Five Takes on TDS

 

 

 

 I have often seen the acronym misused with regard to those who sense reality, applied incorrectly by those whose motivation is only to "own the libs". I propose several alternative views of it. 

1)  Trump Derangement Syndrome:  According to the Cambridge Dictionary, derangement is defined as the state of being completely unable to think clearly or behave in a controlled way, especially because of mental illness. This applies, not to those who react with anger or sadness to Trump's maladministration, but it is better applied to those who are still under his spell after all these years--the MAGA believers.  These folks are generally still out of their minds and beyond reach. 

2)  Trump Delusion Sufferers:  These are the people who had some rational thought that a change of administration might benefit them, in terms of their chief concerns--say, the economy.  They now realize that the expectation they drew from what was promised was merely a scam.

The way to interact with them is as you would with someone who is a victim of fraud, whether their own credulity caused them to become victims, or just were outwitted.  Sympathize with them for their loss; then you can safely share with them how you, too, suffer from the damage.

3) Trump Depression Sufferers:  These are the many people who have observed what is happening and cannot get over the sadness it brings them.  Depression is very hard to treat; the recourse to alcohol and/or drugs is the wrong medicine.  In this case, it would seem best to try to interest them in something else besides politics, such as horseback riding, a fitness and dieting regime, comedy, or Tai Chi. 

4) Trump Dethronement Schemers:  Some of them are motivated by a spirit of revenge, others from a righteous desire to defend our Constitution, but the common thread is what King Crimson called "Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind" (album cover illustration above).*  This is all well and good but needs to be put on hold, lest the 8647 Police come to take you away. I will admit that this is the version to which I am most susceptible. 

5) Trumpism Defeat Scenarists:  At last we come to a worthwhile version.  People are coming at this from all sorts of angles. There are various ways to skin this cat, and the only question is to unite around the one script that is most feasible. It must start with taking control of the US House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections, then using the control of the House committees to expose the full range of corruption in this administration and the damage its economic and foreign policies are causing.  The goal is a complete wipeout of the Trumpist program in 2028, and then to move forward with policies that will prevent any recurrence of unconstitutional and anti-democratic governance.  The progress will then follow.

 

*Photo from the Wikipedia article about that musical release, by the sterling formation of the 2010's which performed the last live tour of the band.  Highly recommended, as is the more reduced "Live in Toronto" release.  I hope this plug makes up for the appropriation of the intellectual property.

Future Project 2025, Part I

So, "Where Do We Go Now?" 

(I hate Axl Rose and not fond of Guns 'n Roses, but the guitar solo is irresistible.)

 

An Inquiry into the Human Prospect (Robert L. Heilbroner)

This begins a series of posts to develop some ideas about our future, utilizing past studies of the question of our collective future, what they knew and didn’t know, and what we can learn from their analyses,  This first one was written some 50 years ago; most of the others will be from the time around 2000, when the question of the future figured prominently in popular culture.

Heilbroner was a prominent professor of economics at the New School in New York.  He branched out into areas of the history of economics, philosophy, and political economy.  He wrote at a time like ours in many ways, when various national proxy-type wars were being experienced, internal strife in the US was strong, and anxiety was high.  I note also the similarity between the so-called Generation Gap of the time, between the young Baby Boomers and their parents, and the modern gap between those same Boomers, now aging, and the younger Gen Z and Millennials. 

Heilbroner's Theses

In terms of  threats to humanity, he named 1) population growth; 2) the potential destruction caused by wars; and 3) environmental limits to growth and its effect on quality of life.  The fourth development, the rapid progress in scientific and technological prowess, he identified as both an enabler to solve problems and a catalyst for accelerating them.  

In particular, he saw as probable that the relatively easy path to nuclear proliferation raised a likelihood that underdeveloped countries would use their ability to produce them in order to blackmail the developed ones with the threat of nuclear terrorism, in order to demand major economic concessions.

In terms of our internal capability to address these threats, he was quite pessimistic, seeing human nature as basically unchangeable and the framework of nation-states as also next to permanent. In full recognition of the seemingly unstoppable momentum of industrial growth and of the accelerating pace of scientific and technological achievements of  recent decades, he nevertheless asserted that these could not continue, due primarily to approaching environmental disaster and exhaustion of primary resources needed for industry.  In particular, he named climate change as something that would arise and threaten the continuation of humanity, along with exponential population growth. 

The volume I re-read for this post was copyrighted 1975 (W.W. Norton), which reprised his original 1972-73 work but included his own postscripts written shortly afterward.  In these, he noted how events immediately after the initial publication-- the Arab-Israeli War and the oil embargo imposed by OPEC, and the expansion of the nuclear weapons club with India's first successful test-- gave his warnings additional public impetus, but his perspective was much more long-term.  While admitting that he fully partook of the benefits of advanced industrial civilization, his point of view was that, while events in the short-term or even medium-term might vary trends, the long-term reality remained that industrial growth, augmented by the inevitable development in the Third World, could not continue apace.  He mentioned the possibility that conversion toward service industry and that improvements like solar energy could ameliorate the crisis and lengthen the term of our progress, yet he remained pessimistic for the long run. 

His conclusions included the thought that strong authoritarian governments--such as the Maoist China of his time--might be able to both stem population growth and control popular demand for economic growth. He admitted that he loved being in a democratic society with free speech, etc., but didn't find it conducive to the changes that must come.  He acknowledged that people do not think about the long-term result of their daily lives and even might question the need to do so, but he urged us to bear the burden of keeping on with doing the right things for posterity. In the aftermath of the convulsive end to our headlong race to self-destruction, he saw the possibility for something like nationalistic, religious societies to emerge in a "monastic" future civilization.

The View from 50 Years Beyond

It seems now that his pessimistic views of human nature and societal flexibility are more in tune with today's reality than the hugely optimistic view prevalent at the millennium. Three or four big changes came that he did not fully anticipate: 

1)  The collapse of the Soviet Union, with its follow-on developments for Eastern Europe and the evolution of the European Union have been game-changers over the past few decades.  One hugely positive result has been a period with less wars between the powers, conducted through proxy contests. Of course, few if any saw the fall of the Iron Curtain coming until the years just before those events at the end of the Eighties.  This changed the status of socialism; I would point out that the movement toward Euro-Communism, or "socialism with a human face", that was rising in the Seventies, had also faded by then, with capitalism emerging dominant in most of the world.  

Even China found its way toward economic development more like that of capitalism though the Communist Party retained its exclusive hold on power there.   In that sense, modern China has become even more like the kind of political force that can successfully influence the course of society and domestic economy, through coercion combined with massive investment. On the other hand, the supreme power position of the US, leading the so-called Western nations, has endured longer, though its unchallenged reign seems almost over, MAGA notwithstanding, and even assisting in its eclipse.

2) Resource limitations do exist and are apparent in some areas, but the continuing identification of extractable fossil fuels has been a surprise which has allowed ongoing growth of things like heavy industry  (in many parts of the world), the transportation vehicles using them, and the industries that make and distribute those vehicles of individual transport. This result thus continues environmental degradation.

3) Population growth has slowed in most parts of the world, so that we can now foresee a leveling off of population--it is still on the order of 10 billion, as compared to the 3 billion of Heilbroner's time. The ability to provide food for all the world's people is real--which would surprise some of his time-though economic inequality makes its distribution to all a real challenge.  Heilbroner asserted that exponential population growth must end, and that appears to be the case; it may have happened faster than expected.  Some of that was through coercive policies in China and India, but just as much through a natural reduction in the birth rate as more societies achieved full modernization and greater economic security.

In terms of the environmental threat, there is some of the progress that he foresaw as possible, but also setbacks, due to the reason of continued industrial development facilitated by the availability of resources.  An unanticipated effect in a negative sense resulted paradoxically from the reduction of air pollution due to cleaner fuels, as greater absorption of solar energy on land and sea due to clearer skies has actually accelerated global temperature increase. One challenge that he mentioned doubtfully was successfully addressed internationally:  the elimination of the production of the most damaging chlorofluorocarbons.

