Leadership – Page 5 – The Wrongologist

Biden’s Dilemma

The Daily Escape:

Highlands, Nantahala National Forest, NC – January 2024 photo by Michele Schwartz

The drone strike on a US base in Jordan killed three American troops and wounded at least 34 more. The base is called Tower 22. The attack has had several effects: First, it makes very real the likelihood of a widening conflict in the Middle East (ME). Second it has caused another partisan fire storm in US politics. Biden vowed to respond to the assault, blaming Iran-backed militias for the first US military casualties in the many similar strikes in the region since the start of the Israel/Hamas war. Here’s a map showing where the attack happened:

Basically, this is a logistics location for US troops in Syria at the US military base at al-Tanf, just 12 miles north of Tower 22. Tanf has been the key support location in the US effort to control ISIS in Syria and to contain Iran’s military build-up in eastern Syria. From AP News:

“Since the war in Gaza began Oct. 7, Iranian-backed militias have struck American military installations in Iraq more than 60 times and in Syria more than 90 times, with a mix of drones, rockets, mortars and ballistic missiles. The attack Sunday was the first targeting American troops in Jordan during the Israel-Hamas war and the first to result in the loss of American lives.”

The timing of this attack could hardly be worse. What began in October as a war between Israel and Hamas has now morphed with involvement by militants from four other Arab states. In addition Iran, Israel and Jordan all bombed Syria this month. Iran also bombed Pakistan, and Pakistan retaliated.

All of this is tit-for-tat in which American airstrikes against militias in Iraq or Syria, alternate with more militia attacks on the US installations. This illustrates the ME mission creep since last October. Whatever the original mission was for US troops in Syria, Jordan, and Iraq is now being sidelined as protection of the troop presence itself becomes the main concern.

All of these tit-for-tats carry an extreme risk of escalation into a larger conflict.

Iran has a network of proxy militias to project power across the ME. It is trying to support them while simultaneously trying to remain outside of the conflict. While Iran has tacitly accepted Israel’s targeting of Hamas, it has been loath to unleash Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fearing that Israel (or the US) will hit back at Iran directly. Iran would like to force Israel into a ceasefire in Gaza and force American troops out of the ME. So far, its proxies have achieved only an increased American presence.

If we assume that the Tower 22 hit was a deliberate hit, (the base has been there for several years), it’s certain that militias in the area knew where to hit it to achieve a maximum result. Expanding from that, the US has about a thousand bases scattered around the world that are used to influence local operations, etc. Up to now, the US has considered them as assets. But if they suddenly become targets, trying to defend them simultaneously will be as difficult as defending ships in the Red Sea: Impossible. On the other hand, they are excellent targets if the US wants to be provoked into attacking Iran.

If such attacks continue, the position of these bases is going to become untenable and will pose a massive political problem for Biden.

Biden has fallen into a trap. And worse, it is Israel that placed Biden in the trap by not even trying to find a way to de-escalate the war with Hamas and bring Israeli hostages home. Biden’s support for Israel and his gentle pressure on Netanyahu to stop killing Gazans hasn’t worked; it also helped Biden fall in the trap. Biden should stop letting Bibi lead him around by the nose.

Biden can retaliate directly inside Iran, which will likely escalate the tit-for-tat attacks. And if taken as far as certain Republican pols want to go, it will endanger the Straits of Hormuz and risk doubling oil prices.

Worse in some ways, direct retaliation inside Iran might lead Russia to announce Iran is under full protection of Russia’s nuclear umbrella. That would make the Russia-China-Iran axis a concrete and formidable enemy. That would be a terrible outcome, even though some American Neo-cons have been making noises about being able to “win” a nuclear war. Here are some Republican chicken hawk suggestions about Iran:

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MI):

“We must respond to these repeated attacks by Iran and its proxies by striking directly against Iranian targets and its leadership. … It is time to act swiftly and decisively for the whole world to see.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK):

“The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East.”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) wrote:

“Joe Biden has emboldened Iran and shown weakness on the global stage. We have to have a stronger Commander-in-Chief.”

Talk is always cheap, and most of this is political theater. Biden could also conduct limited retaliatory missions against the actual militias in Syria who US Intelligence says attacked Tower 22. Whatever he does, Biden will suffer inevitable attacks from Republicans at home. All this with less than eleven months to go before Election Day.

As of now it isn’t clear how Biden intends to respond. In the past, when Trump targeted Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani, and other Iranian interests, the US conducted these actions outside of Iranian territory. Iran’s denial of direct involvement in the attack complicates the situation and makes it less likely that Biden will attack inside of Iran.

Striking militia leaders outside of Iran will cause Republicans to question the effectiveness of Biden’s tactics. The US has employed this type of retaliation in the past, but it hasn’t significantly curbed Iran’s or its proxies’ aggressive actions.

We need to keep perspective on the Tower 22 deaths. Republicans should remember that 48,000 Americans are killed by Americans with American-made guns every year. Of course our three soldiers should be honored, and we should retaliate. But if the loss of American lives is the big deal the Republicans say it is, then their indignation should be directed here at home in addition to in Jordan.

Otherwise, it’s false indignation.

All of us should remember that we have failed in every mission in the ME. We only accomplish growing our list of enemies like the Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, Syria and whoever comes next if we stick around.

Will Texas Disregard The Supreme Court?

The Daily Escape:

Snow Canyon, UT – October 2023 photo by Cathy Mortensen

(We will not publish a Saturday Soother this week, but there will be a Sunday cartoons column)

In doing research for this week’s Fascism in America column, Wrongo came across this from Rick Perlstein:

“And I think…what…we have in the United States: a very weak political establishment, but a civil society underneath it that’s looking for a kind of expression. And the expression that it’s taking is pathological….Because the party system is unable to answer the demands they have.”

