The Carpentariat

Trump, trade, farmers, and confounding disarray

The Times' Peter Baker:

Remember when President Xi Jinping of China was the "enemy"? That was so Friday. As of Monday, according to President Trump, Mr. Xi was "a great leader" and a "brilliant man."

What about that edict by Mr. Trump, who "hereby ordered" American companies to leave China? Three days later, he was positive he would get a trade deal and, if so, then firms should "stay there and do a great job."

Mr. Trump spent the weekend in France insisting that he was not having a debate with his fellow world leaders, but at times it seemed like he was having a debate with himself. Day by day, even hour by hour, his approach to the trade war with China … veered back and forth, leaving much of the world with geopolitical whiplash.

If he seemed all over the map, he made clear on Monday, as he wrapped up days of diplomacy, that the world would just have to get used to it. He likes leaving negotiating partners, adversaries, observers and even allies off balance.

Leaving adversaries off balance is a conventional Sun Tzu, Art of War recommendation. But leaving one's allies off balance is a preposterous, colossally screwball approach to diplomacy — although, let's face it, the U.S. has no allies left; Trump has, with malice aforethought, alienated them through his mentally unbalanced "thoughts" on trade, climate change, Russia, China, and of course Iran.

Said Trump in France, "It’s the way I negotiate. It’s done very well for me over the years, and it’s doing even better for the country."

This was equally preposterous. He has bankrupted several projects, some of which should have been surefire moneymakers (casinos, anyone?); he is generally regarded by the business community as a godawful entrepreneur; and U.S. banks wouldn't touch him with a territorial sea-length pole before 63 million chumps elevated him to the White House.

As for his betterment of the country, just take a gander at virtually any current economic statistics, not to mention his wholesale fiscal abuse of anyone but those of extraordinary wealth.

As for his trade wars, a significant part of Trump's base — farmers — might be creeping toward anti-Trump disgust (there's controversy about that), having seen their sales of "soybeans, pork, wheat and other agricultural products to China" sail barrenly south. "Total American agricultural exports to China were $24 billion in 2014 and fell to $9.1 billion last year," reports the Times. Then there's the inevitable ripple-effect throughout the farm implement industry, which will ripple much farther.

And I admire agricultural secretary Sonny Perdue's sense of, uh, humor? at this month's Minnesota Farmfest, which was traditional, perfectly unthinking Trumpspeak: "What do you call two farmers in a basement? A whine cellar." The Times reports that "A cascade of boos ricocheted around the room."

Nevertheless, Trump, as you know, tweets the way he speaks — fallaciously — keypadding often that "farmers are starting to do great again." Retorted the Minnesota Corn Growers Association's president to Mr. Perdue: "We’re not starting to do great again. Things are going downhill and downhill quickly." He also said that Trump wouldn't get his vote again.

Adds the Times: "A growing number of farmers say they are losing patience with the president’s approach and are suggesting it will not take much to lose their vote as well." One hopes so, but after all this time and all of Trump's trade bumbling, one also wonders just what it would take for most farmers. Indeed, a Farm Journal July survey of 1,100 farmers and ranchers "show[ed] that 79% of farmers now approve of the job Mr. Trump is doing."

Which is agrarian madness, nearly on Trump's level.

A polling extravaganza: American anger, Democratic turbulence

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll — conducted by Hart Research/Public Opinion Strategies, whose 538 rating is "A-," most likely because the pollster Hart is Democratic; Public Opinion, Republican, thus striking a balance — finds, as Trump would put it though he never will, that the great citizens of this great nation are still in a great rage about pretty much everything excepting President Obama's great economy, which the succeeding, doubleplusungood president is now managing to derail.

Seventy percent of Americans remain angry about the political establishment and the financial establishment, the very swamps Trump promised to drain; they're angry "because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power," writes NBC News, "like those on Wall Street or in Washington." That polled statement is a demonstrable truth, given Trump's massive, upper-end tax cuts and deregulations of business and negligence of the middle and lower classes. Although it seems as though Americans are, in general, forever angry, Trump and his fellow fraudsters in Congress have given them excellent reasons to feel that way now.

