Three Things

Thing One: As noted before, we now have front row seats to Trump’s attack on governing, the Constitution, his enemies, migrants, and the government protections built up over decades to protect us from the ravages of unrestrained capitalism, climate change, and globalized disease. The pundits have recognized that Trump’s aggressive efforts to see what he can get away with – the courts being the only potential obstacle – is an intentional effort to enlarge his power not by flaunting law and order but by bending it to his will.

The mostly unqualified sycophants with which he is seeking to stuff his cabinet will pass or not through the Senate – Hegseth squeaking by J.D. – and thus fully legally. As Jon Stewart recently noted, this is not fascism but entirely consistent with the 18th Century founding document – allowing a presidential monarchy – we seem to be stuck with. We will have to do something about that someday if we are to ever grow up. This bring me to ….

Thing Two: In the face of Trump flooding the field to keep everyone else off balance, the Democrats are either hiding, lost in a forest of self-analysis, or just plain waiting for the Trump chickens to come home to roost on all of those deluded people who voted for him. That is not much of a political party, more a herd of well-fed sheep. The Democrats need to find a way to address the issues that drove so many to place hope for a better life in Trump and the oligarch-loving Republicans amassed under the MAGA banner. This brings me to ….

Thing Three: The Democrats need, the country needs, to find a way to deal with the forces driving so many to feeling relatively deprived. All too many Americans feel that they and their children cannot reach, or maintain, the lifestyle of their own parents or grandparents. They are right to so believe.

The post-WWII economy of the Boomers peaked by the early ‘80s. Since then, inequality has been increasing while the Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats have favored capital over labor. Good paying union jobs gave way to low paying service sector work. Big capital fought off unions. The 21st Century has added further automation, now powered by AI, to further diminish the good paying working class jobs of the past. Health costs have risen, public schools struggle, drug use moved well beyond inner cities. Folks wonder what happened? So they look for those to blame – migrants, Jews, anyone different – and those to save them.

We need to face up to a few basics. We will never be a country full of high-paying work again. Tariffs won’t do it and build-it-here won’t do it. Most remaining (or recaptured) industry and many so called white-collar jobs will be done by machines and computers. For a while we may still need some skilled craftspeople like plumbers and electricians. But picking our crops, slaughtering our animals and rebuilding our outdated infrastructure will be done by machines and those migrants we say we don’t need. (No high paying jobs there.)

What is to be done? The Democrats will need to bite the bullet and revisit that approach long made anathema by the rich and their Republican servants: socialism. By which I mean, collecting substantial taxes from the obscenely rich and from big business, perhaps nationalizing fundamental platforms of the 21st Century economy such as Amazon and providing a guaranteed minimum income to everyone. This last would not be means tested or require looking for work and should be at least a few multiples of the basic poverty line. (Free healthcare, life-long education and varied public goods would supplement this.) We should, in other words, separate making and providing the goods we sell to ourselves and the world from the necessity to make them through human labor.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.

So what if Trumps wins?

If Donald Trump wins the presidency on November 5, it will be the third time this century that a Republican has won with a minority of the vote. This owes to the anti-democratic elements of our 18th Century Constitution (the Electoral College, Senate and Supreme Court). The Republican Party is a minority party riding on every advantage our outdated system gives it. They win – with help from the Russians and arrogant tech lords like Musk – by converting Trump’s clownish authoritarianism into the false consciousness of whites who feel threatened by the increasing diversity of America despite being themselves among the richest 4% of the global population.

What would Trump’s victory mean? One can consider the U.S. domestic implications and the impact on the world in general.

Domestically, Trump will seek political vengeance while using the justice system to avoid prison. (Avoiding prison is his main reason for running.) His cohort of Project-2025ers will seek to undermine the administrative state while using state power to favor those capitalists that see government as hindrance. Together they will probably throw our economy, politics, courts, health & education systems, social safety nets and society in general, into turmoil. Their efforts to govern through authoritarianism and populism – the essence of MAGA – will test our democratic institutions and wreck havoc.

But we are not Weimar Germany. Our institutions will hold, although any Trump effort to use the military for domestic actions – such as dealing with “illegal migration” – could lead to a real crisis. It may well be that in the midterm elections of 2026, the upheaval would be enough to lead to a Democratic resurgence. (It will be interesting to watch a Vice President Vance. He could call the policy shots from the background. As an opportunist par excellence, he may be sensitive to the popular reaction to the various outrages pushed by the P-2025ers and tack accordingly.)

A Trump regime’s impact on the world stage is another matter. He will favor isolationism, economic nationalism, unilateralism, pro-Russian approaches in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, disengagement from the Mideast and who knows what with North Korea. This will fundamentally weaken the global position of the U.S. But let’s consider this from the 35,000 foot level.

The U.S. has held center stage in the world since the end of World War II. The various political and economic institutions of the global order – including the UN, IMF, World Bank, NATO etc – were ours by design. We established the contours of the Cold War that divided the world into good guys and bad guys and led to many distortions of the domestic affairs of other countries. After the fall of the USSR, we found other ways to define bad actors by choosing – often unwisely – which regional states to offer favored status and protection. As we began to lose our industrial advantage – with other economies coming online – globalism became our religion and we used the available levers to impose austerity and free trade everywhere we could.

