It is important that we understand completely the abject failure of the Republican Party. The people who wrote the Constitution knew that a person like Trump was a real possibility–their experience with King George made them acutely aware of the danger of consolidating power in the hands of one person. To prevent this from happening they employed the idea of checks and balances to prevent such concentrations. Their logic was straightforward: since the lust for power could not be eliminated, they decided to distribute power in three branches of government and assumed that the lust for power in these three branches would be counterbalanced.
The system is not infallible, but it worked for most of the country’s history, the most recent example being the proceedings against President Nixon in 1973. Members of Congress protected the prerogatives of Congress and the Courts held that the President’s power was not unlimited. We are now witnessing the complete collapse of the willingness of the Congress to curtail Trump’s actions, such as the attacks against USAID which is an office created through Congressional action. Rather than telling Trump that he should seeks a law to reorganize USAID, the Republicans in Congress are simply abdicating their sworn duty. The sad fact is that the Republican Party now loves power more than it loves the Constitution or the Republic.
This reality is profoundly unsettling and augurs ill for the future of the country. I am convinced that there will be a backlash against Trump’s actions eventually, but much damage has already been done to our faith in the integrity of our political institutions. The decline in respect for the Supreme Court is just one example of something that will be difficult to restore.
Moreover, the previous Congress, the 118th, was the least productive in recent history: “The 118th Congress is on track to being one of the least functional sessions ever, with only 34 bills passed since January of last year, the lowest number of bills passed in the first year of a congressional session since the Great Depression, according to congressional records.” In place of legislation, the Republicans in Congress are content with a flurry of Executive Orders that clearly infringe upon the duties of Congress.
The Republican Party should be well advised to pay attention to a revised aphorism: Hell hath no fury greater than a people betrayed by their Savior.
President Trump and his Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, both claimed that President Trump had “identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas”. I was struck by this curious claim since the US has not been sending money to Hamas and decided to explore whether the claim was true.
It turns out that the US had sent $102 million to the International Medical Corps which had received $68 million to set up two field hospitals in the Gaza Strip. When queried, the organization responded that “No US government funding was used to procure or distribute condoms”. The organization described its role in Gaza as follows:
“Since January 2024, the statement said, the organization “has provided healthcare to more than 383,000 civilians who had no other access to services or treatment, including performing about 11,000 surgeries, with one-third of those categorized as major or moderate procedures. We have assisted in the delivery of some 5,000 babies, about 20% of them via cesarean section. In addition, International Medical Corps has screened 111,000 people for malnutrition, treated 2,767 for acute malnutrition, distributed micronutrient supplements to 36,000 people, and more.” Needless to say, all such activities in Gaza will no longer be funded by the US.”
“As the Guardian reported on Tuesday, a comprehensive report issued in September by the US Agency for International Development (USAid), not a penny of the $60.8m in contraceptive and condom shipments funded by the US in the past year went to Gaza. In fact, the accounting shows, there were no condoms sent to any part of the Middle East, and just one small shipment, $45,680 in oral and injectable contraceptives, was sent to the region, all of it distributed to the government of Jordan.”
Subsequent posts on X indicated that the money was in fact sent to Gaza to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. But the Gaza referenced in that $83 million grant was not the Gaza Strip, but rather a province in Mozambique named Gaza which was developed by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation. The province has a high incidence of AIDS, so it makes sense to send concoms there. There is also a town called Gaza in Iowa–perhaps they received the condoms (one should check out Gaza, Iowa on Google maps–it looks like a lonely place).
Trump and Leavitt told a falsehood. I spent two hours trying to track down whether the assertion was true and used the reports from others who did the same. It was wasted time because there are now millions of Americans who believe that the US sent $50 million of condoms to a terrorist organization. But it was not really wasted because I wrote this post and some Americans now know that Trump lied.
“Over the decades since the Six Day war in 1967, when Israeli forces first captured the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian military rule, Israeli officials and commentators have periodically pushed the notion that Palestinians in Gaza could be resettled in Egypt.