4) In terms of technology and how it affects the human prospect, the greatest change has been the development of immense digital capability, as computing power has increased exponentially, along with data storage capacity and the density of electronic microsystems.  The effects on consumers of electronic devices have been a combination of greater capabilities, especially in communication, but also societal changes which we do not fully understand yet. The advent of artificial intelligence, which was merely theoretical fifty years ago, has resulted from greater computing power and enormously greater data to train AI programs upon; it presents a frontier in which we are only taking the first steps forward.

And What This Means for Our Own Future...and Beyond

 Heilbroner specifically mentioned the 1.5 degree Celsius increase--even then!--as a known threat to our quality of life and the planet's biology.  That threshold now seems to have been reached or surpassed, with little doubt that the mean global temperature is still on the rise; we do not have a firm idea how much more will be coming, or even that clear of an idea of all the consequences.  There is some reason to believe we can slow that growth, through voluntary means or possibly with the assistance of some technological fixes, despite the current trends in some nations (speaking to you, USA under Trump 2.0) to ignore or go against the needed changes. 

The USA is just one part of the problem, though; some parts of the world are still industrializing and using dirtier means than necessary to do so.  China is both rapidly advancing in solar energy and building more polluting coal plants. There is a real possibility of sea level rise producing dramatic, if gradual, threat to the huge portion of our planet's human population living near coasts. Ecologies are being disrupted, and climate change is also taking the form of more severe storm systems. Our progress in feeding the world could be at risk, too, if our agricultural capability deteriorates. One can envision a future where many or most societies have to "hunker down"into safer areas and reduce activity, along the lines that Heilbroner suggested, but also a different, worse one where relatively few, well-off societies or subgroups within societies can hide from the devastation experienced elsewhere.      

The threat of nuclear annihilation remains, through wars between nations--now re-emerging in comparison to recent decades--or terrorism.  The club of nations with nuclear weapons has expanded some, with North Korea being an especially threatening new member, and that expansion could easily accelerate if, for example, Iran tests a nuclear device.  The limited progress of the past in preventing unlimited expansion of strategic weapons development seems to be receding rapidly, and warfare is becoming ever more mechanized and less restricted. 

Heilbroner was surely correct in his assessment that social, economic, and political structures of the time would be unable to adapt successfully to the threats posed by war, exponential growth, and climate change. So, where do we go from here?  My inspiration is the relative success the world has had in slowing population growth; it has not happened everywhere, but it has happened enough that we can see the light.  I disagree strongly with those who feel there is some crisis because the wealthier countries' birthrates have dropped below replacement level--there are plenty more people to fill the gaps, and the pig in the python will pass through eventually. 

There is a way forward without coercive or oligarchic survival mechanisms. We must first reverse the negative trends in our confidence and find our voice to make smart choices, democratically.  We must figure out how people--all people--can earn a decent living in a capitalist, or mixed, economy in which so many jobs will be eaten up by artificial intelligence programs and robots. Some nations will make more progress toward a successful path to the future, some less, and we must tolerate both.  

The greatest disappointment of the past decades to me is the absence of transnational cooperation.  The United Nations has failed under its current charter in its primary role of ending warfare, though it accomplishes much in humanitarian areas and does provide some means of participation for smaller countries. The climate change conferences produce agreements, agonizingly constructed, that are not respected. Crimes against humanity continue, and the US "exceptionalism" has been exceptionally uncooperative when it comes to international treaties designed to have accountability for them.  I have not lost hope for progress, but it will likely come far into the future.  Until then, our dreams of interplanetary exploration are a sad joke. 

Heilbroner thought religion could help make the necessary transitions.  My response was initially skeptical, when I read his book decades ago:  I am a confirmed agnostic, in that I know that I don't know.  I have seen enough of all the religions to know that they converge on certain ethical and moral principles, ones that, from a game theory or business model point of view, are necessary to share:  how could a belief system that encourages harm to one's neighbor, theft, and deception survive for long? 

I am encouraged by some progressive trends in the Catholic church, and I believe the new pope Leo XIV may make his mark toward reducing warlike behavior, and follow his predecessor's steps in recognizing the validity of other religious beliefs and their followers.  The fact that he is a US citizen (also one of Peru) is significant and may make a real difference in a movement among us toward tolerance, respect for the natural beauty of our planet, and reduced militarism (and, I might add, excessive nationalism).  The church's stance on "allowing" women to have multiple children has been harmful in some regions--it is not alone in that antisocial stance--but has also been overcome, broadly, and as I say, population growth is not the huge problem it appeared to be in the past.  

What Is To Be Done?

Kamala Harris' Presidential campaign, and that of President Biden before her, focused their energy on the cause of defending democracy.  Millions of potential voters turned away.  That, and the betrayal of RFKJr made the difference in a close general election in 2024. 

Democratic post-mortems, of which there have been way too many, proposing a variety of solutions, seem to agree that the problem was the lack of a substantial alternative to that being proposed by the Trump candidacy, that moronic, lying, hateful, fearmongering proposition backed by a narrow plurality, just short of a majority, of those who chose to vote.  And it's true, our democracy, as it is practiced today, is barely defensible.  Defending this status quo proved to be a loser. 

The answer to Democrats' lack of a credible alternative is not an economic one, really.  The US economy was not so bad in 2024, or in 2016.  In both cases, the Democratic-led administration had made real progress, with its limited real means to control the economy, in digging the country out of deep holes created during the Republican-led administrations of W Bush and Trump I.  It didn't win the election for them. 

There is talk of the Democrats developing some kind of vision of Abundance as a policy to campaign upon.  That's pretty much just apple pie thinking--yes, we would all like to be wealthy, but promising that is only going to backfire in the long run, as the realization sets in that it isn't happening.  The failure of that promise of super-abundance is pretty much happening in real time to Trump's promises of MAGA.  Frankly, the US already has abundance, and the likelihood that it will flourish ever more doesn't look so good as global commerce fades, climate change hampers us, global competition rises around us, and AI eliminates jobs all over.  Just ask the young about the prospects. 

Yes, the economic failure that is coming at us rapidly will likely cause a reversal in the political fortunes for the Republicans, whose hold on government is strong, but electorally very thin, and getting thinner week by week.  That would just be another swing of the pendulum, though, and will not bring us any closer to a more successful, stable polity that we can believe in. 

Bernie Sanders was right when he said, recently, that the US is a "pseudo-democracy".  The fact of the matter is that the policies of this Federal government are not popular ones. I would accept that there are times when the collective judgment of our elected representatives should override the popular whims of the moment and pursue wise policies to benefit all of us, but that is not at all the case now.  The authoritarian, destructive policies being pursued incompetently now are harmful to most, but excessively beneficial to a few who control the power. This is not democracy; it is barely a constitutional republic. 

The Reinvention of Democracy is the Vision We Need

The reforms I suggest below are generally non-partisan (not bipartisan), and some will tend to weaken the Democratic party's power relative to what it controls today; however, because it will work to remove built-in obstacles to people's will, we can expect the Trumpist Republican cult would oppose them fiercely.  I am limiting myself to changes that can be accomplished without constitutional amendment, as that is out of the question in today's political environment, or any that we can foresee in the near future.  Once the people are back in control, though, I would think that we could consider it possible to utilize the Founders' other channel to change the constitution, a new convention, without preset limits.   

Number one of these obstacles to democracy is the obscene level of expenditure for political campaigns now.  There has been an exponential escalation of the costs in the past twenty years, and now it is on a scale where only the rich and well-funded lobbyists can participate meaningfully.  For the others, massive efforts are required, but as we saw in 2024, not sufficient.  For Federal elections, the only choices are accepting the implicit bribery of huge donations, constant fundraising, or, increasingly, self-funding by multi-millionaires.  2024 saw Trump's winning campaign funded by hundred of millions of dollars of support from Elon Musk, who's been rewarded by getting a free hand to steal the nation's personal data and re-jiggering any regulations that get in the way of his profit-making.  For the Democrats looking forward to 2028, their best chance may be billionaire J.B. Pritzker, whon I could support if and only if he agrees:  Ending unlimited campaign spending is the start of returning democracy to our electoral process. 

