Welcome to the last Sunday APR in the year of our lord, 2017. And when I say ‘our lord,’ I clearly mean Cthulhu, or some other slimy, tentacled horror, because who else could have dreamed up this one?
What’s amazing now is just how far away events from a year ago feel. At this time last year, Barack Obama was still president. The EPA was still staffed by scientists engaged in protecting the nation’s air and water. The United States was still a signee of the Paris agreement, still a respected member of the world community, still a trusted ally and valued member of NATO. The Department of Justice was still fighting to protect voter’s rights, educational access, and workplace equality. The Department of Energy was overseeing record increases in renewables and record cuts in pollution. The Internet was still protected by Net Neutrality rules. And you had never heard of Anthony Scaramucci, Rob Goldstone, George Papadopoulos, or Natalia Veselnitskaya.
There were also a few regulations in effect a year ago that are gone now. Like, it was still illegal to sell mattresses that could catch on fire from a dropped cigarette. Gas fireplaces had to meet minimal efficiency standards. A class of pesticides known to be carcinogens were banned around children. Coal waste couldn’t completely obstruct flowing streams and rivers. Restaurant workers got to keep their own tips. Oil companies had to report on how much methane they allowed to leak into the air. And it was illegal to kill wolf pups and baby polar bears while they were snoozing in their dens with mom.
Oh, and regulations to improve safety and reduce environmental impact from fracking were underway … those were killed yesterday, just to round out the year.
So thank the lord — the same one that gave us 2017 — all that’s behind us. Because what America really needed was more toxic ash in streams, more pesticides on food, more injured workers, more pollution everywhere, and definitely more dead baby animals.
But pundits … are pretty much like they’ve always been. Come in and read a few.
Trump’s first year
Jonathan Freeland found that a year of Trump left some scuff marks on the Constitution.
In 2018, it will be 20 years since I published a book called Bring Home the Revolution. Begun when I was still in my 20s, it too was an essay in idealism, arguing that the American uprising of 1776 and the constitution that followed in 1787 were a rebellion against a system of government under which we Britons still laboured two centuries later – albeit with an overmighty, overcentralised government in place of the bewigged King George. …
For this first year of the Donald Trump presidency has exposed two flaws in the model that I cannot brush aside so easily.
There seems little doubt that when Trump is gone, we’re going to need some nip and tuck to the document, because he’s demonstrated convincingly just how vulnerable we are.
The first is that Trump has vividly demonstrated that much of what keeps a democracy intact is not enshrined in the written letter of a constitution, but resides instead in customs and conventions – norms – that are essential to civic well being. Trump trampled all over those as a candidate – refusing to disclose his tax returns, for example – and has trampled over even more as president.
Ironically, the long term legacy of Trump is likely to be much more regulation. The idea that things like “dignity of the office” might get people to do the right thing now seems quaint. But even getting the rules on paper might not be enough. There are several reasons why Trump has that Andrew Jackson portrait on the wall, but “let him enforce it” is a big one.
Ruth Marcus is surprisingly nonchalant.
As this appalling year limps to a close, with President Trump consistently underperforming even the lowest of expectations, a note of holiday cheer: Our country’s institutions and values have, so far, proven remarkably resilient.
Which institutions would that be? Surely not the Congress, where Republicans have proven to be completely Trump’s creatures. You could argue for the courts, which did serve to block several of Trump’s more onerous executive orders from going into effect, but since those congressional Republicans are working to pack the courts with unqualified Trump appointees as quickly as possible, that’s not a lasting bulwark. And if it’s the press that’s supposed to be saving us … Trump is working hard to devalue, demean, and destroy the free press every single day.
This outcome was not a given; complacency that it will continue would be dangerous. And yet, after nearly a year of Trump, the warnings about incipient fascism and the insidious ways strongmen acquire power feel overblown. I suspected so from the start, but I wasn’t sure — nor should we be cocky about the future.
