What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[OttoVonBismarck]

There was a interesting episode on the CBC show Ideas on the rise and new normal of populism of the right and left.

The lecturers thesis is were are pretty much now in the land of option number 3 which the right will win in the near future but as climate change really takes hold the left will win and hopefully deliver on its promises - or we are all pretty much doomed anyway.

The lecture is delivered with good humor and I thought Monty Python would have done wonders with this theme.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/global-trumpism-bailouts-brexit-and-battling-climate-change-1.5321199

I think the kind of climate change consequences that will be both very bad and very unambiguous to the "imbecile on Facebook" are far enough away that they aren't relevant in the next 50-70 years.

I do think that we are basically entering an era of left and right populism, both of which will probably heavily weaponize online disinformation and fight over swathes of ill-informed voters. Racial and cultural tribalism will also be a major part of it. I think it gives the right advantages in a lot of the West where whites and "cultural Christians" (this is a term that I use to include genuine religious Christians as well as the broad number of religiously "disengaged" people in North America and Europe who are still part of the cultural traditions of Christianity) are still such a big majority. Oddly despite being the most conservative country by most measures in the West, the United States is probably the place where this coalition dies first--because our demographics are going in different directions very fast. Hell, if you just move the demographics of Americans under age 40 to be the norm the Trumpian coalition isn't only non-viable it's probably relegated to "fringe movement", as the two party system forces an adapt or die mindset and you'll see the GOP finding ways to change its cultural perspective to rope in Hispanics and Asians.

I actually think there is, a monstrous sort of logic to the Breitbart types calling 2016 the "flight 93" election, if you do what National Review does (and this is now their official position) and define the American nation by a "shared cultural heritage" around Christianity and the English language, it's relatively easy to get scared by stuff like this:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/30/most-common-age-among-us-racial-ethnic-groups/

Whatever America's politics 20 years from now, in a way that matters a lot of people who vote for Trump, America won't look like America today. Now you may wonder what does that have to do with Christianity or the English language--not really anything. Most Hispanic immigrants learn some level of transactional English and most of their children who either immigrate with them pre-adulthood or who are born in America learn English fluently, most of their grand children struggle to maintain fluency in Spanish. These immigrants are also overwhelmingly Christian. But the problem is they don't look like Christians or English speakers, and that's really what people mean when they talk about losing their culture.

[The Minsky Moment]

I was involved in the development of both designs, and can say for sure that the design processes were very different.  Seawolf was designed based on "what is the best we can do?" concept, and that failed to meet the reasonability standard.  Three were built as, essentially technology demonstrators.  Virginia was designed based on "what is the best we can do for $1 billion per unit?" and, it turned out, the Navy could get 80% of the submarine for 1/3 the cost.

The political context that gave rise to the Seawolf program was the intensification of the Cold War and the Reagan defense build-up where the perception of commitment to defense and obtaining "superiority" over the Soviets was as important as the reality.  That's the sense in which war can be "good for business" - the perception of threat giving the opportunity to push for designs that maximize performance now over long term value for the money.

[Threviel]

I was under the impression that a lot of the propulsion, hull and sensor development done for Seawolf could be re-used in Virginia. Can you say anything about that grumbler? Am I only imagining things?

[Razgovory]

Personally I found Jack London boring.

[Hamilcar]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lindsey-graham-william-barr-rudy-giuliani-lev-parnas-ukraine-trump.html

Lindsey Graham Implicates William Barr in Massive Scandal, on Live Television
By Jonathan Chait

Lindsey Graham might not have been supposed to say this. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham appeared on Face the Nation and blurted out an apparent confession of what, if true, would be a scandal of Nixonian proportions. Graham reported he had spoken with Attorney General William Barr that morning. "The Department of Justice is receiving information coming out of the Ukraine from Rudy," he reported, explaining that Barr "told me that they've created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it's verified."

Graham explained why, in his opinion, this state of affairs is appropriate: "Rudy Giuliani is a well-known man. He's a crime fighter. He's loyal to the president. He's a good lawyer." On the contrary, he is describing an arrangement that is not only the appearance of a conflict of interest but a massive abuse on its face.

First, Giuliani is not a government official. He is representing Donald Trump as an individual, a fact he has made perfectly clear. He boasted to the New York Times last May that he was seeking to uncover "information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government." The distinction between "will" and "may" was Rudy's open acknowledgement that he was looking out for Trump, not the U.S. government, and that the interests of the two might not be the same. He was even more clear in a letter to Ukrainian President Zelensky, which his former partner, Lev Parnas, produced. The letter stated Giuliani was representing Trump "as a private citizen, not as President of the United States":


Photo: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
So, can any private citizen have their lawyer send allegations to Barr? What is this special "process" he created to let Rudy supply him with allegations? Is it a 1-800 number, a drop box, or what? Has Barr told the Democratic candidates how the process works so they can have their lawyers feed their own leads to him?

The second problem here is that Giuliani is not only representing a presidential candidate as his personal client. He is working in close contact with foreign partners who have a combination of personal interests and foreign-policy goals that do not line up with U.S. interests. He has not disclosed who is paying him for his work, but he was paid half a million dollars by Parnas, who was in turn paid by Dymtro Firtash, a Russian oligarch whose work tends to advance Russian foreign-policy interests. This raises the strong possibility that Giuliani is effectively a paid backchannel for Russian propaganda, and he now has a special line into the Department of Justice.

