Joe, Trump’s entire worldview is shaped by his belief that every I interaction requires both a winner and a loser. He simply can’t comprehend solutions where two parties to a relationship both gain from a shared endeavor. This absurd view of human interaction is exacerbated by his perspective of all relationships as transactional. Certainly in most international trade relations, countries aspire to maximize the benefits of cross border commerce to their economies. But Trump goes a step too far in his unwavering belief that there must be a loser in every transaction. The post war global order has led to economic growth benefiting almost all economies and lifting millions out of poverty. A primary objective of our post war policies was to open world markets to American businesses. Without our support of the rebuilding of war torn economies, there would have been few buyers for our products. All Mr Trump can see are surpluses and deficits. His pettiness knows no bounds. We need to be planning for a new reconstruction plan. Democrats should be putting forth plans for how we can emerge from this period of darkness, restore our world leadership and rebuild a free economy. It is certain that we will need a plan for recovery. Rather than simply pointing out Trump’s follies, Democrats should acknowledge that it will take a lot of hard work and imaginative policy planning (not unlike Project 2025) to rebuild a decimated public sector and a greatly weakened economy. That kind of plan has the potential to energize all factions of the party.
Do you really think the media and voters would pay attention to a detailed immigration plan? Biden had a bi partisan one and Trump put a cold stop to it before the ink dried.
How about: Keep the border closed, but allow a path to citizenship for those who pick our crops, serve our Macs and mow our lawns? That, by itself, will accomplish nothing. But it should be part of a real, plausible alternative to Trumpism.
The Biden plan simply codified Biden's numbers into law, permanently . Under the legislation, 2-3 million migrants a year would have entered the US in perpetuity, by the time exempt countries and Gotaways were counted. Had the bill passed, in roughly 8-10 years those crossing the Southern Border, just since Biden took office, would have created a landless, migrant only 51rst state, larger in population than 48 other US states. In less than another decade, their numbers would surpass the population of CA.
Statistically speaking, we know more than 50% of new arrivals quickly enroll in US welfare programs. All, as AI and robotics begin to perform jobs historically performed by humans.
Trump didn't kill the bill. Math killed the bill. We have horrendous housing shortage, especially affordable housing. Where were these millions of migrants suppose to sleep? Who will tend to their healthcare and education needs?
Dems seeking real reform, would float humanely repatriating Biden's new arrivals, lacking valid asylum claims, with a larger payment for quick self deportation. In exchange, those who have dwelled illegally in the US for decades without criminality, could be granted Permanent Resident Alien status, up to a certain number.
Joel Kotkin, writing in the LA Times. Mr. Kotkin has been California's premier demographer for decades. He and his army of grad students produce impeccable research on population, economics and employment issues.
Kotkin's research calculates 54% of all naturalized citizens and immigrants dwelling both legally and illegally are enrolled in, at least, 1 US federal welfare program. Other sources concur.
Kotkin has been a liberal his entire life. He also loudly and famously loathes Trump, and has for a decade, but the Math is the Math.
I agree with many points in this column, but not all of them.
Above all, the US failure in Ukraine has been bipartisan and dates back to 2014. (I have explained the matter at the very end of this comment.) More generally, the US appears to have become a weak superpower. Senseless and cruel wars have been raging out of control in Europe and the Near East on Biden's watch and now on Trump's watch. In earlier times, the US would not have permitted these wars to continue for very long.
As for our current rivalry with China, it too has been bipartisan and wrong-headed. The best way to redress Chinese theft of intellectual property is by legal proceedings and by enforcing the penalties without leniency. The best way to redress Chinese dumping of valuable industrial goods at cheap prices is to receive most of them gladly, so that we can free up our people and resources to pursue other economic activities. If another country wants to sell us valuable goods at cheap prices, we should seize the occasion and send our displaced workers to trade schools, community colleges, and universities to learn new trades. But we must also ramp up our production of strategically important goods, which should be protected from foreign trade. There is no shortage of important work. We should therefore profit from Chinese funding of our basic consumer goods rather than wage trade wars in every direction. Both Biden and Trump have pursued protectionist policies, but especially Trump during his second term.
Finally, the best way to redress malign aggression by China, Russia, or any other foreign power is by dependable, understated deterrence. To paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, "speak softly and carry a very big stick, which you must be willing to use when truly necessary."