Sure. Right. We’ve only seen Republicans sit on a Supreme Court appointment so they could slot in Trump’s choice, seen every single department of the government turned into it’s dark universe twin, and watched Republicans increasingly join Trump in attacking the FBI, the DOJ, and the press. Just what part of those warnings about autocracy didn’t come true?
Marc Thiessen has his own list of Trump “accomplishments.”
In his first year in office, President Trump has done many positive things — from enforcing Barack Obama’s red line in Syria to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, driving the Islamic State from its physical caliphate, getting NATO allies to kick in more money for our collective security, reversing Obama’s Afghan withdrawal, enacting historic tax and regulatory reforms, and installing conservative judges who will preside for decades.
Since those are the things that Thiessen considers “positive” you can imagine what he doesn’t like. Let’s look at an example.
7. He is giving Miranda rights to captured terrorists. Trump promised to start treating captured terrorists as enemy combatants again, but instead of intelligence-driven interrogation and sending terrorists to Guantanamo Bay, he has continued Obama’s criminal-justice approach to terrorist detention.
Donald Trump is too soft! Why just build a wall when a minefield would be so much cheaper? Why continue pretending to follow the law on how American citizens are treated when they commit a crime? Why … oh hell, that’s enough of this crap.
Ruchir Sharma on just how wrong the economists were in 2017.
They expected the United States to be the one relatively bright spot and that Donald Trump’s promises of tax cuts and protectionism would drive the mighty dollar higher.
Instead, President Trump had little impact on the economy, and the dollar fell against every major currency. While American stocks did well, foreign markets did better, because the rest of the world grew faster than expected, and inflation remained quiet. Given up for dead, even Japan bounced back. The nationalist right underachieved, and recovery spread to Europe and beyond. Three-quarters of the globe saw an acceleration in economic growth for the first time in a decade.
Wait, wait, wait. That’s not what Trump’s tweets are telling me. So how can it be true?
Forecasters are prone to focus on a single story line, particularly one as compelling as angry populism. The consensus view figured Mr. Trump’s tax and spending plans would increase growth in the United States, while his protectionist threats would undercut the rest of the world. Most forecasters share the establishment disdain for Mr. Trump, yet few paused to consider whether a leader they see as inept and divisive could deliver all this as fast as he promised.
He didn’t, and the widely hyped “Trump Bump” barely surfaced in 2017. Yes, the United States economy grew around 2 percent and generated jobs at a healthy pace. But both trends date to well before Mr. Trump.
So while Trump has been touting the rising stock market almost every day, the rest of the world’s markets have been going up faster. And while Trump is taking credit for bonuses companies are throwing their workers to earn his favor, he’s not mentioning the falling dollar that threatens to more than wipe out those one-time payments while salaries remain flat.
Aaron Miller and Richard Sokolsky on Trumpian foreign policy.
At the end of his first year in office, the president’s approach to foreign affairs doesn’t fit the platitude-ridden narrative laid out in that speech as much as it lines up with six key components that define the Trumpian way abroad: America first, politics over policy, ego, deconstruction, risk aversion and dictators over democrats. They don’t make a neatly defined doctrine, but these components have a certain cohesion — at least in Trump’s mind — that hints at how he’ll operate for the rest of his tenure.
All those “this over thats” can be summed up as Trump über alles.
The point of departure for any effort to decode Trump’s foreign policy is an understanding of what he means by “America first” — less a set of rules and more a state of mind. To the president, America has been getting taken to the cleaners for years via “disastrous trade deals,” freeloading allies and commitments made by Beltway establishment that have dragged America into endless, costly wars and nation-building efforts that have drained American prosperity in the dog-eat-dog world darkly described in his national security speech. Trump’s view of the world is much like his view of his business career — a cruel zero-sum game where the weak are to be taken advantage of and only the strong emerge as the real winners.
There’s a nice breakdown of each part of Trump’s “strategy” in this article. Worth a complete read.
Protests in Iran
Erin Cunningham on the ongoing demonstrations.
Anti-government protests spurred by economic woes hit Iran for a third day Saturday, news agencies and social media reported, in what has quickly emerged as a significant challenge to the administration of President Hassan Rouhani.