A weak political establishment means that Congress can barely get out of its own way. Our political institutions have become ineffectual. The current Congress is setting records for inaction:

“The 118th Congress is on track to be one of the most unproductive in modern history, with just a couple dozen laws on the books at the close of 2023…”

This void is being filled by judicial or political opportunists. This is even true when the US Supreme Court hands down a decision that Republicans don’t like. From the Texas Tribune:

“The US Supreme Court…ordered Texas to allow federal border agents access to the state’s border with Mexico, where Texas officials have deployed miles of concertina wire…..For now, it effectively upholds longstanding court rulings that the Constitution gives the federal government sole responsibility for border security.”

Last October, Texas sued the federal government after Border Patrol agents cut some of the wire strung along the Rio Grande, arguing the Department of Homeland Security destroyed the state’s property and interfered in Texas’ border security efforts. But in a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court vacated a previous injunction from the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals that prevented Border Patrol agents from cutting the wire.

So what does a sovereign state like Texas do in response? It’s governor Greg Abbott, issued a “Statement on Texas’ Constitutional Right to Self-Defense,” following calls by numerous Texas Republicans to resist the high court’s order. Abbott’s statement says that he had invoked his state’s “constitutional authority to defend and protect itself” which “is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.”

OK, is it secession time anybody?

Houston Public Media quotes Charles “Rocky” Rhodes, teacher of constitutional law at South Texas College of Law in Houston:

“That’s a real blow to our separation of powers and the way that this country has governed itself….There have been situations in the past where governors and state officials have defied the Supreme Court, but that has led to constitutional crises.”

Teddy Rave, at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, another constitutional law expert, described the calls to defy the high court’s order as unconstitutional and dangerous:

“The last time that I’m aware of that this kind of defiance actually happened was resistance to desegregation orders after Brown v. Board of Education….The Supreme Court didn’t take it kindly and issued a unanimous decision in Cooper v. Aaron explaining that states need to follow its constitutional rulings.”

But since it’s Texas, won’t the Supremes give the Republican governor a hall pass to run amuck over the Constitution? Maybe so, maybe no. The decision was 5-4, meaning that two of the six conservative Supreme Court justices said Abbott had to comply. Could one switch sides? Certainly.

What can Biden do if Abbott refuses to comply with SCOTUS’s decision? He could federalize the Texas National Guard, which is what happened in Arkansas in 1957, when the then-governor Faubus tried to defy court orders allowing Black students to attend white schools in Little Rock.

Much like Abbott, Faubus’s fight was politically motivated. Faubus used the Arkansas Guard to keep blacks out of Central High School largely because he was frustrated by his political opponents’ success in using segregationist rhetoric to whip up support with white voters.

That eventually led President Eisenhower to federalize the Arkansas National Guard to effectively remove them from Faubus’s control. Eisenhower then sent the 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas to protect the black students and enforce the federal court order. The Arkansas National Guard later took over those protection duties, and the 101^st Airborne returned to their base.

There seems to be a growing movement in Texas to fight the SCOTUS decision. A Texas nationalist urged Abbott to militarize the Texas State Guard if Biden federalizes the Texas National Guard. The Texas State Guard cannot be federalized. It has about 1,900 personnel, substantially smaller than the roughly 23,000 members of the Texas National Guard, but Abbott could attempt to beef up its headcount.

The Hill is reporting that Trump has urged states to deploy National Guard troops to Texas in support of Abbott. Various Right-wing twitter accounts are reporting that 25 Republican states have signed a statement supporting Texas against the Supreme Court. It’s not certain as Wrongo writes this is if these reports are true, but a presidential candidate and the governors of several states challenging the federal government seems an awful lot like the beginning of an insurrection.

Their joint statement isn’t in support of Texas, it’s in support of treason. This is what America has come to. It’s also symptomatic of the Supreme Court’s inability to check radical Trump-placed judges in lower courts who issue rulings with devastating consequences for democracy and human rights. States have no constitutional prerogative to nullify federal law. This principle was established during the nullification crisis of the 1830s and the Southern resistance to desegregation during the Civil Rights era. Nor, under the Constitution’s supremacy clause, can states interfere with the lawful exercise of federal authority. This rule is one of the oldest and most entrenched in all of our Constitutional law.

We often talk about Constitutional crises, and this could easily become one if Abbott and his enablers try to limit by force the US Border Patrol’s access in the upcoming days.

It’s also a test for Biden in an election year. Will he have to put down another insurrection by Republicans? If he does, what will be the political fallout?

Stay tuned.

Cartoons Of The Week

There’s an abundance of good cartoons this week. But before we get to them, let’s spend a few moments on the multi-year disaster in the US Department of Education (DOE). From NPR:

“…the US Department of Education is going to review the loan histories of most federal student loan borrowers….And the reason, in the department’s own words, is to, quote, “remedy years of administrative failures that effectively denied the promise of loan forgiveness to certain borrowers.” This review is expected to trigger loan forgiveness for tens of thousands of people and bring millions more closer to having their loans erased.”

More: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“For years, income-driven repayment was badly mismanaged by Ed and its loan servicers, making it really hard for borrowers to access. And so hardly anyone has qualified for that forgiveness.”

Finally: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Our investigation in April showed some [loan] servicers weren’t keeping track of how close borrowers were to loan forgiveness. Also, some borrowers weren’t getting credit for all their payments, or they were even losing months of credit when they were transferred from one servicer to another. After our reporting came out, members of Congress called for an investigation. And later that month in April, the department announced this big retroactive overhaul that’s now getting started.”

This amounts to $5 billion in forgiveness for 74,000 borrowers. When people talk about how the government is terrible, they should be talking about the decades of mismanagement at US DOE. On to cartoons.

