"You're Joe Biden. Suppose your goals are to a) get reelected, b) in the process let in as many migrants as you can, because you..."

"... and many of your supporters think it's a good thing. You've made impressive progress on (b), letting in migrants at a rate that’s now at least around 2 million a year,. But now goal (b) is conflicting with (a) as the massive surge of illegals at the border has become a 'sucking wound' on your 2024 chances. What to do?"

Writes Mickey Kaus, in "Biden's Border 'Briar Patch'/'Please, please, don't fix my most serious political problem for me!'" (Substack).

Don't we already know where this January 6th case is going?

Mickey Kaus knows:

I agree with Mickey's devout wish, and I'll add that whoever ends up on the losing side will attribute their loss to outrageous politics.

AND: Here's what the Rich Lowry tweet is linking to:

"We're told Biden doesn't have a 'vision.' He doesn't. We’re told he doesn’t have an ideology. He doesn’t. But he has a public image..."

"... which is that he’s a middle-class guy in the center who knows what he doesn't like — and he doesn’t like departures from common sense. In this initial, breath-gathering post-Trump moment, that might do as a Vision Substitute. It’s not asking not what your country can do for you or having a dream or a shining city on a hill or 'as Americans that is not enough we must be equal in the eyes of each other.' It’s just 'C'mon man.' Like Biden, it might do." 

Writes Mickey Kaus in "Wokeism Should Terrify Liberals... Here's a job for Joe...."

"Why did the Democrats win the Presidential vote but do so poorly in everything further down on the ballot -- Senate, House, and state-level races?"

"There are a lot of theories: a) Republicans liked Republicanism, and conservatism, even Trumpism, but they didn't like Trump! b) Swing voters liked Biden but were turned off by left wing Democratic themes — "defund the police,” Medicare for All, cutting edge progressivism on gender dysphoria in 8-year olds, etc. c) Voters in general wanted Congress to be a check on a Democratic executive. All plausible. But what if the explanation is something simpler and less profound -- mechanical even? The essential idea was proposed by veteran campaign reporter Walter Shapiro. It’s based on the idea of 'roll off,' the tendency of some voters to vote for candidates at the top of the ticket while leaving the nether regions of the ballot blank.... If this is true, what more explanation do you need? Dems simply made a strategic mistake: They pushed early, mail-in and absentee voting, which may have won them the presidential election but which also brought them a bunch of voters who, in their rush to rid America of Trump, left the other parts of the ballot untouched...."

Writes Mickey Kaus.

"The more you provide 'equal opportunity' for those at the bottom, the more you perfect a system in which those at the top can believe they are smarter and better (i.e. more meritorious)..."

"... than those who can't or don't climb up the pyramid. After all, they had equal opportunity. What's their excuse? Now we’re facing the end game: What to do when we no longer have enough jobs that practically anyone can do, but that pay enough to allow, if not a 'middle class' life, a life as a full participant in society. There seem to be at least seven approaches...."

From "Two Paths for Meritocracy/Are we free at last from Michael Young's doomsday machine?" by Mickey Kaus (substack)(Michael Young is the author of "The Rise of the Meritocracy" (1958)).

You can go to the link to read the 7 approaches. #7 is Kaus's own. He also finds the entire list "quite dispiriting." An alternative is to reject meritocracy.

"What happens if it's a 'Flight 93 Election' and your side is corkscrewing down into the earth?"

That's the prospect facing once and possibly future Trumpists. It's undeniable at this point: Trump's falling behind and flailing. He's alienating white voters, and not gaining enough of any other kind.... If Trump loses, and in the process Democrats retain the Senate and win back the House [sic], they will have the chance to do big things. On many issues, they’re split — but one big thing they’ll be able to agree on is passing a giant Gang-of-8 style amnesty bill.... They see a mass influx of immigrants (not irrationally) as the guarantor of a more liberal electorate on into the future. And it will be irreversible, Once you amnesty you can't go back.....  [W]e'll be a nation open to the planet's free moving labor.... Second and Third Worlders stands ready to flood the market anytime wages increase (or even when they don’t).... [That]'s why the fantasizing about Trump abandoning his attempt at reelection should probably be taken seriously and even egged on... Trump himself is clearly thinking a lot about losing these days, as when he mused, absurdly, that President Joe Biden would have to finish his border wall. 'And he’s going to be your President because some people don’t love me maybe.'... The Democrats’ nominee is so weak that Republicans... might still have a chance at retaining the White House...."

