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03-23-25 07:54 #17709
Please type less and try reading something instead, here's some great stuff
Is this this best you've got?? WoW Have you no sense of decency? The US is back and will be the ONLY Superpower again and you and your fellow vile American HATING Trump haters.
Originally Posted by EihTooms
[View Original Post]
Are lost, you've got nothing but the lamest memes I've ever seen I think a 5 yr old could do better, I think your lame efforts to gaslight everyone here just keep getting lamer and lamer.
You and Spidy should hang up your keyboards and give it up, the jig is up, Globalism is as dead as dead gets WHOMP WHOMP WHOMP to all you ANTI American Scumbags, I wish you ADIEU.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...close-seconds/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/o...-populism.html
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...al-immigrants/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/21/o...n-polling.html
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03-23-25 02:00 #17708
Touche' Ross, the most / only intelligent man at NYT
Opinion.
Ross Douthat.
It's About Ideology, Not Oligarchy.
March 22,2025, 7:00 am ET.
A photograph of Senator Bernie Sanders standing at a podium bearing a sign that reads "Fight Oligarchy. " he is holding up a peace sign with his hands.
Credit. Thalassa Raasch for The New York Times.
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Ross Douthat.
By Ross Douthat.
Opinion Columnist.
The Democrats, casting about for an anti-Trump narrative, have found a word: "oligarchy. " It was part of Joe Biden's farewell address; it's central to Senator Bernie Sanders's barnstorming; it shows up in the advice given by ex-Obama hands. It aspires to fold together President Trump's self-enrichment, Elon Musk's outsize influence, the image of Silicon Valley big shots at the inauguration with a familiar Democratic criticism of the G. O. P. As the party of the superrich.
I don't want to pass premature judgment on its rhetorical effectiveness. But as a narrative for actually understanding the second Trump administration, the language of "oligarchy" obscures more than it reveals. It suggests a vision of Trumpism in which billionaires and big corporations are calling the shots. And certainly, the promise of some familiar Republican agenda items like deregulation and business tax cuts fits that script.
But where Trump's most disruptive and controversial policies are concerned, much of what one might call the American oligarchy is indifferent, skeptical or fiercely opposed.
Start with the crusade against wokeness and the. E. I. , a fight spreading beyond the federal bureaucracy to everything (state policymaking, university hiring) influenced by federal funding. Is this a central oligarchic agenda item? Not exactly. Sure, some corporate honchos were weary of activist demands and welcomed the rightward shift. But before the revolts that began with politicians like Ron DeSantis and activists like Christopher Rufo, the corporate oligarchy was an ally or agent of the Great Awokening, either accepting new progressivism's strictures as the price of doing business or actively encouraging the. E. I. As both a managerial and a commercial strategy.
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Capital, in other words, is flexible. It can be woke or unwoke, depending on the prevailing winds, and it will adapt again if anti-the. E. I. Sentiment goes away.
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Next, consider Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with its frantic quest to slash contracts, grants and head counts at government agencies. Is this oligarchy? No doubt some corporations stand ready to fill spaces left open by the public-sector retreat. But the American corporate sector as a whole is deeply enmeshed with governmental contracting, heavily invested in public-private partnerships, accustomed to cozy lobbying relationships and eager to take advantage of government largess.
So there is no deep corporate investment in reducing head count at random federal agencies, and there is plenty of corporate angst about what DOGE might mean for the specific kinds of private-sector power that have metastasized all around Washington.
And even with Musk himself, the first oligarch: For all the ways he might use his access to game the system, the immediate effect of his crusade has been to undermine Tesla, his most important company, and substantially diminish his (yes, still world-beating) net worth. (The risks to his position if and when Republicans lose power are even more considerable.) So we should take him at least somewhat seriously when he talks like a libertarian or debt-crisis true believer; he's putting his net worth in the service of those ideas rather than just leveraging power to increase his wealth.
Finally, populist ideas rather than oligarchic self-interest are clearly the motivating factor behind Trump's highest-risk move, the great tariff experiment. Of course, there is a tycoon who stands to benefit from protectionism out there somewhere, but the generalization still holds: When it comes to the lords of the American economy, nobody wants this.
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The people who do want it are the right's version of the critics of neoliberalism who influenced Biden's administration: outsider intellectuals and dissenting members of officialdom who see themselves as champions of downscale constituencies ill served by a globalized system designed to benefit investors, corporations and billionaires. There are all kinds of ways in which Trump has failed to follow through on populist promises, but the vision of a new trade order is populism in its truest form; it rejects a consensus shared by academic experts and the upper class, and it promises long-term benefits for the working man in exchange for short-term pain for rich investors.
As such, it can't really be attacked coherently along the lines favored by Sanders or any left-wing Democrat. It's not a giveaway to Trump's biggest donors. (They hate it.) It's not a sop to the Wall Street players. (They're against it.) It's not an intensification of neoliberal capitalism but a rejection of its premises.
Instead, the opportunity it offers Democrats, like the opportunity that Biden's attempt at postneoliberalism offered Republicans, is contingent on its actual economic effects. A future where the economy sputters even as Muskian cuts lead to foul-ups with popular government programs offers Democrats the clearest path back to power. But they won't be leading a revolution against the oligarchy; they'll be promising a restoration.
More on political economy.
