#^d 2019-02-10 #^h Weekend Roundup
No introduction, other than to note that I hadn't planned on including anything on the Ilhan Omar controversy, mostly because I still haven't bothered to track down what she said and/or apologized for. I'm pretty careful to make sure that nothing I say that's critical of Israel can be misconstrued as anti-semitic, but that canard is used so often (and so indiscriminately) by Israel's hasbarists that it feels like a waste of time to even credit the complaints.
One more note is that I expected to find more on the record-setting 2018 trade deficit, but all I came up with was the Paul Krugman post below, where the main point is that Trump is stupid, specifically on trade and tariffs but actually on pretty much everything. Krugman's explanation that trade deficits reflect a savings shortfall doesn't really tell me much. As best I can understand it, deficits are a means by which wealth transfers from consumers to the rich -- primarily the foreign rich, but much of that money comes back to domestic rich for investments and sales of inflated assets. I remember some years ago William Greider proposed a blanket, across-the-board tax on imports aimed at restoring a trade balance -- evidently such a thing is OK under WTO rules, and it would get around the balloon problem Krugman refers to -- but I've never heard about it since. Strikes me as a good idea (although I'm not sure how it would interact with exchange rates).
Also thought a bit about writing an op-ed on Trump and Korea. Specifically, I wanted to pose a rhetorical question to Trump, to ask him why he lets people like John Bolton undermine his chances for forging a signature world peace deal, and securing a legacy as something other than, well, you know, a demagogue and a crook.
Some scattered links this week:
Matthew Yglesias:
The 1888 tariff debate Trump can't stop talking about, explained: "Trump's side won, and it was an unpopular disaster."
The Democratic debate over filibuster reform, explained: "Nobody runs on Senate procedure, but without changing it, nothing is going to happen."
Fox News's propaganda isn't just unethical -- research shows it's enormously influential: "Without the 'Fox effect,' neither Bush nor Trump could have won."
Allen Weisselberg, House Democrats' next investigative target, explained: "The Trump Organization CFO knows things President Trump would prefer kept secret."
Erin Banco/Betsy Woodruff: Team Trump keeps pushing deal to send nuclear tech to Saudis. Related: Lachlan Markay: The nuclear energy industry goes MAGA to win over Trump.
Fred Barbash: Wilbur Ross broke law, violated Constitution in census decision, judge rules.
Zack Beauchamp: A Clinton-era centrist Democrat explains why it's time to give democratic socialists a chance. Interview with economist Brad De Long, who worked in the Clinton (or should I say Rubin?) Treasury Department, and identifies as a neoliberal.[1] However, De Long has realized something more: not so much that neoliberalism doesn't work as that there is no political center for maintaining it in a way that works for the common good.
The core reason, De Long argues, is political. The policies he supports depend on a responsible center-right partner to succeed. They're premised on the understanding that at least a faction of the Republican Party would be willing to support market-friendly ideas like Obamacare or a cap-and-trade system for climate change. This is no longer the case, if it ever were.
"Barack Obama rolls into office with Mitt Romney's health care policy, with John McCain's climate policy, with Bill Clinton's tax policy, and George H.W. Bush's foreign policy," De Long notes. "And did George H.W. Bush, did Mitt Romney, did John McCain say a single good word about anything Barack Obama ever did over the course of eight solid years? No, they fucking did not."
The result, he argues, is the nature of the Democratic Party needs to shift. Rather than being a center-left coalition dominated by market-friendly ideas designed to attract conservative support, the energy of the coalition should come from the left and its broad, sweeping ideas. Market-friendly neoliberals, rather than pushing their own ideology, should work to improve ideas on the left. This, he believes, is the most effective and sustainable basis for Democratic politics and policy for the foreseeable future.
The premises here are the weakest: I doubt that since Reagan's win in 1980 there has ever been even so much as a "responsible center-right" faction in the Republican Party -- Republicans have only welcomed "bi-partisan" deals on their own terms, which is that they must (like NAFTA, "welfare reform," or "no child left behind") hurt the Democratic base and discredit the Democratic Party leadership in their eyes. More importantly, Democrats only needed this "responsible center-right" alliance because they didn't have sufficient votes to pass policy legislation on their own. And that was basically because they kept undermining their historic base (unions and the working class) while chasing donors in high-tech and finance. The result was that the growth they pursued above all else was soaked up by the rich, leaving their base with nothing to show for their votes. Left democrats generally accept neoliberal economic ideas, but part ways in one crucial respect: they understand that what it takes power to ensure that the economy works for every one, and that sacrificing power (as the neoliberal democrats repeatedly did) makes nostrums like growth totally meaningless. The important thing about this piece is that De Long gets that, and that realization has moved him from opponent to enthusiastic supporter:
Our current bunch of leftists are wonderful people, as far as leftists in the past are concerned. They're social democrats, they're very strong believers in democracy. They're very strong believers in fair distribution of wealth. They could use a little more education about what is likely to work and what is not. But they're people who we're very, very lucky to have on our side.