Writes Mickey Kaus in "A Time to Bail... Trumpism is more important than Trump."

Pence is the most obvious choice if Trump withdraws, but Kaus also names, Mitt Romney, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Nikki Haley, and Mitch Daniels.

"Back in late 2017, it looked like Franken was going to weather the charges of inappropriate conduct against him, until Democrats apparently decided to sacrifice him..."

"... presumably in part to demonstrate that they could police their own.... The coup was quick and brutal. First, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand posted on Facebook a call for him to resign. Then, in quick succession, 13 more Democratic women senators (and a majority of the entire caucus) joined her. Whether Franken was guilty or innocent -- and he'd asked for a hearing -- his position became untenable. The day after Gillibrand’s shiv, he announced his intention to resign. (Chuck Schumer had told him to be out by 5 P.M.) If it looked like an orchestrated takeout, that's because it probably was. Biden -- even if innocent -- is now in a position where he must constantly worry about getting Frankened. By whom? Well, by the same sorts of powerful Democrats who helped him win the nomination (perhaps by helping orchestrate the well-timed withdrawals of Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg).... I'm also not saying 'they' want to replace Biden now.... But they could change their mind, and quickly, if he gives enough of them enough reason -- either by faltering, or pissing them off, or a combination of the two.... Biden probably wasn’t about to forge bold new directions.... But now Biden’s really in no position to step on anyone’s toes. Power has shifted away from the candidate."

From "The Frankening" by Mickey Kaus.

That could be read to say that Biden's position is stronger than ever. The Party wanted Biden because he would do what they want, and now there's even more reason for them to believe he will. He's boxed in.

"Permanent impeachment won't empower Pelosi's Resisters.... It’ll empower Trump's deplorables, because Trump will still need them."

"In effect, impeachment can be the anti-dote to lame duck insularity, reestablishing the accountability to voters that the term limit of the 22d Amendment takes away. I'm not arguing for impeaching every President in his second term. It’s a legalistic, emotion-draining way to try to correct for the ill-advised two-term limit. Usually there are bonds of ideology and party loyalty constraining even popular second-term presidents. Trump seems a special case — someone you really might not want to see unleashed. I'd feel much better voting for him again if he were impeached multiple times."

Writes Mickey Kaus in "Impeach Him Again, Nancy!"

I'm not agreeing with that, but I find it interesting. There are lots of other things you might say about the benefits of impeachment on the pro-Trump side. But having written "pro-"... I'd like to discuss Kaus's writing "anti-dote" — "impeachment can be the anti-dote to lame duck insularity."

Even in the 17th century — I checked the OED — there was no hyphen in "antidote." But the word is, indeed, made out of the prefix "anti-" — which means "against" — and the root "-dote."

It makes you wonder, what is a "dote"?

If you check the etymology of "antidote," you will see that "dote" comes from a Greek verb that means "to give," so an antidote is something that is "given against" something else.

But "dote" is an English word, and writing "anti-dote" — with the hyphen — seems to take us away from the familiar word, "antidote," and ask us to think of something that is against whatever that English noun "dote" means.

I looked it up in the OED. A "dote" is "A foolish, incompetent, or slow-witted person." It's been around about as long as the familiar verb "to dote." The OED has the noun "dote" going back to the 13th century, and it nicely has — among its examples — this from 2018:

2018 @Skeptic_Fashion 11 Apr. in twitter.com (O.E.D. Archive) U should have ur keyboard privileges suspended for a week 4 being a dote.

A tweet! First time I've noticed a tweet preserved as an OED quote documenting the current usage of the word. I like it. We need more mean but gentle insults.

Is Trump a dote? No, but many of his haters think he is, and they may want to give the country an "anti-dote." But to impeach him over and over again? Who's the dote?

