First Question: Sidney Hook, in a little book called The Hero in History, distinguishes eventful from event making persons (okay, he says “men” but what the hell.) Napoleon was an event making person, whereas Eisenhower was merely an eventful person. History might have been different if Napoleon had died as a boy but history probably would not have been different in any significant way if Eisenhower had chosen to be a haberdasher. (Full disclosure: Sidney Hook, Ernest Nagel, my father, and my uncle Bob were all students together at CCNY in the early 1920s and sat together at the same socialist table in the cafeteria.) As I watch the efforts unfold to hold Trump accountable for the fascist movement he now leads, I ask myself whether the near future of American politics would be very much different if Trump were to be indicted, convicted, and jailed sometime in the next several years – or if, for that matter, he were to have a fatal heart attack while swinging a golf ball.
This is a genuine question to which I do not have any
answer. Trump obviously did not create the fascist forces bubbling up in
American politics and his death or incarceration would not eliminate them in
any way, but I genuinely cannot get a sense of whether at this moment in
American history his role in their development is essential. I would be
interested to know what folks think.
Second Question:
In the next two weeks the Supreme Court
will almost certainly hand down essentially the decision contained in the
leaked Alito draft concerning Roe V Wade. I have said before that I believe the
issuing of the decision will trigger a tsunami of opposition that may actually
carry the Democrats to victory in the House and Senate in next November’s
elections. Since I offered that opinion, so much has happened – the Ukraine
war, the enormous spike in inflation, and the rest – that I no longer have even
such confidence as I then expressed. Absent that decision and the reaction to
it, the electoral prospects for the Democrats look dismal this fall.
Third Question: Recent weather events in the Arctic, the
Bering Sea, and elsewhere suggest that the effects of climate change are coming
upon us more rapidly even than the pessimistic forecasts suggested. The rise in
sea levels, shift in agricultural patterns, and massive population
displacements that will almost certainly be triggered by this process will have
disastrous consequences for a sizable portion of the 7 ½ billion people now
inhabiting the world. It seems to me inevitable that there will be seismic
political changes as a consequence but I am quite unable in any coherent way to
predict what those changes will be. I will not live long enough to see them, of
course, but my children and my grandchildren will.
Well, as Yogi Berra famously said, it is difficult to make
predictions, especially about the future. Feel free to speculate.
29 comments:
I offer my feeble effort to address these important questions/
Question 1:
As the military adage goes, cut off the head of the snake, and the snake will die. I believe that Trump, as small-minded and ignorant a person that he is, qualifies as an event-making historical figure. Prior to him, no person who held the office of President of the United States, had the gall to attempt to circumvent the orderly succession of the presidency, in accordance with the dictates of the Constitution. Prior to Trump, such conduct was inconceivable, even to Pres. Nixon. Trump represents a paradigm, a paradigm which must be squelched by the Justice Dept. by indicting him. Otherwise, his paradigm will continue to wreak havoc on our democracy, potentially resulting in its demise. Cut off Trump as he head of the fascist movement, and I expect the snake will die.
Question 2:
The best that we can expect from the pending decision by the Supreme Court on a woman’s right to have an abortion is a 3-3-3 split: Three Justices voting to overturn Roe v. Wade (Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch); three Justices voting not to overturn Roe, but to affirm that the Mississippi statute is not unconstitutional (Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett); and three Justices voting not to overturn Roe and holding that the Mississippi statute is unconstitutional (Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor). That is, I believe, the best we can hope for. If it happens, it will be a godsend.
Question 3:
All the data point to global warming only getting worse, and that the world will be unable to reverse it in time (which may have already passed) to retard its progression. My daughter, her children, and all of the blog’s readers’ descendants are in for some very disastrous social upheavals.
How will, assuming this happens, Roberts be able to reconcile upholding the Miss. statute while not overturning Roe or Casey? Seems like quite a stretch. And if it were an even more restrictive law, such as Oklahoma's, it wd be impossible.