As for RFK, his antipathy to vaccines and RNA technology is a direct menace to the health and safety of Americans and to humans generally. He should be impeached on this specific ground.
A former Democrat and fan of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, I could not agree more with Mr. Klein's summary of modern-day Democrats. The last two paragraphs of this column are spot on and could not have been better stated.
I add the following points.
Repeatedly, the Trump Administration has tested and stretched the limits of its constitutional powers. It is past time for the other branches of government, civil society, and the hapless Democratic Party to exercise their own constitutional powers lawfully and sufficiently. That is how we must resolve conflict in our Republic, if we wish to keep it (to paraphrase Ben Franklin).
In particular, each of us must be willing to express views on matters of public importance without fear of punishment by woke progressives. MAGA ideologues, or the Trump Administration. That is called free speech. It means nothing unless everyone is permitted to have his or her say (subject to very narrow exceptions).
Here is a long PS on the Ukraine War, whose history too few Americans seem to understand: Along with Russia, the United States and Great Britain formally gave a "security assurance" to Ukraine in 1994 in a binding memorandum of understanding. It was our formal commitment to protect Ukraine's "sovereignty" in exchange for that country's relinquishment of its nuclear weapons.
In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine by seizing the Crimean peninsula, which historically was neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but a region of Tartars and other peoples, whom the Russians had conquered during the Tsarist dynasties. Obama dodged the issue and never explained our security guarantee to the US public, nor did Trump do so after 2016. Putin also sent ill-concealed mercenaries to the eastern part of historic Ukraine after 2014 (the infamous "green men" in the Dunbas region described by Angela Merkel in 2016 or so).
Russia invaded the rest of Ukraine in 2022. In response, Biden proclaimed that "the United States stands with Ukraine," but he conspicuously failed to walk the walk. Cautious to a fault, and apparently ignorant of MAD doctrines, his administration continually slow-walked its arming of Ukraine and imposed all manner of restrictions on the arms that it belatedly permitted that country to receive.
Since returning to office, Trump has rightly exposed European free-loading, but he appears to have given Putin a free rein to continue his war of terror against the Ukrainian people. In fairness, he has imposed strong sanctions against India because it purchases Russian oil, but sanctions alone will not stop this war. What will work is (1) sufficiently arming Ukraine with US weapons (funded by Europe in the future); and (2) offering to lift sanctions if Russia withdraws or accepts a long-term armistice that lasts.
Those are the basic facts of the Ukraine War, as I understand them.
Sorry once again for the long comment. If brevity is the soul of wit, then I must be the greatest fool alive. Or, as one of my teachers once explained to me in the eighth grade before the entire class, "You, sir, have diarrhea of the mouth, but constipation of the brain!" Everyone roared in laughter, me included. Some things never change.
Your discussion of Ukraine omitted the role of the U.S. in overthrowing the elected president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych through the Euromaidan revolution of 2013-2014. Yanukovych was pro Russian and unacceptable for the neocons in the Dept. of State led by Victoria Nuland. Not only did Nuland engineer the overthrow but in a leaked phone conversation she indicated who the new Ukranian leader should be. Installation of a pro Western government in Ukraine led to the Crimean invasion of 2014. It is important to acknowledge that the mess that is Ukraine today is due in large part to the meddling of U.S. neocons in our Department of State. As an aside, Nuland's husband Robert Kagan was a strong advocate for the Iraq war, yet another unnecessary and avoidable disaster.
I take this comment to mean that the US must provide Ukraine with the arms that it requires to protect its people and to repel or at least stop the present invasion of its country.
Afterwards, I say, it will become necessary to negotiate a "just peace"-- a win-win resolution--which neither rewards the aggressor (Russia), nor punishes it.
France and Germany stopped going to war against one another only after the Allied Powers imposed a just peace in the aftermath of WWII. France's punitive peace at Versailles after WWI immediately led to widespread sentiments of humiliation and resentment in Germany during the interwar period. That was no good for anyone at all.
The nations of the world can prosper by trading and collaborating. All of these primitive wars everywhere are senseless and horrifying. They must become relics from another era if we are to meet the great challenges of our times.
True strength and generous peace treaties stop these kinds of wars.
I promise not to post here anymore for some time. I am probably taking up too much space here!
It's impossible to be pro-peace and pro-war. I am certain that your "in every way possible now" clause was not meant to convey the unthinkable actions that it implies.
