Today, the sun rose

I didn't watch the election results as they came in yesterday; they wouldn't have changed had I done so. This morning I got up as usual a little after seven. The sun had risen, Jack, Puggles and Louis were asleep on my legs and the litter boxes needed cleaning. The world was much as I'd left it yesterday: the leak in the spare bathroom was still dripping as was the one on the patio and my to-do list was no longer (or shorter).

All that had changed with Trump's reelection was definitive confirmation of what I had long suspected: that "this is not who we are" is complete bollocks.  For whatever reason over half the country doesn't seem to have a problem with the lies, the racism, the misogyny, the bullying and threats that Trump so proudly displays.  For me, it's is a sad reflection on our collective values but it is who the majority of Americans really are, despite the coastal elites wishing it were not.  

And when Trump leaves the White House in four and a bit years, his values (or rather his lack thereof) will endure; others will replace him in his image.  Like trust, trampling norms and discarding values in a race to a more primitive, visceral, primal bottom is far easier, and happens far faster, than collectively developing and maintaining them.  

The only positive aspect of the outcome is that Trump won the popular vote and the race decisively so we are spared the two months of bickering, uncertainty and ultimately violence to which he subjected us four years ago.  I am thankful for that very small mercy.

The Time is Now

"In the morning when you rise Do you open up your eyes, see what I see? Do you see the same things every day? Do you think of a way to start the day Getting things in proportion?

Have you heard of a time that will help get it together again?  Have you heard of the word that will stop us going wrong?"

These are Jon Anderson's lyrics from "Time and a World" (both the 1970 "Yes" song and eponymous album).  They seem apropos today, November 5th, 2024, as we finish voting in the what feels like the most consequential (and nail-biting) election in my lifetime.   

The moment seems surreal.  Donald Trump announced his intention to run again almost two years ago to the day.  Some (and I was one) thought that after his failed attempt to overturn the results the 2020 election, not to mention his various other legal woes, he wouldn't run again. But whether it was because he needed to to avoid criminal prosecution, or whether he could not admit defeat, or whether he couldn't bear to step away from being the center of attention, he did.   

Perhaps it's not entirely her fault, but Kamala Harris isn't an inspiring candidate. She makes much the same kinds of silly promises politicians often make, appealing sounds-bites but without any details to let you make any assessment as to their practicality. "I'm going to bring down the price of groceries". Seriously? How exactly are you going to do that Madam Vice President?  It's more specific than Trump's "I will fix everything on day one" but no less patronising in its own way.  Certainly, hers has been a short campaign, but she appeared quite unprepared in terms of messaging and that's not altogether comforting.   

So why did I vote for her? My answer is "consider the alternative".  It's a tragic reflection of the terrible state of politics in this country that this is exactly the same "lesser of two evils" justification as motivated my choice to pull the lever for Joe Biden four years ago. 

Last night Seth Meyer listed all the seemingly disqualifying events and characteristics any one of which in normal times would have ended Trump's second run. The list is long, too long to enumerate here, so I'll try a thirty thousand foot view (hopefully not from from a Boeing 737 with a missing door). 

Let me start by admitting there are some things I think he did get right.  China is a threat to the US, both geo-politically and economically. And his focus on illegal immigration, however abhorrently articulated, has brought overde attention to a festering problem that Congress has ignored for decades. He called out Europe for its over-reliance on America to protect the world order.  And despite promoting Ivermectin and bleach as cures for covid, he deserves credit for Operation Warp Speed which got the vaccine into circulation remarkably quickly.  Kamala, in contrast, seems to stand only for pro-choice and "I'm not Trump".     

So why not give him a second chance? For me it boils down to four things: competence, character and motivation, governance and lastly tone.  While he does have clear broad goals, he has shown no interest in the nuance of different policy choices. A CEO who can't be bothered with the details doesn't seem like a good idea. Many of those in his first administration who worked with him make the same point. 

Second there is a question of motivation. He sought office (I think) to garner the attention he seems to crave, because people told him it wasn't possible, because he saw it as a way to enrich himself and his family, and because he likes to wield power.  Now, like Bibi Netanyahu, he wants the office to avoid criminal prosecution. And that's not good.  

His plan to politicise the civil service and his promises to use the levers of power to pursue his political enemies is deeply worrying. We've already seen, in the Washington Post's decision not to endorse Kamala Harris, how just the threat of retaliation has changed the political landscape. 

Finally there is tone. While not entirely alone in this, he has coursened and debased political discourse, reducing it to childish insults that make some feel good and others angry; but they do not inspire, or elevate, educate or inform. They set an example of uncivilised behavior that reduces us to our most primitive, visceral, primal instincts.  He is in short an uncivilised and un-civilizing influence on society.  

I appreciated the eight years of calm under Obama, the feeling that the president was someone who was smart, engaged and who cared deeply about the country.  And as John Oliver noted yesterday on the Late Show, we've lived with Trump's omni-presence since 2015; nine years of bluster, lies, disparagement, childish insults and threats.  To me, it feels like some ghoulish zombie who continues to lumber on, crawling out of the muck, the cesspool of its cruel, vindictive mind, every time it appears to triped itself up with yet another self-inflicted wound.   

Today seems surreal because only in my worst nightmares could I have envisioned electing someone like Trump to any office, let alone the presidency, not just once but twice.  Yet here we are; and there is a real chance (50/50 according to the polling) that he will be.   

But the problem in American politics isn't only Trump; it's a more fundamental failure of the system that with some exceptions (Obama being one) provides us with unappealing choices.   

It's in part structural (the primary system of choosing candidates) and in part financial, the enduring problem of campaign finance.  When politicians spend half their time trying to raise money, they are forced to rely on lobbyists for both money and policy direction; and they seems unable to craft policy choices that reflect the areas of common concerns most people have. So instead they trivialize issues and demonize their opponents; and in doing so they erode trust in the institutions that underpin society.  

So whoever wins this cycle, this seems to be where we're headed.       

About time, too

Finally Max Verstappen has been disciplined for his chronic recklessness.  In today's Mexico GP, he (yet again) forced another driver off the track.  It's a move he's perfected over the last few years.  He late-brakes into the corner taking the inside line towards the apex. The problem with the manoeuvre is that with the angle of the car and its velocity he will inevitably leave nowhere for the car outside him to go, except off the track.  

The driver being overtaken is already turning in but has to either back off or course-correct away from the apex; but since he is already on the outside there's nowhere to go. So the Verstappen overtake manoeuvre inevitable leads to his rival being forced off the track (often incurring a track limits violation which is ridiculous).  But this afternoon, in forcing Lando Norris off the track, Verstappen was finally penalised. 

Here is a sequence of images that clearly show the problem.  It's slightly different here in that Norris is passing Verstappen, but Verstappen's "response" is the same as when he's lunging down the inside for the overtake.  

Coming  into the corner, Norris is ahead of Verstappen. 

