When you see important societal actors — be it university presidents, media outlets, C.E.O.s, mayors, governors — changing their behavior in order to avoid the wrath of the government, that’s a sign that we’ve crossed the line into some form of authoritarianism
This week's featured post is "Those Mysterious Tariffs".
This week everybody was talking about Ukraine
Pundits struggled to make sense of the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy on February 28, but nobody nailed it better than Jon Stewart: Trump and the Republicans just like Putin better. Stewart made an extended metaphor about a pro wrestling scene in which apparent good-guy John Cena sneak attacks a fellow good-guy wrestler.
Creating tension with Ukraine in the Oval Office meeting “was a ‘heel turn’ designed to create the alliance Trump always wanted in the first place,” Stewart explained, referring to the pro-wrestling narrative device in which a fan-favorite character changes to become a storyline’s villain.
Another way to understand the meeting is to take "Trump is Putin's puppet" literally. Trump told Zelenskyy exactly what Putin would have told him had he been there: Surrender or World War III starts.
I have to wonder whether Trump can speak while Putin drinks a glass of water.
After the meeting, Trump withdrew all military aid from Ukraine, including intelligence. Time reports:
The Ukrainians have lost the ability to detect the approach of Russian bombers and other warplanes as they take off inside Russia. As a result, Ukraine has less time to warn civilians and military personnel about the risk of an approaching airstrike or missile.
The result: "hundreds of dead Ukrainians".
Since the end of World War II, the United States has stood for collective security based on alliances with other democratic nations and resistance to aggression by dictators. We haven't always applied those principles consistently, but we never explicitly rejected them. Now we do. If dictators want to take over their neighbors, that's their business.
BTW: Trump's cocksure assertion that Zelenskyy "doesn't have the cards" because Ukraine is losing on the battlefield is another example of Putin's puppetry. The battlefield is not going well for either side. Both countries are facing exhaustion, and while Russian forces are advancing slowly, at this pace it will take many years to conquer Ukraine.
and tariffs
Trump whipsawed the markets these last two weeks with a series of announcements about tariffs being imposed or postponed. That's the topic of the featured post. But in that post I didn't get around to making the obvious prediction: Capital spending is going to collapse, and is probably already collapsing, because companies and investors can't trust their projections of where the economy is headed. Ditto for households, who can't predict whether the government spending cuts are going to affect their jobs. (Maybe you can build that new bedroom onto your house, or maybe you're going to need a cushion in case you'll be unemployed.) So money is going to sit on the sidelines, and that is going to start a recession.
and the budget
Thursday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office confirmed what should have been obvious to everyone: The budget outline that the House passed recently is going to make substantial cuts to Medicaid.
House Republicans last week narrowly passed a budget instructing the energy and commerce committee, which is responsible for federal healthcare, to cut spending under its jurisdiction by $880bn ... The independent in-house agency confirmed that it would be impossible to reduce spending by $880bn without cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip). That’s because after excluding Medicare, Medicaid and Chip, the committee oversees only $381bn in spending – much less than the $880bn target – the CBO said.
There's a pretty clear game-plan of deceit here.
- Start by claiming to protect safety-net programs Americans -- especially Americans in the poorer, more rural Republican districts -- depend on.
- Announce plans to cut those general areas, but deny that the cuts will affect those programs, even if the math doesn't work without such cuts.
- Cut those programs, but claim that only "waste and fraud" will be affected.
- Refuse to pay for your kid's healthcare and/or kick your mother out of her nursing home.
We're already hearing rhetoric about how deep cuts in federal spending are "necessary", because the $36-trillion-and-rising federal debt is unsustainable. But no matter how dire a picture Republicans paint of our fiscal situation, taxing rich people is never an option.
House Republicans are committed to not negotiating with Democrats about either the FY 2026 budget or the continuing resolution to fund the rest of FY 2025, which is needed to prevent a government shutdown on Friday. Democrats want a commitment that whatever funding they pass is meaningful, and won't just get frozen by Musk or Trump. Republicans want to give Trump maximum flexibility, even if it means surrendering Congress' power of the purse.
In order to do that, they'll need to hold all their members together, which they've never managed before. But maybe this time they can.
and Trump's speech to Congress
which I didn't watch (though I did quickly scan a transcript). I don't see the point, since nothing Trump says can be believed. The Guardian fact checks the speech's biggest whoppers. Since Trump has been corrected on these fake facts before, they are clearly intentional lies.
The biggest one was his claim that Elon Musk has uncovered "massive fraud". So far, Musk has said the word "fraud" a lot, but he hasn't provided any evidence of it. Quite likely, Musk has not uncovered any fraud.
