I've never been convinced he's bought and paid for, but he is amoral, selfish, and incurious, which in turn allows him to be used by more sophisticated actors than himself.

Long term I think we're about to get a big lesson on just how much global stability rested on a certain unity of mind of the US federal government. I've always been more dove-ish, and that unity of mind led us to some idiotic places and destruction of our own credibility, from Mogadishu to Kabul. Yet at a certain point the ability and willingness of the United States to go to bat, confront, and even be a little reckless with other major powers has upside to it, even if hard to measure. This sort of ramshackle, chaotic abandonment of that is going to go poorly.

The silver lining may be that it's hard for me to imagine a recipe more likely to implode a presidency than 'make food and energy more expensive' and 'cause recession.' Sometime later this month we will probably get 'kick people off health insurance' thrown into the bowl for good measure.

But man is it going to hurt.

Maybe. At some point I have to think other countries say f- it, if you're going to do it then do it.

Tariffs on Canada and Mexico tomorrow. This promises to suck.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/03/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico/

Yea my assumption would be there's an auto-enroll at the 'basic' option and some (again, greatly tamed) version of a 'private' excess insurance market pays to advertise on the government exchanges website with which they are of course accredited and fully integrated.

But it's hairy and falls way, way short of the egalitarian principles at least partially in play. There won't be any hiding it. Maybe at the end of the day no one cares because the only people on basic are mostly healthy under 30s subsidizing the 'basic' portion of the coverage for the over 65s, but then maybe not and it becomes its own kind of simmering grievance.

I think you're right and I also think this is where the discussion of cost becomes the wrong path politically. If it wins out it'll be more of a quality of life thing. Instead of being jerked around with administration and your employer, never knowing what the hell the fees are for or what's covered or isn't, you'll pick the plan that's right for your family, what it does and doesn't include will be clear, and you'll be able to use it at your favorite provider franchise between the fast food joints and big box stores on the main drag.

That's the unsexy but palatable vision, or at least I would think it is.

This is in part of why my probably unpopular opinion is that the ACA is underrated as a first step. The next steps probably involve starting to tame the big payers into something closer to public utilities. The last step is the hardest of all where you deal with moving people off employer plans entirely.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on this point. Wherever they go on policy at some point you have to pick your strong issues/positions and take some stands. You can't be everything to everyone of course, but if I were in the room with the decision makers I'd still be advocating careful discretion as to where those stands are.

I think the possibility of system level savings accruing to the checking accounts of individual tax payers is at best very much TBD. I know it doesn't really play out that way in European systems I'm familiar with. Whether the average voter is sophisticated enough to understand that, I have no idea.

Big picture though the generosity of other governments is funded in significant part via not just higher income taxes but also VAT. The Democrats just lost the last election in large part due to inflation and cost if living issues. As I have seen you (rightly!) note, the Democrats plea of 'if only people understood how good the economy is' didn't work. I could take or leave Blair on any number of issues but I think his point about larger credibility of message is important. That in mind, the last place I'd want to go right now is a conversation about whether households will pay more, even if some of them also end up getting more in the net.

I think that's a bit of a misread about Bernie. Bernie is popular because he exudes 'take me as I am' authenticity. People love that, and it also happens to be the area where mainstream Democrats are at their weakest.

On the specific issues I think Tony Blair explains it well below. The fact that a lot of Bernie's ideas are popular in a vacuum should not be misinterpreted as broad appetite for the combination of European income tax rates plus VAT that would be required to fund many of them.

https://youtu.be/FPqc9xEqRTY?si=l4TwTJI5-eL3krA8

I think it's part 'it's in the US's interest for Russia to lose' and part 'peace cannot be secured by weakness but only by strength.' That doesn't mean we support Ukraine's most maximalist aims down to the last cent but it does mean a settlement that fails to account for the long term isn't a settlement at all.

Trump's instinct to end the conflict isn't wrong, it's that his methods of doing so are unlikely to succeed and may ultimately put the US in an even worse position down the road.

I'm not sure there's any clear vision and while not NY or CA there's no fear of imposing taxes. The dynamic I perceive is a combination of super majority coalition, uncompetitive politics where nobody is ever willing to say no to anything and economic growth is never a priority, or at least not one that's going to come before a favored interest or constituency.

If Maryland is an example the answer is never. Wes Moore and the legislature have somehow turner a huge budget surplus into a huge deficit over 2 years. We can't afford to do the stuff the state government wants to do, much less pick up federal responsibilities.

It's a rumor I am totally fine with spreading if it shames these stable geniuses into doing the right thing.

Yea I mean our credibility has been in steep decline at minimum since we invaded Iraq.

I'm skeptical China's is really that much better given the strings that come attached with their deals and the way the investments tend to collapse or just not pan out well for the host country. And they don't even have anything like the cultural appeal American culture at its best can.