Given the angle of both cars, Norris leaves Verstappen just enough room on the inside to follow Sainz round the corner.  

At the apex, Norris is still a shade ahead but remember, he's taking the longer way round the corner so his lead will be diminishing - but he's still ahead at the apex.  And Verstappen should be able to follow Sainz round the corner. 

But that's not what he does.  He doesn't turn into the corner but deliberately heads to the outside. Note the different angle of Verstappen's car from Sainzes'. In doing so Verstappen closes on Sainz (demonstrating that going straight on is quicker that turning round the corner). 

Several car lengths after the apex, Verstappen is fractionally ahead of Norris, but Verstappen is leaving Norris less and less room, and Norris either has to drop back or leave the track.     

 

Below, you can see that there's already less than a car width between Verstappen and the edge of the track and Verstappen is still pointing towards the outside of the track making that gap even smaller. In another car length, Verstappen will have left no room for Norris at all; he has nowhere to go but off.  

In this case Verstappen claimed that Norris gained the place by going off the track; but Norris only left the track because Verstappen forced him off.  Happily, Verstappen incurred a 10 second penalty (and another for similar shenanigans at the next corner).

Perhaps the stewards have had enough of Verstappen pushing the limits; he's one of the most reckless drivers I can remember in the 50+ years I've been following F1 and perhaps (finally) he's going to be reined in.  

P.S Zak Brown, Mclaren's CEO, said as much after the race. When asked if he thought the time penalties handed down to Verstappen were appropriate his response was: "Probably not enough. It's getting a bit ridiculous. I applaud the FIA stewards. Enough's enough". I couldn't agree more.  

Farewell Moogie-poo

Muguet left us yesterday morning after a short illness. She was probably 8 years old, though we don't know exactly, and Judith's clear favorite. 

Like many of our feline family, she came to us accidentally and brought four with her kittens. Louis, Clodie and Squeaks are still with us; Bridget sadly passed away last year, far too early.  

Muguet often tried to venture outside only to have a hard time finding her way back into the house. Last year she began making a habit of slipping out through the kitchen door to the garage. So, with the garage door closed, I often let her root around in the garage. I don't know whether she found what she was looking for but she seemed to be having fun.   I hope wherever she is now, she's finding whatever it was she was looking for.  We'll miss you Moogie-poo.

Now it's down to us, the electorate - UPDATE

Almost a year ago I presented a probability decision tree (minus any explicit probability estimates) showing the different outcomes in Trump's attempt to avoid accountability for his involvement in the January 6th insurrection. Thanks to several Trump appointed and likely Trump loyalist judges, in his trial and on the Supreme Court, Trump's January 6th trial will not take place before the election and, in all likelihood, will never take place. So the bottom half of the full decision tree disappears.

Not only is his path to freedom now much simpler, SCOTUS has also changed the odds of his conviction by muddying the waters in its recent decision on presidential immunity. By asserting that a president cannot be indicted for "official acts" the door is open to classify his multiple attempts to overturn the 2020 election and then to encourage his MAGA army to "fight like hell" as part of his presidential duties. The flake slate of electors, the call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find 11,780 votes, which is one more that we have because we won the state", his inflammatory speech on January 6th and his cynical decision not to quell the riot; all are likely excluded from his trial and thus help shield him from legal accountability for his attempted election subversion.  He played the long game, bending the judiciary to his side, and it looks like he won.   

I beg your pardon?

Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation initiative and a road-map for remaking US government, has been getting a lot more attention recently; and much of the reporting is far from complimentary.  Worried that it might hurt his election, Trump tried to distance himself from it with this post:  "I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they're saying and some of the things they're saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal".

If, as he claims, he knows "nothing about Project 2025" and has "no idea who is behind it", how is he able to "disagree with some of the things they're saying "?

Look forward, not back

Ten days ago, Joe Biden torpedoed his own campaign.  His disastrous debate performance very likely ensured that Donald Trump will be the next president if Biden is his opponent in the general election in November. 

The Democrats, according to many sources, were in "panic mode".  To help allay their fears, Biden agreed to a one-on-one interview with a "friendly", George Stephanopoulos of ABC and previously White House communications director for Bill Clinton.  

If the goal was to reassure the public (and the Democratic establishment) that he was fully capable of governing for another four years, the ploy failed.  

Yes, he was more animated than he was during the debate; but he repeatedly avoided making any commitment to an objective test of his mental agility and instead turned repeatedly to recounting his administrations achievement.  

But like any fading athlete, past glories are not an indication of future success (or even the ability to compete).  The question is not about what he has done in the last three and a half years, but about what he will be capable of doing for the next four and a half.  By not addressing that question he in effect conceded that he is no longer up to the job. 

Subverting Democracy

The story of January 6th, as told by the left, is that of a groups of fascist vigilantes were goaded into storming the Capitol by Donald Trump, a mendacious, self-serving President trying by any means to remain in power.  Trump had tried through both legal and illegal means to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election - and thankfully for democracy - failed. 

The right seems to see things differently. There is a sense that the system is rigged. Elected representatives use their office to enrich themselves and have been utterly corrupted by the need to raise money for their campaigns. 

One aspect of that corruption is the implied threat that without actively furthering the interests of those who financed their campaigns the funding would not continue at the next election. And the ludicrously narrow definition of corruption established by the Supreme Court precludes this devil's bargain from falling under our anti-corruption laws. 

The second and related aspect of corruption is the outsourcing of drafting of legislation to lobbyists. Once representatives have agreed to support their donors' causes, it is a short step to agreeing that they should draft the legislation.  

The end result is that a majority on the right (and probably many on the left, though they might not freely admit it) see our system of government as broken. If the system is corrupt and not working for those it is supposed to represent then actions to dismantle a system they consider to be illegitimate are therefore legitimate.  

There are naturally numerous contradictions here; the right claims to be about supporting law and order yet is happy to break the law when it appears not to align with their goals. And the conservative Supreme Court which they installed is only weakening the guard rails that might keep government "honest". But the left's view that the right is a threat to democracy is only one perspective - the right does not consider what we have a democracy, so tearing it down is a necessary step in regaining accountability.   

Hubris and its consequences

Despite an improving economy, President Joe Biden, a career politician but none the less a decent well meaning man, is loosing in national opinion polls to Donald Trump, a corrupt, self-serving narcissist and a serial liar. 

That may seem strange to many outside the USA, but might be attributed to three main factors. First is the relentless undermining of trust in national institutions from the political right, a campaign that has been waged for decades. Second is the effect of the fragmentation of the media, both the traditional television and now social, into almost completely isolated echo chambers.  Finally, and perhaps most notably for Biden, is his age.  Although Biden is only three years Trump's senior, he has for several years been showing signs of aging;  Trump by contrast remains vital and vigorous. 