The destruction of Gaza won’t win the US any friends in the Middle East:

Biden declares the Houthis terrorists:

GOP intransigence on funding for Ukraine continues:

Iowa win means Republicans fall in behind Trump:

The GOP still singing the same old tune:

S&P hits record high, but Biden’s still too old:

Baby it’s cold outside:

Another Reason Why People Think The Economy Sucks

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Camden Harbor, Camden, ME – January 2024 photo by Daniel F. Dishner Photography

The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) has crunched the latest Social Security Administration (SSA) wage data. It shows the average American workers haven’t made much money since the 1970s:

“The latest SSA data demonstrates how vastly unequal earnings growth has been between 1979 and 2022. Over that period, inflation-adjusted annual earnings for the top 1% and top 0.1% skyrocketed by 171.7% and 344.4%, respectively, while earnings for the bottom 90% grew just 32.9%.”

That’s 33% over 43 years, less than 1% per year. The largest share of total earnings in the US economy have accumulated at the top of the wage ladder. The EPI is describing “labor market earnings”, the pay (including benefits) of the 80% of workers who are not managers or supervisors at work. For decades before 1980, these workers’ hourly pay largely tracked economy-wide productivity growth.

When productivity growth slowed significantly, hourly pay growth collapsed even faster, leading to a growing gap between these typical workers’ pay and overall growth. That difference in missing pay for typical workers went to workers at the top or to business owners.

The EPI study shows that if you’re in the bottom 90% of wage earners, you’ve seen annual wage growth of less than 1% per year over the past 43 years. If you’re in the “upper middle class” things were very different. Here’s a chart from EPI:

Average wages in the 95th to 99th percentile have almost doubled, from $120K to $234K (all figures are in 2022 dollars). But this leaves out the real winners, the top 1%. Average wages for them went from $289K in 1979 to $786K in 2022. But even this huge growth is eclipsed by the wages of the top .1%, which increased an astounding 344%, going from $634K to $2.82 million.

Note that the data are for average annual wages which for the bottom 90% were $40,845 in 2022. Data on average wages are all that’s available, but it’s misleading. The MEDIAN wage for all workers is around $34k. That means half the bottom 90% are making LESS than 34k. Also, median household income is around $76k; which is two people working in the same household.

The media and the rest of us really have no idea how little the average person is earning.

And this is just income from wages. People at or near the top of the pyramid own the vast majority of the equity capital in the US — the top 10% of households own 85% of the total corporate stock owned by households.

The economic debate in America since the 1880s has been between those in favor of lightly regulated heavily financialized consumer capitalism, with some very modest income redistribution, sufficient — barely — to keep the losers in that economy from starving or freezing to death.

The other side are the Republicans who think England in the Industrial Revolution, is a model for what America ought to look like today. And Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon says we should listen to Republicans more. He’s specifically talking about NATO and immigration.

And this has been the GOP’s pitch forever:

Democrats need to address the negative impacts of US wage distribution as part of their 2024 pitch to keep the presidency, and return to controlling the House and Senate in November.

The Fields of Wrong are covered in snow, mostly due to temperatures being below freezing for the past several days. We had a tree fall into the road during the big windstorm last Sunday. Now it sits, snow-covered, on our property waiting for our next chain sawing event.

It’s Saturday, and professional football will be all over the television for the rest of the weekend. Good luck to those of you who follow one of the remaining eight teams. It’s time for our Saturday Soother, where we try to forget about the Red Sea, the New Hampshire primaries and funding the government, and instead try to calm ourselves for a few moments. Hopefully we’ll be in better shape to launch into the roller coaster ride of next week’s horrors.

Take a few minutes and grab a chair by a window. Now, watch and listen as John Williams is persuaded to conduct the National Symphony Orchestra in a performance of his “Imperial March” from Star Wars during a gala to celebrate his 90th Birthday.

There are many seriously talented people on the stage, including track star Florence Joyner, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Steven Spielberg, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Star Wars actor, Daisy Ridley. Williams is 91, still going strong, and an example to those who think young Biden is too old to run again. Bravo, Maestro:

The End Of US Naval Superiority?

The Daily Escape:

Barn in orchard with Mt. Hood in background, OR – January 2024 photo by Mitch Schreiber Photography

What are we to make of the continuing war in the Red Sea? The Iranian-backed Houthis launched more attacks on merchant shipping just hours after the US preemptively struck them in Yemen. There is word from unreliable sources that the Houthis have now banned all US and UK ships from transiting the Red Sea, an escalation. Previously, they focused only on maritime shipping associated with Israel.

From the WaPo:

“Just as global supply chains finally returned to normal….The continuing attacks by the Houthis…have increased global shipping costs, caused cargo carriers or their clients to opt for longer alternate routes from Asia to Europe and the United States and raised alarms about the economic costs of a wider conflict.”

“Almost one-fifth of US freight arrives at East Coast ports after transiting the Red Sea and Suez Canal… Solar panels, electric vehicle batteries, toys and vacuum cleaners are among the goods making that trip. But for now, economists do not anticipate a major impact on the prices that US consumers pay — unless the violence worsens.”

Three months after the start of the Israel/Hamas war, a maritime danger zone has been created that extends hundreds of miles from its original location. Houthi militias have launched dozens of attacks on ships with drones and missiles, cutting container activity in the Suez canal by 90%.

The Western naval forces protecting global trade are now stretched dangerously thin. The attacks are beginning to spread beyond the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. That complicates the task facing US military planners.

The economic implications are easy to understand. What may be more difficult is what this implies for America’s preeminent role in defense of the seas. The US simply doesn’t have the armament or manpower to: a) occupy Yemen or b) push the Houthi back far enough from the mouth of the Red Sea to reopen the Suez Canal to western shipping.

We have to consider the implications of an important global logistic choke point being closed as retaliation for the Israel/Hamas war. Also a second choke point, the Panama Canal, has also been forced to limit ships due to their persistent drought.

A second strategic implication is the impact of drone warfare on naval operations. Drones are plentiful and cheap. Large numbers of cheap drones means that warships now must have enough anti-aircraft (AA) systems to stop drones, along with electronic warfare counter-measure systems. Otherwise, they become sitting ducks.

