Category: Situational Awareness

Posts about the situation we are in–the good facts, the bad facts, and the terrible facts. Facts that, if taken on board, will let us “know ourselves, know the other side” and go on to win those hundred battles.

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They Sowed the Wind, They Have Inherited the Whirlwind

This is the Week When They’re Admitting that if You Elect an Actual Crazy Person, You Will Get Literally Crazy Government—and That the Crazy Person’s Supporters Will Get Exactly What They Deserve

Michelle Goldberg (N.Y. Times), The Right’s Trump Derangement Syndrome

Axios, Trump’s rug-pull presidency

Mike Allen of Axios writes this morning, 

Donald Trump is building a reputation for himself as the flip-flopper in chief — the president who, after announcing a bold new policy today, is more than likely to reverse it tomorrow.

Why it matters: In a chaotic and unpredictable world, the federal government normally acts as a stabilizing force. Under Trump, it has become the primary driver of the chaos.

The big picture: Across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada — two of America’s three largest trading partners — have been on and then off and then on and then off. Colombia knowsthe feeling. 

For the record: “This is the art of the deal,” a White House spokesman tells Axios about the tariff reversals, adding that the General Services Administration and individual agencies, rather than Trump himself, are responsible for other executive-branch actions.

Flashback: In a matter of days, Trump denounced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, then made up and invited him to Washington, then chastised him in the Oval Office, then expressed openness to rebuilding ties, then cut off arms and intelligence sharing.

Zoom in: Republicans in Congress have repeatedly found themselves boxed in by Trump’s flip-flops.

  • He spent weeks equivocating on whether Congress should pass his agenda in one bill or two — then blindsided the Senate by backing House Republicans’ one-bill approach.
  • He promised not to cut Medicaid, then backed a House GOP budget plan that could force exactly that in order to meet its proposed spending cuts.
  • He has vowed to achieve the unthinkable by balancing the budget — while endorsing trillions of dollars in tax cuts, plus new campaign promises like no tax on tips or overtime.

Follow the money: The stock market, for one, is tiring of such shenanigans. On Wednesday, stocks fell on news that tariffs were being imposed — and then on Thursday, when those tariffs were suspended, stocks fell again.

  • Foreign investors like French energy company Engie are on the record as saying that they need clarity and predictability in order to invest in the U.S. — something that’s clearly missing at the moment.
  • “I’m not even looking at the market,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday, disavowing his longtime favorite metric for economic success.

Zoom out: In crypto, a rug-pull is any project that’s announced and then abandoned — often at great expense to anybody who believed the initial announcement. 

Between the lines: Elon Musk — who may or may not be the head of DOGE, depending on who you ask — is at least partially responsible for the administration’s “move fast and break things” ethos.

  • “We will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we’ll fix it very quickly,” Musk said in a Cabinet meeting last week, pointing to the reversed cancellation of Ebola funding.
  • DOGE has made plenty of mistakes, but has not always been transparent about fixing them — quietly pulling down billions of dollars from its online “wall of receipts” on multiple occasions.

The bottom line: This is just exhausting.

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Today’s Supreme Court Decision in Department of State v. Aids Vaccine Advocacy Coalition

This image provided by Rachel Malehorn shows Judge Amy Coney Barrett in Milwaukee, on Aug. 24, 2018. (Rachel Malehorn, rachelmalehorn.smugmug.com, via AP)

Washington Post, Supreme Court says judge can force Trump administration to pay foreign aid

SCOTUSblog, Supreme Court denies Trump request to block $2 billion foreign-aid payment

If you want to dig in the weeds, please do so; the two sources above, along with many others, will help.

Big picture: the issue presented by the case is whether it is A-OK for Trump to spit on the Constitution by exercising kingly power to destroy a federal agency created and funded by Congress—particularly in a situation where the destruction of said agency will lead to unimaginable loss of life. 

In a dissenting opinion written by Justice Alito—who has been drinking a whole lot of Kool-Aid lately—and joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, the four justices seemed to take it as self-evident that Trump need not obey the Constitution and that it was a grievous act of “judicial hubris” for a lowly federal district judge to think that Trump has any obligation to the Constitution. 

