The Great Negotiator

For reasons that still escape me, news media pundits have been analyzing (in my view foolishly in real time) the Putin–Trump summit. It is a pointless exercise for several reasons.

Historically, summits are the culmination of painstaking preparation by lower-level staffers working through most issues in advance. The leaders then arrive to finalize details and present an apparent breakthrough to their domestic audiences. A great summit is one in which substantive progress is achieved; a good summit is one in which there are no surprises. In Alaska, the meeting was neither: the surprise was the United States appearing to back down and accept Putin’s position. Yet in another sense the outcome was entirely predictable. President Trump has always rejected this model of diplomacy, insisting that his unrivaled personal negotiating skills could secure any outcome he wanted at the table. Experience from his first term, most notably the failure of his direct diplomacy with North Korea, demonstrated the fallacy of that approach.

Let's be clear: the Alaska summit was never intended to produce a settlement of the war in Ukraine. Its principal purpose was domestic. Trump needed something to distract media attention from the damaging Epstein files controversy.

More than two hundred days after loudly proclaiming he would end the war in Ukraine on his first day in office, the summit did nothing to bring peace any closer.  But there were unexpected gains--for Russia. Trump backed away from his call for a ceasefire, muted his threats of further sanctions, and effectively accepted the military status quo. In return he received little more than flattery from Vladimir Putin, who has long understood that the currency Trump values most is personal adulation. More broadly, the summit served to restore Russia’s diplomatic standing, allowing Putin to appear once again as a legitimate player on the international stage. 

The Alaska summit reaffirmed what has been evident since his descent on the gilded escalator over a decade ago: Trump treats governing as theater, subordinating policy to spectacle and the national interest to his own need for attention and profit. Yet nine years after Trump first entered the White House, the broadcast media still has not figured out how to cover him. Analysts continue to treat his appearances as though they were good-faith attempts at governance when in fact they are performances of often unintelligible babble, interspersed with "alternative facts" masquerading as policy. At least on The Apprentice his performances were loosely anchored in a domain where he had some experience. In office, they rest only on his fantasies of what strong leaders do. 

Marshall McLuhan, in his 1964 book "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man" warned us that "the medium is the message", The folly lies not only in Trump’s theatrics, but in the media’s pointless attempts to interpret them as though substance mattered; with Donald Trump, it has always been about the performance.

Jim Jordan, where are you now?

Does anyone remember Jim Jordan serving on the House Select Committee on Benghazi? During what seemed like weeks of hearings, in which he and his GOP colleagues tried to blame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the deaths of  United States Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, Jordan lambasted Clinton for sending email on her private email server that should have been deemed classified at the time they were sent, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". 

(As an aside, Jordan and Gowdy's efforts to keep the matter in the public eye, and James Comey's decision to reopen the investigation which he has previously closed were likely significant contributors to Trump's election victory in  2016).   

Nine years on we have what appears to be an far more more egregious lapse in security.  Peter Hegseth, Trump's (utterly unqualified) Secretary of Defense used a group chat on the Signal platform to circulate information about an impending US military strike on Houthi terrorist leaders in Yemen.  

While the chat never explicitly labeled the details as 'war plans'", Hegseth's claim that this wasn’t a disclosure of 'war plans'—despite listing targets, timing, and tactics—is laughable; and that he couldn't come up with a better defense speaks volumes in and of itself.   

So where is Jim Jordan, defender of our national security and the rules on classified information that we need to keep our operational military personal safe and our military interventions effective?  Clinton endured eleven hours of televised questioning and a months-long FBI probe. Where's Jordan on Hegseth's screw-up?  Is he calling for an FBI probe, public hearings, resignation? Of course not; he's complete silent!  His grandstanding was never about national security.  It was always about scoring political points.  

Lame duck? Not yet

E.J. Dionne suggested in his opinion piece today that because this must be Donald Trump's last term, the Senate, and the GOP more broadly, will not be quite as comploientt as Trump might have wanted.  That's wishful thinking. Trump doesn't play by the old rules, rules that tended to restrict political leverage to the political sphere. He is quite prepared to use any means possible to get his way, whether it be whipping up public fervor against his enemies or using the legal system to harass them.  Neither are likely to diminish in potency any time soon. In his campaign, he clearly signalled intent to use the Department of Justice to harass his political opponents. And as the undisputed and charismatic leader of the MAGA movement, his power to apply pressure and ultimately to incite violence against his enemies doesn't depend exclusively on being president, as he ably demonstrated on January 6th 2021.  He has plenty of time to threaten and if needed punish anyone who gets in his way; and as he has said so, explicitly, there can be little doubt that he will. 

Pushing the envelope

This week Donald Trump picked John F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services, Matt Gaetz for Attorney General, Pete Hegseth for secretary of Defense and Gabbard for director of National Intelligence.