What's most interesting about the NBC/WSJ poll is its findings about ...

And … 

Since Millennials are the future and Democrats outnumber Republicans, it appears as though we're slowly but almost certainly returning to Max Weber's pre-Protestant work ethic, which, if true, would be an immense shift in American society. Most troubling to the economy, though, is the Millennial/Democratic relative lack of desire to have children, creating a vacuum in the labor force. 

Speaking of immense shifts, the Joe Biden campaign is none too happy about the latest A+ Monmouth poll, which shows the former vice president at 19 percent nationally, with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders tied at 20 percent — statistically, undifferentiated. Biden's percentage is vastly incommensurate — statistically, possibly disastrous, should Warren and Sanders voters ever unite — with his Monmouth showing in June of 32 percent.

The problem with this poll is that which is problematic for so many polls, as Monmouth's director of polling and this site's commenters have noted: It included a mere 298 registered Dems and Dem-leaners out of only 800 voters, creating a 5.7 percent margin of error for the Democratic subset — which, on Biden's upside, applies to Warren and Sanders as well. And, as we should recall, though the Monmouth poll is plagued by nearly the same, large MOE as CNN's "A-" polling of last week, the latter had Biden up by 7 points (but with a MOE even larger). In other words, you are free to interpret the Monmouth poll however you like.

Perhaps more worrisome for Biden is what the Times reports: "In interviews in Iowa, some of Mr. Biden’s supporters have indicated that they lack enthusiasm for his candidacy, suggesting that his strong poll numbers may mask a softness in his support. Biden’s support had eroded in states that hold earlier primaries, dropping from 26 percent to 20 percent since June. It had also fallen among a broad range of Democrats — including those who call themselves moderate, conservative and liberal, those with college degrees and those without, white voters and voters of color."

The Biden campaign shot back at the Monmouth poll, noting that RealClearPolitics' polling average has kept their man in front: 27.2 percent versus Sanders' 16.7 percent and Warren’s 16.2 percent.

As for other notables? Bad news. After months of campaigning, Kamala Harris stands at only 8 percent support in the Monmouth poll, with Cory Booker at 4 percent, and Pete Buttigieg the same. It is time, lady and gentlemen, to depart from the stage, thereby defining this race, with advisable swiftness, as essentially a three-person contest. We can then get a better handle on the definition of the general-election race.

Dialing for dollars for a thesaurus, for Trump

Essential fact of the day: At his dual and then one-man press conference in France today, Trump used the adjective "great" a staggering 38 times.

Here's a guy who is in desperate need of a thesaurus, but because he's personally losing "anywhere from $3 to $5 billion to be president," as he contended at the presser, the poor man just cannot afford one, I gather.

So let's all pitch in and send the White House a dollar — its envelope marked "For the President's Vocabulary." I just feel so sorry for this pathetic, impecunious fellow, unable to buy a thesaurus on his own.   

Are Arkansans ready for another Gov. Sanders?

Sarah Huckabee Sanders' new and sparkling website — needed because she wants to be Arkansas' next governor, which just might become a family tradition.

Here you will find "MEET SARAH":

"Sarah Huckabee Sanders [the spawn of Christianist nutjob Mike Huckabee] served as White House Press Secretary for President [presidential imposter] Donald J. Trump from 2017 to 2019. A trusted confidante of the [White House's joke of an occupant; a confidante who lied egregiously to the American public on a daily basis], Sarah advised him on everything from press and communications strategy [although Trump, of course, never needed her advice, since he's the self-publicizing king of communications debauchery] to personnel and policy [both of which have proven themselves to be frightfully calamitous]. Sarah is only the third woman – and the very first mom [isn't that touching? and almost totally irrelevant to the governor's seat, since that job, too, will require her undivided professional attention to her customary 18 duplicitous hours a day] – to ever hold the job of White House Press Secretary [which is now in such disrepute, thanks to Sanders and her predecessor, Sean Spicer — who, as the father of two kids, also ignored them as he repeatedly and often hilariously lied to the public — it will be some time before the press secretary's office is deemed credible]."

