Tag Archives: Trump

To the victor belong the spoils.

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            The title comes from a quote attributed to Senator William Marcy (D-NY).  It refers to the idea that loyalty to and support for a political candidate should receive material reward if the candidate is elected.[1]  American politics was rife with it from the Colonial period onward.  Perhaps its best-known practitioner was President Andrew Jackson (1767-1845, President 1829-1837).  “Old Hickory” richly reward his “friends,” whether personally known or unknown to him.  This “spoils system” continued to staff the federal, state, and city bureaucracies well past the end of the Civil War.  As someone later said, “Power grows from the barrel of a pork.” 

            As time passed, a reaction took place.  More and more people grew unhappy with the services of a government manned by idiot nephews and political hacks.  The campaign for a merit-based system took a while to achieve success.  In the meantime it was derided as “snivel service reform.”  The first breakthrough came with the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883).  OK, this took a demented office-seeker (Charles Guiteau[2]) shooting President James A. Garfield.  Thereafter, reformers continued their campaign at the federal, state, and local levels of government.  The United States ended up with a professional, merit-based civil service which was the envy of many places in the world.[3] 

            Donald Trump and “Trumpism” bear more than a passing resemblance to Andrew Jackson and “Jacksonianism.”[4]  During his first term, Trump refused to release his tax returns.  No law required him to do so, and tax-payer information is required to be kept confidential by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).  However, it had become a custom for presidential candidates to release such information in the name of “transparency.”  Liberal journals of opinion[5] severely criticized Trump’s refusal.  Then someone in the employ of the IRS leaked some of Trump’s tax returns.  These were published and analyzed. 

            Then came Trump’s contesting the election results of 2020, 6 January 2021, and the attempted prosecution of Trump and associates on charges of election-interference, paying “hush money,” retaining official documents, and fraud. 

            Jump ahead to Trump’s second term.[6]  He sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leaked tax returns.  Then he agreed to settle the matter with his own Justice Department.  There are two parts to the settlement.  First, creation of a tax-payer funded settlement fund to pay people who were victims of “lawfare” by the Biden administration.  Neither the president nor his family may receive money from the fund.  The value of the fund is patriotically-valued at $1.776 billion.  Second, the IRS can’t pursue “any and all” pending tax claims against the president, his family, or his businesses. 

            The fund has not been well-received by Democrats and many Republicans.  Some critics lambast the possibility of the 6 January rioters getting “compensated.”  Others point out that Trump’s money-making in office uses the same shady practices he’s often used in business. 

            We have laws because good judgement and common decency often are lacking. 

[1] Ari Hoogenboom, Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement, 1865-1883 (1961). 

[2] Like many people in history, Guiteau was too strange for fiction. 

[3] But not Britain, Germany, or France. 

[4] The Worst President Ever 5 July 2019. | waroftheworldblog 

[5] The Opinion section of the NYT, Stephen Colbert, etc.  Alas, George Carlin was dead.  Our loss. 

[6] “Outrage erupts over Trump’s ‘slush fund’ for allies,” The Week, 29 May 2026

Federal Mandates as a Flash Point.

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            Nearly half (46 percent) of Americans “believe the facts on vaccines are up for debate and that it’s damaging to mandate shots.”  Furthermore, almost half (49 percent) of Republicans “say the return of vaccine-preventable diseases is a price worth paying for the ability to refuse shots.”[1]  Are Republicans serious about this position?  If so, they themselves never had any of a bunch of vaccine-preventable childhood diseases.[2] 

            Yes and No, probably.  First, No.  A recent poll showed that 67 percent of Republicans “support the use of vaccines to prevent disease.”[3]  On the one hand, that means that a full third of Republicans don’t “support the use of vaccines to prevent disease.”  On the other hand, 67 percent favor vaccines, while 49 percent oppose mandated vaccines.  Apparently (67 – 49 = 18 percent) of Republicans accept mandated vaccines, while 49 – 33 = 16 percent) are opposed to mandates rather than vaccines.  If it wasn’t mandated, then of course they’d get the shots.    

            Second, Yes.  The figures above still leave 33 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of Independents, and 7 percent of Democrats who don’t believe in vaccines.  Odd, no?    

