#^d 2019-08-25 #^h Weekend Roundup
There are more than a few "Trump's gone nuts" moments below. Not the first time this has happened, but the count is definitely rising (and continuing as the G-7 articles arrive). The Fallows links below offer an extended opportunity to plot Trump's decline. Also see Steve M: Even if Trump is impaired, he won't go quietly. He cites Charles Pierce recalling the 1984 Reagan-Mondale debate as the occasion when he realized that Reagan exhibited clear signs of Alzheimer's. I recall watching that debate, and thinking I've never seen a more one-sided drubbing, yet Reagan went on to a landslide victory that November. On the other hand, I also came away very annoyed with Mondale, who scored many of his points by being more resolutely (recklessly even) anti-communist than Reagan -- whose own Cold War ardor was undoubted but, at least in person, tempered by his genial incoherence.
Trump's incoherence is less benign, partly because he projects a degree of menace (resentment and vitriol) Reagan never projected. But also Reagan was never his own man. He was the front guy, hired as the face and mouth, reading from prepared scripts, happy to be playing a role, while his evil "kitchen cabinet" called the shots. Trump has always been a one-man show, with few (if any) competent advisers, but with great faith in his ability to wing it. Early on, all presidents are dazed and overwhelmed at first, allowing their staffs to hold sway over the administration. However, deference and ego eventually favor the president, who eventually take charge of what matters most. It took GW Bush well into his second term to get out from under Cheney's thumb. Obama and Clinton evolved faster because they knew more, but in both of those cases early staff decisions did a lot of damage. Trump got saddled with a lot of hardcore GOP regulars early on, but most of them have been purged, allowing Trump to replace them with flunkies distinguished mostly by their sycophancy. The result is that when Trump wigs out, we no longer have the comfort of "adults in the room" to contain the damage.
I imagine you could plot two curves here. One shows the increased fragility of the administration (and really the whole country) as competent people are replaced with ones who are less so (and/or are too crooked to know better). The other would is the increasing likelihood that Trump himself will break down and blow something up. (Too early to call his performance at G-7, but it should be enough to give you a fright.)
The Democratic presidential campaign thinned out a bit, with Seth Moulton, Jay Inslee, and John Hickenlooper ending their campaigns. Meanwhile, Joe Walsh will offer Trump some token ultra-conservative opposition.
Some scattered links this week:
Zeeshan Aleem: Trump advisers are scrambling to sell the idea that a recession isn't going to happen. I've heard that the "yield curve inversion" has a perfect record of predicting recessions (10 for 10, no false positives), but in some ways Larry Kudlow's assurance that there won't be a recession is scarier.
Eric Alterman: Dear Democrats, the mainstream media are not your friends: "Misplaced trust in the media has repeatedly led to disastrous debates."
Binyamin Appelbaum: Blame economists for the mess we're in: "Why did America listen to the people who thought we needed 'more millionaires and more bankrupts?'"
Peter Baker/Aurelien Breeden: Iranian official makes surprise appearance on sidelines of G7 summit.
Josh Barro: This is how Trump will tank the economy and his presidency.
Zack Beauchamp: Trump and the fragile belonging of American Jews: "The president's spree of anti-Semitic comments reveals why Jews can't feel truly safe in his America." Related: Jack Mirkinson: Trump is reportedly being a raging anti-Semite because he's mad Jews don't like him more:
It gives me a stress headache to have to repeat this basic fact, but thinking that Jews will support you because you do some (terrible) stuff in Israel is . . . wait for it . . . really anti-Semitic! Not every Jew thinks that aligning with the far-right in Israel is a great plan. Not every Jew is (gasp!) even a Zionist or a supporter of Israel in the first place! It's almost as if Israel and Jewishness are two different things.
Not that this sort of nuance is ever going to make it through the Fort Knox-like vault of stupidity surrounding Trump's brain.
Peter Beinart: Bipartisan support for Israel is dead. That's a good thing. Related: MJ Rosenberg: Did Netanyahu just kill Washington's 'Pro-Israel' consensus? I doubt it, at least beyond repair, but Netanyahu's alignment of his right-wing policies with Trump and the Republican is increasingly bothering Democrats who otherwise wouldn't give Israel a moment's critical thought. And this is a case where the rank-and-file are miles ahead of the political class, as it's become blindingly obvious that the Israeli right is treating their minorities with the same contempt America's right threatens.