That's especially opposed to the people on the other side, who are very, very strange indeed. You listen to [Never Trump conservatives] like Tom Nichols or Bruce Bartlett or Bill Kristol or David Frum talk about all the people they had been with in meetings, biting their tongues over the past 25 years, and your reaction can only be, "Why didn't you run away screaming into the night long ago?"
[1]: De Long pointed me to this Neoliberal Shill Bracket, evidently an annual ritual among the breed, where DeLong was highly seeded but failed to advance to the Elite 8 round. It's a little hard to follow given that nominees are only identified by their twitter handles, but the round of 8 gives us: Tyler Cowen, Will Wilkinson, Scott Linicome, Alex Nowrasteh, Alan Cole, Megan McArdle, Noah Smith, and Matthew Yglesias. (DeLong lost to Austan Goolsbee, who in turn was eliminated by Noah Smith -- last year's winner.) The person who runs this circus defines the core values of neoliberalism here. They tout their belief in "classical liberal freedoms," "equal rights," and "intelligent regulation and redistribution" -- making them more conventionally liberal than we usually associate with the term -- but those are all secondary to "we believe in free markets, and the power of markets to alleviate poverty and generate unparalleled economic growth." Nice theory. Too bad things don't work that way.
Jonathan Chait: The most unrealistic promise Democrats are making is to restore bipartisanship.
Chris Cillizza: Donald Trump is laying the groundwork to delegitimize the 2020 election. I suppose this story is meant to shock, but he already did a bang up job of delegitimizing the 2016 election, so of course he's sowing the seeds for denying his future embarrassingly shoddy showing. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton only hurt herself by trying to prod Trump into agreeing that if he lost he'd bow out responsibly. He never took the bait, and in the end she was the one who had to prematurely concede.
Steve Coll: The jail health-care crisis: "The opioid epidemic and other public-health emergencies are being aggravated by failings in the criminal-justice system."
Colin Drury: Netanyahu says Israel 'belongs to Jewish people alone' in attacks on nation's Arab population/a>. Related: Ruth Eglash: Wonder Woman takes on Netanyahu with anti-racism post on Instagram: Not my idea of a big deal, but I like the contrast. Also: Richard Silverstein: Pompeo: If Bibi wants a Fascist government, fine by us.
Ben Ehrenreich: The shameful campaign to silence Ilhan Omar. Related: Wajahat Alli/Rabia Chaudry: Want to combat hate? Stop the hazing of Ilhan Omar and start listening; Hanna Alshaikh: The Ilhan Omar controversy shows how little we care about Palestinian lives; Phyllis Bennis: The Democratic Party attacks on Ilhan Omar are a travesty; David Dayen: Ilhan Omar's victory for political sanity; Tara Golshan: Three 2020 Democrats express concern that attacks against Ilhan Omar will stifle debate on Israel: "Warren, Sanders, and Harris all come out in support of Omar; Sarah Jones: The Democratic Party needs Ilhan Omar; Richard Silverstein: Israel lobby and pro-Israel House Democrats tried to excommunicate Ilhlam Omar, they failed.
Masha Gessen: Why measles is a quintessential political issue of our time.
Tara Golshan:
The anti-Bernie Sanders campaign being pushed by former Clinton staffers, explained: "Former Hillary Clinton aides really want Bernie Sanders to get the Clinton treatment." Presumably that means to be abused as unfairly as Clinton was, although for Clinton's truest believers the fact that he challenged her at all, and in the process exposed some (by no means all) of her faults is something that can never be forgiven. Of course, the same people were every bit as bitter on losing to Obama in 2008, even as Obama bent over so far as to turn his administration into a Clinton rerun -- so much so that Sanders' principled criticism of Obama was used as a cudgel, helping Clinton to pick up many Obama votes, especially in the early primaries in states Sanders wasn't well known in. The quotes here are a mix of stupid and cruel; e.g.: the Clinton aide accusing Sanders of "saying things that don't resonate with a lot of people who don't share his privilege as a cis white man in politics."
Adam Gopnik: The pros and cons of impeaching Trump.
Garrett M Graff: How Giuliani might take down Trump: "The parallels between the Mafia and the Trump Organization are striking, and Giuliani perfected the template for prosecuting organized crime."
Glenn Greenwald: NYT's exposé on the lies about burning aid trucks in Venezuela shows how US government and media spread pro-war propaganda.