Trump's speech lasted a record-setting 100 minutes, reminiscent of the hours-long speeches dictators like Cuba's Fidel Castro used to give.
Like me, James Fallows more or less ignored the speech's content, focusing instead on its symptomology. He noticed four things:
- Trump's rhetorical range is shrinking. He used some form of his "like nothing ever seen before" cliche 20 times during the speech. By contrast, he said it only once in his first inaugural address, and it rarely appeared in his first-term State of the Union addresses. Similarly, "incredible" has become his dominant positive adjective, appearing six times.
- More alarmingly, Fallows notes that all types of Trump speeches -- MAGA rallies, presidential addresses, press conferences, televised Oval Office talks -- have collapsed into one form. The broader press commented on how rally-like this speech was, but missed the larger point that all Trump speeches are basically the same now.
- Recent presidential addresses to Congress have included heckling from the opposing party (going back to Joe Wilson's "You lie" directed at Obama in 2009). But this was the first time a president has abused members of Congress: Trump called Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" from the podium.
- Presidents almost always spin or shade the truth in these speeches, and occasionally have even lied outright. But Trump's lying has reached a completely different level. Lying is no longer an attempt to fool people, because some of Trump's lies are so transparent -- Social Security is paying benefits to people it thinks are 200 years old -- that no one will believe them. Instead, lying has become an expression of power. "To me, Trump’s body-language—his bearing, mood, and presentation—suggested that the grossness of the lies was the point of the exercise. Preening in the knowledge that he could get away with it, and that he could make his minions applaud."
Newly elected Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin needed only 10 minutes to respond.
We just went through another fraught election season. Americans made it clear that prices are too high and that government needs to be more responsive to their needs. America wants change. But there is a responsible way to make change, and a reckless way. And, we can make that change without forgetting who we are as a country, and as a democracy.
She talked about the economy:
President Trump is trying to deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends. He's on the hunt to find trillions of dollars to pass along to the wealthiest in America. And to do that, he's going to make you pay in every part of your life. Grocery and home prices are going up, not down — and he hasn't laid out a credible plan to deal with either. His tariffs on allies like Canada will raise prices on energy, lumber, cars — and start a trade war that will hurt manufacturing and farmers. Your premiums and prescriptions will cost more because the math on his proposals doesn't work without going after your health care. Meanwhile, for those keeping score, the national debt is going up, not down. And if he's not careful, he could walk us right into a recession.
And national security:
[T]hat scene in the Oval Office wasn't just a bad episode of reality TV. It summed up Trump's whole approach to the world. He believes in cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and kicking our friends, like Canada, in the teeth. He sees American leadership as merely a series of real estate transactions. ...
[O]ur democracy, our very system of government, has been the aspiration of the world. And right now, it's at risk. It's at risk when a president decides he can pick and choose what rules he wants to follow, when he ignores court orders or the Constitution itself, or when elected leaders stand idly by and just let it happen. But it's also at risk when the President pits Americans against each other, when he demonizes those who are different, and tells certain people they shouldn't be included. Because America is not just a patch of land between two oceans. We are more than that. Generations have fought and died to secure the fundamental rights that define us. Those rights and the fight for them make us who we are.
and Tesla
For years, Elon Musk's public image worked to Tesla's benefit. He was Tony Stark. He was to our world what Hank Rearden was to Atlas Shrugged. And Tesla had a technology lead over rival electric-car companies. So Teslas weren't just good cars, they were cool. Driving a Tesla was a virtue signal; it told the world you were serious about climate change.
Then he bought Twitter and made the online world safe for Nazis. He spent $290 million to elect Donald Trump. He addressed a rally for the AfD, calling that neo-Nazi party "the best hope for the future of Germany."
His Trump contributions bought him the extra-constitutional power to cut government programs, fire civil-service workers, and shut down agencies created by Congress. (The Atlas Shrugged character he most resembles now is Wesley Mouch, head of the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources.) Has medical research ground to a halt in Musk's America? Are children starving in Africa while food rots in US ports? What a shame.
Suddenly, people who had been willing to pay a virtue premium for a Tesla are instead looking for a vice discount. It isn't just that competitors have caught up to Tesla (which they have). In many people's minds, a Tesla would have to be a lot better than the next best EV to make up for the stigma of driving a "Swasticar".
And in case you hadn't noticed that stigma, anti-Musk demonstrators are showing up at Tesla showrooms to remind you. Saturday, Tesla Takedowns erupted all over the US, with 350 protesters in Manhattan alone.
In Europe as well, Tesla's problems are growing: In Germany, sales were down 60% in January and 76% in February.
Maybe you were horrified by Musk's statement (in a Joe Rogan interview) about empathy.
The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.
