Meanwhile, there’s another election: in Iran

The New Neo Posted on by

Iranians are going to the polls on Friday:

The world is watching to see if the reformist camp will gain ground, but expectations aren’t high.

…[T]he nuclear agreement Iran and world powers completed last year…[is unlikely to] produce significant internal change in the Islamic Republic. Indeed, for the foreseeable future, that accord may have the opposite effect.

Here’s why: America may have gotten what it needed with the nuclear accord, but Iran got what it wanted ”” an accord that would consolidate the government’s power, not undermine it…

…Iran got access to billions of dollars in frozen assets, the prospect of billions more in trade deals with Europe and Asia, and the capacity to develop nukes down the road if it wants to. An improved economy co-opts pressure for change in Iran, even though it is the elites, not the broader public, that will be the primary beneficiaries. In all, the nuclear deal has created the perception and reality that Iran has come in from the cold.

None of this favors Iran’s pragmatists and centrists, let alone its reformers. In fact, as Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group notes, in Iran historically “external loosening” is balanced with “internal stiffening.”

A lot of people who supported Obama’s Iranian deal used the argument that it would foster reform in Iran. I never believed it, but the people I know who did felt that it would happen over a very long period of time, perhaps decades.

Well, if that actually were to happen, it probably would have happened faster without it. Iran so far has resisted reform successfully for over 35 years, and I see no end in sight.

Cruz and Rubio are playing Chicken…

The New Neo Posted on by

…and it’s a bumpy ride:

The game of chicken, also known as the hawk-dove game or snowdrift game, is an influential model of conflict for two players in game theory. The principle of the game is that while each player prefers not to yield to the other, the worst possible outcome occurs when both players do not yield.

The name “chicken” has its origins in a game in which two drivers drive towards each other on a collision course: one must swerve, or both may die in the crash, but if one driver swerves and the other does not, the one who swerved will be called a “chicken,” meaning a coward.

Before most of the other candidates had dropped out there were more players, and I wrote that the GOP race was a variation of the Tragedy of the Commons. Recently “Cornhead” suggested it was actually the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

But I have decided that, although it has elements of these, it’s really closest to Chicken.

It’s becoming more and more clear””and it was already clear””that if Cruz and Rubio stay so evenly matched it will benefit Trump. For a while I thought that a three-way race would allow one of them to dominate, and then the real picture would be clarified. But no.

Now, it’s certainly possible that if it were a two-way race, Trump would continue to win. But at least then the GOP voters’ preference for Trump as candidate would be clear.

If they both can see the game emerging””and they must see it already, because it’s crystal clear””someone could decide to sacrifice himself. Or, the one doing a little worse could be promised something (Cabinet, VP spot, SCOTUS appointment) by the other.

If they are both smart people””and they are””they must find their way out of the dilemma. It’s one of those Solomaic things, too””which one is the true patriot, who will sacrifice himself? If it’s too early to do it now, then a bit later. But soon, soon.

I keep hoping that one will do better than the other and it will become clear who should drop out. At this point I don’t care which one it is. One is a more consistent conservative (Cruz), and the other is (I think) more likely to win an election (Rubio), although I think both are basically conservative, and either could probably win a general against Hillary or Sanders.

More post-debate ruminations

The New Neo Posted on by

I could write a tome—and I already have—on this campaign so far. But I’ll desist, because I still like to have a life and on occasion do things other than write this blog. And I’m sure you folks sometimes do things other than read this blog, or think about this election. Because thinking about this election too much is not good for your health, mental or physical.

Hmm, have I just recommended that you read my blog less, and not more? If so I take it back, instantly!

But yes, I’ve been thinking about this election a lot, and what it means. I’ve said before that I originally thought this year the GOP had a great slate, including many conservatives, and the Democrats the worst probable ticket in a long, long time. Well, first some of the best of the GOP started dropping out, and although some still remained it became clear very early on that there was an excellent chance that Donald Trump would be our nominee. It seems even more likely today, despite his wretched showing last night.