“Most recently that notion was floated in a leaked paper by Israel’s intelligence ministry – which prepares studies and policy papers rather than representing the intelligence agencies – a few weeks into the war in Gaza.
“That ‘concept’ paper recommended that Israel ‘evacuate the civilian population to Sinai’ then create ‘a sterile zone of several kilometres … within Egypt’ that would prevent return.”
The idea is profoundly offensive and clearly violates the Geneva Convention prohibition against ethnic cleansing. It is also something that the Palesstinians would reject, even though mush of the Strip has been completely decimated. It is extraordinary to view the numbers of people who have taken advantage of the cease-fire to move back into northern Gaza–even though living there will be dangerous, difficult, and uncomfortable. The photograph of the Palestinians moving back is a powerful statement on the Palestinian determination to not repeat the tragedy of the nakbaof 1948.
Both Egypt and Jordan have flatly refused to accept refugees from Gaza. Jordan already has several million Palestinian refugees and Egypt fears that its territory will be compromised by the refugees, who would likely continue to attempt moving back to Gaza. The Washington Post reports:
“Reaction from the Middle East was quick — and sharply negative. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said that Jordan’s opposition to displacement of Palestinians was ‘firm and will not change.’ The Egyptian Embassy on Sunday reposted a 2023 comment by its ambassador, Motaz Zahran, saying that ‘Egypt cannot be part of any solution involving the transfer of Palestinians into Sinai.’”
“Germany on Monday rejected US President Donald Trump’s proposal to move Palestinians from Gaza to nearby countries – Egypt and Jordan.
“Speaking at a press briefing in Berlin, Foreign Ministry spokesman Christian Wagner said that Germany maintains its commitment to the international consensus regarding Gaza’s status.
“’There is a common position shared by the EU, our Arab partners and the United Nations, which is very clear: The Palestinian population cannot be expelled from Gaza, and Gaza must not be permanently occupied or resettled by Israel,’ he said.
“Wagner added that the G7 group of the world’s leading economies, which includes the US, has so far consistently supported this position in multiple joint statements.
“’Expulsions from Gaza, and establishing new settlements here is not possible. This is also something that we made very clear during the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Tokyo in 2023. In this respect, I think our position is more than clear,’ he said.”
If Trump and Netanyahu succeed in “cleaning out” Gaza, the possibilities for a two-state solution are completely eliminated. John Lyons of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation makes that argument:
“Trump’s move has been seen here in Israel as essentially saying that these and other armed and violent settlers can commit any atrocities against Palestinians with impunity and without interference from the US. Rarely are Jewish settlers brought to justice by Israel for acts of violence against Palestinians.
“Trump’s early appointments are also a strong indication that a Palestinian state is very much an endangered species.
“He has chosen former Arkansas governor and Fox News host Mike Huckabee as new US Ambassador to Israel. According to The Times of Israel, Huckabee has said that Israel’s claim to the West Bank is “stronger than American ties to Manhattan” and he even laid bricks in 2018 as ground was broken on a new housing complex in the settlement of Efrat.
“The website reported that Huckabee had said that “of course” annexation of the West Bank was a possibility during Trump’s second term.”
Israel is the only country today that occupies territory with such a large population. There is no justification for its war of conquest.
President Biden, in his final address to the nation as President, warned citizens against the danger of living in an oligarchy: “Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead.” He was not the first President to warn of this danger. John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, wrote the following:
“9 July 1813
“Your “” [aristocrats] are the most difficult Animals to manage, of anything in the whole Theory and practice of Government. They will not suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own Subtilty Industry and courage, but they employ the Commonalty, to knock to pieces every Plan and Model that the most honest Architects in Legislation can invent to keep them within bounds. Both Patricians and Plebeians are as furious as the Workmen in England to demolish labour-saving Machinery.