I realize that in the odious Citizens United case some ten years ago the Supreme Court ruled that political spending fell in the category of free speech protected by the constitution, but the lines that were drawn between true campaign-support funding and parallel "nonprofit" organizations' theoretically separate activity have been blurred, then practically eliminated entirely.  "Dark money" contributions have eliminated any accountability for political contributors, and guardrails to prevent foreign interference or produce any limitations on direct contributions have had workarounds making them ineffective.

Congress does have the responsibility of setting the dates and broad outlines of federal elections, a prerogative they need to exercise.  My principal recommendations are to re-energize the moribund Federal Elections Committee, give it increased powers to monitor campaign activity, levying fines proportionate to the danage violations cause to elections--and remove all partisan appointments to it.  Congress should emulate some parliamentary democracies and declare a period of some 60 days immediately prior to the elections in which political activity should be closely regulated.  Restore "Equal Time" provisions for free media, penalize factual inaccuracy (also known as "lies"), and limit direct campaign spending by individual campaigns to some ratio to population (I'd suggest 10 cents per person, at current dollar valuations.)  

I don't have much to complain about the actual methods of voters' registering their choices, or about the counting of the votes; these are controlled within states and localities, and there is something to be said about their being decentralized, and thus not subject to centralized or hacked manipulations.  I do believe that the ongoing debates about voter suppression and voter fraud are totally unnecessary:  Congress should authorize the issuance of tamper-proof Voter ID's to every citizen of age, equipped with 21st-century digital technology and easily transferable between precincts, counties, or states as people move their residence.  Issued universally without charge to the individual, for the first ID at least.  Coming of age would then bring this privilege of citizenry, reinforcing the special, though universal, benefit of suffrage.  I do not believe the issuance of this credential to be a difficult challenge for this nation to achieve, either in terms of the cost or the technology. 

The Electoral College is an ongoing irritant and distorter of the popular will.  In past elections, it transformed close popular votes into electoral vote landslides; now it evidences a much greater problem, reversing the outcome itself with greater frequency, something which undermines the whole prospect of the democratic choice of our top leader tremendously.  It is something fundamental to the original constitutional framework, though, and could never be changed to mere popular vote plurality without a radical set of amendments.*  

What is not at all in the constitution is the "winner-take-all" electoral slate, in which the candidate with the plurality of votes wins all the electoral votes of the state, something in effect in every state except Maine and Nebraska. It is something that developed in the 19th century as states competed to have their votes count more than others, another escalation that distorted popular will.  Now, because of it, 40 states or more have all their electoral votes virtually  put up on the board before the election even starts.  The entire presidential election is focused on a few states, with the resulting effects on policy subtle but clear.  All serious contenders for the Presidency have to focus on the needs of Pennsylvania, above all others, with a few others like Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin getting secondary attention, and the rest--nothing.

I would recommend that a compact of Congress prohibit winner-take-all, combined with enabling provisions. The Maine/Nebraska approach gives two electoral votes to the statewide winner, and the other electoral votes are determined by the candidate winning the individual House districts.  It's a good remedy, and one that would show no favor, if accompanying the measure is a resolution ending gerrymandering:  congressional district boundaries would be determined by nonpartisan analysis considering natural and significant man-made boundaries, trying to build around intact communities and metropolitan areas. 

The political parties' power of over elections, another "feature" which the US Constitution's authors opposed, needs to be reduced, and the narrowing of the field of practical candidates to the two parties' nominees, chosen through primaries which, though intended originally to give power to the voters, has resulted in recent times to intensify partisan division to dangerous levels.  The introduction of ranked-choice voting and instant runoff would address this problem.  In this, voters would be able to indicate the preference, in ranked order, for most or all of the candidates on the ballot (or write-in);  if no candidate gets a majority, then the votes of the lowest candidate, in first-choice votes, would be immediately allocated to the remaining candidates by the voters' second choice, and so on until someone achieves a majority.  It could be used for any and all elections of officials--even the Presidential one, which might head off the prospect of the constitution's infamous resolution method for outcomes without an absolute Electoral majority (voting by the House, with each state getting one vote).

The provision has settled in a few states' elections, but it is not clearly understood by most of the electorate--I would suggest that it is because opposing it is one thing both parties can agree to put aside.  It clearly gives greater opportunity to third parties and independent candidates. Most importantly, it would lead to the end of the discouraging prospect of having to choose between the "less-evil" of two, which so many decry in so many elections these days, with the winning candidate being truly chosen (to some extent) by a majority of voters. 

The final recommendation I'd suggest for now would be to extend the right of representation to all US citizens, through granting statehood to  1) District of Columbia, 2) Puerto Rico,  3) US Territories and expatriates.  Three new constituencies, and if possible, mandating voting rights to those citizens disenfranchised for whatever reason. 

Why should the Democratic party advocate this set of reforms, which as I say seem somewhat limiting to their partisan interests? Because they are necessary for our nation, because they embody the party's name and purpose, and because they will be politically efficacious. This platform for reinvigorated democracy would seem to be something broadly popular, difficult in the extreme to oppose without denying the fundamental principle that the political will of the electorate should not be suppressed or distorted beyond recognition. 

 

*The Popular vote initiative--to mandate that all electoral votes would be allocated to the national popular vote winner--is stalled well short of its needed objective of having 270 electoral votes' worth of states supporting it, and I see no chance of that being reached.  Even if it were, it would not eliminate the partisan firestorm that would occur if a candidate (let's say, Trump) would have 270+ electoral votes from the states under the current system, but the victory denied because of lack of a popular vote plurality. I can just see the rebellion that would result, and the chaos following when the Supreme Court throws out the popular vote-driven result.    

 For the title, I borrowed from Vladimir...Lenin, that is, and from 19th-century Russian idealist Nikolay Chernyshevsky, from whom Lenin borrowed it in his turn.

I am Furious (Yellow)*

 

 

King D------d  issued a threat yesterday in a conversation with another fascistic American President (Bukele of El Salvador), that "home-grown" US citizens would be captured and sent to Bukele's house of horrors prison there, with no recourse, as the Drumpfenreich has done with the asylum-seeking Maryland resident, the native Salvadorean Kilmar Abrego Garcia.  Just label his opponents as "terrorists", with or without any evidence, and make them disappear.

Do I find this threat credible?  No, in the sense that one cannot simply believe that anything Trump says is a) serious; or b) not a lie.  I have no doubt that he would like to be able to do it, if he felt that he could, but he's lacking the means to do such a thing to natural-born citizens, whose status and ability to block illegal arrest is different from those we are hosting as asylum-seekers or those foreigners who have no legal immigration documentation or have overstayed their visas.  If he continues to get his way with the Supreme Court, which so far seems to want to play ball with Trump in a mistaken belief he will abide by constraints they put upon him, the next step would be to try this stunt with naturalized citizens, or those whose citizenship comes from first-generation birthright within the nation's territory.  Creeping totalitarianism from the asshole contingent.

Still, a threat is a threat, and this is one of existential proportions, and in response all US citizens should consider their responses, and "nothing is off the table", as Trump himself likes to say.  Though I may be slightly optimistic in thinking this would not happen to me, I am laying down two red lines as regards myself and my dear ones.  The first is arbitrary application of the famous "no fly list" from the government  upon us, which would take away a fundamental liberty, and the second is his half-serious suggestion that he would seek a constitutionally-prohibited third term.  Sure, he could do the latter legally if he were to get a constitutional amendment--go for it!  Otherwise, rebellion in defense of our constitution is something I would be compelled to seek.  

The View from Italy

I'm in the second month of a long vacation from the US political maelstrom, my physical presence in which is intolerable to this person, at this time.  I wanted to be gone from the get-go of Drumpfenreich 2.0, but I was convinced to delay the trip a bit longer to get some of the beautiful spring weather springing out all over here.  It's about quality of life, and the 90-day limit of my visa.

Of course, one can't get away completely from it, and here it is all over the news:  the talk of the "dazi" (tariffs) and mention of "Tramp" (or, sometimes "Trampa")--Italians don't really have the short "u" vowel sound, and don't usually end words with a hard consonant, either.  There is something appropriate about calling our fraudster a tramp, or suggesting (in my mind) how he is "trampa-ling" over our republic.