The crushing weight of Biden's age on his poll numbers only worsened at last week's presidential debate. Trump's goal was simply not to appear like the childish bully he is, surprisingly, something he managed to accomplish.  Biden's only goal by contrast was not to appear a doddering old fool: and in that he failed dismally. He came across as a demented old man no longer in command of his faculties; he appeared incapable of thinking clearly and seemed physically very frail. Anyone bar die-hard Democrats who watched his performance must, if they are being honest with themselves, have serious doubts about his ability to do his job now, let alone for the next four years.  In a strange way that makes them as guilty as the MAGA Republicans, in being prepared to overlook their preferred candidates obvious and disqualifying flaws. 

So here we are. Unless something unexpected happens (such as Biden becoming ill or, less likely still,  stepping down as the Democrat's nominee) American voters will be faced with a terrible choice in November between a corrupt venal vengeful old man with no interest in policy other than that which enriches himself, and a frail confused octogenarian who will be lucky to live long enough to make it though his second term and seems incapable of dealing with the issues that will certainly confront him.  

Biden's enablers will (and already are) arguing that in private he is much more coherent, more in command of his faculties than he appeared at the debate. That may be true (although I wonder if  that's just spin) but is largely irrelevant. What mattered was how Biden appeared to some sixty million Americans last week - and that ship has decidedly sailed. No amount of spin or briefings or ad campaigns can undo the damage his appearance last week did to broad public perception.  If Biden is serious about saving the country from another Trump term and a further decline into autocracy, he must make way for a younger, more vigorous and more capable nominee.  

The largest volunteer army...

Many, myself included, are concerned that Trump will not hesitate to pervert the powers of the presidency to exact revenge on his political enemies. 

While that threat remains, another more dangerous and insidious possibility exists: that he will have a volunteer army of many millions, devoted acolytes, ready to commit illegal violence at his beck and call. 

He need only suggest indirectly that his enemies should be silenced and many in his personal private army will happily oblige. "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest"? and with plausible deniability, his enemies are threatened or killed.

That in turn will have a chilling effect on all but his most determined critics, and will effectively quash any opposition in his party, ending any hope that his excesses will be moderated from within.

A view from the man on the Clapham omnibus

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment 

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Initially, it seemed clear to me as "a man on the Clapham omnibus" that the 14th amendment barred anyone involved in an insurrection from becoming president.  However, having read several opinion pieces by people more knowledgeable of the law and its interpretation that me, that clarity is becoming a little hazier.    

Doing the easier bits first, as my accounting prof used to say, is the question as to whether the people or the courts should decide whether in insurrectionist may hold the highest office in the country.  First, the courts so far seem to agree that an insurrection did occur, that there was a concerted effort by a group, orchestrated by one individual in particular to subvert the orderly transition of power, and overturn the results of a free and fair election. The courts and the Congressional Inquiry into the events of January 6th 2021 do seem to agree that what happened in the weeks leading up to the formal ratification by Congress of the results of the 2020 general election meets the standard of an insurrection. 

Second, the Supreme Court had already weighed in on issues that determine who will become president in Bush vs. Gore, establishing that to do so is not without precedent. Second, particularly from an originalist and non-interventionists perspective, the societal consequences, while salient, should not take precedent over the interpretation of the law, when the law is clear.  Moreover, it has been pointed out that if the people's representatives consider that an exception need be made to the court's ruling, that is an option explicitly set out in the last sentence which gives Congress the power to do so.  

Next is the issue of the wording with respect to the highest office of all, that of the presidency. It has been suggested that there is a clear hierarchy in terms of importance, starting with senators, members of congress, the electors for the two "top jobs" and ending with "or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State". The implication is that in naming certain offices in order of importance, the presidency cannot reasonably be considered to be subsumed in the catch-all of "or hold any office". Furthermore, one writer maintains that "under the United States" means under the United States government and that since the presidency is the highest office it cannot be said to be "under" anything.  This last argument seems rather week; the might better be seen as in institution under which all elected officials including the president, work. 

My final thought, which is not one that I've seen written about, concerns the question of primary ballots.  The cases making their way through the courts are about whether an insurrectionist can appear on a primary ballot. But being listed as a candidate on a primary does not mean that if the insurrectionist were to win he would be holding any federal or state office. It only means he would be listed, unless barred from running, in the general election. So the 14th Amendment cannot apply to a primary election since these elections are not for "offices", state or federal.  If the case is about the general election, which does determine who holds an office, the question is as yet a hypothetical one, since an insurrectionist has not yet won in any primary.  Surely then, a decision about an insurrectionist being barred from the general election should wait until that hypothetical becomes a reality? 

This year will be an inflection point in many ways: the election itself, the decisions of SCOTUS, artificial intelligence, the wars in Ukraine and Israel's battle with the Palestinian terrorists. We are living in "interesting times".

FTX - another Theranos

Obviously, FTX is (or rather was) in a very different line of business than Theranos. But the crypto currency exchange and the diagnostic company shared several characteristics that led to their very high profile implosion.  

First both were operating on a relatively new technology space that very few people understood. That made it much easier for their founders to spin a wildly over-optimistic yarn without fear of contradiction. Those yarns may well had strayed into falsehoods in both cases too. 

Second, both had young, apparently brilliant founders that may wanted to believe in. America is plagued by the cult of personality and hero-worship, and both Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes, managed to convince a lot of seemingly smart people to buy into their stories.  With a posse of powerful influential but largely uncomprehending bakers, they were able to weather headwinds that would have sunk less well protected firms far earlier.   And that unnatural longevity increase the scale of the damage inflicted when they eventually imploded. 

If is fitting and not entirely surprising that high profile founders ended up failing in such spectacular fashion.. But until people, particular the influential (who by dint of their prior accomplishments, often overestimate their abilities) learn not to be take in by "bright young things" with an appealing story and do a little more due diligence fueled by a good does of skepticism, we'll be here again before too long.  

Existential Risks

Geoffrey Hinton, the father of Artificial Intelligence, worries about AI as an existential risk for humanity. While he is concerned about the potential societal disruption of mass unemployment, political division driven by social media message targeting, the increase "ease" of going to war when your side only looses "battle-bots" and not people, not to mention the further erosion of trust in messaging and institutions, his principle concern is that unconstrained AI well see no need for human direction and control, and perhaps no need for humans at all. That is the existential thread he and many others worry about. 

The threat from AI has been compared to that we faced sixty years ago from nuclear weapons.  But there are two critical differences. First, nuclear weapons were designed and built by governments while A.I. is being developed in the private sector. Governments therefore only have indirect control over its development and their ability to influence it is somewhat "arms-length".

The second critical difference is incentives. Both nuclear weapons, particularly the H-bomb, have a clear downside - the total destruction of life on earth. But the up-side is quite different. For the bomb, it's the deterrent effect that is thought to have prevented World War III. Importantly, the diminishing marginal return from the number of weapons allowed governments to negotiate a halt to the arms race.

