Post New

The US is preparing to indict Raul Castro for his role in the shootdown of two planes in 1996. But now fuel has run out and protestors are in the streets:

https://news.sky.com/story/protests-break-out-in-h...

Protests break out in Havana during Cuba's worst blackouts in decades - as minister says 'we have no fuel'
Vicente de la O Levy said blackouts in Cuba have increased dramatically over the past week, with many districts of Havana without light for 20 to 22 hours a day.

This comes right after CIA director John Ratcliffe met with Castro's grandson in Havana.

This comes right after CIA director John Ratcliffe met with Castro's grandson in Havana.

And what did the head spook say? "we are going to incite riots in your streets, like we did in Iran, last January"?

Steve

The US is preparing to indict Raul Castro for his role in the shootdown of two planes in 1996. But now fuel has run out and protestors are in the streets:

Taking action under the guise of law enforcement, rather than as a military exercise, does present some benefits to the Administration. As seen with Venezuela.

It will be very interesting to see what the President tries to do, and what he is able to do, in Cuba. I'm not sure the Administration would regard a similar outcome to Venezuela (where you have a change of the head of government but virtually the rest of the regime is left in place) as a success. It would probably be much more difficult to present it as one. And due to the Cuban Adjustment Act, a much larger proportion of the Cuban population in the U.S. are voting citizens than with Venezuelans - so that constituency has much stronger avenues to communicate their opinions about Cuba policy.

From what little conversations I've had about it with my various Cuban relatives by marriage, it doesn't seem like they would be happy merely to have Castro and a few cronies plucked out of power. But they're all die-hard Trump supporters, as are many Cubans down here. It's very easy for them to push back on that idea when nothing's happened, when Trump hasn't yet decided how far (and no farther) the Administration is willing to go. Once that happens, the price of disagreeing with the decision goes way up. Still, I think any outcome that allows the existing government to continue in power would be considered disappointing.....

But they're all die-hard Trump supporters, as are many Cubans down here.

Seems a dissonance there. They want a complete change to the autocratic regime in Cuba, but are staunch supporters of the autocratic regime here?? Odd.

They want a complete change to the autocratic regime in Cuba, but are staunch supporters of the autocratic regime here??

The autocratic regime here tells them what they want to hear, about his intentions regarding Cuba.

Steve

Seems a dissonance there. They want a complete change to the autocratic regime in Cuba, but are staunch supporters of the autocratic regime here?? Odd.

If I could channel what I think their response would be: having experienced a true autocratic regime, they know better than to call what's going on in the United States an autocracy. Yes, the country is definitely getting more illiberal. But movement towards illiberalism is not the same as what people experience in actual autocracies.

That's why there's no dissonance. Even the more reasonable of my republican-leaning relatives by marriage (and some are quite unreasonable) were actually put off by Democratic claims that defeating Trump was necessary to protect democracy, or that we're becoming a fascist country. To them, such claims diminish the weight of, and show a true lack of understanding of, what actual authoritarianism is like.

That's why there's no dissonance. Even the more reasonable of my republican-leaning relatives by marriage (and some are quite unreasonable) were actually put off by Democratic claims that defeating Trump was necessary to protect democracy, or that we're becoming a fascist country. To them, such claims diminish the weight of, and show a true lack of understanding of, what actual authoritarianism is like.

The water temperature is up to 150 and the frogs are still happily croaking.

The water temperature is up to 150 and the frogs are still happily croaking.

I think that's exactly the point they were making. They've been in 150 degree water. They know that the modestly warm temperature we're in is far, far lower than 150 degrees.

You've got a President who can't get most of what he wants done past the roadblocks in the government. He's stymied by the courts (tariffs struck down, prosecutions dismissed, detention policies overturned, etc.); by Congress (can't get the House to pass the bills he wants, can't get the Senate to get rid of the filibuster, can't get his ballroom or war funding through without having to beg, borrow and steal); by the press (who still constantly criticize him despite him calling them nasty names), and of course the opposition party that is able to engage in virtually any political activity they want to try to thwart his efforts.

Not exactly the same as what you find in one-party authoritarian countries like Cuba or Venezuela. Certainly Trump is vastly more illiberal in temperament and attitude than anyone we've seen in that office in modern times, and that's absolutely dragging the country in that direction - but being dragged in a given direction is not the same as having moved into something that can be identified as currently close to an autocracy.

...actually put off by Democratic claims that defeating Trump was necessary to protect democracy,

And Trump made the same argument, he, and he alone, could "save America" from the "Commie" Dems.