I strongly and always opposed our unprovoked, ill-planned invasion of Iraq in 2003. Its regime had nothing to do with the Al-Quaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. It posed no immediate or long-term threat to any significant American interest, but only to its own peoples, who did not want the US to invade the country. It had no weapons of mass destruction. It was obvious that G.W. Bush was looking for any pretext to invade the country to topple Hussein for reasons that have always remained unclear to me.
Ukraine is a wholly different case. In 2014, its people rose up against the corrupt, pro-Putin regime. I really didn't pay much attention at the time or really until Putin's regime started terror-bombing the place, unprovoked, in 2022. But when I see those people I see a people whose culture and values have much in common with our own, and they only want to live in peace, trade freely, and form such alliances as they believe will best protect them. Manifestly, they no longer wish to live under Putin's regime, but have never had any interest in toppling that regime or attacking Russia.
That reminds me very much of the American colonies in the latter part of the 1770s.
That said, the only way out of this war must entail both sticks and carrots. The sticks will be to give Ukraine the means that it requires to defend itself properly. The carrots are an end to sanctions against Russia and including it in new trading treaties so that everyone can prosper.
Russia has an ancient and extraordinary culture. I bear no ill-will towards the country. I bear implacable ill-will to unprovoked invasions and wars of terror against a people to try to prevent them from governing themselves as they wish to do. That is what has been happening here.
PS: Typed on the fly, but carefully considered by me over the years.
Respect for your earnest response. My intent was to point out that the tragedy of the Ukrainian war has our fingerprints all over it. I share your loathing of the Iraq disaster as it was engineered through lies and media manipulation. My position is that the Ukraine debacle is analogous. Rather than provoking a flame war I would encourage you to investigate the circumstances of the Euromaidan revolt, the prescient warnings of George Kennan, and the reasoning of President Obama in response to the invasion of Crimea.
I in turn appreciate your respectful reply. We must be able to exchange ideas without vilifying one another. "A house that is divided cannot stand." I personally believe that we Americans can overcome our differences by our love of dogs and by community softball games everywhere in the country. But those are likely crazy ideas that I should not introduce here.
A thought experiment for you: If the last election -- the one that elected Trump -- were held tomorrow, would he win? Insert whatever Democrat you want on the other side. Assume a third term were possible.
Some guy once told us about a phrase, “it’s the economy stupid….” Every American generation had the chance to do at least as well as the one before it, until now. MAGA’s answer: recreate domestic manufacturing and cut immigrant competition for jobs. Progressives’ answer: redistribute wealth to entitlements. Leaders of the sane center, by contrast, seem unable to coalesce around a credible answer.
1. Free trade with other countries, except for strategically important goods (narrowly defined). That is our best hope for long-term prosperity and peace (in that order).
2. Fund trade school, community college, and university to teach displaced workers new trades in the upcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution, by which the world will adapt its industry, infrastructure, and technology to the world's changing environment.
3. Phase in carbon taxes and encourage all other forms of energy and carbon removal.
4. Enact radical permit reform with preemptive federal effect to impose strict limits on NIMBY and BANANA regulations and litigation.
5. Welcome immigrants who can offer valuable skills, labor, or investment, including gifted foreign students. Enforce immigration law and border security while showing discretion towards those already here who otherwise are law-abiding and gainfully employed.
6. The public should reward political leaders who make deals that solve problems.
7. Last but not least, Joe Klein is spot-on about the cultural issues.
Those are good policies and pretty easy to sum up.
Though I’m on for all of those, do you think the center - which spans Amy Klobuchar to Chuck Grassley, Ezra Klein to Bill Kristol if you prefer pundits - can come together and turn out the vote on the basis of a set of free trade / regulated free market policies like this? Because that is what it may take.
I highly doubt that such a party could win the Presidency or obtain control of either chamber of Congress, at least during my lifetime. But if a centrist party were to pick its fights wisely, it could win some seats in Congress, esp. the House of Representatives. Then its representatives might sometimes tip the balance of power and help to enact good laws and oppose bad ones. In Congress, they would have a national bully-pulpit and could explain their various views to the country. It would be a breath of fresh air.
If voters were sufficiently impressed, such a party might end up winning some statewide elections too as well as local elections in state politics. Such a party might also have a good influence on some members of Congress who now belong to the two established parties. Some of them might even join the ranks of a centrist party.