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03-22-25 23:48 #17707No, solar / wind / battery are not better than fossil fuels. They are not as energy dense as fossil fuels like gasoline and natural gas. Obviously, you generate no power when the sun is down, and the wind is not blowing, and there is already a limit on how many Lithium ion batteries can be manufactured because of limits on Lithium production. Originally Posted by Spidy
[View Original Post]
Then you have the problem of overproduction of electricity with solar, https://www.newsweek.com/california-...ake-it-1995346.
California is producing so much clean energy using solar farms that it sometimes has to pay utilities in other states to take some of it away.
The news comes in a LOS Angeles Times report which also says in the past 12 months California has forgone enough solar energy to power 518,000 homes for a year (three million megawatt-hours), due to supply exceeding demand and an inability to store the surplus.
When California's solar farms produce a surplus which battery storage cannot handle, to prevent grid overload, the state exports power. This is frequently sold at below the market rate, essentially subsidized by California energy consumers, and at times other states have to be paid to take surplus electricity if they have no demand for it.
According to a CAISO report, in 2022 California sold surplus electricity cheaply to the Public Service Company of New Mexico, which said it saved $34 million through the scheme, along with PacifiCorp, Avista Corp. And Tacoma Power.
When asked how much California had paid for utility companies to take its surplus electricity CAISO official Guillermo Bautista-Alderete replied: "We don't track that number specifically. ".
LOL. Of course not.
And then there is the kicker:
However California's power grid has at times struggled with extreme heat in the state, and in September 2022 the state was forced to deploy temporary gas-fired power plants to prevent supplies running out according to Bloomberg.
This summarizes alternative energy issues. There is too much when you do not need it and too little when you do.
The way around this is with better battery technology, and I do not think what we have is good enough to go as hog wild on alternative energy as we have in many places. EVs can serve many markets today but the PHEVs and ICE make way more sense if you are going long distances in driving.
The key is the battery then and there is progress being made in battery technology. This is a video on sodium anode technology and being produced by a NBC network of course they had to give a shout out to Biden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj0siYi4h0o.
A buddy of mine swears that Tijuana Rogers, who is not a liberal, and Enovix are going to lead in that space. They already have produced batteries everyone wants. They have not done it at scale yet.
Sodium anode batteries for an EV can be 80% charged in 6 minutes. That is where things get interesting and is competition for ICE vehicles.
The issue when you go ga-ga over a new technology is what happened in California. If sodium anode batteries can be made at scale, the whole game with EVs and alternative energy could change, but it is simplistic and foolish to say alternative energy "is better" than fossil fuels.
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03-22-25 23:06 #17706 Originally Posted by Spidy
[View Original Post]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfec..._enemy_of_good Originally Posted by Spidy
[View Original Post]
In the English-speaking world the aphorism is commonly attributed to Voltaire, who quoted an Italian proverb in his Questions "Il meglio θ l'inimico del bene".
It sounds like someone needs to redo high school English. LOL.
In your binary world, it is China good and the USA bad. When it to dirty air, China ranks as 21st worst in the world. The USA? #116.
https://www.iqair.com/us/world-most-polluted-countries
And part of being a Democratic douche is playing the never mind game. Oh, we love EVs but now we hate Elon Musk. I have enclosed the perfect meme for you never mind Democrats.
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03-22-25 19:54 #17705
I bow to your MAGA expertise and insight.
It's hard to argue with a MAGA over just how fervently determined he and his fellow MAGAs were to Turn America Into Shit And Then Kill It. Originally Posted by MarquisdeSade1
[View Original Post]
So I am perfectly happy to go with your personal MAGA expertise and insight and say ALL 77.3 Million direct Trump voters and a few stray Third Party voters did so in order to give Trump the means to touch America a 2nd time and really make sure he Turns It To Shit Before he Kills It.
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03-22-25 15:46 #17704Trump is a senile schizophrene non stop bullshiting, thinking all what he wants will happen, like if he was single on our planet. Just a stupid guy for no brained low level USA. Really no MAGA, but big shame. Enjoy inflation, recession and lost jobs in down USA. Originally Posted by HotDog666
[View Original Post]
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03-22-25 12:07 #17703Trump is complicit hand in glove in the zionist genocide of women and children in Gaza, and he is turning a blind eye to Ukraine too, which will shortly become two blind eyes. Originally Posted by Sirioja
[View Original Post]
The zionist tail wags the American dog.
The zionists are pursuing bloody genocide and ethnic cleansing.
America has fallen. I do fear a civil war in America.
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03-22-25 12:00 #17702
Better, Sir? ...Better get a bucket! (...kkkk!)
Tiny 12, not sure how or why the likes of Elvis 2008, has bamboozled you, into this somewhat flawed nonsensical line of thinking, w/r to "perfect is the enemy of good", but Elvis 2008, should know "better" than to present such binary thinking, by implying the only choice, is between "perfect" and "good". Originally Posted by Tiny 12
[View Original Post]
First of all, other than you guys, who said anything about "perfection"? Who said anything about striving for "perfection", other than Elvis 2008, interjecting "perfection" into the argument?
Your logic is flawed, for the simple fact that, you guys always rocket, straight to "perfection" from "good", with your binary thinking, while overlooking "better" and "best" (among others) as available options, to a more suitable incremental approach or middle ground, way before anyone logically arrives at "perfection".
So yeah, while S+W+B and other renewables have there downsides, they will always be "better" and cleaner, than fossil fuels at converting energy into usable electricity.
Striving for "better", when the fossil fuel bar is set so low, is NEVER hard goal to achieve!
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03-22-25 10:33 #17701
The MAGA Fuhrer's "...beautiful clean coal", part deux?
