Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Category: Electoral Politics Page 4 of 29

Trump Has Been A Fraudster All His Career, So What’s Changed?

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On September 28, 2023

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Trump was found guilty in a very interesting suit.

Judge Arthur Engoron, ruling in a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, found that Trump and his company deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork used in making deals and securing loans.

Engoron ordered that some of Trump’s business licenses be rescinded as punishment, making it difficult or impossible for them to do business in New York, and said he would continue to have an independent monitor oversee Trump Organization operations.

There are a few interesting things about this case.

  1. It’s was brought by the New York Attorney General, not any of the people Trump defrauded.
  2. It was a civil and not criminal case. The Attorney General first considered criminal charges, but then decided on a civil case. Guilt is found in civil cases on the “preponderance of evidence”, where criminal cases are decides on “reasonable doubt.” Guilt is a lot easier to find in civil cases.
  3. Everyone has known, for decades, that Trump was a fraudster and pulling various shenanigans. He wasn’t charged. Why? Because the sort of fraud he committed is endemic in the real estate industry: it is normal. So while it’s against the law, it isn’t usually enforced.
  4. This means Trump is being charged for something most real-estate developers are being allowed to slide on.
  5. The end effect here is to remove Trump’s control of a big chunk of his own empire, thus reducing his power and ability to fund his own campaign. (That isn’t likely to matter, he will be able to fund it with donations, unlike the first time.)

Obviously what has changed is that Democrats, and the cases are being brought by Democrats, don’t want him to be president again. This isn’t necessarily unreasonable: he did try and launch a coup, after all.

But as I’ve written before, it’s a change in elite consensus. This sort of thing used to be done rarely, and not at the Presidential level. It’s going to lead to a situation where both parties go after the other party’s leaders in jurisdictions they control.

In a sense, this is bipartisan. Republicans are using this mostly to challenge laws they hate, like those allowing abortion or trans-therapy. They do it in a jurisdiction they control, then count on the Supreme Court (under Republican control) backing them up in the end. Most, but not all of the time, the Supreme Court does.

Which leads to the question, what happens when all of these cases against Trump make it to the Supremes? All the Republicans aren’t Trumpists, some aren’t fans.

But a judicial hit policy is dangerous when you don’t control the supreme court.

Something to think about.

And, overall, this indicates a new era in American politics: the gloves are coming off, even more, on both sides and previous elite norms are changing.

This makes some sense when you consider that the US, in certain terms, is in decline. In the old days, there was plenty for everyone. But with the US is relative decline (and arguably absolute decline), and with elites having taken so much from the poor and middle class that there’s little more to loot, any further gains must come from each other.

Welcome to decline.

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Feinstein And the Ginsburg Betrayal

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On April 13, 2023

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So then:

Feinstein, who was hospitalized in early March for shingles and has remained in her San Francisco home since March 7, has missed 60 votes of the 82 taken in the Senate in 2023…

…Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on Monday that Feinstein’s absence from the Senate—and the Judiciary Committee specifically—will impede Democrats’ ability to confirm judicial nominees.

“I can’t consider nominees in these circumstances, because a tie vote is a losing vote in committee,”…

…Feinstein announced she won’t seek reelection in 2024 as a handful of Democratic House members vie for her seat. But she intends to serve out the rest of her term, which is set to end in January 2025.

Ginsburg had cancer. It was a type of cancer which was almost always fatal. She refused to step down from the Supreme Court when a Democratic president could easily appoint her successor, and as a result the Democrats lost a court seat. Ginsburg was looked up to by liberal women, but she betrayed them, though most can’t see past their hero worship to recognize that.

Feinstein is in a similar position: shingles isn’t the real issue, she has dementia and everyone know it. If she cared about the interests of her constituents she would step down immediately so that judges could be appointed and laws passed which need her support. It’s not that she’s a good Senator, she’s voted for a lot of crap, but Democratic appointed judges tend to be better than Republican appointed judges and the difference is important.

Given how bad her dementia appears to be it may be that this isn’t mostly on her: it could be her circle who are keeping her in. If so, they’re the one’s betraying, though she did pick them before age took its toll.

A leader who puts themselves first is not a leader, just someone looking out for themselves.

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Why The American Radical Right Is Powerful And The American Left Is Meaningless

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On January 9, 2023

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Watching “left wing” reactions to the Speaker’s election in the US House was instructive. Too many people were appalled when I pointed out that the left, the “Squad” specifically, could have done the same thing to get concessions in 2024.

If you were appalled at the idea then you are not a member of the left in any useful way.