What does this mean? Just as I said that Obama’s election and re-election was not about Barack Obama—it was about America—so is this. It’s not about Trump himself, it’s about what his rise says about what we’re looking for and what we’ve come to accept. I’ve described what’s happened to education, popular entertainment, and a host of other institutions over the years, and I don’t have to repeat any of it now. Suffice to say it’s a reality, and a man who would never have been acceptable to more than a tiny tiny fraction of people even as recently as perhaps ten years ago now appears not only to be acceptable, but a choice. Barack Obama’s presidency was an important part of the preparation, as well.

Now, barring what seems like an unlikely chain of events that could propel either Cruz or Rubio into the nomination (I can think of such events, including a union of the two of some sort, but wouldn’t bet much money at all on it happening), it seems we will be faced with Clinton vs. Trump or Sanders vs. Trump or perhaps Biden vs. Trump. Quite a set of choices.

Choose your poison, because it’s all poison for a once-proud nation.

My only comfort is to start hoping I’m being much too doom-and-gloomy. If Trump is nominated I don’t think he’ll be elected, but that could certainly change and he might win. And if he wins I hope he’s a far better man than I think he is, and a far far better president than I think he would be.

Hope and change, folks, hope and change.

And if America can be Made Great Again, I’d be pleased, because I am a patriot and always have been. But if so, it will have to come from within the American people, from some resilient quality of wisdom I’m just not seeing right now.

I’m going to close with a video I found at Ace’s. It’s of Marco Rubio at a rally today. Now, anyone who reads me regularly know that Rubio has not been my favored candidate. I was a Walker, then Fiorina, then Cruz fan, with Cruz always in the background as my number two even when I supported the others. Now it’s Cruz or Rubio for me. This video struck me because it underscores how tough all the candidates have to be in the psychological sense to keep going at such an energetic level and keep optimistic in the face of bitter disappointment. Here Rubio speaks eloquently of conservatism, and I find it impressive. Then he attacks Trump as he should have been doing right along, and then he comes back to a defense of conservatism, although unfortunately the video gets cut off right about then.

It strikes me, and not for the first time, that the Trump candidacy may represent the death knell of conservatism, probably for a long time in this country, maybe forever. Conservatism has long been a hard sell, swimming against the tide of so many cultural influences and against the gimme-ism inherent in human beings. But I don’t count it out yet.

Christie endorses Trump

The New Neo Posted on by

Dog bites man, and Christie endorses Trump.

I’m surprised that this move would surprise anyone. Since the debate right before New Hampshire, when Rubio was in the ascendance and Christie went after him with both guns blazing, it seemed that if he wasn’t actually Trump’s agent he certainly was acting as though he was.

And it makes perfect sense for Christie. He sees Trump as the winner and wants to be there when the goodies are handed out. Perhaps he was already promised something—AG would be a very good bet. Christie is certainly all about self-interest, having proven that over and over in the past, long before the Trump phenomenon. In fact, come to think of it, did Christie ever train his very formidable attack-dog skills on Trump when Christie was still in the running? I don’t recall it. So maybe Christie was playing defense for Trump for a long time, staying in the race to draw other votes even after his own chances were obviously zero.

Let’s see. Back in 2012, when so many people were clamoring for Christie to run for president because they felt he was the one most likely to be able to beat Obama, he refused. Then his extremely self-serving speech at the GOP convention. Then the famous Obama “hug” that wasn’t really a hug, but that many people think helped Obama seal the deal in 2012 (I don’t think it influenced things very much, but I seemed to be in the minority on that one).
Then the attack on Rubio at that debate, and now the endorsement of Trump with a sly and malicious dig at Rubio as “desperate.”

There are other reasons for Christie to have endorsed Trump. They’re both the sort of brash, big-mouthed New Yorker types with which I’m certainly familiar, having grown up there (a trait that never bothered me, by the way). They’ve known each other for a while and my guess is that they get along personally quite well and understand each other on that level. They are both moderate sort-of-liberal type Republicans (used to be called “RINOs”). Who else would Christie support but Trump? Certainly not Cruz. And he seems to have some sort of personal antipathy for Rubio, or maybe it’s just Christie looking out for Christie, as usual.

