PMC Commentary

A personal story — of some possible value?

When I was pursuing a terminal degree in American political history I unfortunately got shanghaied into a historiography seminar that, truth be told, had nothing to with historiography, probably because the professor seemed not to know the first fucking thing about Thucydides, or, even worse,  Peter Novick, the greatest historiographer of his time.

Anyway, one day, before the day's seminar commenced, every grad student sitting around our architecturally egalitarian room began discoursing in ideological unity about some such thing, which I don't entirely recall. After about 15 unbearable minutes of all this brotherhood and sisterhood agreement, I announced, "Jesus! From here on out I'm going to be the voice of backwater conservatism, because universities are where we should discuss disparate ideas. You know, debate."

They looked at me as though I had been sent as a representative of the RNC or David Duke.

But here's the point. The earlier discussion had touched, briefly, on busing. After class, I confronted s bald, black student about three times my size who, I'd fairly guess, worked out on weights several hours a day and could have, with one minimal swing, reduced me to a human oil spot. Risking my skull and quaking humanity, I said to him (who shall remain anonymous), "You know what? I'm not going to send my daughter to an inferior public school. I love her and I want her to have the best possible education."

His response? — from which I was prepared to duck? "I quite understand. You're right. I wouldn't want my daughters to attend an inferior school, either."

Now for the long point. My daughter will be a junior at university this year. She then plans to attend law school and specialize in civil-rights law, where she can do more good for generations to come than having attended a bused school.

Justice takes years, decades. It's a heartbreaker and it 's ugly and unfair and goddamn inhuman. But that's the way things are, Sens. Warren and Sanders.

What an ignorant punk

He just can't let go of grievances. Fed Chair Powell did precisely what Trump had been agitating and griping and bitching for. What was Powell's reward — although the Fed and the White should always be unaligned?

....As usual, Powell let us down, but at least he is ending quantitative tightening, which shouldn’t have started in the first place - no inflation. We are winning anyway, but I am certainly not getting much help from the Federal Reserve!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2019

Our economic illiterate of a president can't even seem to recognize that quantitative easing, under the economic circumstances we were experiencing because of Republicans' undersight of a collapsing economy, never threatened inflation or was deigned to ease inflation. Instead it loosened credit, averted another Great Depression, and handed Trump an energetic economy for which has no right to brag about.

Please, President Obama, return to the stump and set this economic ignoramus straight.

Who won last night's debate? Hint: His first name is Joe.

[For Sept. 12 debate, go here.]

After addictively reading the Times' Ross Douthat merely to absorb his unwavering advice on what sort of conservative Catholic morality I should hug, I was pleased to read, this morning, his titled opinion that "Joe Biden Won Last Night’s Democratic Debate."

What makes Douthat readably palatable to me is that even though he's America's self-ordained pope, full of only kindling fire and muted fury, he detests Donald Trump with all the unChristian passion of an Ali Khamenei. Trump stands in emetic opposition to everything that Douthat holds dear: a community-oriented conservatism with steadfast, authoritative religion at its core. To me, that sounds like the first circle of hell. Nevertheless, it beats the bejesus out of contemporary, Trumpian cryptofascism.

But enough on Douthat's bio and ideological leanings. Here's the crux of his — I think — piercingly accurate analysis:

"It would be very useful to Biden if what happened last night kept happening, which would require at least one other would-be moderate to hang around … and poll at 4 or 8 percent instead of sinking perpetually back toward zero…. They could make a direct and pointed and unapologetic case against the major leftward candidates … so that Biden doesn’t have to do it….

"Biden’s tricky task … will be to prove he can counterpunch without seeming to be too anti-left, too ready for ideological civil war…. [H]e’s holding 30 percent of the primary electorate when nobody else has much more than half that, his core constituency is precisely the sort of voter who doesn’t give a rip who left-wing or media Twitter thinks is winning the debates, and three weeks after Harris supposedly demolished him, their whole encounter barely even registers in polls…. Biden is the most important figure in the two-night spectacle — and he enters CNN’s arena tonight as still, and perhaps enduringly, the candidate to beat."