What seems to have become lost, over the last 20-some years, at least since the Bush 43 junta, was what "America" is supposed to be about.

Steve

Not exactly the same as what you find in one-party authoritarian countries like Cuba or Venezuela.

It's not about "illiberal". It's about making decisions outside of the established process. Like the big hole next to the White House. You mentioned tariffs struck down...the Felon has reinstated them anyway. It's not like Castro or Hitler and Pol Pot autocracy. But it rhymes a bit. We have a defacto king doing anything he likes, whether or not his actions get "shot down" (often too late, but even when not too late, he just ignores it).

I don't wish to diminish true autocracy, but it's a mistake to not call out when we're on the road before we actually get there. History has several examples where people let things slide, and then looked around saying "WTF happened". Putin is probably the most recent example. Russia was a democracy, and then it wasn't.

We have a defacto king doing anything he likes, whether or not his actions get "shot down" (often too late, but even when not too late, he just ignores it).


I'm just going to leave this here:

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2...

It's not about "illiberal". It's about making decisions outside of the established process. Like the big hole next to the White House. You mentioned tariffs struck down...the Felon has reinstated them anyway.

And he hasn't been able to fill the big hole next to the White House, because the new construction is being enjoined and he hasn't (yet) been able to get Congress to authorize new construction. Because he's constrained by the "established process." He hasn't reinstated his tariffs - he tried to impose new and different ones (again, because he's constrained by the court decisions). And those new tariffs were just struck down. Meanwhile, the Administration is about to write about $160 billion worth of checks they don't want to write, but are doing so for no reason other than a court told them to.

Not exactly authoritarian.

What people are finally waking up to is the fact that the "established process" gives the President a shirt-ton of power, with very few guardrails. This has been done through ordinary legislation, from both parties, because Congress basically assumed a certain type of behavior from Presidents. Namely, that they would be constrained by ordinary political forces - that they would want to be able to get things through Congress, that they would listen to their party if they were doing things that were highly damaging to the party, etc. Trump doesn't care about any of that (or, as I've mentioned before, he's bad at Presidenting so he doesn't recognize the need or benefit to doing that). So he just goes ahead and does the thing that most Presidents wouldn't do.

The President seems like he's getting a lot done, and he seems authoritarian...but in some ways it's an illusion. The President has plenary authority over the government itself, and he has a ton of authority over the law enforcement and immigration and national security apparatuses - so he has been able to do a lot of very visible things in those areas. And those things can read very authoritarian, because they involve a lot of very visible harsh actions towards people that the "established process" subordinates to the President's authority - federal workers, people here unlawfully, folks from other countries. But that involves the exercise of power the President lawfully has...and when we get outside those areas, the President really hasn't done very much at all, because Trump doesn't know how to get anything done if he can't just command it be done.

And he hasn't been able to fill the big hole next to the White House, because the new construction is being enjoined and he hasn't (yet) been able to get Congress to authorize new construction.

But the hole exists at all because he didn't care. He ordered it, and it happened before anyone could stop him.

Same with tariffs. He ordered them, and it was months before anyone did anything. Then he ordered "different" ones, and -I'll take your word for it- they've been overruled again. Meanwhile, lots of tariff money have been collected, and I have little doubt he'll try to issue new/different ones again. Yes, the POTUS has a lot of power. But he's abusing it in illegal ways, and trying to appoint people that won't stop him, and trying his best to ignore those who try to stop him.

As I said, not Putin, but not Bush (either one) either.

...Trump doesn't know how to get anything done if he can't just command it be done.

I agree with that.

Yes, the POTUS has a lot of power. But he's abusing it in illegal ways, and trying to appoint people that won't stop him, and trying his best to ignore those who try to stop him.

Indeed. He is a bad President in a lot of ways. But a good deal of this stuff is a difference in degree, not necessarily in kind. With tariffs, Trump is far from the first President to try to find whatever possible claims of authority he could find in order to do something he wanted, but couldn't get through Congress. Obama most memorably had DAPA, Biden had his student loan forgiveness program - things they (charitably) had grave doubts were at all legal, but that they did anyway just because they didn't want to take "no" for an answer. Trump is far more shameless, and far less willing to generate the fig leaves of lengthy memoranda and legal studies of statutes than other Presidents - he doesn't care and doesn't want to wait.