A new fact of war is that cheap drones will overwhelm expensive missiles.

Our navy’s defense against drone attacks on commercial vessels runs headlong into the fact that our ships at sea can only store so many missiles. The US has sent a number of AEGIS destroyers to help protect international shipping, performing the dual role of intercepting Houthi drone and missiles and coming to the aid of distressed commercial ships.

Every missile salvo reduces the amount of time before they have to be resupplied by returning to base. We also know that America’s manufacturing capacity for missiles is far below what is needed to refill stocks, given how many need to be expended against drone swarms in the Red Sea and elsewhere.

Here are a few numbers from Stephen Bryen:

“The [AEGIS] destroyers have a complement of 96 VLS cells, while the [Ticonderoga class] cruisers have 122…However, they need to fit a mixture of weaponry in those cells so they can’t all be used for air defense….In short, each of the AEGIS has around 100 missiles.”

“Neither the US nor the British ships can be reprovisioned at sea, so they have a limited ability to “stay in the fight” if it continues for any length of time.”

So Yemen can launch a hundred drones and missiles at US ships and the destroyer escorts will very quickly exhaust their supply of air defense missiles. In the 1970s the U.S. Navy had ship tenders that could pull alongside a destroyer and resupply it. But today, these new Vertical Launch Systems must be reloaded in port.

In the ME, that means the destroyers will have to sail to Dubai or Europe, and the US aircraft carrier they are accompanying will have to follow because it relies on them for protection from ballistic and cruise missiles. Does America have enough carrier groups to rotate them when missile inventories are exhausted? The answer is no. Unless we are willing to move carrier groups from Asia to the ME. The US currently has 11 aircraft carriers in service, but here’s a map from Stratfor showing the location of our three! active carrier groups (CVNs) as of Jan 11, 2024:

We have three of 11 active, and you can see that CVN 78 (The Gerald Ford) sailed out of the Mediterranean and was replaced by CVN 69 (the Dwight Eisenhower) this week. This is the likely rotation for resupply of on-ship missiles.

Then there’s the issue of the US Navy’s manpower shortages. Forbes says in an article:

“…America’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), has downsized, cutting the crew aboard by hundreds of sailors….Over the past six months to a year, some 500 to 600 sailors have left the USS Ford and not been replaced.”

“…most likely scenario, according to long-time Navy observers…is that, after the Navy’s massive 20% miss in FY 2023 enlisted sailor recruitment goals, the Navy simply has no sailors to spare.”

This is the US Navy that pretends it can take on either Russia or China or both together!

A profound shift is underway: Our globalized economy relies on ocean freight. Some 80% of trade by volume and 50% by value travels on a fleet of 105,000 container ships, tankers and freight vessels. But today’s superpower rivalry and the decay of global rules may mean that oceans will become a contested zone for the first time since the Cold War. China’s naval build-up means the US Navy’s primacy in the Pacific is being contested for the first time since 1945.

The “law of the sea” is in decline. China increasingly ignores rulings that it objects to. And the West’s use of sanctions has triggered a boom in smuggling: 10% of all tankers are part of a “dark fleet” operating outside mainstream laws and finance, more than twice as many as 18 months ago.

The bottom line is that the US cannot invade Yemen or stop the Yemenis from shooting missiles at commercial vessels or at our own warships. As always, we can bomb a lot, but that’s unlikely to stop the Yemenis. They live in a mountainous country and their missiles are mobile.

The US Navy can’t take them out just by bombing. The Yemenis are tough, experienced fighters. They have endured one of the longest and most brutal bombing campaigns of the last few decades, and they are still here.

The plain fact is that the US and its western allies simply do not have sufficient deterrence to prevail in the Red Sea. The shipping industry has already come to that conclusion:

“In response, some shipping companies have instructed vessels to instead sail around southern Africa, a slower and therefore more expensive route.”

Commercial cargo lines are not going to chance being shot up.

We don’t have sufficient deterrence to keep the Red Sea, and thereby, the Suez Canal, open. We can’t do enough to the Houthis to make them back down. And we won’t be able to stop them with boots on the ground.

What will the US military say is our way out of the box we’ve gotten ourselves into?

Trump’s Role In The Insurrection May Go Unpunished

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Camden Harbor, Camden ME – January 2024 photo by Daniel F Dishner Photography

It’s been three years since the Insurrection on Jan. 6. One of the determining factors of the outcome of 2024 presidential election will be whether the cases against Trump for his role in the Insurrection are decided before the election on November 5^th of this year. It’s just 303 days away. That isn’t a lot of time, and there remains only a small possibility that Trump will be convicted and sentenced to prison for his role in fomenting either the violence at the Capitol or in the stolen documents case before November.

Wrongo no longer expects that either of the political cases against Trump will be decided by then.

Hopefully you realize that if those cases are still pending on Nov. 5 and Trump wins the election, the US government will withdraw from them, eliminating the possibility of Trump ever being convicted.

The failure of the DOJ to see the past four years as an asset that had to used quickly and decisively before it was used up by the Trump team’s procedural appeals, is unforgivable. This also applies to the DOJ efforts to try the downstream Jan. 6 insurrectionists. From the NYT:

“As of December, about 1,240 people had been arrested in connection with the attack, accused of crimes ranging from trespassing, a misdemeanor, to seditious conspiracy, a felony.”

Another 350 cases are still pending. That’s out of a total of nearly 3, 000 people who have been identified as Jan. 6 insurrectionists. So far, around 170 people have been convicted at trial, two people have been fully acquitted, and about 710 people have pleaded guilty. More than 450 of them were sentenced to jail time, ranging from a handful of days to more than 20 years.