(That statement and this post will occasion another torrent of abuse in the comments for me to throw into spam, and laugh about. If you think that after 30 years online, most of it moderating comments, you can insult me in a way I haven’t heard before, you are a fool as well as a piece of human garbage.)

You have power in electoral politics when you can deliver or deny votes and money and get people elected or un-elected. That’s the bottom line.

Usually when a House member tries to vote in a way that the party leadership doesn’t like, they are threatened with the cut off of money or votes.

Right wing Republicans have power because they can deliver votes and money. Right wing Republicans who chose to get concessions in exchange for the votes in the House Speaker election (which is an entirely democratic thing to do an in line with what the founders intended) have their own, largely small money, donor networks. They don’t need the Republican money machine. Furthermore their voters expect them to act on their stated beliefs.

The difference with the Squad is instructive. They claim to have left wing beliefs, but won’t vote them when it matter. Either they are scared of the threats made by leadership, or they don’t really believe their beliefs, or they know their supporters don’t really believe and won’t hold them to account. If you won’t do something when you have the power to do it, you don’t really believe in it.

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This, by the way, is why the Netroots movement failed. For a while we had influence and were a rising power in the Democratic power.

Why? Because we could raise money from sources Democrats couldn’t; we could deliver votes and we threatened incumbents with primaries.

The Netroots lost because Obama figured out how to bypass us to get the money and votes without us and our primary threat proved weak.

The radical right has succeeded to a large extent because the institutional Republican party has not been able to bypass them and their primary threat is real. They stand a good chance of winning many primary challenges and they will make an incumbent’s life miserable if crossed.

The voters are loyal to their beliefs and, while not perfect, do have an expectation that their representatives will represent those beliefs. You may laugh at them for supporting even Trump, say, but if so you’ve missed the point: Trump gave them what they wanted most, control of the Supreme Court and an end to Roe vs. Wade. Those of you old enough will remember when Bush Jr. was forced to back down on his preferred Supreme Court nominee because she was too moderate and nominate someone acceptable to the pro-life movement.

No political movement has power if its “supporters”” do not actually vote their beliefs; donate based on their beliefs; volunteer based on their beliefs and hold their elected and un-elected representatives responsible when they violate those beliefs. (This doesn’t mean you expect reps to be perfect, but on whatever matters most — say abortion for right wingers — you hold them accountable.)

If you can be peeled off because of appeals to lesser evildom or some-such, you make your movement weak and your beliefs are worthless. Without solidarity and accountability there can be no movement which matters.

I don’t agree with radical Republicans about almost anything (except that the world and America would better off if the US interfered a lot less in other counties business). They are, essentially, my ideological enemies, though so are mainstream Democrats and Republicans.

But they have power because they have solidarity and they expect and get results from their representatives. The American left refuses to use power when it has it, and its members just want performative leftism from the likes of AOC. They don’t want or expect results and they display little solidarity, and that why for over 50 years the left in the US (and the UK) has staggered from defeat to defeat.

(There’s some conflation in this article between Republican groups, that’s unavoidable. But basically the bleeding edge, wherever it is, has been winning internal Republican party battles for about 50 years. The left edge has been losing those battles and that’s why America has become an authoritarian dumpster fire with soaring inequality which is in possible terminal collapse.)

We’ll talk a little more about real belief and the use of power soon.

 

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The Republican House Speaker Votes Show Progressive’s Disbelief In Their Own Legitimacy

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On January 6, 2023

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So, 4 days, 13 votes as of this writing. A small band of right wing House members are holding candidates hostage.

To win the bloc of rebels thwarting his rise, McCarthy was apparently prepared to agree to conditions that he had not been previously willing to accept. That includes reinstating a rule that would allow a single lawmaker to force a vote to remove the speaker, effectively placing himself at the mercy of his detractors who could trigger a vote at any point.

McCarthy and his allies hope the concessions and several other commitments will be enough to persuade enough holdouts to drop their objections and end the stalemate that has clouded the opening days of their new majority.

In 2020 Democrats had a House margin of 9 members. Five members, committed to vote as a bloc, could have held Pelosi or any other candidate to ransom until they got what they wanted.

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You have power if you’re willing to use it. The “Squad” is a joke because when they have leverage, they don’t use it. They don’t really believe in their own ideology: they don’t think they have the right to force other Democrats to govern better.

Republican right wingers, as much as I disagree with them, know how to use power. They don’t believe they are illegitimate.

Until left-wingers get over the idea that exercising power is bad, they will remain meaningless, and politics in most of the developed world will continue its 50 odd year swing to the right.