Go for it, Mother Sanders. Under Trump, we need all the entertainment we can get.

An esteemed political scientist wrote this?

The essence of political scientist Greg Weiner's argument in a Times op-ed:

Trump wants his supporters to know that he is still draining the swamp over which he has presided for nearly three years. One of his Democratic rivals, Senator Elizabeth Warren, says Americans are trapped in a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else." Her colleague and fellow candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders, calls it "a corrupt political system designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful."

These claims of corruption and rigging make for a strange campaign of ideas, like the one Ms. Warren is lauded for waging and an even more bizarre populism of the kind associated with Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders. Each of them deflects criticism by delegitimizing opposition. Mr. Trump may have perfected that art, but Democrats should be cautious about imitating it. Accusations of corruption are rooted in the assumption that one’s positions are so obviously correct that the only explanation for opposing them is that the opponent has been bought and his or her supporters have been brainwashed….

The contemporary scandal, it is often said, is not that criminal corruption occurs but rather that the political system is legally rigged. It supposedly takes the form of campaign contributions that, Mr. Sanders says, enable corporations to "literally buy elections." This is, literally, false.

I agree with Weiner "That voters are not [always] simply dupes of [mega-dollar] contributors is clear from the fact that, in the 2016 Republican primary, when Jeb Bush was a powerhouse fund-raiser and Donald Trump relied on the cost-free device of Twitter, there was little evident correlation between money spent and votes received."

However that the political system is, in many ways, legally rigged is, literally, true. Consider the democracy-defiguring Electoral College; an attorney general who is more political than law-legit; the Trump's administration's refusal to honor congressional subpoenas — and get away with it; a right-wing Supreme Court that routinely sides with the administration; superPACs' dark money in elections; Republicans' fine-tuning of gerrymandering; and red states' often successful efforts to prohibit the legal votes of minorities. Those are merely immediate considerations that come to mind; one could extend the list with just a bit more effort.

Weiner goes on to argue that "The go-to argument that everything is corrupt is, in fact, not intellectual engagement at all. It is an escape from the responsibility to defend one’s position on its merits." Weiner's use of "everything" is hyperbolic, grossly distorting, and, ironically, anti-intellectual. But is the above paragraph a flee from "the responsibility to defend one’s position on its merits"? Have not many others responsibly said the same?

Simply put, Weiner goes overboard in his once-upon-a-time pluralistic argument that voters should not throw around the word "corruption" so frivolously. Yet when it's literally true that our political system is legally rigged, what other, gentler word would Weiner prefer?

Thank God, Trump's embarrassing G-7 performances are just about over

Trump says he doesn't drink. He should start. Perhaps his lucidity would improve, because sober, he's a mental wreck.

I tried to resist writing yet another piece on Trump and the G-7 summit, but seeing how this malicious, chaotic presidency is the lowest point in American politics since the sectional crisis of the 1850s, I couldn't help but stay with it. The American political system at the highest level also defines our diplomacy, of course, and here, I can think of no comparable period in American history; Trump's diplomacy is, shall we say, unique, as well as both fascinating and abysmally disturbing.

So let's proceed, with stiff labium superius oris (no not that one, the other one).

Although all legitimate media have reported on disagreements, tensions, even muted hostilities between the U.S. and the six other G-7 members, today Trump declared them "a lot of fake news." The media are saying, he said, "'Oh there’s no unity, there’s no unity.' There’s total unity. I’m talking about all the seven countries, and it’s been really good." As Trump was yammering about the enemies of the people and the G-7's amiable uniformity, Chancellor Angela Merkel sat "bemused," writes the Post. Indeed the G-6 has publicly differed with Trump on trade, climate change, Russia’s G-8 eviction, Iran, and Kim Jong Un's missile tests.

