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. 

Will he run in 2024? He has to.

Since Trump was ejected from the White House by the voters nearly two years ago, there has been widespread speculation as to whether he might run again in 2024. On the one hand, his fragile ego probably couldn't handle another defeat, and that prospect might be a sufficient disincentive.  On the other hand, his thirst for the revenge he could reap from the Oval Office is clearly a huge incentive. 

But the clincher is surely the prospect of avoiding prosecution and and jail. As Bibbi Netanyahu showed, getting into the highest office in the land is a great way to stymie investigations into wrongdoing and run out the clock on potential prosecution. As the net tightens around him on his numerous alleged felonies, running again may be his only salvation from serious time.  

A question of interpretation

The former president's Mar-a-Lago residence was raided today by the FBI, looking for papers illegally from removed the White House by the former president, allegedly.  He and his supporters were incensed, claiming this was unprecedented and thus further evidence of left wing deep state vendetta against the him. 

Of course there is another (more plausible) explanation for it being unprecedented; simply put, this was the first president whose conduct had risen to this level of illegality.  

The boiling frog

Little by little it looks like the United States is sliding into a one party autocracy. The constitution already favors one party, the Republicans, with its over-weighting of sparsely populated states in the Senate. Red states are also making it harder for their opponents to vote through legislation predicated on false claims of voter fraud and the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries. Compounding this, the GOP is installing party loyalists in the election machinery making it possible to sway elections in their favor by throwing out opponents' votes. It has been working for over a decade to politicize the federal judiciary, culminating in its take-over of the Supreme Court.

If re-elected, the MAGAP plans to hollow out the civil service and put in place party loyalists. Law enforcement is generally more sympathetic to the GOP than the Democrats and there are already many more MAGAP members in law enforcement (and the military) than Democrats. The last remaining step will be the trampling of the free press, something Trump would dearly love. If the current trend continues, America will be a one party illiberal democracy (like China or Venezuela). 

"The spirit of tolerance, you fool"

The right is critical of the left for its tolerance of bad behavior which they contend is what ails society. They seem to want to go back to the zero tolerance, three strikes, broken windows theory approach. Whether it worked is debatable; the left says it leads to discriminatory policing, high incarceration rates, particularly for people of color, broken single parent families and the longer term social problems that creates. 

The right contends that it sends a clear message of what is and is not acceptable, and that laws should be obeyed. [It's almost pointless to note that Trump is that last person on earth to be waxing lyrical about obeying the law, given his track record of lying, pushing the legal envelope, not to mention blackmailing foreign leaders for his own political ends and orchestrating an attempted coup - but that's tangential to the point here].

But there's another aspect to tolerance that seems to have escaped the right (other than its habitual hypocrisy); and that's tolerating lunatics in positions of influence. For example, those who believe in Jewish space lasers, windmills causing cancer, Hugo Chavez (deceased) working with Dominion to alter votes in the 2020 election.  Most people (I hope) would look at any one of these and think that the person proposing them must be completely insane - not just metaphorically, but literally - they must have taken leave of their senses. They would (and should) be gently humored but never allowed to take the wheel. Yet here there are elected to Congress - no wonder the country is in decline.        

Domestic Terrorists? Not really

The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers have been in the news quite a bit lately, with the January 6th Hearings and all.  They have been branded "domestic terrorists" by the Department of Homeland Security. But are they really terrorists? 

They put on a good show, brandishing long guns and parading around in body armor and camo. But have they really committed any acts of terrorism?  Yes, there is lots of chatter and they were deeply involved in the Insurrection, but apart from that, what have they done? Yes there was the Oklahoma City bombing, and there have been hate crimes committed by right wing nutters, but these appear to be uncoordinated "lone-wolf" operations, in the national security parlance.  For the most part, these quasi-militias appear for photo-ops, protest marches and feel-good rallies, but they are probably more of a social club of terrorist wannabes.

I grew up in Britain in the 60s and 70s during The Troubles.  There were at least four real paramilitary organizations who could reasonably be called terrorists: the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Provisional IRA (the "Provos") on the Catholic side; and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA)/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) on the Protestant side.  

All were not only well organized, they also acted; they planted bombs, they shot and killed people, either on the other side or members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army which had been sent in to quell the violence, even a member of the Royal Family, Lord Mountbatten. 

These were real terrorists; they didn't parade around in camo or brandish guns; they blended in, planned carefully and committed acts of true terrorism. (Pro tip: you can't commit an act of terrorism and get away with it by drawing attention to yourself). In comparison, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, at least so far, are just performative cos-play social clubs. And long may that distinction continue. 

Insurrection Day : Hearing #6

Today a very brave young woman, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified before the January 6th Committee.  A number of things about the hearing were noteworthy. First was that it happened at all; this was almost certainly because Hutchinson had been threatened by Trump and his MAGA cronies and the Committee was fearful that she might either refuse to testify if the intimidation succeeded; or possibly worse. 

Next were some important revelations. Three stood out for me:

• Trump wanted to let heavily armed individuals (probably members of the Oath Keeps, the Proud Boys or other similar pseudo-paramilitary clubs) into his speech at the Ellipse on the morning of January 6th. Despite being told they were heavily armed he reasoned (rightly) that they were not there to harm him, and he wanted a really really big crowd for the TV - just like at his inauguration.
• Trump and his advisors all new that there was a real possibility for the crowd to turn into an ugly violent mob, yet they were either dismissive (Meadows) or in some cases (Trump) hoping for exactly that.
• Not only is Trump ruthless and utterly unprincipled (something many of us predicted six years ago and for which he has provided ample evidence since), but he is also a sociopath with a tendency for real violence and almost no self-control. His plate throwing was just a taster; his physical assault on his driver and the head of his security detail when they refused to take him to the Capitol after his speech at the Ellipse was simply jaw-dropping.          

Yet despite all of the evidence assembled and presented at these hearings, the MAGA crowd will be unmoved, either because the weren't listening or if they were, will say (and may even believe) that is is all part of a sinister plot by the Communists, ANTIFA and the Jews to destroy the white Christian society that they think of as "America". 

America: One system, two countries

In foreign policy, it has long been de rigueur to refer to the Taiwan/China question as "One country, two systems" as a way of placating both sides. The two recent decisions by the United States Supreme Court have created the exact opposite: one system, two countries. 

While Americans vote in a single nationwide election for a single nationwide federal government, it is becoming increasingly clear that America is no longer one country; and last week's SCOTUS decision will only deepen the divide. By allowing red states to enact more extreme conservative policies, many will leave them for bluer pastures. And those in blue states who are less liberal will emigrate red-wards, something that is already happening to California. 

The result will be less compromise, more rancor and a worsening of the national political climate. The result will be still more legislative deadlock at the federal level and as a consequences, declines in the country's economic performance and its clout in international affairs. That will leave the way clear for China to become the dominant superpower of this century. 

Unless Americans can find a single cause around which to rally, something that covid clearly demonstrated is unlikely to happen, the US looks increasingly like a country in steep decline. 

Courting disaster

Leaving aside the particular question on which the US Supreme Court issues its ruling last week, the decision has dire consequences for the United States. 

