AMERICAN NADIR

“This is great. I love your blog. Keep at it.” - Stephen King (free subscriber on March 15, paid subscriber on April 28, and yes...)

The old and the new (?)

(Sorry for the late post - had medical appts this morning)

There are 170 days to the mid terms.

After meeting in private between Trump and Xi Jinping, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that Xi used the talks to warn Trump that the “Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations” and gave an ominous warning that the issue could result in “conflicts.” “If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability. Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.” Standing with Xi outside Beijing’s Temple of Heaven, Trump was asked how the talks went. Without cracking a smile, or showing any emotion at all, he replied: “It’s great - a great place. Incredible. China is beautiful.” Xi remained silent, and Trump said nothing further. As of Thursday, Trump’s deliverables amount to: a soybean purchase, possible Boeing orders, and an invitation for Xi to visit Washington. What he did not get: a rare earths agreement, a path on AI chips, or anything resembling a structural win.

There is no clearer demonstration possible that we have reached the Nadir of the American Republic.

In “the Sun Also Rises,” Hemingway’s main character points out that bankruptcy happens slowly, then all at once. That’s where we in the United States are now. The bankruptcy of the Republic has slowly taken at least the 58 years since Nixon was elected, then it began faster during Trump I and now in Trump II, we are at the “all at once” stage under the leadership of a moron who has failed miserably at every single thing he has ever attempted in his worthless life. In only 15 months, we have lost the respect of our allies, some of whom have stood with us from the days of the Revolution. The vaunted American “can do” economy is now obviously far behind that of our leading competitor; Americans who visited China this week after several years of absence have all remarked on how well organized and how advanced their economy now is in comparison to what exists here.

Phillips OP’Brien titled his report on the failed trip to China this week, “A Case Study of US Decline.” He began with, “Trump’s silence spoke volumes about US decline, how the US is going into this summit as a supplicant needing Chinese help. It also confirms how little the US cares and can do anything to protect key democratic allies.” A superpower dealing with a difficult problem generally does not go to its peer competitor and ask that power to support its effort to resolve the “difficult problem” (in this case the closing of the Strait of Hormuz). “The US is hoping to convince China that bailing them out is in Chinese interest. Its a novel plan for a superpower.” The Chinese said nothing about acceding to Trump’s plea, but that hasn’t stopped the administration’s bullshit-shovelers: “President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed the Strait of Hormuz should remain a free waterway and Iran shouldn’t be able to exact payments for use of shipping lanes, according to a White House readout of talks between the two leaders.” The bullshitters also claim Beijing additionally “expressed an interest” in increasing its purchases of U.S. oil to reduce China’s “dependance” on oil traveling through the strait. None of that has happened. China made no such statement. And putting this lie out maes the US look even weaker than had they said nothing. Xi, on the other hand, seemed to revel in his visitor’s desperate need to please him. Xi instead indulged in one of his favorite pastimes: remarking about the key importance of the decline of the American post-war world order.

The Chinese have never before treated a visiting American president with as much disdain as they have the boy from Queens. They don’t care if he walks away upset; in their eyes, there is nothing he can do about it. And the painful truth is, they’re right.

Trump went to China desperately hoping to find another “Daddy” in Xi to come drop $100 billion in the failed casino he has turned the United States into. He returns with the realization there is no “Daddy” to save him from the responsibility for his final bankruptcy.

While Trump spent this week sucking up to Emperor Xi for support he didn’t get, assessments of US power in Trump’s War are changing the view of whether the US has the ability to force its will on Iran. The CIA report that Iran rebuilt 30 of its 33 millie launch facilities along the Persian Gulf coast, and still has 70% of its missiles available is forcing a new assessments that suggest Iran retained substantial missile and drone capability even after weeks of strikes. American officials now privately acknowledge that Iranian systems proved more survivable, more geographically dispersed, and more rapidly reconstituted than many prewar assumptions anticipated.

