Blackcap Blog

Published at 17:13 on 25 January 2019

And it worked out spectacularly well for them: they got everything they wanted out of the standoff. This could prove to be a real watershed moment.

First, Mitch McConnell is a long-time skeptic about government shutdowns, believing they are far more likely to hurt than help the fortunes of those who instigate them (typically, Republicans). Like most Republicans, he has become cowed by Trump. Now, Trump’s strategy has blown up. This is likely to cause McConnell revert to old form on shutdowns, and smack down any future talk from Trump about such things. And McConnell has the power to smack such talk down, hard: threaten to pass a bipartisan CR with a veto-proof majority. Give Trump the choice between the humiliation of backing down and signing or the greater humiliation of a veto override. Or, more likely: backing down, hushing up the private conversation in which the threat was made, and publicly professing support for the CR. (In fact, exactly such a scenario might have been what prompted Trump to cave today.)

Second, assume an alternate history in which the Democrats caved. Trump would have been rewarded for his bluster. He has just learned by experience that he has an ace up his sleeve by which to cow Pelosi into obeying his will. What are the odds he’d continue to play that particular card? Near certain, of course. Democrats would then lurch from defeat to bitter defeat. Result: dispirited Democrats and a rejuvenated and Trumpier-than-ever GOP. This would pave the way not only for a long series of legislative defeats, but for a defeat in 2020. (Why, after all, should voters support a party that is repeatedly demonstrating the depths of its own craven ineptitude?)

This time, thankfully, the wise choice was made.

Published at 09:39 on 25 January 2019

Just how is left-wing authoritarianism even a thing? I’m not denying it is actually a thing; I’m wondering how it can be. And if your blood pressure is rising rapidly to the boiling point at the mere mention of the phrase “left-wing authoritarianism,” then just consider the decades-long history of the USSR and its all-too-large retinue of political sycophants.

For me the essence of what “the left” is goes right back to the origin of the terms left and right in a political context: the French Revolution. Actually, it predates the French Revolution: there has been a very long tradition of the right side being the favored side and the left being the disfavored one, which is probably grounded in the simple fact that most humans are right-handed. This led to a tradition, in the West at least, of those with the most favor of the monarch sitting to his or her right in court. When parliaments evolved, that led to a tradition of the regime’s supporters sitting to the monarch’s right in parliament.

So when the Estates General was finally reconvened in response to growing unrest after decades of being moribund, those who supported the ancien regime sat in the accustomed place for such parliamentarians. They became referred to as “the right” and their opponents “the left.” These terms have stayed with us to the present day.

At the core of being a leftist, then, is being against the ruling establishment, whatever that establishment happens to be in the current social context. Or perhaps I should say at the core of being a leftist for me, because it is clear that is not the case in general (if it were, left-wing authoritarianism would not exist, being a contradiction in terms).

Again, you can trace it right back to the days of the French Revolution, in this case how that revolution went seriously wrong and degenerated into a Reign of Terror, wherein the professed revolutionaries had become a new and tyrannical ruling class. At that point, suddenly being “on the left” meant being a loyal and fervent supporter of organized, corecive authority. At least, it did for many.

I think the only thing it can be chalked up to is an aspect of human nature; namely, how conformity leads people to respect and follow leaders. It’s the same troublesome thing that makes authority and hierarchy so tragically easy to evolve and persist in the first place. Whether one’s political proclivities lead one to consider this aspect a bug or a feature, it should be clear from any study of human history that it is very much a thing.

So there’s my answer. Like many answers, it begs a question: what can we do about it? I could now go on to answer that, but instead I think I’ll close and let the reader think about it for a while.

Published at 17:01 on 24 January 2019

So, it looks like the Chávez-Maduro regime in Venezuela is on the ropes yet again. Some points:

1. Realize that we’ve been here before, only to see the regime bounce back. So don’t think this is necessarily the regime’s last days.
2. Those reading this who count themselves, as I do, as among the regime’s opponents should realize that the USA’s very blemished record of intervention in Latin America means it’s best to stand back, play a supporting role, and let other Latin American nations (of which there are a number interested in doing so) take the lead in this.
3. Those reading this who count themselves as among the regime’s supporters should study its record better and realize how bad the regime there really is, and how much of the problems there are the fault of the government, its corruption, its authoritarianism, and its mismanagement. Start by going here and studying Amnesty International’s reports on Venezuala from about 2004 onwards.

Per that third point, compare and contrast Venezuela with Bolivia, which although it has growing problems with authoritarianism of its own, has still been much better at managing economic policy than Venezuela․ Bolivia has managed to make significant progress against poverty and inequality without crashing the economy․

Published at 12:03 on 23 January 2019

It has for some time been remarkable that the right has been so obsessed about her; it’s as if she lives in right-wing pundits’ heads rent free. Now the global Davos elite is throwing shade her way. More significantly, she’s secured an appointment to the powerful House Oversight Committee.

Remember, she’s just a single freshman Representative, one who was politically a complete nobody just over a year ago. I can’t think of anyone else who has acquired so much power in Congress so rapidly.