And keep in mind: Even when you have a poisoning and want to administer an antidote, that the antidote itself can be a poison:

The effects of many toxic substances within the body are well understood and can therefore be treated successfully with specific antidotes even when those antidotes are often considered poisons in their own right. For example, strychnine is highly toxic but its symptoms can be counteracted with curare, also highly toxic, because both compounds interact with the same receptors in nerves but have opposite effects. Atropine (or belladonna) poisoning can be treated with physostigmine; and physostigmine poisoning can be treated with atropine.

I am showing you some reasoning by metaphor, after Kaus started it, calling up the word "antidote." You're in a figurative wonderworld when you use metaphors, but I'll just say even when you have a workable antidote for a poison, you don't just take lots and lots of antidote! And I think it's crazy to impeach the President and then impeach him again and again.

"Do you think the Democrats need to rush impeachment (as they’re currently doing)? I don't."

Says Mickey Kaus. He observes that Democrats say they need to rush to get out of the way of the primaries, to keep people from getting tired of it, and — assuming it's hurting the Democratic Party — to limit the damage. But too bad if the Senators in the race have a bit more trouble campaigning...

[R]eally, is it of utmost importance that Democrats give Sen. Klobuchar a fair shot at a last minute Iowa surge? If impeachment were a political winner, Dems would recognize Fairness for Ambitious Senators as the secondary concern it is....

It's funny to forefront Klobuchar, who's going nowhere and at best held in reserve. Elizabeth Warren is a bigger victim. There's also Booker and Harris.

As for people getting tired:

My god, if you weren't fatigued two months ago you're not going to be fatigued now... Isn't it more likely that voters will get fatigued, then reinterested, then refatigued, then reinterested?

Refatigued is a funny word.

Anger. Fatigue. Depression. Boredom. Acceptance. The Kubler-Ross stages of impeachment!

Yeah, I think this adds up to the opposite of the point Kaus is (ostensibly) making. We are tired, and we're going to get good and tired — angry tired.

About the damage control, the question is just how early must this thing end to give the party time to recover and change the subject?

[A]t some point Democrats need to cut off the inquiries and give their candidates time to talk about health care and crime and wages and the other issues the average swing voter cares about. And they have to leave the time for a McConnell-led Senate trial. But they can let their show run longer than Pelosi seems to think.

How do Democrats "leave the time for a McConnell-led Senate trial"? The time will, in the end (unless the Democrats can make themselves vote against impeachment), come under the control of the opposing party, which will be motivated to inflict as much damage as possible, within whatever time frame it likes.

On the question whether the impeachment process is or should be hurting the Democrats, Kaus says:

Democrats are taking what basically should be a very embarrassing front page newspaper story for Trump and working themselves up into thinking it's a "high crime." There was at least enough legitimate cause to investigate the Bidens — what did Joe’s son’s client get for all that money? — to take the case out of the “high crime” category....

I agree with that!

Dan Drezner tells Mickey Kaus he's out of his depth.

Mickey please stick to immigration as you’re more than a bit out of your depth here. https://t.co/PnxdaMcRc0

— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) November 12, 2019

You be the judge. Pick the option closest to your reaction.

Drezner's right and he said it right. Kaus is out of his depth.

Drezner was rude and (ironically) shallow, but Kaus *is* wrong.

Kaus is apt and funny and Drezner's attempt at wit is an embarrassing cliché.

Both men are being shallow and meaningless in social media. Bleh!!

 

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"But what if the WB is a vehement Ukraine hawk, with strong ties to Joe Biden and Democrats?"

Writes Mickey Kaus, explaining why the identity of whistleblower is important even though we have the transcript:

The point wouldn’t be that the whole thing then smells like a long-hatched anti-Trump conspiracy (though it does)....

The point is that seemingly everyone in the WB’s network of outrage, from the person who told the WB about the call to Col. Vindman (the National Security Council Ukraine expert who’s testified before Rep. Schiff’s impeachment panel) to Ambassador William Taylor (who’d written a text calling it “crazy” to hold-up aid to Ukraine “for help in a political campaign”) to the aide in Schiff’s office consulted by the WB may be sincerely, passionately inflating the importance of Trump's sin--and deflating Biden's-- because to them aiding Ukraine is wildly important and Joe Biden is a compatriot, mentor or hero.