Italy's current coalition government is in a unique position within the European Union, which is providing it certain advantages in the ongoing war--of words, more than actual economic warfare--between the US government and the EU.  The three parties that make up the government range from center-right (Forza Italia, the former Silvio Berlusconi party), xenophobic right (the Lega, which has successfully pivoted from a Northern Italian party hostile to Southern Italians--the Northern League-- to a nationalistic one hostile to all other nations not headed by authoritarians), to the hard-right Fratelli d'Italia (Fd'I in the local shorthand), headed by Giorgia Meloni, the head of the national government (the Council of Ministers, the parliamentary head, as opposed to the titular head of state, the non-partisan President of Italy).  The three parties are not aligned on everything:  a key example is with regard to Ukraine.  Forza Italia is very pro-Ukraine, the Lega's head, Salvini, is pro-Putin, while Meloni takes a moderate view, respecting the EU's support for Ukraine but opposed to any direct involvement of the Italian military.  They are pretty much aligned on hostility to illegal immigrants coming across the Mediterranean from Africa, and expecting the EU to back them up on preventing their assimilation into Italian society, which is probably the most important domestic issue apart from the economy.   They aren't having much trouble so far in beating down the disunited center-left and left nationally, or in several of the larger, more centrist regional and local governments.

In a lineup of the heads of European governments, or of the G7, Meloni is by far the shortest person in stature, but she is not short at all on ability.  She speaks well and has shown some agility in policy and in minimizing the obvious historical lineage of her party to the postwar neo-fascists and their nostalgia for Mussolini. She, among all the heads of European governments, has the best direct relationship with Trump, and thus she is more able to reason with the US (to the extent anyone can reason with these idiots) than the official EU representatives, whom Trump disparages and mistreats.  She can't really toe a separate line from the EU on trade, but her influence probably helped the EU getting the proposed 25% tariffs down to a more survivable 10%. Of course, the tariff rate is not reciprocal (yet), as the EU had very low tariffs with their ally and trading partner, the US, pre-Drumpf. (I am considering advising my non-governmental Italian friends to refer to him as that, which would be a good, insulting name-calling for him--it sounds, and is, German, and, though the Germans have come a long way forward, there is still some residual resentment among Italians.)

One last Italian-Trump note:  in Italian, there is a phrase called "prendere in giro" which is used very frequently.  The usage means joking, or teasing, and is only slightly aggressive.  It literally means "to take (someone) for a ride".  It applies perfectly to the Trump/Bukele disingenuity (is that a word?) about who can return poor, abducted Abrego Garcia and why neither one of them will do it.  Also, they literally took him for a ride, but not the circular one the phrase implies.

* I am quite serious about my fury, but I couldn't resist the Dad-like reference to the Swedish porno film of the '60's, "I am Curious (Yellow)".   Trump's administration is pornographic, in the worst sense of the word, but I admit to being somewhat physically a coward when it comes to frontal confrontation to it at this time.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, For Now

Apologies to Larry David--while this episode's ultimate final scene  will be the epic humiliation of the main character, it will be a prolonged one. 

While we can draw hope, and maybe inspiration, from recent successes in the efforts to prevent complete global disintegration and subjugation, we should not get ahead of ourselves.  If we were keeping score, we would still be trailing, but at least we are on the board. 

TarifFail 

The tariff plan announced by the US' King D------d I the other day exhibits the three I's typical of Drumpfenreich 2.0:  Ignorance, Incompetence, and Incoherence.  The main problem is that, at a deep level, Trump believes that a trade deficit--the value of goods and services imported being greater than those exported--weakens the country, weakens our currency, and is clear evidence the other side is cheating on trade.  The first two notions are false, and the third only true in certain cases. There are some countries, India being one, that use protectionist trade barriers to prevent imports and maintain its currency artificially high, but those measures weaken the countries' foreign investment and economic development instead of enhancing it.  Beyond that, some countries subsidize certain domestic industries excessively, and those industries might be justifiable targets for tariffs of our own.   

None of that seems to have been in the thinking of what is actually being imposed--just a shot across the bow of any country that trades with us, which will generate retaliation, either across the board, as we have done, or targeted specifically to hurt Trump-favored industries and regions.  If these tariffs linger for long, they will be a recipe for stagflation, as jobs related to exports will be lost, consumers will pay more for everything, and accompanying that will be depreciation in the relative value of our currency--perhaps even the end of the US dollar being the preferred reserve currency, which would be a tragic loss of influence for us globally. 

I suspect they will not linger.  Our government's trade people say these blanket tariffs are not a starting point for country-by-country negotiation.  I don't believe that for a moment, as Trump will want to play bully-boy and offer tariff concessions to those who give him goodies.  Moreover, as the pain begins to deepen, he will be convinced that he needs to back off or lose political leverage as the midterms approach.  Personally, I hope this is true, although the US public should get a taste of what his ignorance is producing before it ends, and then punishes his party appropriately anyway.  Perception will drive reality.

Booker Rides, High and Dry

Trump believes, or seems to believe, that these tariffs are going to provide so much revenue that he can get the tax cuts he promised in his campaign, for things like tips and Social Security income.  This is a delusion, but I suspect he will get the extension of the regressive tax cuts he was able to pass during his first term, enabled by compliant Congressional action on a budget resolution, followed by a budget reconciliation bill with phony projections, a very real and very large debt limit increase, and a host of damaging spending adjustments. 

In this regard, Cory Booker's marathon speech of over 24 hours, facilitated by days of fasting and abstaining from liquids, is laudable but irrelevant to the bigger picture.  It does show that Democratic representatives can, in extreme cases, use their words to capture the attention of the public for a short while. Going forward, I am looking for targeted attacks on specific individuals and policies, not so much overcoming strategic obstacles, though the Senate filibuster rules should prevent most harmful legislation from going forward.  I suppose it will be beneficial for Booker's political status in the party, though I don't see it propelling him into a new national campaign.  A moral victory is what he can provide for us. 

Off-year Elections as a Side Gambit

D------d I proclaimed the other day through an executive order that voters must provide proof of citizenship, and that votes must be counted the same day, and some other nonsense, I guess.  None of that will pass muster, as the constitution provides that the states run the elections, the Federal government just providing the dates of them and some of the other implementation of their results.  He did come up with the threat of withholding all funding from those states that don't follow it, something I suggested might be possible to enforce some reforms, even that of the national Voter ID, which I support in the interest of ending, once and for all, disputes about who can vote--as long as the ID is issued, free of charge, to all citizens and has smart technology to support voters' maintaining their registration when they change residence.  As for the rest of it, forget it. 

The special elections in Wisconsin and Florida were a good indication of two things:  some slippage in Trumpian support, but also the different electorate in off-year elections.  Hard to be sure exactly how to parse the two effects separately at this point.  There will be more of them this year, in Arizona for the replacement to the death of Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, and likely for the upstate New York district of Elaine Stefanik.  Her nomination for the UN Ambassadorship was withdrawn when there was concern in White House circles that the Democrats would take one of the Florida seats and reduce further the narrow Republican majority, but that didn't happen.  They will still probably put her up for a job, one they will consider important.  Not the UN one, which they don't rate so highly--though it would be a tragic miscalculation to pull out of the UN as some idiots have suggested.  See in the organization's history how the US got the UN to authorize forces in the Korean War when the Soviet Union unwisely was boycotting the Security Council. 

What Trump didn't seem to get in his proclamation is that making voting more difficult will end up hurting his party, which has a higher proportion of low-information, low-motivation voters. 

Signal of Incompetence

The scandal around the security lapse involved in the Signal text chat isn't about the attack on the Houthis that was discussed, as that is ordnance out the bomb bay, and they are basically a bunch of resilient pirates.  Biden had them bombed also, somewhat unsuccessfully, and they will continue regardless of whether Iran makes a deal with Trump or not.   The inclusion of  The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat was a hilarious error, one that will ultimately end Michael Waltz's job as national security advisor (though Trump will do it later, to cover the tracks), and Goldberg covered himself with respectability in the way he handled it. 