Where Trump is a lot different is on immigration and criminal justice and military power. He's definitely far more of a hardliner on all these things. But for most of those things, the President really is in charge of those decisions - and those are legitimate choices within our system of government, and indeed any system of government. Choosing an iron-fisted strict-enforcement law and order policy certainly codes as "authoritarian," because it involves government use of force. The pictures are terrible. But those kinds of choices of how strictly/loosely to enforce criminal laws are permissible choices within non-authoritarian states. Not everything that is to the right of where liberals want to be on law and order, or the balance between security and liberties, is authoritarianism. It doesn't make those choices necessarily good or smart or just, but neither does it make them authoritarian.

And again, Trump is bad at Presidenting. Some of this is like Wile E. Coyote running off of the edge of the cliff but not falling for a few moments. Trump isn't immune to the constraints that hem in political power from overreach - it just takes a little time for those constraints to respond, and he just decided to run headlong as fast as he could without thinking of what the consequences would be. So now he finds himself in a place where he's had record numbers of nominees pulled, can't get his ballroom or even his war appropriations through Congress, can't move a massive bipartisan housing bill through a House of Representatives his party controls, etc....because he's been doing whatever he feels like doing for the first 15 months of his term. You can completely ignore what Congressbeings care about, trash their issues and stomp on their electability chances, for some time - but then you can't get their votes when you want them.

Nearly all Presidents pay attention to that at the beginning - they don't burn all their bridges and ignore cultivating relationships. Because they want the effective part of their Administration to last longer than a year. Trump chose not to, and that let him act a lot more freely/heedlessly for a while. But now, ordinary political reality is catching up to him. Which is one of the reasons you know we're not in an authoritarian regime - because there are consequences and limits to the Leader just going his own way.

And he hasn't been able to fill the big hole next to the White House, because the new construction is being enjoined and he hasn't (yet) been able to get Congress to authorize new construction.

Democratic processes, and the rule of law, are pretty deeply rooted in the US. It will take a long time to kill them. Recall, Orban had spent 16 years, changing laws and packing courts, to give himself an advantage, and it was still possible to defeat him in an election.

But the project is ongoing.

Trump Counterterrorism Adviser Brands Tucker Carlson an Enemy

When Marlow asked if there was a threat of “right-wing terror,” Gorka claimed that there were not “comparable trendlines to violence on the right” as on the left (a favorite right-wing talking point). But he then name-dropped two of the highest-profile right-wing figures—who also happen to be MAGA defectors.

“We have to have an effective, accurate snapshot on who are part of the conservative movement today, because I would say to you I’m not sure that Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are conservatives,” Gorka said.

https://newrepublic.com/post/210366/donald-trump-s...

I posted about this official, regime, decree, some months ago.

Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence

Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/20...

What constitutes being "anti-Christian"? Advocating to "kill all Christians", or opposing the US being a Christian nationalist theocracy?

What constitutes being "hostile to traditional American views on family", favoring legitimate career paths being available to women, if they choose to pursue one, instead of having no choice but "barefoot and pregnant"?

Once you have invented a new set of crimes drawn around your enemies, you can then start the prosecutions.

Steve

that's absolutely dragging the country in that direction - but being dragged in a given direction is not the same as having moved into something that can be identified as currently close to an autocracy.

I don’t know about you, but I see it as a very bad thing to be dragged even just a bit towards autocracy. That’s not something we should be flirting with.

Yet something like 1/3 of the population is cheering on this move as if it’s a good thing. That might be enough support to get us to full blown autocracy. Maybe not in the next 3 years, but what about the 4 after that? With the movement toward it that’s happened in the last decade, could another administration (with a more capable leader) take things further toward autocracy?

What more would it take to get there? We’ve already got a Congress that’s mostly compliant with Trump. They aren’t exercising their job as a check and balance against the President. We’ve got a Supreme Court that is willing to grant the President more powers, even if they don’t side with him every time. And they’re making more decisions on the shadow docket, with rushed arguments and briefings and decision time frames.

I agree that none of these mean were at full blown autocracy. But all of them are steps toward it. We should not be stepping toward autocracy. We should be stepping away. Any steps toward autocracy should be alarming, because every autocracy started with small steps and citizens who thought it wouldn’t happen to them.

—Peter

Yet something like 1/3 of the population is cheering on this move as if it’s a good thing.

An Indian author was on Amanpour tonight, talking about Modi's push toward Hindu nationalism. Modi's party now rules in 20 of 28 states in India, and gerrymandering helped them, a lot. He heard one elected official, from Modi's party, publicly proclaim that he will do nothing for his Muslim constituents, because he "knows they didn't vote for him", and the crowd cheered. The sense is that India is drifting to being a one party state, in spite of being a democracy for nearly 80 years. One other thing. At a couple points in the interview, the author said he had to be very careful what he said, without elaborating.

