luck getting this past the Republicans.

PPPPS: Maybe a requirement that a "Kavanaugh stop" actually follow the rules the Justice Kavanaugh suggested.  In the absence of even an administrative warrant, if a Migra officer makes a stop based solely on "reasonable suspicion," the officer must give the person being stopped a reasonable opportunity to present proof of citizenship or legal residence, and allow anyone producing such proof to leave.  Then give a list of what must be deemed proof of citizenship or legal residence.  It won't stop "papers, please," but at least it can limit that to an annoyance for actual citizens or legal residents.

Shutdown Over ICE: The Politics

 

This shutdown is different.  With the last shutdown, I thought the Democrats should cave because they were better off politically losing than winning.  While I agree with JV Last that the real issue is power, not policy, I also think the Democrats did pretty well on power in an understated sort of way. 

Trump (backed by Russ Vought) intended the shutdown as a major power grab to enact major firings of federal employees and funding of projects in a manner calculated to be punitive to Democrats.  The power grab failed and appears to have soured Republicans in general and Trump in particular on shutdowns.  Senate Republicans preserved the filibuster, against Trump's wishes, giving Democrats the opportunity to use this weapon again.  And the politics of the shutdown were good.  It brought the issue of health insurance subsidies to the public's attention and made clear that Republicans were to blame for spiking premiums.  Granted, the wins on matters of power were purely defensive, i.e., they thwarted power grabs rather than grabbing any power back.  But I do not think public opinion would have backed Democrats using shutdown to leverage a power grab.

This time is different.

This time is clearly, unambiguously about power -- specifically, the power of La Migra to terrorize blue cities into submission.  It is understood that way on all sides.  It is also something that is clear as videos of violence in the city, and not a mere abstraction.  And it is one where Democrats have no choice but to take a stand.  Their base demands it.  Their own cities could be next if ICE is not stopped.  And public opinion is generally in their favor.  Some left-leaning pollesters have even claimed that this is a 70-30 issue in the Democrats' favor.  Actually, it looks more like 50-30 against ICE, with about 20% of the population undecided.  Democrats have the opportunity to sway more people in their favor by going all out publicizing ICE outrages.  Of course, Republicans are also seeking to sway public opinion.  This is something that could to 50-50, 70-30, or maybe 60-40.  Which way it goes will be immensely important.

Timid-minded advisors warn not to go all-in on immigration or we will lose.  I suppose I have two answers to that.  One is that Congressional Democrats have an obvious response.  They can say that immigration is a side issue.  The real issue is whether masked thugs should be allowed to terrorize US cities.  

The other is that the timid-minded said much the same thing when Kilmar Abrego-Garcia and the others were sent to a torture prison in El Salvador. Don't take on Trump on immigration, they warned, voters have lost all trust of the voters on the issue.  But you know what?  Some Democrats did stand up for Abrego Garcia.  Public opinion turned hard against shipping men off to a torture prison without trial for their tattoos.  The Supreme Court ruled against it.  Trump called for the expansion of the prison (capacity, about 40,000) and discussed the possibility of sending US citizens there.  But in the end he backed down.  The plan to routinely send deportees to CECOT prison was quietly dropped and eventually the detainees were released.

And the pushback is not limited to public opinion.  Many ICE agents are reluctant to go to Minneapolis in light of the outraged reaction they are facing there.  (Weather conditions probably aren't too appealing either).  A disgruntled insider is leaking damaging documents.  Even some White House insiders are concerned about the optics.

So the politics are well aligned to do a partial government shutdown over La Migra.  The question is what to demand.

In Which I Struggle to Understand the Federal Budget Process

 

So, if the time to reign in La Migra is now, the obvious procedure is through the budget.  So now I am struggling to understand how the Federal budget works, and it is really strange.

Last year, when there was a huge fight over the government shutdown, the obvious question was, given all the fuss over passing Trump's One Badly Bungled Budget, why was Congress now having to pass more legislation to keep the government open?  