Peter Blake/Keith Bradsher: Trump asserts he can force US companies to leave China. But they haven't been "US companies" for ages now. Most are multinationals, with significant non-American ownership stakes, but I doubt if many of the nominal US citizens would put their patriotism above their bottom-line interests, even if they thought Trump represents patriotism in some peculiar way. As for American equity stakes in China, most of them are in joint ventures they don't have this sort of control over.
Jonathan Chait:
'American Carnage' exposes the Republican slide into Trumpism: Review of Tim Alberta's book (subtitle: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump), which is on my reading list, probably next up.
The Republican Party's political elite is obsessed with cutting taxes for the wealthy, but it recognizes the lack of popular support for its objectives and is forced to divert attention away from its main agenda by emphasizing cultural-war themes. The disconnect between the Republican Party's plutocratic agenda and the desires of the electorate is a tension it has never been able to resolve, and as it has moved steadily rightward, it has been evolving into an authoritarian party.
The party's embrace of Trump is a natural, if not inevitable, step in this evolution. This is why the conservatives who presented Trump as an enemy of conservative-movement ideals have so badly misdiagnosed the party's response to Trump. The most fervently ideological conservatives in the party have also been the most sycophantic: Ryan, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Mick Mulvaney, the entire House Freedom Caucus. They embraced Trump because Trumpism is their avenue to carry out their unpopular agenda.
Trump says Jews should love him because he's almost literally Jesus. After carefully parsing the tweet, all Trump's really saying is that he loves being praised by an idiot ("Wayne Allyn Root is a Christian who converted from Judaism as well as a notorious conspiracy theorist and, naturally, a huge Trump fan"), which doesn't necessarily mean Trump's an idiot too (although it's no argument against, either). For more on Root, see Zachary Pleat/Courtney Hadle: The extremism of Wayne Allyn Root, who was promoted by Trump.
Carrie Dann: 'A deep and boiling anger': NBC/WSJ poll finds a pessimistic America despite current economic satisfaction.
Jason Ditz: US confirms Israel behind recent attacks in Iraq. Also: Israel attacked Syria 'to prevent Iranian strike on Northern Israel; and: Israel planning to attack Houthis in Yemen. Clearly, Netanyahu's reëlection campaign is in full swing. Also, he clearly has no worries that Trump will allow the UN or any major Western power to condemn such flagrant acts of war, let alone impose sanctions or any other form of punishment.
Andrea Dutton/Michael E Mann: A dangerous new form of climate denialism is making the rounds.
James Fallows: If Trump were an airline pilot: The latest in a circular file of notes posted when Trump does something dismaying (following his 152 installments on the 2016 campaign, written as Time Capsules), plus I don't know how many since Trump took office. I imagine that the only reason Fallows hasn't turned these into book form is that he hasn't figured out how deep the hole is. He explains:
The one thing I avoided in that Time Capsule series was "medicalizing" Trump's personality and behavior. That is, moving from description of his behavior to speculation about its cause. Was Trump's abysmal ignorance -- "Most people don't know President Lincoln was a Republican!" -- a sign of dementia, or of some other cognitive decline? Or was it just more evidence that he had never read a book? Was his braggadocio and self-centeredness a textbook case of narcissistic personality disorder? (Whose symptoms include "an exaggerated sense of self-importance" and "a sense of entitlement and require[s] constant, excessive admiration.") Or just that he is an entitled jerk? On these and other points I didn't, and don't, know.
However, the last couple weeks seem to warrant further consideration:
But now we've had something we didn't see so clearly during the campaign. These are episodes of what would be called outright lunacy, if they occurred in any other setting: An actually consequential rift with a small but important NATO ally, arising from the idea that the U.S. would "buy Greenland." Trump's self-description as "the Chosen One," and his embrace of a supporter's description of him as the "second coming of God" and the "King of Israel." His logorrhea, drift, and fantastical claims in public rallies, and his flashes of belligerence at the slightest challenge in question sessions on the White House lawn. His utter lack of affect or empathy when personally meeting the most recent shooting victims, in Dayton and El Paso. His reduction of any event, whatsoever, into what people are saying about him.