            How did the mandate part of the vaccination issue come to be so contested?  One possible answer goes back to the Affordable Care Act.  A lot of people didn’t have health insurance.  Some were young and healthy, so they didn’t want to spend the money.  Some were a range of ages, unhealthy, and poor.  They wanted health insurance, but either it wasn’t provided through their work or they didn’t make enough to pay for insurance.  What to do?  The answer was to require everyone to have health insurance and require insurance companies to insure everyone.  The ones who didn’t need the insurance would bulk up insurance company earnings and cover those who did need it, but couldn’t pay. 

This began as a Republican idea, then was taken over by the Democrats.  So it was the Democrats who caught Hell for it.  Never before had the federal government required that people buy something that they didn’t want.  The mandate could be compared to “compelled speech.”  The Supreme Court had already held that compelled speech violates the First Amendment.[4]  Schools can’t make students recite the Pledge of Allegiance and states can’t compel anti-abortion “crisis centers” to post notices of abortion services.  What’s the difference? 

            In some minds, the insurance mandate may have seemed wrong in its own right, and an entering wedge precedent for a huge extension of government power over individual lives.  What else might follow in time?  The revolt against vaccines may have amounted to a Libertarian response to an arrogant government.  Not many Libertarians among the Democrats. 

[1] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 24 April 2026, p. 17.  The figures come from a Politico/Public First poll. 

[2] I have.  Came down with chicken-pox during the rehearsal for the Christmas concert of my elementary school.  Vomited all over the back of the white shirt of the kid in front of me.  Then there was the girl who walked with leg braces and crutches because she had been hit by polio.  This was long before the Americans with Disabilities Act, so I still remember her laboring up the steps from the front door. 

[3] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2026, p. 17.  The figures for Independents were 72 percent, and for Democrats 93 percent.  That means that 28 percent of Independents and 7 percent of Democrats don’t “support the use of vaccines to prevent disease.” 

[4] Later, in “Janus v. AFSCME,” the Court held that “the First Amendment does not permit the government to compel a person to pay for another party’s speech just because the government thinks that the speech furthers the interests of the person who does not want to pay.” 

The Authoritarian Handbook–V.

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The wars themselves, those of the third quarter of the century, had two faces.  Yes, they reshaped the relationships between the so-called “Great Powers.”  They broke the alliance between the arch-conservative powers Austria and Russia; they created two new nations in Italy and Germany; they sent the Austrian Empire spinning toward decay and collapse; and they put a stop to vexing French pretensions to dominate European affairs.  This will gladden the hearts of future historians obsessed by the traditional themes of “Great Men” and dramatic events.[1] 

No, they weren’t chiefly about re-making the balance of power.  Effective “authoritarians” saw that their road to the power to do other things ran through first satisfying a public desire for language-based communities.  That is, “Nationalism” had a powerful grip on the minds of many people.[2]  Some of the benefits of the victory of Nationalism were psychic, rather than material.  People felt pride in their nation.  People felt themselves part of some deeply-rooted and long-denied community.  Parades, flags, memorial columns, school lessons, the talk of older men who had once “done their bit,” and the language itself—salted with historical references and military analogies—all kept the victories of Nationalism alive in the minds of ordinary people. 

Certainly, “authoritarians” could fail of their goals.  Napoleon III gambled on war to shape Italian unification, then saw the Italians escape his leading-strings.  Napoleon III gambled on war to prevent Prussian domination of a unified Germany, then saw his country defeated, replaced by a mere republic that has become a by-word for ineffective government, personal self-indulgence, and scandals.  The Hungarians had wanted national independence, but had to settle for fifty years of partnership with the despised Austrians.  The ungrateful and stupid heirs of Tsar Alexander II never gave a thought to improving the lives of their people.  Their own psychological weakness led them to seek outward shows of authority.  These men were lath painted to look like iron.

So, neither Peace nor War alone guaranteed the survival of “effective authoritarianism.” 

[1] Editor’s Note.  Actually, this “democratizing” critique became a commonplace theme directed against diplomatic and military historians in later, more “progressive” times.  All the same, what are the “Iliad” or “King Henry V” or “War and Peace” about? 

[2] Why language should prevail over other identities—religion, gender, race, or social class—at this hour in history remains a mystery to us. These other forms of identity seem just as vital as does Nationalism.  They might yet provide the basis for a better organization of community.

Epstein first and last time.