Yet the instigator of all that happened that day remains free. And his public still support him. Here is a chart from the WaPo that shows how the view of Trump’s responsibility for the Jan. 6 insurrection have changed over time:

The survey also found that over a third of Americans now believe Biden’s election was illegitimate compared to a December 2021 WaPo survey. Republicans are also less likely to believe that Jan. 6 participants were “mostly violent”. Only 18% of them believe the people who entered the Capitol on 1/6 were in that category. They are less likely to believe Trump bears responsibility for the attack.

This prove that Mark Twain was right: you can indeed fool some of the people all of the time.

A few months ago, the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released its annual American Values Survey. Buried inside their extensive report was a very alarming finding:

“One-third of Republicans and 46% of people who think the 2020 election was stolen believe that ‘true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.’”

This is a dangerous powder keg: An increasingly unhinged former President, and a Republican base that believes violence may be the only way to preserve America as they ~~know~~ want it.

When Wrongo speaks about “dread” in the political sense, his biggest fear in 2024 is the powder keg we’re sitting on. If Trump loses again, we are certain to see more political violence from the Right. And if he wins? No one should think there is a zero chance of violence against Trump’s political enemies.

This brings to mind a quote from Churchill, who when speaking about countries appeasement of Hitler said:

“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.”

That is clearly true for many Republicans and most of the media.

A lot of Democrats are down in the dumps these days. They are frustrated with the lack of progress on some issues (immigration) and by the never-ending cycle of bad polling on Biden’s popularity. Some were hoping to vote for a younger or more progressive Democrat this time around.

Those feelings are legitimate, and it is incumbent on Biden and his campaign to persuade people why they must exercise their voting power against the dark forces on the Right. Democracy can’t function when people intend to use force as a means to bring about their idea of justice. It’s even worse when they are excused after their behavior.

This is the reason to unify and mobilize the disparate Democrats, Independents and anti-Trump Republicans. The use of force on Jan. 6 and the possibility of using more force this year to get an unconvicted Trump back in the White House and keep him there, isn’t democracy. This is the time and place to stop Trump’s rolling Insurrection.

Biden recognizes this and kicked off his 2024 political campaign in Valley Forge, PA on Friday. Biden sees Valley Forge as a symbolic connection between his efforts to “heal the soul of the nation” and George Washington’s undaunted spirit during the American Revolution hundreds of years ago.

His second speech will be at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, where white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine Black parishioners as they welcomed him to pray with them in June 2015.

From Joan Walsh:

“Something that stays with me, that few commentators ever mention: Trump came down his gilded escalator to declare his presidential candidacy just one day before the Charleston massacre. It would probably be too daring for Biden to make that connection, but I always do.”

Biden’s campaign theme of “preserving democracy” isn’t compelling, or “made for TV.” But it is precisely what the nation needs as it stares into the abyss of a potential second Trump term as president. Like Biden, Trump has made promises. He’s promised his followers that, if re-elected, “I will be your retribution.”

As with Biden, we should take Trump at his word: He will exact retribution and act as a dictator on day one of his second term. These competing promises of Trump and Biden tell us all we need to know about the choice we face in the 2024 election.

On to our first Saturday Soother of 2024. Here at the mansion of Wrong, we’re ready for tonight’s snow. We’re also looking forward to next weekend when we will have all of our 12 grandchildren here for a belated Christmas party. Since they span the ages of 15-32 and are spread all over the country, this is the first time ever that they will be in the same space.

It’s something that Wrongo and Ms. Right are looking forward to with great anticipation.

Today, let’s try to forget the dread and the likelihood that Trump will never be convicted for his crimes of Insurrection. Instead, grab a comfy chair by a window where, if you are in the Northeast, you can watch the falling snow.

Now watch and listen to the London Gay Symphony Orchestra play “La Calinda” from Delius’ third opera “Koanga”, written between 1896 and 1897. Koanga is reputed to be the first opera in the European tradition to base much of its melodic material on African-American music. Delius spent time as a young man working in Florida. Here is “La Calinda” conducted by Christopher Braime at St. Giles Cripplegate in February 2017:

Americans Dread The Future

The Daily Escape:

Manhattan Beach Pier, CA – December 31, 2023 photo by Michael Franich

Welcome to Wrongo’s first column of 2024. Let’s dispense with the reviews of last year and the forecasts of this year. Let’s try to describe what we’re all feeling as we say so long to the presidential campaign of 2023, and welcome in the presidential campaign of 2024.

What’s the overwhelming feeling that comes to mind for Americans when thinking about the upcoming presidential election? Dread, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll:

“The survey of 1,636 US adults…offered respondents seven emotions — three positive, three negative, one neutral — and asked them to select any and all that reflect their attitude toward the 2024 campaign.

Dread, the most negative option, topped the list (41%), followed by exhaustion (34%), optimism (25%), depression (21%), indifference (17%), excitement (15%) and delight (5%).”

Here’s the relevant chart:

“In total, a majority of Americans (56%) chose at least one of the three negative feelings (dread, exhaustion or depression), while less than a third (32%) picked at least one of the three positive feelings (optimism, excitement or delight).”

Wrongo test marketed the idea that “dread” was the watchword for 2024 at a New Year’s breakfast with people who span the political spectrum. They universally hated it, but after a short discussion felt it was arguably, the dominant feeling that they had about what will/might happen in 2024.

From the issue:

“We are feeling an acute sense of loss….But what do you call the feeling of watching your society being taken over by fanatics, monsters, and lunatics? How about the feeling of watching democracy crash and burn—remember, it’s declining by the stunning rate of about 10% a decade, putting its extinction within our lifetimes.”

Psychology Today gives us a frame to think about dread in their 2023 article, “How to Overcome the Sinking Feeling of Dread”: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“A sense of dread may be due to an abstractly internalized experience of external volatility called “disembedding”….This phenomenon refers to our ability to interact with one another without having to make face-to-face contact. The result is an overabundance of information that comes our way. It becomes abstracted and metaphorically slips through the fingers of our minds in trying to grasp what it is. With a few clicks through an Instagram feed, scrolling through Twitter, or even just opening your web browser to search for something, your brain becomes a dartboard for world news.”