Ian Frazier: When W.E.B. Du Bois made a laughingstock of a white supremacist: "Why the Jim Crow-era debate between the African-American leader and a ridiculous, Nazi-loving racist isn't as famous as Lincoln-Douglas." The latter was Lothrop Stoddard, a "versatile popularizer of certain theories on race problems" -- especially those of Madison Grant, head of the Bronx Zoo (where he exhibited an African Pygmy), also of the American Eugenics Society (which 'thought 'worthless' individuals should be sterilized"), lobbyist for the Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924 ("which shut down most immigration to the US"), and author of The Passing of the Great Race (Hitler called the book "my Bible"). The debate question was "shall the Negro be encouraged to seek cultural equality," and, well, you can guess the rest. Well, maybe not: the first thing that popped into my mind, which was "why stop there?" Du Bois was too erudite and refined, too much of a gentleman, to belittle his sorry opponent. Stoddard went on to become a major Nazi apologist, and died in ignominy. Du Bois survived him, became a Communist, eventually giving up on the nation he had spent most of his life most so eloquently trying to integrate and save.
Conor Friedersdorf: When Kamala was a top cop: "If elected, can the candidate be trusted to hold government officials accountable and oversee a progressive criminal-justice system? Her past says no."
Susan B Glasser: Mike Pompeo, the secretary of Trump: "How he became a heartland evangelical -- and the President's most loyal soldier."
Pompeo, an evangelical Christian who keeps an open Bible on his desk, now says it's possible that God raised up Trump as a modern Queen Esther, the Biblical figure who convinced the King of Persia to spare the Jewish people. He defines his own job as serving the President, whatever the President asks of him. "A Secretary of State has to know what the President wants," he said, at a recent appearance in Washington. "To the extent you get out of synch with that leader, then you're just out shooting the breeze." No matter what Trump has said or done, Pompeo has stood by him. As a former senior White House official told me, "There will never be any daylight publicly between him and Trump." The former official said that, in private, too, Pompeo is "among the most sycophantic and obsequious people around Trump." Even more bluntly, a former American ambassador told me, "He's like a heat-seeking missile for Trump's ass."
Long piece with a lot of biographical detail: things I knew, like his relationship to the Kochs, but with more details and clarification. In particular, he's always touted himself as this great entrepreneur, but if he was so great, how come he quit to become a political toady for a bunch of rich guys? Even in the latter capacity, you'd expect more money to stick to his fingers.
Tara Golshan:
Adam Gopnik: The prophetic pragmatism of Frederick Douglass. The subject of a recent biography, David W Blight: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.
Henry Grabar: After ICE: "On Aug. 7, immigration agents arrested 680 factory workers in Mississippi. Here's what happened next."
David A Graham:
Trump longs to command the economy: "In his struggle against China, the president has begun to resemble his authoritarian rival Xi Jinping."
The longer Trump stays in office, the more Americans oppose his views: "The president is reshaping Americans' political views, just not the way he intended."
Dan Grazier: Why the $1.45 trillion F-35 still can't get off the ground.
Nikole Hannah-Jones: Our democracy's founding ideals were false when they were written. Black Americans have fought to make them true. Introduction to a series of articles published last week as The 1619 project in The New York Times Magazine. Other essays in the series:
Matthew Desmond: If you want to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation.
Linda Villarosa: Myths about physical racial differences were used to justify slavery -- and are still believed by doctors today.
Jamelle Bouie: America holds onto an undemocratic assumption from its founding: that some people deserve more power than others.
Wesley Morris: For centuries, black music has been the sound of artistic freedom. No wonder everybody's always stealing it.
Kevin Kruse: What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot.
Jeneen Interlandi: Why doesn't the United States have universal health care? The answer begins with policies enacted after the Civil War.,
Bryan Stevenson: Slavery gave America a fear of black people and a taste for violent punishment. Both still define our prison system.
Khalil Gibran Muhammad: The sugar that saturates the American diet has a barbaric history as the 'white gold' that fueled slavery.
Trymaine Lee: A vast wealth gap, driven by segregation, redlining evictions and exclusion, separates black and white America.
Mary Elliott/Jazmine Hughes: Most Americans still don't know the full story of slavery. This is the history you didn't learn in school.
Nikita Stewart: 'We are committing educational malpractice': Why slavery is mistaught -- and worse -- in American schools.
Needless to say, this series hasn't been warmly received by pundits on the right, who may have given up on defending slavery and/or Jim Crow but would much prefer that no one else dredge such subjects up, let alone suggest that they have any persistent effects.
Zack Beauchamp: 1619 and the cult of American innocence.
J Brian Charles: The New York Times 1619 Project is reshaping the conversation on slavery. Conservatives hate it.