In overturning Roe vs Wade and Planned Parenthood vs Casey, the Court reversed a 50 year old precedent that had been previously upheld by the Supreme Court on several occasions. Given their assurance at their confirmation headings that they would respected stare decisis, that makes the three most recent appointees look less than honest. While we now have come to expect our political leaders to lie routinely, something the 45 demonstrated par excellence, to now find that the most powerful and highest ranking members of the judicial branch do too is not simply disappointing; it erodes trust in another critical institution of democracy. Their example will filter down the food chain with the result that anyone seeking to serve in the judiciary will be presumed to be disingenuous until proven otherwise.

Second, given the relentless campaign by the right to appoint politically conservative justices, whatever the research on SCOTUS decision-making suggests, there can now be no question, at least in the public mind, that the Court is simply politics by other means. That opens that door for further politicization, this time from the left to tip the political balance on the Court back to the center (and back to where, at least in the case of abortion, the majority of the public is). A highly political Court, as this one clearly is, undermines trust in the judiciary.

The implications for democracy in the US are profound. When citizens lose trust in the administration, Congress and the judicial branch, there is, in the end, nothing left but protest, violence and the achieving of ends by force. This country is heading down a dark and dangerous road.

Political Asymmetry

It is clear from the evidence presented by the Congressional January 6th commission that Donald Trump was instrumental and central to the effort to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. It is also clear that he was enabled in this by those around him; some like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell were completely unscrupulous actors for whom the end justified the means and truth was immaterial. Others were simply too weak or too afraid to cross Trump who, like every gangster, used fear as a means of control; and as spiteful and vindictive as he is, would exact revenge against any who dared exhibit an iota of disloyalty. 

But to most rational outside observers, the puzzle is why those in his circle apparently took so long to understand what Trump was doing and took no steps beforehand to prevent him from ripping up the constitution in his pursuit of power.  It's astounding because Trump told everyone on prime time TV on multiple occasions what he would do should he lose; and still Republicans and in particular those in his inner circle chose to pretend that he wouldn't carry out his thread to undermine the election. To the rest of us, his lies about the election was shocking but unsurprising. (Indeed, I still don't understand why, when some fact Trump doesn't like, the media insist on reporting that "Trump denies the allegation". Anyone who has been paying attention these last six years knows that Trump lies incessantly; to report his denial is therefore of no legitimate news value - but I digress).    

After the second day of public hearings today, the PBS News Hour invited Ben Ginsberg, a long-time Republican elections attorney, onto the program to comment on the days proceedings. He cautioned that Republicans should be concerned that by not soundly condemning Trump's disregard for the constitutional transfer of power, they set a precedent that Democrats would exploit should a Republican win fair and square in a future election.  Unfortunately he's quite wrong and Republicans need not worry. When push comes to shove, Democrats lack the raw craving for power that Republicans have increasingly exhibited the last quarter century; Democrats are still, to some small degree, restrained by principle and allegiance to the rule of law (rather ironic,  since that used to be the Republican's key selling point). 

Kayser Söze ("The Usual Suspects") was feared because he was prepared to kill members of his family to demonstrate just how ruthless he was. Trump has proven to be the Kayser Söze of the American political system. And in the six years since he entered the political arena, we have not found a way to combat his unprincipled self-interested pursuit of power. The result is a laying waste of values and trust in democracy from which it will take decades for the country to recover - if it ever does. 

The gun debate

Two more terrible mass shootings in the last week, one racially motivated  in Buffalo, New York, the other a suicidal youth in Uvalde, Texas, have brought the debate over guns back to the fore. 

As usual Democrats have called for banning assault rifles and more gun control generally, and the GOP has blamed mental health, lack of armed teachers and the rest of its regular litany of alternative explanations that might divert the conversation away from gun control.  So no surprises there.

What is becoming clear is that the argument is not about guns at all, but about identity. It has morphed into a debate about individualism versus collectivism.  The individualists want the right to bear arms in part because they do not trust the state to provide protection; indeed many do not trust the state at all and think their guns are their last line of defense against what they perceive as state oppression.  The collectivists believe that some curtailing of individual rights (gun control) is needed to reduce the number of gun-related deaths, at the same time trusting, indeed expecting, the state to protect its citizens.  This dichotomization of identity happens to line up with the rural vs. urban divide and the right/left divide.    

On the vertical axis is the rate of gun related homicides, on the horizontal a function of the ratio of democratic to republican votes in the 2020 general election, for all fifty states. There is a clear relationship between high rates of gun related homicides and right-leaning states.  What is so tragic is that in the twenty years since the Sandy Hook shooting, not to mention Columbine and all those since, almost no action has been taken by either party; the Democrats are stymied by the filibuster in Congress and an increasingly right-leaning Supreme Court.  

The GOP on the other hand has no excuse for inaction, and anyone interested in curbing the rate of gun related homicides in America should be asking the GOP two questions. First, from the list of possible causes (mental health, for example) what actions have been taken? Then two follow-up questions; if the answer is nothing, then "why not"? and if the actions have been taken then "to what extent have the worked"? My guess is that in those states favoring solutions other than gun-control, little if anything has been done. But if things have, we need to know if anything worked so that the same measures might be applied elsewhere. 

A new macroeconomic normal

Two exogenous shocks have disturbed the macroeconomic equilibrium that has existed for several decades. The first in 2020 was the pandemic; the second in 2022 has been Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  Both will alter the global economy in profound ways. 

The pandemic has had both a short and a long run effect. In the short run governments mostly in the developed world sought to less covid's impact with strong economic stimulus. While the intent was to prevent people falling into poverty, a by-product was a fueling of demand as those who continued to be employed found themselves with additional disposable income.  However, the nature of that extra demand shifted from services, which were hard to access due to the pandemic lock-downs, to goods. That led to a spike in prices as demand exceeded supply. The surge in demand also led to supply chain bottlenecks with perversely further restricted supply - containers stacked up on docks meant that the normal functional of logistics operations were disrupted.  

While some thought that the shift from services to goods was temporary there is reason to think that it may be much more long lasting. Even though covid is moving towards endemicity, people's willingness to socialize and make use of services that involve coming into close proximity with potentially infectious others will not recover to pre-pandemic levels for some time if ever. The increases demand for goods may therefore be permanent rather than transitory. 

The second long term change stems from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Political risk calculations are now front and center of firms economic decision making. Factory locations will be reconsidered and new overseas investments, both for production and markets will no longer be viewed though a purely economic lens. In the short to medium term this will results in reconfiguration of supply chains and lead to additional supply chain bottlenecks. In the longer term access to cheap labor will be constrained and that,  together with  re-shoring of manufacturing, will lead to higher prices.  In particular the reduced flexibility of fewer off-shoring options will shift power away from management and back to labor, which will add to inflationary pressure. 

Finally, while not so much a shock as an increasingly urgent pressure, the need to develop energy independence from autocratic regimes combined with the need to move away from fossil fuels will create a medium term increase in energy prices. Energy costs have almost doubled in Europe and will rise further in coming years. 

Over the last thirty years, most of the developed world has enjoyed a stable and predictable economy. That predictability has almost certainly come to an end.