***

Very low ratings for the Democratic Debate last night — they’re desperate for Trump!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2019

Democrats are desperate for Trump?

Need we say more?

....or is he too dumb (stupid} to understand that. No wonder CNN’s ratings (MSNBC’s also) have gone down the tubes - and will stay there until they bring credibility back to the newsroom. Don’t hold your breath!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2019

From the National Cathedral: "Have We No Decency? A Response to President Trump"

As faith leaders who serve at Washington National Cathedral … we feel compelled to ask: After two years of President Trump’s words and actions, when will Americans have enough?...

Make no mistake about it, words matter. And, Mr. Trump’s words are dangerous.

[His] words are more than a "dog-whistle." When such violent dehumanizing words come from the President of the United States, they are a clarion call, and give cover, to white supremacists who consider people of color a sub-human "infestation" in America. They serve as a call to action from those people to keep America great by ridding it of such infestation. Violent words lead to violent actions.

When does silence become complicity? What will it take for us all to say, with one voice, that we have had enough? The question is less about the president’s sense of decency, but of ours.

***

On second thought, yes, we do need to say more. From March 1954, 2:23 seconds, but at least pick it up at 1:40:

Just as a historical bit of useful cocktail-party chatter, I once read that Murrow was so fearful of the television camera, he kept a bottle of bourbon behind his desk and in close proximity during commercial breaks. I'd do the same. I possess an unnatural case of stage fright. 

A brief history of Tuesday's debate

From the Washington Post, here's all you need to know about last night's Democratic debate, since not one of them will be the Democratic nominee:

"Some of the loudest voices in the primary race have been from candidates who want to abolish private health insurance, decriminalize unauthorized border crossings and raise taxes …"

… and lose the presidential election.

Sorry, but I just can't get too excited about a field of 20 candidates, nearly all of whom know they haven't a prayer. 

Rep. John Ratcliffe, possible director of Trump's national unintelligence

With Dan Coats out, Rep. John Ratcliffe might be our next director of national intelligence, as both the title and office would still be amusingly known. But hold on to your tricorn hats, for even some Senate Republicans "hesitated Monday to embrace" him because he's "too inexperienced and too partisan."

Almost as painful for the nominee was that the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, said "I don’t know John Ratcliffe," and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, also of the Intelligence Committee, said Ratcliffe's only real claim to fame is "his record of promoting Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories."

The national intelligence office's founding law is clear as to the director's required qualifications; He or she must have "extensive national security expertise." Republican Ratcliffe has served in Congress for four years, before which he was a United States attorney in Texas and — "the mayor of Heath, Tex., a town of about 9,000 people." He is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, however he only joined the committee this year. So his extensive national security experience amounts to a few months.

Ratcliffe, "a star of Fox News" — and that explains a lot — is a true zealot. "[He] has cast doubt on the C.I.A.’s finding that Moscow favored Mr. Trump the 2016 election" and "appeared to have sealed the intelligence nomination by [kissing Trump butt in] executing one of the most effective Republican attacks on Mr. Mueller during his closely watched House testimony last week."

Still, he of shape-shifting coifs, former Republican congressman Trey Gowdy, said Democrats’ assaults on Ratcliffe are "more reflective of the political environment we are in than John Ratcliffe." Gowdy seems unaware that it's Senate Republicans who are more likely to end Ratcliffe's security career before it begins. "[They] said in private conversations … they wanted to keep the intelligence post apolitical, and Mr. Ratcliffe will need to show he can move beyond the die-hard conservative persona that has made him a star in the House."

Is that even humanly possible for an inbred propagandist such as Ratcliffe? I think not.