But we're absolutely putting ourselves in terrible company with this kind of crap. We don't look tough, and as bad as looking like a hypocrite is it's looking like f*cking idiots that's the killer.

Prostitution has a cost for the prostitute too.

It's because Trump is in fact a crappy negotiator and doer of deals.

Edit to add the expression on Rubio's face in the pictures say it all. He may be insufferable but unlike Trump and Vance he isn't an idiot.

No, I disagree. I think the mainstream left is just as bad on this point and totally lacks a plausible vision for the future. It's just a lot less stupid and crazy and is therefore more likely to let us stagnate into slow but certain decline and disrepair.

The left tries to bake cookies using supplies from a slowly emptying cupboard and passes them out based on increasingly arcane rules and sophistry. This is much, much, much better than sending a bunch of maniacs running around the house with chainsaws and sledge hammers which is all the brain addled Republicans can do but it isn't anything like plan. We lose either way, just a question of speed and spectacle.

I'm thinking a little bigger than just the GOP. Say what you will about our flaws but we used to be a forward looking society.

Now all major political movements in the country are backwards looking, arguing over how to carve up the slowly diminishing spoils of past successes.

To me it's an even bigger picture question than the situation as it stands now, after 40 odd years of the government kicking the can.

There are probably 300 million people in India who could plausibly claim some kind of asylum, based on the loosey goosey way we are ready to define it. There might be a similar number in China. And maybe that number again or more across the globe. In the age of the internet and (relatively) cheap air travel I am pretty sure a lot of them could get here, and they could do it quite rapidly.

Neither that situation, nor the situation in modern, post war prosperous America, is comparable to the one that prevailed during the big waves of European immigration from, say the 1840s to the 1920s.

I don't want to be too mean about it and I understand the point to a degree. My other potato snorting ancestors made the sign of the cross before boarding rickety ships going out of some God forsaken port in a few different old countries and on arrival I doubt they got much more than a prodding by whatever passed for a doctor in the late 19th century. The policy of the United States at the time was to allow that. I'm pretty sure they then mostly got shipped off to start farms in places with low state capacity only to have their children conscripted to go back over the ocean and fight their long lost cousin Fritz.

It's all fun trivia but ultimately they had lots of policies that did or didn't make sense. None of it is persuasive one way or the other as to what policy should be a century later.

Step 1 hasn't failed. Trump was (sadly, stupidly, and unlike 2020) legitimately re-elected.

Step 2 I think you're correct about, as after 1/6 it is unclear to me what plausible scenario might occur that would result in impeachment.

However none of this is without a long history of debate and these issues are discussed in federalist 51.

Probably the most important moment in US history, and a truly seminal one in world history, was George Washington chosing not to run for president again after 2 terms.

Of course we are in dire straights with all this, though I'm not sure the threat is unique to us as Americans. With a simple majority of MPs Westminster systems allow for the jailing, drawing, and quartering of anyone who calls the prime minister a silly fart head. We at least have our piece of paper that would seem to suggest that is not allowed.

I mean, I can tell you my mom got here in 1955.

But that's really all besides the point isn't it? Do you have an answer to my question?

I don't mind answering your questions because I have the courage of my convictions. I doubt you will answer mine because you're too cowardly to state yours, which is that there should be no limiting principle, and that anyone who can make it to US territory should be immediately granted citizenship, on arrival, if they want it.

Or tell me I'm wrong! It would at least be interesting and maybe facilitate an exchange of ideas! But again, I doubt you will.

Not that it will happen but to me it just illustrates the need to clarify what 'asylum' is. Mexico I'm pretty sure is party to all the same international agreements we are and nevertheless also sent the person back. Which isn't to say Mexico sets the bar for what we do in the US. But I will say to me asylum really is (or should be) situations like Lee's example of Stalinist purges, or the Holocaust, or some kind of clear, organized, most likely state sponsored campaign against specific people. Maybe the Rohingya in Myanmar or Taliban reprisals against US collaborators are examples. I'm not convinced 'life is really bad in parts of Central America' reaches that, even if it is indeed horrific for a lot of those who live there.

Big picture what I'm curious about is the limiting principle. I think it's a fair thing to request in light of how many places and people there are whose circumstances fall well short of US norms.

This was a really good piece.

My big picture take on America is that we've been coasting on our triumph in the Cold War without any serious long term thinking since maybe the early 90s. It's allowed our politics to develop into a form of post truth self indulgence, as if everything is guaranteed to be as good as it was in 1999, forever, and anything else is an aberration. We're now at the point I'd liken to swinging a sledge hammer at random pillars and walls, without ever once checking the plans, or testing the structure. Some of them may well turn out to be cosmetic only, but others might not, and we won't find out until some or all of the building collapses.