Knowing that the U.S. would be reflexively cantankerous on most issues, host President Emmanuel Macron decided before the summit commenced that no communique would be issued. This Post passage evinces reality versus Trump's delusional happy talk: "Negotiators from each country talked trade and other issues late into the night, but the U.S. delegation blocked any consensus, a senior European official said."

On the most acute matter before the G-7 — China and trade — more anarchy reigned. "China called," said Trump today, because "they want to make a deal" and "I think we’re going to make a deal" — even though on Friday he tweeted that "We don’t need China" and, more than that, we would be "far better off without them." China's foreign ministry said it was unaware of any such call. Oh, by the way, in Trump's quintessentially off-the-cuff words, Chinese President Xi Jinping evolved over the weekend from an "enemy" to a "great leader." (See the NY Times.)

As for Japan and a trade deal? One could exchange the above paragraph for this one. Trump announced an imminent U.S.-Japan trade deal "in principle," while Japan's foreign ministry said today that negotiations are, instead, "still at a more preliminary stage," in the Post's words.

Elsewhere, Trump was "caught … off-guard" — possibly inaccurate reporting by the  Post, in a separate story — by Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, dropping by the summit for a howdy-do. This kept-secret deed was done at Macron's invitation. When asked about the otherwise unanticipated visit, Trump, needing to be the man always in charge, said Macron had first sought his permission: The French president "spoke to me, he asked me. I said, 'If you want to do that that’s okay.'" He added, "I knew everything he was doing…. And I thought it was fine." [Update: Macron, in a dual press conference with Trump this morning (our time), said he informed the president; he didn't ask if it was "okay."]

Weary of all that is global, Trump, last night and the in last few hours, retweeted nine Twitter posts by that crackpot of an outfit, Judicial Watch, which attested to just how corrupt the FBI and the state of California are; the "Obama gang"'s culpability for "SpyGate"; "CREDIBLE Evidence Ilhan Omar Married Her Brother — 'We're Not Sure Her Last Name is Omar!'"; Hillary Clinton's scandalous emails; and our untrustworthy intelligence community. In addition he tweeted three posts from a right-wing British commentator praising him, and another that portrayed the entire G-7 in stitches: "In France we are all laughing at how knowingly inaccurate the U.S. reporting of events and conversations at the G-7 is. These Leaders, and many others, are getting a major case study of Fake News at it’s finest!"

Trump will soon return to the United States, where we alone can be embarrassed by this amorally diseased jackass, rather than having the whole world laughing at him.

Two Days in August: a veritable buffet of Trumpian enfeeblement

Sweet Jesus, only two days at the G-7 summit and Trump & Co. has splayed itself hither and yon. Indeed, this one lone weekend may be record-breaking in the president's sport of contradictions, incoherence, dictator-love, and almost comical ambiguities.

Let us begin with Prime Minister Boris Johnson's uncharacteristically diplomatic correction of Our Man At The G-7: "Just to register the faint, sheeplike note of our view on the trade war, we’re in favor of trade peace on the whole, and dialing it down if we can." This came just after Trump had implied that other attending leaders have no problem with his trade war on China. "I think they respect the trade war," he said, adding that "Nobody has told me [otherwise], and nobody would tell me that."

However when a reporter asked Trump if he was having "second thoughts" about his most notable trade war, he casually responded, "Yeah, sure, why not. Might as well. Might as well. I have second thoughts about everything." (No, Donald, they're not second "thoughts"; they're merely pinball paths in your chaotic brain.) The president said nothing, though, that might suggest he would be "dialing it down" against China.

(Update, from the Washington Post: "Trump conceded regret Sunday morning about his escalating trade war with China before reversing course in the afternoon and saying he only wished he had raised the tariffs higher.")