LFC,
I agree with you that it is a stretch, since the Mississippi statute prohibits abortions after 15 weeks, and the scientific consensus is that a fetus is not viable before 25 weeks.
But I suspect this is J. Roberts’ thinking. If he votes with Beyer, Kagan and Sotomayor to overturn the Mississippi statute and save Roe v. Wade, then he loses any influence over Kavanaugh and Barrett not to join Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch. To him, the principle of stare decisis, not overturning Roe v. Wade, is more important than overturning the Mississippi law. Once stare decisis goes out the window, all sorts of S. Ct. precedents become susceptible to being overturned in the future. This is about preserving the principle of stare decisis.
The governing precedent here is Casey's undue burden standard. My understanding is that some women don't know they're pregnant until after 15 weeks. So Roberts is going to have to argue that a state law that prohibits abortion before some women even know that they're pregnant does not amount to an "undue burden" on the right.
Although Roe's basic holding about the liberty and privacy interest still stands, the trimester/viability framework has not been the precedent since 1992. Casey's undue burden standard is the applicable precedent. That's the test that the Miss. law has to pass.
On #3, The judicially conservative approach is to decide only the question before the court, which is the constitutionality of the Mississippi statute. If the statute is simply upheld, if that's all that is decided, Roe would be modified but would still stand for the first 15 weeks.
Btw I'm not sure Roberts cares that much about stare decisis for its own sake; what he really cares about is the public perception of the Court and its (perceived) legitimacy.
Most politics leaders fall somewhere inbetween Eisenhower on the one hand and Napoleon on the other.
Let's suppose that Trump is somewhere inbetween and that he is jailed for his crimes. The Republicans run Ron Di Santis in 2024 (that's what the media speculates on) and he beats Biden getting more of the latino vote than Trump, labeling Biden or Harris, the probable Democratic candidates, Mr. or Mrs. Inflation, inflation being a good issue to blame the Democrats on (even though it's not their fault in reality).
What happens next?
There is a whole movement deeply invested in bringing about an authoritarian America. Trump was highly useful capo who got the kayfabe. DeSantis has the chops to carry on (would be great if he lost this November but not counting on it).
At this point too many Red states have already passed laws in anticipation of Roe and Casey going away. A failure to ax Roe/Casey will be a political disaster for the right in 2022. The expectations are simply too high to risk deflating hopes. Perhaps the tell here is the SC allowing the more radical Texas law to go into effect. The implosion would be nice to see but not likely unless the two corporate stooges (Kavanaugh and Roberts) decide to hang with their class.
On #3: There is already a certain level of tension between Russia and China over the Arctic. Siberia will continue to warm and the Northeast Passage will continue to become a thing. Life in South Asia will become more difficult and a few billion people will look north. Four authoritarian (more or less) nuclear powers and North Korea, what ever could go wrong? Besides the expected natural disasters, I would expect war and serious nuclear exchanges within a decade or so.
Trump is a sideshow who wants to be the main event: he is so narcissistically stupid, he hardly realizes or cares he is making history. He is losing his hold on his party as his epigones move on and salvage the changes he made: routinizing his charisma you might say.
If he dominates the headlines, he becomes the story and rallies his base.
It will be justice when he is history, past history as Yogi might put it.
The Democrats must do more to , you know win, rather than be right and rather than make revolution.
The future is yours if we get there, Professor Wolff, though we might not live to see it, like some secular Moses.
The Democrats are right on so many issues yet inept at politics or just unlucky
"The Democrats are right on so many issues yet inept at politics or just unlucky."
Yes and it doesn't help that it turns out that the Constitution is indeed a suicide pact.
Regarding Q. 1, I’ve always thought that Trump was just a convenient vehicle for a lot of frustrations, some illegitimate (as I view the world), some legitimate. That said, I have no doubt that Trump has brought his own odious aspects to all of that. These are troubling in the present, but I doubt they'll change the world.