Steve

Indeed. He is a bad President in a lot of ways.

In which ways do you think he is a good president? Since you offered the qualified "in a lot of ways" there must be the remaining ways you think he's doing a bang-up job.

Pete

In which ways do you think he is a good president? Since you offered the qualified "in a lot of ways" there must be the remaining ways you think he's doing a bang-up job.

Nope. I think he's a bad President, and there's lots of ways that he's bad. That doesn't mean that there's any ways that I think he's doing a bang-up job.

That doesn't mean that there's any ways that I think he's doing a bang-up job.

Actually, I read it the same way. Except I wouldn't have said you thought he was "doing a bang-up job". But your phrasing does imply in some ways you don't think he is a bad POTUS. I'm also curious in what way that could be. I disagree with every action he has taken (that I can think of), and you've already said he's bad at the mechanics of politics/presidenting. So in what way is he NOT a bad POTUS?

So in what way is he NOT a bad POTUS?

None come to mind. Again, I wasn't using the phrase to indicate that he's good in some things and bad in others. Rather, that there's lots of different ways that he's a bad President.

Oh! I got this. I made a list of policies of this administration I endorse:

1. Got rid of the penny
2. [TBD]

I made a list of policies of this administration I endorse:

1. Got rid of the penny
2. [TBD]

2. Phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply.

"Oh! I got this. I made a list of policies of this administration I endorse:

1. Got rid of the penny
2. [TBD]"

What is so terrible is that even when doing something I agree with, the Trump administration does it in the most incompetent way possible.

The way they got rid of the penny has been an utter disaster. All they really did was just stopped making them. They still exist and are still legal tender. No legislation was passed, no rules were created on how to handle pricing, no rules were created on how to handle existing pennies. As a result, retailers and banks have had to deal with all sorts of chaos. They have had dual pricing, emergency pricing, etc. Low level cashiers having to decide what to do when they run out of pennies and a customer pays in cash and is owed $1.13 change. Even the most simple processes (such as balancing the books by counting down the drawer at night) has been thrown into chaos because of the incompetence of the administration.

Getting rid of the penny was a popular idea for years. It wouldn't have been that hard to actually pass legislation and had an honest straightforward approach to handling getting rid of the penny. It would have been a popular move and easily gotten congressional votes (likely bipartisan votes). The administration could not do that though because they are incompetent.

The way they got rid of the penny has been an utter disaster.

This administration could screw up an ice cream sundae.

This administration could screw up an ice cream sundae.

And pronounce it "perfect", and something only God and Savior Trump "could make happen so perfectly".

Steve

It wouldn't have been that hard to actually pass legislation and had an honest straightforward approach to handling getting rid of the penny. It would have been a popular move and easily gotten congressional votes (likely bipartisan votes).

I dunno. Apparently past legislative efforts have stalled out; wikipedia says it was a combination of lobbying from the zinc folks who have the business of supplying the penny blanks and some number of consumer advocacy groups worried about the cost of rounding up.

This is Trump's main MO, though. He finds things that people support (what his advocates sometimes label as 80/20 issues) and does them heedlessly in ways that violate process expectations of how a President is supposed to behave. His supporters love it, because he's ignoring the "rules" that let the 20% stop the 80% from acting. His critics loathe it, because those "rules" have value and importance and breaking them for an 80/20 issue also allow them to be ignored in 20/80 issues.

His supporters love it, because he's ignoring the "rules" that let the 20% stop the 80% from acting.


"I've got a pen and a phone, and if Congress won't act, I will".

Precedent set. Precedent followed.

"I've got a pen and a phone, and if Congress won't act, I will".

Precedent set. Precedent followed.

Obama used this method to pursue policies such as increasing the minimum wage for federal contractors, raising fuel efficiency standards, and pushing for college affordability initiatives.

Trump is using it to start wars.

One of these is not like the other.

The water temperature is up to 150 and the frogs are still happily croaking.

I think that's exactly the point they were making. They've been in 150 degree water. They know that the modestly warm temperature we're in is far, far lower than 150 degrees.

...

Not exactly the same as what you find in one-party authoritarian countries like Cuba or Venezuela. Certainly Trump is vastly more illiberal in temperament and attitude than anyone we've seen in that office in modern times, and that's absolutely dragging the country in that direction - but being dragged in a given direction is not the same as having moved into something that can be identified as currently close to an autocracy.

Seems to me that you're one of the frogs.

Post New

US Policy FAQ

---

Contact Shrewd'm
Contact the developer of these message boards.