We Americans have always been pretty self-centered, focused on our own navels. We governed the world – to the extent we did – for our own purposes, assuming that what was good for America was good for everyone. Trump’s obsession on making America “great again” is simply a dysfunctional flavor of this.

Our record as the predominant global hegemon has been mixed, to say the least. The world today can be legitimately described as a mess, with violent conflicts of various kinds and sources, terrorism, mass migration, political polarization, continued poverty and inequality, nuclear proliferation, the emerging technological singularity, and widespread and worsening climate disruptions. The U.S. did not cause any of these – at least not by ourselves – but they all happened on our watch. Meanwhile, the world has increasingly begun to just ignore us. (Watch China, India and the other BRICS cozy up to Putin despite his assault on world order.) Our inability to anything about the Mideast has not surprised anyone but ourselves. Maybe it’s better that we do withdraw somewhat from world affairs and let folks get on with finding their own way? If Trump wins in November, however messy it will be, maybe it’ll be what the world needs?  Like a heart attack that scares you into changing your bad habits? 

(Maybe we Americans will finally upgrade our Constitution.)

Time to Be Progressive

It's possible to understand both of our two major political parties as having led America into a crisis. The Republican Party – in control of the US federal government and many states and in the hands of ideological and religious extremists – has been captured by an immoral egotist with no capacity for governing. In pursuit of elite interests and “conservative values,” Republicans have launched an assault on everything good in how our government has come to serve the common welfare since the days of Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt.

Democrats have not been on the playing field. They threw away the 2016 election by passing the presidential nomination through a politically correct form of primogeniture. The candidate threw it away through own goals and writing off voters in certain groups and states. Lacking any coherent vision to address the economic and social effects of globalization, the Democratic Party instead played to niche politics and appears to have little to offer beyond waiting for Trump to crash and the Republicans to burn.

Joe Biden does have a heart and could oversee cleaning up the mess the Republicans leave behind. But there must be a cohesive progressive agenda to go beyond that. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren understood that presenting voters with one could begin the process of putting the country on the right path again. A progressive agenda must begin with embracing the progressive income tax. Government needs money to serve the common good. Our tax system must be made more fair and taxes sufficient to meet our needs. (The Republicans have sought to subordinate this to cutting spending and a regressive taxing system favoring the owners of capital.) It need not be confiscatory but should treat the fruits of labor and capital equally with progressively higher tax rates on individual and corporate income no matter where it comes from and with very limited exemptions.

With adequate funding, the federal government can attend to the chief challenges facing American society in the 21st Century: healthcare, jobs, inequality and education.

Healthcare should be treated as a basic right as it is in other advanced Western societies. It need not be done through a government entity but perhaps with needs-based expansion of Medicare, a non-profit public option and/or payments to purchase insurance on open markets.

In the 21st Century, technology and globalization have conspired to reduce the need for human labor. There simply may not be enough good paying jobs for everyone. A reduction in the work week from 40 to 32 hours plus an increase in the minimum wage may help in opening job opportunities to a greater number. Federal funding to pay for some of the increase in the minimum wage could help reduce the burden on small businesses. Insofar as training will help prepare workers for new roles, government needs to fund that as well.

Inequality undercuts democratic community through making life for many nasty, brutish and short. The federal government should ensure some minimum income for those unable to work and those for whom jobs do not pay enough to rise decently above poverty.

Federal funds should support quality, free public education by focusing on providing modern facilities and adequately paid teachers and staff for all local public school systems. Federal oversight of local schools should be kept to the minimum required to ensure equal access.

Some elements of a progressive agenda need not require additional funding:

Money’s role in politics needs to be removed through campaign financing reform. A national commission on redistricting should oversee the drawing of congressional districts. Each vote should count equally.

A pathway to citizenship should be created for those now in the US “illegally.” A cross border agreement should be made with Mexico (and possibly with the Central American countries) so seasonal workers may go back and forth legally.

The role of contractors and lobbyists in the budgeting process – especially as concerns the military – should be subject to tight limitations.

The Democratic Party needs to begin talking to this agenda in the next three months and not only focusing on Trump’s disqualifications. Waiting for the Republicans to march lemming-like over their cliff might still not be enough and would nevertheless leave the country without a clear direction forward. Biden appears to be getting this.

What Needs To Be Done

Let us put aside for the moment the fear that Joe Biden’s lead against Trump in the polls is bad because it seems all too reminiscent of Hillary’s last time. Let us also assume that that Republican defeat in November is so complete that the Democrats win both houses. Let us then consider what the agenda should be for a new Biden Administration in 2021.

The first challenge facing President Biden and the Democratic Party will be to begin the arduous process of undoing the damage Trump and the Republicans have done. This means first of all, of course, leading the country in the effort to put the corona virus behind us and refunding state and local governments and health institutions. But also, reviving rule of law and the administration of equal justice, undoing the dismantling of environmental protections, ending the war on immigrants, reimposing federal oversight of local police performance, aiding states to simplify and protect their voting systems, reestablishing our relations with friends and allies abroad and countering Russian, Chinese and other actors waging cyberwar upon us. These reflect simply the requirement to reverse the erosion of governance and national interest inflicted by Trump and his administration but will nevertheless take great effort and concentration.