For AI however, the up-side is not only quite different but much more complex. First, AI offers clear benefits to society from better medical diagnoses, safer roads, more targeted teaching and tutoring and faster access to information. And since AI is being developed in the private sector, the potential profits are a strong incentive that weren't directly part of the decision making in developing the bomb. That incentive is exacerbated by the potential network effects common to software and other non-rival goods and services. Companies who fall behind in developing AI are destined to lose; that creates a strong incentive to push forward as fast as possible. And since the software industry has historically been more concerned with speed then safety, the "fail-fast" mentality, when flaws are discovered after the product is launched rather than before, guard-rails are likely to be an after thought at best and a band-aid for a severed artery at worst. 

All of which means that companies are unlikely to self-regulate effectively, leaving that job to governments. But governments have two problems. First, legislators have in the past have had difficulty grasping the some of the basics of new technology, let alone its implications and how they might be mitigated. Second, there is not only inter-firm competition but inter-country competition. The US government for example may be loath to impose too much regulation on AI for fear that China and Chinese firms will gain a competitive advantage which will have consequences for US competitiveness and its economic welfare.  

Finally there is an issue of oversight and enforcement. With nuclear weapons, a physical entity, inspection and intelligence gathering allowed both side in the cold war to know enough about the other was doing.  That's much harder when the development is not being carried out by singular government entities but dispersed throughout the private sector. And when there are no physical tell-tales to monitor, oversight and enforcement of any international agreement limiting the development of AI is going to be much harder.   

None of these issues applied to the development of nuclear weapons. Were one were looking to the history of the cold war for a road map to control the development of AI, the historical analogy would be  quite misleading.  One can only hope that around the world there are enough people with sufficient foresight to design some kind of effective global agreement. But given the political dysfunction in the US, the lack of cohesion in Europe given the tension between a European identity and its composite sovereign states and the lack of democratic accountability in China and Russia, it's hard to be sanguine about the future. 

Russia's regression

Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash along with nine of his deputies on Thursday. No one was particularly surprised. Prigozhin's plan crash looks very much like a carefully planned assassination by the Russian military, in all likelihood ordered by Putin. Prigozhin had risen to prominence as Russia's dictatorial president, Vladimir Putin, came to rely increasingly on the Wagner group mercenaries to do the work the regular Russian army was seemingly unable to.

The more Putin relied on Prigozhin's men in Ukraine, Prigozhin's influence and leverage grew. Prigozhin's increasing frustration with what he saw as the incompetence of the leadership of the regular army led to his demands to replace top Russian military leaders in June and ultimately to his failed coup.

While Prigozhin's demise isn't surprising - after all disposing of political opponents is precisely what autocrats do - what was, at least until yesterday, was the fact that Prigozhin appeared to have reached a deal with Putin. Yet what we now know, assuming the assessment is correct, is that Putin was merely biding his time. The supposed deal was never one on which Prigozhin should have relied.

It has been suggested that Putin liked "revenge as a dish served cold". Yet there seems a more pragmatic reason for his delay in exacting retribution. By lulling Prigozhin into a false sense of security, allowing him to travel back and forth between his self-imposed semi-exile in Bellaruse and Mother Russia, he found an opportunity to eliminate not only Prigozhin but all his top lieutenants at the same time. That not only disposes of the charismatic Prigozhin but neutralizes any potential threat from other Wagner Group leaders who might have shared Prigozhin's aspirations for power.

The other surprising aspect here is that Prigozhin never seemed to have seen this coming. Thinking he could challenge Putin's leadership and get away with it seems the height of hubris. Putin's enemies have been assassinated all over the world. Flying back and forth to Russia was a flagrant challenge to Putin's stature, one that he simply could not tolerate.

Looking forward two things seem clear. The first is that Putin's hold on power, at least for the moment, is more secure. The fate of Prigozhin and his top lieutenants will make others who might have thought to challenge or even disagree with Putin far less likely to do so. The second is that there are only two ways in which Putin's hold on power will end; with a coup or if he dies on the job (although the two are not mutually exclusive).

Causality is not always bidirectional

Causality is often not bidirectional. In many cases causality runs in one direction only with changes in A leading to changes in B but not vice versa.  China appears to be a case in point.  It has been generally assumed by economists that democratic free market economies function more efficiently and therefore generate more wealth than centralized command and control economies.  In the 1990s that reasoning was turned on its head and many political scientists assumed that the corollary would also hold; that greater economic prosperity and freer markets would lead to an inevitable transition from a centralized political system to a decentralized democratic one.  The quarter century since that view came to prominence has shown that in China at least, market liberalization and greater personal wealth do not lead to democratic reform.  When relationships are not simple and dyadic (A->B, B->A) but are the product of many different mechanisms one cannot assume causality runs both ways.      

Trump vs. the Establishment

A legal pundit on The News Hour yesterday suggested it was never a good idea to antagonize the judge in a case in which you are the defendant. That may be the case for mere mortals but not Trump.  He believes, and with good reason, that the normal rules don't apply to him. If you color inside the lines you are indeed constrained by the rules and norms most of us take as given. But Trump has learned from experience that if you ignore the rules a range of possibilities open up not all of which end in tears.

What the News Hour pundit seemed not to realize is that insulting the judge and disparaging the legal system may hurt Trump's legal case, but helps his political campaign. And since his fate belongs less in the hands of the legal system and more in the hands of the electorate, insulting the judge and not playing by the rules seems like a pretty good strategy.       

Now it's down to us, the electorate

Donald Trump was indicted for what to a lay person looks like an attempted coup. Nothing in America's political and constitutional history has been more serious. 

Many have argued that the fact that he was charged shows that the judicial system has held even under the most sever stress it may ever had have to endure. That may be so, but despite the compelling evidence and care in selecting how to charge Trump, the outcome for the country still hangs in the balance. 

A decision tree is illuminating here. The first branch deals with whether Trump is able to delay the trail until after the 2024 general election. The next two branches are the same except order depends on whether or not his delaying tactics were successful. The two branches are the outcome of the trial and the outcome of the general election.  

The decision tree can be simplified since the two right sets of branches (election outcome and trial outcome) are the same except that order of their application depends on the outcome of the leftmost branch.  For the moment, assume that the probabilities of winning in court and winning in the general election are the same whether the upper branch or the lower branch obtain. The model is then completely insensitive to the likelihood of the trial being delayed past the election, depending, along both "delay" and "no delay" branches, only on the combined probabilities of an election win (or loss) and a win (or loss) in the courts. Given that the first branch only flips the order of the subsequent branches, the tree can be reduced to:

Interestingly even if the trial were an open and shut case, with 100% certainty of a conviction, Trump's odds are still good, depending solely on the likelihood of his being reelected.  That's why winning the presidential election is so important for him.  In essence, his best route to freedom is by being elected. 

While the simplification depends on the assumption that election outcome is unaffected by the trial outcome on the lower branch ("no delay") it is worth noting that Trump's many indictments and his two impeachments have had no decipherable adverse impact on his electoral changes, nor popularity on the right (or for that matter his unpopularity on the left).  Similarly, one would hope that his trial verdict would be unaffected whether or not her were to be elected.