Demonstrators protesting price increases and high unemployment turned out in cities and towns across the country, defying police and voicing anger at the cleric-ruled government, in an extraordinary display of public dissent.
It seems unlikely at this point that the protests will lead to an actual overthrow of the existing government, but as they persist, the possibility that the government will tumble would seem to be slowly increasing.
Footage emerged late Saturday of demonstrators appearing to attack government buildings and engaging in violent confrontations with police. The BBC Persian service reported that two demonstrators had been shot in the western part of the country, citing video on social media. Reuters reported that videos on social media showed two men lying on the ground covered with blood. A voiceover said the men had been shot dead by riot police firing on protesters.
Phillip Gordon on the best thing Trump can do for the protesters.
As anti-government rallies gather momentum across Iran — taking outside analysts and the Iranian government alike by surprise — President Trump and his foreign policy advisers are likely asking what they can do to support the protesters. …
On Friday night and again on Saturday, Mr. Trump sent out tweets calling on the Iranian government to “respect their people’s rights” and warning that “The world is watching!” That’s more than enough. At this stage, we have little idea what these protests are really about or where they will lead. But we can be fairly certain that high-profile public support from the United States government will do more harm than good.
This is a situation that needs to be handled with some delicacy … which is a bad recipe for the current moment.
Many top Trump administration officials have long insisted that the only path to true change in Iran — and the best way to deal with Iran’s support for terrorism and its potential nuclear weapons program — would be for regime change. In his Oct. 13 declaration “decertifying” the nuclear deal to Congress, the president suggested the Iranian people rise up and “reclaim their country’s proud history.”
If there is some significant change in government in Iran, there’s little doubt that Trump will take credit. Which … sure, fine. So long as that change is toward increased freedom and a recognition that Iran needs to step back from its past efforts to secure a nuclear device … let Trump claim what he wants.
IRS
The Washington Post and scandal at the IRS.
In a Dec. 18 article in The Post, reporter Robert O’Harrow Jr. offered a disturbing picture of the besieged Exempt Organizations division of the IRS, which regulates charities and nonprofits such as those allowed under sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) of the tax code. The former may not directly or indirectly support a political candidate, but they are allowed to participate in educational debates about the issues; the latter are social-welfare groups that can be involved in politics only so long as it is not their primary activity. The number of applications from new charities has exploded in recent years, and the law is a bit of a gray zone — vaguely written and hard to enforce.
The evidence that conservative groups were given more scrutiny than any other kind of group requires ignoring the statistics that there were simply a lot more conservative groups applying.
The New York Times fears a new tax bill, a weakened IRS, and no one minding the store.
Republicans rushed hastily written legislation larded with amendments through both chambers. Even before this hash hit their desks, I.R.S. officials were warning about the potential for a catastrophic breakdown that could imperil our tax system. Then, at its busiest time of year, the agency was given a week before the tax law goes into effect to translate hundreds of pages of conflicting provisions, potential loopholes and unintended consequences into coherent guidance for taxpayers. …
Americans got a hint this week of what they can expect, when thousands tried to pay their 2018 property tax bills in advance, hoping to claim a deduction before provisions sharply limiting the deductibility of state and local taxes take hold on Jan. 1. Then the I.R.S. issued guidance narrowing that loophole, generating confusion and fury.
Republican arguments that this means we need to cut taxes more begin in ten, nine, eight …
Election 2018
Dana Milbank wants to see a new candidate.
Mitt Romney: Your country needs you.
The 2012 Republican presidential nominee has been reluctant to announce a primary challenge to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Republican senator in history. But America needs Romney to step up, to restore dignity to the Senate — and to save the country from the embarrassment Hatch has become.
Orrin Hatch simply put his honor on a scale along with that of every other Republican, and found that the fat stack of cash he stands to make off the tax scam far outweighed any concerns.