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            Born into a “working-class” family in Brooklyn, Jeffrey Epstein (1953-2019) escaped from that social identity.[1]  He went to college, but never finished; he got a job teaching at an elite prep school in New York, but got the boot for “poor performance” after two years; one of the parents saw something in the young math teacher and hired him at an investment bank, but in 1980, he was “asked to leave;” and in 1981 he started his own business managing rich peoples’ money.  So far, this looks like failing upward on a grand scale. 

            Epstein both enjoyed and was very skilled at networking.  Patrons and customers included Alan “Ace” Greenberg, Leon Black, and Leslie Wexner.  Social contacts included Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump (long before he became president), among other luminaries.  Money and power (and invulnerability) often run together in modern America. 

            Along the way, Epstein encountered Ghislaine Maxwell.[2]  She became his long-time companion.  She also facilitated his pursuit of psychologically-vulnerable girls.  Many were in the 14-17 years-old range.  He had a home in Manhattan, another in Palm Beach, an island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a private jet, and a glittering life-style.  Those assets helped dazzle the girls.  Epstein allegedly shared the girls with some of his friends. 

            Certainly by the early 1990s, Epstein was exploiting young women.  He seems to have exercised a measure of discretion.  Then, in 2005, the Palm Beach police received a report that Epstein had assaulted a 14-year-old girl.  The police investigated and found many more cases, the FBI became involved (crossing state lines), but prosecutors settled for a plea bargain in 2008.  Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution in return for an 18-month sentence served under conditions that would have made a Mafia don envious.  In addition, the FBI halted its investigation and granted immunity to “any potential co-conspirators.” 

            No sooner was Epstein out of the slammer than he was back to his old tricks.  Angry victims then started filing civil law-suits.[3]  The Miami Herald got wind of the story and ran an expose in 2018; in July 2019, federal officers arrested Epstein.  Prosecutors charged him with sex-trafficking, which is a lot more serious than soliciting prostitution.  Confined to the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, Epstein committed suicide on the night of 9-10 August 2019.  All this barely scratches the surface of the story. 

            It’s a lurid story, but why is there so much continuing interest in it?  First of all, Epstein had claimed that he had dirt on important people.[4]  Speculation on the nature of that “dirt” centers on sex with minors and the use of illegal drugs.  Speculation on the collection of that “dirt” centers on reports of hidden cameras and sound systems. 

            Second, the circumstances of his suicide stink.  The night of Epstein’s death, his cell-mate was transferred; the two guards failed to make prescribed welfare checks every 30 minutes and later tried to doctor the records; and both cameras outside his cell malfunctioned.[5] 

            Putting One and Two together, some people believe that Epstein was “suicided” to keep him from talking to investigators or from the witness stand.  The FBI searched his homes and offices, carting away masses of material.  Much of that material has not been released. 

First, what’s in the “Epstein files”?  All told, the evidence gathered by the FBI totals “300 gigabytes of data, plus other media.”  At a minimum, they contain the flight logs for his plane (listing passengers, departure point and destinations, and dates of travel); his “black books” (apparently containing names of contacts for a guy who made it his business to know a lot of people); and his court records.  It seems to have been supposed that they would also include secret recordings of people in compromising situations.  However, on 27 July 2025, the Department of Justice announced that “no credible evidence [has been] found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate [i.e. serve as a justification for] an investigation against uncharged third parties.” 

            Second, who’s named in the “Epstein list”?  All sorts of people.  He had little black books that listed the names of people with whom he had a connection, or sometimes not.[6]  In short, no log of who did what with whom. 

            Conspiracy theories sprang up almost immediately after Epstein’s death.[7]  The flash reaction to the news of Epstein’s death showed that 42 percent of Americans believed that he had been killed to shut him up and another 29 percent didn’t want to rush to judgement.  The belief that Epstein had been murdered soon reached a majority.[8]  The conspiracy theories probably piggy-backed on the earlier “PizzaGate” conspiracy theory.[9] 

Then attention focused on the seized materials.  When running for president in 2024, Donald Trump promised to release the “Epstein files” and the “Epstein list” if elected.[10]  Then he didn’t.  This provoked a very strong reaction among some of those who had supported him. 

