I want to quote a sizeable passage from Bruce Abramson’s post at RealClearPolitics:

Who wins in Trump vs. Biden 2024? Not which candidate wins; two years and a vast array of variables render all such predictions purely speculative. No, the real question is whose interests would such a choice serve? The interests of the American people? The American establishment? The American future?

I propose that the answer is an emphatic “none of the above.”

In 2016, Trump provided the country with a wake-up call. Sanders might have done the same. These candidates generated passion because they were very different from the bland, corrupt, elitists that voters had been taught to swallow. Using the power of their distinctive personalities and the divergence of their ideological orientations, they provided starkly similar warnings: “America! Look at what’s been done to you! If you want to preserve the future you’ve come to expect, it’s almost too late to act!” In a phrase now popular in certain quarters, they implored Americans to see what time it is.

I believed – and still believe – that we needed to hear that message in 2016. At the time, I thought we’d suffered through 16 years of abysmal leadership. Yet until Trump and Sanders shattered the rules, relatively few Americans seemed comfortable opining that George W. Bush and Barack Obama had both failed as presidents in many ways.

The needs of 2024 will not be those of 2016. With America’s needs having changed, so too will the candidates capable of meeting those needs.

America today is embroiled in a cold civil war – frequently miscast as a war over culture, but more correctly understood as a struggle over values. We disagree about the meaning of critical words, beginning with the all-important concepts of “good” and “evil.”

Sizable swathes of the electorate have moved beyond thinking that the party they oppose has bad ideas that will make us unsafe and poorer. The fear today is that the opposition party seeks to turn America into a country in which we would not want to live.

That’s pretty much the way I see what has been happening. I like my neighbors. I like my fellow Chicagoans somewhat less. I like Illinoisans even less. And I don’t like what the United States has developed into at all. I’m old. I can afford to keep my head down and tolerate the awfulness for the few years I have left. My nieces and nephews aren’t that lucky. And I weep for their children.

Update

Apparently, I’m not alone.

I’m sincerely glad that Brittney Griner is being released from a Russian prison. I hope she avoids foreign travel in the future.

At Foreign Policy Douglas London wonders whether the unrest observed in Russia, China, and Iran is due to luck or skill?

In recent weeks, there have been major street protests in China and Iran, two of the United States’ main adversaries, and a mass exodus of fighting-age men amid an economic and military meltdown in Russia. Is it luck? Coincidence? Is CIA Director William Burns a total genius? Or is it the result of painstaking preparations to bring about a moment like this to bolster U.S. policy preferences? The answer is complicated—as are the options for U.S. officials when it comes to exploiting the circumstances.

I do not believe that we should be meddling in the internal affairs of other countries at all, whether they’re rivals, adversaries, or allies. Destabilization has a way of coming back to bite you in the butt.

For my part, although I’m sure that Mr. Burns would be delighted to take the credit for it (if that’s the right word), I strongly suspect that the correct answer is that neither luck nor skill but something else is the primary culprit and I would point to COVID-19. Stressors have ways of causing events to turn in peculiar and unpredictable ways.

BTW IMO the CIA should be abolished, its covert operations turned over to the military. Today it’s redundant. There are plenty of other agencies analyzing intelligence.

The Labor Department reported a very minor uptick in the number of jobless claims last month, illustrated in the graph above. As you can see the number is pretty stable and close to pre-pandemic numbers. At the Wall Street Journal Austen Hufford reports:

Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, rose by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 230,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was near the 2019 weekly average of around 218,000 when the labor market was also robust.

Continuing claims, which reflect the number of people seeking ongoing unemployment benefits, rose to their highest level since late February, though they also remain historically low. Continuing claims increased by 62,000 to 1.67 million in the week ended Nov. 26.

Jesse Wheeler, an economic analyst at Morning Consult, said the slow rise in continuing unemployment claims is an indication workers are remaining on unemployment insurance for longer instead of immediately finding a new position.

“People who are losing their jobs are finding it more difficult to find a new job,” he said.

The latest report comes as the labor market remains tight, with continued job growth and low unemployment. Still, several major companies have laid off workers or stopped hiring in recent months.

So, unemployment is pretty stable, the job market is robust, gas prices are falling, and the rate of inflation is decreasing.

Here’s my question. Why doesn’t Joe Biden get the credit he deserves? Americans continue to have negative views of Biden and the economy. If you think it’s bad media coverage, please prove it. I don’t see it. That doesn’t mean individual stories or even an individual network—it means the preponderance of coverage.

I think it’s because when they go to the grocery store or gas station Americans see higher prices; they don’t look at the inflation rate—that’s a first derivative phenomenon. The stories they’re hearing are of layoffs by some of the biggest employers in the country. Changes in the rate of inflation are a second derivative phenomenon. Not something to which people tend to react.