Published at 06:48 on 16 January 2019

Really, now, why shouldn’t Federal employees walk off the job en masse? Let’s deal with the two main objections to strikes:

1. Strikes cost striking employees money (because they aren’t being paid while striking). In this case, however, they aren’t being paid even when not striking.
2. Strikes are a drastic measure. Well, hello! Isn’t not being paid so much as a cent for twenty-five days and running a drastic measure?

Figure out which agencies would impact Trump voters the most, and shut those down with strikes.

Or just strike some high-profile agencies that would cause widespread chaos and disruption if shut down, such as the TSA and the air traffic control system. (Maybe start that one on a weekend when Congress is mostly out of DC visiting constituents in their home district. Perhaps first focus on the airports that serve prominent Republicans.)

But really, why should Trump think he can: shut down the government (and he’s made it clear in his comments that it’s his shutdown), get away with not paying people, and expect them to continue working as if nothing has happened?

Published at 09:22 on 12 January 2019

This time it’s Jennifer Rubin, who after spending columns hoping for the Democrats to avoid the temptation of populism and nominate a candidate from the right of their party, suddenly concludes that the candidate they need is… a progressive populist!

This doesn’t make logical sense, of course, but guess what? Logic and facts are not what win elections. (If they were, Trump would have been eliminated early in the primaries.) Ideally, they should be, but “what should be” and “what actually is” are two different things. To be successful, a candidate needs to triumph in the political process that actually exists, not in some alternate theoretical process that might hypothetically exist.

As I’ve said before, Brown appears to be a uniquely skilled messenger. So far as I can tell, he’s probably the leftmost viable candidate the Democrats have.

Is he ideal? Of course not! No establishment politician is. But overall a Brown presidency would be a vast improvement on what we currently have, and offers at least the hope of catalyzing movements from below that would push for more sweeping and needed change.

Published at 07:29 on 8 January 2019

It’s not just the left wing of the Democratic Party that seems to be settling in on “hell no” as the answer to Trump’s border wall. Never Trump conservatives David Frum, Rick Wilson, and Tom Nichols all appear to be settling in on it as well. Wilson in particular is significant, as he is quite good at telling when the Democrats are vulnerable (he made a career of it as a Republican political consultant). More significant yet is this rant by newly-elected centrist (so far to the right in the Democratic Party that he was one of the small group of centrists who thought Pelosi too liberal to be speaker) Representative Max Rose.

It’s really starting to appear as if there’s an increasingly strong consensus among the Democrats to stand firm and not be pushed around on this, and increasing wavering on the Republican side about standing firm. This was always a very real possibility (it’s why I gave the Democrats significantly lower odds of caving than is typical).

If the Democrats do cave, it will just make things worse for them. It will teach Trump that the Democrats are indeed the party of craven weakness. He will continue to use shutdowns or the threat thereof to neuter the opposition. Voters, meanwhile, will lose faith in the Democrats; more will decide to sit things out (or back third parties) in the next election, given how disappointing the results of voting Democratic were in 2018.

Time will tell which of the two outcomes happens, of course, but as of now things are hinting at the encouraging option being the more likely one.

Published at 08:19 on 7 January 2019

I’ve mentioned that the odds favor Trump eventually prevailing in this thing. But in doing that, I also mentioned that those odds are far less than the odds of the Democrats normally caving are. Say, about 55% instead of a more normal 90% chance of success in a staring match with Democrats.

A 45% risk of failure is a pretty big risk, and it didn’t have to be this way for Trump. He has a base of loyal followers whose beliefs ride on his every word. If Trump announced shit was tasty, turds would become a common meal amongst his base.

As such, there was no need to engage in this big gamble. There’s already hundreds of miles of barrier, much of it high and formidable enough to easily qualify as a “wall” under any common meaning of the term, which were erected mostly during the administrations of his predecessors.

Trump could have staged a photo-op or three along a new or recently-refurbished stretch of the existing wall, then strut around and boast he was “building the wall” as promised. Proclaim a big win.

The pesky non-Trumpist media would call him on that, of course, but it wouldn’t matter. Trump being called on his lies hasn’t mattered much to his base before, so why would being called on one more lie matter so much? He’d get away with it… in spades. Problem solved.

Worse yet for Trump, a prolonged shutdown in which the Democrats stand firm has the highest chance yet of being the sort of tipping point I wrote of last summer. The longer it lasts, the greater the chance of some Senate Republicans staging a revolt. If Trump has to back down, it will be a very humiliating defeat that will be very difficult to gloss over for his base. He could try a state of emergency, but that’s an even riskier option.

Remember, all of the above was optional, even from the standpoint of Trump wanting to continue to pander to his base. There was simply no need to engage in this high-stakes gambit. That Trump did anyhow puts the lie to any claim of him being a master strategist.

 

Published at 10:50 on 6 January 2019

“Issue” is in quotes because it doesn’t deserve the dignity of being called an actual issue. It’s the stupidest farce of a so-called “issue” I’ve seen come up in a long time.