“But who are these ““? Who shall judge? Who shall select these choice Spirits from the rest of the Congregation? Themselves? We must first find out and determine who themselves are. Shall the congregation choose? Ask Xenophon. Perhaps hereafter I may quote you Greek. Too much in a hurry at present, english must suffice. Xenophon says that the ecclesia, always chooses the worst Men they can find, because none others will do their dirty work. This wicked Motive is worse than Birth or Wealth. Here I want to quote Greek again. But the day before I received your Letter of June 27. I gave the Book to George Washington Adams going to the Accadamy at Hingham. The Title is a Collection of Moral Sentences from all the most Ancien[t] Greek Poets. In one of the oldest of them I read in greek that I cannot repeat, a couplet the Sense of which was
“‘Nobility in Men is worth as much as it is in Horses Asses or Rams: but the meanest blooded Puppy, in the World, if he gets a little money, is as good a man as the best of them.’ Yet Birth and Wealth together have prevailed over Virtue and Talents in all ages. The Many, will acknowledge no other ““. Your Experience of This Truth, will not much differ from that of your old Friend.”
Most Americans are unfamiliar with the word “oligarchy” since the Republic has tried very hard since its inception to convey the sense of equality best expressed in Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. It would be years before any American President emphasized the idea of equality over that of freedom. Lincoln did so in his second Inaugural Address. For the first time, an American President declared that slavery was incompatible with the values of the American people, notwithstanding the inclusion of slavery in the Constitution.
An oligarchy is a political system in which the wealthy direct the machinery of government to protect and enhance their interests as opposed to the interests of the citizenry. Brooke Harrington, a Sociology Professor at Dartmouth College wrote this for the Washington Post at the beginning of Trump’s first term:
“There are no laws against a president and his super-wealthy Cabinet using their power to benefit their own class. There is nothing that compels them to look beyond their privilege to address the needs of the citizenry.
“The problem with these prospective leaders is not their money. It’s that they — like Trump — seem more interested in what their country can do for them than in what they can do for their country.”
The concentration of wealth in the second Trump administration is staggering. The following table gives an idea of how concentrated wealth has become in recent years. Many of the people listed, like Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, have actively solicited Trump on various matters and represent business interests that clearly constitute conflicts of interest with a number of important policy issues like freedom of speech in a digital world.
Source: Bloomberg, “Bloomberg Billionaires Index”, 18 January 2025, accessed at: Bloomberg Billionaires Index, on 19 January 2025
Many of these people have contributed a great deal of money to Trump’s inauguration and several of them have been quite visible in the upcoming Trump Administration. We also have a hard time realizing exactly what these numbers represent: a billion of anything is far removed from anything we come into daily contact. One way to comprehend these numbers is to translate them into more accessible terms:
If someone made one million dollars a year, they would make about $480.77 per hour and $3,846.15 per day.
On the other hand, making a billion dollars per year would mean about $480,769 per hour and $3,846,153.85 per day.
These 20 individuals possess more wealth than most countries in the world. Indeed, there are only 7 countries with GDPs larger than $3 trillion:
There are 186 countries in the world with GDPs less than $3 trillion. The combined population of these countries comprises 56% of the global population. But 20 people have more wealth than each of the 186 countries.
Concentrations of wealth lead inevitably to a distorted political system. Adam Smith was well aware of the dangers of concentrated wealth to the public interest:
“Not only the prejudices of the publick, but what is much more unconquerable, the private interests of many individuals, irresistibly oppose it. Were the officers of the army to oppose with the same zeal and unanimity any reduction in the number of forces, with which master manufacturers set themselves against every law that is likely to increase the number of their rivals in the home market; were the former to animate their soldiers, in the same manner as the latter enflame their workmen, to attack with violence and outrage the proposers of any such regulation; to attempt to reduce the army would be as dangerous as it has now become to attempt to diminish in any respect the monopoly which our manufacturers have obtained against us. This monopoly has so much increased the number of some particular tribes of them, that, like an overgrown standing army, they have become formidable to the government, and upon many occasions intimidate the legislature. The member of parliament who supports every proposal for strengthening this monopoly, is sure to acquire not only the reputation of understanding trade, but great popularity and influence with an order of men whose numbers and wealth render them of great importance. If he opposes them, on the contrary, and still more if he has authority enough to be able to thwart them, neither the most acknowledged probity, nor the highest rank, nor the greatest publick services can protect him from the most infamous abuse and detraction, from personal insults, nor sometimes from real danger, arising from the insolent outrage of furious and disappointed monopolists.”