His fate therefore depends almost entirely on the electorate; they cannot put him in jail but they can certainly keep him out of jail. Even if his conviction were absolutely assured, his accountability rests with the American people.  This, then, is the ultimate test of America democracy. 

Bridget, Escapologist

Bridget bear passed this week away after an incredibly short illness. So short, in fact, that we didn't realize she was sick until the evening she died.  She lay down on the tiles in the dining room and within what was probably less than three hours had slipped quietly away.

Bridget was one of Muguet's four kittens. Unlike the others, particularly Clodie and Squeaks, she wasn't traumatized by having Terramycin drops put into her eyes twice a day for a week while Judith was attending a conference.  When she arrived, we kept her and her siblings in two pens in the living room for a couple of weeks to get them acclimated to the other cats - but she was determined to escape and explore and was quite adept at squeezing through the tiniest gap to get out.

Perhaps she used her escapologist skills to so easily slip the surly bonds of earth... and touch the face of god.  She was a sweet cat and an character; we will miss her greatly. 

Lunar trajectory

(c) NASA

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped out of the Lunar Excursion Module in 1969 I remember a feeling a wonder, awe and hope.  I was eight years old and had followed the Apollo program from Apollo 8, the first manned flight crewed by astronauts Borman, Lovell and Anders who were the first men ever to fly around the moon. 

In what seemed an eternity later but was in fact only six months, Armstrong and Aldrin planted the American flag on the lunar surface.  The Apollo program was only three years old, and less than a year since the first Apollo astronauts had left earth^*

Five more moon landing were made until the program was terminated after the flight of Apollo 17 in 1972.  It had taken only three years from the first manned flight of the Saturn V to the sixth lunar landings. In hindsight, the speed with which the program moved forward was astonishing. That was fifty one years ago. 

In 1989 the Soviet Union collapsed and the "space race" effectively ended. The Space Shuttle never seemed to fulfill its original promise and didn't capture the public's imagination as the moon landings had. America turned inwards to become increasingly consumed in what we now think of as the culture wars. 

Existential challenges confront the country and the world yet America's increasingly chronic inability to tackle anything consequential, at least with any success, imperils the country and the wider world. Two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, failed to achieve their objectives, the wealth gap has widened and trust in institutions has all but evaporated. 

The feeling I had as I watched man set foot on the moon, the sense that there was almost no limit to what could be accomplished, has given way to the realization that America's sclerotic politic and societal dysfunction has turned the dream of a bright future, brimming with possibilities, into to a bleak and deeply depressing nightmare         

^*Tragically Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, the crew of Apollo 1, died in a fire on the launch pad in Feb 21st, 1967.

Strange priorities

Judge Aileen M. Cannon, in what appears to be a very unjudgmental decision, split the difference between Special Counsel Jack's Smith request for a speedy trial and Donald Trump's attempts to evade justice by delaying his trial until he might be in a position to direct the Justice Department to drop his case.

To a Brit the situation seems utterly bizarre and Kafkaesque. First Trump's argument that the trial might interfere with his political campaign is mind-boggling.  Defendants in criminal cases generally don't get to use the argument that they can't go to trial because they can't get time off work.  So clearly not everyone is equal in the eyes of our justice system. 

Second, that notion that it is possible to campaign for an elected office that could be used to alter the course of ones own criminal case equally baffling. To suggest that this would create a conflict of interest is, even for a Brit, an extraordinary understatement.  It's as if Jeffrey Dahmer stood for election to the governor of Wisconsin in order to stop his case going to trial or to grant himself a pardon were he to be convicted. 

While there may not be constitutional or legislative guard-rails that prevent a presidential candidate from either the delaying of a trial or the possibility of self-pardon or of stopping an ongoing prosecution, the Founding Father's almost certainly would have not approved of such self-dealing.  The constitution does seem to suggest that public service requires people be of "good moral character";  and what that meant may, to the Founding Father's, have seemed completely self-evident. 

However while they may have met or been aware that individuals as unscrupulous as Trump existed, it probably never crossed their minds that the electorate would ever entertain such as absurd notion as electing such a person to the highest office in the land.  Yet the morality that the Founding Father's considered sufficient to keep individuals lacking "good moral character" out of the White House seems to have evaporated. With the increasing polarization of American politics both sides are willing to turn a blind eye to a lack of "good moral character" if their side stands to gain.  What is  particularly ironic is that the GOP, which routinely rails against the decline in societal  morals, is willing to entertain the candidacy of a deeply immoral person ostensibly in order to restore the country's morals. 

Nemesis follows... eventually

On Saturday, the unthinkable happened; although with 20-20 hindsight, not entirely surprising after all.  Yevgeny Prigozhin, owner of the Wagner Group mercenary army, mounted the first serious challenge to Vladimir Putin's autocratic grip on power. 

Over the last several months Prigozhin had become increasingly and publicly critical of Putin, suggesting he was increasingly confident of his own power and his indispensability to Putin.

The Wagner group, in recruiting from Russia's prisons, turned out to be a more effective fighting force than Putin's regular army. As the war on Ukraine  bogged down, Putin begin to rely increasingly on the Wagner Group to backstop his regular army's failings and in so doing ceded power to Prigozhin.

As Prigozhin's confidence grew, along side his frustration with the Russian bureaucracy that seemed to be starving his mercenary army of military supplies, so did his impatience and his criticism of Putin. The feud between Prigozhin and Putin's Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff came to a head on Friday June 23rd when Russia’s Federal Security Service issued a warrant for Prigozhin’s arrest.  The following day, confident of his own invincibility, Prigozhin ordered his private army to advance on Moscow in what looks very much like an attempted coup. 

Things escalated quickly. Putin appeared on national television branding Prigozhin as a a traitor.  And then almost as quickly as it began it was seemingly over.  A deal brokered by Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko allowed Prigozhin to take sanctuary in Belarus in return for Prigozhin ordering his army to return to barracks. 

      

But while the situation seems to have de-escalated, the political landscape in Russia is now very different  from what it was 72 hours ago.    

Although Prigozhin's immediate challenge to Putin has subsided, he has not disappeared. The incident exposes the fragility of Putin's power. It highlights the weakness of the Russian army and the lack of support for the war in Ukraine, particularly among Russia's regular soldiers. 

Politically that gives Putin another headache. The war was in part his way of bolstering public support as the economy faltered and democratic freedoms were eroded. As support for the war evaporates and the bold claims Putin made at its outset ring increasingly hollow, he must rely increasingly on the authoritarian control of a police state.  In making a deal with Prigozhin rather than capturing and trying him for treason, Russians can now see Putin's invincibility for the myth it has now become.   

All of which creates a volatile inflection point. While Russia is preoccupied with an internal struggle for power,  Ukraine may benefit in its effort to expel the invasion. At the same time, Putin may become increasingly desperate in an attempt to hold on to power, leading him to act with increasing unpredictability.  The invasion of Ukraine was seen by many as an act of irrational hubris; that does not auger well for what Putin may do next.

