2016 was a very different election than 2016- "the Resistance" was driven by a rising tide of the new identarianism that likely peaked in 2020 and has been slowly subsiding. 2024 blew a huge hole in a lot of that identarianisms core conceits and the 2024 election was a very different bird from the 2016 one so the component elements and assumptions are very different. There's a lot more intra-Dem and intra-Left arguing this time around for one thing. It's probably going to be healthy in the mid to long run but it's going to be uncoordinated in the short run.
I see Hanley post on Facebook and follow him on Substack. I'd say he remains very principled and crankily libertarian in the strict original sense which means he's not fond of either of the major parties and, in typical Hanley fashion, saves the lions share of his vitriol for whomever is in power at a given time. So he was utterly scathing on Biden and now is utterly scathing on Trump.
I'm not on Bluesky so I don't know anything about Jason but if he's writing anywhere that isn't twitlike I'd love a link since I've always enjoyed his writing.
Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the thumbs on the agriculture side conservatives pretending the subsidies were for "farmers" while the Neolibs were on the other side of that deal pushing food stamps (which actually do go to hungry poor people)?
I thought that Freddie article paired very interestingly with what I could see of his article where he talks about how progressives (himself included) need to accept that they have to take an L on the immigration subject.
Yes, friend of the blog Hanley made a substack directly about how that is exactly what is happening and what Trump and Musk will likely bog down in.
https://jameshanley.substack.com/p/flooding-the-zone-with-lawsuits
In a sane government or a government facing an actual fiscal crisis, benefit cuts to entitlements would be married to spending cuts on right wing shibboleths like defense along with tax increases weighted towards the wealthy and upper middle class which would result in no one being happy and thus everyone ending up accepting it.
Contra your understandable libertarian fantasies if Trump or his Muskrats gets even close to entitlements with these stunts they'll get politically exploded like a toad struck by lightning. Trump is keenly aware of this which is why, when they briefly interrupted Medicare access portals, they promptly backtracked furiously in a frenzy of denials and pledges of fealty to Medicare.
Ah yes, I see your point now, thank you. Yeah, I sort of doubt Musk has a set of replacement plans for various things he might try to axe nor do I think his intention is to try and divert (allegedly) corrupt or grafted funds that Dems aligned groups are (allegedly) enjoying and divert them to their ostensible purpose or to Republican aligned graft groups. Though who knows what exactly he thinks he’s accomplishing crawling around in the organizational bowels of the Federal government. I have my doubts even he knows what he’s trying to accomplish beyond triggering liberals and nosing around where he’s not supposed to be. I don’t doubt he’ll, given enough time, come up with something he’ll want to do with this access and power- if he isn’t evicted by the courts which seems to be an event that’s coming up fast. I’ll also note that I’d take allegations of graft and corruption, coming from this lot, with a Minnesota salt truck sized serving of salt until/unless they file charges and furnish evidence.
I'm not a lawyer but I have a suspicion that the Supremes would view "I just took the money appropriated by congress for one thing and spent it on this other thing I like better instead" even more dimly than they'd view impounding.
Saul, Lee, I'll reiterate that you're both laying out lots of reasons for thoughtful people to conclude that Trump will defy court orders and I have no quibbles with them. I will, merely, reiterate that few people have lost money betting on the venality and cowardice of Donald Trump.
I wouldn't say your thoughts are irrational or unreasonable, but I will reiterate that direct overt confrontation when facing a firm opposition has not, historically, been Trumps MO. It's entirely possible that, with his current clique of courtiers stiffening his spine, Trump could do what you're talking about but it's an overt and risky move that Trump has, historically, shied away from. Remember: Trump doesn't believe in this stuff in the slightest, heck, he basically got into office in 2016 by undercutting libertarians more than any other group of the rights coalition except for the neocons.
I suspect a hypothetical President Mayor Pete bent on payback with the new tools at hand could find a lot of red state pork to impound. An astronomical amount of it, especially in the defense and NASA budget.
But all this is scribbling in the margins in deficit terms.
So has most intersectional pap. The only reason most people give a fish about (distorted, misused and twisted) intersectional or DEI stuff is because it did the functional equivalent of escaping from its ivory tower and got into Know Your Meme. If it was still in its origin stage; a way for young minority academics to wrench tenure slots from the trembling withered death grip of ancient white academic; no one would care about it at all.