But the real challenge will be even harder because it will require going beyond fixing what Trump has broken to fixing America itself as the damage predates him. Indeed, Trump is a symptom of the two fundamental and related problems that afflict us: gross and growing economic inequality and partisan tribalism. Economic inequality reinforces both racism and ultra-nationalism and exacerbates racial inequality. Partisan tribalism has made it near impossible to extract rational political debate and responses to the problems we face from our government.

There is no way to tackle economic inequality without re-conceptualizing how we do capitalism. The United States is as near as one can imagine to a completely laissez faire system, in which not only does the market rule in the economic realm but in politics as well. Both parties are fueled by loose money and have long accepted the results of the market, its up and downs, its winners and losers. The Republicans seek the to protect the gains of the winners and ensure that the downturns don’t lead to raised taxes on the rich or efforts to place limits on the way business is done. The Democrats – to give them their credit – have sought to provide and protect minimum social welfare and have begun to do the same with health care. But they too accept market mechanisms as a given.

It is time to place limits on markets, allow them to operate in some areas, limit how they affect others and ensure that their results work for the majority and not only the few. The goal must be to greatly reduce economic inequality and provide basic necessities – including health care – for all as needed.

Partisan tribalism goes back to the very founding of our republic. But the degree to which it has in the last decades overwhelmed the very ability to actually govern is without precedent. Bill Clinton’s effort in the 1990s to take the Democrats towards a more market friendly approach was met with worried warfare by Newt Gingrich and the Republicans. If the Democrats tacked right, the Republicans would go even further in that direction. Since then, they have waged class war in favor of the 1% and against the middle class and the poor by cynically seeking to enlist the latter into an assault on the very government that could protect them. The policies pursued by the Republicans lowered taxes on the rich, cut government services for the non-elite as much as possible and covered everything in the rhetoric of patriotism and charges that the other side were socialists. The Democrats seemed obvious to the possibility of representing the 99% (with Hillary actually calling them the “deplorables”). The Democrats therefore implicitly eschewed the class approach to the political war waged against them instead sinking into a morass of contending internal constituencies each seeking to tear their own piece of flesh from the party and its candidates. Bernie Sanders – not surprisingly an independent – understood this dynamic and sought to bring the party to its natural base. The Democrats twice refused. (Whether or not Sanders was too “socialist” to be elected leaves open the question of whether Elizabeth Warren was overlooked because she was too much a woman.)

Trump may bring the Republicans to their knees. But this will not by itself end the tribalism. Indeed, it seems time for the Democrats to go on the offensive. Clean up Trump’s mess, begin undoing economic and racial inequality, and figure out what kind of country America needs to be to face the foreign, domestic and environment challenges the rest of the 21^st Century will bring. Yes, elect Biden and then get on with it!

Bernie Concedes While it'll be Trump vs Cruz and Bush throwing a "Hail Mary"

Some commentators noted Bernie Sanders' victory speech on Tuesday night, after winning the New Hampshire primary, was a bit too long. This may have been because Senator Sanders gave two different speeches in one. Right off he complimented Hillary Clinton. He then noted that in a few months, the Democrats would have to come together. He then explained that the competition between the two Democratic candidates was injecting energy into the party and bringing the young people in. It would need both to win in November. In the middle of his speech, he again complimented Clinton and at the end he made clear that the purpose of it all was to prevent any of the Republicans from winning the presidency. Seems to me that this part of his speech was in effect a concession that he didn't really count on winning the nomination but that his raising issues that brought in the young people, targeted the 1% and Wall Street and pushed the party to embrace its progressive past would make Hillary a better candidate and the help the Democrats win in November.

Now Bernie could not say any of this outright. He needs to go on to continue the contest in upcoming primaries and continue to “energize” the Democratic base. You don't do that by making it clear you really don't expect to win and are running just to help the cause. So the second part of the speech was more of the standard “when I'm president” type. Along the way, he kept the focus on inequality but also addressed international affairs and race, gender and gay issues.

Bernie may have suspected that this win in New Hampshire might be his one really big chance to address the country. He used it, including a pitch in the middle for donations. Bernie hit all his notes and expanded his message. But his chief objective seemed to be a message to Hillary, take this medicine, it will be good for you, the party and the nation.

On the Republican side, the big news was the expected – but necessary to renew his self-declared “winner” image – big win by Donald Trump and the second place by heretofore quasi-unknown Ohio Governor John Kasich. But the real story is the cards falling today, the day after with Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina both dropping out. This leaves Cruz, Jeb Bush and maybe RoboRubio to contend for the job of knocking down Trump. Kasich spent a lot of time in New Hampshire and probably can't replicate his success in the southern primaries coming up. Bush has tons of money and may be able to keep in the race long enough to become, by default, the only “moderate” establishment Republican left standing. In the upcoming South Carolina primary, it will in effect be Trump vs Cruz while Bush tries to pull away from the rest of the pack.