Regarding Q. 2, I found the arguments here troubling because there seems to be a lot of truth to them:
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/13/progressive-organizing-infighting-callout-culture/
Regarding Q. 3, I’ll recommend the latest series of “Borgen” which centers on Greenland and the consequences of the discovery of oil there.
I think climate change and population displacement will increase the risk of conflict, but I think nuclear exchanges in S. Asia in the next decade are unlikely (though not, of course, impossible). Domestic politics in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh likely will become even more turbulent than they are already. The truly authoritarian countries in the region, such as China, N Korea, and Burma/Myanmar, will likely continue on their current paths more or less. Btw, Sri Lanka's p.m. has just declared its economy to be in a state of collapse and appealed for help.
If Trump dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow nobody on the left (who have been siloed from Trumpville by preference and algorithms) would notice. But since people on the right would notice, and those people would also assume Trump was murdered by the same people who hanged Jeffrey Epstein, we should all probably hope that Trump keeps breathing through the next election cycle.
As for what might happen if Trump was actually imprisoned, let's remember where Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, and the serious cred political prisoners get with their followers. So in addition to wanting Trump to survive, we should also want him to stay the hell out of prison until at least the end of the next election cycle.
Based on the above, and recognizing that Trump's people have most of the guns, we should probably prefer Trump getting reelected over him dying or getting locked up.
Regarding Anonymous’s point above cautioning us to remember that Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while imprisoned, it deserves noting that Hitler was 35 years old when he was sentence to 5 yrs. imprisonment in the Landsberg prison. He served only 1 year, since he was pardoned by the High Court of Bavaria, and was 36 upon his release.. Upon release, he rebuilt the Nazi Party, and the rest is history.
Trump is 76. If indicted, the trial would not likely occur before the next election. All the more reason to work extra hard to ensure a Democratic victory and preclude his being pardoned, assuming a jury reached a unanimous verdict to convict. If convicted and not pardoned, without being imprisoned with a ghost writer, it is highly unlikely that he could write anything comparable to Mein Kampf. His sentence could well be longer than 5 years, but even at 5 years, he would be at least 83 years old upon release, and not the threat that Hitler was at 36.
Marc,
Given how politically polarized the U.S. now is, could you expect to find a jury without at least one or two Trump supporters who would refuse to vote to convict him?
s. wallerstein,
Maybe not, but I don’t believe that hurdle should be a reason not to indict him.
The Supreme Court is about to issue one or more decisions this morning, starting at 10:00 A.M. Decisions will be released every 10 minutes. If you wish to read the actual opinions themselves, rather than just summaries, you can go to the United States Supreme Court website; click on Opinions: and then click on Opinions of the Court. The most recent opinions are listed by their date of release.
Marc,
Thanks.
Re. climate change - I'm just curious if anyone else has it in the back of their mind that they may probably eventually need to relocate.
I live in the Midwest, in a decently liberal/middle-of-the-road sort of city in an otherwise red state; anyway, I always figured I'd be here for life on account of familiarity, laziness, and most importantly, family/work/social factors. I don't like the thought of uprooting, but I wonder if I'll simply have to hop a couple states north if the climate gets too rough in the ensuing decades. I'm vaguely aware that there will (perhaps) be some "climate havens" in/around the Great Lakes states.
Michael, s. wallerstein, LFC, Prof. Wolff, aaaall, David Palmeter, and anyone else who wants to join them - come to Michigan. We have no volcanoes, earthquakes are rare, hurricanes never reach us, once in a while we a tornado, but no deaths, and wild fires are rare. Sea rise will not affect us. We have all four seasons. There are some crazy militia members and Trump supporters, but I ignore them. Plus we are surrounded by three of the great lakes; the Upper Peninsula is bucolic. You are all welcome, even David Zimmerman, although he may prefer Canada. We can all sit around playing scrabble, chess, Go (if Prof. Wolff prefers), and argue with each other late into the night.