Sacrifice

It some level, it boils down this. What am I willing to sacrifice in the name or principle and humanity for people I don't know even if "they look like me"? Higher gas prices, while salient and an irritant, is a sacrifice I'm both fortunate enough to be able to afford and willing to make.  But would I be willing to live in a post-nuclear holocaust world? That's much tougher. If continued escalation in Ukraine leads to a nuclear exchange, we might be on course for a strategic strike against the US. 

Cities would be laid waste. People who survived the blast would be dying of radiation sickness. Food would be short and people would starve. There would likely be no electricity and hence for for us no water.  With scarcity might come violence and a breakdown of law and order. My life expectancy might come down from a couple of decades to a couple of years or months depending.  Given that, I'm very reluctant to side with the hawks that escalation is the only way to stop Putin. Ant that's precisely what Putin's counting on. So while I feel terrible for the people of Ukraine, I'm not yet ready to make the kind of sacrifice that would come with a nuclear war. 

A Tipping Point?

Talks to arrange a ceasefire are going nowhere: Russian negotiators have no deal-making authority since to give ground would anger Putin; that would not be good for them.  Whether the war goes on or stops depends entirely on Putin's whim.  He now has no way out. Dividing Ukraine down the middle and leaving him the eastern part of the county is probably not enough from him; he wants it all.  

Given the unexpectedly slow pace of the Russian advance, he is now intense pressure, externally and to some extent internally. As Zanny Minton-Beddoes put it: "Putin cannot win this war and he cannot afford to loose it".  Stress may cloud Putin's judgement, particularly when he lives in an group-think information bubble, so he cannot be depended on to act rationally.   

That leads to a consideration of the possibility of escalation. It now seems well within the realms of possibility that Putin will use chemical or tactical nuclear weapons. Given the West's decision not to respond forcefully when Assad used chemical weapons in Syria, Putin may well be expecting the West to step back again, making him more likely to use them. If it does not, we will be a step or two higher on the escalation ladder. Where that stops without an obvious "off-ramp" for Putin is hard to say and Armageddon is no longer just fantasy.  

Sanctions

(c) Economist 2022

The sanctions regime deployed by the West and others to persuade Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine is by all accounts the most draconian and consequential ever imposed on a large industrial economy. Nevertheless, there are two reasons to think they will not halt the Russian invasion nor prevent Putin from deposing Ukraine's legitimate government.

The first is and overarching reason is timing. Sanctions, even those just implemented, despite already having profound effects on the Russian economy, are widely thought to require weeks or months to achieve their desired effect. But Ukraine likely has only days not weeks in which it can hold out. 

The second is the mechanism. Sanctions are meant to be persuasive at several levels; on Putin himself, on his oligarchs and on the Russian people as a whole.  They will not deter Putin personally since for him this is no longer about his personal wealth but about power, control, his standing as a world leader, and his grandiose ambitions to reconstruct the old USSR.  If he wins he stays in power and will have access to all the money he wants. For Putin, alternatives to a win are two; he backs down, but remains in office (in the totalitarian state he has built he will never loose another election) although his standing on the world stage will be reduced to pariah. But if he refuses to back down, the end results is the same. So there is no upside for him to back down now. 

Sanctions on the oligarchs will only cause Putin to change course if the oligarchs collectively believe he can be deposed; while Putin remains in power, they are beholden to him for their wealth, at least that not yet frozen by the West, but more importantly for their future earnings. They have no real power themselves unless they can either persuade the Russian parliament to act to curb Putin's power or persuade the Russian military to mount a coup.  Both the military and members of the Duma must in turn weigh the chances of success; should legislative measures to rein Putin or a coup fail, all those involved, directly or indirectly, will likely face long prison or death sentences. Weighing such odds depends on an assessment of outcome probabilities. That in turn depends on a critical mass willing to support such a course of action. Developing that critical mass takes many quiet conversations and time. 

The last mechanism by which sanctions act is through their effect on the Russian people. The there are only two ways in which ordinary Russians get any say. The first is through the ballot box. But not only is an election too far distant to matter, even were an election to be held tomorrow, because Putin controls the press, the media and hence the narrative, he would likely win even without rigging the election. Oddly, sanctions work to Putin's advantage. As the Iran's Ayatollahs have done since sanctions were imposed on their country, Putin will telling the Russian people that their suffering is due to evil regimes in the West who are trying to destroy Mother Russia. 

Where does this leave Ukraine? If sanctions are the only tool the West is prepared to use against Putin, Ukraine will fall; it may take weeks rather than the days Putin had hoped, but in the medium term the end is the same.  A Putin-friendly puppet regime will be installed, freedom of speech will be harshly curbed using the same tactics as Putin is now using in Russia, and Ukrainians will be subjugated into the new Russian empire.  They may fight an insurgency but displacing another pro-Russian leader from their country will be far more difficult than the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych. Putin may even reinstall Yanukovych, someone who was not only loyal to Putin when he was president before, but like so many of those Putin has promoted and richly rewarded, he will owe his position entirely to Putin's largess. Putin was upset by Yanukovych's ouster in 2014 and will make sure not to let that happen again.  

If sanctions are an ineffective tool, what then? If only military action is sufficient to stop Putin's current, not to mention future land-grabs, does the West have the stomach for what could easily escalate into a nuclear holocaust?  That, sadly, is a question we will be facing in the weeks ahead.

Confiscating personal assets

Several countries including the US and the UK announced yesterday that they are moving to confiscate the personal assets of a number of wealthy Russian oligarchs. While the logic is clear and the cause is just, it raises a troubling question about property rights and the rule of law.  

It may set an uncomfortable precedent that property rights are only inviolate when its suits a particular government in whose country those assets reside. It signals that if politically expedient, foreigners' rights may be abrogated. 

There has always been political risk in investing abroad, but it was general accepted that in Western democracies that were upholders of the international rules based order, property rights would be upheld.  But by abandoning this principle, it will be harder for those countries to protest when their citizens' assets are confiscated in other countries; what a "just cause" is that makes such seizures legitimate depends to some degree on ones point of view. 

This increase the uncertainty for companies and individuals investing abroad and that may have negative implications for the global economy.  Of course one might argue that it has always been so; Israel has been stealing land from the Palestinians with impunity for years (although that's the only example that immediately comes to mind).      

Escalation

While much discussion ensured after Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons two days ago, that's only one avenue for escalation. The other and more likely path is the increasing used of indiscriminate shelling and bombing resulting in huge loss of civilian lives. The longer the invasion goes without Putin reaching his goal of regime change, the more desperate he will get and the more extreme and more violent the Russian forces will be told to be. Unless he is stopped, or unless Ukraine capitulates which seems unlikely, Putin will raze the country to the ground. 

Through a glass darkly

After four days of fighting, Putin's forces have not yet taken the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, nor have they managed to depose its government. Volodymyr Zelensky bravely decided to remain in Kyiv, inspiring many Ukrainians to fight rather than flee, which may have been a factor in slowing the Russian advance.  

In addition to additional sanctions, the West today announced shipments of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine via Poland. It may be too little, too late but since the invasion has not gone to plan, they may still arrive in time to bring fighting to a stalemate.  I am reminded of Israel's stand-off with Hamas and Hezbollah in the Gaza Strip.  Since its highly unlikely that the Ukrainian forces could repel the Russian invasion, a stalemate would be the best likely outcome for Ukraine.  While Putin's offer to negotiate is almost certainly in bad faith, it might afford an opportunity for a temporary cease-fire allowing the West to resupply the Ukrainian armed forces with the weapons they desperately need to keep the Russians carrying out regime change. 