First, let's kill the inane rule-writers

I'm scheduled for a minor heart procedure — something to do with evolving atrial fibrillation and other mystic matters of cardiac bugaboos — August 13th. But that's the least of it; nothing to fret about as far as I'm concerned. However, perhaps you've experienced the nerve-wracking, heart-thumping nightmare of merely scheduling a goddamn heart procedure.

Today, in so doing, and in battling the medical community's bureaucracy, I have been absolutely dumbfounded by its abject senselessness — usually synonymous with "bureaucracy." Is the hospital chiefly concerned that I survive the procedure on its cold metal slab? Ha! What it's worried about, almost exclusively, is that I have someone with me at 6:30 a.m. to check in, and then to have either that driver or a hearse scheduled to pick me up after the procedure. Otherwise they won't proceed with what it is they need to do, which they maintain is essential for my deteriorating health. 

Shakespeare, in one of his rare moments of non-lucidity (in Henry VI, as I recall), advocated through a character, "First, let's kill all the lawyers." Not a bad beginning at all. But I say, just as a warm-up, first let's kill all the imbeciles who write senseless bureaucratic rules.

Can't we just concentrate on Trump's removal?

E.J. Dionne and I are of like mind. In his latest, he laments the internecine bloodshed practiced by some Democratic pols, whose political ambitions supersede the ultimate goal of 2020: "Kicking Trump out is the important thing. Fights over how to do it shouldn’t get in the way." Writes Dionne:

"Trump is not a political genius. He is president because of our outdated and undemocratic electoral college. What he is skilled at is taking advantage of his opponents’ weaknesses, sowing division in their ranks….

"And since Democrats seem to relish attacking each other, they may give him a hand…. [T]he Democratic presidential candidates will debate this week. Judge them not by the points they score but by who among them best understands that removing this reprehensible president from office is far more important than any of their individual ambitions — and that nothing will make Trump happier than an opposition tearing itself to pieces."

Joe Biden was the first, and possibly only, presidential candidate to understand and practice the political strategy of singularly attacking Trump. His answer to reporters' questions about variously proposed policy initiatives was, "Beat Trump, beat Trump," without which, idealistic proposals are just so much wind.

But Biden was assaulted in a Democratic debate, and his gentlemanliness was instantly rendered as weakness. So now he too, in the next debate, must join the howling pack of wolves — sowing yet more division in Democratic ranks.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Give me the old days of smoke-filled rooms in which political professionals and partisan leaders chose their presidential candidate. Because this primary system, in which millions of politically unaware dunderheads vote is a scourge on democracy.

To quote (extended) from my post of 9 February 2005:

"From the NY Times of 1912 comes a sublime, prophetic passage, quoted (p. 695) in Doris Goodwin's The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. In that presidential election year, American politics was just beginning its turbulent love affair with the 'preference' primary system (into which we can lump Iowa's caucus routine), designed to sideline the party bosses and elevate the common man's voice. The Times' editorial board looked on in unqualified horror":

"This is our first presidential campaign under the preference primary plan. We hope it may be our last. The spectacle presented by the fierce fight for the [Republican] nomination is one that must be amazing to foreigners, it is one that should bring a blush of shame to the cheek of every American…. [In the primary system] we are no longer a people, but a mob."

The good new, and bad news

Politico:

"While we were all watching Robert Mueller and Democrats [last] week, here’s what happened to House Republicans: Three popular and well-respected members of Congress decided they weren’t going to run for reelection. Paul Mitchell, Pete Olson and Martha Roby all said they were calling it quits. Republicans say they lost the House because of too many retirements last cycle, yet they are seeing a steady stream of lawmakers forgo reelection once again."

While I'm always happy to see congressional Republicans retire, the problem here is that two of the above three, Olson and Roby, are from Texas and Alabama, respectively. The odds of Democrats taking these seats are roughly equivalent to Trump praising the Squad. 

A sad commemoration; an omitted "event"

Trump will be in Williamsburg, Virginia today to commemorate the 400th anniversary of America's first representative legislative body. Kathy Spangler, the Executive Director of American Evolution, said "Representative government started here at Jamestown in 1619," when "people had voice to government for the first time."