Hey, I'm okay with China, continuing to use coal, in the short term. They are using what they have in abundance. The U.S. and much of Europe, have been burning coal for decades and still haven't yet gotten off coal entirely. So it wouldn't surprise me, if China shutdown and/or shuttered all their coal power plants, before the U.S. and many other western countries. Originally Posted by Tiny 12
[View Original Post]
Many conflicting reports, on whether China has put the brakes on coal permits and have seen peeked coal production. Just back in Aug 2024, reports were China had halted new permits https://www.reuters.com/business/ene...ys-2024-08-21/ and some have them reaching peek coal in 2025 https://www.france24.com/en/live-new...in-2025-report.
Even though your article is more recent, and China appears to be ramping up coal again, to me it doesn't matter as long as it's done in parallel, to China offsetting coal, with twice the amount of renewables, it all good IMHO, because this ramp up is only short term. Still, China is on pace and should meet their carbon emission goals by 2030 and 2050. Question is, will the U.S.?
Nah, who needs dirty natural gas, when even your MAGA Fuhrer, has reservations, doubts and perhaps thinks, it's just dirty smelly gas. Yeah, natural gas must be so dirty, your MAGA Fuhrer, vowed to bring back, "...beautiful clean coal" (...kkkk!) Originally Posted by Tiny 12
[View Original Post]
Trump vows to immediately ramp up U.S. production of beautiful, clean coal, Mar 18, 2025
https://www.latimes.com/environment/...ful-clean-coal
Maybe that's why China is ramping up coal again? They heard it was "...beautiful clean coal",(...kkkk!)
Thanks for stating the obvious, but try not to trip yourself up, on the "Primary Energy Fallacy", the oil and gas industry would have you believe, is needed, when it comes to replacing the true "usable energy" needed with renewables. Renewables will always be 3 to 5 times more efficient than fossil fuels, in converting energy into usable electricity. Originally Posted by Tiny 12
[View Original Post]
Just like South Australia (SA), I believe China will cover the buildout of their grid, with enough HVDC/HVAC, S+W+B and an increasing amount of pumped hydro, and one or two costly nuclear reactors, thrown in for good measure. (Note: Reactors for China not SA). And like SA, the coal power plants in China will decrease, plateau and decline, as more cheaper renewables come online to replace them, as many observers have predicted, judging by China's maga-projects success rate.
So tell me Tiny 12, how many MAGA suckers, will fall for the Fuhrer's "...beautiful clean coal", this time?
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03-22-25 06:24 #17700Why do you expect Westerners to care more about the lives of russian soldiers than the russian leaders and people do themselves? Originally Posted by HotDog666
[View Original Post]
Here's an crazy idea; if you don't want to die, don't start a war against your peaceful neighbors.
The same goes for the palestinians; their leaders even publicly talked about how the blood of palestinians had to be flooding the streets to "improve" support for their "cause".
I'm genuinely scared after seeing what's going on in the palestinian Territories; little children are being taught to murder Israelis and even their mothers, which should be protecting their children!, are openly saying to their little sons that they will grow up to become martyrs.
It truly is horrific. In gaza suicide bombers are celebrated and their parents are proud!
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03-22-25 05:33 #17699
My Gift to Spidy
And now, you will know the truth Spidy, and the truth shall set you free! Too bad the Biden administration tried to stop permitting of LNG plants, which would have marginally decreased worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, while providing jobs and income to Americans. And remember Spidy, perfect is the enemy of good!
Excerpts from.
The Biden LNG Pause Deception
Now we learn that the Granholm DOE buried a study that it didnt want Americans to read.
The Energy Department on Wednesday approved the Venture Global CP2 liquefied natural gas export project that became a cri de coeur for climate activists. Good call. Meantime, we are learning more about how the Biden team deceived Americans about its 2024 LNG export "pause. ".
President Biden, prodded by climate adviser John Podesta, announced a supposedly temporary suspension of LNG project approvals in January of the election year. The stated purpose was so Energy could do a study to determine if increased exports are in the "public interest. " It turns out that DOE career staff had already completed such a study by autumn 2023.
A draft of that study, which was shared with us, shows that increased USA LNG exports would have negligible effects on domestic prices while modestly reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The latter is largely because USA LNG exports would displace coal in power production and gas exports from other countries such as Russia.
"The majority of the additional USA Natural gas substitutes for other global sources of natural gas," the study notes. "Global and USA GHG emissions do not change appreciably" across various scenarios that DOE staff modeled.
The study projected that, even assuming countries meet their net-zero pledges, global natural gas consumption would grow through 2050. This is notable because the climate lobby claims building more LNG projects would result in "stranded assets" as countries wean themselves off fossil fuels.
The climate lobby also says more LNG exports will increase USA Energy costs. But the study forecast that wholesale gas prices in the USA Would rise less than in the "study DOE commissioned on the economic impacts from USA LNG exports in 2018. " Residential gas prices would increase by a mere 4% by 2050.
DOE staff and lawyers rigorously reviewed the models and findings because these conclusions "are going to receive a lot of scrutiny" and we "need to be able to explain why the model shows reduced emissions," as one commented in the study's margins. Another recommended "full tabulated results in an Excel workbook be made available to provide transparency to the public. ".