This pattern was present as the Roman Republic began its descent into dictatorship. It was also evident in 13th Century Venice and in late-19th Century America. It is happening again, not only in the US, but in India, Russia, China, the low-population oil producers such as Kuwait, and Brazil. It is difficult to see how democracy can persist under these conditions. Active steps must be taken to create a more just distribution of wealth globally.
Last June, the US house of Representatives banned the State Department from using death statistics published by the Gaza Ministry of Health. The amendment was supported by most Republicans and many Democrats but the Senate has yet to pass on the legislation. The rationale for the amendment was best expressed by David Adesnik, Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the conservative think-tank, Fund for Defense of Democracies: “It’s a complete abdication of responsibility for the Biden administration to say it trusts the Gaza Health Ministry’s numbers because the UN considers them trustworthy. We’ve seen that the UN puts blind faith in the ministry’s numbers even when they’re completely implausible. As a result of trusting numbers from a Hamas-controlled entity, the Biden administration has become more focused on the restraints it can put on Israeli forces than how it can help accelerate Hamas’s defeat.” Israel has also criticized the Ministry’s statistics. The Anti-Defamation League published this analysis of the Gaza Minitstry of Health:
“ADL calls on all news organizations to properly caveat data and information cited from the Gaza Health Ministry with clear mention that it is controlled by Hamas and that it has shared false and misleading information in the past. Journalists and news organizations must acknowledge when their sources may be unconfirmed or unreliable.”
It turns out that the Gaza Ministry of Health undercounted the casualties (it only counts bodies that are visible, and does not search through destroyed buildings to find bodies that are covered by rubble). The amendment to legislation was According to the Lancet, one of the world’s premier medical journals, the death toll in the war against Gaza has been significantly undercounted. The study was limited to the period 7 October 2023 to 30 June 2024 so it does not include any reported deaths since July. The Lancet study came to this conclusion: “We estimated 64 260 deaths…due to traumatic injury during the study period, suggesting the Palestinian MoH under-reported mortality by 41%.” The Gaza Ministry of Health currently tallies about 47,000 deaths. If the undercounting of 41% holds from the period of 1 July 2025-11 January 2025, then a straight extrapolation would suggest a death total of about 67,000.
The Lancet study only looked at deaths attributed to military action. The report states that “our findings underestimate the full impact of the military operation in Gaza, as they do not account for non-trauma-related deaths resulting from health service disruption, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation.” It is extraordinarily difficult to make precise estimates of these deaths (called “indirect” deaths in the literature), but the Watson Institute at Brown University has done a solid study. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has also done a report on the long-term effects of such conditions in Gaza.
It is very clear that we lack knowledge of the actual conditions in the Gaza Strip. But we should be extremely wary of attempts to undermine the credibility of sources by parties which have a vested interest in particular conclusions. It appears as if the Gaza Ministry of Health was, and is, the most reliable source in this dispute.
President-Elect Trump’s press conference yesterday was an excursion into the mind of a seriously deranged individual. National Public Radio reports in an interview with Laura Barron-Lopez of NPR:
“And in it, the president-elect talked about using force to gain control over countries and territories. He raised the possibility of using military force to secure Greenland and the Panama Canal. He also talked about using economic control to pressure Canada to acquire it.
“And he said that — as you played there, Geoff, renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. And he also said that — quote — “all hell will break out” if Hamas doesn’t release hostages by the time he takes office.
“In addition to that, he said that he wants to use tariffs at a high level against Denmark to try to pressure it to cede control of Greenland to the United States. And on that idea of the annexation of Canada, Geoff, outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that — just outright rejected it on X, saying that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that it would happen.”