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus will boycott the event. “The commemoration of the birth of this nation and its democracy will be tarnished unduly with the participation of the President – who continues to make degrading comments toward minority leaders," said the group. “Trump has shown a blatant disregard for the role of government and the rule of law in our country.”

In neither of the above-quoted articles is there even a mention that 1619 was the first year that British America imported 20 African slaves — into Jamestown.

Defending the indefensible

The Washington Post's Robert Samuelson disembowels, or attempts to, Jessica Matthews' "America's Indefensible Defense Budget," printed in The New York Review of Books," July issue.

He does so by using misleading attacks on Matthews' statement, for instance, that "Defense spending now accounts for almost 60% of the budget: everything else is accommodated in the remaining two-fifths." Says Samuelson, she arrived at this figure by writing that "The way Mathews gets to 60 percent is by ignoring entitlement spending — the largest and fastest-growing part of the budget — and comparing defense outlays only to so-called discretionary spending."

Yet Matthews makes clear in her article that the the 60 percent figure is based on "the government’s unrestricted funds to defense" — meaning outlays outside of entitlement spending (my emphasis).

"None of this warrants a blank check for the military," writes Samuelson with throat-choking compassion.."Mathews is correct that there is waste in the system, including (as she says) weapons systems and bases that are preserved mostly because they have powerful political sponsors. But there is waste in many federal programs [ho-hum] — Medicare, student loans and Amtrak [rail transportation?], as examples — and they shouldn’t be used as a pretext for stalling needed defense spending."

We can assume Samuelson means, oh, let's say, tanks, which, writes Matthews, "are a classic case" of waste. " For years, the army has tried to convince Congress to stop buying new ones. They are expensive to build, maintain, exercise, and train troops to use. The army already has more than six thousand of them — far more than it needs for any conceivable future combat. " Or, "More controversially, the navy remains wedded to new aircraft carriers, but at $13 billion each they are arguably more an outdated symbol of twentieth-century power than an effective weapon system for a future in which they will be increasingly vulnerable to attack by high-speed, maneuverable missiles that can be bought for a minuscule fraction of what a carrier costs."

But, oh well, says Samuelson, what's a little bit of waste in the [military] system"?

He's been in Washington too long.

I recall reading, as a young man, John Kenneth Galbraith's brilliant deconstruction of defense spending on items such as tanks. Once produced, they just sit there, offering no multiplier effect. They're just hunks of metal that once manufactured are simply burdens on the economy. Samuelson may want to give Galbraith a read sometime. 

One can be far too understanding

Arthur Brooks, the former president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has made a post-AEI career out of softening today's hyperpartisanship, with an emphasis on how respectable and understanding today's hyperconservatives actually are:

"[D]o you ever stop and ask how much you really know about the other side? Or whether the outrage industry in politics and media is telling you the truth about your fellow Americans who disagree with you politically? These questions are worth asking, because it turns out most of what we 'know' about the other side is wrong."

So true, Mr. Brooks, as realized in Jeremy Peter's analysis of the right's latest nationalistic fever:

"Led by Mr. Trump, Republicans have used … four congresswomen, known as 'the squad' … as a visual aid for the nationalist, us-versus-them message he seems eager to pursue for the 2020 election. Their attacks on the congresswomen, with only a handful of dissenters, show how broadly accepted Mr. Trump’s racial and cultural instigations have become in the Republican Party….

"[T]he attacks have metastasized. [Trump's] Twitter harangue that the women should 'go back' to where they came from … turned into chants of 'send her back' at a recent Trump rally. Those kinds of sentiments have multiplied on social media, which has exploded with memes in recent days calling the four everything from terrorists to harpies to cancer….

"These portrayals have filtered down to the average pro-Trump, anti-liberal voter and activist ... [emphasis mine]. Trump is convinced it will help him, said people who have spoken to him in recent days. And he rejected those who have told him otherwise, responding with certitude, 'You’re wrong.'"