The real point was the look behind the scenes at decision-making in Drumpfenreich:  VP Vance is even more treacherous and evil than we knew, Hegseth just as blunt a tool, while the real power is vested in Stephen Miller as the Voice of Trump.  His say-so makes all the difference; no one need question it.  Miller is also the policy director for all the Project 2025-inspired discriminatory cuts Musk has sought to make. When Musk goes, and it will be soon, the vampiric Miller should be the focus for public calumny.

Hands Off! Demonstrations

The mass demonstrations planned for this weekend should be a good opportunity for those who are intended victims of Trumpian arbitrary violations of civil liberties to show themselves, protected by being surrounded by well-meaning people in safer status (i.e., natural-born citizens).  It will be worth watching if there is focus on the demonstrations--around the assault on free speech, on job security, or just general hatred of Drumpfenreich--or not.  

I would just advise attendees who may feel vulnerable to disguise themselves somewhat, and stay in crowds.  There will be spies, and likely provocateurs from the other side who will try to create violence as a premise for authoritarian crackdowns afterward.  Protect one another!  

(No demonstration planned here in Italy, as far as I know.)

 

Raw Earth!

 I hear we are going to get a large shipment of it, in exchange for the munitions we have sent to Ukraine.  I don't think it's a great deal for the US, but they have been very brave.  We should take the raw earth and make it wet so it's more usable, and then dump it outside Mar-a-Lago to help protect it from the rising sea level. /s

It's pretty clear that Trump thought he could impose the terms on Ukraine that he has had his people work out with Russia.  He seems not to have considered that Ukraine, and Europe behind them, would refuse a deal that is as unfavorable as:  ceasefire at the current front lines; no concessions, no admitting of responsibility, no reparations, no guarantees of security, release of sanctions on Russia. Ukraine is well aware that the Korean War ended similarly (but with the guarantees) and there is no peace, only an armistice, 70 years later.

With regard to Trump's touted materials deal, Zelensky tried to make it into more than what it was, an agreement forced upon him under duress, which perhaps was negotiated further to become more of a win for him and for the US.  One of my old bosses used to refer to that tactic as "negotiating after the close", which just causes problems. This US President is not going to get sucked into the conflict with new security assurances under any circumstances, and he sees the need to take Putin's side to beat down that request.  Trump and Vance's behavior was embarrassing, shameful, but not surprising given the lack of a real accord.  It does appear that Trump is losing his mind.

I would suggest, though, that Zelensky and Europe should go along with an end of active hostilities, just as they are, with the provision that there be a conference to finalize a peace in which the many outstanding issues would have to be addressed.  Trump needs the quick win soon, though, or he will cause more pain.  Merely stopping the fighting will, if the ceasefire holds, leave unresolved problems that will only set the stage for future disaster.     

 Turkey Gets a Seat at the Table

As I indicate, this is not a deal that can be arranged just between the US and Russia.  The US and Russia can make a number of deals between themselves on important matters like strategic weapons, but the US' claim to represent Ukraine's side, or even to act as an impartial arbitrator, is out the window with Trump, who is manifestly untrustworthy--a liar  The proposed peace deal Trump's people and Putin's will come up with surely will be unacceptable to Ukraine and Europe. 

And, if they are not considered, Turkey.  I noticed Zelensky meeting with Turkey's Erdogan the other day; Ukraine is smart enough to bring them in, even though Turkey is relatively close to Russia at present.    Turkey controls what goes into the Black Sea and what goes out, though the Bosporus.   Turkey does not want Russia to be able to return its navy to Sebastopol in Crimea after fighting is stopped.   During this war, Ukrainian drones have chased the Russian navy from the port.  Turkey wants the Black Sea to be a zone of peace.                                 

 

This pentagonal design would allow each party to sit next to two parties with which they are somewhat aligned, and that does not require them to be too close to those most distasteful to them.  The only exception is requiring Europe's representatives (from the EU, NATO, the U.K., France, and Germany, for example) to sit next to the USA to keep them behaving just a little.

Artificial Intelligence, All the Time?

A Conspiracy Theory

So what are Elon & Co. doing with all that data?   One thing I'm pretty sure of, and one I suspect. The first is using the data to train AI machines to do as much of the work as possible. That work done by humans, and that which occurs more automatically, but is supervised by humans.   He can't get rid of it all, despite trying real hard (!), but he could potentially get something like the classic 80/20 result, with 80% of many departments reassigned (to a bot). If he wires the data up properly, he could even run his machine learning programs on the data without even having to swipe it all, in which case it's legal. Then someone else can figure out the rest, and he can go back to playing rocket ships.

The basic thinking is that if the civil servant gets this particular function right 95% of the time, the AI machine can get it 98%.  That will apply to some functions, without a doubt.  The 2% of what remains of that function, you can get the remains of the civil service corps to work on.  It all sounds awful, and it is, but that's the logic. 

That second thing, though, my conjecture, is that he wants the data, for commercial purposes (100% illegal), but that he will disguise that when (not if) he downloads the data.  He will have to separate name from social, at a minimum, with the data attached to one or the other but not both.  The data mining itself and the machine learning do not need the name, and the social is of limited predictive value (though there is some intelligence in it). 

This is the tricky part:  the data can be made available more broadly, within the government or beyond, in this separated way--the user would have to use inference to make full use of it.  There could be an encrypted key to put the two together, or a series of them, and the US Government would have the exclusive access to this key stuff. 

 Except for the backdoors his coders put in to control the flow of money. And the copies he's made on the sly.

The New Era

It is incontrovertible that we have moved on from what history will eventually know as the Postwar Era.  We have reached the point by which many people might have no idea which "War" that phrase describes; a vanishing few have live memories of World War II; a few more recall the devastation out of which this period emerged.  The period we finished had two principal parts:  the Cold War, and the one which followed.  That one is over, but it doesn't really have a name yet, as it's too soon.  I would say--sincerely-- it was the Golden Age of the US, which would not please our current Presidential officeholder to hear, the next one being the Age of Golden Showers?

Now, though, the US wants to be just one among many--globally, and arguably, even in our half of the populated world, America (the Western Hemisphere).  Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the more successful parts of Central America and the Caribbean--they won't allow themselves to be dominated by the Monroe Doctrine, no more. In the Pacific, we strain to maintain; in Africa, the fastest-growing continent in population, we are losing the game fast.  

Culturally, too, we are entering a different direction than that which has been predominant.  The five nations which "won the war" and together formed the United Nations, giving themselves veto powers--the US, UK, France, Soviet Union (given to Russia), and China--have been among a handful of nations which have hosted international development--above all, in military might, but also in music, visual arts, and above all, rapid changes in technology.  Social development has been mostly continuous and slow --there have been real improvements in women's rights, in combating racial inequity in some nations, in feeding the world--but international political progress from the original UN Charter has been halting and is now being abandoned.  The clearest examples are global efforts to slow climate change or limit nuclear weapons.  Liberal democratic and social democratic values rise and fall in the esteem of the people, who are guided by the simple, sound principle that they would rather have their nations--always nations!--do what most want, rather than not (the way of kings and dictators who do what they want). Now, so many are feeling that they are not getting it. 

Nevertheless, so far, resistance in the 21st century has been reactive, generally nonviolent.  We don't see much new coming forward, politically.  Now come the destructive technology masters, culturally everywhere and now politically coming to dominate the US Federal government:  they are promising something new, in effect. 

We just need to cede.  

If only humans would give up this silly notion that they need to control things, we could operate much more efficiently!!  A good example is the driverless car situation, currently stalled.  There is a tipping point, I would guess it's about 75%, when the driverless cars will be able to stop worrying so much about the crazy things people-driven cars do and can just send signals back and forth from the vehicles on the net and things will work much better.  The cars will go much more efficiently and faster, without errors (except the occasional hallucination, I guess, but we're working on that!)--The tech bros.  

It is already a fact that first point of contact for consumers is going to be a chatbot, in most cases.  Voice response, sure, but the real question is whether you can get to a human and what you have to do to get to it.  I don't see that changing anytime soon, though the battlelines will shift back and forth at any particular entity, along with the location housing the humans or machines, and based on the needs of the shareholder, whoever that might be.  

