Briefs

Qassim Suleimani
The Suleimani assassination would have made sense had there been reliable intelligence that it would set off a destabilizing power struggle within the Iranian government; but reliable intelligence, in either sense of the word, is not characteristic of the Tr*mp Administration.  The action's chief impact has been to put a damper on resistance to Iranian influence in Iraq.  While many attribute the killing to Our President's shoot-from-the-crotch strategic incompetence, one still wonders: How does it benefit Putin?

Mark Galli
Back in the 90s, liberals were broadly accused of practicing situation ethics: choosing to violate basic moral codes for the sake of some "greater good."  Currently, that philosophy's main adherents are conservative Christians, most of whom were outraged when Mark Galli's editorial in Christianity Today identified Tr*mp as "a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused."

Carlos Ghosn
Given the 99.9% conviction rate in Japanese courts, nobody can be surprised that somebody with the wealth and influence of Carlos Ghosn would find a way to jump bail.  Was Ghosn under-reporting his income, as charged?  Probably: it's what the super-rich do.  Does that explain why he was indicted?  Highly unlikely.

Elizabeth Warren
Clearly, the drop in contributions to the Warren campaign was a direct outcome of her waffling on "Medicare for All":  the left wing of the Democratic Party is in no mood for compromise.  Granted, some sort of compromise will be required to get any such program through Congress, but facing up to reality is never a winning strategy in electoral politics.

Briefs

The Mattis departure
While some are wondering whether the multi-talented Mick Mulvaney will be adding Defense to his expanding portfolio of responsibilities, there are potential candidates who could be a good deal worse.  The Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs is replete with Evangelical Christians in the mold of Franklin Graham, who will happily implement Our President's plans to purge the military of transgender troops, make life extremely difficult for out gays and lesbians, and do everything in his power to hasten the Apocalypse.

Syria
Tr*mp's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, pretty clearly, was a gift to Recip Tayyip Erdogan.  Abandoned by the United States, the Syrian Kurds will need somebody to protect them from an impending Turkish onslaught — and the only game left in town will be Bashir al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.  It's not hard to imagine a deal being made that will offer the Kurds some degree of autonomy; and it's no harder to imagine the effect that can have on the Kurds in Iraq.

Afghanistan
It's certainly true that US troops have been fighting in Afghanistan for far too long, but the decision to sharply reduce US forces at least should have been discussed with the NATO allies whose forces are serving there before the announcement was made.  It's been clear for a long time that the only resolution of the long war involves power sharing with the Taliban, but the upcoming withdrawal eliminates any motivation the mullahs may have had to negotiate.  Has anybody mentioned to Tr*mp that he's about to become the loser of America's longest war?

Faith-based Fascism

If you assume that the goal of the new "Religious Liberty Task Force" recently announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be to find new and better ways to discriminate against the LGBT community, you probably are underestimating the Attorney General and the administration he serves.  Rest assured that the Task Force also will investigate new ways to justify restricting women's reproductive rights, expand federal funding for religious schools, and aggressively erode the separation of Church and State.

Political authoritarians and religious hierarchies enjoy a natural partnership.  Both are essentially conservative, demanding that followers  accept the immutable rules and mythologies they hand down.  Neither can tolerate opposition based on anything so heterodox as rational thought, and both perceive those from outside their networks of believers as threats to be resisted, repressed, and demonized.  Working together, they keep their followers unquestioning and compliant.

Such partnerships may be as old as human civilization, but there are plenty of contemporary examples.  Conservative Islam, either Sunni or Shi'a, dominates the autocracies of the Middle East.  The Orthodox parties in Israel recently cooperated with Netanyahu's Likud to enact legal changes that make Muslims and Druse second-class citizens.  In India, Modi's Hindu nationalists stay in power by persecuting Muslims, and the generals of Myanmar have solidified Buddhist support by doing the same.

Of course, the relationship that most resembles Tr*mp's alliance of interests with Evangelicals is Putin's alliance of interests with the Russian Orthodox Church; and in Russia, too, the effort to strengthen church-state solidarity began by attacking homosexuals.  Perhaps "moral" considerations motivate religious conservatives to endorse and facilitate authoritarian political leadership, but the process is inevitably corrupt.

Jerusalem: Why now?

Are you ready for the end of the world?  The core voters of Tr*mp's base not only are ready, they can't wait!

Christian fundamentalists have eagerly been anticipating the onset of the Apocalypse at least since 1947, when the creation of the state of Israel began to fulfill one of its preconditions: the return of the Jews to Jerusalem.  When the End of the World arrives, they expect to be "raptured" straight to heaven, while the other 90% of the world's population is relegated to eternal damnation.  That makes Tr*mp's recognition of Jewish suzerainty over the "Holy City" a very encouraging development.

Meanwhile, in Alabama, Roy Moore's campaign still is threatened.  For Moore to win, substantial numbers of Alabamian Christian conservatives will have to choke back the vomit and vote for a child molester.  Tr*mp's recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel is a reminder to support their favorite President's agenda by electing his fellow sexual predator — and Moore's vote may be required to pass the tax bill.

At the same time, Tr*mp is providing a much-needed political boost to Bibi Netanyahu, who has been fighting corruption charges; and, certainly, moving our embassy to Jerusalem will make Sheldon Adelson happy.  All in all, it was a smart political move, especially since most of America doesn't care one way or the other.  Hopefully, the ensuing chaos will be confined largely to the Middle East.  If not, well...  I'll see you in Hell.

Shariah Law Advances in US

The anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks seemed like a good time for an update on religious extremism.  Even without those emails from your crazy uncle, you should know that fanatics are working tirelessly to warp the American legal system with their primitive beliefs.

Okay, it's not exactly "Shariah" because the religion involved isn't Islam, but the chief objectives of all those Abrahamic preachers are the same: the subjugation of women and the de-eroticization of sex.  Leading the American jihad are Evangelical Christians, aided and abetted by conservative Catholics and orthodox Jews.  With the ascendance of the Tr*mp Administration, they have attained unprecedented prominence and power.

Much like the rulers of Saudi Arabia, they know that women are temptresses who lead men into moral peril, and hence must be denied birth control and abortions as a means to regulate their unbridled lust.  Babies will keep them at home, ready to satisfy the physical needs of their husbands and unable to tempt upstanding men like Mike Pence into the sin of adultery.

Speaking of Mike Pence, homosexuals are even more threatening than women because their only motivations for sexual activity are animal lust and immoral gratification.  Worse yet, the transgendered may be especially adept at enticing Mike Pence good Christians into carnal sin.  The Holy Warriors are determined that vulnerable members of the armed forces and bakers of wedding cakes will be spared temptation.

Health and Human Services and the Justice Department have attracted the most attention so far, but the fanatics are in all departments: the drive for "school choice," for example, is a campaign for publicly funded religious education.  Religious extremists are pervasive in the Republican Party, at all levels of government, working to deprive the rest of us of out civil rights.

No local stonings nor autos-da-fé have been reported from Kansas or Alabama so far, but religious extremists enjoy close cooperation with the NRA.  They are extremely well-armed.

About that "base"

Don't bother setting that cross on fire: it will serve well enough as-is.

There is a segment of America that fiercely supports Tr*mp no matter how badly or insanely he behaves.  That "base" is estimated to be about 30% of the population.  Who are they?  Some are Klansmen or Neo-nazis, but those are relatively tiny splinter groups.  The noisily Ayn-Randian "alt-right" internet trolls are even fewer in number.

The bulk of Tr*mp's base consists of white Evangelical Christians — the people who used to be called "fundamentalists."  Best known for their reactionary stance on social issues and disdain for science, their  loyalty to a lying, self-serving, egomaniacal sexual predator certainly seems misplaced — but Tr*mp embodies their desires and ambitions better than any conventional politician ever could.  (If he turns out to be the Antichrist, that's fine too.)