A lot of blogs are saying this will have tremendous influence. I don’t see it that way, and that’s true whoever else Christie might have endorsed. I just don’t see a Christie endorsement (or any endorsements, actually) as all that important in terms of actual people’s actual votes. “Oh, I’m going to vote for Candidate X now that Christie likes him” is not really a sentiment I can imagine being all that widespread. But hey, who knows? Maybe a lot of people were just waiting with bated breath for Christie to tell them what to do.

And maybe this is the beginning of the so-called “establishment” hopping on the Trump bandwagon.

Debate 2/25: Well, well, well—that was quite a slugfest

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I didn’t watch the debate in real time (had a family event) but I watched much of it later, plus a few clips.]

Donald Trump has already said that it doesn’t matter what he does because his fans will still support him even if he stands “in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot[s] somebody.” So the first thing I have to say is that he didn’t shoot anyone last night, and it’s probable that few fans will desert him for his performance. The real question, as always with Trump, is how many more fans can he attract?

But leaving that aside, last night’s debate was very different from its predecessors. Now that the size of the field has shrunk to a manageable number, the individuals to focus on are more clearly than ever the trio of Trump, Rubio, and Cruz. Last night for a change Trump was the target, and the tag team was Rubio and Cruz. Rubio had more emphasis on process and Cruz content, but both of them attacked him on both. Just to refresh your memory:

Content is just what it sounds like: the subject matter about which two people (let’s say, a married couple) are arguing. “Did you do the dishes last night?” Process is everything else””for example, the emotion with which something is said, the type of vocabulary used, tone, repetition, body language, and the unspoken subtext.

Some of the most confusing disputes are the ones where one person begins an argument on the content level and the other person introduces a process rebuttal at some point.

In these debates, process has always dominated Donald Trump’s style to a degree far greater than we’ve ever seen in a politician. In fact, no one even comes close. Some content does manage to come out of his mouth, but even Trump’s content statements are repetitive, generic, and sketchy. His process presentation is also repetitive, consisting almost entirely of insults and bragging, followed by more insults and bragging, and all of it with a pugnacious attitude that his admirers read as tough and strong.

Until last night, Cruz and Rubio had stuck so very doggedly to content that they’ve looked wonky and dull in comparison to the street-fighting Trump. Last night they both put their process gloves on and gave Trump the business, particularly Rubio. But they didn’t neglect content, either, which is quite a feat—to pay conscious and planful attention to both content and process simultaneously. Last evening also highlighted the fact that both men are incredibly smart and quick, as well as knowledgeable about a host of issues on which Donald Trump appears appallingly ignorant.

Cruz was himself last night: brilliant, composed, on target—and to many people (I’m not one of them) somehow personally off-putting. Rubio was not quite the Rubio we’ve come to know. Sometimes in previous debates he has seemed earnest, knowledgeable, and eager, yet young and not especially aggressive, perhaps even a bit weak and naive. Tonight, he was the one who attacked Trump on both content and process, almost relentlessly, sometimes mocking him and sometimes zinging him, but always on the offensive. It was far more effective than any attack on Trump previously, almost as though Rubio was channeling his own previous tormentor, Chris Christie.

For those of us who have long thought Trump needed to be confronted with his own abysmal record and his own tendency to repeat himself and insult everyone in sight, it was gratifying to see. So you’d think I’d be happy, right? Part of me was; but the debate was also painful to watch. Why painful? Because they could have been doing this right along, and haven’t. It has been extremely frustrating all these months to watch Trump sail by while the others attacked each other instead. Now, when it’s almost Super Tuesday, they decide to finally do what they did last night?

I know why they didn’t beforehand; at least I’m pretty sure I know. They each wanted to be the last man standing. They thought Trump’s own behavior would inevitably bury him. At the beginning of the campaign season, who could have predicted that Rubio and Cruz would split the non-Trump vote between them so evenly? At the start, who could have predicted that Trump support would grow into an Obama-like cult? Still, both trends were already crystal clear by several debates ago.