I guess so, yes. Or rather there's no need for the DEI omnicause (a pointy headed academic concept almost as idiotic as the idea of intersectionality being widely applicable to politics in general) to be employed to resist Trump. Each of Trumps feints can be directly opposed by those his given feint effects and it's neither useful nor practical for the entire greater Trump opposition to join in every single element of resistance.
I think the more likely win they envision is enacting the reverse santa claus dynamic that Republicans have been slavering after ever since the 90's: The right slashes taxes and blows up the deficit, then the Dems come in and slash spending to balance the budget, get blamed and usher the GOP back in to slash taxes again.
They just have an underpants gnome method of getting there which is a bunch of qestion marks in between "we do this and then the Dems meekly do that" which is why the right always explodes in bilious fury when Dems get into office and refuse to balance the budget through spending cuts.
Yeah this is the nub of it.
If Elon and Trump remain close then the Muskrats have little to fear since any Federal charges would easily be pardoned by Trump.
BUT
If they fish something up, or if Elon and Trump have a falling out or if they fish something up and Trump finds it advantageous to scapegoat Elon... well then all bets are off. It's not like Trump doesn't have a long history of throwing his subordinates under the bus.
But Jaybird is also right: none of these characters would be doing this stuff if they weren't strongly convinced they'll win. So the above analysis probably hasn't occurred to them and Elon is so self centered it probably hasn't occurred to him either.
It is a great deal for Trump, though. Elon and his minions take on the downside risk and Trump is insulated somewhat (but if they fish up one of the third rails that electrical arc will burn right through the insulation of separation that Elon provides.)
You keep switching over to projecting prescriptive analysis on me in your comments which is fine except that you, yourself, haven't laid any prescriptive cards on the table in your original article.
I'm down with talking prescriptive analysis if you want to but I think you should go first.
On “The USAID Fight Is About Power, Not Spending”
Depressing, another writer lost to twitspace.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
2016 was a very different election than 2016- "the Resistance" was driven by a rising tide of the new identarianism that likely peaked in 2020 and has been slowly subsiding. 2024 blew a huge hole in a lot of that identarianisms core conceits and the 2024 election was a very different bird from the 2016 one so the component elements and assumptions are very different. There's a lot more intra-Dem and intra-Left arguing this time around for one thing. It's probably going to be healthy in the mid to long run but it's going to be uncoordinated in the short run.
On “The USAID Fight Is About Power, Not Spending”
I see Hanley post on Facebook and follow him on Substack. I'd say he remains very principled and crankily libertarian in the strict original sense which means he's not fond of either of the major parties and, in typical Hanley fashion, saves the lions share of his vitriol for whomever is in power at a given time. So he was utterly scathing on Biden and now is utterly scathing on Trump.
I'm not on Bluesky so I don't know anything about Jason but if he's writing anywhere that isn't twitlike I'd love a link since I've always enjoyed his writing.
"
I imagine the Trump fatigue is going to be epic in two years. Holy buckets.
"
Hanley remains a "pox on both their houses" libertarian as far as I've seen and trains his venom on whomever is in the White House at a given time.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't the thumbs on the agriculture side conservatives pretending the subsidies were for "farmers" while the Neolibs were on the other side of that deal pushing food stamps (which actually do go to hungry poor people)?
"
I thought that Freddie article paired very interestingly with what I could see of his article where he talks about how progressives (himself included) need to accept that they have to take an L on the immigration subject.
On “Keynesian Beauty Contests, Schelling Points, and the Omnicause”
Yes, friend of the blog Hanley made a substack directly about how that is exactly what is happening and what Trump and Musk will likely bog down in.
https://jameshanley.substack.com/p/flooding-the-zone-with-lawsuits
"
In a sane government or a government facing an actual fiscal crisis, benefit cuts to entitlements would be married to spending cuts on right wing shibboleths like defense along with tax increases weighted towards the wealthy and upper middle class which would result in no one being happy and thus everyone ending up accepting it.
Contra your understandable libertarian fantasies if Trump or his Muskrats gets even close to entitlements with these stunts they'll get politically exploded like a toad struck by lightning. Trump is keenly aware of this which is why, when they briefly interrupted Medicare access portals, they promptly backtracked furiously in a frenzy of denials and pledges of fealty to Medicare.