Meanwhile, Trump's senior officials of uncontrolled mendacity told the NY Times that President Emmanuel Macron's summit priorities were politically motivated, in that he was excessively feeding popular domestic opinions on issues like "climate change, income and gender equality, and African development." Trivialities, trivialities, all this nonsense about wealth and income and gender equality; and Africa can just fend for itself. Yet, at least on climate change, Macron said any attempt at international agreement — with Trump around — would be "pointless."

Trump's maladministration officials also said that Macron, for no discernible reason, "was purposely trying to fracture the Group of 7 by veering away from its longstanding mission of ensuring that the strains on other economies do not spread globally." But now for ABC News' tick-tock:

9:45 a.m. [today, local time]

Leaders of the Group of Seven are arriving for a working meeting focused on looming threats to the global economy.

Still, we have yet to approach the mother lode of Trump's confused and confusing, halter-skelter flip-flopping and bizarre loves, a delay I shall correct forthwith:

He inexplicably reversed himself on summarily booting American companies out of China, saying in fact he has no designs on applying the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to them.

He applauded Kim Jong Un, and told "reporters that North Korea hadn’t violated any rules by launching missiles, only to be quickly corrected by Japanese leader Shinzo Abe."

He asserted he had had no talks about a multilateral stance on Iran, although the French "insisted" that a consensus was reached Saturday night.

He claimed that several other leaders agreed with him on Russia's reentry to the G-7, although, in classic Trumpian-grifter style, he wouldn't name them: "I could but I don’t believe that’s necessary." In truth, a European official said the matter became "rough and tumble" in alliance against Trump's Russia advocacy, since G-7 leaders believe — or rather, know — that gratifying Vladimir Putin would only stamp-approve his bad acts in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

He remarked, once again, that Russia's expulsion from the annual international forum was only because of President Obama's vindictiveness — Putin had "outsmarted" him, said Trump, with no reported explanation — and added that it is "certainly possible" that at the U.S.-held G-7 next year, Putin would be invited.

And he said that in 2021 (wink-wink) he would battle for more tax cuts, although he said last week that more tax cuts were unnecessary, just after saying that he was considering more tax cuts. Stay tuned for more of that bouncing ball.

So there you have it: a record-breaking weekend of Trump's contradictions, incoherence, dictator-love, and almost comical ambiguities.

Trump will again convert the G-7 to a futile G-0

One measure of Trump's mercurial personality, mental instability and unprecedented presidential recklessness is that France's President Emmanuel Macron, host of this weekend's G-7 summit, is primarily worried that "Trump will blow it up."

Of similar sentiment is a G-7 diplomat who told the Washington Post that "When countries like Denmark are in the firing line, you just try to get through the summit without any damage." Consider the odds of an undamaged summit. Briefing this crackpot of a president were John "Yosemite Sam" Bolton and the worst economist in the world, Larry Kudlow.

If you can stomach it, recall last year's G-7 summit in Canada. Like a toddler denied a cookie, Trump sulkingly signed its concluding communique, only to retract his agreement, by Twitter, while flying home on Air Force One, Trump then detonated his explosive vindictiveness by calling Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau "weak" and "dishonest," because the Trudeau had somehow hurt the delicate feelings of the president of the United States.

Trump also damaged the 2018 summit by advocating that autocrat Vladimir Putin's Russia be reinstated to the international forum, even though Putin had heisted Crimea. And Trump will still be at it this year, arguing that the corrupt, authoritarian president's nation should be readmitted, no matter Crimea and its brutal violation of Ukraine.

Also told to the Post is this: "A senior administration official said Trump wants to brag about the U.S. economy and is uninterested in the many other issues that concern the G-7." It's okay, ladies and gentlemen of the summit; he does the same here, along with abusing poor, desperate immigrants and torturing their children.