At all events, I have become a political orphan and have no other place to go!
PS: off the top of my head, the best centrist politicians in recent years have been Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mitt Romney, Josh Shapiro, Seth Moulton, Gina Raimondo, James Bennett, Conor Lamb, and in fact many, many other current or former members of the two established parties. We should add Joe Klein and Bill Maher to the list. But centrists must learn to speak their minds forcefully rather than endlessly placate the extremists in their own camps. That is perhaps the besetting problem in current US politics. No extremist group commands anything like a majority of the vote, but they stifle dissent among Democrats and, far worse, have purged centrist-minded Republicans. What happened to Seth Moulton was pathetic. Like Bill Maher, I personally consider myself to be a classical liberal, as the term is used by my most trusted source of news and commentary, the Economist magazine.
Brilliant, as usual! The Democrats are so frustrating! Trump fills their vacuum. When will the Democrats wise up? Look at NYC. If Mandani loses, Trump will get the credit! The Democrats can't do anything right!
I was reading this and thinking, “Wow. All this and Joe hasn’t kicked the shit out of the Dems.” Then I got to the last two paragraphs. I don’t think culture outweighs economics when things get bad enough. When they do, I hope the Dems will have the temerity necessary to right the playing field. But alas I think Joe’s current assessment of the party is spot on and I wonder what’s the right play when the threat of a government shutdown becomes real.
I read you, Joe, because in spite of my Bible-based apocalyptic anticipations, I still hope and pray and work hard for some secular solutions to our probably terminal problems. Guess what? I see fewer and fewer every day.
Happy Birthday, Joe. A day late. Sorry. Keep doing what you are doing. And what advice do you have for washed-up 85-year olds to join the Resistance? And who in the WH is assigned to monitor the comments on your Substasck? Or is it just done digitally?
Joe, Trump’s entire worldview is shaped by his belief that every I interaction requires both a winner and a loser. He simply can’t comprehend solutions where two parties to a relationship both gain from a shared endeavor. This absurd view of human interaction is exacerbated by his perspective of all relationships as transactional. Certainly in most international trade relations, countries aspire to maximize the benefits of cross border commerce to their economies. But Trump goes a step too far in his unwavering belief that there must be a loser in every transaction. The post war global order has led to economic growth benefiting almost all economies and lifting millions out of poverty. A primary objective of our post war policies was to open world markets to American businesses. Without our support of the rebuilding of war torn economies, there would have been few buyers for our products. All Mr Trump can see are surpluses and deficits. His pettiness knows no bounds. We need to be planning for a new reconstruction plan. Democrats should be putting forth plans for how we can emerge from this period of darkness, restore our world leadership and rebuild a free economy. It is certain that we will need a plan for recovery. Rather than simply pointing out Trump’s follies, Democrats should acknowledge that it will take a lot of hard work and imaginative policy planning (not unlike Project 2025) to rebuild a decimated public sector and a greatly weakened economy. That kind of plan has the potential to energize all factions of the party.
Do you really think the media and voters would pay attention to a detailed immigration plan? Biden had a bi partisan one and Trump put a cold stop to it before the ink dried.
How about: Keep the border closed, but allow a path to citizenship for those who pick our crops, serve our Macs and mow our lawns? That, by itself, will accomplish nothing. But it should be part of a real, plausible alternative to Trumpism.
The Biden plan simply codified Biden's numbers into law, permanently . Under the legislation, 2-3 million migrants a year would have entered the US in perpetuity, by the time exempt countries and Gotaways were counted. Had the bill passed, in roughly 8-10 years those crossing the Southern Border, just since Biden took office, would have created a landless, migrant only 51rst state, larger in population than 48 other US states. In less than another decade, their numbers would surpass the population of CA.
Statistically speaking, we know more than 50% of new arrivals quickly enroll in US welfare programs. All, as AI and robotics begin to perform jobs historically performed by humans.
Trump didn't kill the bill. Math killed the bill. We have horrendous housing shortage, especially affordable housing. Where were these millions of migrants suppose to sleep? Who will tend to their healthcare and education needs?
Dems seeking real reform, would float humanely repatriating Biden's new arrivals, lacking valid asylum claims, with a larger payment for quick self deportation. In exchange, those who have dwelled illegally in the US for decades without criminality, could be granted Permanent Resident Alien status, up to a certain number.