Hatch, long the picture of conservative rectitude, was once a conscientious legislator, even partnering with Ted Kennedy when he thought poor kids were getting a raw deal. But Hatch, the Senate president pro tempore, has undergone a grotesque transformation this year, his 84th on earth and 42nd in the Senate. He has become chief enabler of and cheerleader for President Trump.
Now, now. There’s still Devin Nunes.
David Von Drehle thinks he’s seen this kind of cockiness before.
Ding-dong, 2018 is finally here, and with it the chance for Democrats to take their archenemy, Donald Trump, down a peg. Talk swirls of winning the House of Representatives, even halting the juggernaut of conservative judges streaming through the Senate. Trump is so unpopular! Why, Democrats are more confident than I’ve seen them since . . .
Since Nov. 8, 2016.
Economics
Paul Krugman is struggling with the purpose of small cities.
Once upon a time, it was obvious what towns and small cities did: they served as central places serving a mainly rural population engaged in agriculture and other natural resource-based activities. The rural population was dispersed because arable land and other resources were dispersed, and so you had lots of small cities dotting the landscape.
Krugman’s argument that towns and small cities no longer serve these needs could just as easily be reversed. What’s the purpose of large cities? When anything can be delivered anywhere quickly, people need not share a physical space to work together, and cities are not the focus of manufacturing … why shouldn’t people just as easily spread out as group together?
Environment
Noah Diffenbaugh on how 2017 was the year when climate change was visible to all.
This was a year of devastating weather, including historic hurricanes and wildfires here in the United States. Did climate change play a role? Increasingly, scientists are able to answer that question — and increasingly, the answer is yes.
Attempts to deliver a mealy-mouthed “well, we don’t know if this specific event ...” kind of answer are increasingly not just wrong, but harmful.
Consider Hurricane Harvey, which caused enormous destruction along the Gulf Coast; it will cost an estimated $180 billion to recover from the hurricane’s storm surge, high winds and record-setting precipitation and flooding. Did global warming contribute to this disaster?
The word “contribute” is key. This doesn’t mean that without global warming, there wouldn’t have been a hurricane. Rather, the question is whether changes in the climate raised the odds of producing extreme conditions.
Trump–Russia
The Washington Post on Trump’s increasingly heated rhetoric toward the FBI.
Mr. Trump’s fury at the FBI and the Justice Department is now familiar, as is its purpose: to discredit special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian election interference and degrade the independence of law enforcement. The only novelty lies in the question of what or who he will vilify next.
The most recent subjects of the president’s frustration include two top career FBI officials, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former general counsel James Baker. Without evidence, Mr. Trump hinted darkly on Twitter at some wrongdoing by Mr. Baker in noting his reassignment from the general counsel position. Mr. Trump reiterated his attacks from this summer on Mr. McCabe, accusing the deputy director of political bias because of donations by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) to a failed state senate campaign run by Mr. McCabe’s wife. Yet there is no law prohibiting the spouses of civil servants from running for political office. And Mr. McCabe did no work for the campaign, which had ended by the time he was assigned to the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
There’s actually plenty of evidence — it’s just all against Trump. Which explains why he’s shooting at everyone holding a badge.
Miscellaneous
Dan Barry looks to the skies.
The year now ending has been so laden with tumultuous news that one astounding report in the exhausted final days of 2017 seemed almost routine: that for years, an intelligence official burrowed within the Pentagon warren was running a secret program to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects.
I confess that read books from every UFO author Barry mentions during my high school and college years and spent my share of time starring at the sky for things other than stars. This came after an evening during which I and my then girlfriend (now wife) saw something that looked for all the world like a wingless airplane, complete with row of lighted windows, go screaming past at barely-over-treetop level while we were driving home along a dark Kentucky road one evening.
I find the idea that actual “strange visitors from another world” might be dropping in to probe our cattle way, way out there on the ridiculous scale. There are plenty of possible explanations for what we saw that night — most of them related to the fact that Fort Campbell military base was only twenty miles or so away.
But you can be sure that if the government does have any knowledge of aliens, you will learn about it in 2018 … because Donald Trump will pull out those files for his ultimate distraction against the Russia investigation.