But one of the three Trump-appointed justices, Amy Coney Barrett, has been tapering off the Kool-Aid lately. She joined with Justice Roberts and with the three liberals in a short, unsigned opinion, indicating that the lowly federal district judge in question could bloody well go right ahead and order Trump to pay up. (That is, it’s OK for the judge to order Trump to pay pending a final resolution of the case.)

If you read the opinion—and I hope you do—you will see that I have oversimplified. You will see that this onion has a lot of layers. But I do not think I have oversimplified in a misleading way. And my guess is that it’s going to be Constitution, 5, Dictatorship, 4, from here on.

I did say “guess.” There is a difference, you know, between a guess and a prediction.

And, by the way, as Trump becomes increasingly unpopular, I would’nt be shocked if we peel off Kavanaugh. 

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How to Lose the 21st Century in 3 Easy Steps

In the Washington Post today, Catherine Rampell writes,

More than anything else, President Donald Trump loves winning. Yet he has already positioned America to lose the 21st century, in three simple steps:

  1. Alienate your friends.
  2. Destroy your business environment.
  3. Slaughter your golden goose (i.e., science and research).
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Rashomon in the Oval Office

Washington Post, How the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office meeting spiraled into chaos: White House officials were expecting a positive meeting and said they had little reason to anticipate animosity before things deteriorated.

Tom Nichols, It Was an Ambush: Friday marked one of the grimmest days in the history of American diplomacy.

Jonathan Chait, The Real Reason Trump Berated Zelensky: He simply likes Vladimir Putin better.

Rashomon is a Japanese story where everyone gives conflicting accounts of the same event, and all of them, maybe, are inaccurate. I get much the same feeling here. The sources cited here include lots of observations from intelligent, well-informed people—much more well informed, and closer to the center of power, than I am—and yet … the account ts and explanations are markedly inconsistent in important ways. Plus they seem glaringly incomplete. 

One explanation for what happened is that Trump and Vance set up Zelenskyy.

One explanation is that Vance—a declared supporter of Christianist autocracy and an even bigger Putin ass kisser than Trump—sabotaged the signing of a framework deal with Ukraine.

One explanation is that Putin told his boy Trump to back out of the deal that was about to be signed, and that Trump had no choice but to do his master’s bidding. 

But I was particularly struck by the point made by one of the talking heads in the Washington Week video, who reported that in a pre-meeting Trump lashed out at Rubio, Waltz, and his other minions for not making a deal that would give Trump an even bigger share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth. That suggests that what happened was Trump just playing his familiar bullying -bluster-and-bullshit game to sweeten a deal. 

In any event, I don’t think all those talking heads and pontificating pundits are wrapping their heads around the larger context.

Every indication is that Putin doesn’t want to do a cease fire deal, and that he, particularly, does not want to share Ukraine’s carcass with Donald John Trump. 

And, meanwhile, there are the Europeans. Trump thinks he can intimidate them by blowing hot and cold. Will he abide by Article 5? Won’t he abide by Article 5? Will he go to war if Putin attacks Estonia? What about Sweden? If Putin attacks France, how much money will Trump demand in exchange for coming to its aid?

Vance and Musk explicitly say the United States should withdraw from NATO. Trump keeps making that threat. The Europeans, along with Ukraine, are going to have to go it alone, as best they can, because they have no other choice. 

I don’t mean any other reasonable choice. I don’t mean any other choice that they might live with.

I mean literally no other choice at all than to kiss the United States goodbye and go it alone.

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The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board Would Like Trump and Vance to Know That They Have Jumped the Shark

Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, Putin Wins the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office Spectacle: Vice President Vance starts a public fight that only helps Russia’s dictator

Last week, at the United Nations, the United States sided with North Korea and Belurus, refusing to support a European resolution condemning Russian aggression against Ukraine. Then, on Friday, there was the debacle in the Oval Office. Taken together, these developments have led many to conclude that the United States has switched sides in the Cold War. 