            Was there a conspiracy?  Well, apparently both the guards are still alive.  No unsolved hit-and-run, no “I never knew he was using drugs” fentanyl in the tuna salad, no heart attack during a routine colonoscopy, no botched stick-up in a Mom-and-Pop that ended in gunfire.  No tying-off loose ends.[11] 

            The take-aways here are two-fold.  On the one hand, many people believe that at least some rich or politically powerful people indulge in depraved behavior.  On the other hand, many people believe that “they all stick together to protect each other.”  Again, the belief that money, power, and invulnerability run together has a strong hold on many Americans.  This can’t be good for American democracy.  But how to fix it?  How to retore trust? 

[1] “Jeffrey Epstein’s secrets,” The Week, 5 September 2025, p. 11. 

[2] See: Ghislaine Maxwell – Wikipedia.  On her father, Robert Maxwell, see: Robert Maxwell – Wikipedia. 

[3] Virginia Roberts Giuffre (2015); Sarah Ransome (2017). 

[4] James B. Stewart, “The Day Jeffrey Epstein Told Me He Had Dirt on Powerful People,” NYT, August 12, 2019. 

[5] Ali Watkins, Danielle Ivory, Christina Goldbaum, “Inmate 76318-054: The Last Days of Jeffrey Epstein, NYT, 17 August 2019. 

[6] An annotated-by-journalists version of one such book can be read here.  https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jeffrey-epstein-high-society-contacts.html 

[7] Michael Gold, Jonah Engel Bromwich, “Epstein Conspiracies: De Blasio, and Others Join Speculation,” NYT, August 12, 2019; “New poll suggests 45% of Americans believe Jeffrey Epstein conspiracy theories,” Yahoo News, 26 November 2019. 

[8] “Americans Say Murder More Likely Than Suicide in Epstein Case,” Rasmussen Reports, 14 August 2019; “Most Now Think Epstein Was Murdered,” Rasmussen Reports, 9 January 2020.  

[9] Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel, “’PizzaGate’ Conspiracy Theory Thrives Anew in the TikTok Era,” NYT, 27 June 2020. 

[10] Alexandra Hutzler, “What Trump has said about Jeffrey Epstein over the years, including on 2024 campaign trail, ABC News, July 17, 2025. 

[11] The conspiratorial mindset spread by Hollywood films: Shooter (4/8) Movie CLIP – Mister Rate’s Advice (2007) HD 

American Opinion on the Deportations in Summer 2025.

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The country is deeply divided over the Trump administration’s treatment of illegal immigrants.  There doesn’t seem to be much resistance this time to closing down the Southern border.  The gap opens over what to do about the illegal immigrants who entered the country before the border got shut down.  Do all or most of them get to stay?  Do they all get deported without regard to how long they’ve been here or what role they now play in the economy? 

In June 2025, 52 percent of Americans supported deporting illegal immigrants.  The partisan divide was stark, but also revealing on minority positions within each party.  Those approving deportations included 90 percent of Republicans, but also 20 percent of Democrats.[1]  

Almost as many Americans (49 percent) said that President Trump had crossed some boundary of reasonableness in his sweeps and arrests. Thus, 50 percent of Americans disapproved of President Trump dispatching National Guard and even Marine units to Los Angeles to cow disorderly demonstrators protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducting sweeps for illegal immigrants.  Only a third (35 percent) of Americans approved of the deployment of military forces to deal with a civil policing matter.[2]    

If you desire the end, then you must desire also the means.  Either essentially half of Americans desire the end, but don’t want the reality of it shoved in their faces OR their desire for the end is purely rhetorical.  Hard to tell which is true.  Some of each?  Apparently, President Trump desires the end and accepts—even relishes–the means. 

The Republican opponents of deportation may largely represent businesses that depend upon illegal immigrants because many Americans have never known what hard work for low pay is really like.  The Democratic supporters of deportations provide a warning shot—if any more were needed after the election—of the fragility of the party’s coalition.

The 80 percent of Democrats who oppose deporting illegal immigrants doubtless have a variety of motives.  The illegals toil in vital sectors of the economy where the Native-born don’t want to work.  The illegals are in flight from Hell-hole countries (of which there are a great many).  They are just trying to make better lives.  Immigration is what made America great!  Ideally, there shouldn’t be any immigration restrictions at all, except for identifiable terrorists and criminals.  Broadly, on many issues, Democrats are cosmopolitans (citizens of the world and concerned for their fellow citizens) and Republicans are parochial (American citizens and concerned for their fellow citizens).  It will be difficult to reconcile those two positions. 