"
Ah yes, I see your point now, thank you. Yeah, I sort of doubt Musk has a set of replacement plans for various things he might try to axe nor do I think his intention is to try and divert (allegedly) corrupt or grafted funds that Dems aligned groups are (allegedly) enjoying and divert them to their ostensible purpose or to Republican aligned graft groups. Though who knows what exactly he thinks he’s accomplishing crawling around in the organizational bowels of the Federal government. I have my doubts even he knows what he’s trying to accomplish beyond triggering liberals and nosing around where he’s not supposed to be. I don’t doubt he’ll, given enough time, come up with something he’ll want to do with this access and power- if he isn’t evicted by the courts which seems to be an event that’s coming up fast. I’ll also note that I’d take allegations of graft and corruption, coming from this lot, with a Minnesota salt truck sized serving of salt until/unless they file charges and furnish evidence.
"
No surprise there.
"
I'm not a lawyer but I have a suspicion that the Supremes would view "I just took the money appropriated by congress for one thing and spent it on this other thing I like better instead" even more dimly than they'd view impounding.
"
Saul, Lee, I'll reiterate that you're both laying out lots of reasons for thoughtful people to conclude that Trump will defy court orders and I have no quibbles with them. I will, merely, reiterate that few people have lost money betting on the venality and cowardice of Donald Trump.
"
I wouldn't say your thoughts are irrational or unreasonable, but I will reiterate that direct overt confrontation when facing a firm opposition has not, historically, been Trumps MO. It's entirely possible that, with his current clique of courtiers stiffening his spine, Trump could do what you're talking about but it's an overt and risky move that Trump has, historically, shied away from. Remember: Trump doesn't believe in this stuff in the slightest, heck, he basically got into office in 2016 by undercutting libertarians more than any other group of the rights coalition except for the neocons.
"
I suspect a hypothetical President Mayor Pete bent on payback with the new tools at hand could find a lot of red state pork to impound. An astronomical amount of it, especially in the defense and NASA budget.
But all this is scribbling in the margins in deficit terms.
"
So has most intersectional pap. The only reason most people give a fish about (distorted, misused and twisted) intersectional or DEI stuff is because it did the functional equivalent of escaping from its ivory tower and got into Know Your Meme. If it was still in its origin stage; a way for young minority academics to wrench tenure slots from the trembling withered death grip of ancient white academic; no one would care about it at all.
"
But, of course, they're kids. It was a bad bet for kids to enlist in every army action in history, they still did it because they were kids.
"
Heh that puts it only slightly below intersectionality in academic seriousness.
"
I guess so, yes. Or rather there's no need for the DEI omnicause (a pointy headed academic concept almost as idiotic as the idea of intersectionality being widely applicable to politics in general) to be employed to resist Trump. Each of Trumps feints can be directly opposed by those his given feint effects and it's neither useful nor practical for the entire greater Trump opposition to join in every single element of resistance.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/3/2025”
Not surprising at all.
"
Sweet agnostic jebus! The stupid is so strong it burns!
On “Keynesian Beauty Contests, Schelling Points, and the Omnicause”
I think the more likely win they envision is enacting the reverse santa claus dynamic that Republicans have been slavering after ever since the 90's: The right slashes taxes and blows up the deficit, then the Dems come in and slash spending to balance the budget, get blamed and usher the GOP back in to slash taxes again.
They just have an underpants gnome method of getting there which is a bunch of qestion marks in between "we do this and then the Dems meekly do that" which is why the right always explodes in bilious fury when Dems get into office and refuse to balance the budget through spending cuts.
"
Yeah this is the nub of it.
If Elon and Trump remain close then the Muskrats have little to fear since any Federal charges would easily be pardoned by Trump.
BUT
If they fish something up, or if Elon and Trump have a falling out or if they fish something up and Trump finds it advantageous to scapegoat Elon... well then all bets are off. It's not like Trump doesn't have a long history of throwing his subordinates under the bus.
But Jaybird is also right: none of these characters would be doing this stuff if they weren't strongly convinced they'll win. So the above analysis probably hasn't occurred to them and Elon is so self centered it probably hasn't occurred to him either.
It is a great deal for Trump, though. Elon and his minions take on the downside risk and Trump is insulated somewhat (but if they fish up one of the third rails that electrical arc will burn right through the insulation of separation that Elon provides.)
"
You keep switching over to projecting prescriptive analysis on me in your comments which is fine except that you, yourself, haven't laid any prescriptive cards on the table in your original article.
I'm down with talking prescriptive analysis if you want to but I think you should go first.
"
Your original post was descriptive, not prescriptive, so I confined my critiques to what I saw as flaws in your description.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.