I also watched some of the Fox coverage and commentary afterward. It struck me that I’ve have reached some sort of tipping point where their voices have become like chalk on a blackboard. Last night more than ever it seemed to me that not only were their comments superficial, but their voices had an oddly chipper, happy quality, as though we are all playing an awfully fun game, the lightest and airiest of entertainments.

Can you believe it? Another debate

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an open thread for tonight’s GOP debate.

I am going out to a family event and will not be liveblogging, but I plan to chime in late this evening. Probably very late.

But in the meantime feel free to discuss the debate and anything else your heart desires.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

So much news; here’s just a small sampler:

Reports are that Sandoval doesn’t want to be a pawn in Obama’s SCOTUS justice nomination game.

Here’s one of the best writers around, Richard Fernandez, on the “interesting” times in which we live.

Why is Obama visting Cuba? I don’t know why anyone would need to ask.

Iran is reacting to its recent monetary windfall (lifting of sanctions) by raising the pay for Palestinian terrorists.

There’s tons of Trump news, too, but I’m trying to not let it dominate. One thing I will mention is that all of a sudden certain facts about Trump (like, for instance, his use of the visa program for foreign workers), are just coming out now in MSM outlets like the NY Times. I’d written about that particular issue last November, here. It’s not as though this stuff was unknown or hard to uncover.

Spambot of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

Bot’s got a way with words:

Your favourite justification seemed to be on the internet the simplest thing to keep in mind of. I say to you, I definitely get irked while other folks think about issues that they just do not realize about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and outlined out the whole thing with no need side effect.

I always try to hit the nail upon the top. It would be rather hard to hit it on the bottom, wouldn’t it?

Trump: tax returns and wealth

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday Mitt Romney said some interesting things about Donald Trump and his tax returns, and they got picked up by a lot of news outlets and pundits. This is the way his remarks were generally reported:

There might be a “bombshell” revelation to be discovered in Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s tax returns, 2012 party nominee Mitt Romney said Wednesday.

He also called on the entire GOP field to release their tax returns.

“I think there’s something there,” Romney said of Trump’s returns, “Either he’s not anywhere near as wealthy as he says he is, or he hasn’t been paying the kind of taxes we would expect him to pay,” Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on “Your World.”

Trump supporters felt that this was a low blow, and unsubstantiated as well. Also, coming from Romney—the guy many judge as having been insufficiently hard on Obama in 2012—it seemed uncharacteristic.

As usual, though, it’s always instructive to look at the transcript, and then to do a little digging into the background. In the full transcript Romney went into more detail than that. He went on to say:

…[P]erhaps [Trump] hasn’t been giving money to the vets or to the disabled like he’s been telling us he’s been doing…The reasons that I think there’s a bombshell in there is because every time he’s asked about his taxes he dodges and delays and says, well, we’re working on it. Hey, we’re not talking about the taxes that are coming due this year…We’re talking about taxes already filed, back taxes, my back taxes when I ran in 2012, my back taxes I put out in January of 2012.

Then Romney called for the other candidates to do so as well, something he had said at the beginning of the interview, too, before he made the “bombshell” statement about Trump.

Romney added:

Donald Trump likes to tell you how wealthy he is, how he’s worth billions of dollars. The first time he was asked about his taxes on the “Today” show he said, you know, they’re beautiful. They’re big and they’re, well, great, let us see them.

Romney made it clear he has no hard evidence about Trump, but is suspicious because of Trump’s dragging his feet. Many other people who are discussing this assume there was no evidence for Romney’s claim, either. But—whether Romney has seen it or not (and I have no idea whether he has or hasn’t)—there actually is some evidence from the past, originating in a defamation lawsuit Trump filed in 2009.