Basic to Tr*mp's appeal is his promise to restore an imagined "golden age" of America — that mythical time before rationality beat so hard at the bulwarks of ideology, before their God-given right to define the parameters of truth was challenged.  Tr*mp is waging a holy war on the political and intellectual "elites" who either belittle or ignore them.  It's all about self-esteem — economics doesn't even come into the picture.

While black Evangelicals and more mainstream Christians reject the President for his moral bankruptcy, white Evangelicals seem to be taken with what theologians call antinomianism — the idea that those who have been "saved" by faith are no longer bound by earthly moral codes.  Tr*mp really could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, and they would be unfazed.

Democrats can stop worrying about "winning back the white working class" — the Evangelicals won't budge, and the rest of the white working class will come home once the Republicans are finished screwing them.  To win elections, Democrats have to mobilize their own base voters by generating some excitement.  They did that with Obama in 2008.  Can they do it again?

Sociologic Outlook

Stephen K. Bannon.  Need I say more?  Probably not.  Nevertheless, I shall.  I doubt that any of us seriously considered the possibility of a crypto-fascist dictating social policy in the USofA, but now it's time to get serious.  I know I swore off making predictions, but some things are pretty obvious:

WOMEN
It's unlikely that Bannon himself could care less about the right of women to have control over their own bodies, but it's important to a major segment of the Tr*mp coalition: Evangelicals.  Women's reproductive rights will be in serious trouble with any Tr*mp appointment to the Supreme Court, unless one of the sitting conservative Justices is too conservative to approve overturning a decision that's been in place since 1973.  As for birth control, protection from sexual assault, equal pay for equal work, etc., the Magic 8-Ball says, "Uh-oh!"  Opposition is mounting, but will it be enough?

BLACKS & LATINOS
Clearly, disenfranchisement of black and Latino voters through voter suppression will continue, especially since it worked so well in the recent election.  "Law & Order" policies in Republican dominated states and localities will breathe new life, and the prosecution of killer cops will continue to be distressingly rare.  The only bright spot may be some degree of criminal justice reform, since prisons are just too expensive for the tax-cut zealots.  Lobbyists for private prisons, though, continue to spend freely, claiming "cost savings" that don't exist.

IMMIGRANTS
The "huddled masses" will keep right on "yearning to breathe free."  While the "wall" will remain a figment of xenophobic imagination, Bannon's Breitbart followers and the National Border Control Council (the pro-Tr*mp union that represents border control agents) will keep up the pressure to expand Obama's already onerous deportation policy.  The budget deficits this will entail will be significant, leading to devastating cuts in funding to more productive areas of government.

LGBT
The various permutations of gay and trans Americans can expect their rapid gains in civil rights to come to a screeching halt.  Although Tr*mp says that marriage equality is "a settled issue," presidential opinions don't count for much when a conservative Supreme Court issues its rulings.  Hopefully eighty-year-old Anthony Kennedy is in good health.  Meanwhile, the green light is lit and burning brightly as far as gay-bashings and attacks on the transgendered are concerned.

EDUCATION
Look for state funding of private and religious schools, defunding of public education at both the K-12 and university levels, new lawsuits challenging affirmative action in admissions, and all federal aid to education provided in the form of block grants with no strings attached.  States will accelerate takeovers of "failing" schools, ensuring that they continue to fail.

HEALTH
Tr*mp's ideas for maintaining the popular parts of Obamacare while eliminating the rest is obviously untenable.  Forget about reining in Big Pharma.  Drug rehabilitation programs will succumb to Evangelical moralism, despite the enormous impact of the heroin epidemic on rural America.  Bannon probably would like to end CHIP, since that would lead to more deaths among the "mud people," but it's probably safe because Tr*mp is too much of an approval whore to countenance killing children.  Congress will delight in defunding the NIH and the NIMH.  Don't get sick!

WELFARE
Did I hear somebody say "block grants?"  The Earned Income Tax Credit is safe, but no longer likely to be expanded to childless families.

CULTURE
Season one of "Political Apprentice" will continue to earn high ratings on cable news.  Intellectuals and artists, both left and right, will be on their own.

NATIONAL UNITY
What?  Are you kidding?