Other White House officials said the president wishes to emphasize his "fair" trade approach, meaning his easy-to-win trade wars and his insistence that all trade negotiations benefit only the U.S. Obviously if every nation took his approach, all trade negotiations would deadlock. It's staggering to think that with the demonstrable harm he has done to American consumers and businesses, through trade bellicosity and assaults on the markets, Trump will, at the G-7, nevertheless push national solipsism as Einsteinian economics. I suspect he'll hear laughter, just as did at the United Nations in 2018.

A subsequent Post story relates that Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson — yes, prime minister, which is just as appalling as one other guy's title — is "going to do a fantastic job," according to Trump. If Trump-Johnson's disastrous courses of action are interpreted as political brilliance, I'm sure Trump concurs. Yet he may receive a wee bit of Johnson's cold shoulder. "Things could get awkward for Johnson if Trump greets him too warmly," writes the Post, because most Brits loathe Trump.

This should be an entertaining weekend — watching our president piss off the world. Again. And yet he kicked off the summit this morning by instead further pissing off American businesses operating in China, which he had "ordered" to vacate. "For all of the Fake News Reporters that don’t have a clue as to what the law is relative to Presidential powers, China, etc.," he tweeted, "try looking at the Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. Case closed!"

I looked. It seems the act was intended to confine and congressionally oversee a president's emergency powers, not broaden them; constraints which theretofore were nonexistent: "The President, in every possible instance, shall consult with the Congress before exercising any of the authorities granted by this" act. Not even Mitch McConnell's Senate would agree that Trump's case is closed.

Thus began the G-7 summit by the world's greatest power, led by the world's greatest crackpot.

Trump expressly proves his insanity via the Orient

....better off without them. The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP. Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019

....all deliveries of Fentanyl from China (or anywhere else!). Fentanyl kills 100,000 Americans a year. President Xi said this would stop - it didn’t. Our Economy, because of our gains in the last 2 1/2 years, is MUCH larger than that of China. We will keep it that way!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019

What an unspeakable idiot.

Tariffs on China are already costing the public $800 per household, per year, and Trump's solicitude is that of further retaliating against China by imposing even greater financial pain on average Americans. This he will do, because of China's earlier and much more moderate retaliation, by increasing tariff rates from 25 percent to 30 percent on $250 billion worth of Chinese products, beginning 1 Oct.; but first, on 1 Sept., he'll increase the tariffs on another $300 billion worth of products from 10 percent to 15 percent.

The markets' immediate response was a plunge in the Dow, a plunge in the S&P, and a Nasdaq plunge. There was also outage and perplexity throughout the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, and the National Farmers Union.

Trump at least had the decency to throw some humor into his tweets: "Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies home." I'm sorry, HOME. As the Times remarks with straight face and all, it's "not yet clear" how Trump intends to follow through on his preposterous command. 

Says David Dollar, a Brooking Institution authority on China, "It’s typical of the kind of thing we complain about from China and other economies where a government intervenes outside the rule of law."

Trump can't order American companies to remove themselves from China any more than I can order my local grocery store to move one block farther west.

But says White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, Trump's equal in unspeakable imbecility: "I just think that the way that China is reacting to this whole thing is simply reinforcing America’s perception of China as a bad actor," and "When China tries to bully us, that only strengthens our resolve."

China has been reacting to Trump's unilateral tariffs, you sniveling schmuck — and the latter are disproportionate to China's retaliation.

What else can one say other than that we've unspeakable cretins in the White House, and all the signals are flashing: "Things are gonna get worse."   

Hillary's memoir

My thanks to a good friend, reader, commenter and contributor, for forwarding this bit of truth.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump's job performance

Today's most pleasurable news, reflective of an actual "Trump audience" — in 2020:

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, at the University of Chicago, finds that "Just 36% of Americans approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president."

Though nearly half of adults still give him credit for the economy — which is baffling — 62 percent oppose his views, to word it kindly, on "immigration, health care, foreign policy and guns." (I was unaware that Trump had a foreign policy, other than financially harming Americans through idiotic trade wars.)