That isn't what the Biden crowd wanted to hear. They shelved the staff study and imposed their "pause" to motivate progressives during last year's election. In December, Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm released a different study, which purported to show that "unfettered" LNG exports would increase global emissions and domestic gas prices.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/biden-ln...ditorials_pos3
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03-22-25 05:26 #17698 Originally Posted by Spidy
[View Original Post]
China started construction of 94.5 GW of coal power capacity in 2024, the most in 10 years! For comparison, Mexico's total electric generation capacity from all sources, including nuclear, renewables, coal and gas, is 86 GW. France's is 144 GW. And how about that 1 GW offshore PV capacity you mentioned that China's installing? Well, if it's enough to power 2. 67 million homes in China, that means the coal plants that just started construction in 2024 will be enough to power 252 million homes! Originally Posted by Spidy
[View Original Post]
https://www.carbonbrief.org/chinas-c...ce=chatgpt.com
Also, China approved 66.7 GW of new coal-fired capacity in 2024, which will start construction in future years.
https://energyandcleanair.org/public...rgy-in-china/?
Too bad China doesn't have abundant natural gas like the USA does. If so it could have used clean burning natural gas to generate reliable baseload power instead of coal. And the air over Chinese cities would be even cleaner than it is now!
But yes, China is adding renewable capacity even faster than coal plants! It's a cheap and a cleaner source of power, as long as the wind's blowing and the sun's shining.
I've got a great idea Spidy. Since you believe the air is cleaner in China than many USA Cities, and since you're extremely intrigued by EV's and renewables, how about moving to the country that's dominating the development of these technologies! Go West young man! Here's something to get you started.
https://en.nia.gov.cn/n147423/n14747...1/content.html
I'd be willing to chip in and pay for a one way ticket (economy class) to Beijing!
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03-22-25 05:17 #17697
I think your meme is extremely funny, I'm sure it won him millions of votes LMFAO
If you are a retarded NYT gay crippled poodle you shouldn't take a bite at the Rottweiler. Originally Posted by EihTooms
[View Original Post]
When it bites your fucking head off because most, and espec me are going to ROTFLMMFAO.
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03-22-25 04:43 #17696
The Average Price of a Gallon of Gas in USA
It is very weird but of course not surprising that I am seeing a lot of assertions by MAGAs all over the Internet that "the price of gas is down under our lord and savior Trump" in relation to those Russian AI-generated memes about how much better life is since Trump was elected and all that crap.
Uh. The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the USA was lower and declining under Biden before the November 5th election than it is today. It was lower still under Biden in December than it is today.
In fact, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the USA under Trump DID NOT decline one penny lower than it was under Biden and has been increasing notably since the newly-elected Trump started blathering about his big Tariffs and Mass Deportation plans, right up to this very week:
https://www.lendingtree.com/credit-c...us-gas-prices/
NATIONAL AVERAGE GAS PRICESIn 2024, monthly prices peaked at $3.61 in April before gradually declining to a low of $3.02 in December. So far in 2025, the average gas price was $3.08 per gallon in January and $3.12 in February.
https://gasprices.aaa.com/
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03-22-25 02:49 #17695
Pretty good read 4 Never Trumpers and a NYT Liberal
Opinion.
David Brooks, Ross Douthat, David French and Bret Stephens.
Trump Voters Love Him More Than Before. Four Conservative Columnists Pinpoint Why.
March 21,2025.
A collage of symbols of the USA Flag, scribbles, grids, the USA Presidential seal and the back of President Trump's head.
Credit. Illustration by Shoshana Schultz / The New York Times.
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David BrooksRoss DouthatDavid FrenchBret Stephens.
By David BrooksRoss DouthatDavid French and Bret Stephens.
Mr. Brooks, Mr. Douthat, Mr. French and Mr. Stephens are Opinion columnists.
Patrick Healy, the deputy Opinion editor, hosted an online conversation with four Times Opinion columnists about the Trump administration's popularity among Republicans and why so many in the party believe the country is heading in the right direction.
Patrick Healy: David, Bret, David, Ross: Donald Trump is the only president in our lifetimes who's had a net-negative job approval rating in his first 100 days in office. Trump also has the largest gap in approval ratings in 80 years 90 percent of Republicans like his performance, while only 4 percent of Democrats do. Those Trump supporters are really on board with him; more registered voters think America is on the right track than at any point since 2004, according to a new NBC News poll. To be clear, a majority still say America's on the wrong track, and Trump's polling on the economy is sagging. But I want to dig into why more voters feel better about America's direction now than compared with under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Trump 1. 0.
And I wanted to do so through the eyes of my more conservative colleagues. The four of you span the ideological spectrum on the right, and you've all written extensively about Trump. Why do so many Republicans like the direction Trump is taking the country in? Is it about his style, or his policies, or the mind-set and mood of the G. O. P. , or something else?
David Brooks: I'the start with the world we've been living in for the last decade or so. According to an Ipsos survey last year, 59 percent of Americans think our country is in decline. Sixty percent believe "the system is broken. " Sixty-nine percent believe the "political and economic elite don't care about hard-working people. " If those are your priors, then you're going to be happy with a president who wields a wrecking ball.
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Healy: As Trump liked to say while campaigning, "What the hell do you have to lose?
Brooks: I'the add another phrase: "brokenism. " This is the belief system popularized by Alana Newhouse in Tablet magazine in 2022. It's the idea that everything is broken and we just need to burn it all down. Personally, I think some things are broken and some things are OK, but most of my Trump-supporting friends are brokenists. They get this from media consumption. Do you remember that 2013 study that people who consumed a lot of media about the Boston Marathon bombing experienced "higher acute stress" than those who were actually at the bombing? There's something about screens that contributes to a catastrophizing mind-set.