Very worrying is Putin's state of mind. His vituperative rhetoric combined with his miscalculation about both the Ukrainians' and the West's responses to his assault raise questions about his rationality. His decision to ready strategic nuclear weapons looks like an act of desperation; one can only hope that he is bluffing.   If not, we will find out whether the strategists who predicted that the use of battle-field nuclear weapons would be containable and not escalate to the use of long range intercontinental weapons were right. Their argument was predicated on actors on both sides being completely rational; it is unclear weather Putin is.  

While it's comforting to know that now we have serious people with their fingers on the button on this side of the pond, Russia's launch codes are in the hands of just one paranoid, possibly psychotic, individual. Those in West who are paying attention will not sleep well this coming week.   

Reflection

Tonight, as the Russian soldiers being their assault on Kyiv, I thought I should stop thinking about abstractions like the "Pax Americana" or the importance of the "international order" and turn my thoughts to the forty four million people, suddenly upended by one megalomaniac's obsession. 

My father's family fled Czechoslovakia just ahead of the Nazi invasion, just as many Ukrainians are doing today.  The family escaped to Sweden, and my father to London. He arrived with no English just on one trunkful of belongings, working as a technician at the London Hospital during the day, with the Germans bombing the city at night. One of my aunts moved to new York, taught arts and crafts at the Braerley school, studying at night to become a psychoanalyst. My other aunt and her husband moved back to Czechoslovakia after the war. In 1968 they saw Russian tanks on the streets of their home town, Prague. My my family is well acquainted with the trauma of having to flee before an invading army and of having to endure Russian occupation. So I am filled with great sadness and empathy for the people of Ukraine. We are, as a species, no better now than we ever were. The progress we may have made in material things has not been matched by progress in stemming our greed, our thirst for power, our capacity for indifference and cruelty.   

And so, as I sit here in the comfort of a warm home without having to worry whether I will die tonight from enemy bombs, or have to leave the place I call home with little more than I can carry, I am grateful. And I wonder how we could have let this happen again? How could we have thought that diplomacy and non-military means would stop an autocrat bent on war? How did we delude ourselves that tanks and troops on the Ukrainian border were not there for the exact purpose for which they were built? How is it that somehow we failed to learn from history? 

Why sanctions won't work

In response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the West is proposing "stiff sanctions". Simply put they will not work. First, to prevent Putin from effecting regime change in Ukraine, they would have to bite within a week; that as long as one might reasonably expect the Ukrainians to hold out against the Russian onslaught. Within a week, Putin will likely have deposed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky and installed his own interim administration. But sanctions won't have desired effect in that short a time; they cause problems over weeks not days and Putin has already buffered himself and Russia from their impact, further lessening their efficacy. 

Sanctions will also have two unwelcome consequences for the West. First, they will cause problems for ordinary Russians which will only serve to bolster Putin's hold on power. Just as the Iran theocracy blames the country's woes on Western sanctions, so will Putin. Secondly, sanctions will also impact businesses in in the West that currently trade with, or do business in, Russia. Over time as the America public comes to accept the Russian installed regime as a "new normal", opposition to lifting sanctions will subside and business interests will prevail. 

One can see how ineffective they are in the US' policy toward China and Afghanistan. China's stance towards the US has hardened in the last five year despite tariffs and sanctions against Hwawei. North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons. Iran is continuing to enrich uranium. And the Taliban is not becoming more liberal in its attitudes towards women while the Afghan people starve; because of that the West will change course before China, North Korean, or the Taliban. And while sanctions remain in place, Russia will seek to develop trading relations with other countries, further reducing both their medium term impact and making them still less effective as a future deterrent.  

That makes President Biden's reported statement that were Russia to attack a member of the NATO alliance, "the use of military force is not off the table" significant.  It means that the use of military force is not an inevitable consequence were Putin to move against a NATO country in Europe. Given the futility of sanctions and the possibility that Putin could threaten and invade NATO member countries without a military response from the West, he must now feel he has considerably more freedom to act as he pleases.

The Endgame in Ukraine

Eugene Robinson suggested today that two hundred thousand troops may be enough to defeat the Ukrainian military but not sufficient to hold the country. That misses the point. Putin will remove Zelenskyy, the elected president, and in his place establish an interim government. He'll run a rigged election and install a Russian puppet in Kyiv. He will maintain that all this will be "in complete accordance with the Ukrainian constitution".  He does not need to hold the country with soldiers on the streets; he needs only a pliant Ukrainian administration, at which point his tanks can return home to Russia. 

Putin's hold on power

There has been some discussion about how Putin's invasion of Ukraine will impact his popularity at home. His answer may be "I don't care". As long as he continues to rig elections, as has has likely done in the past, and controls the security apparatus, he has little to fear. He can't be voted out of office and any protests, should they arise, will be met with a swift crack down, and the arrest or untimely demise, accidental or otherwise, of its leaders. His position is secure as long has he can continue to pay those he needs to carry out his orders. Given his control over the state coffers, that looks unlikely to change any time soon.  

A war in Europe

For the first time since 1945, a full scale conventional war is underway in Europe. As unimaginable as that was a year ago, it upends long-held assumptions about peace, stability and the world order. For too long it had been assumed that economic integration and the benefits of stability, in addition to the deterrence of nuclear weapons, would keep the peace. That in part was the underlying rationale for the creation of the European Economic Community, now the European Union. Vladimir Putin has blown up that assumption. He has demonstrated what one individual in a position of power can do when they decide to discard the conventional play-book. Of the three possibilities I had envisioned, a limited incursion in the east of Ukraine, a slow incremental scaling up of hostilities and and full scale onslaught, the latter seemed to me the least likely; but that's where we are.   

The problem that the West must now grapple with is whether Putin is rational or not. It had been widely assumed that we was; that while he might appear unpredictable, as a means of keeping his enemies off balance, ultimately he would weigh the costs and benefits and reach the same conclusion envisioned by his game-theory adversaries in the West; that after all was the genesis of game-theory. 

Unable to rely on long held assumptions about the range of Russia's likely actions, we are now back in the position we were seventy years ago of being hard-put to predict Putin's next moves. He has threatened all-out nuclear war, a specter that had largely disappeared from everyone's thinking when the Berlin Wall fell. Suddenly that has re-entered the realm of possibilities. 

Graham Alison's analysis of the Cuban missile crisis is instructive. We should not necessarily treat countries as rational actors. What makes sense for Russia may be quite different from what makes sense for Vladimir Putin.  

We should however be thankful for small mercies; at least now there's an adult in the White House. Had Biden't predecessor been reelected, the prospect of two unpredictable, megalomaniacal leaders with delusions of grandeur, both with nuclear arsenals, one of whom is egregiously ignorant, is almost too frightful to contemplate. 

Timing

Yesterday Vladimir Putin recognized Donbass and Luhansk, two regions in the east of Ukraine, as "independent republics" and promptly dispatched "peace-keeping" troops. The Biden administration did act, imposing sanctions, but in a very limited way, only on companies doing business in Donbass and Luhansk - so effectively nothing. The New York Times editorial argued today that it was too soon to pull the trigger on the threatened strong sanctions. That raises the question when is the right time?