Podcast Interview On US Politics and the Midterms

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On December 7, 2022

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I sat down with Chris Oestereich for a fairly long interview. He’s split it into three parts.

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“Trump Did More for Me than Biden Ever Did”

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On December 14, 2021

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So, read this recently:

Makes the point pretty clearly, I’d say. Even people I know who hate Trump admit he did more for them than any other President of their life. People who got the additional unemployment, in particular, often had the longest good period of their lives — where they didn’t have to work and had enough money.

Whatever you think of the policy, Trump gave people money or helped with their student loans, and Biden is taking money away from them and leaving them vulnerable to eviction.

I can’t see how there is any way, absent some big surprises, that the Democrats don’t get wiped out in 2022, and it won’t just be “off years, we lose.”

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The problem is that Republicans now feel more populist than Democrats; they appear more willing to just give money or help. It may be true that Republicans and a couple Democratic senators de-railed a lot of the good Biden wanted to do, but that doesn’t matter on the ground. If Biden can’t do good things or doesn’t want to (the truth is both), who cares? The end result is the same if your student loans re-start, your unemployment checks stop, and you get evicted.

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Not only isn’t Biden FDR, he isn’t even going to look as helpful as Trump.

The Next US President

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On February 27, 2021

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Back in 2010, looking at Obama’s actions in his first term, I predicted the next president after him would be a “right wing populist.” (Scare quotes in original.)

Biden appears to have given up on the $15 minimum wage. He’s cut the promised $2,000 check to 1,400 and said that he’s OK with means testing it. He opened a new “children’s detention center” (aka: kids in cages.) He doesn’t want to forgive student loans, something he could do entirely on his own authority.

Now Obama did make 8 years, since he was very smooth, but he lost seats, including c.1K state level seats, then the US got Trump in 2016. Electorally, the only wings Obama had after 08, were for himself.

In 2024, Republicans are likely to be able to say, and be telling the truth, that “Trump gave you more money than Biden.” Trump himself may run, and stand a good chance of winning. If it’s Hawley, he’ll have the Trump base and be able to accurately say he fought for $15 and larger Covid relief checks.

But Democrats, again, are refusing to make a positive case for electing them. They refuse to do big, obviously good things for the majority of Americans, so the argument will be “we’re better than /them/.”

Works, till it doesn’t. Running on fear generally loses to running on Hope. Obama ran on Hope in 2008, but Dems since then have run on “we aren’t Republicans.”

People prefer hope to fear when voting.

So my bet is that the next President of the US will be a Republican “right wing populist.”  The only possible antidote would be someone like AOC getting the nod. She has problems, but she can run a campaign of hope. However, it’s clear that the Democrats will do everything up to an including cheating to avoid a progressive as Presidential candidate, and I strongly suspect that Democratic apparatchniks, like their UK Labour compatriots, would actively work against a progressive presidential candidate, preferring a Republican win.

Hope everyone’s looking forward to Trump again, or Trump 2.0.

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Biden Is Determined To Lose Congress In 2022

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On February 1, 2021

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One thing I admire about Biden is his principles. He’s spent his life hurting little people, and something as minor as holding Congress isn’t going to make him change his ways now. Make a promise, win an election, break your promise in the most weasely and public way possible.

I’m talking about $2,000 checks. There is no question this is what Democrats promised if Georgia elected two Democratic Senators.

And Biden promised this specifically:

A day before Georgians head to the polls to decide control of the Senate, President-elect Joe Biden sought to cast the election as a choice between immediate stimulus relief or months of gridlock, promising that victory by Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff would mean $2,000 stimulus checks would be sent out “immediately.”

After Georgia did, indeed, give Biden two Democratic Senators and control of the Senaate. Biden walked this back to $1,400 — saying that the previous stimulus bill had already paid $600. Now he’s been saying that perhaps the checks should be means tested, so only some people will get $1,400 checks.

This is all weaseling. It is recognized as such by ordinary people. Biden is proving that he simply can’t be trusted to do what he says, when he makes a clear promise.

Now perhaps the bill can’t pass: perhaps. But you still do it: you bring and simple up and down bill with only the checks and make people vote for and against it. Odds are some Republicans will vote for it (Hawley, for one) so you can lose a Democrat or two.

Failure to do this will be remembered. People thought they were going to get $2k, they aren’t going to get it, and they will hold a grudge on this. No ordinary person will trust a word Biden says from this point on.

Nor should they.

Billionaires, on the other hand, will find he remains a good friend.

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