2024 election

A Lesson from Trump’s Last Term

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Donald Trump came to the Presidency with an economy in good shape and getting better. Recovery was well-established but suppressed by the Republican “balanced budget amendment” hypocrisy. (With Trump in office a $2T deficit-funded stimulus in good times was just fine.)  There were no outstanding major issues until Covid. 

Faced with a real problem Trump did nothing.   He first denied that anything was happening and then pranced around on television looking important, spreading misinformation, and still doing nothing.  His one action was to order doses of a future vaccine, a no-brainer if there ever was one.

In fact that a vaccine was coming made his inaction near-criminal.  People only needed to be protected for a period of months until there would be a vaccine to take over.  Hundreds of thousands of people died, because Trump couldn’t bring himself even to consider what it might take to help them.  For people in nursing homes, government inaction proved to be a death sentence.

We have another pandemic-like problem today in climate change, and the similarity is closer than you might think.  Epidemics have a particular characteristic—the number of cases grows exponentially.  That’s because the rate in increase in new cases is proportional to the number who already have it–they’re the spreaders.  When you are on the upswing, the number of active cases can double and double and double.  You have to act early or the problem will get away from you—which is exactly what happened.  Tump dithered, did nothing, and we watched the death toll grrow.

For climate there are two points to make:

1.  CO2 in the atmosphere just adds up—which means that whatever problems finally force us to act will keep getting worse until we can manage to stop fossil fuels completely.  Things are going to get substantially worse each year until we can turn the huge ship of fossil fuel usage all the way around.

2.  That’s even worse than it sounds because—as with epidemics—there is an exponential growth aspect here too. Think of hurricanes or floods.  For hurricanes, the damages in the wind-speed categories are such that each incremental increase in wind speed causes damage that makes the previous look trivial.  You’re just that much farther from what the world was built to deal with. For floods you go from marginal areas affected to major cities.  As earth’s termperature increases bit by bit, damage goes up exponentially.  Delay means world-wide disaster—as described by the scientific community.

It is imperative to act ahead of disaster. In his last administration Trump stopped climate progress here and tried to sabotage anything elsewhere. His stated objective now is to root out all climate action from government. Four more years of Trump is the Covid pandemic on steroids and with no vaccine in sight. The US is too important to believe that the rest of the world will somehow save us. We have to recognize the danger and do our job while we still can. This isn’t some misguided internationalism—it’s for us.

There are lots of issues in this campaign, but anyone who thinks Trump is on his or her side should think about this one.  Tax breaks and identity issues mean nothing if your house is on fire.

Wake Up People

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I’m writing today about three unrelated items that come together as commentary on our time.

The first is a video of J D Vance answering questions on Meet the Press. Without any hedging or apologies he is arguing for a full political takeover of universities.  We need Viktor Orban’s state censorship here? How have we reached the stage where a mainstream party is proposing totalitarian behavior as a model?

Second, I just finished one of the most disturbing novels I’ve ever read.   On the face of it, it’s a story about high school, where there reader only gradually learns what has happened as told by ten different speakers.  What’s horrifying is that something terrible happens without anyone owning up–even to themselves—about what was really going on.  The horror didn’t just happen; it was allowed to happen.  I don’t know if the author thought of it as a metaphor, but it sure feels like where we are.

Finally, like everyone else I’m confronted by the Gaza mess everyday.  It’s only pushing things a little to say that Netanyahu seems to have decided that if he’s going down, he’s going to take Israel with him.  Israel gave dictatorial power to a narcissist who promised security—and he ran Israel for HIMSELF.  If there was ever a cautionary tale this is it. 

Can’t we wake up?

Message for Business

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We’ve spoken here before about how the evangelical community needs to understand that Trump is not their guy.

However the issue is more general.  It’s too easy to dismiss evangelicals as disconnected from reality and perhaps swayed by self-interested leaders. In fact all of us have spent lifetimes insulated from the reality of authoritarian government.  The US elections and democratic system are certainly not perfect, but we the people still do have power.  It’s hard to recognize that once that goes, the world is different.

Even the well-heeled and well-educated business community has that problem.  Much was made of Jamie Dimon’s comment at Davos that Europeans in particular should stop worrying about Trump, because ultimately nothing serious was going to happen.  A recent Edsall piece pointed out that many other business leaders believe the same thing.  Like the Evangelical’s focus on abortion, the business focus on the Trump tax cuts has convinced business people that he’s their guy.