“When one experiences this, there are often repeated attempts to secure a firm base. People will reassert their values as moral absolutes, declare other groups as lacking in value, draw distinct lines of virtue and vice, be rigid rather than flexible in their judgements, and punitive and excluding rather than permeable and assimilative….Another consequence of disembedding is the possibility of scapegoating: the underclass, racial minorities, new-age travelers, addicts, people with unusual behaviors, and other vulnerable social groups risk being singled out and demonized as the source of society’s problems.”

Dread makes us less tolerant of differences, and as a result, we punish them. This is the emotional backdrop for 2024, and the road ahead looks murky as hell. And facts increasingly don’t matter, since whichever side posits a fact, the other has a prepared rebuttal that says the source (even if its official statistics) are misleading if not outright lies.

The NYT’s Krugman notes that overall, the country’s in pretty good shape. The challenge is that people so far continue to blame Biden for the chaos and ugliness that Trump and his cult are creating: (brackets by Wrongo)

“The big question…was whether America would ever fully recover from that shock. In 2023 we got the answer: yes. Our economy and society have, in fact, healed remarkably well. The big remaining question is when, if ever, the public will be ready to accept the good news….America’s resilience in the face of the pandemic shock has been remarkable, [but] so has the pessimism of the public.”

The big question going forward is whether the grim narratives will prevail over our relatively sunny reality when we get to the 2024 election. Unfortunately, we are bathing in the hideous cultural nastiness caused by the Republican Right and it’s spread despair throughout the country.

Overcoming that mood (and the dread people feel) isn’t going to be easy, but disaster is certain if you give up. Individually, we each can do more than we think we can to keep America in good hands.

Start by no longer buying into the bullshit spewed by the mainstream media, in particular, the NYT. Their both sides coverage of Trump’s crooked behavior demonstrates their inability to let us know how real his threat is to the public.

The rest of the corporate media’s coverage is the same, with a few exceptions. Don’t overlook outlets abroad which had good reputations for thorough and unbiased reporting. In the age of the internet with translation capability at your fingertips, it’s not absurd to look outside of the US news rut for different perspectives.

As long as the GOP can paint the Democrats as the bigger enemy, Independent and anti-Trump Republican voters have an out; they can justify staying on the sidelines. The mainstream media’s complicit role in broadcasting the GOP strategy can’t be overstated. And the Democratic Party leadership’s long-term paralysis in the face of this simple equation is one reason why we’re in the situation we are in now.

Stop ascribing superpowers to the GOP. The Republican Party is a hot mess.

No matter what you read, act! Make a plan and act. It can be surprisingly easy to become a thought leader on the local level. Inside both Parties, the leaders are the people who show up and do the work. That’s it, that’s all it takes to begin making change happen. Show up, do the work.

We’re heading into what will be the toughest part of an existential fight for this democracy. It’s going to be an ugly, messy show, one that is certain to add to those feelings of dread. Plan on it and then show up to do the work it will take to beat back the fascists.

Think about the toll Americans will endure in 2024. How many women will die of complications from a pregnancy they couldn’t end? How many trans persons will give up because they can’t live as human beings with autonomy over their bodies? How many persons will die from Covid this coming year because of right-wing propaganda supported by elected GOP officials? How many futures will be shortened because children may not get the food, health care, or education they need?

How many families will be split up because they couldn’t find shelter?

Our message when we’re doing the work has to be about unity. It’s clear right now that Democrats are splintering in all directions. Some don’t want Biden because he’s pro-Israel. Young people find Biden to be too old. Some feel he’s too middle-of-the-road. We all need to remember American novelist Rebecca Solnit’s mantra:

“Voting is a chess move, not a valentine.”

A New Year Brings New Work

The Daily Escape:

Merced River, Yosemite NP, CA – December 2023 photo by Graham Holmes Photography

We’ve enjoyed a few days away from the news, seeing kids and grandkids while eating non-stop and playing games in the living room. But it’s nearing the time when we will need to refocus on the state of our country. These are overstimulated times, as the abuse of all caps and exclamation-points around the internet shows us.

It’s doubtful, as the song goes, that “Next year, all our troubles will be out of sight“. It seems that next year will be very much like 2023 where the “bad vibes” were everywhere, despite all of the good news about the economy.

Here’s one finding from a poll by YouGov that was performed between December 11th and 14th of a nationwide sample of 1,000 adult citizens, with a 4± point margin of error:

The bad vibes were overwhelmingly felt by Republicans, 66% of whom felt that 2023 was “One of the worst years in American history” even though it clearly was not. From the NYT:

“The “vibe” is bad, voters can’t see that the economy is good.”

The economy is really good. Unemployment is near its historic low. Inflation is nearly controlled. While the Fed raised interest rates rapidly to slow economic growth, we are now likely to experience a soft landing of the economy. Back in December 2022, the Financial Times (paywalled) published a survey that showed 85% of economists were projecting a recession in 2023. But it didn’t happen, largely due to US fiscal policy (adding money to people’s pockets) overriding the impact of the Fed’s desire for a restrictive monetary policy.

Maybe people believing that the economy was bad shouldn’t be surprising. FOX, along with other media have been telling people non-stop that the economy is a problem (and using inflation as the proof). With few exceptions the Democrats haven’t responded clearly. Biden tried to brand the economy as Bidenomics, but neither he nor the Democrats mention every day how great the economy is.

Without hearing from the Dems, most Americans hear that the economy is bad and nobody contradicts that. So one side uses proper messaging techniques and the other side wonders why they’re unpopular. This is true for the Dems on issue after issue.

Heading into 2024, Wrongo is putting on his armor, because next year’s not going to be easy. In fact it’s going to be a shitshow. We know that we’re having an absolutely make or break election for president. Control of Congress is on the line as well. It’s now becoming clear that unless there’s a legal miracle, Trump will not be judged guilty in any of his pending criminal cases prior to the election.