One never knows whether Trump is actually serious–he has a long history of making outrageous statements and never following through on them. But the mind-set revealed in the press conference is straight out of Nineteenth Century Europe when the balance of power was the operating system of global politics and manifested most dramatically in the carving up of Africa by the colonial powers. The period from 1870 to 1914 is commonly known as “The Scramble for Africa“.
After World War II, the US tried to create a different system, based upon multilateral organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank, NATO, and various other organizations. The aspirations for this system were quite simple. Instead of the system of power politics characterized by Thucydides as one in which “The strong do as they will, and the weak suffer what they must“, the hope was that international politics could be governed by rules and norms agreed upon by the major powers. That aspiration was never realized, and it seems clear that Trump intends to govern US foreign policy by the maxims of power politics and to return the world to the 1800s.
Trump should read some history. He would find that the US did in fact invade Canada in 1812 and gained nothing from that war (forget the Battle of New Orleans and focus instead on the British burning down the White House). He should also learn that the Gulf of Mexico was named the Gulf of Mexico long before the US was even a state. He also needs a refresher course on what it means to be an ally–if Russia or China would dare to invade Greenland, the NATO treaty would obliged the US to defend the island because Denmark is a member of NATO. THe US does not need to “own” Greenland in order to defend it.
What is deeply troubling is that Trump uses the phrase “national security” to justify his fantasies in such a sloppy manner. He seems to be worried that Chinese companies on each end of the Panama Canal gives China a strategic advantage (conveniently ignoring that China is 6000 miles away from the Panama Canal while the US has easy access to the canal). China would have the same problems defending its troops that Russia had when it tried to place nuclear missiles on Cuba in 1962. When confronted with American military power in the Gulf of Mexico, the Russians had no choice but to capitulate.
Unfortunately, Trump seems to be following the policies of Putin and Netanyahu: grabbing land when it appears to be a task with few immediate downsides. Both Putin and Netanyahu seem oblivious to the long-term costs of being an imperial power: the immense cost and the serious damage to the reputation of their states. Randy Newman wrote a song about the phenomenon which is macabrely funny:
And while we are at changing names, Trump should now start thinking about purging foreign names from American geography. We should call Los Angeles the City of the Angels, Baton Rouge should be called Red Stick, and by all means we should get rid of Native American names like Massachusetts (“Large Hill Place”) and Connecticut (“Long Tidal River”). I am not sure I can survive this stupidity for four years.
President-Elect Trump has nominated a distinctive group of individuals to serve in his Cabinet: With some exceptions, they are all wealthy individuals with little or no government experience but a lot of experience as hedge fund managers. We will have to wait to see how these individuals fare in the confirmation process, but their nominations suggest that Trump believes that such people will manage the economy well. That assumption will likely prove to be very wrong.
We have historical examples of similar decisions. For example, Venice was once a powerful city-state and a dominant force in the global economy in the 13th-15th Centuries. That wealth was based upon international trade and Venice’s ability to link Europe to Asia through the Silk Trade routes.
“This brings us to the great puzzle of Venetian history. During the period 1297–1323, a defining epoch in Venetian history known as the Serrata or “closure,” Venetian politics came under the control of a tightly knit cabal of the richest families. It was, in Norwich’s (1977, p. 181) words, the triumph of the oligarchs. Furthermore, by the early 1330s this political closure had spilled over into an economic closure that excluded poorer families from participation in the most lucrative aspects of international trade. Finally, by 1400 the political and economic closure had created a society characterized by a new emphasis on rank and hierarchy. In short, after 1323 there was a fundamental societal shift away from political openness, economic competition, and social mobility and toward political closure, extreme inequality, and social stratification.”
Ultimately, more dynamic economic centers emerged, such as Portugal, Spain, the Dutch, and Great Britain, finding a way to bypass the Venetian chokehold on the Silk Trade by finding alternative routes to Asia. Venice lost its economic vitality and declined into nothing more than a footnote in the history of the global economy.
The argument is straightforward: rather than continuing to innnovate under the pressures of competition (such as the need to find a sea route to Asia), wealthy individuals tend to use political power to protect their interests through laws. That political power is then used to insulate existing techniques and technologies from externally induced change. Those industries become less efficient over time and economic growth slows as a result.
That same process seems to be in play in the US today. Robert Reich outlines the process in the YouTube video, “Wealth Inequality Explained”:
The composition of Trump’s Cabinet fits into this mold perfectly. In a broader cocntext, the process seems to be affecting many different countries in the world, as globalization produces distorted economic outcomes. Trevor Jackson describes the dynamic in his recent essay on theNew York Review of Books:
“For decades now, the ideology of free-market liberalism has obfuscated the ongoing distributive conflicts of the world, but it has not blunted the material suffering of the people on the losing end. Since the 2008 crisis, the reality of ruthless distributive conflict has become impossible to ignore, but the failure of market liberalism to reconcile political equality and economic inequality has produced a global crisis of legitimacy and a growing constituency amenable to antiliberal figures like Trump, Orbán, Modi, and Bolsonaro.”
The anger against the prevailing patterns of wealth distribution is not only found in political outcomes. The astonishing amount of support for the alleged assassin, Luigi Mangione, reflects the degree of animosity toward the “undeserving” rich. If the Democratic Party needs to make a decision about how to orient its platform for the future, it would be well-advised to concentrate exclusively on the process of redistributing wealth and breaking up the political power of economic interests.
The Economic Innovation Group has published a new study entitled “The Great Transfer-mation” which is a report decrying the dependence of US citizens on income transfers from the government. There are many points in the report with which I strongly disagree and I found it personally useful to go through the mental exercise of critiquing flawed arguments and evidence. But the report does provide some information which I found quite interesting, the most important of which was the correlation between getting transfers from the Federal Government and votes in the recent presidential election in the US.
According to the report, in 2000 about 10% of counties in the US received significant income from the government; by 2022, that percentage increased to 53%. Those counties tended to be rural with a significant population of elderly people and considerably poorer than many other counties in the US. The transfer programs idenitified in the study include:
● Old age supports such as Social Security and Medicare
● Medical supports to low-income households such as Medicaid
● Veterans benefits
● Poverty alleviation and income maintenance supports such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
● Unemployment insurance (UI) compensation
● Education and training supports, such as Pell grants
The report is trying to make the case that the only way to address the growing dependence of Americans on income transfers is to stimulate economic growth through lower taxes and reduced regulation–in other words, a stronger commitment to the “trickle-down” myth of modern capitalism (despite all the evidence suggesting that that ideology is fundamentally flawed). But I found the link between income transfers and voting to be highly intriguing as reflected in the following graph:
The graph shows that those most dependent on income transfers were more likely to vote for Mr. Trump and that those who are less dependent on income transfers were more likely to vote for Vice-President Harris. That conclusion is not surprising and comports to my own understanding of why Trump was able to secure a popular majority.
The question is why were people who relied so heavily on aid from the Federal Government were so willing to back a candidate who made such an issue of government deficits and the need to control the Federal budget. The answer is that Mr. Trump was able to make the case that Federal aid was going to the “undeserving” poor (“illegal” immigrants and people who benefit from discriminatory DEI programs) and that he would protect the income transfers to those that truly “deserved” the support. Presumably, those Americans who voted for Trump obviously believed that they deserved those transfers.
The Harris campaign tried to refute those assertions, but many people were not persuaded even though the idea that undocumented individuals without social security numbers could ever receive aid from the Federal Government was clearly ludicrous. The question that nettles me is why it was so difficult for so many Americans to clearly assess their own self-interest.
The question is important to me because I dedicated much of my life to a process that demanded close attention to evidence and logic and I am now confronted with the possibility that many people no longer believe those standards are valid. Give me a few more days to think this over, and I will post those thoughts in a few days.
The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria is rapidly changing the geopolitics of the Middle East. The Assad family had ruled in Syria for 50 years, but its collapse only took a few weeks. At this time, I would not hazard a guess about who will rule Syria in the future, or even whether Syria will remain a nation-state or devolve into mini-states ruled by different factions.