Academic Freedom?

Many of my colleagues have been lamenting the infringement of academic freedom in red states which are passing laws preventing the teaching of subjects related to race and gender.  

What is striking but not perhaps surprising is that very few made the same augment about infringement of academic freedom when AB1460, a law mandating the teaching of ethnic studies in the CSU was passed three years ago.

Apparently infringement of academic freedom is only problematic when it's a policy that many of my colleagues don't like but is perfectly fine when its one they support.  

It appears that hypocrisy is alive and well on the left as well as on the right.   

Farewell Rat Boy

 

Yesterday I had to say a very sad goodbye to Rat-boy. He was 15 and had been suffering from a thyroid problem for the last four years.

Rat was our second Sonora rescue after Buddy. His early preoccupation was climbing into my waste-paper bin, a pastime he kept well into his second year.

He and Tab-tab were great buds until Tab-tab and Buddy began feuding and we had to find Tab-tab another home (where I understood from Judith he is the center attention and of is very happy).  Rat was a gentle soul, would come when called even when it wasn't meal time. 

Until his middle years, he was also a playful cat...   The last month he'd lost a lot of weight (yesterday he was down to 7lb 6oz) and was eating almost nothing despite all the varieties of tempting foods I had to offer. At first I thought it was just not wanting to eat with the others, but it became clear that despite being hungry he'd lost his appetite and could not stomach almost any of the cat or human food I tried to tempt him with.  Quite suddenly yesterday he had a terrible episode of violent convulsions and although he perked up a little and ate two tins of pate, Wes Whitman agreed that it was his time. So sadly he made one last very quite one way trip to Mono Way Veterinary Hospital. Usually he hated travelling but this time he was quiet; I think he knew this was his final journey. At 5:10pm he was put to sleep with his head in my hand, and went to join Mrs, Mookie, George, Bullwinkle, Buddy, Vic and Judith on the other side.

Consequential? Not as much as one might expect

Donald Trump was indicted yesterday on thirty-one counts of Willful Retention of National Defense Information (in layman's terms, 'espionage'), and another six counts of obstruction of justice and conspiracy. For anyone not is a position of national power and influence, this would appear to be an open and shut case. Trump had no right to retain classified information, lied to the authorities investigating the case and tried to cover up his wrong-doing, allegedly.

But Trump is not an ordinary individual in two ways that matter in this case.  First he is a national figure, at present the front runner in the Republican presidential primary. While justice is supposed to be blind, the Justice Department cannot proceed without at least considering the political implications of bringing the case. While Trump's notoriety should not influence the pursuit of justice, it clearly influences the process by which justice might be arrived at. For example, Jack Smith, the Special Council tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland with investing the case, is hoping to move the process forward quickly to avoid it dragging on into 2024 and the presidential primaries. It appears too, that he has been meticulous in his collection of evidence and the building of the case to ensure that any claims that this is a shoddy, politically motivated "witch hunt" might be easily laid to rest. 

The other way Trump differs from many other criminal defendants is in his brazen attacks on the legitimacy of the judicial system and the judicial process. Just as may autocrats, when deposed and  brought to trial, claim the the system under which they are being prosecuted has no legitimate right to hold or try them, so Trump is making the same argument. Of course the difference is that when a dictator is deposed, there is often a question about the legitimacy of the judicial system in which they are being tried; but that is certainly not the case in America.  Trump has and will continue to claim he is the victim, that the charges are trumped up and politically motivated, and are only being brought by the "elites" to bring him down. He will raise money for his presidential campaign on the back of the indictment. And he will try every trick in his extensive play-book to delay the proceedings so that he can leverage his court case into his victim-hood narrative as he campaigns for the nomination and likely the presidency. 

While much of the punditry has been focusing on the legal implications of the case, ultimately the outcome may be largely irrelevant. If Trump is not convicted, he will claim it as a victory that demonstrates not only his innocence, but a vindication of his claims to have been persecuted.  If he is convicted, he will claim that his is yet further evidence of his being victimized by his political opponents who have manipulated justice to their own political ends. Politically, Trump makes hay either way.  

Since the verdict may not matter much, his inability to find a legal team experiences in dealing with espionage cases may not matter much either. What he is probably looking for is a team that is prepared to risk everything (think Sydney Powell or Rudy Giuliani) while being adept at brazening things out in the face of overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing. Ultimately, while I'm sure he'd like to be acquitted, he is looking for a victory in the court of Republican public opinion, not the legal system, betting that the former matters more than the latter.   Yes, the indictment is consequential, but less in terms if its legal implications than its political ones.

A Millennium of Tradition and Symbolism

King Charles III of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was crowned today in Westminster Abbey.

Much of the imagery will be of the finery and the trappings of royalty; the crown, the orb and sceptre, the gilded carriage. Much will be made of the pageantry, the four thousand man and women from the armed services, the splendid (if somewhat bizarre to an outsider) uniforms of the Grenadier Guards or the Household Cavalry. 

But two things stuck me particularly today. One was an old man in his undershirt, the other a old wooden chair.  

That old man was the new King, being ceremonially undressed and then anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Charles is the constitutional head of the Anglican Church, established by Henry VIII in 1543.  I was struck by the symbolism of this public display of vulnerability, of the public acknowledgement of his role as the servant of god as well as the people. 

In the second image, we see Charles standing without any finery in front of the 727-year-old Coronation Chair on which 26 monarchs, including Charles' mother, have been crowned since the coronation of Edward II in 1308. And below the seat, the Stone of Scone, on which kings and queens of Scotland have been inaugurated since the middle ages.    
       
While Britain has in large measure come to terms with its diminished role in the world, from the super-power of the 19th century to a middle size country in the north of Europe, it is still steeped in tradition and history.  That history is everywhere from the real Tudor houses with thatched rooves to the Norman churches found in so many English villages. 

It is that history, that sense of heritage, that anchors Brits and allows them to cope with the tumult of the country's changing role, its increasing diversity, its more inclusive and tolerant culture. Tradition may appear to be an obstacle to progress but it can also facilitate change by balancing the uncertainty change brings with the stability of that long heritage.  

A year ago today

Exactly a year ago Judith and I drove to Sacramento. It was dark when we left the house. We had to be there before eight I think. I don't remember exactly, except that we drove half way there before sunrise and stopped for coffee and egg white bites at the Starbucks in Angel's Camp. 

We had some time to wait. Most of what happened is now a bit of a blur, save three memories. The first was saying goodbye as she was taken into the operating room. She was frightened; I held her hand and told her it would be fine. l really believed that. 