Third, Giuliani himself is the reported subject of a criminal investigation. Two of his partners have already been arrested, and the Department of Justice is reportedly pursuing the possibility of charges against Giuliani as well. (He allegedly pursued his own profit-making scheme in Ukraine, and seems to have committed campaign finance violations, by funneling foreign donations to Republican allies.)

Normally, people who are being investigated by the DOJ don't have a special back channel that lets them feed allegations of their own to the attorney general. I am pretty sure that, if the DOJ opened up an investigation of me, and arrested two of my partners as they tried to leave the country with one-way tickets, I couldn't just open up my own back channel to their boss.

Graham defends this on the grounds that Giuliani is a "crime fighter," a label Trump himself has used. But there is no "crime fighter" badge that lets you go into private practice with a bunch of crooks, and have your allegations given special attention by the authorities. Or, at least, there shouldn't be.

Now, just because Graham confessed this gigantic scandal doesn't mean the confession is true. Graham is, um, a complicated figure. He might be lying about what Barr told him, or Barr might have been lying to him.

The Department of Justice refused to comment on Graham's statement, though. This seems like the kind of transparent violation the leading law enforcement agency ought to be able to say is not happening and cannot happen. (If Hillary Clinton's ally said in 2016 the attorney general had a special process to let her private lawyer feed dirt on Trump to the Department of Justice, there is a 100 percent chance the department would insist this was false.) That DOJ cannot even deny an obvious abuse is a sign things have gotten pretty far out of hand.

Update: Barr confirmed today that the Department has "established an intake process," because it "has an obligation to have an open door to anybody." But if it has an obligation to have an open door to anybody, hasn't that open door always existed? Why did Barr have to establish a new one?

Damn, America, that's some broken ass banana republic corruption shit.

[The Minsky Moment]

The one substantive part of the story is the last sentence:

Update: Barr confirmed today that the Department has "established an intake process," because it "has an obligation to have an open door to anybody." But if it has an obligation to have an open door to anybody, hasn't that open door always existed? Why did Barr have to establish a new one?

That's a good question; Barr's statement is really puzzling.  If Rudy wants to provide info to the DOJ, he can just provide the info.  It's a free country, anyone can mail or email the Justice Dept. So what the heck is "an intake process" about?

Highly speculative guess: a way to satisfy the President that an investigation has been opened in the matter without actually properly opening an investigation.

[dps]

So, can any private citizen have their lawyer send allegations to Barr?

Pretty sure that the answer to that one is "yes".

Of course, that's a lot different from having said allegations being taken seriously, or even read, much less having a special channel set up to receive them.

EDIT:  beaten to the punch again, dang it.

[crazy canuck]

There was a interesting episode on the CBC show Ideas on the rise and new normal of populism of the right and left.

The lecturers thesis is were are pretty much now in the land of option number 3 which the right will win in the near future but as climate change really takes hold the left will win and hopefully deliver on its promises - or we are all pretty much doomed anyway.

The lecture is delivered with good humor and I thought Monty Python would have done wonders with this theme.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/global-trumpism-bailouts-brexit-and-battling-climate-change-1.5321199

I think the kind of climate change consequences that will be both very bad and very unambiguous to the "imbecile on Facebook" are far enough away that they aren't relevant in the next 50-70 years.

It will probably have a more delayed impact in the US*, but here in Canada we are already seeing pretty dramatic effects.  For that reason the Conservative party is probably not going to get a sniff at forming government until they have real policies to deal with the issue.

*The warming is more extreme in the North.

[alfred russel]

It will probably have a more delayed impact in the US*, but here in Canada we are already seeing pretty dramatic effects.  For that reason the Conservative party is probably not going to get a sniff at forming government until they have real policies to deal with the issue.

*The warming is more extreme in the North.

It sounds like the Conservative Party will never get a sniff at forming a government then, because even with a policy that cut Canadian emissions to zero and halted all exports of fossil fuels, the impact on the global climate wouldn't be material.

[crazy canuck]

It will probably have a more delayed impact in the US*, but here in Canada we are already seeing pretty dramatic effects.  For that reason the Conservative party is probably not going to get a sniff at forming government until they have real policies to deal with the issue.

*The warming is more extreme in the North.

It sounds like the Conservative Party will never get a sniff at forming a government then, because even with a policy that cut Canadian emissions to zero and halted all exports of fossil fuels, the impact on the global climate wouldn't be material.

It is exactly that kind of reasoning that gets them into trouble.  Thank you for the demonstration.

[alfred russel]

It will probably have a more delayed impact in the US*, but here in Canada we are already seeing pretty dramatic effects.  For that reason the Conservative party is probably not going to get a sniff at forming government until they have real policies to deal with the issue.

*The warming is more extreme in the North.

It sounds like the Conservative Party will never get a sniff at forming a government then, because even with a policy that cut Canadian emissions to zero and halted all exports of fossil fuels, the impact on the global climate wouldn't be material.

It is exactly that kind of reasoning that gets them into trouble.  Thank you for the demonstration.

So by "real policies to deal with the issue" you mean "policies that may have limited effectiveness at actually reducing the global effects of climate change, but will win voters interested in the issue"?

[crazy canuck]

Have you ever heard of the tragedy of the commons?

[alfred russel]

Have you ever heard of the tragedy of the commons?

So by acting unilaterally, Canada will inspire Donald Trump, China, Russia, India, etc. to give up their fossil fuel burning ways?

[Admiral Yi]

You're defending an odd position Fredo.

[alfred russel]

You're defending an odd position Fredo.

I thought you would agree with me...interested in hearing why you don't.