            In September 2025, the Supreme Court lifted a stay by a federal judge in California that had stopped Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using ethnicity and language as partial grounds for stopping and detaining suspected illegal immigrants.  Some ethnicity and language communities in California “braced” for impact.  One apologist for the government argued that “[M]ost undocumented migrants in Los Angeles are Latino…”[3]  Fine, but most Latinos in Los Angeles are not “undocumented migrants.”  They still are subject to stops and detentions and “show us your papers.” 

[1] Reuters/Ipsos poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 June 2025, p. 17.

[2] Reuters/Ipsos poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 June 2025, p. 17. 

[3] The Week’s summary of Andrew McCarthy’s statement in National Review, in “Trump sends ICE into Chicago and Boston,” The Week, 19 September 2025, p. 4. 

Some American Opinion in Summer 2025.

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            In late June 2025, 80 percent of Americans supported using vaccines to prevent diseases.  “Only” 20 percent opposed vaccines.[1]  Twenty percent still seems like a lot.  In September 2025, the figures remained essentially the same: 78 percent versus 22 percent.  In the September 2025 poll, the spectrum ranged from 93 percent of Democrats to 72 percent of Independents to 67 percent of Republicans.[2]  That’s a 26-point difference between Democrats and Republicans, so a yawning crevasse between the two major parties. 

On the one hand, the great majority of Americans approve of vaccines, regardless of party.  Arguably, RFK, Jr.’s crusade against vaccines is going to get him canned after the November 2026 mid-terms, if not before.  On the other hand, there’s a 21-point differences between Democrats and Independents as well as a 5-point difference between Independents and Republicans.  In short, Democrats ae near-unanimous on vaccines. Independents and Republics have a lot more unbelievers.  So, there’s the Democrats and there’s everyone else. 

            Since 2001 we’ve had the dot.com bubble, the housing bubble, the Perdue Pharma Oxycontin scandal, and the “China Shock.”   In 2021, 60 percent of Americans still had a favorable view of Capitalism.  Since then we’ve had the economic upheavals caused by Covid, AI, and a nasty bout of inflation.  Today only 54 percent view Capitalism favorably.[3]  That means that 46 percent disapprove of Capitalism or Don’t Know what they think. 

As with vaccines, there is a marked partisan divide.  Almost three-quarters (74 percent) of Republican have a favorable view of Capitalism, while only 42 percent of Democrats have a favorable view.  What’s the theoretical alternative to Capitalism?  Socialism!  Well, 57 percent of Americans disapprove of Socialism,[4] compared with 39 percent who take a favorable view. 

            Playing with the numbers a bit.  A little over half (54 percent) take a favorable view of Capitalism and almost the same share (57 percent) disapprove of Socialism. So, that’s one block.  It is largely Republican.  At the same time, 26 percent of Republicans either don’t approve of Capitalism (at least in its present form) or Don’t Know what they think.  How can you be a Republican and NOT approve of Capitalism?  Well, you could be a Republican for cultural issues that are more important to you than the economic system.  Say, on abortion or illegal immigration. 

In contrast, 42 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of Capitalism, while 58 percent have an unfavorable view or Don’t Know what they think.  It may be reasonable to conjecture that there is a big overlap between that 58 percent of Democrats who don’t have a favorable view of Capitalism and the 39 percent of Americans who have a favorable view of Socialism.  That leaves 19 percent who don’t approve of either Capitalism or Socialism. 

            It may mean that many Democrats and some Republicans favor a “reformed” Capitalism, rather than its present form.  That doesn’t mean that they support Socialism.  

            In any event, vaccines are more credible than is Capitalism.  You don’t see that much in the news.  Bound to be younger people who believe in Socialism.  The Future belongs to Them. 

[1] NBC News poll, reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 4-11 July 2025, p. 17. 

[2] NBC News poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2025. 

[3] Gallup poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 19 September 2025, p. 17. 

[4] NO, that doesn’t mean that people who live in New York City aren’t Americans. 

How the US Lost Manufacturing 1.