Please site your source for the “50% of new arrivals quickly enroll in US welfare programs.”
Joel Kotkin, writing in the LA Times. Mr. Kotkin has been California's premier demographer for decades. He and his army of grad students produce impeccable research on population, economics and employment issues.
Kotkin's research calculates 54% of all naturalized citizens and immigrants dwelling both legally and illegally are enrolled in, at least, 1 US federal welfare program. Other sources concur.
Kotkin has been a liberal his entire life. He also loudly and famously loathes Trump, and has for a decade, but the Math is the Math.
I agree with many points in this column, but not all of them.
Above all, the US failure in Ukraine has been bipartisan and dates back to 2014. (I have explained the matter at the very end of this comment.) More generally, the US appears to have become a weak superpower. Senseless and cruel wars have been raging out of control in Europe and the Near East on Biden's watch and now on Trump's watch. In earlier times, the US would not have permitted these wars to continue for very long.
As for our current rivalry with China, it too has been bipartisan and wrong-headed. The best way to redress Chinese theft of intellectual property is by legal proceedings and by enforcing the penalties without leniency. The best way to redress Chinese dumping of valuable industrial goods at cheap prices is to receive most of them gladly, so that we can free up our people and resources to pursue other economic activities. If another country wants to sell us valuable goods at cheap prices, we should seize the occasion and send our displaced workers to trade schools, community colleges, and universities to learn new trades. But we must also ramp up our production of strategically important goods, which should be protected from foreign trade. There is no shortage of important work. We should therefore profit from Chinese funding of our basic consumer goods rather than wage trade wars in every direction. Both Biden and Trump have pursued protectionist policies, but especially Trump during his second term.
Finally, the best way to redress malign aggression by China, Russia, or any other foreign power is by dependable, understated deterrence. To paraphrase Theodore Roosevelt, "speak softly and carry a very big stick, which you must be willing to use when truly necessary."
As for RFK, his antipathy to vaccines and RNA technology is a direct menace to the health and safety of Americans and to humans generally. He should be impeached on this specific ground.
A former Democrat and fan of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, I could not agree more with Mr. Klein's summary of modern-day Democrats. The last two paragraphs of this column are spot on and could not have been better stated.
I add the following points.
Repeatedly, the Trump Administration has tested and stretched the limits of its constitutional powers. It is past time for the other branches of government, civil society, and the hapless Democratic Party to exercise their own constitutional powers lawfully and sufficiently. That is how we must resolve conflict in our Republic, if we wish to keep it (to paraphrase Ben Franklin).
In particular, each of us must be willing to express views on matters of public importance without fear of punishment by woke progressives. MAGA ideologues, or the Trump Administration. That is called free speech. It means nothing unless everyone is permitted to have his or her say (subject to very narrow exceptions).
Here is a long PS on the Ukraine War, whose history too few Americans seem to understand: Along with Russia, the United States and Great Britain formally gave a "security assurance" to Ukraine in 1994 in a binding memorandum of understanding. It was our formal commitment to protect Ukraine's "sovereignty" in exchange for that country's relinquishment of its nuclear weapons.
In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine by seizing the Crimean peninsula, which historically was neither Russian nor Ukrainian, but a region of Tartars and other peoples, whom the Russians had conquered during the Tsarist dynasties. Obama dodged the issue and never explained our security guarantee to the US public, nor did Trump do so after 2016. Putin also sent ill-concealed mercenaries to the eastern part of historic Ukraine after 2014 (the infamous "green men" in the Dunbas region described by Angela Merkel in 2016 or so).
Russia invaded the rest of Ukraine in 2022. In response, Biden proclaimed that "the United States stands with Ukraine," but he conspicuously failed to walk the walk. Cautious to a fault, and apparently ignorant of MAD doctrines, his administration continually slow-walked its arming of Ukraine and imposed all manner of restrictions on the arms that it belatedly permitted that country to receive.
Since returning to office, Trump has rightly exposed European free-loading, but he appears to have given Putin a free rein to continue his war of terror against the Ukrainian people. In fairness, he has imposed strong sanctions against India because it purchases Russian oil, but sanctions alone will not stop this war. What will work is (1) sufficiently arming Ukraine with US weapons (funded by Europe in the future); and (2) offering to lift sanctions if Russia withdraws or accepts a long-term armistice that lasts.
Those are the basic facts of the Ukraine War, as I understand them.
Sorry once again for the long comment. If brevity is the soul of wit, then I must be the greatest fool alive. Or, as one of my teachers once explained to me in the eighth grade before the entire class, "You, sir, have diarrhea of the mouth, but constipation of the brain!" Everyone roared in laughter, me included. Some things never change.
Your discussion of Ukraine omitted the role of the U.S. in overthrowing the elected president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych through the Euromaidan revolution of 2013-2014. Yanukovych was pro Russian and unacceptable for the neocons in the Dept. of State led by Victoria Nuland. Not only did Nuland engineer the overthrow but in a leaked phone conversation she indicated who the new Ukranian leader should be. Installation of a pro Western government in Ukraine led to the Crimean invasion of 2014. It is important to acknowledge that the mess that is Ukraine today is due in large part to the meddling of U.S. neocons in our Department of State. As an aside, Nuland's husband Robert Kagan was a strong advocate for the Iraq war, yet another unnecessary and avoidable disaster.
It is impossible to be pro-Ukraine and pro-Russian. We must oppose Russian aggression in every way possible now.
I take this comment to mean that the US must provide Ukraine with the arms that it requires to protect its people and to repel or at least stop the present invasion of its country.
Afterwards, I say, it will become necessary to negotiate a "just peace"-- a win-win resolution--which neither rewards the aggressor (Russia), nor punishes it.
France and Germany stopped going to war against one another only after the Allied Powers imposed a just peace in the aftermath of WWII. France's punitive peace at Versailles after WWI immediately led to widespread sentiments of humiliation and resentment in Germany during the interwar period. That was no good for anyone at all.
The nations of the world can prosper by trading and collaborating. All of these primitive wars everywhere are senseless and horrifying. They must become relics from another era if we are to meet the great challenges of our times.
True strength and generous peace treaties stop these kinds of wars.
I promise not to post here anymore for some time. I am probably taking up too much space here!
It's impossible to be pro-peace and pro-war. I am certain that your "in every way possible now" clause was not meant to convey the unthinkable actions that it implies.
I strongly and always opposed our unprovoked, ill-planned invasion of Iraq in 2003. Its regime had nothing to do with the Al-Quaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. It posed no immediate or long-term threat to any significant American interest, but only to its own peoples, who did not want the US to invade the country. It had no weapons of mass destruction. It was obvious that G.W. Bush was looking for any pretext to invade the country to topple Hussein for reasons that have always remained unclear to me.
Ukraine is a wholly different case. In 2014, its people rose up against the corrupt, pro-Putin regime. I really didn't pay much attention at the time or really until Putin's regime started terror-bombing the place, unprovoked, in 2022. But when I see those people I see a people whose culture and values have much in common with our own, and they only want to live in peace, trade freely, and form such alliances as they believe will best protect them. Manifestly, they no longer wish to live under Putin's regime, but have never had any interest in toppling that regime or attacking Russia.
That reminds me very much of the American colonies in the latter part of the 1770s.
That said, the only way out of this war must entail both sticks and carrots. The sticks will be to give Ukraine the means that it requires to defend itself properly. The carrots are an end to sanctions against Russia and including it in new trading treaties so that everyone can prosper.
Russia has an ancient and extraordinary culture. I bear no ill-will towards the country. I bear implacable ill-will to unprovoked invasions and wars of terror against a people to try to prevent them from governing themselves as they wish to do. That is what has been happening here.
PS: Typed on the fly, but carefully considered by me over the years.
Respect for your earnest response. My intent was to point out that the tragedy of the Ukrainian war has our fingerprints all over it. I share your loathing of the Iraq disaster as it was engineered through lies and media manipulation. My position is that the Ukraine debacle is analogous. Rather than provoking a flame war I would encourage you to investigate the circumstances of the Euromaidan revolt, the prescient warnings of George Kennan, and the reasoning of President Obama in response to the invasion of Crimea.
I in turn appreciate your respectful reply. We must be able to exchange ideas without vilifying one another. "A house that is divided cannot stand." I personally believe that we Americans can overcome our differences by our love of dogs and by community softball games everywhere in the country. But those are likely crazy ideas that I should not introduce here.
Consider them introduced and agreed to.
You’re just too sane Joe
A thought experiment for you: If the last election -- the one that elected Trump -- were held tomorrow, would he win? Insert whatever Democrat you want on the other side. Assume a third term were possible.