Maac Susselman is my more congenial half-brother.
Nature is self correcting via evolution, and hates a competing decision making entity like a sentient species. Whether via climate change or the ultimate in climate alteration - nuclear holocaust,the only hope is for a surviving simian species to give rise to a quiescent humanity 2.0.
Michael - I live in North Bay, California, and my area is experiencing quite the exodus of residents for various climate-related reasons.
Among those reasons are that the "California climate is moving north"; that wildfires and 100* weather are ruining the outdoors during the Summer (Tahoe, Yosemite, etc.); that the lack of rainfall/snowpack is ruining winters in the Sierras; and that California is just too damned expensive if you can't even enjoy the outdoors.
I will be looking to make a move to Oregon or Washington within the next couple years (professional reasons are the only reason I haven't left yet) since the temperate rainforest climate I moved here for has basically vanished.
See also, https://abc7news.com/fog-climate-change-sf-weather/11177264/#:~:text=SAN%20FRANCISCO%20(KGO)%20%2D%2D%20San,since%20the%20early%2020th%20century.
Marc,
Thank you for the invitation.
At age 76 I don't expect to live long enough to have to face the worst of climate change.
My son has bought land in the south of Chile to escape what we face here further north (we're in the southern hemisphere of course).
If things get worse than I expect, I may join him and his family there. Then again, I may decide to die with my boots on here. As I get older, there's not much to look forward to except doctors and assorted aches and pains. Who knows, I may even show up in Michigan.
s. wallerstein,
You would be very welcome. We have enough room to accommodate 3 more people, as long as you are not allergic to cats. And we would have to agree to limit settling our disagreements to playing Scrabble or Rock, Paper, Scissors.
" If convicted and not pardoned, without being imprisoned with a ghost writer, it is highly unlikely that he could write anything comparable to Mein Kampf."
Perhaps this is more accurate:
"If convicted and not pardoned, without being imprisoned with a ghost writer, it is highly unlikely that he could write anything."
MS, thanks for the invite but anywhere in the center of the continent will be having serious problems. Severe cold, heat, and storm events will merely move north and the south will be more or less uninhabitable. As s.w. notes moving towards the poles is a good idea. The west coasts of both our continents will fare better.
aaall,
If memory serves, there is something called the San Andreas Fault running North/South in California. The next 7.0 earthquake is likely to result in the Westernmost part of California falling into the Pacific Ocean.
Michigan has no faults, including No Fault auto insurance and No Fault divorce.
The San Andreas terminates at the southern end of the Juan de Fuca plate about 80 miles southwest of chez aaall. The plate extends north into British Columbia and can produce a 9.0. Last one was January 25, 1700. Last December there was a six something out there. The advantages of living in a temperate zone rain forest outweigh the risk although the clock is ticking. At my age the odds are still in my favor.
The San Andreas is way long and doesn't move as a unit. A 7.0 would be serious but wouldn't be sufficient to send that section into the Pacific and the movement is sideways anyway. My nemesis, the Gordo section of the JdF plate, is subducting and can do a 100' tidal wave. Good times.
s.w. and I live on the Ring of Fire and laugh at danger.
I lived through the 8.8 richter scale 2010 earthquake.
Most of the deaths were in the ensuing Tsunami, which Chilean authorities did not anticipate and thus not correctly warn people to evacuate.
A couple of badly constructed buildings collapsed as did some older houses built previous to current anti-seismic building codes.
All my books fell out of the bookcases, some glasses were broken in the kitchen, the tiles fell from the walls in the bathroom and kitchen, but otherwise no serious damage here. We were without electricity for a short time and without internet for a few hours.
There was looting in some areas and finally, president Michelle Bachelet, currently UN human rights commissioner, called out the army to restore order.
Since current building codes are very rigorous, people who live in buildings constructed in the last few decades (mine in the 1990's) suffer no serious harm.
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