Putin is not going to declare war; no one does that any more. That's as out-dated as challenging your enemy to pistols at dawn.  It is increasingly difficult to say exactly when hostilities start. Is a cyber attack by a foreign government an act of war? If so Russia has been at war with the US since 2016 if not earlier. Is a drone strike? If is it, America has been at war with numerous countries for decades.  Is artillery fire across country borders? How about one soldier straying across the border. What if it were a platoon; or a battalion?  

Because the point at which war begins has become indeterminate, when to impose sanctions becomes problematic. If, as the NYT suggests, one holds off until the smoke clears it may be far too late. By making many very small moves, Putin increases the ambiguity about when hostilities can be said to have reached a level that justifies the "big sanction package". And that's what Putin is banking on. 

Taking both sides

One advantage (and disadvantage) of flip-flopping on an issue is that whatever the outcome one ends up being both right (once) and wrong (once). On Feb 11th I argued that Putin had put himself into a position in which invading Ukraine was his only logical alternative.  I took a contrary position six days later. Then yesterday I did another one-eighty.  Today it appears as if my first (and third) takes were the right ones.

What now remains to be see is what the West will do. As has been argued here and elsewhere, much is riding on its response. A weak or ineffective response opens the door to more of the same from Russia perhaps into other of its close neighbors, from China into Taiwan, or from other rogue states who see this as a green light to take land they want by force.  While the West has threatened strong sanctions it may be that these and other "non-kinetic" approaches do not raise the costs for going to war sufficiently to either deter Russia and will certainly be ineffective in halting it once in progress.  Ukraine's forces are likely to be soon overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the Russian military at which point supplying them with weapons ceases to be useful (or feasible).    

So as far as Ukraine goes the cards have been dealt and all that remains is to see how each hand is played. The scope for variation without missteps is narrow; but assuming none are made, Zelensky's regime will be toppled, and just as it did in Czechoslovakia and Hungary in the 1960s, Russia will install a pliant puppet government. Europe (and the US) will for a while endure higher energy prices in applying the promised sanctions. Ultimately, however, they will come to accept Russia's actions in order to lift sanctions and restore access to cheaper natural gas.  It is remotely possible that if that normalization takes long enough, Germany might reverse itself on its "no nuclear" policy and ween itself off fossil fuels but that is far from certain.  Putin will appease his oligarchs at home by making good the losses they will suffer from the personalized sanctions being discussed in the Washington, blunting their effectiveness. The Russian economy may decline but Putin's patriotic stand for "Mother Russia" will shield him from much of the domestic political blow-back.    

The larger question is what happens after Ukraine? Will the apparent unity the NATO alliance has been showing recently allow it to respond more robustly in the face of future Russian aggression? Will NATO learn the lessons of Russia's recent adventurism and act with sufficient resolve to prevent Russia from future incursions? And (as Eugene Robinson noted in today's paper) what if Trump is in power next time?  As if things weren't bad enough, that is a truly sobering thought.

In the long run?

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may be right, that if Putin does occupy Ukraine by force, it will ultimately be to his and Russia's detriment in the long term. But in the short term lives will be lost and in the medium term, at least until Ukraine is able to return to sovereign self-rule, Ukrainians will pay a heavy price, from loss of freedom to economic stagnation under Russian or "Russian approved" governance. That should net be seen as acceptable. If the West is serious about defending democracy, perhaps it should admit Ukraine to NATO immediately and begin moving troops and military assets into the country to defend it in the face of Russia's current and possible future aggression. 

... Or not

On Thursday is seemed as if there were signs of Putin hesitating, perhaps having second thoughts about invading Ukraine. It seems that was wrong.  The absurd video of what looked like tiny model tanks on flatbeds crossing a bridge, purportedly returning to barracks, could have been a clue that this was all just a stalling tactic. 

Troop numbers at the Ukrainian border have risen since them to in excess of one hundred  an fifty thousand.  More alarming still is the deployment of short-range nuclear weapons.  Were they to be used, it would be the first time that a nuclear weapon would have been used in a European theatre; the decision-making then begins to look more like the Cuban missile crisis than tanks rolling into Georgia or Crimea. It would not an exaggeration to say we may be on the brink of a nuclear war in Europe.  

If Putin needed to stall to make ready his invasion plans, one must hope that besides the West's diplomatic efforts, it has prepared an immediate and significant response to invasion, one that will hit home in hours rather than days or weeks. Sanctions may change Putin's calculus over the long term but they won't stop his tanks next week. The West's tepid response to both Russia's invasion of Georgia and annexation of Crimea may have given Putin a sense of security (whether false or otherwise remains to be seen) and he has correctly deduced that first movers do have strategic advantage.  While the West plays catch-up, he can, and indeed has, prepared Russia to buffer itself from the West's long signaled response. Unless the West has some tactic we don't know about, Putin's hand, which he is playing close to his chest, seems for the moment far stronger. 

Putin may just have blinked

A Russian T-72B3 tank fires as troops take part
in drills at the Kadamovskiy firing range. AP

Six days ago I wrote that war in Ukraine seemed inevitable. But the anticipated day came and went, and on the day troops were supposed to have begun the assault on Ukraine, Putin said he was moving some away from their forward positions (though whether that was true is still debatable). 

My rationale was that in threatening Ukraine without actually invading, Putin had created, from his point of view, the worst possible outcome: the West was now unified against him, it was taking steps to insulate itself from his economic leverage through sales of gas, and it had not made the concessions Putin had been demanding. So there was and still is no further downside to invading besides the losses he has already racked up other than the loss of life of the Russian soldiers he would be sending in (for which he may care little other than for the impact that might have on his domestic political standing). 

On the upside, he would expand the Russian empire, something apparently dear to his heart. Yet he is hesitating, which may suggest that he is having second thoughts about going through with an invasion. His bluff appears to have been called and it is possible he may have folded. Of course it is still way too soon to tell as there remain over a hundred thousand troops at the ready near the Ukrainian border, and until they return to barracks, he could still invade at a moments notice. But assuming at least for the moment that he has, if not blinked, at least had a moment's hesitation, that in and of itself is significant. We will likely never know his thinking yet I'm sure intelligence analysts, think-tanks and journalists will be debating what this means for days, weeks if not years to come. 

Trump; the Neville Chamberlain of the 21st Century?

What has led Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine now (or at least early next week)? Little had changed on the ground. The West and NATO have not moved short or medium range weapons nearer to Russia. They have not positioned more troops nearer the Russian border. So it can't be a rising level of threat to which Russia is responding.  Perhaps it was the ousting of the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych? But that was eight years ago. Another theory is that Europe, and Germany in particular will be muted in its response to a military incursion by its dependence on Russian energy? But Nord Steam 2 is not yet operational so Germany's dependency would have been much greater a year from now, so that looks unlikely as a factor. 

What has changed in recent years is Donald Trump. It's not his fawning behavior toward Putin that may have led Putin to decide now is the time, but rather the sentiment his election uncovered and then amplified; that the US has no interest in maintaining the international order and little interest in conflicts that have no proximity to, or impact on, the US. Trump's America First approach, and its resonance with his acolytes on the right and even some anti-war folk on the left was enough indication to Putin that any repercussions would be manageable for him to take the decision to invade Ukraine. 