Please take a look at this NR article by Ian Tuttle entitled “The Litigious—and Bullying—Donald Trump.” The following Trump exchange took place during a suit Trump lodged against Tim O’Brien, the author of a biography that claimed Trump’s worth was far far less than Trump claims:

In 2004, O’Brien had co-authored a piece for the Times detailing Trump’s financial woes ”” he had recently filed for the third of what would be four Chapter 11 bankruptcies ”” and quoted anonymous sources who reported that Trump’s wealth was not nearly what he claimed; in fact, it was in the hundreds of millions, they said…Trump, meanwhile, notoriously unreliable in his own estimates, offered figures ranging from $1.7 billion to $9.5 billion. In [his biography] TrumpNation, O’Brien cited those numbers, alongside “three people with direct knowledge of Donald’s finances” who estimated his wealth was “somewhere between $150 million and $250 million.” Trump denied it, in his usual colorful fashion: “You can go ahead and speak to guys who have four-hundred-pound wives at home who are jealous of me, but the guys who really know me know I’m a great builder.”

Trump filed a lawsuit asking for $5 billion damages. It’s really worth reading the whole Tuttle article, but here are some excerpts [emphasis mine]:

Those who think Trump is a “winner” ought to take a close look at Donald Trump v. Timothy L. O’Brien. Because Trump didn’t just lose the case. He was humiliated…

“The case dragged on for as long as it did because he wouldn’t comply with discovery requests,” says O’Brien. “He wouldn’t turn over the tax returns, then the tax returns came in almost so completely redacted as to be useless.”…

And, of course, Trump himself was deposed, leading to the following exchange, a crystallization of the Trump ethos:

Q: Now, Mr. Trump, have you always been completely truthful in your public statements about your net worth of properties?

A: I try.

Q: Have you ever not been truthful?

A: My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.

Q: Let me just understand that a little bit. Let’s talk about net worth for a second. You said that the net worth goes up and down based upon your own feelings?

A: Yes, even my own feelings, as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day. Then you have a September 11th, and you don’t feel so good about yourself and you don’t feel so good about the world and you don’t feel so good about New York City. Then you have a year later, and the city is as hot as a pistol. Even months after that it was a different feeling. So yeah, even my own feelings affect my value to myself.

Q: When you publicly state what you’re worth, what do you base that number on?

A: I would say it’s my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked. And as I say, it varies.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy to estimate the worth of an individual like Trump, whose single main asset appears to be his “brand”—in his case the name “Trump”:

Donald Trump’s net worth is $2.9 billion ”” far less than the $10 billion the real estate mogul and GOP presidential hopeful claims he’s worth, according to a new Bloomberg analysis.

Trump, who has made his personal wealth part of his pitch to voters, released a 92-page rundown of his net worth last week. He calculated his fortune at $8.7 billion, including $3.3 billion for the value of his name, in the federal disclosure form.

Bloomberg tallied up Trump’s real estate holdings, including his share of several skyscrapers, golf courses and resorts, based on the current income generated by those properties, which is its standard approach for valuing such assets.

Bloomberg estimated Trump’s golf and resort properties at a combined $570 million, while Trump pegged the properties’ value at $2 billion “without disclosing his methodology.”

So I cannot help but wonder how much of the Trump story is self-constructed myth and how much truth. When it was just Trump the celebrity out there in the world, I really didn’t care at all. But if he’s asking to be president, and it’s based at least in part on his record in business (not to mention his veracity), I think we all need to care.

I have said that I have no idea whether Romney was aware of the Trump lawsuit against Tim O’Brien when Romney made his statement, which was couched within a blanket request by Romney for all the candidates to release their tax forms. Nor do I know if Romney has seen articles such as this one, which discusses Trump’s philanthropic activities in some detail, and finds his donations wanting for a man of his wealth (see also this).

[NOTE: Here’s O’Brien’s side of the story.]

[NOTE II: By the way, I had done a significant amount of the research for this post before Romney made his statement. It was in connection with a post I was planning about the extent of Trump’s wealth. This information has been in the public domain for quite some time and is actually rather easy to find.]

Twitter’s all atwitter

The New Neo Posted on by

Apparently the social justice warriors have come to police twitter, via something with the quasi-Orwellian title of the Trust and Safety Council. I suggest you follow the link to learn more about it, but it seems to be some sort of attempt to “ensure that people feel safe expressing themselves on Twitter.”

But I thought the whole point of Twitter was verbal combat in an unsafe place.