David French: In addition to the brokenism that David talks about, there's a strong undercurrent of raw animosity in our politics. Republicans and Democrats have very negative views of each other, and many Republicans (sadly!) want their opponents to suffer. They're actually happy to see people lose their jobs or to see nonprofits lose funding if those people are perceived as part of the "deep state" or RINOs.
So, yes, Republicans want a disruptive president, but who's being disrupted really matters and if it's the government or institutions that many Republicans believe are hostile to them, then Republicans are just fine with the pain. Many Republicans dislike foreign aid. Or loathe elite universities. Or hate big liberal law firms. Students and professors at elite universities have a long track record of targeting the free speech rights of their conservative colleagues, and Republicans are rationalizing their own constitutional violations as fighting fire with fire.
Healy: That element of gleeful animosity comes through on Trump's social media posts, David like a "Take that!" smack, sticking it to universities or shutting down the. E. I. One of Trump's most effective rallying cries in the last campaign was "I am your retribution. ".
Ross Douthat: I think there are all kinds of ways in which Trump's popularity is connected to distinctive shifts in the culture in the last 15 years the trends on both left and right that have boosted populists all over the Western world. But it's also important to stress that part of what Republicans like about Donald Trump is just that Donald Trump is a Republican.
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His biggest policy accomplishment so far is shutting down illegal immigration something Republican voters strongly support. His signature legislative goal is extending his first-term tax cuts a classic Republican policy goal. He wants to fire federal bureaucrats, downsize and devolve the Department of Education, cut regulations this isn't some populist rebuke of Ronald Reagan's conservatism, this IS Ronald Reagan's conservatism! So is picking fights with liberal judges and liberal universities. And if you told someone in, say, 2004 that a Republican president was stretching the boundaries of civil liberties to deport noncitizens accused of sympathizing with Hamas and Hezbollah, absolutely nobody would regard his popularity with G. O. P. Voters as a puzzle in need of explanation.
There are important ways in which Trump's style and tactics and some of his policy goals the trade and tariff agenda, above all; foreign policy to some degree are not old-school Republican politics as usual. But we shouldn't exaggerate the break or make a deep mystery of why Republican voters would react favorably to much of what he's doing.
Bret Stephens: Patrick, Alexander Hamilton supplied one part of the answer in Federalist No. 70: "Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. " So leave to one side questions about what Trump is doing. What most Americans notice is that Trump is doing: bombing the Houthis, tariffing our neighbors, strong-arming President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, threatening Hamas, abolishing USA I. The. He's the guy supporters and opponents alike struggle to keep pace with while he grips their attention.
A second part and this is especially important for Trump critics like me to acknowledge is that at least some of what he's doing is succeeding. It is important that we finally have regained control over the southern border proving, if nothing else, that we aren't helpless in the face of these vast migratory flows. Getting rid of the. E. I. Programs that had become a pervasive system of racial gerrymanders is, by my lights, another achievement. Demanding that Columbia University ban face-covering masks and enforce meaningful discipline on menacing and disruptive pro-Palestinian protesters in exchange for continued government funding strikes me as a good conclusion. And I really don't think the nation will miss the Department of Education when it's gone.
Brooks: Bret, you now live in a country in which "tariffing" is a verb. I feel like this signifies the end of Western civilization. It started when consultants began using "learnings" as a noun. The path to perdition is slow, but accelerating.
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Stephens: It's a legit verb, David. For realz.
French: I'm glad Bret brought up the border and the Houthis. These were two areas where the Biden administration failed (without good excuse), and the ease with which Trump pivoted to a different and better course highlights that many Democrats still don't quite understand how poorly the Biden administration performed in its approach to both crises.
Healy: And you're seeing in poll numbers now that the Democratic Party is at a nadir in popularity. It boils down to trust, ideas and leadership.
Brooks: I'the offer up one more word for consideration: "exclusion. " Progressives really have spent the last few decades excluding conservative and working-class voices from a lot of institutions. Trump has gone after these institutions big time the universities, the Department of Education, the State Department. Of course, the MAGA crowd feels justified revenge.
Stephens: An important point, David. I know liberals love to point out that MAGA politicians like Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Elise Stefanik all went to Ivy League schools (as did Donald Trump, though I doubt it was on account of merit). But those campus conservatives were always ideological minorities at elite colleges, and it's where they learned to loathe the contempt they felt coming from liberal professors and peers.
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Douthat: Fortunately, all of us have learned to rise above it instead.
Stephens: At the University of Chicago, Ross, I was almost a liberal. Almost. Relatively speaking.
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French: I never did, Ross. That's why I sued so many universities during my litigation career, but always with an eye toward protecting constitutional rights, not denying them to my political opponents.
Brooks: A lot of elite conservatives continue to struggle with what I call the near-abroad problem. They may dislike MAGA, but they (we) are mostly around progressives or moderates on a day-to-day basis, by virtue of being elite. These progressives sometimes make our teeth hurt. We react more strongly to minor sins of the people across campus than the major sins of the people far away. This is something I'm working on.
Healy: I want to bear down on the idea that more Americans think the country is on the right track with Trump. I have three theories to stress-test with you or else I want to hear your own.
One: Authoritarians are popular, until they aren't that's how it works.
Two: The enthusiasm is a honeymoon stemming from the November election, where Democrats got a big comeuppance from Trump.
Three: A lot of Americans think Trump is generally right in both his diagnosis and Rx of government that nothing terribly bad is going to happen, that the State Department can run foreign aid and the Treasury and the states can run Education Department programs, that tariffs will be a net positive in the long run, and that for all the sound and fury (and illegality), Trump 2. 0 is trying to help America avoid becoming like societies struggling with long-term decline, weak national identities and sclerotic economies.