I waited in the car park. The operation was scheduled for ten and was supposed to be over by noon; but by 1:30 I'd heard nothing. Then I got the call from Max Horowitz, the surgeon. The operation had run longer than expected but he thought it had been a success, at least as far excising the cancer was concerned. It had progressed to Stage 3, I think he'd said, but the margins were clean.  I was relieved that the operation was over but concerned; Stage 3 was not what I'd wanted to hear.  Now we had the chemo ahead of us, but that was a month away and I was looking forward to Judith coming home.  

The next memory was going into recovery as Judith was waking up. She was under a heating blanket, still very groggy, her hands making little grasping motions. She wanted her special hydrogen-infused water water which we'd brought from home. The nurses let me stay till 6pm when I set off home to feed the cats.

I would retrace that journey for a week. Judith was supposed to come home after three or four days but because someone had cut into a large vein during surgery (that was why the operation had run so long) and she'd not been re-positioned, she sustained serious motor nerve damage from the sustained compression. That deprived her of any motor function in her left ankle. Foot-drop was the very non-technical-sounding term for the condition. That was why she stayed in hospital several days longer than planned, and had a significant impact on her life for the next six months, confining her to her chair for most of the time. It was the first indication that things weren't going to go smoothly.

The last memory from that early hospital episode was picking her up to go home. I think she was to be discharged around noon. I went to her room, talked with one of the surgeons about her foot drop (although that may have been a different day) and then went to bring the car round. But there was some confusion and crossed wires about which entrance she'd be coming out from and it took a few phone calls to sort that out. She was pissed and I was annoyed that the episode had soured what should have been a happy occasion. As things turned out, there would be very few happy occasions after that. 

The appearance of impropriety

Clarence Thomas was treated to gifts and favors from a variety of wealthy conservatives which he didn't disclose.  His house, in which his mother lived, was bought and his mother allowed to continue to live there rent free. He enjoyed vacations and flights on private planes.  Although it all looks very fishy it's not corruption, at least as the law understands it. There is no evidence of a direct "quid-pro-quo".

However the strict legal definition of corruption is really not that important here. What does matter is impropriety and the appearance of impropriety as the Founding Fathers noted. 

It's hard to say if Thomas' rulings were directly influenced by his wealthy friends lavishing him with gifts or whether their friendship arose and was sustained by a shared world view. 

Nevertheless, that fact they became friends only after he was appointed to the Supreme Court, while not in and of itself improper, it could be construed as a conscious attempt by his benefactors to exert some subtle influence in his general thinking even if not directly on his legal opinions.

The second question which Journalists haven't looked at (and which I think they should) is whether his donors sought out and then lavished similar gifts on other like-minded thinkers or whether their "outreach" was only to those who wielded significant power.  If that were to be the case it would look suspiciously like an attempt to influence Thomas' (and other powerful peoples') decision-making and hence his opinions.

Since the Court like many important institutions of democracy relies on public trust (just as banks do, as First Republic has just shown us), the appearance of impropriety undermines that trust and so creates instability in society. 

SCOTUS needs to get its ethical act together for the good of the country and do so without Congress getting involved. Showing it can police itself will be important to restoring trust; having ethical rules imposed on it from outside will only reinforce that idea as an institution it cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

The demise of the "knowledge worker"

Academia has a lot to answer for; it may have ruined the lives of a generation or more. To understand why, we need to go back to the 1990s.  

Once the Berlin Wall fell, America turned its attention to international trade. Governments (and economists) thought growing international trade would bind nations states more closely economically and that would reduce the likelihood of war. Parenthetically, in 2022 Russia proved that to be an unfortunately illusion. Business and manufacturing companies in particular saw the post-Cold War order as an opportunity to move jobs to lower wage countries and offshoring took off.

As manufacturing jobs in the US (and Europe) disappeared, management scholars began lauding the "knowledge economy" as the answer to offshoring.  In order to meet the demand for "knowledge workers", at least 40% (Tony Blair suggested 50%) of high-school graduates would need to get a four-year degree. In the UK polytechnics became universities with the stroke of a pen.  

Fast forward a quarter century and academia (and much of the US) is either up in arms or enthralled by ChatGPT, a deep learning Artificial Intelligence engine. Tellingly, a member of the Wharton business faculty asked it to answer one of his exam MBA questions and he considered its answer, had it been a student's, would have earned a "C".  So the debate about whether to use ChatGPT in the classroom or ban it is in a sense moot. If ChatGPT gets a a "C" a Wharton, anyone with a Wharton C or lower is effectively unemployable.  Why hire a Wharton MBA at $300k when you can get as good an answer for free? 

What does this all mean? First, ChatGPT provides a universal standard by which to calibrate work across institutions. If a Wharton professor thinks a ChatGPT answer is worth a "C" and a San Jose State prof thinks it's a B, that suggests a Wharton "C" is about the same as a  San Jose State "B".

Second, it creates a performance threshold, an "AI bar"; get less than a Wharton "C" (or a San Jose State "B") and you are no better than ChatGPT.  So to be competitive (with AI) in the labor market, students have to do at least as well as ChatGPT; otherwise they're unemployable. That's why the debate about banning or using ChatGPT is moot.  Students may use it but if they do, they won't clear the AI bar and their degree is effectively worthless.

In the longer run, the employment landscape will change radically.  Knowledge work will be eviscerated. High-school leavers will eschew four year degrees for jobs that require physical presence, service and manual jobs. For a while at least jobs that require individual customization may be immune from automation and offer a temporary respite from the technological tsunami.  For those in early in their careers AI will soon over-take them and they will find themselves looking for work outside the knowledge economy.  

We are at an inflection point, one that OpenAI has created with the launch of ChatGPT. Suddenly everyone has been given a salutary lesson in AI's potential. CEOs who had either not been paying attention or not taken it seriously, will now be asking what is the scale of the threat it poses to their companies if they don't get on board. That will light a fire under AI's adoption and its development.

The better AI becomes (and its progress will be ever more rapid), the less knowledge work the will be. Those most effected will be knowledge workers in their early careers, say one to ten years in.  But that age range will get larger as AI improves. Only those with deep experience will be immune from replacement by "intelligent" machines. And as a consequence of academia's hype and enthusiasm over the knowledge economy we have created a huge group of people in their 30s and 40s who are most at risk from being replaced by AI.  That's a big potential social problem for which academia is responsible.

Moreover, that creates a conundrum; if people early in their careers are replaced by AI, fewer and fewer will get the experience needed to stay ahead of the machines.  The result will be an increasingly divided society with a tiny elite rising above the "AI bar" and commanding insane salaries while everyone else will be jobless or working for minimum wage.  It could even be worse (although I doubt that politically this would be allowed to happen - but that's another story); AI could render even the best and the brightest redundant. 

By the 2030s the political divide won't be between red states and blue states, but between a small insanely wealthy elite who have jobs and the 99% who will be out of work or earning minimum wage. How well the country's leaders prepare for that future will determine whether we navigate it peacefully or have to deal with a tinderbox of volatile social unrest. 