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            How did the United States rise to economic and industrial predominance in the world?  First, the North American continent held a vast trove of natural resources of many kinds.  All that was needed was finding ways to extract and transform those resources.  Second, the country suffered from a perennial labor-scarcity.  Even massive immigration in the “long 19th Century” could not fill the breach, so Americans turned to technological and organizational innovations to increase productivity.  Third, all this took a great deal of capital.  The “Founders” created a pro-business environment that both helped generate American capital and attracted foreign (especially British) capital.  By the dawn of the 20th Century, the United States had the greatest industrial economy in the world.  The two World Wars laid low every other industrial country, while they strengthened that of the United States.  By mid-century, American industry (and agriculture, and finance, and science and technology) bestrode the world.  In one symbol of both the industrial power and the diversity of the American economy, about a third (35 percent) of all private-sector jobs were in manufacturing.[1]  This situation lasted through the end of the 1950s. 

            What were some results of that rise to predominance? 

            In the wake of the Second World War, the United States held a uniquely favorable position.  All of the other major industrial nations were either bankrupt or war-ravaged and bankrupt.  The Stalinist command-economy could compel Russians and conquered Eastern Europeans to make painful sacrifices to rebuild their economies without American aid.  Elsewhere (Western Europe, Japan) relied upon American assistance.  Later, the Americans added military protection against Soviet aggression. 

            The Americans used their leverage to remake the international economic system.  The “Bretton Woods System” (International Monetary Fund, World Bank); the first steps that would lead to the European Union; and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor the World Trade Organization (WTO) all came from American designs.  A progressively more “open” world economy came about between 1945 and 2025. 

            The Western European and Japanese economies revived with a speed that astonished people who had seen the wrecked economies and societies at war’s end.  They not only recovered, but generated an unprecedented and widespread prosperity.  It should be obvious, but may not be to most Americans, that the vast majority of this recovery and progress sprang from the hard work of the people who received American aid.  Especially in Germany and Japan, hard work, ready adaptation to new circumstances, and self-restraint became cultural values and not merely the harsh necessities of the moment.  These countries also built government systems of “social provision” that shocked many Americans. 

            How did the United States fall from that predominant position? 

            The economies that the United States had helped to revive began to become competitors.  This had always been expected, if only in some misty future.  First, they began to supply many of their own needs, then they began to compete in “third markets” (neither Western Europe, not America).  In Asia and Latin America, countries began to emulate the earlier industrializing countries.  Their initial advantage lay in very cheap labor.  They began by producing simple, non-durable goods at a very low cost for export to foreign markets, especially the American market. 

At the same time, from the mid-1960s onward, the American economy began to shift its center of gravity.  The service sector[2] began to grow rapidly.  Manufacturing held steady in numbers of employees until about 1980.  At the same time, manufacturers began the long trend toward shifting new production to the “Sun Belt,” especially the Southern states.[3] 

With an expanding service sector, Americans seem to have been ready to surrender the lowest level of manufacturing to foreigners in return for more stuff bought cheaper.  Those countries didn’t stay at the lowest level.  Having earned and learned from low-level industrialization, many of them sought to move up the food-chain.  South Korea, for example, developed a steel industry and a ship-building industry. 

            Then, beginning in 2001, China was admitted to the World Trade Organization.  China has an immense population.  Through the end of the Mao Zedong period, they were mostly trapped in low-productivity farming.  Post-Mao governments set out to change China in a more revolutionary and constructive way than Mao had ever imagined.  China would open its markets to foreign business, draw in foreign investment, shift its population from “the idiocy of rural life” to the “dark, Satanic mills” of new industrial cities, and conquer foreign markets for manufactured goods.  It took China less that a decade to surpass the United States as the world’s leading exporter of manufactured goods.  What the United States has retained and developed is its role as the leading exporter of services, including intellectual property.[4] 

In this account, the American economy shifted its chief function from extracting primary products (so, primary sector) to transforming them into finished goods (secondary sector) to providing diverse services (tertiary sector).  It’s easy to see this as a normative evolution of all capitalist economies.  American aid to Western Europe and Japan after the Second World War helped those places get back on track.  Similarly, American development aid assisted developing economies begin the path on which others were well-advanced.  Over the years, America shedding low-value industrial jobs and shifting people up the hierarchy into high value service jobs facilitated the global rise in development and living standards. 

Only in the case of post-Mao China did the institutions and policies created by the United States after the Second World War succeed all too well.  The “China Shock” wreaked havoc on American industry (and not only American industry).  That had painful social and economic consequences.  From one point of view, it had been impossible to foresee the scale and rapidity of China’s growth in manufacturing power.  So, is the problem how to return China to the old post-war model through practicing self-restraint and focusing on domestic consumers?  To become a “normal” nation in American terms? 