Eric Levitz: The '1619 Project' isn't anti-American -- it's anti-white identity politics.
Karen Turner/Jessica Machado: 5 things people still get wrong about slavery.
Heather Hurlburt: Trump's contradictions dominate and disrupt another G-7.
Umair Irfan:
Wildfires are burning around the world. the most alarming is in the Amazon rainforest. For more, see the photos. For more pieces on fires, especially in Brazil:
Zack Beauchamp: The right-wing populist wave is a threat to the climate.
Franklin Foer: The Amazon fires are more dangerous than WMDs: "One person shouldn't have the power to set policies that doom the rest of humanity's shot at mitigating rising temperatures.
Dhar Jamail: The Amazon is dying and Bolsonaro is fanning the flames.
Robinson Meyer: The Amazon cannot be recovered once it's gone.
Richard Pérez-Peña/Matina Stevis-Gridneff: Brazil's rainforest fires prompt alarm and anger in Europe.
Tom Phillips: Ex-minister: Bolsonaro 'most detested' leader as he neglects the Amazon.
Alexandria Symonds: Amazon rain forest fires: here's what's really happening.
Jonathan Watts: Amazon rainforest fires: global leaders urged to divert from 'suicide' path.
w/Tara Golshan: Bernie Sanders's Green New Deal, explained.
Ed Kilgore:
Today's Republicas use the filibuster just like the segregationists did. Well, not exactly. Most segregationists could credibly claim that they only used the filibuster on the one issue that mattered most to them, whereas Republicans since 2008 use it for literally everything (aside from their occasional "nuclear option" exceptions used to confirm racist judges). The key thing to understand about the filibuster is that it's designed to keep a political majority from doing things they were elected to do. That was why segregationists embraced it, and why Republicans have lately adopted it. It should be why Democrats finally move to get rid of it -- unless, that is, they're not really serious about changing things.
What if Obama had dropped Biden in 2012? Well, obviously, we wouldn't have Biden as a serious candidate right now. But Obama's only alternatives would have been to pick Hillary Clinton (who could have demanded the job in 2008, but didn't object to Biden) or someone younger designated as his successor. But Obama never gave any evidence of trying to build a legacy, or even a party beyond what he needed for his own reëlection. I doubt he ever thought Biden was a brilliant choice, but he was a safe one, and hadn't done anything especially scandalous as VP, so caution argued against making a switch. And if Democrats are so nostalgic for Obama they're willing to pick Biden over such obvious clones as Booker and Harris (or for that matter Castro), he's probably better off to remain aloof.
When Trump talks about Jews, he's really talking to evangelical Christians.
Jen Kirby:
Paul Krugman:
From voodoo economics to evil-eye economics: "Are Democrats hexing the Trump boom with bad thoughts?"
The world has a Germany problem: "The debt obsession that ate the economy."
Micole Lafond: Trump was just being sarcastic about thinking he's the 'chosen one,' okay? Sure, there are cases where one should admit that Trump was just trying to crack a joke. We shouldn't take those too seriously, or risk being charged as humorless scolds ourselves. (Trump's plead to Russia to hack Hillary's emails is one such case, although the evident fact that Russia went straight to work and hacked Hillary's campaign's emails makes the clip awfully tempting.) But surely part of the problem is that Trump isn't very funny, or more precisely: he's unable to establish the human bond that clues us in to when he's being flippant, as opposed to his array of other speech modes. He brags a lot, alternately praises or disses others, and speaks in vague and/or confusing terms about all matters of substance. It's tempting to dismiss all of his utterances as lies, because further taxonomy isn't worth the trouble (e.g.: is he serious or ironic? is his untruth ignorance or deceit? are his lies deliberate or inadvertent?).
Jason Lange: Factory woes grip swing states that flipped for Trump in 2016.
Eric Levitz: Trump is prioritizing the climate's destruction over his own reelection.
Helen Lewis: How Britain came to accept a 'no-deal Brexit': "The debate over Britain leaving the European Union has polarized the country and normalized what was previously unthinkable."
Ruth Margallt: How the religious right transformed Israeli education. I submit that it's impossible for an American to read this and not be reminded of the rationalizations for Jim Crow laws, or to not detect the fond desires of America's Christianist right. No wonder those are Israel's staunchest supporters in the US. They are full of envy. (Needless to say, so are the mad bombers; see the Ditz links above.)