This is my best understanding.  The OBBB was a budget reconciliation bill.  Supposedly, a budget reconciliation bill can only address taxes and mandatory spending (such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid etc).  Discretionary spending is controlled through appropriations.  So isn't spending on immigration enforcement discretionary?  The nearest I can understand this is an article from the American Immigration Council.  The bill gave La Migra $170.7 that it must spend by the end of fiscal 2029 (September 30, 2029).  Very little guidance was given as to the details.  The breakdown was as follows:

Spending Category	Funding Amount
Construction and maintenance of border wall, CBP checkpoints, and CBP facilities	$51.6 billion
Border Patrol agents and vehicles, and Federal Law Enforcement Training Center improvements.	$7.8 billion
Border technology and vetting	$6.2 billion
Operation Stonegarden (funding to state and local law enforcement agencies to support border enforcement)	$450 million
Border processing, including for unaccompanied children, Remain in Mexico, and expedited removal	$2.1 billion
Prosecutions of noncitizens, compensating local governments for incarcerating noncitizens, combatting drug trafficking, immigration judges	$3.3 billion
Detention capacity expansion	$45 billion
Enforcement and removal, including hiring ICE agents, transportation costs, and detaining families	$29.9 billion
State immigration and border enforcement cost-reimbursement funds	$13.5 billion
DHS cost-reimbursement fund for border enforcement	$10.0 billion
DOD support for immigration and border enforcement	$1.0 billion
Total	$170.7 billion

Discretionary spending is supposed to be financed by twelve appropriations bills -- agriculture, commerce, defense, energy and water, finance (treasury), homeland security, interior and environment, social services (education, health, labor), legislative functions, VA and military construction, foreign affairs, and housing and transportation.  These bills are often lumped together in varying combinations to limit the number of votes.  The bill that ended the government shutdown gave funding for the fiscal year for three of these bills.  Those bills were agriculture, meaning that SNAP benefits will not be endangered in case of another government shutdown (hurray!); VA and military construction, meaning that in case of another shutdown VA employees will be paid and housing can be built for military families (hurray!) and legislative services, meaning that in case of another shutdown Congress will be fully funded (doesn't that figure!).  I was so ill-informed as to have thought that the defense appropriation was also paid, but I was wrong.

Five more of the appropriations bills have passed the House by wide margins and are expected to be approved by the Senate.  On January 8, the House passed combined bills funding commerce, energy and water, and interior and environment by a vote of 397-28.  On January 14, the House passed the bills funding the State Department and the Treasury Department by a slightly less overwhelming but still strong vote of 341-79.  It seems a safe assumption that both bills will overwhelmingly pass the Senate and be signed into law.

That leaves defense, social services, transportation/HUD, and Homeland Security.  Theoretically, these could be passed as a combined bill or separately.  Of these four bills, transportation and HUD sounds wholly uncontroversial.  The defense appropriations bills is clearly a must-pass in the sense that everyone agrees our military obligations have to be met and our troops have to be paid.  On the other hand, Donald Trump has created a controversy by calling for a 50% increase.  And some people want to use the bill to block funding for any invasion of Greenland.  Continuing resolution, maybe, to fund defense at current levels for a few months while we talk about it?  I really don't understand the social services bill.  The House passed a three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies, but this is apparently separate from the one-year appropriation bill.  I don't know of any other controversies here, but obviously there is a lot that I don't know.  But what is undisputed is that the biggest controversy is over funding Homeland Security.

Look, let's state the obvious here.  I am sure that Democrats would very much like to pass suitable bills to fund transportation, defense (possibly by continuing resolution), and social services (leaving Obamacare subsidies to be decided separately) and cut off funding solely for Homeland Security.  But let's be serious.  What are the chances the Republicans would agree?  If there is going to be a partial government shutdown, they are going to want it to be as painful as possible to put pressure on Democrats to cave.  Why would they give up valuable hostages?

But suppose the Republicans are so crazy as to give up their hostages.  Instead of facing of air traffic controllers and troops not being paid, we are facing solely a cutoff in funding for Homeland Security.  That can be sustained for a long time.  But not forever.  Why?  Because Homeland Security is not limited to ICE and Border Patrol.  It also includes uncontroversial agencies, such as the Coast Guard and FEMA.  How long can the Coast Guard go unpaid before there is serious pressure to fund them?  And if a shutdown were to extend all the way into summer, FEMA would be unable to pay for disaster relief.  Sooner or later, even Homeland Security will have to be paid.  The question is, on what conditions?