I don’t use Twitter and don’t like Twitter. In my few forays there, the best I can say about the best of the Tweets I saw was that they were fleetingly amusing. Aside from the fact that I find the format visually distracting, there’s all of this:

I’ve not only not been drawn to [Twitter], but something about it repels me. I used to think that “something” was just that I prefer lengthier, more fleshed-out thoughts, although I do understand the value of conciseness, and I like a short and witty bon mot as well as the next person, maybe more. Funny quips are great, and often quotable, but too steady a diet of them is like eating nothing but M&Ms.

To me, that’s what Twitter always was””a lot of people being snarky together, trading barbs to see who could be the most clever. Like a bunch of teenagers getting together after school in someone’s basement, having fun at everyone else’s expense.

Yes, some information is imparted now and then through Twitter, but it is usually of the “here’s a great thing I just did!” variety.

My complete indifference to Twitter has apparently ensured I’m unlikely to ever rise much higher in the blogosphere:

Twitter is the new blogosphere.

Twitter helped destroy the conservative ecosystem of small blogs by replacing it with something easier to use and more effective…

There is no viable alternative to Twitter at this moment. The sheer breadth of membership and ease of use is not available elsewhere. Facebook is not a substitute, with its islands of pages and likes.

That’s a problem. A big problem.

Sure, you can quit Twitter, but good luck getting your message out without it, or hearing the messages of other conservatives. Twitter is the modern phone wire system, without which individual phones are isolated and irrelevant.

The marketplace for conservative communication better find a Plan B, and fast.

Oh, did I mention that conservative blogger and author Stacy McCain was recently banned, and several conservative bloggers have also quit in protest?

The “President Trump” crowd crows

The New Neo Posted on by

Last night before I went to bed I did some surfing around the blogosphere and noticed the happy-dances of Trump supporters.

Sometimes the comment was just the triumphant shout of “TRUMP!!!!” Sometimes it was more formal: “President Trump!” Sometimes, of course, it was a longer message—variations on “let it burn” or about his inevitability, and fantasies of what he’d do as president and how awful all his opponents would feel. But the messages all seemed to assume that his nomination would result in victory over Hillary and his taking the office of president.

My own assumption is different. I think a Trump nomination would be pretty much the same as a Hillary victory, because the first would be very likely to lead to the second.

Now, of course I could be wrong. But that gives me scant comfort, because to me “President Trump” is only marginally better than “President Hillary Clinton,” and that’s Trump on a good day. Again, I find that I have to focus on things like “Well, his SCOTUS appointments would have to be better than hers, wouldn’t they?” And “Well, maybe he’d pick some good advisers; she almost certainly won’t.” Or “Maybe he’d be considered a ‘cowboy’ type by the rest of the world, so maybe they won’t test him too much because they’ll think you just never know what a guy like that might do.”

You just never know what a guy like that might do.

Neither of the two alternatives—President Trump or President Hillary—feels the least bit good to me. And yet this election cycle started out with more hope about the political prospects than I’ve had since—well, since I can remember. I thought there was a good chance that the GOP might keep Congress, and with someone like Walker or Cruz or even Fiorina as president we could reverse some of the ills of the last eight years and even earlier. There was an excellent chance of it.

Then the Trump phenomenon picked up steam and here we are.

Here we are.

I can only hope that I’m underestimating Trump—both his chances for winning it all and what kind of president he’d be. Because without my being wrong about both, the prospect of his being nominated is one I cannot stomach, and would be another example of the GOP voters snatching defeat from the jaws of victory—this time in one of the most (perhaps the most) important elections of our time.

So I have to root against my own powers of judgment and prognostication.

On October 2, 2012, about a month before the 2012 election, I made the following prediction. It gives me no pleasure to report that I was spot on with this one:

One thing I believe is that, if Romney loses this election, the right will start tearing itself apart in anger…I already see some evidence of it in articles and comments from the right that accuse Romney of not wanting to win, of not going on the attack enough…of not doing whatever it might be that the brilliant armchair strategists would be doing if they were running for president, an election they of course would win by dint of their brilliant strategy. If Romney loses, the RINO theme will rise again undiminished, and the hatred of the “Republican establishment.”

I’ll just leave it there.