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And I'm open for business on a fourth theory, or more.
Douthat: First, I would stress that Trump is not terribly popular, and undoubtedly will become less so if the stock market trends down and recession fears mount. He has a commanding position within his party, but even at his apotheosis his approval ratings barely got over 50 percent.
Second, Americans lived through the first Trump term, when sky-is-falling rhetoric was commonplace, but the average American did not experience a crisis until Covid hit. Then, through the Biden term, the media dialed back the crisis rhetoric dramatically, but in reality, inflation soared, the border seemed wide open, the world became much more dangerous, and the president was manifestly incapable of doing his job. So, while you can make a plausible case that this time is different, that Trump is more empowered and therefore more dangerous, you should still expect many Americans to wait for proof of that in their daily lives before they immediately re-embrace his first term's narrative of crisis.
Brooks: I'the take you back to a 1971 Clint Eastwood movie, "Dirty Harry," or a 1974 Charles Bronson movie, "Death Wish. " Both of those were produced in a time of social decay, and they're both about a guy who is willing to break or bend the rules to restore order. To this day, there is a large chunk of Americans who think the system is so broken, we need someone who will break the rules. That's what's happening.
Plus, the unfortunate fact is that there is almost always a kernel of truth to Trump & Co. 's assaults. The most noxious thing they have done in my view is eviscerate USA I. The. Millions will die. But it was true that USA I. The. Was a bureaucratic nightmare. A generation of administrators there tried to fix it. The problem which the Trumpies don't understand is that a lot of the sinecures were established by members of Congress who insisted they not be removed. Trump policies are not 100 percent wrong; they are just overreactions. Destroying an agency rather than fixing what is wrong and saving what is right.
Stephens: Unless you happen to live within a few miles of Capitol Hill, you probably don't give two figs whether our (sometimes misspent) foreign aid is distributed via a semiautonomous agency called USA I. The. Or directly through the State Department itself. You also probably think it's no tragedy that government workers should experience the periodic layoffs that the rest of American workers have lived through since forever. The sort of inside-the-Beltway moves that feel like political earthquakes to a certain kind of Washington insider leave Trump voters somewhere between indifferent and pleased.
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The other point that can't be emphasized enough: Trump wouldn't be as popular as he is with his side of the country if Democrats and progressives weren't as unpopular with most sides of the country. Just the fact that he drives the Rachel Maddows of the world into fits of rage and despair and thoughts of European exile is reason enough for many Americans to support him. Sometimes even including me.
French: Those of us who follow politics closely always seem to forget that we're the strange ones. I really question how much the average rank-and-file Republican even knows about most of these early controversies. If you're watching Fox News or other right-wing outlets, you're hearing a lot of stories about strange, "woke" programs funded by USA I. The. They don't know about the lives that are saved or the lives that are at risk.
That means they won't know, much less care, about any given political controversy until it affects them personally.
Healy: I want to return to a word I used in the last question: illegality. Democrats and plenty of independents, and not a few judges, see illegality or evidence of it in some of Trump's actions on federal spending, agency dismantlement, deportations, defiance of judicial rulings. Why do some conservatives see illegality differently?
Douthat: First, some of these moves are not obviously illegal, and exist in a zone of contestation over presidential power and constitutional interpretation where a normal partisan naturally takes his own side's side.
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Healy: We'll get to some specific moves a bit later. Go on.
Douthat: Second, I would emphasize that many Americans experienced the recent period of liberal power, especially under Covidian conditions, as much more authoritarian and lawless-feeling in its everyday impact schools closed and masks mandated, ideological double standards for different forms of public gathering and protest, ideological speech codes tacitly or explicitly imposed than anything they experienced under Trump.
This sense of things may change as Trump pushes the envelope of presidential power or as the right embraces its own forms of censoriousness. Indeed, already you can see some factions that aligned with Trump because they were anti-woke start to break away or critique MAGA excesses.
But it's still important to grasp that for many Americans, the fights over presidential prerogatives within the federal bureaucracy feel much more distant from their own liberties than liberalism's recent agenda did.
Stephens: What I see is a president doing things that are, if not outright illegal, genuinely scary, like trying to go after the Washington law firm representing Jack Smith, the former special counsel. At a minimum, Trump represents an almost unprecedented stress test to the judicial system and the separation of powers. And if he starts openly defying Supreme Court rulings ΰ la Andrew Jackson, that's when you'll find me at the barricades.
That said, some of what Trump is doing is simply a turbocharged version of what his liberal predecessors did while the mainstream press remained mostly mum. Remember Barack Obama's threats of unilateral executive action through his phone and his pen? Or Joe Biden's almost open flouting of the Supreme Court with his student loan forgiveness schemes? I also think millions of Americans are tuning out some of the claims of Trump's unconstitutional behavior as so much partisan noise. That's one of the downsides of some of the more doubtful efforts by liberal prosecutors to put Trump in jail.
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French: First, I sincerely doubt that most Republicans think or believe that Trump has done anything illegal so far. Right-wing media is full of legal talking heads telling their loyal audiences that the various district judges are lawless. The right is even attacking Amy Coney Barrett, calling her a grifter or a RINO for exercising her independent judgment.
We've seen this pattern throughout the Trump years. Trump will advance an illegal or unconstitutional policy, MAGA lawyers will spring to MAGA media to rationalize and justify it, and then, when even conservative judges or justices block Trump's actions, they scream that the courts are lawless, not Trump.