Writing about yesterday’s TV spectacle in the Oval Office, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board does not focus on whether or not the US has actually switched sides. Rather, true to its lodestar value—namely, the election of Republicans to office, where they can pursue a business-friendly agenda of low taxes and minimal regulation—the Board has some pointed words about the political peril ahead. The Board writes, 

“He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Friday afternoon after the exchange, while booting the Ukrainian president from the White House. “He can come back when he is ready for Peace.” The two didn’t sign a planned agreement on minerals that would have at least given Ukraine some hope of future U.S. support.

The meeting between Messrs. Trump and Zelensky started out smoothly enough. “It’s a big commitment from the United States, and we appreciate working with you very much, and we will continue to do that,” Mr. Trump said of the mineral deal. Mr. Zelensky showed photos of Ukrainians mistreated as prisoners of war. “That’s tough stuff,” Mr. Trump said.

But then the meeting, in front of the world, descended into recriminations. The nose dive began with an odd interjection from Vice President JD Vance, who appeared to be defending Mr. Trump’s diplomacy, which Mr. Zelensky hadn’t challenged. Mr. Zelensky rehearsed the many peace agreements Mr. Putin has shredded and essentially asked Mr. Vance what would be different this time. 

Mr. Vance unloaded on Mr. Zelensky—that he was “disrespectful,” low on manpower, and gives visitors to Ukraine a “propaganda” tour. President Trump appeared piqued by Mr. Zelensky’s suggestion that the outcome in Ukraine would matter to the U.S. “Your country is in big trouble. You’re not winning,” Mr. Trump said at one point. 

Why did the Vice President try to provoke a public fight? Mr. Vance has been taking to his X.com account in what appears to be an effort to soften up the political ground for a Ukraine surrender, most recently writing off Mr. Putin’s brutal invasion as a mere ethnic rivalry. Mr. Vance dressed down Mr. Zelensky as if he were a child late for dinner. He claimed the Ukrainian hadn’t been grateful enough for U.S. aid, though he has thanked America countless times for its support. This was not the behavior of a wannabe statesman.

Mr. Zelensky would have been wiser to defuse the tension by thanking the U.S. again, and deferring to Mr. Trump. There’s little benefit in trying to correct the historical record in front of Mr. Trump when you’re also seeking his help. 

But as with the war, Mr. Zelensky didn’t start this Oval Office exchange. Was he supposed to tolerate an extended public denigration of the Ukrainian people, who have been fighting a war for survival for three years?

It is bewildering to see Mr. Trump’s allies defending this debacle as some show of American strength. The U.S. interest in Ukraine is shutting down Mr. Putin’s imperial project of reassembling a lost Soviet empire without U.S. soldiers ever having to fire a shot. That core interest hasn’t changed, but berating Ukraine in front of the entire world will make it harder to achieve. 

Turning Ukraine over to Mr. Putin would be catastrophic for that country and Europe, but it would be a political calamity for Mr. Trump too. The U.S. President can’t simply walk away from that conflict, much as he would like to. Ukraine has enough weapons support to last until sometime this summer. But as the war stands, Mr. Putin sees little reason to make any concessions as his forces gain ground inch by bloody inch in Ukraine’s east. 

Friday’s spectacle won’t make him any more willing to stop his onslaught as he sees the U.S. President and his eager deputy unload on Ukraine’s leader. Some Trumpologists have been suggesting Mr. Trump will put pressure on Mr. Putin in due time. But so far Mr. Putin hasn’t made a single concession on territory, or on Ukraine’s ability to defend itself in the future after a peace deal is signed. 

President Trump no doubt resents having to deal with a war he thinks he might have prevented had he won in 2020. But Presidents have to deal with the world they inherit. Peace in Ukraine is salvageable, but he and Mr. Zelensky will have to work together on an agreement that Ukrainians can live with. 

Mr. Trump does not want to be the President who abandoned Ukraine to Vladimir Putin with all the bloodshed and damage to U.S. interests that would result. Mr. Vance won’t like to run for President in such a world either.