Unlike the United States, which enshrined separation of church and state in its Constitution, Israel is defined, in its basic law, as a "Jewish and democratic state" -- a muddled term that breeds near-constant battle over its meaning. Since its founding, Israel has had to rely on a series of fragile compromises between its secular leadership and its religious community. . . .
In the past decade, since Netanyahu came into power, Israeli society has undergone a process so transformative that a new Hebrew word had to be brought into use for it: "hadata," or "religionization." Manifestations of hadata appear throughout civic life. On some public buses that pass through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, women have been forced to sit in the back, for reasons of "modesty." In the military, female soldiers are officially given the same opportunities as males, but the presence of just one religious male soldier in a unit can prevent female soldiers from serving there. Such discrimination is often done in the name of supposed inclusiveness: in order to accommodate the strictures of observant Jews, certain adjustments have to be made. Yet those called on to "adjust" are almost always women or members of the L.G.B.T. community. Just this week, Israel's attorney general said that cities could enforce gender segregation at public events, adding that "the justification for the separation is greater if the events are attended by a public that desires to be separated."
Daniel Markovits: How life became an endless, terrible competition: "Meritocracy prizes achievement above all else, making everyone -- even the rich -- miserable. Maybe there's a way out." Author of the book, The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite. Could be that this book has come too late, appearing as it is after Chris Hayes: Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy, which argues that "meritocracy" is a sham argument intent on justifying inequality in a rigged oligarchy, and Robert H Frank: Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, which which shows that success hardly ever has anything to do with merit. Still, ever since I read Hegel's "master-slave dialectic," I've enjoyed the argument that slavery destroys the master as well as the slave (maybe not as quickly, but as surely).
Today's meritocrats still claim to get ahead through talent and effort, using means open to anyone. In practice, however, meritocracy now excludes everyone outside of a narrow elite. Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages.
Jena McGregor: Group of top CEOs says maximizing shareholder profits no longer can be the primary goal of corporations: A new statement from the Business Roundtable says "business leaders hould commit to balancing the needs of shareholders with customers, employees, suppliers and local communities." I'll believe it when/if I see it (in particular, when I CEO salaries dip back toward pre-1980 levels). But by this point, anyone should be able to see that the exclusive fetish for short-term profit leads to the looting and pillage of companies, shortchanging both customers and employees, and any communities foolish enough to grant or lend them money.
PE Moskowitz: Everything you think you know about 'free speech' is a lie: "How far-right operatives manufactured the 'crisis' of free speech with books, think tanks -- and billions of dollars."
Ella Nilsen/Li Zhou: Why Steve Bullock is refusing to help Democrats win a Senate majority.
Anna North:
Joseph O'Neill: Real Americans: Review of two books: Jill Lepore: This America: The Case for the Nation, and Suketu Mehta: This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto.
Damian Paletta/Jeff Stein: Trump's wild week of tax ideas continues with new promise if GOP sweeps in 2020.
Kelsey Piper: The surprisingly great idea in Bernie Sanders's Green New Deal: electric school buses.
Andrew Prokop: David Koch has died at 79. Here's how he changed American politics. Not much temptation to cut the recently dead some slack in this case, although I suspect the following writers are giving him too much credit. It's always been Charles Koch who called the shots, both in business and in politics, and David's role has always been to support his older brother. I don't know what David's heirs are likely to do with all that money, but I'd be real surprised if any of them (unlike the other two Koch brothers) ever tried to buck Charles. I guess I have a certain grudging admiration for Charles and what he's accomplished -- not that he ever would have done so in a fairer and more just society. But David was just a bloke who was given enormous riches and used them to fortify his ego while making the world that much poorer. For more on Koch (and the Kochs):
Emily Atkin: How David Koch changed the world: Interview with Christopher Leonard, author of Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America. Here's Leonard's reply when asked "what does David's death mean for everything he worked for on climate change?":
David Koch's tragic passing will have no impact whatsoever on the political strategies of the Koch network or the operation of the corporation. Charles Koch has always been the center of gravity for that, not David.
The machine will continue to go forward as it has, even without David Koch at the forefront.
Jane Coaston: "David Koch walked the walk": a libertarian on the Koch brother's legacy: Interview with Nick Gillespie former editor-in-chief of Reason magazine.
Steve Fraser: How the Koch brothers and other family capitalists are ruining America (title courtesy of The Nation).