That means it’s up to us voters to get the 2024 election right: Overwhelming turnout, hammering the message locally and not simply relying on the national Democratic apparatus to get things done for us at the local level. If we fail, it’s hard to see how America recovers fast enough to keep the entire world from turning to chaos with a Trump win.

From Rick Wilson: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“If I could weigh one magic wand and accomplish one simple change in the minds of anti-Trump voters, Republican or Democrat, it would be this: stop believing in miracles. Miracles are in short supply….It’s taken me a while to overcome the hope that something derails Trump….But nothing does. He is a protean force in American culture now, seemingly beyond all sanction. He is not going to jail….He won’t be disqualified from the ballot in any states when the Supreme Court is done. Trump is going to be the nominee; he is going to lure the media into his narrative frame once again.”

“The miracles in politics are the ones we make. They come from work planning, preparation, organization, and focus. Nothing will set the Democratic Party back further and faster than the fantasy that somehow the law or fate will take Trump out of their way. This one will take a lot of work at every return, and there are no shortcuts.”

The DNC sends us their mealy-mouthed-please-send-money-now emails every week. They must up their game if they hope to win. Also, Wrongo can’t understand why so many Americans can’t see the handwriting on the wall. This isn’t a time for third parties, it isn’t a time to “send a message” to Biden.

The best defense for our democracy is to speak out and encourage everyone we know to vote.

We close this year with our final seasonal Christmas musical presentation, selections from the 2023 Christmas Carols Concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall. This is snippets of the whole carols, which may disappoint some:

The Colorado Case

The Daily Escape:

Squam Lake, NH – December 2023 photo by Robert John Kozlow

”If you aren’t paying attention to the courts, you aren’t paying attention to democracy”. – Mark E. Elias

The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump is disqualified from appearing on the state’s presidential primary ballot because he engaged in insurrection was a bombshell. The plaintiffs included four Republican voters and officials, and two Independents. The organization bringing and managing the lawsuit was CREW and its chief attorney, Marc Elias, quoted above.

Some people are saying that it doesn’t seem right to toss him off of the ballot without a conviction. At issue is whether Trump is such a danger to the country that he’s ineligible to be a candidate at all, and the Colorado Court’s reasoning for this seems very tight. It’s not an interpretation about his rhetoric or an evaluation of his political extremism. It’s solely a determination of whether he took an oath to protect the Constitution, and then fomented an insurrection against the government. And although the verdict was 4-3, all seven judges agreed that Trump had fomented insurrection.

The Court found that he’s ineligible. Regarding the “he must be convicted to be ineligible” argument: The criminal cases against Trump that are wending their way through the courts are varied in their accusations. None of them were brought solely or even primarily to prevent Trump from being elected president, although the Colorado case was. The others charge real crimes. The importance of those cases transcends the individual who committed them. A failure to bring them would set a precedent that we as a country think these behaviors permissible by a future president.

As for letting the people decide about Trump, we did that already. Biden got seven million more votes than Trump. Yet Trump’s still spouting the Big Lie that the election was stolen. Even after 60 court cases, Trump couldn’t prove there was any election fraud. Conservative Judge Luttig says that the 14th Amendment isn’t about removing someone from qualifying for office. Rather it’s about meeting a baseline qualification in order to be considered a QUALIFIED candidate.

There’s also an argument on the Right that Trump shouldn’t be in court at all. But we have a Justice system and in the Colorado case, the legal process was followed. The Court didn’t take any shortcuts; no extraordinary maneuvers were made.

Jon V Last asks why Republicans were on one side of the law in 2020 and on a different side today: (brackets by Wrongo)

“So ask yourself this: All throughout December 2020, everyone insisted that, no matter how foolish or baseless President Trump’s claims might seem, he was entitled to pursue the legal process vigorously to its end.

Why is that not true in this case? Why is it that Trump…[in 2020 was] entitled to have his day in court, but the forces [today] looking to apply different laws to a different end are not?”

Last reminds us that many of the same people who insisted that Trump could pursue all available legal remedies in 2020 wanted a result that would keep him in power. Now, they’re outraged that the people in state of Colorado also pursued legal remedies and won a result that might keep him from returning to power. There’s more from Jon Last. Those who are complaining about the result in Colorado are complaining not about the legal process, but the legal result:

“Have you ever noticed how, whenever Trump does something terrible, there is always an argument that holding him accountable can only help him?

You can’t impeach him in 2020, because it’ll just make him stronger.

You can’t impeach him in 2021, because you’ll turn him into a martyr.

You can’t raid Mar-a-Lago to take back classified documents because you’ll rile up his base.

/snip/

There is a…..helplessness to that thinking: A wicked man does immoral and illegal things—and society’s reaction is to say that we must indulge his depredations, because if we tried to hold him accountable then he would become even worse.

Is there any other aspect of life in which Americans take that view?

That’s not how parents deal with children.

It’s not how regulatory agencies deal with corporations.

And it’s not how the justice system deals with criminals.”

From Robert Hubbell: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Every hesitation, reservation, and exhortation to ‘make an exception’ because of potential violence or political chaos is an invitation to abandon the Constitution. We do so at our grave peril and possibly for the first, last, and only time—because if we set our great charter aside once, there is no logical stopping point for setting it aside again when it serves the pleasure of a president who views the Constitution as an obstacle rather than a safeguard.”

The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to ban Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot for engaging in insurrection is probably on its way to the US Supreme Court. Wrongo isn’t a lawyer, so you should look elsewhere for a discussion of the finer points of the law in this case, and he has no confidence that the Supremes will decide against Trump.