And, as has been said (at least by men’s clothing manufacturers), you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Normally, I wouldn’t have mentioned the aborted coup attempt in Germany but, since it touches on one of my pet peeves, I thought I’d mention that angle. I sincerely wish that Americans wouldn’t project their own politics and political differences onto the politics of other countries about which they generally know next to nothing. “Right” and “Left” mean different things in different countries and just because you consider yourself left-leaning doesn’t mean that a left-leaning party in another country holds your ideological brethren.

To take the simplest, most proximate example, American conservatives have practically nothing in common with British Tories and only the most extreme American progressives would find their views aligned with those of British Labour. Most similarities are superficial and, I presume to both of their horrors, more Democrats are like Tories than Republicans are.

The coverage of the German coup attempt has been very clear. In much of Europe “extreme right-wing” means royalist and that is what this coup attempt was. Some extremists wanted to install a distant inheritant of the German throne as head of state.

In the United States, although there has been some growth in would-be monarchists over the last dozen years, “extreme right-wing” tends to be radical libertarianism. The only point of contact between the extreme right in Germany and that here is that both tend to be nationalist but it should go without saying that German nationalism and American nationalism are incompatible. We’ve participated in two major wars to oppose German nationalism. Now is no time to think that it’s a good thing.

My recommendation is for American to focus on U. S. politics and avoid meddling in the internal politics of other countries. Leave commenting on the internal politics of other countries to those with more expertise. We barely understand our own society and politics.

CDR Salamander, certainly not anti-German, is critical of the present stance of the German government:

The final part of the Merkle administration was problematic, but under the present SDP government led by Olaf Scholz – the Cold War socialist and Soviet apologist, Germany’s irresponsible stance in the face of European and NATO security requirements cannot go without consequences. The present, “Just do enough in security to look like we’re doing something, but not too much…” should be called out for exactly what it is.

Germany, even more than France, is the keystone to Europe. Too many nations look to her for leadership culturally, economically, and security. Poland is an emerging leader, but she does not have the population or GDP power to match Germany.

Here’s his proposal for changing things:

In NATO, General and Flag Officer billets are distributed amongst nations in a rather complicated way, but this formula is controlled by NATO – and as such – can be changed.

Entering argument: take the present formula for “fair distribution” and multiply by .75 any nation that spends 1.5% to 1.99% GDP on defense. Multiply by .5 any nation that spends between 1.25% to 1.499%. Multiply by .25 1.0% to 1.240%. If you fall below 1%, you get nothing and your OF5 (Col./Capt) billets are halved.

1.25x for 2.01%-2.25%. 1.5X for 2.26%-2.75%; 1.75x for 2.76% -3.0%. 2x for +3.01%.

IMO the situation is actually somewhat worse than he realizes. The greater threat to most European countries, other than those that actually border Russia, is not Russia but German banks. I also don’t agree that the Germans chose the wrong leader at the wrong time. I think they chose a leader who reflects Germany’s conflicted nature. They don’t want to pay for their own defense and they don’t want the Americans to think of them as an impediment or liability. So they try to straddle.

I found this “deep dive” into the Tesla Semi at The EV Universe pretty interesting. If the range and charging time are as claimed, a driver could cross the entire country from coast to coast on just six charges which would translate into a total of three hours of charging time. The price tag also appears to be roughly in line with ICE semis.

My wife’s dad and uncles serviced in the Navy during World War II. My mom’s uncle was one of the lucky few who were called up for World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He apparently had skills that were in demand. Perhaps it’s natural that we should notice that the “day that will live in infamy” is fading from memory. Only 167,000 some-odd veterans who served remain alive today and they’re very old.

Here’s something that should be remembered. Back in 1941 Americans were actually angry and frightened. It had been almost 150 years since the last time the United States had actually been attacked and we didn’t know how things were going to turn out. For all we knew a Japanese invasion of the West Coast or a German invasion of the East Coast was immanent. The Man in the High Castle is fiction but just barely.

The drought of opinion pieces continues. Let’s talk about Ralph Warnock’s successfully defending his Senate seat in Georgia, shall we? As usual I’m disinterested in the local politics aspect of it since I don’t live in Georgia but it does have national implications.

What good is one additional Senate seat to the Democrats? I think they’d claim a mandate for whatever they cared to do anyway just as the Republicans would in their shoes. I can’t see a chastened Chuck Schumer looking to forge a more bipartisan path for legislation in any event.

Enacting legislation will be difficult with a Republican majority in the House, even a narrow one. Especially funding bills viz. Article I Section 7 of the Constitution:

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Where I think the additional vote will help is in committee seats. They won’t need to play nice with the Senate minority. That in turn has implications for judicial, ambassadorial, and cabinet level appointments.