[1] Justin Lahart, “How the U.S. Slipped From Top Manufacturing Perch,” WSJ, 14 April 2025. 

[2] Doctors, lawyers, bankers, teachers, and so on, rather than just people “flipping hamburgers” as Mike Dukakis seemed to imagine. 

[3] In a sense, the Southern states were “developing economies” within America’s own borders.  Wages were lower, labor unions weren’t well-established, and state governments were pro-development.  For more, see: American Union, stay away from me uh. | waroftheworldblog 

[4] Justin Lahart, “How the U.S. Slipped From Top Manufacturing Perch,” WSJ, 14 April 2025.   

Tell-Some.

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            Reports of a new book on the presidency of Joe Biden have begun to appear.  It focuses on the troubled man revealed for all the world to see in his catastrophic debate with Donald Trump.[1]  Biden had been 77 years old when he finally was inaugurated in January 2021.  He would have been 82 at his second inauguration.  The job of President of the United States would be daunting to almost anyone at any age.  To be president in old age would be a much greater challenge.  The authors have called upon a host of—mostly anonymous—sources to document the failing powers of an ambitious man of modest abilities.[2] 

            Even during the original 2020 campaign, Biden had begun to forget the names of people he had known for a long time.  His condition worsened as his term progressed.  He confused one person with another.  In one case with nasty implications, he confused Xavier Becerra, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, with Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security.[3]  Cabinet meetings had to work from a written script.  Concern went as far as speculation about the president’s possible need for a wheelchair during a second term. 

            Apparently, those around Biden recognized his advancing physical and mental fragility.  Still, no one took it up with the president himself or, in any forceful way, with those closest to him.  The silence was widespread.  “No Democrats in the White House or on Capitol Hill raised any doubts, either privately with the president or publicly, about Biden’s second run” say the authors of the book. 

            Washington is a gossipy town filled with predatory people.  If the President makes the usual appearances and meets with donors, Congress people, Senators, the people from the CIA doing the daily Presidential brief, then these people would spot his problems the way a leopard spots a limp.  If the President disappears from all the usual appearances and communicates only through his closest staff, then that would be noticed as well.  Questions would arise. 

            The heightened attention and more frequent appearances running with the re-election campaign brought Biden’s limitations to the attention of many more people.  Democratic congressmen and donors (like George Clooney) were alarmed by the wreck of a man they now encountered.  People from the Obama presidency (William Daley, David Plouffe) tried to line up alternatives to Biden, to no avail.  Were Washington insiders just fooled?  Did they hope for the best in the election with the expectation that Biden would die or be removed in a second term? 

Most likely, many people hope to not be held to account for their parts in foisting off a dotard on the American people.[4]  Instead, “Dr. Jill and the Inner Circle” are being made into the goats.  The book provides a good deal of material for people to use against Jill Biden.  She is described as a “fierce advocate for her husband.”    She “grew more involved in his decision-making as he grew older.”  OK, which decisions?  “Just” re-election?  Foreign policy? 

[1] The book is Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again (due out on 20 May 2025).  The book is discussed in Reid J. Epstein, “Book Promises New Data on Biden’s Mental Decline,” NYT, 15 May 2025. 

[2] Unless you think that keeping Robert Bork off the Supreme Court and getting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court is a positive record. 

[3] On the upside, he didn’t confuse either one of them with Janet Yellen, the Secretary of the Treasury. 

[4] It’s impossible to know, at present, if this operation ran only once (before the 2024 election) or if it ran twice (before the 2020 election as well). 

Further Thoughts on the Alien Enemies Act.

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            The Alien Enemies Act is constitutional.  The Supreme Court found it so in a 1948 case when it endorsed the order of a lower court that a German-American Nazi had to leave the country.  Trump’s use of the law to justify deportations seems illegitimate.  Still, the commentary on it seems equally revealing. 

            “It’s an 18th century law…”[1]  “We cannot allow antiquated laws to continue enabling discriminatory practices.”[2]  Well, both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are creations of the 18th Century.  Marbury v. Madison and the Emancipation Proclamation are products of the 19th Century.  So, age is no issue if you like the results, but it is an issue if you don’t like them?    This argument is a flight from honest thought. 

