RIP Pax America

It isn’t just the insane tariffs. They are just the coup de grace. As Lawrence Summers posted: the tariffs are to economics what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK thought is to vaccine science. In fact, it is likely that their effects will hasten the fall of our mad would-be king, as plutocrats join the millions of ordinary Americans appalled by the wholesale destruction of American governance and the world order. 

But the larger damage has been done, and it is not remediable.

Perhaps the most accurate–and damning–analysis was from The Bulwark.

We cannot overstate what has just happened. It took just 71 days for Donald Trump to wreck the American economy, mortally wound NATO, and destroy the American-led world order.

He did this with the enthusiastic support of the entire Republican party and conservative movement.

He did it with the support of a plurality of American voters.

He did not hide his intentions. He campaigned on them. He made them the central thrust of his election. He told Americans that he would betray our allies and give up our leadership position in the world.

And that is exactly what he’s done. The article quoted Canada’s Prime Minister’s sorrowful eulogy.

The global economy is fundamentally different today than it was yesterday. The system of global trade anchored on the United States, that Canada has relied on since the end of the Second World War—a system that, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for our country for decades—is over.

Our old relationship of steadily deepening integration with the United States is over.

The eighty-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership—when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect, and championed the free and open exchange of good and services—is over.

While this is a tragedy, it is also the new reality.

So–how did we get here?

Historians will undoubtedly spend decades looking for answers, and there are certainly lots of contributing factors: lack of civic education, an information environment that facilitates confirmation bias, the ballooning gap between the rich and the rest, the arrogance of the tech “bros”. But while all those elements contributed, my own research tells me that the single most consequential support for Trumpism is America’s entrenched racism.

When I use the word racism, I’m not simply referring to anti-Black animus, although that is indeed its most prominent characteristic. I am using that term to include the other persistent, notable bigotries that continue to be prominent elements of American society : anti-Semitism, raging misogyny…the simmering resentment that all too many Americans harbour for anyone they consider “Other.” 

As Trump and Musk have taken their hatchets to the federal government, they have made no effort to hide their major target: those Others. They have moved to expunge DEI, diversity and “woke-ism” from America’s society– “epithets” that are thinly veiled terms for civic equality and equal rights. 

A plurality of our fellow citizens cast their votes for a President and a political party devoted to White Christian supremacy. It’s doubtful that they intended to destroy Pax Americana, but placing America under a regime of know-nothings, bigots and buffoons could hardly have done otherwise. And as the linked article says, “There is no going back.”

If, tomorrow, Donald Trump revoked his entire regime of tariffs, it would not matter. It might temporarily delay some economic pain, but the rest of the world now understands that it must move forward without America.

If, tomorrow, Donald Trump abandoned his quest to annex Greenland and committed himself to the defense of Ukraine and the perpetuation of NATO, it would not matter. The free world now understands that its long-term security plans must be made with the understanding that America is a potential adversary, not an ally.

This realization may be painful for Americans. But we should know that the rest of the world understands us more clearly than we understand ourselves….

The article’s conclusion is depressing–but realistic.

We have a deeply stupid government—from our economically illiterate president to our craven and foolish secretary of state, from the freelancing billionaire dilettante who is gutting American soft power to the vaccine-denying health secretary who is firing as much talent as he can. From the senior economics advisor who thinks comic books are good investments, to the senators who voted to confirm this cabinet of hacks, to the representatives who stumble over themselves justifying each new inane MAGA pronouncement.

But also, we have the government we deserve.

The American age is over. And it ended because the American people were no longer worthy of it.

RIP.

Comments

Will Obvious Insanity Be A Turning Point?

By now, it should be obvious that Trump is not simply stupid and ignorant (two different conditions), although he is both. He is severely mentally ill. He has not simply pursued mistaken policies, he has pursued petty vengeance–when he isn’t pursuing personally profitable grifts.

The clown show Trump calls a “cabinet” has already inflicted major damage on critical aspects of governance: public health, civil liberties, Social Security and more. Now–with the advent of his insane tariffs–he has begun the tanking of an economy that economists agreed was the best in the world at the end of the Biden Administration.

Even before the announcement of the scale of these unbelievably stupid and damaging tariffs, Paul Krugman wrote what any halfway sentient observer already knew: their imposition is a declaration of an all-out trade war that America will lose.

As I said, I don’t know exactly what will be announced later today. One safe prediction, however, is that over the next few days we’ll see many news analyses purporting to explain the thinking behind this radical change in U.S. policy.

Such analyses will be a waste of time, because there’s nothing to explain. I’m not saying that the Trump team’s thinking is unsound. I don’t see any thinking at all.