Voters and the senators— who will have to determine whether Trump's tactics were a "high crime”— may have a less fraught perspective and discount the offense accordingly. That would be harder to do if the prime accusers weren't all vehement anti-Russia Ukrainiacs....

This isn't like a drug deal where an undercover informant can drop a dime and then disappear while the perp is tried. We know the drug deal was a drug deal. We don't know what kind of a deal this was. What was Trump's intent? Was he interested in actual corruption, or was that a fake concern? How did the Ukrainians interpret it -- as a serious threat to the aid or just a classic Trump feint to be abandoned relatively quickly if resisted? What was the meaning of the demand for a press conference — was the idea to lock Zelensky into the investigation or to give Trump some cheap oppo optics? Did any of the pro-Ukraine Trump administration conspirators express any doubts about their outrage?

"Of all the things Trump’s done, why pick on the Zelensky call? It’s as if Trump’s sins had been inscribed on ping pong balls and placed in a big tumbler..."

"... like the kind used to pick lottery numbers. 'And the winner is, "Zelensky phone call on July 25."'OK! Democrats and the press then all agree to get very worked up over the 'systematic attack on American democracy.' I still don’t believe what Trump did is a 'high crime' — that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. I can think of 10 things he’s done that are worse, including firing Comey. And hiring Priebus. (And, yes, putting the children of families separated at the border into foster care—that was too harsh.) None of these justify removing Trump under the Constitution, or else every president in my lifetime would have been the subject of ongoing impeachment proceedings—which may be where we’re headed. Always Be Impeaching."

So begins Mickey Kaus in "Best Thing I've Read on Impeachment/It's way more complicated than the huffed-up MSM would have it." Much more at the link. I especially like the last 2 sentences (which are based on the observation that the Zelensky phone call issue turns on Trump's intent

Evolution has built our brains to conflate self-interest and justice. A good con man believes his own con. If “intent” is what counts, that might make Trump unimpeachable.

That "best thing" he's read is "Is It Ever OK for a President to Ask a Foreign Country to Investigate a Political Rival?/Sometimes, yes—which is why Donald Trump’s potential impeachment hinges on his motive in doing so" by lawprof Edward B. Foley (Politico). Excerpt:

"Wright’s is a Buddhism almost completely cleansed of supernaturalism. His Buddha is conceived as a wise man and self-help psychologist..."

"... not as a divine being—no miraculous birth, no thirty-two distinguishing marks of the godhead (one being a penis sheath), no reincarnation. This is a pragmatic Buddhism, and Wright’s pragmatism, as in his previous books, can touch the edge of philistinism. Nearly all popular books about Buddhism are rich in poetic quotation and arresting aphorisms, those ironic koans that are part of the (Zen) Buddhist décor—tales of monks deciding that it isn’t the wind or the flag that’s waving in the breeze but only their minds. Wright’s book has no poetry or paradox anywhere in it. Since the poetic-comic side of Buddhism is one of its most appealing features, this leaves the book a little short on charm. Yet, if you never feel that Wright is telling you something profound or beautiful, you also never feel that he is telling you something untrue. Direct and unambiguous, tracing his own history in meditation practice—which eventually led him to a series of weeklong retreats and to the intense study of Buddhist doctrine—he makes Buddhist ideas and their history clear. Perhaps he makes the ideas too clear. Buddhist thinkers tend to bridge contradictions with a smile and a paradox and a wave of the hand. 'Things exist but they are not real' is a typical dictum from the guru Mu Soeng, in his book on the Heart Sutra. 'You don’t have to believe it, but it’s true' is another famous guru’s smiling advice about the reincarnation doctrine. This nimble-footed doubleness may indeed hold profound existential truths; it also provides an all-purpose evasion of analysis...."

From "What Meditation Can Do for Us, and What It Can’t/Examining the science and supernaturalism of Buddhism," by Adam Gopnick in The New Yorker. He's reviewing "Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment," by Robert Wright (AKA Bob Wright of Bloggingheads).