In reality, Syria fell apart 13 years ago as a popular movement known as the “Arab Spring” swept through many states in the Middle East in 2011. The Assad regime barely survived that movement and has been propped up by both Russia and Iran since that time. Russia, weakened by its war against Ukraine, and Iran, weakened by the Israeli attacks against its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, were unable to maintain that support as a rebel group in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, seized control of Damascus. But there are many groups within Syria, as described by the BBC:
“Among these groups – some now in Damascus – are rebel factions that once operated under the banner of the Free Syrian Army from southern towns and cities that had been dormant for years, but where the spark of rebellion had never entirely been sniffed out.
“Over to the east, Kurdish-led forces have benefited from the collapse of the Syrian army to take full control of the main city, Deir El-Zour. In the vast Syrian desert, remnants of the so-called Islamic State could also look to take advantage of the situation. And in the far north along the Turkish border, the Syrian National Army – backed by Ankara – could also prove to be a significant player in what happens next.”
In terms of the geopolitics of the region, the big losers are Russia and Iran. The big winners are Turkey and Israel. Turkish ambitions might be stymied by the strong Kurdish community in Syria. But the Israelis have taken advantage of the power vacuum in Syria by launching military assaults against virtually every Syrian military installation. Mondoweiss reports:
“Even as Bashar al-Assad was scrambling to get out of Syria, Israel was mobilizing its military to take advantage of the power vacuum that Assad’s ouster had created. After five decades of a low-level conflict between the two countries, Israel saw an opportunity to change the calculus, and it seized it.
“As of Wednesday, Israel had struck Syria nearly 500 times. Their goal with these attacks has been to essentially destroy Syria’s military capability, and they have already succeeded. Reports by Israeli media claim that well over 80% of Syria’s weaponry, ships, missiles, aircraft, and other military supplies have been damaged or destroyed.
“In essence, Israel has rendered Syria completely defenseless. “
Moreover, Israeli Defense Forces have seized territory in Syria which includes Mount Hermon, which offers Israel a critically important strategic location giving it the ability to monitor activities in Lebanon and Syria with great accuracy. The map of Israeli occupation is striking.
Israel has ordered the IDF to maintain its control of Mount Hermon throughout the winter and has suggested that its occupation is temporary. But, given its strategic significance, it is unlikely that Israel will return control of the mountain to Syria. Indeed, some in Israel have proposed that Israel should annex the terriroty, as reported by the Middle East Monitor:
“Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli yesterday called for Israel to occupy the summit of Mount Hermon in Syria.
“Chikli said: ‘The events in Syria are far from a cause for celebration. Although Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham and its leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, portray themselves as a new product, ultimately most of Syria is now under the control of affiliate organisations of Al-Qaeda.’
“’The good news is the growing strength of the Kurds and the expansion of their control in the northeast of the country,’ the Likud Party member said, noting that ‘Israel must operationally renew its control at Mount Hermon [in the occupied Golan Heights] and establish a new line of defence based on the ceasefire line of 1974 [with Syria].’
“Chikli’s statements come despite a call by the office Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to make statements about developments in Syria, while the Likud Party asked its members in the Knesset not to conduct interviews about Syria without the approval of Netanyahu’s office, according to reports by the Israeli public radio yesterday.”
Israel has now seized territory in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria. This is unquestionably a war of conquest.
“Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he had only rhetoric” — Umberto Eco, 1955
Today has been very difficult for many. This post was written in a state of confusion, fear, and rage. So you should tread carefully here, because there are dragons.
We had hoped that Mr. Trump had effectively diminished his allure to voters, but that was not the case. Instead, we now face the prospect of a mob boss political system, bent on enriching only those who submit and disenfranchising those who do not submit.