Krugman focused on two major internal contradictions in Trump’s intended justification.

Here’s the story: Trumpers are claiming that tariffs

1. Won’t increase prices, because foreign producers will absorb the cost

2. Will cause a large shift in U.S. demand away from imports to domestic production

3. Will raise huge amounts of revenue

If you think about it for a minute, you realize that (1) is inconsistent with (2): If prices of imports don’t rise, why would consumers switch to domestically produced goods? At the same time, (2) is inconsistent with (3): If imports drop a lot, tariffs won’t raise a lot of money, because there won’t be much to tax.

So the public story about tariffs doesn’t make any sense. And Trump’s rants about tariffs go beyond nonsense..

Does he really believe that Canada is a major source of fentanyl? Worse, does he believe that fentanyl smugglers pay tariffs?

But is it all a cover for the real, probably sinister agenda of Trump’s tariff push?

No. There isn’t any secret agenda, devised by people who know that the public story is nonsense. How do I know that? Because who, exactly, do you think is devising this secret agenda?

As he goes on to note, today’s Democrats and Republicans get their policy advice from very different sources: Democrats engage people with credentials and expertise. They still may be wrong, but they’re drawn from pools of folks having recognized expertise. Republicans these days prefer “experts” who are pure hacks–people who can be counted on to support whatever the party says.

Krugman was writing before Trump’s unveiling of his insane tariffs. In the wake of that announcement, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers posted that “The best estimate of the loss from tariff policy is now [close] to $30 trillion or $300,000 per family of four.”  Former Vice-President (and Trump toady) Mike Pence was quoted as saying that “The Trump Tariff Tax is the largest peacetime tax hike in U.S. history.” Dow futures lost 1200 points. A coalition of 12 countries officially moved to abandon the dollar in favor of local currencies for cross-border trade.

And that was just on day one.

MAGA cultists may not recognize the likely economic devastation, but a majority of American businesspeople do. So do the “profit over patriotism” lawyers who have bent the knee rather than stand up for the rule of law. And so do the economists and related scholars who work for the universities that have cowered and complied in order to retain federal grants.

In barely three months in office, an ignorant and petty madman has done incalculable damage to the rule of law, to the social safety net, to public health, to America’s alliances abroad– and now to a once-flourishing economy.

Increasing numbers of citizens are coming to understand the gravity of these actions. Call me Pollyanna, but I think the tariffs will provide a wake-up call to the cynical plutocrats who have been willing to go along with the mad king–ignoring the incredible damage being done to average Americans– in hopes of profiting from further tax cuts.

There’s an old political adage to the effect that matters have to “hit bottom” before spineless officials will take action. There’s an excellent case to be made that–thanks to our obviously insane Chief Executive–we’re there.

Comments

Welcome To The Gulag

A friend of mine recently called to tell me a chilling story. He has a family member who teaches middle-schoolers in our city’s public school system. The students come from a relatively poor area, and are largely Hispanic ten and eleven-year-olds.

And for the past few weeks, his classroom has been visited, sporadically, by ICE.

The ICE officers who come to his classroom have a standard routine; they take a student–a ten or eleven-year-old–out of the classroom and the school for “questioning” of some sort. Sometimes, that student is returned; sometimes–presumably, if it is determined that he or she is undocumented–that student never returns. In the latter case, according to what my friend’s relative has been told, the student, along with his or her parents, has been summarily deported.

My friend was appalled. His relative, the teacher, is infuriated, but helpless.

We don’t know anything more about this invasion of a public school classroom. We don’t know whether the child or the parents are afforded any sort of due process, or whether they have the services of legal counsel. (According to a recent article, routine denial of due process in immigration cases is an intentional part of Trump’s effort to undermine the rule of law.) We don’t know whether they are simply taken, like the widely-reported case of the Massachusetts graduate student with a valid visa who was accosted by plain-clothes ICE officials on a city street, arrested and flown to Louisiana for the “crime” of writing an op-ed with which our current dictator disagreed.

Undocumented immigrants have, by definition, broken the law. They’ve come to the United States without submitting themselves to our incredibly complicated and lengthy legal immigration process. In most cases, that is the only law they’ve broken. The middle-schoolers who are being “disappeared” from the classroom of my friend’s relative are innocent of any intentional lawbreaking, as are the thousands of DACA kids who were brought here as small children.

It is one thing to agree with the administration that undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of crimes while on our soil should be deported; it is another thing entirely to stand by and watch hard-working and otherwise law-abiding people–and their children–being summarily snatched from their lives and their classrooms and taken…where? How?