Well, you should know that seeing empathy as an exploitable weakness isn't just a psychological quirk Musk has because he's on the spectrum. It's become a thing on the Right. A conservative Christian author has a book out called Toxic Empathy: How progressives exploit Christian compassion.
We are told that empathy is the highest virtue—the key to being a good person. Is that true? Or has “empathy,” like so many other words of our day—“tolerance,” “justice,” “acceptance”—been hijacked by bad actors who exploit compassion for their own political ends?
Yep. If you find yourself feeling sorry for bombed-out communities in Gaza, hungry children in Africa, or working-class families losing their health insurance in the US, it's a trap. Jesus wouldn't want you to fall for it. "Love your neighbor" now means something else entirely.
David French comments:
That’s one reason you’ll often see a shocking amount of derision online when anyone starts talking about the human toll of Trump’s decisions. His MAGA evangelicals are broadcasting that you cannot reach them with anything that looks like an appeal to the heart. ... It’s also just bizarre to argue that describing the consequences of a policy is somehow emotionally manipulative when avoiding those consequences was the purpose of the program that’s being frozen or cut.
So, yes, you say that children might die without a certain program when the very purpose of the program is to prevent children from dying. That’s not manipulation. It’s confronting individuals with facts. It’s making them understand exactly what they are choosing to do.
and you also might be interested in ...
Paul Krugman looks at Trump's "Strategic Cryptocurrency Reserve" plan and concludes that it's a gigantic pump-and-dump scheme. Even if you believe it's somehow on the up-and-up, this observation should trouble you:
What would the U.S. government do with this reserve? Make payoffs to gangsters? Buy favors from rogue governments like North Korea? I guess it could, in a pinch, sell the stuff to raise money if people have lost trust in the U.S. government’s solvency, but surely it would be a better strategy to stay solvent — among other things by not borrowing to buy assets that will probably crash in value if and when America tries try to sell them.
HHS has notified the State of Maine that its policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in school sports violates Title IX
by denying female student athletes in the State of Maine an equal opportunity to participate in, and obtain the benefits of participation, "in any interscholastic, intercollegiate, club or intramural athletics" offered by the state by allowing male athletes to compete against female athletes in current and future athletic events.
The Maine Attorney General’s Office was notified on Feb. 21 that the DHHS Office for Civil Rights started a compliance review of the Maine DOE, including the University of Maine System. A spokesperson for the Maine Attorney General's Office said federal investigators did not interview anyone in their office.
Whenever we talk about trans issues, especially trans athletes, it's important to realize just how few cases, and how little impact on cis-women's rights, we're talking about. HHS' letter identifies two cases:
- A trans pole vaulter won the state Class B championship.
- A trans skier finished third and fourth in events at the state Class C championships.
In the 2023 Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey, 4.5% of high school students reported a transgender identity. (That seems high to me, but what do I know?) If we picked some random group comprising 4.5% of students, that group would also probably contain a few successful athletes. So I don't see evidence that Maine's policy is distorting girls' sports in any meaningful way.
A BlueSky poster brings the numbers home:
As of today, there are more kids infected with measles than there are trans athletes playing in college sports in the U.S.
In general, I disapprove of the Right's tendency to make policy by anecdote. (Another example is to base immigration policy on anecdotes about misbehaving immigrants. Hitler's Nazis used to publicize every "Jewish crime" they could find, for similar reasons.) Anecdotal policy lends itself to prejudice, because only the anecdotes that fit the ruling bias are allowed to count. For example, there are countless stories of boys and girls being abused by Christian ministers. Should Christian churches be shut down to prevent this? Of course not, because Christians are much more popular than transfolk.
The upshot of HHS' letter is a referral to the Department of Justice for enforcement.
Various free-trade agreements have established an Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process "to protect foreign businesses from state corruption and theft", but these days it's being used by companies whose investments are affected by a nation's environmental laws. Right now, Greenland is being sued by a mining company because it shut down uranium mining in 2021. The company says it had invested $100 million in the site, but it is suing for $11.5 billion, based on what their mine would be worth had it been successfully developed.
That case motivated The Guardian to look at other ISDS suits, and the "chilling effect" they have on governments' attempts to limit fossil fuels. In short, every time a country tries to protect its environment, it may have to pay a ransom to the parties who feel entitled to exploit that resource.
The Netanyahu government's war against the independence of the judiciary branch has resumed.
and let's close with a great relief
A Chilean kayaker was scooped up by the mouth of a humpback whale, and then spit back out. He was unharmed.
Humpback whales aren't actually looking for large prey like humans. They typically suck in large quantities of seawater and filter it for krill and other small morsels. But that's probably hard to remember when you find yourself in one's mouth.