And so, bizarrely, not only will Trump have done enormous damage to democracy at home, he will also have helped shred the international order that has prevailed since the end of the Second World War.  Not only will the world be less safe and more conflict-prone as a result, but the economic prosperity enjoyed by countries, including America, that depended on trade and relative geopolitical stability, is now in serious jeopardy.  He should be Time magazine's man of the century.

Unexpected Consequences

If Sarah Palin wins her defamation suit against the New York Times, the far right which is relishing "sticking it" to the establishment and the main stream media, may before too long rue the day. 

If the Times, which maintains that the error was unintentional and quickly corrected looses, what does that mean for Fax and the even less scrupulous so calls "news" channels? The alleged offense was not in the paper's reporting but in its editorial, in other words an opinion piece. If the standard for defamation is relaxed and the protection from legal action the media have had enjoyed disappears, Fox and its kind will either have to clean up their act. It has claimed that there is a distinction between its news programs and its opinion programming. 

If an opinion piece in the Times is cause for a successful defamation suit, Hanity, Ingraham, Carlson and Shapiro may be in for a rough  ride. Perhaps those on the right should be a little more careful what they wish for. 

On the eve of war in Europe

It looks increasingly likely that early next week Europe will once again be at war; or at least Eastern Europe. What initially looked like first a ploy by Russia to extract concessions from NATO and the West, then a possible incursion into the eastern part of Ukraine where the population is mostly Russian-speaking now looks set to be a full stale occupation of a sovereign state.  That would effectively move the "iron curtain" almost half way back to its pre-Glasnost / Perestroika position. The West's lack of resolve is  reminiscent of the repose to Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland. Britain was sure that Hitler could be reasoned with. But that hope was in vain. The adage "give them and inch and they take a mile" looks ever more salient. 

The thought occurred to me today that Staw and Ross' paper on escalating commitment is partially applicable. Partially in that it is not clear that the course of action is a failing one, but their model of escalating commitment, from psychological to social to political is entirely appropriate here.

Putin's next move, for a long time unpredictable, now seems clear; how the West responds and the efficacy of that response will have ramifications for the international order, not just in Europe but in the Far East  as well, for decades to come.  

Honestly!

I have written frequently about the importance of trust for society; that in its absence, any economic exchange (social or monetary) incurs transaction costs. Like market failure, those additional costs will lead to some exchanges not taking place. Even without such missed exchange opportunities, the amount of exchange will fall as the cost of each rises. 

The corollary to loss of trust in a decline in honesty; a lack of honesty erodes trust. Being honest was once, nominally at least, widely shared societal value. Even if some (or many) were not honest in their dealing with others, few dared to admit that they did not think being honest was a good and lying was bad.  Increasingly that shared value seems to have eroded. 

The poster child for dishonesty was the country's 45th president. He lied frequently and blatantly but such was (and still is) his appeal to the highly motivated alt-right that now animates the GOP, no one dared correct him, let alone scold him, for his bad (i.e. lying) behavior. (One possibility is that most of those with whom he had much contact shared his disregard for honesty as a value).

Part of the battle around what tech companies allow on their platforms is about honesty. While the discussion is ostensibly about "misinformation" what many may be reacting to is the lack of respect for honesty as a core value. While not all misinformation is a lie, all lies are misinformation. But by lumping them together we no longer reinforce the idea that lying is unacceptable, or at very least something to be ashamed of, in a civilized society.   

It is telling that the more benign-sounding term, "misinformation" is now widely used; its seeming neutrality robs it of the value-laden component that was an important pillar of creating a set of shared values around right and wrong. A similar mealy-mouthed and now ubiquitous term is "claimed, without evidence". Presumably calling something a lie would expose publishers to deformation law suits since the burden on the defendant would be to prove that the misinformation was made with the knowledge that it was untrue and proving what was is someone's head can be tricky.     

The tech companies' defense is that the misstatements are not made by them but their users, thus they are not responsible for the misinformation and have no duty to police such statements.  This ignores the wider damage letting go of honest as a core value does to society.  

Since honest is a public good and trust is often (as it is in this instance) an externality for businesses, there is necessarily a role for government.  In Britain the Advertising Standards Authority regulates misleading and dishonest advertisements; in the US the Federal Trade Commission carries a similar charge. 

This is clearly a very contested question; go too far and government is regulating speech; do nothing and trust erodes and the fabric of society is undermined. At the moment the GOP is a beneficiary of widespread misinformation (the Big Lie being only the most recent and prominent example), but the embracing of exaggerated claims that stray into lies goes back a long way, from McCarthy, to Gingrich to McConnell. And it's not only the GOP; Biden has made some pretty dubious claims too (as has Bill Clinton). 

Increasingly the public is happy to ignore dishonesty it if serves their side's cause. With more dishonest, society's bifurcation accelerates and tribalism dominate dialog and compromise. Tribalism in turn creates a "end justifies the means" mentality that further weakens adherence to shared values like honesty. 

And that, in part, is what has led us to a point in time where the prospect of serious politically motivated civil unrest is no longer unthinkable.

Open letter to Sir Lewis Hamilton

Sir Lewis Hamilton,
c/o Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team
Operations Centre,
Brackley NN13 7BD,
United Kingdom

Dear Sir Lewis,

I am and have been an admirer of yours for well over a decade (in fact after your first season with McLaren).  I was absolutely gutted by Michael Masi’s (in my view) complexly wrong-headed decision in the Abu Dhabi GP. You dominated the race from the get-go only to have it stolen on the last lap. If I’m upset, I can only imagine how hard that was for you. 

I really wanted (and still do hope) to see you win an eighth world championship title. That would be a record that I doubt would ever be broken. I started following Formula 1 when Jackie Stewart, Jochen Rindt and Emerson Fittipaldi were at the top of the profession, so I‘ve seen a good many drivers come and go in 50+ years: and not one, other than Schumacher, has even come close to what you’ve accomplished. But with at least another season ahead of you, that eighth title is within reach. You would go down in history as the greatest driver of all time (an accolade I suspect you have already earned).

My point is this: I really hope you do decide to stay in the sport for at least another season, or until you bag that eighth title. These days, you are really the only reason I watch F1, so for me and all your fans, please don’t quit now.

Sincerely

Simon Rodan

This year and beyond

With Kyrsten Sinema blocking any changes to the filibuster rules in the Senate and Joe Manchin's refusal to support Build Back Better (BBB), two pillars of the Biden administration's agenda, Welfare reform and climate change, and voting rights protections, are going nowhere. Unless Democrat's change course they are set to loose both chambers this fall. And by 2024, with nothing accomplished, Biden (or whoever heads up the ticket) will loose the White House. That would mean another four years of Trump.   

The only possible solution I can see is to wipe the slate clean and bring two completely different bills forward. On voting rights access is secondary to counting, and that needs to be addressed as a top priority. Democrats can vote in ever larger numbers but if Republicans control whose ballots are counted, the Democrats will never win power again. With some completely new legislation focused on amending the Electoral Count Act and with a bit of luck something on impartiality in election administration and oversight, there may be enough Republicans in the Senate to overcome the filibuster. 