All my friend really knows is what his teacher/relative is experiencing. His relative doesn’t know any more than the fact that ICE periodically appears in his classroom, takes a child away, and sometimes brings that child back.

And sometimes, doesn’t.

But thanks to the media, we do know about the graduate students (lovingly referred to as “lunatics” by Marco Rubio, our new and especially despicable Secretary of State) who are being rounded up and stripped of their entirely legal residency for the “crime” of expressing opinions with which that our madman President disagrees. Despite assertions to the effect that these students have assisted Hamas and other terrorist organizations, none of them has been credibly accused–indeed, accused at all– of any such activity. No evidence of terrorist support has even been offered. It has become abundantly clear that the only “aid and comfort” offered has come in the form of opinions–the expression of which, at least until the advent of our current fascist regime, has been constitutionally protected.

Is it possible that my friend, his relative, and yours truly are jumping to unwarranted conclusions? All we know, as I’ve said, is that ICE is routinely visiting a largely Hispanic public school classroom, taking individual students out for interrogation, and returning some but not all of them. Perhaps the fact that this is occuring during a time when we are seeing reports of unconstitutional behaviors nationally is making us more suspicious than we would otherwise be.

Perhaps.

Since I have only the information I have shared above, I’m asking any of my readers who might have additional information to share it. (I doubt any ICE personnel read this blog, but if there is such a reader, I would especially welcome a comment correcting any erroneous suppositions. I would be extremely happy to have those suppositions corrected–and the picture I’ve formed of terrified ten-year-olds expunged.)

If, however, the conclusions we’ve reached, based upon what we do know, turn out to be accurate, that would suggest that Trump has taken the U.S. much farther down the path to a fascist autocracy than most of us have thus far recognized.

I hope to see a lot of you at tomorrow’s protest….

Comments

The Time Is Now

I woke up yesterday to heartening news: the liberal candidate had won the race for Wisconsin’s high court, and won it handily, despite the twenty-five million dollars spent by Elon Musk to support her opponent. (Actually, that is an inaccurate statement–she won, at least partly, thanks to Musk’s obscene financial support of her opponent.) And although Democrats lost the special races in Florida, they vastly over-performed in those deep Red districts.

Cory Booker had just stepped down from making the longest recorded speech in Senate history–a speech in which he laid out the myriad dangers posed by a lawless and enthusiastically corrupt administration.

News of these events came as civic activism has continued to rise. Town halls across the country have been filled with angry Americans. As I write this, a nationwide protest warning the administration to keep its Hands Off our governing institutions and constitutional order is scheduled for this Saturday, April 5th. That event will join an unprecedented number of prior protests: the Harvard Crowd Counting Consortium reports that “in 2025 our research shows that street protests today are far more numerous and frequent than skeptics might suggest.” In fact, “since 22 January, we’ve seen more than twice as many street protests than took place during the same period eight years ago.”

There’s a tendency to discount the impact of these gatherings, but they are extremely important: not only do they offer “aid and comfort” to citizens who might otherwise consider themselves alone in their righteous anger, research confirms that such events make both participants and onlookers much more likely to vote.

I’m not aware of any research documenting the effect of lengthy and impassioned Senate speeches, but it certainly seems that the incredible performance by Cory Booker on the Senate floor should resonate with the millions of Americans who are disheartened and terrified by the daily disasters caused by this insane administration–and  evidently it did. The Hill reported that more than 350 million people had liked Sen. Cory Booker’s floor speech on TikTok live as he approached 25 hours, and according to the Washington Post, before he was through, his speech had been liked on TikTok 400 million times.

Those are stunning–and heartening– numbers.

There was a lot to like in Booker’s oration, as Heather Cox Richardson reported. Booker began by invoking John Lewis’ admonition to make “good trouble.”

Standing for the next 25 hours and 5 minutes, without a break to use the restroom and pausing only when colleagues asked questions to enable him to rest his voice, Booker called out the Trump administration’s violations of the Constitution and detailed the ways in which the administration is hurting Americans. Farmers have lost government contracts, putting them in a financial crisis. Cuts to environmental protections that protect clean air and water are affecting Americans’ health. Housing is unaffordable, and the administration is making things worse. Cuts to education and medical research and national security breaches have made Americans less safe. The regime accidentally deported a legal resident because of “administrative error” and now says it cannot get him back.

Booker ended his marathon speech by reminding listeners that, in America, We the People are sovereign.