And here's a passage to savor: "The consistency [of Trump's approval/disapproval ratings] suggests the president’s weak standing with the American people is calcified after two years of near-constant political crises and divisive rhetoric at the White House."

But here's the fundamental reason I cite the AP-NORC Center's polling. It followed up by interviewing respondents, online or by phone, and these two remarks perfectly demonstrate the lucidity of thinking by most, and the irrational overflow of some:

"He does whatever’s politically expedient. He’s awful," said a 60-year-old retired police officer in New Jersey, who’s unaffiliated with either party. Good thinking, copper.

Then there's this: "He’s kind of a bully, but I’ve seen some improvement [on employment]," said a 38-year-old registered Democrat in North Carolina, "who is studying for her doctoral degree" — in paranormal psychology, I assume. She opposed Trump in 2016 but may vote for him in 2020, she said. "I’m not going to be too hard on him," she added. "I just think he doesn’t address America properly." Yet she may vote for him.

Churchill is credited — perhaps apocryphally — with saying, "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." That was true in 2016, but consistent polling suggests it won't be true in 2020.

Moulton is out

"Seth Moulton for America Massachusetts's 6th congressional district"

The Democratic presidential candidate, whose run was preceded by obscurity, has left America to fend for itself. He'll instead run for reelection as a congressman.

Moulton reportedly will say, at the DNC's summer convention, "This campaign is not ending the way we hoped." That's a forgivable understatement for a man whose campaign rated 0 percent and 0 precent in April and May, and asterisks in June and August, in CNN's polling, while even Andrew Yang was registering 1 percent.

But one must wonder: How did he think it would end, against the political powerhouses of Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders?

Whatever Moulton's merits, he now joins Rep. Eric Swalwell, Gov. Jay Inslee, and former governor John Hickenlooper in the otherwise-would-be-president club. And I thank him for it. Now if only Beto O'Rourke, Tulsi Gabbard, Tim Ryan, and the grim platoon of other hopeless Democratic candidates would join the club, this presidential race would be far less chaotic and far more comprehensible — which are critical to formulating an early strategy to beat Trump.

The Tao of Trump

The truth is that Trump doesn’t have a Plan B [for the decelerating economy], and probably can’t come up with one. On the other hand, he might not have to. Who needs competent policy when you’re the chosen one and the king of Israel?

— Paul Krugman

The truth is that Trump does have a Plan B, and it's as Trumpian as Trumpism can get: All would be well without the sorcerous Democrats and an independent Fed. The word Krugman omitted is a political Plan B, which is all this president cares about.

Four days ago, Trump tweeted that "Our Economy is very strong" — his capitalization peculiarities are something to behold — "but the Democrats are trying to 'will' the Economy to be bad for purposes of the 2020 Election." Evidently, and moreover, shockingly, it seems that Trump has been reading Arthur Schopenhauer, the rather gloomy, 18th-century philosopher who observed that "will … [is] the sole truly real, primary, metaphysical thing;… [it] gives all things, whatever they may be, the power to exist and to act." And yet the Dems needn't even act, according to Trump; their will can suffice.

The second component of Trump's political Plan B is, as you know, to thrash and subjugate the Fed to being just another office in the West Wing. In the same tweet, the president insisted "The Fed Rate, over a fairly short period of time, should be reduced by at least 100 basis points, with perhaps some quantitative easing as well" — the monetary policy in which the Fed buys securities so as to inflate the money supply and foster investment.

As Krugman notes, cutting interest rates and buying securities are "the actions [the Fed] normally takes in the face of a serious recession…; exactly the actions Republicans, including Trump, denounced as 'currency debasement' when" President Obama was in office. One must give them credit for being extraordinarily consistent in their inconsistencies.

Without all the political spin, Trump's unadorned Plan B portends a possibly catastrophic vacuum. Or so argues Krugman, with whom it's hard to argue. "Officials have floated, then retracted, the idea of a cut in payroll taxes…. But such action seems unlikely, among other things because top administration officials denounced this policy idea when Obama proposed it." My only rejoinder to that is: See above paragraph, last sentence.

As for Trump's notional act of "using executive authority to reduce taxes on capital gains?" "This move," writes Krugman, "would have the distinction of being both ineffectual and illegal." As to its illegality, Mr. Krugman, your point being?

Finally, there's the slim possibility that Trump could cease, or suspend, his trade wars, which have thrown capital investment into a vortex. "This seems unlikely, because protectionism is right up there with racism as a core Trump value," says Krugman, who precisely identifies this president's only two principles. "And merely postponing tariffs might not help," he adds, "since it wouldn’t resolve the uncertainty that may be the trade war’s biggest cost."

Hence Trump will rage against Democrats and the Federal Reserve in political mode, while any actual Plan B will most likely remain a mere adventure in economic fiction. Where will that leave us? There's a four-letter word for that, preceded by "in deep."

More great news from Trump's booming economy

Gregory Daco is the chief U.S. economist for Oxford Economics, a global forecasting firm.

MarketWatch reports that "The average 223,000 monthly increase in employment in 2018 — the strongest in three years — could be trimmed to around 185,000, economists estimate…. The newly revised figures indicate the economy didn’t get a huge boost last year from President Trump’s tax cuts and higher federal spending. They also signal the economy is a bit weaker than previously believed."

He is finally doing it. Other factors are at work, for sure, but Trump has played a large part in finally destroying the magnificent economy that President Obama handed him. And he's doing it with $1 trillion annual deficits, though President Obama's deficit spending was an issue that Trump inveighed against throughout his campaign. Obama inherited a deficit of $1.2 trillion — thanks to George W. Bush's insane tax cuts and an unprovoked war in Iraq — which, by his final year, he had cut in half.    

There's something about massive tax cuts leading to increased federal deficits that Republicans can't seem to comprehend. Or, more realistically, they just don't give a damn — not when their man is in the White House.  

President Joe Walsh, the madman from Illinois

Former Republican congressman Joe Walsh — I'm sure you remember him — has told Politico that Trump because Trump is an “unfit divider in chief," he's pondering a primary challenge. (Two sources close to Walsh told Politico that he's beyond mere pondering.)

"If I’m to do it, it’s going to happen soon," said Walsh yesterday. "I’ve been really surprised by the amount of anxiousness from people across the spectrum who want this president to have a challenge, because there’s just a real concern that he’s absolutely unfit."

Walsh's record, however, is spotless. For example "the Tea Party blowhard," as Salon branded him in 2012, said John McCain was a "noble hero" because he rarely spoke of his military service, but not his Democratic opponent, double-amputee Lt. Colonel Tammy Duckworth, who "My God, [her war injuries are] all she talks about.” (Which was pure rubbish.) So "let’s move on," said Walsh.

In 2011, in a coffee shop, he shrieked to constituents: "Don't blame banks and don't blame the marketplace for the mess we are. I'm tired of hearing that crap!" He most certainly was also tired of hearing that he was $100,000 delinquent in child support. And aide's excuse before a judge was that Walsh was a U.S. congressman, which failed to favorably impress the bench.

In May of 2012, Walsh opined that Democrats "want the Hispanic vote, they want Hispanics to be dependent on government, just like they got African-Americans dependent on government. That's their game."

Following Walsh's one-term banishment from Congress by voters, he snared a gig as — what else? — a radio talk show host in Chicago, also broadcast in New York City. In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech," Walsh once again just could not help himself: "I have a dream that today’s black leadership will quit blaming racism and 'the system' for what ails black America." That remark was so historically and contemporarily clueless, one need not even rebut it.

Walsh is totally crackers, of course, and yet, even this logorrheic nutjob would be an improvement on Donald J. Trump. That's how wretched this administration is.