 

Bye-bye Buddy Bear

After several years battling increasingly frequent episodes of severe constipation, we had to let Buddy go in December. He was our first all-American cat, who we adopted shortly after we moved to Sonora. 

A diabetic, he put up with being poked with an insulin needle twice a day for 15 years.  He was a gentle soul. He'd walk up to me on the kitchen counter and if I leaned down, he'd rub his forehead against mine.

As the most senior member of the cat clan he took is job keeping the others in order very seriously. Whenever there was a fracas between any of the other cats, he'd run to break it up.  Like most of our cats, he'd come when called, though he made it clear that it was on his terms. 

Keep on taking charge Buddy. You were a commanding presence in the family and I'll miss you.

Keeping your powder dry

In The Prince, Machiavelli cautions: "men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge".

The "establishment" comprises largely Democrats and a few courageous Republicans, those who believe in preserving the rules based order, both abroad and at home. Increasingly, and opportunistically catalyzed by Donald Trump, there is a group who want to tear it all down, who feel "the system" is not working for them (and they may be right about "the system"). 

The January 6th committee, the most visible manifestation of "the establishment", has issued a subpoena requiring Donald Trump to provide documents and testify under oath before the committee, a step unprecedented in recent US history. 

But as with two failed impeachments, to paraphrase Nietzsche what doesn't kill him makes him stronger. A wounded animal is more dangerous than one that is unharmed (or dead).  Taking legal potshots at Donald Trump will do nothing to reduce his political influence and will animate his supporters, increasing his immunity from political attacks and making any future legal action against him more divisive.   

The "establishment" would do well to heed Machiavelli's advice and keep it's (mixed-)metaphorical  powder dry until is has a slam-dunk.

Not a chance

There is a snowballs chance in hell that Donald Trump will appear before the House committee investigating the January 6th insurrection; to imagine otherwise is to entirely misunderstand Trump. Yes, he has said he wants to appear to make is case but that's his usual gas-lighting bluster. Such proclamations come without risk to him just as do his trademark lies made in the media. But what had become clear is that when he faces real legal jeopardy, he pleads the 5th. 

Testifying under oath before the January 6th committee would mean facing questions about his role in the insurrection. Given the evidence the committee has unearthed so far, answering truthfully about his involvement and his actions would amount to a confession as to his role in the plot to subvert the results of the 2020 election. Answering untruthfully would likely be less damaging but would none the less represent a legal problem for him.  

His most likely play is to first ignore the subpoena and then to challenge it in court to create delay sufficient to run out the clock past the mid-terms. If that fails he will dare the January 6th committee to try to enforce it, something they may hesitate to do given his ardent supporters passion and their potential for violence.    

The only circumstance in which he would testify would be if he were to adopt the position that the January 6th committee, and by extension the legislative branch of the government, had no legal authority to question him as an ex-president. While that is clearly bonkers, it is the argument routinely used by autocrats when they face judicial proceedings; they consider themselves above the law. While it is possible that Trump is that delusional, his past practice suggests that he hasn't taken leave of his sense to quite that degree. 

Of course, I could be wrong; either way it will be another Trumpian spectacle that will challenge the robustness of our institutions.  

Insurrection Day : Subpoena

January 6th 2020, when a mob, whipped into a frenzy by Donald Trump, marched on the Capitol, broke in and violently disrupted the certification of the 2019 presidential election, was one of the most shocking events in my lifetime.  

Today was almost as shocking. The January 6th Committee publicly issued a subpoena calling on Donald Trump to provide documents requested by, and to testify under oath before, the committee. The resolution calling for the subpoena was recorded in a unanimous roll-call vote. Not a single member dissented or abstained.

Where things go from here is very unclear. Given his penchant for diversion, distraction and delaying tactics, it seems unlikely that Trump will ever comply. One thing is certain, however; the stakes have been raised. 

Social categorization

In the UK, arguably the most salient social categories are accents. There are broadly three: no particular accent suggests middle class. Strong regional accent suggests working class. And "posh" public school accent says upper class.  

The US doesn't rely on accents as much as color and language. The three broad categories in the US seem to be white, black and immigrant. Black and immigrant are easily identified by their color and the two are separated by language. 

Language, while not immutable, sometimes leaves speakers with a national accent that suggests the speaker is a "foreigner". But distinguishing accents, which can be eradicated or acquired, color cannot.  Social categorizations in the US, based as they are to such a degree on race, are thus more immutable than in the UK.

Changing culture, one story at a time

No one news story, tweet, or Facebook post will change peoples' minds. For those on the right, each story of a unlawful police killing or unhinged shooter will be just an outlier that doesn't represented a contradiction to their underlying world view that the police a good and guns aren't the problem. For those on the left each story of Democrats involved in shady business enterprises is simply dismissed as right wing political propaganda.  

But sufficient exposure to one kind of narrative or another may begin to lend credibility to its underlying interpretive frame and undermine a previously held contradictory frame. Thus someone who predominantly watches Fox will likely absorb the set of fundamental premises and value ordering that support the interpretive frame of the extreme right while listeners to NPR or MSNBC will be more likely to use the empathetic lens of the far left in interpreting events.  

For this to happen does not require that the farmings are made explicit (though Fox' opinion show do) but simply that the stories chosen tend to support the central political narrative of that source. So Fox will under-report stories of gun violence while over-emphasizing those about crimes committed by immigrants while the NPR or MSNBC will stream stories of the misfortune or abuse of underrepresented minorities or the ease with which guns can be purchased in some states.   

As the two media camps try to differentiated themselves to appeal to their target demographic they also change that demographic. As each loses viewers and subscribers in the middle, their center of gravity shits away from the center and the two narrative drift apart to to the point where the value system that underlies the choice of story (and interpretation if given) of each is almost unrecognizable to the other.  That's the way America has arrived at "one system two countries".   

Kayser Trump

 "There was a gang of Hungarians who wanted their own mob. They realized that to be in power, you didn't need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn't." Kayser Söze, in 'The Usual Suspects'

Donald J. Trump, who sees himself very much in the mold of a kaiser (German for Emperor), might well have been a disciple of Kayser Söze's. For the seven years since he announced he wanted to run for the White House, he has repeatedly shown that he was prepared to do what no one else would.  He told more blatant lies than any president in American history.  He announced that he would not necessarily accept the results of the 2020 election (and it wasn't hard to predict what might lead him assert - without evidence - that the election was improperly conducted). He put family members into key positions who then used those positions to enrich themselves. He implicitly blackmailed a foreign leader for his own political advantage. He condoned violence against his opponents' supporters at his rallies. He undermined trust in critical institutions for his own political gain.  He incited an attack on the Capitol in what can only be described as an attempted coup. He destroyed materiel that were by statute presidential records. And he pilfered top secret materials and then lied to the FBI about it. 

The word unprecedented may seem overused in describing Trumps egregious flouting of norms, rules, and laws, yet it is accurate. He had the will to do what no one else dared to and that is both the source and the manifestation of his power.