Sean Illing:
The conservative movement was destined to produce Trump: Interview with Corey Robin, author of The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism From Edmund Burke to Donald Trump (second edition; the first subtitle ended with Sarah Palin).
Want less poverty in the world? Empower women. Interview with Agusto Lopez-Claros, co-author of Equality for Women = Prosperity for All (with Babiyyih Nakhjavani).
Ed Kilgore: Trump owns the swamp now, and it's awash in lobbyists:
Most of these people are not as famous (or infamous) as, say, the former oil industry shill and coal lobbyist who have serially run the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump. But 350 ex-lobbyists represent a lot of special interests. And their greatest concentration, the Post notes, is in the Executive Office of the President, where 47 ex-lobbyists toil to set policy for the entire federal government.
Paul Krugman: Tariff Man has become Deficit Man:
Republicans in Congress spent the entire Obama administration inveighing against budget deficits, warning incessantly that we were going to have a Greek-style fiscal crisis any day now. Donald Trump, on the other hand, focused his ire mainly on trade deficits, insisting that "our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us."
But over two years of unified G.O.P. control of government, a funny thing happened: Both deficits surged. The budget deficit has hit a level unprecedented except during wars and in the immediate aftermath of major economic crises; the trade deficit in goods has set a record.
Jonathan Lambert: Greener childhood associated with happier adulthood. Paul Woodward's title for this is more explicit: "We need contact with nature for the sake of our sanity."
German Lopez: Marijuana legalization is winning the 2020 Democratic primaries.
Dylan Matthews: Democrats have united around a plan to dramatically cut child poverty: "The American Family Act, one of Democrats' biggest policy initiatives of 2019, explained."
Jane Mayer: The making of the Fox News White House: "Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?" Indeed, it has. This article has gotten a lot of attention for its revelation of how Fox knew about and killed he story on the Stormy Daniels payoff before the election -- a clear decision to manage the news for Trump's benefit. But the piece is much, much bigger than that one headline-grabber.
Ella Nilsen:
House Democrats just passed a slate of significant reforms to get money out of politics: "Democrats passed their sweeping anti-corruption bill known as HR 1. It's already doomed in the Senate."
Democrats' major investigation into White House security clearances, explained.
Osita Nwanevu: Democrats push to make Washington, DC, the fifty-first state.
Toluse Olorunnipa/Josh Dawsey: Trump's massive reelection campaign has 2016 themes -- and a 2020 infrastructure.
Andrew Prokop: House Democrats launch massive obstruction of justice and corruption probe aimed at Trump: "They've requested documents from 81 people or entities. Here's who they are."
Adi Robertson: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says 'we should be excited about automation': "Robots aren't the problem, she says -- economics are." Hard to exaggerate how smart this is, at least compared to the usual blather politicians of both parties spout about Jobs:
New York congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believes that people should welcome robots taking their jobs -- but not the economic system that can make it financially devastating. During a talk at SXSW, an audience member asked Ocasio-Cortez about the threat of automated labor. "We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work," she said in response. "We should be excited by that. But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem."
Also note this pull quote: "Not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage."
David Rothkopf: The Mar-a-Lago connection to the Cindy Yang affair raises huge security risks. Related: Chas Danner: Everything to know about the spa founder selling access to Trump.
Emma Sarappo: Trump will reportedly ask Congress for another $8.6 billion to guild the wall.
Eric Schmitt/Charlie Savage: US airstrikes kill hundreds in Somalia as shadowy conflict ramps up.
Gabe Schneider: Why Sacramento is still protesting Stephon Clark's death, one year later.
Dylan Scott: A single-payer advocate answers the big question: How do we pay for it? Interview with Matt Breunig.
Emily Stewart:
Fox News reportedly killed a story about Stormy Daniels before the election -- to protect Trump.
Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Google, Amazon, and Facebook. "Big tech is probably not going to love the 2020 field." There are lots of good reasons for aggressively applying antitrust law and principles to those and more (remember Microsoft?), but I don't really subscribe to the core antitrust idea here: that we need more competition, basically more companies figuring out more ways to exploit us. An alternative approach would be to stand up non-profit utilities in each of these niches, and pay for them through general revenues (largely allocated according to actual use). I've yet to see anyone really develop this idea, but it's pretty obvious once you think of it.
Jeffrey Toobin: Adam Schiff hires a former prosecutor to lead the Trump investigation.
Siva Vaidhyanathan: Facebook's new move isn't about privacy. It's about domination. Related: Sam Biddle: Mark Zuckerberg is trying to play you -- again.
David Wallace-Wells: Could one man single-handedly ruin the planet? After mentioning Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, he gets to an even more ominous test case: Brazil's new president, Jair Bolsonaro.
Alex Ward: