#^d 2016-11-27 #^h Weekend Roundup
I didn't really plan on posting a Roundup this week, but when I looked at Salon's politics section way too may red flags jumped out at me. I'm generally inclined to give Trump a little rope to hang himself, but I'm surprised by the speed with which he's set about the task. I realized that Trump was a guy who spent every waking moment conniving to make money (well, aside from the time spent plotting sexual conquests), and thought it unlikely that he'd change for a moment. But these pieces are mostly self-explanatory, so at least I don't have to annotate them.
Some scattered links this week on all things Trump:
Dan Bacher: Trump Appoints Big Oil Think Tank Director to Lead Interior Transition Team
Thor Benson: Donald Trump's surveillance state: All the tools to suppress dissent and kill free speech are already in place: Thanks to 9/11 and the permanent state of war.
Jamelle Bouie: Government by the Worst Men: Bannon, Flynn, Sessions -- but isn't that only the beginning?
Matthew Daly: Donald Trump's stock in Dakota Access oil pipeline company raises concern
Joe Emersberger: How the Rich Are Getting Richer: Interview with Dean Baker.
Henry Farrell: Kissing the Ring: After considering Trump as Cosimo de Medici, a prediction:
If this is right, the key qualities of presidential politics over the next four years will be instability, frequent policy change, palace intrigues, and Trump looking to reign triumphant above it all, not particularly caring (a la Padgett and Ansell's Cosimo) about attaining specific goals, but instead looking to preserve his position at the center of an ever shifting spider web of political relations, no matter what consequences this has for the integrity of the web.
Dana Goldstein: How Trump Could Gut Public Education: First clue is his pick of fellow billionaire Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. Also note that Trump has some previous experience in the business of education.
Joshua Holland: Struggling White Voters Who Helped Elect Trump Are Headed for Some Serious Pain
Josh Marshall: Must Reads on the Coming Privatization of Everything and The Historic Cash-In Continues. Marshall has also been on top of Paul Ryan's scheme to wreck Medicare -- for all the world it sounds like he's trying to replace the popular and effective program with something similar to but a bit shadier than Obamacare -- including this piece on the politics: Medicare for the Win.
Richard C Paddock, et al: Potential Conflicts Around the Globe for Trump, the Businessman President
Phil Plait: Trump's Plan to Eliminate NASA Climate Research Is Ill-Informed and Dangerous
Joy-Ann Reid: Already Happening: Media Normalization of Trumpism
David Swanson: Michael Flynn Should Remember Truths He Blurted Out Last Year: like criticizing Obama for his obsession with death-by-drone.
Jim Tankersley: Trump can't revive industry. But his voters might still get raises. Unfortunately, that depends on Trump sustaining growth rates comparable to Clinton in the 1990s, and assuming that the labor market hasn't deteriorated in the meantime -- I'm pretty doubtful on both counts. On the other hand, if Trump succeeds in deporting virtually all undocumented workers, that could tighten labor markets a bit (but probably not enough).
Jeremy Venook: Donald Trump's Conflicts of Interest: A Crib Sheet
Matthew Yglesias: Don't let Donald Trump's antics distract you from what's really important, following up on We have 100 days to stop Donald Trump from systemically corrupting our institutions.
Also a couple things not exactly on the incoming disaster, although not exactly unrelated either:
Charlie Savage/Eric Schmitt/Mark Mazzetti: Obama Expands War With Al Qaeda to Include Shabab in Somalia: Obama's been fighting a clandestine war in Somalia for some years now, but this step is particularly ominous, as it holds that a president can enter a new war without consent of Congress, simply by declaring that a previous (now 15-year-old) resolution applies. As I recall, Obama got his first taste for blood in Somalia: shortly after becoming president, he ordered US forces to kill Somali pirates to effect the release of a hostage. Many more "targeted assassinations" followed -- drones and "kill lists" and Navy SEALS and so forth -- but maybe he feels a special fondness (if that's the word) for Somalia.
John Weeks: By the numbers: Barack Obama's contribution to the decline of US democracy: Probably worth a deeper look, but the most immediately damning point is how inequality accelerated under Obama, even compared to Bush.
Michelle Goldberg: Democratic Politics Have to Be "Identity Politics": A fairly intelligent but unsettling dive into a debate Democrats seem to be having over "identity politics." I don't particularly agree with either the bases or conclusions here, and think both sides tend to talk past one another.
I don't have much to say about Fidel Castro. I've never held any romantic attachment for Cuba's communist regime, and I don't doubt that it has sometimes been repressive and that its planned economy could have been more dynamic. However, I can't begrudge their early expropriation of foreign (mostly American) assets, and must admit that they've built a literate, highly educated, and for the most part egalitarian society, while maintaining a vibrant culture, all despite cruel economic hardships imposed variously by America and Russia. It's worth remembering that Cuba was the last slaveholder society in the Americas, and the last of Spain's colonial outposts, and after the US seized it in America's 1898 imperialist expansion was only granted "independence" because it was thought easier to run it through local puppet strongmen -- a scandalous series that was only ended by Castro's revolution.
I've long thought that the vitriolic reaction of American politicos to Cuba's real independence and defiance reflected a deep-seated guilt (and embarrassment) about how badly we had mishandled our power there. But it manifested itself as sheer spite, ranging from the CIA's Bay of Pigs invasion and numerous assassination plots the CIA tried to mount against Castro to the long-running blockade -- all of which reinforced Castro's anti-Americanism and made him a hero for underdogs all around the world. Obama's recent normalization of US-Cuban relations finally gives us a chance to be less of an ogre -- although the reflexive instinct is still apparent in recent comments by Trump, Rubio, and others. Hopefully they'll blow this jingoistic thinking out of their systems.
Here are a few scattered comments on Castro from: Tariq Ali; Greg Grandin; Tony Karon (2008); also: Stephen Gibbs/Jonathan Watts: Havana in mourning: 'We Cubans are Fidelista even if we are not communist'; Kathy Gilsinan: How Did Fidel Castro Hold On to Cuba for So Long?.
One quote, from the Karon piece above:
There's been predictably little interesting discussion in the United States of Fidel Castro's retirement as Cuba's commandante en jefe, maximo etc. That's because in the U.S. political mainstream, Cuba policy has for a generation been grotesquely disfigured by a collective kow-towing -- yes, collective, it was that craven Mr. Clinton who signed into law the Draconian Helms-Burton act that made it infinitely more difficult for any U.S. president to actually lift the embargo, and the equally craven Mrs. Clinton appears to pandering to the same crowd -- to the Cuban-American Ahmed Chalabi figures of Miami, still fantasizing about a day when they'll regain their plantations and poor people of color will once again know their place. [ . . . ]
What fascinates me, however, is the guilty pleasure with which so many millions of people around the world revere Fidel Castro -- revere him, but wouldn't dream of emulating his approach to economics or governance. People, in other words, who would not be comfortable actually living in Castro's Cuba, much as they like the idea of him sticking it the arrogant yanqui, his physical and political survival a sure sign that Washington's awesome power has limits -- and can therefore be challenged.