And they are wrong, because the GOP has morphed into a white-nationalist, Blut-und-Boden (blood-and-soil) American Bund party that will brook no dissent nor anything else separated from Trump's diseased, racist movement. In the beginning, Trumpism was seen as merely the ravings of an ignorant madman — not as a race-based "ideology" so inimical to the American tradition: fascism. But today's Trumpists have arrived at just that.

Somewhere, Dwight Eisenhower is weeping.

An unanticipated change-up in Trump's racism

You may think I've lost it, but this, I think, is a refreshing racist tweet from the president of the United States.

....As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019

Why refreshing? For once he didn't attack a black woman.

It's your choice: Trump versus losing leftists

Democratic moderates, specifically if not exclusively Joe Biden, "promise a return to a bygone political era of bipartisan cooperation and respectful political debate, with far less polarization," writes the Times in a rather fascinating analysis — "For Democrats, Beating Trump Is Step One. What’s Step Two?" — of the party's left versus center-left; or, to put it more offensively, I hope, to progressive activists, those who are working to reelect the minotaur Trump versus realistic moderates who wish to kick his overbloated ass from the White House to the moon.

For some time now, I have waited, futilely, for progressive activists — who claim to know the ins and outs of national politics more intimately than FDR's Louis Howe — to acknowledge that Biden's promise to return to a bygone political era of bipartisan cooperation is little more than campaign horseshit, pooped liberally to the average voter who's dazzled by the siren song of "respectable political debate" and "less polarization."

These voters simply want the two sides to get together now and then over bourbon and branch water (I've read worse ideas) and work things out, even though today's GOP is as politically flexible as Mussolini's Silver Shirts.

But that's what they want to hear, and Biden gives it to them in spades. That's politics. Candidate Obama promised the same, and though as president he never relinquished his hope for some passable level of Republican sanity, he never counted on it, either. His candidacy, however, was aimed at that average, centrist voter who feared being afraid of radical change. And that's what made candidate Obama President Obama, whose Louis Howe was David Axelrod.

"We’d love to be thinking about creating change and progress, but honestly, right now we all just want this beloved republic to survive Trump," said Marjie Foster, the Democratic chairwoman in [Iowa's] Decatur County. Added Christine Pelosi, scion of Nancy and Democratic National Committee member, "When you talk about big, bold structural change, that is very scary for people."

To wit: "Many of the leading candidates have embraced proposals that were once constrained to the fringes of the party. They have pitched eliminating most of the private health insurance industry, expanding the size of the Supreme Court, decriminalizing illegal border crossings and embracing reparations for slavery to some black Americans."

You want a nominee who espouses all that? That's fine, it's your choice as an American voter. But first prepare yourself for four more years of bottom-feeding Donald J. Trump.

Another able person gets Trump's boot

Of course Dan Coats is out as director of national intelligence. What a clown, what a schmuck, what a no-nothing bureaucratic ignoramus. The man could not have been more wrong in his foreign-policy analyses; thus was he dumped by that stable genius of international affairs.

"Coats … said North Korea was unlikely to give up its nuclear stockpile, Iran was not immediately taking steps to build a nuclear weapon and the Islamic State was still capable of stoking violence in Syria…. Coats [also] argued for a view of Russia as an adversary and pushed for closer cooperation and stronger ties with traditional American allies in Europe, nations that have been the focus of Mr. Trump’s ire….

"Coats took the lead in … presentation[s] of global threats that was at odds with Mr. Trump’s views. The president … called his intelligence chiefs 'passive and naïve.' In an indignant Twitter post, Mr. Trump wrote, 'Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!"

And that's the end of old-school, establishment-Republican foreign-policy advice in this wretched administration of antediluvian ideology over brains. Coats' replacement is a right-wing nitwit congressman who attacked Robert Mueller last week in the hearings. A gold star for him.

So from here on out, it's all Joachim von Ribbentrops.