Professor Robet Pape wrote yesterday that if Iran can continue threatening American bases, logistics hubs, energy infrastructure, and naval operations after repeated U.S. air campaigns, then short bursts of bombing are unlikely to produce decisive strategic outcomes. For 30 years, U.S. power in the Gulf rested partly on the perception that no regional state could seriously challenge U.S. military dominance for long. The Iran war may become the conflict that shattered that perception. Once perceptions of dominance crack, allies hedge, rivals probe, and deterrence starts becoming more expensive to maintain everywhere else. Major U.S. naval assets are now operating significantly farther from the Iranian coastline than many planners once assumed would be necessary during a regional conflict. Iran’s expanding missile and drone envelope has effectively pushed portions of U.S. power projection farther away from the battlespace. Iran does not need to sink an aircraft carrier to alter U.S. operational behavior. It only needs to create sufficient uncertainty and risk to complicate sustained proximity operations.

What makes this moment so dangerous is that much of official Washington still appears psychologically unprepared for it. U.S. elites from both parties spent 30 years assuming precision airpower and naval supremacy could reliably dominate regional adversaries at an acceptable cost. Trump’s War is becoming the first major conflict forcing policymakers to confront the possibility that this assumption no longer holds. Iran has proven far more capable of imposing risk than Washington expected before the war began. What makes this moment so dangerous is that much of official Washington still appears psychologically unprepared for it.

American elites from both parties spent thirty years assuming precision airpower and naval supremacy could reliably dominate regional adversaries at acceptable cost.

The Iran war is becoming the first major conflict forcing policymakers to confront the possibility that this assumption no longer fully holds.

And Iran has proven far more capable of imposing risk than Washington expected before the war began. The political effects are now spreading across the Gulf. For over 40 years, the Gulf monarchies operated under the assumption that - whatever happened regionally - the U.S. would ultimately dominateany escalation. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and other regional partners have seen Iranian missiles penetrate sophisticated defenses, disrupt infrastructure, and force prolonged U.S. force-protection measures across multiple bases, while Maladministration II struggles to produce a clear endgame. This is how perceptions of power change in international politics. This has seen several Gulf states become increasingly cautious about facilitating expanded U.S. operations against Iran.

In a recent essay in The Atlantic titled “Checkmate in Iran,” Robert Kagan - one of the intellectual architects of modern American interventionism - argued the United States may already have suffered what he called a strategic defeat “that can neither be repaired nor ignored.” He warned that “there will be no return to the status quo ante” and acknowledged that Iran had fundamentally altered the regional balance despite weeks of devastating American and Israeli strikes.

Pape says, “The Iran war is no longer just a Middle East story. It is becoming a story about the future limits of American power in the 21st century.”

That assessment matters because it amounts to a delayed recognition of the very structural problem many of us warned about before the war began.

Meanwhile, back here, the fakakte continues:

Maladministration II has sought to sidestep federal contracting rules to fast-track work on the Arch d’Trump by piggybacking the project on an existing contract to avoid a public bidding process, according to newly revealed documents. The WaPo obtained emails showing Maladministration II is attempting to bypass standard competitive bidding procedures to accelerate work on the proposed arch near Arlington National Cemetery by leveraging an existing White House engineering contract with AECOM Services. Park Service acting director Jessica Bowron requested permission April 22 to extend a White House contract for environmental assessment work to the arch site, which sits on National Park Service land across the Potomac River, more than a mile from the White House complex, and within an hour of her email White House officials approved the request. This allows Maladministration II to meet its self-imposed timeline for completing environmental testing before July 4. Heavy machinery was already at the site Monday. Vietnam War veterans and a historian have sued, alleging the monument would obstruct the view between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. The (Trump-dominated) Commission on Fine Arts approved the design despite receiving approximately 1,000 public comments opposing the project. There’s a problem they haven’t paid attention to that will likely put the brakes on: the 250-ft tall arc will interfere with a departure flight pattern from Washington National, because of its height.

Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks abruptly resigned Thursday after a report accused him of flying abroad for sex tourism and boasting about it to colleagues. Banks, who resigned from Border Patrol during the Biden administration but returned after President Donald Trump’s election win to oversee one of the most aggressive militarizations of the southern border, announced his departure in an interview with Fox News. “It’s just time,” Banks said. “I feel like I got the ship back on course from the least secure, most disastrous, most chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen.” The Washington Examiner revealed in an explosive April report that Banks would brag about paying for sex in countries like Colombia and Thailand and that he even invited fellow agents to travel with him.

And sometimes, a little beam of sunlight breaks through the dark clouds: Abortion pills can remain available through the mail for the immediate future after the Supreme Court acted Thursday to pause a lower court ruling that would have blocked access while a lawsuit proceeds.

The justices halted a May 1 order from the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that reinstated a requirement that women must visit a health care provider in-person to obtain mifepristone. If it had taken effect, the order would have severely curtailed abortion access across the country. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. “The Court’s unreasoned order granting stays in this case is remarkable. What is at stake is the perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision” overturning constitutional abortion rights, Alito wrote. Thomas said federal law would make mailing mifepristone a criminal offense. Notably, Maladministration II did not take a position when the battle landed at the Supreme Court, though other GOP states and members of Congress did.

There’s another beam of light: last night, Dan Osborn’s independent campaign for the Nebraska senate seat held by Pete Ricketts announced a third voter poll that shows Osborn in a statistical tie with Ricketts; all three polls came out this week.

That old “I just feel numb” problem is back and I don’t think I’m the only one. How much “outrage” can anyone process before we become numb? The truth is, every week IS crazier than the week before, which was crazier than the week before that, and... you get the picture. Since Wednesday night was another of those joyful times when sleep came barely at all, it turned out I was wide awake at 0600, something that doesn’t happen that often. After feeding the cats, I decided I would join the Swing Left 101 Freeway Brigade. This involves putting up signs regarding current events on the Encino pedestrian overpass of the 101 freeway, a couple miles west of the intersection of the I-5 and 101 freeways, rumored to be the most-jammed freeway intersection on the planet (drive it once, doesn’t matter what time - you’ll believe it), and manning the signs from 0800-0930. It was a cool foggy LA-in-May morning, making my flying jacket more than comfortable in the wind up there. I joined theten other “regulars” on the bridge. We had two signs; that facing the northbound 101 read “Stop Racist Gerrymandering”, while that facing the other side read “Gov Race Dems Vote 4 Top Contender.” If you’ve never done one of those, the noise level from an LA “rush hours” makes even people who don’t need hearing aids “hearing impaired;” there’s also a wind factor up there, plus the exhaust rising from the cars. And then for special folks like me “born with a bad back,” standing for an extended period on a concrete surface is “contra-indicated.” (That’s why God gave us folding chairs, y’all) Soo... nevertheless, the people who are there every week have a strong comraderie that is infectious. And getting honks and waves from people who likely don’t read Substacks reminded me that there really is a whole country out there of people who are increasingly pissed-off at those they should be pissed-off at. The bottom line: when I walked back to my car after 90 minutes up there, I felt refreshed and rejuvenated about what it is we’re about in this struggle. I think I’ll be back, the insomnia gremlins willing. With everything going on that’s going on, taking an opportunity to put your body on the line and see what’s really what is a good antidote to the “numbness.” So, getting out and being the activists we claim we are is Highly Recommended By TC.

Sherrilyn Ifill gets today’s last word: “The forces that stand today against citizenship and political representation for Black people won’t stop there. They will not tolerate meaningful political representation for any group that opposes their oligarchical Christian nationalist ideology. They seek a one-party political system in a country ruled by authoritarians. The political oppression of Black people is not the end. It is the conduit.”

Remember, you are not the crazy ones, and we were made for these times. Regardless of what you may feel right now, act as if you believe that and redouble your efforts.

“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government, nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might; and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we understand it.” - Abraham Lincoln

Molly and Jazz

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