Stupid not because the government can’t endlessly engage in deficit spending without consequences. Stupid not because it isn’t a good idea to try and pay down the debt during a recovery. Stupid not because it mandates underfunding anything. Stupid because it’s a totally meaningless gesture.

You see, any pay-as-you-go legislation would take the form of a plain old bill that gets passed by both the House and the Senate and signed into a plain old law by the President. That’s it. Just a law. Not an amendment to the US Constitution, just a plain old garden-variety law.

Guess what? Laws contradict each other all the time. What happens when that happens? Simple, the new law nullifies the old one. The most complicated case is if (like Paygo) a law regulates what kind of laws can be passed. Even that’s not very complicated: all the new law needs to legally override the old one is to insert a section revising the old law to exempt the new one from it.

The only way to avoid this is to make the “new law” take the form of an amendment to the US Constitution. That’s the supreme law of the land, and every plain old law must conform to it or it can be ruled unconstitutional and nullified by the courts. A new amendment, of course, would take years to enact, and success is hardly guaranteed. So nobody is considering it. Paygo will be a plain old law. As such, it will be meaningless.

But suppose, hypothetically, Paygo were implemented via a balanced-budget amendment. What then? Surely, that would change things!

Actually, probably not. Any such amendment would almost certainly not simply require balancing the budget, full stop. It would require balancing the budget unless some duly-certified crisis requires running a deficit to fund emergency measures.

Every major war the USA has been in, particularly the big defensive ones (the Revolutionary, the Civil, and the Second World) have been financed by deficit spending. A simple, ironclad balanced budget amendment (no exceptions allowed) would thus constitute a significant national security threat in and of itself.

Then there’s the paradox of thrift. Recessions and panics, absent prompt intervention that is funded by running deficits, tend to spiral out of control into severe and prolonged depressions. A simplistic balanced budget amendment would seriously imperil economic stability as well.

For these reasons, there would be an escape clause. And at that point, the amendment becomes basically a bunch of useless clutter in the US Constitution, since of course Congress would deficit spend whenever it wanted, simply by putting language in the bill that is necessary to trigger the escape clause.

So, no matter how you slice it, pay-as-you-go is a meaningless exercise. It does nothing more than make fiscal conservatives temporarily feel good and fiscal liberals temporarily feel bad.

Can we please move on to some actually meaningful issues now?

Published at 11:54 on 4 January 2019

The Shutdown Might Be Lengthy

It may even prove to be record-setting. The reason is that the Democrats have historically been a party that values weakness and concession; they interpret this as an expression of peaceful intent. This is so obvious that even an intellectual light weight like Donald Trump is well aware of it. Given that, the odds favor the Democrats caving. Not by as much as they typically do, mind you, (the wall is extremely unpopular amongst Democrats), but they still favor a Democrat cave. And given that, why wouldn’t Trump want a staring contest?

A Record-Long Shutdown Might Doom Both Parties

That’s simply because it would end up causing real hardship and probably provoking a severe recession, and this would provide an opening for a centrist party or movement to arise that campaigns on a “pox on both your houses” platform. There’s risk to it, though; it could also provide a pretext for the fascists to go full fascist (though I place that as an outside chance, given what an incompetent leader Trump has proven to be).

That implies that the Republican Party will be one of the two doomed parties. Trumpism won’t be doomed into oblivion, but it would likely emerge seriously damaged, at least 50% smaller than it currently is. In turn, this would make Trumpism itself essentially irrelevant as a national political force, at least for several years. This would definitely be a very good thing; it is the reason I am hoping the Democrats stand firm.

Alternately, it might not doom the parties; it might instead profoundly change them, provoking a wholesale sweeping purge of the leadership of both. The overall political effect would probably be the same: the reconstituted parties would move strongly to the center, and a centrist consensus would emerge.

It’s an Open Question If That Would Happen

First, there’s the Democrats’ natural proclivity for weakness. Second, there’s the natural inclination for any organization, including any political party, to be concerned with its future.

It certainly would be better for the country and better for the world as a whole if the above scenario transpired; the death of the Democratic and Republican parties is a very small price to pay for kicking fascism to the curb and hitting a political reset button. But it’s far from certain that the Democratic Party would choose to fall on its sword like this.

Any Centrist Backlash Would Not Last

It would probably last five to ten years, and might (in the most optimistic of scenarios for centrists) last twenty. The reason is the basic dynamics of class society, and how centrists are blind to it.

Those on top always want more. Their hunger is never satiated, and their ideology blinds them to the harm this lust for more does. They will therefore strive for more. Centrists are largely blind to this (and most other) aspects of class society, so they will prove incapable of resisting this impulse. Any new centrist movement will become captured by, and become the tool of, the elite.

This will inevitably create an opening for the left. So if the other parts of the above start happening, it is the responsibility of those of us on the left to organize and create a movement that can capitalize on the opening when the inevitable happens.

Another Reason The Above Might Not Happen

Even if the Democrats stand firm, human society is chaotic and difficult to predict: things may unexpectedly head in other directions. One of the most likely causes of this would be a national security crisis of some sort, which is more likely than ever given the current quality of national leadership (or lack thereof).