So, that's when you're reaching out to them.  There's also the other side, though:  we call it marketing. What ad you're going to see when, what video or sound is in it when you get it, what email, what response to your polite inquiry.  

My request for legislation is a simple one:  in those cases, when what you are being presented is pure AI, there needs to be a bug that you can click that will tell you so--also what program or series of programs is being used, and that's that.  Or, if it is AI but there is a human behind it who has specifically approved or edited it, then that person is not wholly anonymous but can be accountable in some sense.  That's all I ask; then the consumer can judge the content knowing its provenance. 

 

The US A-I Disease

By this I mean that we have an Auto-Immune problem as we devour ourselves alive.  The first briefing is on the Federal Government arising from the remains of the Trumpist gluttonous assault.  The next post will have some comments based on what I know about the other AI--artificial intelligence--and what we should be looking to do about it.  

A Functional View of the Federal Government

The Constitution says that all of it is divided in three parts.* Structurally, that is somewhat true; Congress and our court system remain, and I will expect that they will survive the coming disaster intact; however, those two branches are not very important in the gigantic money/power game of Washington, now that Congress has yielded control of the purse strings to Emperor Elon. Those two branches have become, at best, referees; realistically, bystanders and check-writers; and in the worst case, servile order-takers. All the action, though, is in the Executive Branch, the result of several decades of gradually increasing powers to the President, increasing difficulty for effective oversight for it, and the ascension of an individual without restraint in using its powers. 

I identify four main functions of our central government; I will describe each briefly, and then consider what damage is most likely to it from The D------d's maladministration in the next four years. 

The first is the set of functions which maintain the constitutional structure itself.  So far, I don't see Trump successfully destroying it, as he finds its cracks and limitations very useful, and more often than not he gets what he wants from it in the end.  For example, many feel that defying court orders will mean the end of "rule of law".  Apart from the fact that the only people who really believe we can rely on that to be applied fairly are lawyers, and rapidly less of them, I don't see an authentic legal battle royal arising from this type of unlawful action, which--in the few cases the administration actually definitively loses--will be deflected, appealed, delayed, and if necessary, ignored.   Apart from that, these operations (such as in the Executive Office, Congressional operations, court officers, the Archives) will be the part most stubbornly defended, even sometimes by Republicans. Generally, the institutions behind them survive even in the absence of democratic governance, though their functions are gutted or corrupted. In our 21st-century politics, they are extremely difficult to modify, partly due to the partisan stalemate, and also because they are designed to be resistant to much change. Governmental institutions provide some legitimacy even to the worst regimes; if they disappear, it's worse than just a failed state, it's near-anarchy.

The second area is taking the revenues or other funds and paying them out.  This is the big growth area of government in the 20th century, but we seem to find that growth to be too much for us today. The DOGE boys are focusing on this one, because "that's where the money is", as the historic bankrobber said. There are vast areas for potential abuse and theft in this function, which is something like 15% of our entire GDP,  a few trillion dollars a year.  Some, like Social Security, are paid directly to US persons,, and those will be extremely difficult to cut because of the political pain involved.  The better targets are the pass-through payments through middle-men; USAID may be very beneficial, but it's a middleman that passes money to other middlemen, and that's why it's a viable target.  That, and the fact that there is little or no political cost to cutting any or all foreign aid in this self-centered political environment. Medicare and Medicaid are indirect payments for the most part, and they will be targeted indirectly--cutting those outlays will end up being the principal function of unworthy HHS Secretary Kennedy.  Look for less of those medical tests that doctors order to cover all possibilities being approved in advance.  

SNAP (food stamps) is a bit of a functional hybrid, as the benefit is direct to the consumer, but the payments are to the food providers; I don't know about its efficiency as a program, but it can't be eliminated and could become very important in the next domestic economic crisis. Similarly, FEMA generally provides benefits one step removed from the direct recipients; that is an agency that is easy to criticize but will become even more indispensable in the future.

In general, there are going to be permanent reductions in the transfers from our taxpayer dollars to most categories of recipients..  Whether this is a positive or negative would depend on your relation to the indirect US payments which are going to reduce.  There are exceptions, though:  I see the Department of Energy getting more money to subsidize a return to nuclear power in private industry, in order to enhance crypto, in the short run, and to reduce our fossil fuel dependence in the future; also, I see Trump passing more money to Elon, Inc. because Space--Trump digs it. 

I want to say something here about the deadline for Congress to do something to head off a government shutdown and subsequent default.  Although Trump pats Speaker Johnson on the back and says "go to it", Johnson's task--to fund all of Trump's spending and tax cuts--is next to impossible with just his Republican House conference and no Democratic votes.  The Mumps know this and are enjoying it; I believe that one scenario they like is a a brief cessation of most "non-essential" Federal functions, and then being able to selectively re-start the ones they want.  Of course, if they get everything they want from a suppliant Congress, that's great, too, but it's got to be everything.  So, it's hard to believe that will happen unless the House Republicans get more unified by desperation than they appear to be.  The Democrats don't want a shutdown as such, but they do want the situation where Johnson needs votes, and they are preparing their demands.  An end to the illegal usurpation of control of spending is part of them, I know, a part that I don't think they will get.  I'd say probability of a shutdown of any length in March is about 80%, though the length of it is harder to estimate.

I see a populist opportunity to make this principal government function more one of moving money or wealth from those who have a whole lot of it to the less-wealthy, something that should be popular. That may even become essential to keep the peace internally, but the only route I can see that happening during Trump 2.0 is a necessary, bipartisan recognition that the cutoff income on earners' Social Security tax must go.  And that will only happen if the Democratic lawmakers can insist on it in the few cases--there may be only one--where they will have some leverage on Congress during Drumpfenreich.  They must do it (demographic tick-tick)! Look for tax rates to be the cleavage point Democrats can push in 2028.

The third area is composed of those areas of actual services that the Federal government provides.  These are fewer than you might think.  Start with the Veterans Administration, the National Park Service, and then the big one, our military, the service in that case being our national security  ("Thank you for your service!").  These are going to be hard to cut significantly; there will be savings found in Defense, but a lot more spending than those cuts will be forthcoming, especially in a needed effort to try to ramp up lagging enlistments.  There are some smaller service areas (in terms of expenditure) that might be more vulnerable to Mump attack: the Federal Reserve (banks get lots of service), the hated Internal Revenue Service (in my view, pretty efficient and user-friendly compared to state tax agencies), and the Foreign Service. The State Department is, again, an easy target temporarily, though I believe it will get new attention, post-Trump, as being much less costly to get favorable outcomes than the military route. Most Federal government services (apart from the military) have a pretty bad popular reputation, deserved or not, but they are not going away.

The fourth area, and the one that is most vulnerable of all of them, is the set of agencies whose principal functions are making, and enforcing, rules and regulations.  Here we've got a lot of alphabet soup:  EPA, OSHA, FDA, NRC, SEC, FEC, NLRB, and ACA (a/k/a Obamacare).  Any long-term legal basis for these organizations to maintain themselves was gutted last year by the Supreme Court; their very survival depends on continued goodwill from the Executive.  ACA has a statutory basis but that means nothing without the subsidy transfer payments which go alongside, the money going to insurers. Within this category, there are a couple other agencies the functions of which also combine the two most vulnerable areas, both giving money to entities and making rules.  That's the Department of Education and the National Institute of Health, both prime Muskrat targets.

 

  

The Best, the OK, and Worst of the So Far

In terms of assessing the value and liabilities (to the US) arising from the whirlwind of activity and blather in these early days, there is the challenge of looking at the downstream effects, including the unintended ones.  As with Biden's successful legislative initiatives, it will take years to realize them--that is, for the real effects to show, economically, politically, and otherwise. 