Sarah Jones: David Koch's monstrous legacy: This is about right:
David Koch died before he could reap the full bounty of his works. We will not be so lucky. His legacy is poisoned water and dirty air, decimated unions, and Donald Trump. No amount of arts patronage can purify that stain. It is likely not coincidental that the small government the Kochs desire would leave artists and scientists at the mercy of billionaires' largesse. It's as if he and his brother wanted to pitch us all on their vision for the world: If we let their companies gobble as much as they could, they would throw us a scrap or two. Never enough to live on; just enough to hold us until the next handout. They would allow us a glimpse of beauty, a mirage of progress, so that we would readily accept a cage.
Malcolm Jones: Billionaire David Koch, who reshaped American politics and paved the way for Trump, has died.
Brian Kahn: David Koch escaped the climate hell he helped create. By the way, Kahn also wrote: Bernie Sanders' $16 trillion climate plan is nothing short of a revolution.
Jack Mirkinson: David Koch, a bad man, has died.
Charles Mudede: David Koch's death reminds us that billionaires are the black holes of society.
Charles P Pierce: The Koch money was a primary vector for the prion disease that's infected the Republican Party: "David Koch's worst legacy, however, will be on climate."
Michael Tomasky: The Koch network replaced the Republican Party.
John Quiggin: Want to reduce the power of the finance sector? Start by looking at climate change.
Adam K Raymond: Sarah Sanders passes through the revolving door, joins Fox News. Also: Matt Gertz: Of course Fox News hired Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
David Roberts: The 6 things you most need to know about Trump's new climate plan: "It could actually increase air pollution, and it's a pretty bad deal."
Yair Rosenberg: Trump keeps pushing anti-Semitic stereotypes. But he thinks he's praising Jews. Well, he also thinks he's the "least racist person in America." He's also a "stable genius." I'm struck by how matter-of-factly Trump's statements are identified as a racist, and even more so as anti-Semitic.
Aaron Rupar:
Trump's new favorite poll inflates his approval rating by about 10 points.
The bizarre-even-by-Trump-standards past 72 hours, explained.
President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to release ISIS fighters in Europe as a form of punishment for countries like Germany and France; said he's strongly considering trying to change the Constitution by executive order (it doesn't work that way); indicated he hasn't ruled out trying to illegally serve more than two terms; rewrote history during comments about Russia's expulsion from the G8 that framed the situation in the most pro-Kremlin manner possible; and, despite five draft deferments, joked about giving himself the Medal of Honor.
That was Wednesday. And that's an incomplete list of all the outlandish stuff Trump said on that day alone. . . .
Some of it is laughable. Some of it -- the anti-Semitic tropes, for example -- is not. All of it is evidence that more than two and a half years in the role haven't helped Trump settle into his job. In fact, if the past 72 hours are any indication, things in the White House are less settled than ever.
Trump echoes NRA talking points, showing that "background checks" talk was all a charade.
Martin Selsoe Sorensen: In Denmark, bewilderment and anger over Trump's canceled visit. Also: Rick Noack/John Wagner/Felicia Sonmez: Trump attacks Danish prime minister for her 'nasty' comments about his interest in US purchase of Greenland.
Amy Davidson Sorkin: The failure to see what Jeffrey Epstein was doing: "Money offers one explanation for why people seemed to ignore the obvious. But money, here, is really shorthand for a range of ways to exert influence."
Emily Stewart:
Jonathan Swan/Margaret Talev: Trump suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them from hitting US. Also Matt Stieb: Trump wanted to nuke hurricanes to stop them from hitting US coast. Slightly different subject, but Stieb also wrote: In war on the press, Trump allies weaponize bad posts.
Matt Taibbi: Trump 2020: Be very afraid. Reporter goes to Cincinnati, immerses himself in a Trump rally, loses his bearings and part of his mind. Hopefully, he'll detox and recover -- if not fully, at least enough to earn his keep.