Brooks: As a matter of principle, Democrats should be screaming bloody murder about Trump's threat to the Constitution. As a matter of political tactics, I think they're better off emphasizing Trumpian incompetence. Determining the constitutionality of some act requires a law degree, but incompetence is something we all recognize and there is a lot of it.
Healy: On the economy, I ask in all seriousness: Are Republicans really OK if Trump drives America into a recession? Listening to Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, this week, stock market corrections are healthy and recessions may be sometimes necessary. Putting aside the macroeconomic finer points there, I'm confused that so many Republicans think we're on the right track when that track may be leading to recession. Are they not paying attention?
French: It's so important to distinguish between the core of MAGA which dominates discourse online from the bulk of voters who put Trump back in the White House. Online MAGA will pay any price and bear any burden for Trump; they'll even buy electric cars to keep the DOGE dream alive. But the people who actually made him president were primarily concerned about prices, and it wasn't close. If the economy tanks, MAGA will stay with Trump, but we know from the 2020 election that enough voters will step off the Trump train to swing the balance of power back to the Democrats.
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Douthat: It's not unique to MAGA, though real partisans don't change their vote just because the economy goes bad, and especially not under polarized conditions. It's not like the inflation under Biden suddenly made partisan Democrats open to a vote for Trump. But as David says, Trump's current coalition includes a lot of not-that-partisan nonloyalists who voted for him because they thought he'the be good for the economy, and those voters will be voting Democratic in the midterms without a second thought if we're in a recession.
Brooks: I do think Trump's popularity will plummet if the economy really heads south. People will tolerate a lot from their government, but not unnecessary chaos.
Healy: And not when Trump promised an economic boom from Day 1.
Brooks: People forget how many voters like Trump mostly because he's a businessman who, they think, knows how to "grow the economy" (speaking of words that should have never been verbs). If that myth is busted, things will head south fast. In fact, I worry the political momentum will shift so fast that the Democrats won't be ready to take advantage. They'll still be dealing with their own trauma, intellectual incoherence and recriminations. They won't have time to offer something new, which is why parties recently have not reformed themselves after defeat. The other side screws up too fast.
Stephens: Well, Treasury Secretary Bessent is right. Market corrections are healthy. Recessions should sometimes happen. Having the government or the Federal Reserve ensure that markets only go up is the road to inflating bubbles that ought to be pricked, and to zombifying large parts of the economy that ought to be allowed to die. The practice by presidents of both parties to ensure that profits are privatized and risk is socialized is a road to ruin.
The problem is, trying to go about this by jacking up tariffs in incoherent and unpredictable ways is the worst possible way of pricking bubbles. But I wouldn't be so sure that the economy is going to tank. Markets usually like deregulation, permitting reform, "Drill, baby drill," an extension of the 2017 tax cuts. And Trump can always lift the tariffs. Like Soviet diplomacy under Andrei Gromyko, Trump has a gift for creating crises so that he can take credit for solving them.
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Healy: I'the like to do a lightning round and go through actions Trump has taken and learn if you agree or disagree with each of them to help readers understand how the four of you with histories on the right see these issues. First: Trump's negotiations with President Vladimir Putin of Russia to end the war in Ukraine.
Brooks: Let's not overthink this siding with a villainous dictator against a brave democrat is repulsive. That said, I don't think we're going to return to the postwar international order. The 21st century was bound to look a lot different from the 20th. Those of us internationalists have some thinking to do.
Douthat: Negotiating with Putin in some form is an absolute strategic necessity, given the situation of the war and American power overall. Which doesn't mean that Trump will produce a good deal.
French: Of all the outrages of Trump's first two months, his betrayal of Ukraine is likely to be the most consequential. If he continues on this course, he'll hand Russia a military victory, rip the heart out of the Western alliance, and place a diminished America in a bystander role as great power competition likely leads to nuclear proliferation and greater international instability.
I agree with David that the 21st century is going to look different from the 20th. But this does not mean our alliances are somehow less valuable, and that it's better for America to alienate Europe for the sake of embracing Russia.
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We should want the European powers to increase defense spending as partners and friends, not as angry, estranged former allies. We need their help.
Stephens: Trump at his absolute worst. A betrayal of the free world and its courageous champions in Ukraine. A betrayal of the promises of the Atlantic Charter and 80 years of American global leadership against totalitarian aggression. And a portent of betrayal for every other small country whether it's Latvia, Taiwan or Israel that looks to America for the protection of independence and liberty. I can only hope Putin's refusal to agree to a cease-fire does something to sober Trump's judgment.
Healy: The federal government sending hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants to a prison in El Salvador, deciding they were gang members even as a federal judge was assessing their cases, and doing so even though the judge ordered the deportation flights to turn around and head back to the United States.
Stephens: I'the need to learn a few more details, but it sounds legally iffy. Still, not the hill Trump's critics should want to die on.
Douthat: Deporting gang leaders is good. But claiming wartime powers to go around the normal deportation system seems guaranteed as in the War on Terror, to stress again Trump's continuity with past Republicans to yield abuses and mistakes, and that may have already happened in this case.
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Healy: Trump calling for the impeachment of that judge and the notion of impeaching or disregarding judges generally whom Trump disagrees with.
Stephens: Terrible. I only stop to observe that all the liberals who went berserk over John Roberts's nomination to the court 20 years ago owe the chief justice an apology, especially after his intervention in this case. He's a model of conservative jurisprudence.