I will give credit to the Trump administration for two of their many initiatives.  First, it's time finally to get rid of the penny.  I would combine that with increased production of the half-dollar and dollar coins--I wouldn't even mind if the God Emperor and his Presidential assistant were stamped onto one of them together, but only one (they could put a picture of the Gulf of D------d I on the back).  The second is Trump's strategy in applying his favorite tool, tariffs.  The deceptive part of the tariff strategy is that he probably thinks it's a source of revenue to cover some of the new tax cuts (and renewal of the ones from his last term). In that he will be disappointed; however, the move toward reciprocal application of tariffs, instead of unilateral ones (which wouldn't remain unilateral for long) is sensible.  If successful, it could actually help reduce prices on some imports, which is not what we were expecting.      

I will give a guarded "OK" rating on Trump's rapid successes in getting his Cabinet and top "leadership" positions in his administration approved.  (I'm not referring to Musk, here, as a different description of his role applies.)  We need to accept the general rule that Presidents can choose their principal direct reports in most cases. There were a couple, or a few, qualified folks, such as Rubio at State, or Bessent at Treasury.  There were many, many whose main qualification was loyalty to Trump, but who will be in roles where the damage they will be required to cause is less, because the political leverage for his abuse through them is also less--not that they will produce anything of value (e.g. Interior, Commerce, all the ambassadors he gifted cushy jobs).  There are a couple in hugely important roles for our nation who are terrible appointments, but because they are so incapable of adding value they will just be ignored, or overruled (Hesgeth, Gabbard).  So far, Pam Bondi looks to be one of those who relied on lies and her good looks to get approved and will turn out to be much worse than we thought. The one I despise most, Kennedy in HHS, is awful, but just how much actual damage he will do to our health is yet to be clear, because he dissembled his way through all the contradictions between his own policies and the administration's. The worst will be Patel in the FBI, but I am 100% certain he will not make it through his ten-year appointment; if he makes it through ten months, that will be a lot.  I expect about the same for the likes of Hesgeth and Gabbard, whose roles continue at the sufferance of the President.

As for his foreign policy so far, I'm pleased he hasn't taken any real-world moves yet, but I'm not optimistic.  He looks ready to do Ukraine dirty. I understand that Trump is under a lot of pressure to make a deal with Putin quickly, given his campaign promise.  Bringing Ukraine's Zelensky into the negotiations would slow things down, so he will look to have him or his representatives in the next room, not the one "where it happens".  As things proceed I will make more comments on this and try to draw some lines in the ground (or "in the air") on items he must, or must not, agree with Putin to impose on Ukraine.

 I've said enough about how his attitude will play in the other countries making up the rest of America--not well, in general, but the dictators there will successfully play him. As for the Middle East, I think his stupid Gaza ethnic-cleansing-idea burn scars will teach him very quickly that he should try to stay out of it and believe less in Netanyahu's false assurances, except to cultivate Saudi money for himself and his family.  Finally, the relationship that's long-term most important, with China, will be fascinating to watch.  I am hopeful that he will give Xi the respect that will make all the difference, despite all the potential areas of conflict (economic and worse). 

So, not great, but, like challenging the constitution, he hasn't done the Really Bad Thing yet--we can hope he won't.  The Ukraine war has shown us just how bad 21st-century war is--random, inhuman, destruction with no inherent limitation. 

With regard to the much-touted "mass deportations", let's be real.  This administration is headed down a path bound to fail to satisfy anyone.  There will be deportations, as there always are and will be; they might be marginally higher than previous administrations, but the goal should be to avoid political disaster, which can only be accomplished by being more circumspect about them and considering the characteristics of the individuals captured more closely.  So far, reports are quite bad; they could get much worse. 

When we look at the very worst of Trump's first month in the job, it's the preparations for extreme corruption and double-dealing.  The firing of the head of the Office of Government Ethics and of several departmental Inspectors General cannot be justified and can only be understood as taking away friction from his future plans for slimy abuses and theft.  The other thing that looks extremely suspicious to me was the capture of the Treasury Department's database. They lied about whether the access was "Read-Only"; c'mon, these kids are coders.  I'm not sure whether they were able to download data, which would be illegal (and Elon's wet dream), but what I suspect is that they have put in some backdoor shit which would allow Trump to have a kill-switch on any given payment.  That may be why some frozen payments which the courts have ordered to be restored have not yet resumed.  

The major damage he's making across our Federal civil service will take 5-10 years to reverse, in order to restore qualified pros to departments' middle levels. The "spoil system" is back, and it will take an enlightened administration to end it again for this century's government.  Whether through firings, voluntary retirement, intimidated resignation, or the so-called "buyouts", the best civil servants will be leaving, understandably given the directions they would otherwise be given to administer.. The damage caused by this devolution of human resources will be largely inseparable from all that is caused by the administration's policies, so the need to go back to the future may not be as obvious as it should be.

The big question is when Trump's finagling and assaults on our government will make their disastrous effects visible even to the low-information voters here. The basic scenario I am seeing is a run on the dollar, accompanied by increasing inflation along with increased unemployment.  (Yes, he can!) Whether that will result in a recession sooner or later may depend on the direction of the Fed, but like the 2008 recession, it may be beyond the capability of monetary policy to control when it occurs, and in any case Trump's policies are consistently inflationary, so his promises to reduce prices have little or no validity..

Bottom line is that, like that Liberty Bell, our bell of liberty isn't ringing too clearly with that big crack.  I'm hoping that, unlike a windshield crack, we can keep it from spreading throughout until we make the proper repair/replacement.

That's about all I ever plan to say about this damned administration, though I will return to foreign policy, along with the all-important state elections and the House ones in 2025-26 as opportunities to go into those prioritized subjects arise.  I won't wish this crew good luck; they've already had more than they deserve.  I have called this a constitutional crisis and a slow-motion train wreck for at least a decade now.  The fact that some wheels ran off the rails once again is clear, but maybe a 21st-century train can find its way back to the station somehow. 

* Like that previous Caesar said about Gaul.

Own Goal

I have heard the phrase used a couple of times in the past 24 hours, with regard to the ongoing travesties being committed by Trump in the foreign policy arena. They were talking about Greenland, Panama, Canada, and now Jordan, even Israel (blindsided by Trump's loony Gaza initiative), and soon, Europe.  Basically, just stabbing our own allies--I'll admit he does it to their face, that being very much the point.

I think the metaphor is very much on target, though it may be somewhat unfamiliar to US.  It's a reference to soccer, when a goal is scored, not primarily due to the ball's vector into the goal coming from the attacking team but from the defenders.  There is some grey area, in describing the event, but it basically is defined by the defender having the last contact on the ball and in the process directing it toward the goal and away from the goalie.*  It's the kind of thing we need to understand if we hope to do a decent job hosting the World Cup in 2026 (about which I am less than enthusiastic at this point--recall that it will be hosted by three countries, not just the US but also our former friends Mexico and Canada). 

To go into it a bit more, I would divide own goals broadly into two categories:  the ones where the attacking team drove the ball near the goal, and the defender's accidental contact deflected it in, and the ones where the attacking team wasn't really involved at all--one defender hit it in, all by themself, or possibly with the accidental collaboration with a teammate.  

I would use the phrase more broadly in describing the Trump second term, and in the second sense.  We are doing it to ourselves.  In the case of our recent Presidential electoral own goal, the ball bounced off RFKJr, who supplied the 2% additional support Trump needed to win in a tight contest.  Basically, he's a winger who had no business being in front of the goal. 

The US has no business doing this thing trto ourselves.  We have the most wealthy nation, the most powerful nation, in the history of the world, and we are piddling around in our own half of the field, making bad passes and positioning ourselves incorrectly.  Think of the tariff nonsense, the things we are doing with our allies, with neutral and poorer countries with USAID, and with our own power structure, which we are assaulting indiscriminately, though it has mostly stood up so far. 

Despite the scoring we are producing against our own account, and in the favor of our adversaries, we have the ability to move the ball forward, with reforms that are bipartisan in their appeal and beneficial in their result.  We need some change in the personnel on the field, though. 

Continuing the discussion with the backdrop of football, this time the "American" version, I will briefly salute the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles, Donald Trump's least favorite team.  And the explosive attention given to provocative Kendrick Lamar, whose halftime show at the game highlighted his huge 2024 success and his creative power.  He wisely kept it only a little provocative and political for the huge TV audience.