Trump would win. Dems have no solutions to offer.
Some guy once told us about a phrase, “it’s the economy stupid….” Every American generation had the chance to do at least as well as the one before it, until now. MAGA’s answer: recreate domestic manufacturing and cut immigrant competition for jobs. Progressives’ answer: redistribute wealth to entitlements. Leaders of the sane center, by contrast, seem unable to coalesce around a credible answer.
I suggest the following:
1. Free trade with other countries, except for strategically important goods (narrowly defined). That is our best hope for long-term prosperity and peace (in that order).
2. Fund trade school, community college, and university to teach displaced workers new trades in the upcoming Fourth Industrial Revolution, by which the world will adapt its industry, infrastructure, and technology to the world's changing environment.
3. Phase in carbon taxes and encourage all other forms of energy and carbon removal.
4. Enact radical permit reform with preemptive federal effect to impose strict limits on NIMBY and BANANA regulations and litigation.
5. Welcome immigrants who can offer valuable skills, labor, or investment, including gifted foreign students. Enforce immigration law and border security while showing discretion towards those already here who otherwise are law-abiding and gainfully employed.
6. The public should reward political leaders who make deals that solve problems.
7. Last but not least, Joe Klein is spot-on about the cultural issues.
Those are good policies and pretty easy to sum up.
Though I’m on for all of those, do you think the center - which spans Amy Klobuchar to Chuck Grassley, Ezra Klein to Bill Kristol if you prefer pundits - can come together and turn out the vote on the basis of a set of free trade / regulated free market policies like this? Because that is what it may take.
I highly doubt that such a party could win the Presidency or obtain control of either chamber of Congress, at least during my lifetime. But if a centrist party were to pick its fights wisely, it could win some seats in Congress, esp. the House of Representatives. Then its representatives might sometimes tip the balance of power and help to enact good laws and oppose bad ones. In Congress, they would have a national bully-pulpit and could explain their various views to the country. It would be a breath of fresh air.
If voters were sufficiently impressed, such a party might end up winning some statewide elections too as well as local elections in state politics. Such a party might also have a good influence on some members of Congress who now belong to the two established parties. Some of them might even join the ranks of a centrist party.
At all events, I have become a political orphan and have no other place to go!
PS: off the top of my head, the best centrist politicians in recent years have been Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mitt Romney, Josh Shapiro, Seth Moulton, Gina Raimondo, James Bennett, Conor Lamb, and in fact many, many other current or former members of the two established parties. We should add Joe Klein and Bill Maher to the list. But centrists must learn to speak their minds forcefully rather than endlessly placate the extremists in their own camps. That is perhaps the besetting problem in current US politics. No extremist group commands anything like a majority of the vote, but they stifle dissent among Democrats and, far worse, have purged centrist-minded Republicans. What happened to Seth Moulton was pathetic. Like Bill Maher, I personally consider myself to be a classical liberal, as the term is used by my most trusted source of news and commentary, the Economist magazine.
Gotta be by winning control of the Democratic Party. Trump changed the Republicans in just one cycle.
Brilliant. Just perfect. But sad, none the less
Brilliant, as usual! The Democrats are so frustrating! Trump fills their vacuum. When will the Democrats wise up? Look at NYC. If Mandani loses, Trump will get the credit! The Democrats can't do anything right!
In what could or maybe even should be moving towards a strong Dem mid-term, may yet turn into a rout, if they don't wake up and smell the culture.
I was reading this and thinking, “Wow. All this and Joe hasn’t kicked the shit out of the Dems.” Then I got to the last two paragraphs. I don’t think culture outweighs economics when things get bad enough. When they do, I hope the Dems will have the temerity necessary to right the playing field. But alas I think Joe’s current assessment of the party is spot on and I wonder what’s the right play when the threat of a government shutdown becomes real.
I read you, Joe, because in spite of my Bible-based apocalyptic anticipations, I still hope and pray and work hard for some secular solutions to our probably terminal problems. Guess what? I see fewer and fewer every day.
Happy Birthday, Joe. A day late. Sorry. Keep doing what you are doing. And what advice do you have for washed-up 85-year olds to join the Resistance? And who in the WH is assigned to monitor the comments on your Substasck? Or is it just done digitally?
Happy birthday, Joe
reek
Right! I was searching for that but frontal cortex had other ideas. Thanks!