As Edsall’s article points out, the history of authoritarian takeovers tells another story.  Once government is unaccountable, what follows is massive corruption and shakedowns of all players.  That’s in addition to the whims and the uncorrectable mistakes of the leader.  Businesses–and in particular their leaders–have much to lose, as their counterparts elsewhere have found out to their shock and surprise.

For now Trump’s threats–combined with the taxcut carrot–seem to hold sway with much of the business community.   But the Trump people have made no secret of their plan to end democracy in favor of an  Viktor Orban-like regime.  As a threat, there is nothing in Biden’s program that comes close to matching that one.

Message for Evangelical Voters

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Everyone seems to have written off the evangelicals as a lost cause. We hear from many directions that they regard Trump as chosen by God to lead the country from infamy to some kind of evangelical paradise. That’s despite a personal history that is anything but Godly.

However personal history is not the issue. The message to the evangelicals has got to be something much more to the point. Despite the rhetoric, the fact is Trump is NOT THEIR GUY. He’s a con man doing what he’s has always done: make money off people who have the misfortune to trust him. He and his hacks are the ones saying he’s chosen by God. He has grabbed hold of an issue that means nothing to him, so that he can pick their pockets and run the country for himself and his ilk.

He has delivered on abortion. No money in that. What is money is tax breaks to big business donors and Trump himself. He did that last time, and he has said he is going to do it again. Already last time the massive tax cuts in good times went mostly to Wall Street and left the country with a record increase in debt. Further custs would be felt in medical care costs, education costs, the environment, and Social Security. There won’t be any “winning for his people”.

He has also said that he is opposed to democracy and is going to rule accordingly. That does NOT mean he is going to run the country for you. It means that he is going to run the country for HIM, and there won’t be a single thing you can do about it. This will not be the idealized American past of peace, friendship, and family values. It will be an unChristian paradise where anything goes for the rich and powerful, with nothing for the well-being of anyone else. Unafordable healthcare, no labor or environmental protections, no future for anyone’s children outside the rich. In all his bankruptcies Trump sucked out money and screwed the contractors and vendors who trusted him.

Biden is not threatening your practice of religion or anything else about how you live. And he regards himself as President responsible for the whole country, including you. You may find that much of what he has proposed is relevant to you. There is also no threat to your continued voice in the running of the country.

Trump is NOT the unGodly warrior for Christ. God is only his foot in the door. After that there’s the lesson repeated over and over in history: enemies of democracy are no one’s friend.

Netanyahu is Like Manchin Only Worse

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It’s worth being clear about the threat that Netanyahu poses–not just to Israel but to the US as well.

The Gaza war is immensely unpopular here. Not only because it is a war beamed to every television set, but also because it is unavoidably devisive. And Biden, by trying to achieve progress toward a two-state solution, has alienated the strong supporters of both sides. It is a truism that we need significant progress toward peace by November.

Enter Netanyahu. There are a number of things he wants from the Gaza war:

  1. To cover up his reponsibility for the October 7 events, as we’ve noted here before. For now, the majority of Israelis are unwilling to forgive him.
  2. To delay any election until his coverup is complete.
  3. To sell himself as the only one tough enough to fight the Palestinians. That has always involved rejecting any two-state solution as inconsistent with the fear campaigns that have kept him in power.
  4. To estsablish himself as dictator of Israel with, in particular, control of the judiciary so as to protect himself from corruption charges.

For these reasons it has always been clear that Netanyahu would keep the Gaza war going as long as possible. That means you have to regard his negotiations with Biden as akin to Manchin’s. He’ll give hints of progress, but when it comes down to action he’s far too dishonest to be believed.

However it’s worse than that. Netanyahu knows he needs Trump as President. If that happens the whole dictatorial takeover gains a new light. Instead of a democratic adversary in the US, he gains a dictator partner ready to support every feature of what he wants to do.

Electing Trump is not the most important item in Netanyahu’s agenda, but it fits perfectly with the rest. And you can count on Netanyahu to make the most of this God-given opportunity to get everything at once. 

Biden has his work cut out for him. Neither side wants peace, and one hopes there is someone watching his back.