It starts with the people of the United States of America—that’s how this country started: ‘We the people.’ Let’s get back to the ideals that others are threatening, let’s get back to our founding documents…. Those imperfect geniuses had some very special words at the end of the Declaration of Independence…when our founders said we must mutually pledge, pledge to each other ‘our lives, our fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.’ We need that now from all Americans. This is a moral moment. It’s not left or right, it’s right or wrong.

Millions of Americans are recognizing the truth–and the import–of that last sentence.

We are not engaged in political policy disputes. The folks offering admonitions about “listening to MAGA’s discontents,” or “finding middle ground” have missed what has become ever more obvious, missed the point with which Booker concluded. The choice we face is not between policies A and B and policies C and D. We are not choosing between efficiency and waste. What we face is a stark choice between Constitutional governance and autocracy, between human-kindness and cruelty, between destruction and continuity, between progress toward civic equality and a return to the 1950s and Jim Crow. For Christian Americans, it’s a choice between actual Christianity and Christian Nationalism. For women, it’s a choice between individual autonomy and “the problem that has no name.”

This is a moral moment.

Comments

Left And Right

For several years, one of most annoying (and misleading) aspects of American political debate has been the insistence of participants on defining our differences as “left” and “right.” The MAGA cult, especially, has delighted in portraying all non-MAGA Americans as hated “libruls,” and–far from challenging their policy preferences–has displayed a child-like delight in “owning the libs,” seemingly unconcerned that their “successes” in that effort tend to hurt them more than their targets.

America’s liberals have historically been far more centrist and un-ideological than those in European countries, but today, the terminology simply fails to convey the reality of MAGA versus everyone else. So it may be useful to ask ourselves a question: In today’s political environment, what constitutes the “Left”?

Two paragraphs–an aside, really– from one of Heather Cox Richardson’s recent “Letters” provides an accurate answer to that question. While Richardson’s letter wasn’t focused on political language, the introduction to her discussion of the Trump administration’s devotion to Project 2025 aptly captured the essence of today’s political divide:

The craziness going on around us in the first two months of the second Trump administration makes a lot more sense if you remember that the goal of those currently in power was never simply to change the policies or the personnel of the U.S. government. Their goal is to dismantle the central pillars of the United States of America—government, law, business, education, culture, and so on—because they believe the very shape of those institutions serves what they call “the Left.”

Their definition of “the Left” includes all Americans, Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats, who believe the government has a role to play in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, and protecting civil rights and who support the institutional structures Americans have built since World War II.

Let me repeat that second paragraph, because it is an incredibly important description of our current reality:

Their definition of “the Left” includes all Americans, Republicans and Independents as well as Democrats, who believe the government has a role to play in regulating business, providing a basic social safety net, promoting infrastructure, and protecting civil rights and who support the institutional structures Americans have built since World War II.

The differences that existed between Left and Right when I was first involved in politics were far different than they are today. The Republican Party in which I worked for some 35 years (a party that no longer exists) had firm principles about the proper, limited uses of government power and authority. Admittedly, that party had its far-Right fringe, just as the Democrats had its collectivist-Left, but the GOP’s establishment was generally successful in isolating the Christian Nationalists and neo-Nazis that have always been in its midst.

Back then, establishment Republicans and Democrats argued about policy–about what constituted the proper and improper uses of government power, and/or the efficient/effective management of government programs.

What should government do about the struggle of poor families to feed their children? Should ameliorative efforts be left to the voluntary sector? To the states? If the federal government should be involved, how should its programs be fashioned?

When it came to foreign affairs, there was broad agreement that policy squabbles should not extend beyond the ocean’s edge–and a common commitment to a government that stood by America’s allies and promoted peace and democracy abroad. It’s true–and unfortunate– that America’s leaders too often misused the nation’s power and lost sight of the country’s fundamental philosophical commitments, but never in our history did either party heedlessly and overtly side with the country’s enemies over our allies.

Our internal fights to extend civil rights did tend to break down over party lines, but when I was an active Republican, the vast majority of Republicans I worked with rejected racism and agreed that the nation’s laws should be applied evenly and fairly. Today, MAGA Republicans’ devotion to Donald Trump rests largely on their wholehearted support of his efforts to take the country back to the days of Jim Crow.

Bottom line: The “libs” that MAGA delights in “owning” are the Americans who believe in retaining a government that operates under the Constitution and respects the rule of law. Full stop. We may disagree strongly about aspects of that operation, about the extent of federal authority, about the optimum contours of our social safety net, over what constitutes “merit”–but today, the “Left” that MAGA hates is composed of all conservatives and liberals who believe in retaining a government that answers to We the People.

According to MAGA, any American who wants to retain our democratic republic is a Leftist.

Comments