            “No one has tried to argue that that invasion or predatory incursion language could be used in any context other than a conventional war.”[3]  Except that is just what Trump has argued, backed by his Department of Justice.  The Supreme Court has neither rejected nor affirmed Trump’s argument.[4]  Does the author mean to say that the argument is illegitimate because it is not hallowed by time?  This is the opposite of the previous argument.  Furthermore, Plessy v. Ferguson stood as “settled law” for almost a century.  So, hallowed by time. 

            “Historian Joseph Ellis called support for the Alien Enemies Act “unquestionably the biggest blunder” of Adams’ presidency.”[5]  So, an expert attacks the law as wrong right from the beginning.  We defer (or should defer) to expert opinion on the efficacy of vaccines.  Therefore, we should defer to expert opinion on the foolishness of a law passed in the many days ago?  JMO, but Adams’ “biggest blunder” was his support for the Sedition Act, which led to the prosecution of a number of Democratic-Republican journalists.  The Sedition Act was hard to pass because it raised so many doubts even among Federalists.  The application of the Act against political rivals aroused opposition to the Federalists.  John Adams became the first one-term president as a result.  It was repealed after the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800.  In contrast, Presidents running declared wars against foreign powers have found it a useful tool.  During the Biden administration, bills to repeal the act were introduced in Congress in 2021 and 2023.  Neither bill made it out of committee.[6]  In both cases, the Democrats held the majority in the relevant chamber.  Some Democrats saw utility in keeping the Act.  Is this a case of a respected expert bending his analysis to oppose Trump? 

            That leaves the question of whether Trump’s use of the law in these circumstances is constitutional.  Currently, “the Supreme Court has limited the deportations without ruling on whether Trump may invoke the act.”[7]  So Trump’s actions may yet turn out to be constitutional.    

In the 1948 case, four Justices dissented, arguing that “Due process does not perish when war comes.”[8]  This is a complicated issue, but the one to fight on.  The rest is anti-Trump fluff. 

[1] “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[2] Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), quoted in “A push for repeal,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[3] Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck, quoted in “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[4] “Supreme Court allows deportations to El Salvador,” The Week, 18 April 2025, p. 5.

[5] Ellis quoted in “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[6] “A push for repeal,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[7] “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

[8] Quoted in “The Alien Enemies Act,” The Week, 9 May 2025, p. 11. 

Diary of the Second Addams Administration 19.

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            I think that Donald Trump is a bad man with some good ideas and some bad ideas.  He seems prone to stick with the bad ideas (and bad people, like Pete Hogwallop[1]) while rabbiting around on the good ideas.  He may well represent a threat to Democracy.  Or not.  His method, much more this term than in the first, is the bull-rush.  Doing “everything, everywhere, all at once.”  Testing, even blowing through, established limits of all sorts; moving very fast and keeping it up across time; forcing changes that may or may not endure.  He’s a wrecking ball and a disruptor, not a builder. 

            Trump also is not a “politician.”  In contemporary America, a “politician” is a career public employee who gets his/her/their contract renewed every 2, 4, or 6 years by playing it safe within the terms of their own constituency.  Most of them rise by following what the Romans used to call the “cursus honorum” (“course of honors/offices”).[2]  They’re committed to never doing anything “risky.”[3]  Trump thinks that these people are Nithings.[4]  He’s pretty much right about most of them.[5] 

            But what is the alternative to Trump?  Leave things the way they were?  Keep going along the same lines that produced gigantic deficits and a national debt that seems likely to end in default?  A creeping expansion of the Executive Branch and rule through regulation, executive orders, and executive agreements, rather than legislation?  A withering of the Legislative Branch through its own indifference to its responsibilities?  A well-advanced politicization of the Judicial Branch?  That’s going to end in the election of Supreme Court Justices.  An economy that prioritizes Finance over everything else, including Manufacturing?  A neglect of American military power in an era of rising danger?  A materialist, consumerist culture—against which Jimmy Carter warned long ago—that has reduced us to a “Country Made of Ice Cream”?  How is any of that going to be reformed in a timely fashion by continuing with “the way we do things around here”? 

[1] Start at 4:05.  Pa always said never trust a Hogwallop! 

[2] Cursus honorum – Wikipedia 

[3] The NYT is risk averse in its attitude toward change.  New York Times risky – Search

[4] Old English term.  See the first meaning given.  NITHING definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary 

[5] But not all of them.  Gina Raimondo for the Democrats and Mike Gallagher for the Republicans offer hope.