Douthat: Trump's rhetoric against his opponents, judicial or otherwise, always goes too far. But I think elected officials aggressively attacking judges who make aggressive rulings is a completely normal part of democratic politics in a country with a powerful judicial branch, and I would say the same about many sweeping liberal attacks on the Roberts court and its conservative justices in the last few years.
Brooks: Atrocious. As usual, Trump is being patrimonialist treating the USA Government like his own family business.
French: It's not just dreadful, but it's also part of a calculated attack on the role of the judiciary in the constitutional order. Russell Vought, Trump's influential head of Office of Management and Budget, has said that the right "needs to throw off the precedents and legal paradigms that have wrongly developed over the last 200 years, and to study carefully the words of the Constitution and how the founders would have responded in modern situations to the encroachments of other branches. ".
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Healy: Trump's confidence in Elon Musk as an essential partner in reinventing government, to use an old Al Gore phrase.
Douthat: Let's just say I was more optimistic about this experiment two months ago than I am today.
Brooks: Elon Musk knows as much about the government as I know about rocketry. But deregulation could be my favorite thing Trump accomplishes. There is a pretty compelling link between overregulation and economic stagnation. See: Europe.
French: Government inefficiency and overregulation are very real and very serious problems, and Elon Musk is the wrong person to take on the challenge. He's a perfect illustration of the reality that accomplishment and expertise in one field do not translate into every field. Or, to put it another way, focus on getting us to Mars, Elon. You're out of your depth on the budget.
Stephens: In 2018, I wrote a column calling Elon Musk "the Donald of Silicon Valley. " Not bad, except that I completely misjudged where Tesla's stock price was heading. Musk is off to a bad start in his government career, but I sincerely wish him success. The federal government isn't just too big, it's obese. Elon may yet be its Ozempic.
Healy: Trump trying to ban transgender people from serving in the military, which a federal judge ruled as unconstitutional on Tuesday.
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Brooks: Pure cruelty. This is one of those issues where anecdotes prevail over reality. We need to be able to defeat China in a possible naval confrontation. Is this really what we should be thinking about?
Stephens: I don't think the military was "cruel" when transgender people were barred from military service for the first seven and a half years of Barack Obama's presidency. This is an example of the deep disconnect between the moral certitudes of the part of the country that rarely serves in the military and the cultural convictions of the part of the country that often does and on whom we all depend for our safety.
French: I see the matter primarily as a question of readiness, not rights. Medical transitions can be very physically challenging, sometimes including physically debilitating treatments. That can affect readiness a great deal. In that circumstance, the question is less about transgender status and more about the physical realities of complex medical procedures.
Douthat: I will just say that the policy seems to be obviously within the commander in chief's constitutional powers, and the judicial ruling to the contrary is a good example of why many conservatives don't feel they need to take the wider run of anti-Trump rulings all that seriously.
Healy: Here's my last question I've been asking a lot about specific policies. A lot of Republicans like what they are seeing. But are they missing the forest for the trees? Do the individual policies matter if America's economy tanks, if there's a constitutional crisis over defying court orders, if there's geopolitical upheaval in Ukraine or Eastern Europe or Taiwan?
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Douthat: We are two months into the presidency, and we just lived through four years of dramatic global and domestic upheaval under a Democratic president whose manifest incapacity was deliberately concealed from the country. I have a million concerns about where this administration is going, but it's a bit soon to attack the president's supporters for being irrationally loyal.
Brooks: Personally, I think Trump has set the world record for over-reading his mandate. I think his incompetence and bad character will drag him far lower this term than they did in his first. (This term, Trump is actually trying to do things.) But I wake up each morning and ask: What if I'm wrong? What if Trump wins the next four years? We're entering an era of junkyard dog politics. Maybe Trump is the guy to stand up to Xi Jinping. Maybe governments need a pummeling cleanse before they can reinvent themselves. Maybe the vibe shift is permanent and the progressive March through the institutions is over. Maybe the American economy is a wonder to behold and it survives what Trump is throwing at it while our allies continue to stagnate.
If people like me focus on all the Trump failures that make us feel good, we may once again get run over by reality.
French: The big disasters (or big triumphs) always swamp individual policies, and most people judge presidents through the prism of their own personal situation. That's exactly why Jan. 6, 2021, didn't end Trump's political career. Very few voters liked it, but they didn't see it as relevant to their lives at least not nearly as relevant as the price of groceries or disorder in the streets.
I completely agreed with the Democratic message that the rule of law was on the ballot in 2024, but I also know that voters will put up with an enormous amount of scandal and misconduct if the economy is strong and have no patience for corruption when the economy is weak. The "rule of law" is abstract. The price of eggs is concrete.
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That's why Trump's incompetence is a greater threat to his presidency than his cruelty. A malicious man can win over the masses if jobs are plentiful and gas is cheap.
Stephens: On most days since Trump took office, the line that has run through my head is from the movie "Airplane! "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue. " It's just one damn thing after another.
But like David Brooks, I am a chastened Trump critic. I viewed his first term as a national embarrassment culminating in the epic disgrace of Jan. 6. Clearly, plenty of Americans didn't see it my way, or they noticed things to which I was mostly indifferent: growing prosperity, a new attentiveness to the proverbial forgotten man and the vapid, arrogant, hypocritical awfulness of many a Trump scold.
So, to adapt Larry David, I'm going to Curb My Nausea. Just please pass me the Dramamine, will you, Patrick?
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