Pushing BBB is pointless now that Manchin has dug in; since he can't appear to back down the only way out to protect some of the provisions is to start from square one. It must be a smaller package so that Manchin can't complain about over-spending. And Democrats will have to decide on their priorities; climate change or social welfare reform. Again, some of the moderate GOP senators may think that climate change is serious enough to do something about.   

Absent this or a miracle, three years from now Trump will shuffle smugly back into the White House.       

Not quite what they expected

The Brighton Festival was a staple of my family's entertainment. So in 1979, when my mother received the festival program and saw John Williams was slated to play a concert, she bought tickets. 

The concert was, I think, in the Dome, an ornate Victorian era decor  theater in the center of Brighton.  

Some context is needed. My parents, or at least my father, were not big fans of popular music. The only contemporary music in the house was a 45 of Edith Piaf, and one of the Modern Jazz Quartet that for some reason was often played before I wend to bed when I was very young, perhaps one or two years old, to put me to sleep. It was affectionately known as "Ding-dong music", my term for the vibraphone at that age.  Otherwise it was Bach to Brahms; baroque to romantic, but nothing 20th century. Mahler, a favorite of my uncle Kurt, was tolerated but very seldom played. Mozart's Marriage of Figaro and the Magic Flute, by contrast, were routinely played alternate Sundays mornings.  But I digress. 

As we found our way to our seats, I was surprised to see a huge mixing desk in the middle of the stalls, not something one sees for a classical solo recital.  The concert began with "Westway" which starts with a driving synth keyboard riff played by Frances Monkman and the electric bass of Herbie Flowers.  It was something of a surprise to my parents, who had been expecting John Williams top be playing classical musics on acoustic guitar. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the show (I think there was a light show) and bought the group's first album, which I played as often as I was allowed at home until a year later when I bought my own record player, amplifier and speakers (the speakers I still have to this day). I don't recall my parents discussing the snafu; my father didn't care for Sky's music and my mother must have been mortified. Horizons weren't easily broadened; although since I'm almost the age my father was then, I wonder whether in five years or so I'll be similarly set in my ways.  

Rerecord, not fade away

Many who consider Trump's unprincipled pursuit power (and money) to be anathema to the office he recently held were hoping that after loosing the a bid to be re-elected in 2020, he would return to Mar-a-Lago to a life of golfing and shady property dealing. He did not.  Instead his thirst for affirmation, vindication and revenge have led him to continue his quest to be returned to the presidency.       

Had he melted from view, his more unsavory supporters, the white nationalists and the gun-wielding crack-pots (Taylor-Green, Boebert) or the simply craven (Gaetz, Hawely, Jordan, Gosar) might have been ousted or at least played a less influential role in GOP politics.  Not giving Trump the attention he so craves might have helped the GOP regain (what passed for) its senses.  That seems to have been the rationale for the Biden administration avoiding blaming Trump or even mentioning him in connection with events of January 6th.

That calculus has clearly changed. In his speech yesterday he pulled no punches. He went after Trump stridently and clearly. He laid bare the former president's flaws and the danger he and those like him represent to democracy. Biden's earlier calculus that Trump would fade away and so it would be counter productive to appear to criticize him (and by extension those who supported him) had changed. He has clearly concluded that Trump is not going away and his base is not, at least for the foreseeable future, likely to simmer down and accept the result of the 2020 election. Their rage and resentment that Trump fed to propel him into office is too deep-rooted to abate on its own; and so the risk of energizing that base by attacking Trump is moot; it remains fully energized.

Since not riling up Trump supporters is no longer an issue, the speech was aimed not at the die-hards, but the quasi independents who were members of the pre-Trump GOP. They may be persuaded if not to vote for a Democrat, at least not to vote for a GOP candidate which to all intents and purposes has become the National Front^[1] of America. Never Trumpers and Democrate can't win over all Trump's supported; but they might be able to get enough at the margin to make a difference.  Trump's base is what it is, and the only way of saving democracy from further erosion by Trump and his allies is to ensure that he doesn't get a second bite at the cherry. Because if he does, he wont by quite so inept in is efforts to subvert and exploit the highest office in the land next time around .  

^[1] The Nataionl Front (like it French equivalent the Front Nationale) is a party of white xenophobic anti-immigrant racists.

Appeal To Ignorance (Ad Ignorantium)

Jo Biden, in his speech commemorating the tragic events of January 6th attack on the Capitol, repeated  the assertion that that was no evidence of voter fraud. That's entirely true but unconvincing for many; the Appeal to Ignorance reasoning fallacy allows those who want to believe that was fraud to say that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  

It was this kind of reasoning that allowed people to say that there was no evidence that smoking was injurious to health so smoking must not be unhealthy; or that there was insufficient evidence that climate change was occurring or that if it was it was attributable to the burning of fossil fuels. Ultimately, however such reasoning falls away as sufficient evidence is gathered to dispel any doubt. 

While it might have been argued in November of 2020 that there was no evidence of voter fraud, that is no longer the case; there is now ample evidence that there was none. Those who wish to preserve democracy in America need to take a more definitive line, namely that the numerous court cases and investigation mean not simply that there is no proof of fraud, but that it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that there was no election fraud.   

Courage

Courage is doing what is right when is likely comes with significant personal cost. Cowardice is failing to act generally out of fear of personal loss when the moment demands.  The alt-right has been allowed to over the GOP because too many Republican members of Congress wither thought they could deal with and manager the extremists they were letting into their ranks or they underestimated the hold Trump and his alt-right followers had over voters. When it  became clear that both were misconceptions, Republican members of Congress were faced with a choice, go along or stand up for democracy and the established order they once avowed to defend. Collectively they could have done some, but it required sufficient number of courageous individuals to prevent them from being targeted and overwhelmed by the alt-right insurgents. Only a handful met that challenge. The result has been the annexation of the GOP by Trump (who has no principles but loves the power and the attention) and his alt-right helpers.  All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. 

“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”  John Stuart Mill, 1867

Peace for our time

In 1938, Prime-minister Neville Chamberlain proudly declared that he'd had a good conversation with  the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler and that they had a signed agreement guaranteeing "peace for our time". He and much of Britain then, were guilty of magical thinking. 

It appears that at least among some at The Economist, a similar self-delusion is prevalent. In reviewing Barbara Walter's book "How Civil Wars Start", it praises the book's theoretical analysis which sets out  a series of conditions that have lead to civil wars around the world: when they are somewhere between dictatorship and liberal democracy; when politics revolves around identity; grievance-mongers who are are creative creative liars; complacent cosmopolitans; when a large group fears it is losing status; when disgruntled members of an aggrieved group take up arms and social media accelerates the descent into bloodshed. This, the Economist says, is well argued. 

Then it concludes that "This far-fetched conclusion [that America is at risk of civil war] spoils an otherwise interesting book". That's pretty odd given that not just some but each and every one of Walter's six conditions are met.   

1. When they are somewhere between dictatorship and liberal democracy

Efforts to put the oversight of elections in the hands of partisans in Republican battleground stats moves the country away from liberal democracy; and fealty to an individual rather than a party or a set of principles is characteristic of dictatorships. The GOP is no longer a party of principles but a party in the thrall of one man.  