This terrain will be difficult to navigate, and it creates a problem for those of us who opposed Mr. Trump. Knowing that he will punish anyone who disagrees with him and knowing that the Congress and the Supreme Court will not restrain his basest instincts leaves us in uncharted territory. The Supreme Court has completely abdicated its responsibility to maintain checks and balances in Trump v. The United States and has decided that it does not have the power to check executive power as long as there is some mention in the Constitution of the powers of the President, no matter how indirect or peripheral the reference. With the Republicans in control of the Senate and possibly of the House as well, there is no posssibility that that party will restrain Mr. Trump given his ruthless purge of malcontents in the party.
We should place the blame for this situation squarely on the Republican Party which has completely abandoned its responsibility to defend the Constitution. The Democrats ran a very effective campaign which was not sufficient. What does the failure of opposition to Mr. Trump mean?
The election of 2024 was essentially a rerun of the early 20th Century. The end of the 19th Century brought about a wave of globalization powered by advances in refrigeration, telecommunications, shipping, and transportation. The result was a phenomenal explosion of wealth at the expense of those with limited access to capital and whose only link to the global economy was the sale of their labor. The growing inequality between rich and poor ultimately led to widespread dissatisfaction which resulted in the abandonment of traditional political norms and the adoption of new ideologies, fascism and communism, which channeled that dissatisfaction into acceptance of authoritarian rule. That inequality also led to the Great Depression.
Similarly, the technological revolutions of the 1980s and 1990s led to the creation of fabulous wealth–think Gates, Musk, Jobs, and Zuckerberg. But that wealth was accumulated by tapping into the labor markets of poor states such as China and Vietnam, leading to a massive loss of manufacturing jobs in the developed world. Those unemployed by the 2nd wave of globalization are the ones who abandoned traditional political norms, not only in the US, but in India, Hungary, Italy, France, Sweden, Denmark, and the Cech Republic. They have reasons to be angry.
The pattern of the early 20th century is repeating because the conditions are roughly similar. And, I suspect, the outcome will be the same: economic collapse and war.
The question for me is how do I respond to this situation? My gut instinct is to resist as Trump attempts to create a White, Male, and Christian Republic. I should resist any attempts to cut Obamacare, Social Security, health and safety regulations, and the proposed deportations. These are the issues that Trump used to secure the support to win the election. My suspicion is that those who supported Mr. Trump did not believe that he would truly implement those policies. But they knew exactly who Mr. Trump was: a person who cheated on his taxes, who assaulted women and bragged about his conquests, who punished anyone who did not support him, and who showed little regard for the rule of law. He will, I am certain, insure that everyone appointed to his government will share the same contempt for integrity and lawfulness. Those who voted for Mr. Trump cannot plead ignorance of who he was and how he defined his interests as the single guide for public policy. They knew what they were buying when they voted.
I fear, however, that, for the next two years, resistance will be futile. So I think there should be a second course of action, a course of action which deeply offends my sensibilities as a civic person. The Democrats should simply withdraw from the process of governing. It will be a huge waste of time and, ultimately, counterproductive. The Democrats should simply sit in Congress and refuse to vote or participate in any hearings. Those who supported Mr. Trump should live in the world they voted for. And with tariffs, deportations, and the lack of income security and health insurance, they can figure out how to survive. That economic collapse is inevitable given the obscene inequalities of power and wealth that Trump’s Administration will foster.
Then the Republican Party will have to decide whether it cares more about the Constitution than raw power. And the American people might learn to appreciate the idea of Justice and Equality and to temper their infatuation with unaccountable freedom.
” [aristocrats] are the most difficult Animals to manage, of anything in the whole Theory and practice of Government. They will not suffer themselves to be governed. They not only exert all their own Subtilty Industry and courage, but they employ the Commonalty, to knock to pieces every Plan and Model that the most honest Architects in Legislation can invent to keep them within bounds. Both Patricians and Plebeians are as furious as the Workmen in England to demolish labour-saving Machinery.
a Collection of Moral Sentences from all the most Ancien[t] Greek Poets. In one of the oldest of them I read in greek that I cannot repeat, a couplet the Sense of which was
World Politics News 