And, since I am now moving toward a lighthearted vein in this post, let's consider this weighty question of semantics: 

Donald Trump:  Dickhead or Asshole? 

I begin with a rough-and-ready definition of an asshole as "a self-centered, aggressive person".  As always, my inspiration is the seminal essay** in the Village Voice by a Susin Shapiro in 1979 called "Creeps and Assholes: Character is Destiny".  She asserts that all people are one or the other, although there are crypto types who conceal their true nature.  Thus, there are many, many assholes, most but not all male.  

For me, a dickhead--the cruder version of the "meathead" insult popularized by Archie Bunker in All in the Family--is a special sort of mentally-deficient asshole, one whose consciousness is unable to recognize reality.  Its implied meaning is the replacement of some key portion of the brain with a penile implant. Thus, the assholism they project and embody is unfocused, incoherent, though still of hostile character. 

So, the answer, for my purposes, is both:  he's an asshole and a dickhead, but I prefer the latter as being a bit more precise.  

I have decided, though, that, partly for purposes of posting on less free Internet sites, I will not use the full word, but use "D------d" to refer to him.  It might appear an abbreviation for "Donald", but note the extra blanks in there.  

Revised Labels

I was afraid some might have concluded from my Sharpie-tized Gulf renaming that I endorsed the renaming, when the point was to shatter Trump's exclusive claim to the brand "America".  So let me now be clear about my view of it:   See the future new naming, by Executive Order, by Trump's worthy successor:
 

A

 

 

If I need to refer to this body of water in the future, it will be by this name, "Gulf of King D------d I" in honor of our Dicktater. 

 

The concern I am raising is the demeaning of the brand "America" by Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.  The word's use usually refers to this nation, the US of A, though America is something larger. ( I admit to being often guilty of this imprecise use of the term.)  There is a greater significance to America--and here I'm thinking particularly of the Europeans who came to this New Land (16th century term), though there were also major arrivals from Africa and Asia--the promise of the New Land, the opportunity to make a new start, the liberty represented by the idea that one can live where they want!  It doesn't apply exclusively to the US of A. 

My intention going forward will be to use America to refer to the lands of the Western Hemisphere, and US or US of A for this nation.  The trick, though, is to restrict "American" to a broad set of the populace of this side of the globe and find another word to refer specifically to "people of the US".  For now, it'll be just that phrase, or something to that effect.    

 

 *In theory, it could be the goalie who makes the last touch, but that is extremely rare.  Just failing to prevent a shot going in doesn't make an own goal.  It would have to be something like the goalie's miscue accidentally sending it in from a few yards out. 

 

** The article, like the Village Voice, is out of print, but an intrepid person with the handle of "ottoventa" dug it up and posted it, if you want to read the text. 

Gulf of Understanding

 

 Let's Talk About America

This is about more than just the US of A, which is all that our new Dictator King claims so far to rule, though he pretends to want to extend its borders to Greenland.  It would "look so strong" on those spread out, 2-D  maps of the world which have to stretch that land mass out insanely.  I'm sure that's the idea fixed in his mind.  In this case, he's using this cute little head-fake of renaming the Gulf of Mexico, to help remind his undiscerning voters that this is part of making America Great.  

But what is America?  Most of the Western Hemisphere probably think it refers to them, too.  You know, Brazil and Paraguay in South America, Nicaragua and Belize in Central America, even the rest of North America (maybe Canada not so much).  Admittedly, the Gulf pictured and mis-named here has only three nations that it borders--Mexico, the US, and Cuba.  I would suggest that the truer American body of water is the Caribbean Sea, which is a big deal geographically for most of the hemisphere, at least on the Atlantic side.

It is fair to say that Donald Trump is an American President, but he is not the President of America.  One should not conclude that he has an intention to make great all of America; at best, his constituent interest--the ones unto whom he is legally accountable, if that means anything anymore--is limited to the borders of the US and its assorted territories (not colonies, we pretend).  And the District of Columbia, technically within the US' borders, but just to be clear:  I say he is a criminal allowed to roam the streets there only with armed guards.

I'm sure, if Trump were ever to consider the rest of the Western Hemisphere, he would just seek to dominate and intimidate, though it would be a worthy objective instead to give sincere assistance to all the nations of the hemisphere. 

Not-so-Loyal Opposition

 Recently I have been struggling with the meaning of a logical conclusion that starts with the premise that the Trump Restoration was not a fluke; that it is the prevailing voice of Who We Are.   If you feel, as I do, that this regime is up to no good, then we should be looking for the US to do as little as possible abroad.  Because what we do--apart from whether it is done effectively or not--is bound to be harmful.  Harmful there, and ultimately, because we are part of it all, whether we believe it or not, harmful here, as well. 

That is not a simple principle to execute without immense damage.  We saw it in Afghanistan, and we would see it in a whole variety of nations.  The vacuum of power resulting would be catastrophic in Central Europe, in Northeast Asia, on the borders with Russia, in the Middle East--though we can see that this administration seems willing to ignore the latter.  This suggests that one of the first dominos to be pulled out of play will be the contingent in northeast Syria supporting the Kurdish-led independent force there, a mini-regime in defiance of Turkey and holders of much of the land once ruled by ISIS. * I would expect that our forces in Iraq will be withdrawn.  Also, I think those who are eagerly anticipating the US war with Iran will be disappointed; as Trump will make a deal to keep Iran from exploding the nuke test they are readying. .

Like I say, though, it's probably for the better.  We do not want to be involved in Syria, though we wish them well.  At worst, it's Europe's problem.  From our opposing and limiting point of view, his withdrawal from the hot spots is pushing against an open door.  (Which is the opposite of an Open Door policy.)  But let's slow down the larger withdrawals in these first months to allow development of defense against our packing up and departing. 

Instead of the US and the CIA etc., which works out badly in the best of times, we should defy the Trump Administration and have shadow representatives from the USA in global conferences, specifically from states.  As an example, California should be formally admitted to the Global Climate Conference, in place of the US representative. Some other states should petition for that one, as well.

Speaking of windmills (I am in favor, and feel Trump's resistance is, at best, quixotic), I suggest myself for a contingent of Americans willing to bunk down in Denmark to support the resistance against expansionist, imperialistic American--and by this I mean the US, under King D------d I, may his stench be contained--trade representatives. 

We should all be working on Buying Not-American, especially now before the prices go up with tariffs. If I only cared for Molson beer....

We have to distinguish between those right there with the Mumps--Bezos and his charming, underdressed partner, Zuck, and some unnamed South Asian CEO type, from all of which we should seek to disengage, loudly and publicly--and those who would have to show up but not be seen in public with them. Can we credit Disney and Apple, who were not there and did not give a million, maybe?  The one that's hardest to see giving up entirely is Google.  And no nvidious distinctions, damnit!   

 

* Speaking of which, what has he done to make us safe from ISIS?  Snow is not going to make New Orleans safe. 

And, why hasn't the war between Russia and Ukraine been stopped yet?

 

Coronation Day

 The cloud of hangers-on and office-seekers at Mar-a-Lago resembles to me the courtiers and vicious court politics of past monarchy--imagine Henry VIII with a couple less wives, a couple more male heirs.  The new king will have the power to build up or cancel those who dare to question his arbitrary will.

The "electoral wisdom of the American voter" has brought us to this juncture, an embarrassment before all the world.  Oligarchy has been sneaking up on us, but now it's a stampede to give away the fiefs (in this modern time, the departments of the Federal executive) and their product to the highest bidders. 

The ceremony is being brought inside to the Capitol Rotunda because of cold weather.  Donald Trump should have been declared persona non grata by Congress and, rather than being invited inside to "celebrate" his ascension, he should have been banned from the building, upon pain of death.  The Senators should give him the Julius Caesar treatment. 

I have only one piece of advice to those who will observe or read the Trump's inauguration speech:  Do not believe anything he says.  Some of it may be true, some will surely be lies, much of it will express professed intention that will never come to pass.  All of it will be bluster, toxic, fake masculinity.  Yes, he's a dickhead--All Hail King Dickhead I and the Drumpfen dynasty!  Or else....

 

Photo credit to

Micolash Viesczy at Sound Cloud