Cal Thomas: Socialism never? and The seduction of socialism. Thomas is worried about the youth of America being seduced by the aura of socialism, an allure he aids by spreading the net wide enough to include George McGovern (pictured at the top of one article) and Che Guevara. He offers McGovern and Walter Mondale as proof that Americans will never elect a socialist, while complaining that "people who wear Che Guevara T-shirts are ingorant of history and of the number of people Guevara killed during and after the Cuban revolution." I guess I don't know that number either, or how many people Bautista killed trying to put the revolution down, but one figure I'm pretty certain of is that life expectancy in Cuba is much higher now than it was before the revolution -- despite all the hardships imposed by the US embargo (you know, the one Obama ended, and Trump restored). Thomas thinks "socialism has long needed pushback in America from those opposed to it," as if red scares, smears and McCarthyite witch hunts never occurred to anyone before. I mention this because I was skimming through Bhaskar Sunkara's The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality when I noticed Thomas' rant. After a rather silly introduction, well over half of the book sketches out a rather comprehensive history of socialist (well, mostly communist) political movements, including a frank disclosure of purges, gulags, and starvation in Russia and China -- the sort of history Thomas wants us shocked with. I knew nearly all of this, but by the time it was done I found myself wondering: does anyone really need to know this history? Why not just start from scratch with current conditions and trends and known and well reasoned solutions, ditching the historical baggage (not least the term "socialism")? I had a cousin ask me recently whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat, so I said Socialist -- not normally how I identify myself, but my political identity was forged in response to the Vietnam War, and I've never forgiven the liberals/Democrats for their authorship of that. My cousin immediately translated Socialist to Democrat, much to my chagrin but for all practical purposes she was right, as my socialism and their liberal democracy are converging these days. On the other hand, the side that really works hard to bury its history is the one Thomas and his ilk belong to.
Anya van Wagtendonk:
Matt Viser: Evoking 1968 at town hall, Bidenasks: What would have happened if Obama had been assassinated?
Kenneth P Vogel/Jeremy W Peters: Trump allies target journalists over coverage deemed hostile to White House.
John Wagner: Trump quotes conspiracy theorist claiming Israelis 'love him like he is the second coming of God'.
David Wallace-Wells: The political status quo is no match for climate change.
Alan Weisman: Burning down the house: Review of two recent books on climate change: David Wallace Wells: The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, and Bill McKibben: Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?.
Ken White: Thirty-two short stories about death in prison: "These stories don't mention Jeffrey Epstein, but they are about him."
Matthew Yglesias:
Fed Chair Jerome Powell says he can't fix trade war's damage to the economy.
Michael Bennet's plan to prevent and end recessions, explained. Yglesias is right that there are a lot of good ideas in here. In particular, this shows that someone has learned from the mistakes Obama's crew made in crafting their 2009 "stimulus" bill. The fact is that the main thing that kept 2008-09 from plunging us as deep as the Great Depression was "automatic stabilizers" -- and thanks to Republican austerity policies, they've been weakened since. One idea that hasn't been discussed enough is:
Create a "fast track infrastructure fund" -- a special pool of money that state and local governments could tap during a downturn if they do the advance planning needed to get projects off the ground quickly.
Extended low interest rates, the Fed's main tool, should have led to a major (and much needed) infrastructure project, but the misguided expectation of a quick recovery and the insistence that public works projects be "shovel-ready" for immediate impact kept them from being included. A ready-to-go project list would be a big help in filling demand gaps, as well as paving the way for wise investmentss. I'd go even further: since every recession recovery since the late 1980s has been week, it might be a good thing to plan on a constant long-term level of stimulus. Even more certain that we need more and better infrastructure.
Trump's failed plan to buy Greenland, explained. Minor update to the previous week's explainer, the main change being the insertion of "failed" into the title.
Brandy Zadrozny/Ben Collins: Trump, QAnon and the impending judgment day: Behind the Facebook-fueled rise of The Epoch Times.
Li Zhou:
Trump escalates the US-China trade war by announcing tariff hikes -- on Twitter.
How bad would a recession be for Trump in 2020? 8 experts weigh in. One thing no one mentions here is that a recession starting near election time could be bad for Democratic chances of implementing programs based on higher tax rates and more spending. The argument would be that higher taxes would further shrink the economy, and more spending would lead to unsustainable levels of debt. (Sure, feel free to gag when your hear Republicans saying this, but what matters is whether the Democrats' econ team caves in, which they did in 2009.) It's an irony (or perhaps a tragedy) of history that practically the only times when left-democratic parties gain power are when they have to set their agenda aside to salvage failing capitalist systems. As for election results, conventional wisdom may not be infallible. In 2008, McCain had no effective answers to the collapse, but the Tea Party turned out to be very effective politically in 2010. What they offered was total crap, but enough people bought into it to render Obama and the Democrats impotent, which is a big part of why the long recovery didn't help Hillary in 2016. A new recession will regenerate the Tea Party, and Trump will jump right on that bandwagon.