But Wrongo wants to address one item, the question of whether a candidate should be tried while running for office. Just the Mar-a-Lago charges of mishandling highly classified information and then obstructing their return makes it clear that he should be tried regardless of his candidacy. The government needed to secure the secret documents Trump had stashed all over his club. Trump thwarted those efforts. And the case was developed before Trump declared himself as a candidate for 2024.

A thought experiment: Let’s imagine that Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis had run for US president in 1868. Either of them could probably win a solid South and be competitive in several border states. Making sure that they didn’t win at the ballot box what they couldn’t on the battlefield is why Clause 3 was included in the 14^th Amendment in July, 1868.

Would supporters of Lee or Davis have complained that they were ineligible for public office? Certainly! But, too bad. Insurrection and rebellion (still) have consequences. And nobody said that they had to be convicted before being ineligible.

When a president of the US loses an election and attempts to stay in power through violence, there really is no way to deal with it that doesn’t have a political component. But that means nothing to the merits of the case. Should we prosecute it only to the point that the ex-president decides to run again, and then drop it?

The whole Republican “let the voters decide” talking point was trotted out after the Colorado decision. It’s hilarious. We did that. We did let the voters decide. Biden won. And Trump refused to accept the results and sent a violent mob to overturn it. That’s the whole point of this case. We must apply the Constitution and the rule of law to Trump in the same way it would be applied to any other citizen.

Whatever lies ahead, let’s not underestimate the significance of the Colorado Court findings. They will figure prominently in the outcome in 2024. Our job is to fight for the soul of democracy and for a free and responsible government by popular consent.

Let’s close with a Christmas tune that is new to Wrongo: The Tractors perform their 2009 hit “The Santa Claus Boogie”, from their second album, “Have Yourself a Tractors Christmas”. The band no longer exists, as several of the members have died:

Wrongo’s Seen Enough

The Daily Escape:

Tini Martini Bar, St. Augustine, FL – December 2023 photo by Rosie Taylor Photography. Wrongo and Ms. Right have had many martinis there in the recent past.

Wrongo has seen enough. The US must change direction in its support for Israel’s war in Gaza. This isn’t an easy decision. Israel has suffered mightily at the hands of Hamas in Gaza and at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon with its backer, Iran.

Wrongo has written about the lack of proportionality in Israel’s attacks in Gaza. Now that the war is two+ months old, there can be little doubt that by turning about half of Gaza into a parking lot, Israel’s war is at least as much about uprooting Palestinians as it is about destroying Hamas.

It would be naïve to think that cutting off (or reducing) American funding to Israel would materially improve the chances of Palestinian statehood. And the prospects of that happening have been decreased both by Israel’s disproportionate response to 10/7 and by Netanyahu’s explicit opposition to any form of Palestinian statehood post-hostilities.

Unless the war is ended soon, it will widen beyond Gaza.

It’s already heating up in Lebanon with Hezbollah firing more than 1,000 different types of rockets, missiles, drones, and mortars toward Israel since October 8. Newsweek asked how close Israel was to full-scale war in Lebanon. Israel’s spokesperson said:

“…we could have been at war with Hezbollah…based solely on their actions, their violation of Israeli sovereignty and the casualties that they have caused…”

The tempo of attacks along the boundary between Israel and Lebanon are at levels not seen since the IDF and Hezbollah fought in 2006. Axios reports that Israel told the Biden administration it wants Hezbollah to move six miles back from its border, far enough that they will not be able to fire at Israeli towns along the border. But why would Hezbollah agree?

In Yemen, the Houthi are attacking ships transiting the Red Sea. The US announced a new multinational security initiative aimed at protecting ships in the Red Sea from Houthi attacks. Apparently it’s mostly a PR effort. Politico reported that three additional US destroyers have been moved into the Mediterranean Sea and a Carrier Strike Group vessel has been moved into the Gulf of Aden. Attacks by Houthi militants have prompted Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) (both are container shipping companies) to avoid the area.

And inside the Israel/Hamas war in Gaza, CNN reports that an IDF sniper killed a mother and daughter inside the Holy Family Parish in Gaza on Saturday. Seven others were wounded in the attack on the complex, which is housing most of Gaza’s Christian families seeking safety. Pope Francis condemned it.

Also, Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza is no longer functioning and patients including babies have been evacuated, Reuters reported. Last week Israeli forces used a bulldozer to smash through the outside of the hospital.

Israel itself is roiled by the deaths of three Israeli hostages who were mistakenly killed by the IDF in Gaza. Apparently one was carrying a stick with a white cloth says the BBC. This sparked angry protests in Tel Aviv, where thousands of people called for a truce, chanting “Bring them home now“.

Netanyahu refused, saying Israel only had leverage if they continued to fight:

“Military pressure is necessary both for the return of the hostages and for victory. Without military pressure…we have nothing…”

For its part, Hamas said it will not release hostages until the war ends and Israel accepts its conditions for an exchange of 7,000 Palestinian prisoners, which Netanyahu says is a non-starter.

Biden is beginning to get uncomfortable. Recent polling by New York Times/Siena College shows that:

“Voters broadly disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the bloody strife between Israelis and Palestinians….with younger Americans far more critical than older voters of both Israel’s conduct and of the administration’s response to the war in Gaza.”

Here’s a chart from the NYT:

But among young voters, 46% sympathize more with the Palestinians, against 27% who favor Israel. Only 28% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 said Israel was seriously interested in a peaceful solution to the broader conflict, while older voters had far more faith in Israel’s intentions and less in the Palestinians’. Biden sees this and is casting blame on the hardline members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet more than on the prime minister:

“One of the things that Bibi understands, but I’m not sure…[Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar] Ben-Gvir and his War Cabinet do…they’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place…”

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Leadership

Biden’s Dilemma

Cartoons Of The Week

Another Reason Why People Think The Economy Sucks

The End Of US Naval Superiority?

Trump’s Role In The Insurrection May Go Unpunished

A New Year Brings New Work

The Colorado Case

Wrongo’s Seen Enough