It was always on the cards that none of his pick would be made on the basis of fit or competence, but in these four at least that may be two other motivating factors. The first is to create an early loyalty test for those that require Senate confirmation which these four do.  Not only do not of these candidate have the qualifications or relevant experience for the posts, they are also known public figures that are lightning rods for public support from the MAGA movement, and ire and angst from liberals. Their notoriety creates pressure on the Sante as they decide which way to vote.  Those who chose not to support Trump's picks will be marked 'personae non grata' and the consequences for their futures should not be underestimated.   

The second is to create a straw man for subsequent picks should his fist be rejected.  By nominating the most extreme candidates first Trump may be offering them as sacrifices to garner an obligation from the Senate to confirm subsequent appointments. 

Whoever finally takes up theses posts, one thing is clear; they will not be the political insiders or career civil servants one would normally expect.   

Misconstruing Donald Trump

For nine years we have tended to think of Donald Trump as a real estate mogul turned politician, and as chief executive of a business empire and then of the country.  Perhaps that's part of why the Democrats lost last week. We saw him at his rallies as he tried out new nicknames for his opponents; much of the media coverage was dismissive and condescending.  But rather than thinking of his rambling speeches as policy proposals and position statements, perhaps they are better viewed as comedy routines that he was refining in real time in much the same way that stand-up comics refine their material on the comedy circuit.  Moreover, while the Democrats use consultants to test their messaging with small focus groups, Donald Trump gets feedback from a much bigger group (albeit with a selection bias) and gets paid by his rally attendees for the privilege.

Gales of creative political disruption

In one of the many immediate post-election opinion pieces someone compared Trump's policies to the "gales of creative destruction", a term coined by the Austrian economist, Joseph Schumpeter in his 1934 book "The Theory of Economic Development"[1].  It's an interesting but ultimately flawed analogy.

While social media can bee seen as the technological shift that has created the context for innovation in the political area, there are two critical differences. 

First in business there are clear outcomes that determine which experiments fail and which succeed. The process of variation, selection and retention (which the strategy literature borrowed from evolutionary biology) relies on the selection of the more fit experiments to be retained; but it's unclear that in politics there is a strong relation between measurable outcomes and retention.  (While James March argued in Exploration and Exploitation"[2] that too swift a convergence on one solution precluded experimentation that could 1) lead to a more advantageous position on a hilly (rugged) landscape and 2) prevented adaptation to a slowly changing context, abandoning any connection between the quality of outcomes and retention is more  even problematic).

Second, Schumpeter envisioned a large number of entrepreneurial experiments from which one might emerge as a winner, and has Tushman and Anderson[3] have suggested, would for a period become the dominant paradigm. The analogy to the political arena is that at any point in time there is generally only one experiment, not many, and there can be no cross-sectional comparisons by which to select a more fit approach.  This analogy becomes more disturbing when one realizes that 99% of new ventures fail. That's why logical incrementalism[4,5] is a safer course.  

[1] Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press.

[2] March, J. G. (1991). "Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning." Organization Science 2(1): 71-87.

[3] Tushman, M. and P. Anderson (1986). "Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments." Administrative Science Quarterly 31: 439-465.

[4] Lindblom, C. E. (1952). "The Science of Muddling Through." Public Administration Review 19(2): 77-88.

[5] Quinn, J. B. (1980). Strategies for Change; Logical Incrementalism, Richard D. Irwin.

How to stem the tide?

Just as it did in 2016, Democrats are "going to have to do some soul searching" to understand why their candidate lost to someone who none in their party thought should be electable; but he was - elected.  

In the 16 hours since the presidential race was called for Donald Trump by the AP, major print media platforms have generated page after page of analysis, reflection and recrimination. And just like 8 years ago, there's an almost unanimous call to fundamentally rethink the Democratic party's messaging and policy priorities; but the party is no more likely to turn back the tide of disillusion that is now so clearly sweeping the country than it was then. 

Was is Biden's fault for seeking a second term? Was it the shortness of Harris' campaign? Or the tactical errors in favoring the "ground game" over social and digital media?  The answer certainly includes "all of the above".  Yet that seems to ignore the larger question: how is it that Trump's messaging resonated with more voters than Harris' ?  

The answer it seems to me stems from the increasing isolation of the governing class, particularly on the left,  from the concerns of everyday people.  Is it right to care more about middle class transgender rights than the struggles with poverty in rural communities, even though they are white.  The notion of "white privilege" doesn't sit well with (white) voters in rural communities who are also living paycheck to paycheck. 

Decades ago, the Democrats were the party of the working (in the US 'middle') class while the Republicans were the party of business.  But that's changed.  Now the Republicans claim to speak for the working stiff, while while Democrats spend their time in identitarian classification.  What they have overlooked to their cost is just as now all white people are racist and reactionary, not all people of color are progressives. 

I was stuck by this the cartoon from the Washington Post. The one thing that might help is missing from the suggested "coping mechanisms" - Listening to those you think you  disagree with.  It's something we all need to do more if but most of all its something the political class need to start doing.  Without becoming more responsive to people's everyday concerns the tide will not turn.

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 Word" (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.       

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".

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. 

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. 

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.