Here's Bob talking to Mickey Kaus (about 10 days ago) about "mindful resistance," and Mickey says he doesn't even know what mindfulness but people tell him "it's Buddhism stripped of its religious aspects so it can be sold to the masses":

Fake news? (And should we care if a rich person throws an expensive party?)

Ivanka & Jared went to a $7-9 MILLION one-night party // Camels, Acrobats and Team Trump at a Billionaire’s Gala https://t.co/O2Om6SBBc1

— Garance Franke-Ruta (@thegarance) February 17, 2017

Add up all the expenses in @NYT story and you don't come close to $7-9 M. I get < $850K. Something fishy? Did he buy everyone a Pontiac G6? https://t.co/3aUHDpHp2c

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) February 19, 2017

IN THE COMMENTS: Hari said:

2 camels @ $1500 each / 400 people = $7.50 per person
$200,000 for dinner / 400 people = $500 per person
$60,000 for service / 400 people = $150 per person
$500,000 for singer / 400 people = $1250 per person
$8 million / 400 people = $20,0000 per person
Innumerate NYT readers = Priceless!

"The massive Kausfiles Rebuild Project is in theory complete."

Writes Mickey Kaus:

The unheated Venice warehouse, once filled with surly millennial coders, lies silent, its floor littered with empty bottles of $12 juice. ….

The purpose of the rebuild is to (again) mix tweets with blog items, a rebellion against the disastrous early Word Press era in which blog posts became discrete, pompous hey-link-to-me declarations.

Maybe he doesn't want me to link. Except since he's not being pompous...

Ben Smith may think this was the golden age of blogging. To me it was the beginning of the end. …

If the end already happened, how can you go back? I guess it's: Make blogging great again. 

I’m sure I’ll screw things up for a while. There will still be many more tweets than blog items, though a) I’ll try to write more of the latter especially since b) it should now be possible to easily expand tweets into short (or long) blog entries.  Will escaping the 140 character limitation make them better or worse? I actually don’t know. Could be worse! It’s awfully easy to kill a tweet with improvements.

It's hard to blog and tweet. You either have blog mind or tweet mind. I know that blogging made me not want to write law review articles. You get a sense of where you want to be on the continuum from stark terseness to explain-it-all blabbery. If you're going to write a lot, you're probably going to find your place. But when Kaus blogged in the Golden Age of Blogging, he was in a pretty terse place on the continuum. Maybe he can jump back and forth.

But there are 2 ways to characterize blog/tweet jumping. One is what he's saying. Twitter predominates, and the blog is a place where you can expand on what you've already said in the tweet.

The other way is to blog first. Blog where you are free to say what you have to say and make the tweet second. The blog post is not an expansion of the tweet. The tweet is a condensation of the blog post. Kaus's Golden Age blog was always terse and tweet-like, but it was terse because of Kaus's own style, not because the format imposed terseness on him.

What's the best combination of blogging and tweeting?

Mostly tweet and sometimes, when it seems right, expand the tweet into a blog post.

Blog first and predominately and throw off little tweets as you go.

Pick one or the other and concentrate on a style the goes with that format. Mixing is a mistake.

If you can blog well, blog. Put all your heart and energy there. It's better.

If you can make your writing work in Twitter, just tweet. Twitter is the important format now.

 

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"If you have a spare moment, it's always fun to tweet out humiliatingly wrong pro-takes from hapless @Politico."

If you have a spare moment, it's always fun to tweet out humiliatingly wrong pro-takes from hapless @Politico. Eg https://t.co/yBtDKncs9p

— Mickey Kaus (@kausmickey) February 22, 2016

The article Mickey links to is dated July 25, 2015 — "Insiders: Trump has peaked/The majority of Republican insiders say The Donald has hit his ceiling, while gleeful Democrats say he’s not going anywhere," by Katie Glueck.

“The McCain smear and giving out Graham’s cellphone? What an asshole,” vented a New Hampshire Republican, who says Trump has peaked. “Trumpism does not represent some deeper sentiment within the party, nor has he tapped into something a more conventional candidate can now co-opt. His candidacy has as much substance and meaning as cotton candy. I didn’t like him before. Now I loathe him.”

