The Wall Street Journal admitted in an editorial this morning what I wrote about earlier this week.
Trump TACO-ed on Iran. He chickened out.
I gifted the short editorial here.
Here are some highlights:
Mr. Trump said at his Wednesday news conference. In so many words the President said the Iranians had him over a barrel—of oil. If he had fought on, the market “would go down at levels that nobody ever saw before, maybe except for 1929,” he said. “The one President I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
There you have it: Mr. Trump was driven by fear of high oil prices and a falling stock market going into the midterm elections. . . .
The U.S. had options but Mr. Trump blinked at the risk. Instead, after two months of cease-fire weakness while the public soured and oil reserves declined, the President acknowledges he gave in to Iran’s economic pressure. . . .
The more hope Messrs. Trump and Vance express in the Iranian regime’s transformation, the more desperate they sound. How else to read their sudden defense of Iran’s missile program, after stopping it had been a declared U.S. war aim? Wishful thinking can’t cover up this deal’s origins in White House fears. As the President himself admits.
I understand that readers might presume that I take an uncharitable look at Trump because I mostly vote for Democrats, and because I have concluded that Trump is a narcissistic, corrupt autocrat with no respect for the country he leads. So of course I would write that his only principle in foreign policy is his own personal political advantage. But I am not alone. The Wall Street Journal shares my opinion.
But the blind cult of Trump is fraying. MAGA "America First" isolationists feel betrayed, and wonder if we are being led around by Israel. Israel hawks feel betrayed, so Trump is getting hurt in both directions. The Epstein mess makes Trump look like he is hiding something, which, of course, he is. Trump's fixations on the 2020 election, on the ballroom, on gold adornments, on the reflecting pool, on a grandiose arch, seem like sideshow distractions to all but people deep in the cult. I would like to think that bona fide Christians are uncomfortable with the way that he presents himself as a tight-with-Jesus Christian warrior. It looks like blasphemy and idolatry to me, but polls show that evangelical Christians are OK with Trump, so far at least.
The Wall Street Journal represents what remains an important part of the GOP coalition: the business establishment. That is a group that wants orderly, rule-of-law enforcement of contracts and patents, predictable interest rate policy, limited regulation, and low taxes on the wealthy. The establishment wants the government to leave it alone unless, and until, they need to be rescued, at which point they become socialists and claim that they must be subsidized to save capitalism and jobs for the downtrodden. I watched this happen in 1985 (savings and loan crisis), 1987 (Black Monday), 1991 (insurance crisis), 1998 (Long-Term Capital collapse), 2000 (internet bubble pops), 2021 (9/11 attack), 2008 (mortgage bubble triggers Great Financial Crisis), and repeatedly in Trump's terms of office whenTrump bailed out farmers to mitigate the effects on them of tariff retaliation, and at key points in the past decade when the government bailed out SpaceX and Tesla.
The Wall Street Journal is inconsistent and hypocritical, but the newspaper is clear about its interest in defending the business establishment. Trump wants business to do well and he wants the stock market to soar, but he wants it so he can brag about it and be glorified by it. The WSJ is getting clear that Trump's goal is his own wealth and glory, not the country's, and that while the goals theoretically run in parallel, in fact they do not. Trump will happily flout the rule of law, and orderly, predictable process to achieve his goal of personal influence. For the WSJ government ownership of businesses is bad per se, it is socialism. For Trump, the government owning a piece of a business is a source of personal power -- a very good thing. It is a string he can pull to get something he wants.
Trump is not governing the country on behalf of the WSJ. He is governing it on behalf of the audience of Fox News which glorifies and empowers Trump personally. They are different and, increasingly, they are in opposition.
Things fall apart.
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4 comments:
“I understand that readers might presume that I take an uncharitable look at Trump because I mostly vote for Democrats, and because I have concluded that Trump is a narcissistic, corrupt autocrat with no respect for the country he leads.”
I presumed you took an uncharitable view of Trump because what you said about him is true and because, unlike his supporters and those who make lame excuses for them, you are obviously capable of telling fact from fiction and shit from Shinola.
Can our country survive in its current form with the weakness of our institutions? The Federalist papers warned us of the possibility of a person attempting to restore a monarchy taking solace in States Rights as protection from an odious federal tyranny, but that is not enough.
The country can survive only if its institutions remain legitimate, resilient, and obeyed. Current polling reveals disgust and revolutsion at our current branchs of government. Few may realize we are in a crisis confidence.
Trump rode a populist wave into the presidency. Populism is now a major force in our politics. The old GOP establishment is no longer the center of gravity of the Republican Party.
The Democrats are attempting to come up with their own brand of populism based on “socialism.” That’s only going to fly in bright blue urban areas. But it is the case that the old Democratic establishment is no longer the center of gravity of the Democratic Party.
It seems to me that under the force of populism, our two-party system is going to morph into two significantly different parties. Trump accelerated that trend in the Republican Party; the Democrats are at an earlier stage of that process.
It doesn’t really matter what the political parties become. Thanks to the oligarchs calling the shots, the U.S. is gradually going broke. Trump is just the instrument they’re using. Many people voted for him because he presented himself as a “businessman,” so it comes as no surprise that he’s doing for the U.S. what he did for Trump Casinos.
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