2. When politics revolves around identity 

Over the last 20 years, politics has evolved into struggles over identity, wither it be any number of white supremacists groups on the right, from the KKK to the Oath Keeps and the Proud Boys, or on the left, Black Lives Matter. Almost all loud political rhetoric in the US is rooted in a struggle for identity.  

3. Grievance-mongers who are are creative creative liars 

Here Donald Trump and his acolytes excel. Trump spent his four years in office lying incessantly and he taught us that almost nothing is to absurd to be believed, at least by some. When those lies are believed by a critical mass, you have a powerful movement. What was once the "alt-right" but is now the GOP generates lies, testes them on small social media platforms for their virulence, and those that work are launched into the right-wing mainstream through Fox and other right wing media platforms. .    

4. Complacent cosmopolitans

Like The Economist, the metropolitan, relatively cosmopolitans parts of the country are in denial; "that kind of thing happens in third-world countries but couldn't happen here". Yet that's precisely the kind of denial circulating on January 5th last year, until Trump and his supporters put that comforting myth to rest.  

5. When a large group fears it is losing status 

Whites in America, particularity those with little education, are seeing their prospects deteriorate. Having enjoyed positions of relative privilege for so long, the conflate their declining prospects with immigration. Understandably, they want to preserve not just their economic well-being but their way of life more broadly. They see their decline not only economically but also a decline in status. And since they see themselves not though the lens of class (which would give them common cause with many of groups on the left) but through the lens of race, they are drawn into increasingly radical white supremacist groups.  Indeed the wealthy are probably quite happy to encourage the use of identity as a conceptual frame since it divides the economically underprivileged into groups and sets them against each other, reducing their bargaining power to the befit of the wealthy.    

6. When disgruntled members of an aggrieved group take up arms and social media accelerates the descent into bloodshed 

This is exactly what we have seen; when heavily armed protesters turned up at the Michigan State House in January last year, there could be no clearer threat of the potential for armed conflict. While some argue this was just "cos-play", that complacency is dangerous. All it takes is one small miscalculation, for someone to pull their trigger (literally) and things escalate dangerously quickly. The Waco Siege and the Bundy standoff in 2014 both show how confrontation develops from a legal dispute into an armed conflict. It is also concerning that in many places, extremist groups are tacitly supported by local law enforcement who will often to turn a blind to the increasing threat of the use of arms to resolve disputes with state or federal authorities.

All of the conditions Water argues lead to civil conflict are present in the US, and The Economist agrees with her analysis; so it is remarkable that it falls in the trap of "that could never happen in America".  At least one writer for the newspaper it seems is a "complacent cosmopolitan".  

Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes was convicted on four counts of wire fraud in a court in San Jose yesterday. The case should have been about the appropriateness of business models widely used in Silicon Valley for software development to healthcare.  

Writing buggy code and fixing it after it breaks, a model arguably pioneered by Bill Gates with Windows, is, if not acceptable, reluctantly accepted by most of us since the consequences of an application behave in unexpected ways are usually not too terrible. 

But in healthcare (and self-driving cars) the consequences of mistakes from rushing a product to market are far more serious, raising the question "is a business model that emerged at the inception of the PC industry appropriate in setting where the consequences of mistakes may be deadly"?

The focus of Holmes' trial on the hurt to shareholders is unfortunate; perhaps that's what the prosecution could most easily prove. But in missing the distinction between cases where the harm is potentially lethal rather than simply annoying (or expensive), the case fails in building a precedent that might protect people from physical harm from poorly designed products that their producers know to be faulty.  At the same time it creates a needless damper on innovation in sectors where the consequences of bad design are irritating but not life-threatening.

The Capitol Insurrection: one year on

Today, a year on from the Capitol Insurrection it is worth reminding ourselves of the horror of a violent mob trying to change the outcomes of a free and fair election. 

The image of the Senate chamber being defended from rioters by plain clothed Capitol police with drawn weapons remains the most jarring image I can remember, not just from among those of the events of Jan 6th but ranking along side the images of the collapse of the Twin Towers. Both events signify the exposing of grave misconceptions; that the American homeland is invulnerable and that American democracy is safe, sacrosanct and a model for other countries.    

Looking back at my post on January 6th last year, the only thing that I think I got wrong was suggesting "we should be immensely thankful that it was just an episode". While the next election result the Republicans don't like may not lead to the storming of the Capitols (state or federal), the ground is being steadily prepared to make that unnecessary by the politicization of the institutions that oversee elections and gerrymandering. But while it may not be needed, the threat of highly organized right wing violence it still there and by all accounts is growing.

While the left is not blameless in terms of political violence, it lacks the discipline and organization of the heavily ex-military-infused far right. Compounding that asymmetry is that distinct possibility that  some in law enforcement may be more willing to make the law as they see fit rather than enforcing the laws that politicians with whom they disagree have enacted. But that is the subject of a separate post. 

For now we need simply to remember the horror of January 6th.   

     

    

Political irony, and no steal

Today is the anniversary of the Capitol Insurrection. As shocking as January 6th was to many Americans, what has happened since should be—but seemingly isn't—more so. The insurrection wasn't the cause of America's problem but the unexpected result of the confluence of a series of currents that produced what most had considered unthinkable; the possibility of a failure of democracy in a country that holds itself up to the world as its very model. Just as Great Britain took over half a century to come to terms with its decline, so it will be many years before Americans come to understand what they have allowed to happen. 

The prospects for democracy in America look bleak. The majority of Republicans, still in the thrall of Trump and the anger he and his enablers at Fox have stoked in his base, ultimately decided that their pact with the orange devil was their only route to power. So while many Republicans may have admitted privately that Trump had lost them both houses and the presidency, publicly buying into the Big Lie was their best strategy for regaining them. Their lack of steel in claiming a steal had take place marks a turning point in the decline in public trust in the institutions of democracy and order. It signals that we can pick and choose when to accept institutionally produced mandates and requirements.

That willingness to in essence 'take the laws into ones own hands' exposes a particular irony on the political right; ostensibly the party of law and order, the Republicans seem far more willing that Democrats to ignore the institutions of law and order when it suites them. There is an inherent tension between a party of law and order that also promotes rugged individualism. But that tension provides the basis for enormous fluidity; Republican run states can protest "states' rights" in opposing federal requirements yet use the power of the state to quash counties and districts in their state making similar claims of local autonomy.  Perhaps this was always the way; law and order suited Republican when it helped imposing their political agenda but are willing to ignore the law and promote disorder when those are the means to their ends.  

From individuals ignoring mask mandates, with local sheriffs announcing in public that state mandates won't be enforced, to the refusal to accept the outcomes of an election, America's democratic foundations are rotting away. Where this ends is far from clear. Many, including me, had hoped that after two impeachments and the loss of his reelection bid, Trump, and more importantly what he stood for, would subside back into the murky conspiratorial backwaters from which he emerged. But that didn't happen and the prospects that the country will be treated to a second bout of the MAGA infection look increasingly likely. So pervasive and effective has Trump's Big Lie been in undermining faith in American democracy, the chances of it  making a full recovery, were it to suffer a second Trump term, look perilously thin. Like covid, Trumpism looks set to become endemic.