STIL HERE BUT NOT HAPPY WITH THE WORLD

Susie's son has been visiting all week from Seattle and we have been spending a lot of time with him. That and the terrible situation in the world have kept me from posting. I have no expertise in the Israeli matters, as I have made clear, but I am so upset that I simply lurk in my study and brood.

I am very excited about the study group I shall be leading at Harvard in the spring and I spend a lot of time in the middle of the night thinking about what I shalll say.  Lord knows, the world does not really need a deep dive into volume 1 of Capital at the moment but it is what I do so I shall do it.  

I remain hopeful that a combination of the concern about abortion rights and the almost certain conviction of Trump in the DC case before the Republican nominating convention will combine to give the Democrats a win a year from now.  Perhaps what is happening in the United States now will put to rest for a while the myth of American exceptionalism.

VALUABLE BACKGROUND

When I joined the senior common room of Winthrop House at Harvard in 1959, one of the most interesting people I met was William Polk, an assistant professor of political science and an extremely knowledgeable person about Middle Eastern affairs. Bill went on to be an advisor to McGeorge Bundy and to play an important role in the diplomatic developments in the Middle East. In my "My Stuff" collection of essays, books, and other materials you can find a two-part account by Bill going back more than 100 years of the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I posted it on my blog more than 10 years ago. I have just reread it to acquaint myself once more with the details, which I had almost completely forgotten. If anyone is interested in the background of the current terrible events taking place there, I recommended it strongly. I trust Bill's knowledge, his objectivity, and his moral perspective.

MORE MUSING ON A LAZY SATURDAY

After anguishing for several weeks about the New York Times poll showing Trump beating Biden in 5 out of 6 battleground states, commentators turned their attention on Tuesday night to yet another series of Democratic Party victories in local off year elections and ballot initiatives. The endless television commentary about these events almost entirely ignored what I remain convinced is the single most important factor, after abortion, in the upcoming election cycle: the outcome of the first of a series of trials of Trump at the federal and state levels. 

Judge Chutkan has made it clear that she will not move the March 4th date for the beginning of the trial in DC, and has even scheduled jury selection for the weeks prior to that time to make sure that the trial can begin on her date specified. Some while ago, Jack Smith announced that the prosecution’s case would take from 4 to 6 weeks, so sometime in late April, we can expect the prosecution's lead litigator to announce “Your Honor, the prosecution rests.” 

It is not clear at that point what sort of case the defense can put on, because they cannot argue that Trump truly believed he had won the election without putting him on the stand, and everyone seems to agree that would be a disaster for the defense. Nevertheless, one way or another, by early or middle May the case will go to the jury. I think we can project that by early June they will come back with a verdict. If, as I expect, the verdict is guilty on some or all of the counts, the Republican party will be faced with the prospect of convening its July presidential nominating convention with Trump having won enough delegates to take the nomination and having been found guilty in the most important trial facing him.

 

At that point, the Republican Party will have an impossible choice: to nominate Trump while they await his sentencing or perhaps await the carrying out of the sentence already handed down, or to change their rules on the spot to avoid nominating him, with all of the attendant chaos that would produce.

 

The same New York Times poll that showed Trump beating Biden in 5 out of 6 battleground states also asked the question “if Trump is convicted of one or more of his charged crimes, how would you vote,” and something like 6% of the Trump voters announced that they would then vote for Biden, giving him victory in all of the battleground states.

 

We have a long year ahead of us and I for one will give as much money as I can to the Democratic legislative campaign committee, to support Democrats in local races across the country, but I really do think the odds are very strongly in Biden’s favor.

GOOD NEWS FOLLOW-UP

My Harvard non-course is set for 13 Fridays from 2 to 4 PM starting in early February. I am really pumped.

SIGH

I am afraid my brief comment revealed my ignorance. I bow to my more knowledgeable commentators.

ONE SMALL CAVEAT

I have watched the news from the Middle East with desperation and dismay.  Yesterday I watched a 15 minute segment on YouTube by Noam Chomsky and he said everything that I believe but with infinitely more knowledge and background.

I have just one tiny caveat to the things that have been said. The situation of the Palestinians has been compared from time to time to apartheid, but that is a mistake. It is not worse than apartheid or better than apartheid, it is simply different from apartheid. Apartheid was a system designed by the white South Africans to separate nonwhite South Africans while simultaneously exploiting their labor.

The relation of Israel to the Palestinians is, it seems to me, better captured by the old saying "a land without people for people without a land." That was the view of North America articulated by some of the most famous 20th century professors of American history in their college textbooks. You can find my analysis of that in the second chapter of my little book, Autobiography of an Ex-White Man.

It is not my impression that Israelis want to exploit the labor of the Palestinians. They simply want them to go away.

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS

It looks as though I shall be teaching a noncredit semester long study group at Harvard next semester on volume 1 of Capital.  The participants will be faculty, graduate students and some undergraduates. I am really looking forward to this.  It is a good way to begin my 90s!