"Hillary Clinton's Lead Over Sanders Nearly Vanishes."

A new IBD/TIPP has Hillary "falling eight points to 43%" and Sanders "climb[ing] six points to 39%." That's a shift from an 18 point lead to a 4 point lead." The earlier poll was done from 11/30 - 12/4 and this one is a little over a month later, 1/4 - 1/8.

Donald Trump is at 34%, up from 27%, with Cruz in second at 18%. Rubio is losing ground, falling from 14% to 9%.

There's also a new Gallup poll showing Democrats losing ground:



Obviously, Americans don't feel too connected to the horrible 2 parties we're stuck with. That's what that graph means, and that's what it means that Trump and Sanders are doing so well. And I think there are a lot of people who like both Sanders and Trump. They/we like the disruption.

ADDED: Mickey Kaus: "Dems 29%, GOPS 26%, Indies 42%. So what are other 3%? That looks like the fastest-growing category."

Mickey Kaus fears a future in which robots do all the work and we, consequently, have no basis for self-respect.

"Evolutionarily, we are designed for work. We are unhappy when we're not working. We become a sociopathic bachelor herd.... What do we do with all these people who have no productive work?"



ELSEWHERE: "Why Do Americans Work So Much?/The economist John Maynard Keynes predicted a society so prosperous that people would hardly have to work. But that isn’t exactly how things have played out."

"Kaus delights in the pity and disgust he detects from his old friends’ view that he has joined a band of kooks and racists."

Writes Ben Smith in "What The Hell Happened To Mickey Kaus?/How a godfather of Democratic political blogging became obsessed with immigration — and came around to Donald Trump."

“I don’t know who’s reading me, but every now and then I get somebody who has influence calling me a jerk, and it’s like, ‘Yes!’” he remarked over coffee and doughnuts. “Maybe I’ll collect all those tweets and hang them on the wall.”...

Anti-immigration forces “don’t have business, we don’t have the media, we don’t have the presidency, we don’t have the Senate, we don’t have leadership in the House — and we’re still winning,” he said a few days after having failed to torpedo Paul Ryan’s speakerhood. “So why is that happening?”

Kaus pauses. He’s voted for Barack Obama twice, and the place this is leading may make him slightly uncomfortable.

“The answer is that no one is speaking for the actual voter — except, it turns out, for Donald Trump.”

You may leave here after 70 years in this place/And after you're gone it's the same old space.

Did you notice the departure of P.F. Sloan?

Mickey Kaus makes 11 points about that passing of the man who left more footprints on Earth than that one big song, "Eve of Destruction."

Kaus gets bogged down around #5, which is the sad old topic of whether a singer could be better than — or almost like or the X version of — Bob Dylan. Kaus takes a swipe at Bob: "Dylan famously dissed him during a concert in LA. (Then again, didn’t Dylan diss his own son?)"

By the time Mickey gets to #11 — and I want a moratorium on goes-up-to-11 jokes —  he's talking about a party in L.A. that he attended: "As I’m leaving I learn that P.F. Sloan had been there, but I’d missed him. Left behind on the gift table was a signed copy of the sheet music for 'Eve of Destruction.'" I think the point is that for all the blowhardiness of "Eve of Destruction," P.F. was an L.A. man.

Think of all the hate there is in Los Angeles/Then take look around, it's pretty unscrupulous...

Anyway, what did Bob Dylan say about P.F. Sloan? I'm seeing:

"There are no more escapes. If you want to find out anything that’s happening now, you have to listen to the music. I don’t mean the words. Though Eve of Destruction will tell you something about it."

I don't think that's the quote Mickey was talking about. Interesting concept though, that you could find out what's happening now by listening to the sound of the instruments — not the words — of the music of today. Dylan said that in 1965, interviewed by Nora Ephron. I went looking for the completion of the concept. It's:

The words are not really gonna tell it, not really. You gotta listen to the Staples Singers, Smokey and the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas. That's scary to a lot of people. It's sex that's involved. it's not hidden. It's real. You can overdo it. It's not only sex, it's a whole beautiful feeling.

But when did Bob Dylan insult his son?