CHAOS AND INSTABILITY SPREAD

I grew up thinking democracy was the culmination of human social organization, and that our job was just to perfect it, a movement I was proud to participate in. Like several commenters here in the past few days - and at other times when the news tends toward “WTF?” - I frequently find myself now gobsmacked that fights I thought we had won 50, 60, 80 years ago are being re-fought, and that decisions that seemed permanent are now seen as transitory, that nothing is final. Now we’re learning democracy itself may have been a phase.

In the domestic crisis of the lack of an organized House of Representatives, do not think that the news on Friday that Jim Jordan could only get 155 fellow Republican house members to say they would vote for him as speaker means that the Republican “moderates” are going to suddenly ally with the Democrats and form a “bipartisan” leadership alternative that will restore reason to politics and guide us out of the crisis.

Jim Jordan is a prime member of the MAGA right, and the reports as of this morning are that his supporters began using hard edge tactics - harassment of those representatives who hadn’t expressed support for him by the demented wing of the MAGA base when those members had their personal information doxxed and publicized Friday night; threats of primarying those failing to support him; threats made to the financial supporters of these members, for them to pass on; credible threats to physical safety. It’s the same ugly play that we have seen before. The transgressive right is only more comfortable doing this the more they do it. Russell T. Vought - the man in charge of creating “Project 2025" went on Fox this morning to confirm this is happening, saying that they know the “moderates” will bend to their will because they always have before.

So, do not be surprised if tomorrow sees the Republican House Caucus vote to install as Speaker an active participant in the January 6 treasonous conspiracy to overthrow the government; a man who has sworn he will not allow any bill providing further aid to Ukraine to come to a vote in the House; a man who has said he is fine with the government shutting down; a man who has pushed every right wing conspiracy lie; a man who leads the Potemkin impeachment investigation of President Biden; a man who has never in 16 years advanced legislation through the system successfully, whose entire career has been as a right wing thug and enforcer in congress.

Russell T. Vought is right that the “moderates” in the caucus have never demonstrated they possess a backbone, or the courage to actually fight the people they publicly identify as the sworn enemies of democracy they are. They cannot be depended upon, no matter how desperate the crisis.

In the meantime, the situation in Israel grows only more dire and ghastly on its own terms. The threat of wider war has metastasized in the past 48 hours. Iran publicly threatened to “open a new front in the war” if the IDF enters Gaza. Whether that means Hezbollah actively attacking Israel on its northern border or something directly involving the Iranian Quds Force is unknown. It could be both.

Last Friday, the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower departed Norfolk Naval Base in company with a guided missile cruiser and two destroyers, headed for the Mediterranean. On Saturday, the battle force was directed to proceed directly to the eastern Mediterranean to join the Gerald R. Ford battle group operating off the coast of Israel, Lebanon and Syria. The Eisenhower should be on station by mid-week. That is two carrier battle groups; we only have 11. The signal sent by their presence will be This Is Fucking Serious. Between them, the two ships have 130 fourth-generation combat aircraft. Equally important, between two guided missile cruisers and five Arleigh Burke class destroyers, there are somewhere around 100 Tomahawk attack missiles aboard the ships on ready alert. And some unknown number could have nuclear warheads.

Additionally, two squadrons ofU.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle long range attack aircraft and two squadronsof A-10 ground attack aircraft are now in the Middle East at an unidentified base.

Bear in mind that Iran is currently estimated to have sufficient enriched uranium to create as many as eight A-bombs. (Thank you very much Donald Trump for pulling us out of the deal that would have prevented this.)

This all has potential to grow into not merely a regional war. It could have ramifications around the world, including here in the United States.

All in all, the potential for a vast expansion of chaos and instability is present in all quadrants.

Chaos and instability are enemies of democracy. We know who benefits from chaos and instability - overseas and right here at home.

All indications are that this is likely to be a long war. Natan Sachs of the Brookings Institution said, “It could last for many months, if not more than that; I think this is going to be a very long and bloody haul,” on MSNBC this morning.”

Writing in Ha’aretz, Israeli analyst Amos Harel put it like this: “The nightmare scenario unfolding in Gaza may not stop there. It’s likely that things will spread to some other arenas. Was this move coordinated with Hezbollah and Iran? Is Hezbollah waiting for Israel to use up a large part of its Iron Dome interceptor missiles and then join the fray?”

Consider that a quick Israeli victory in Gaza is not assured. There has been a revolution in weaponry in the past five years, that favors the defense in an urban warfare situation - as has been seen in Ukraine. The IDF has not seen action in such a setting since 2008 - practically the Middle Ages in terms of technical developments. They have not been training for urban warfare; they have been involved in policing riots and protecting the crazy settlers in the West Bank. Those 350,000 reservists haven’t undergone recent training in urban warfare. When the U.S. Marines fought the Battle of Fallujah in 2004, they were highly trained in urban warfare. The battle still took longer and had higher casualties than expected. As time stretches out and casualties rise in Gaza, as plans go awry, Things Can Change.

Chaos and instability are the fertile ground in which the Authoritarian Right grows and metastasizes.

Personally, I think Hamas didn’t just pay attention to the political divisions and instability that exists in Israel. They also paid attention to the division and instability here in the United States. As I pointed out yesterday, this is the only time in U.S. history where a major international crisis has happened at a time when the U.S. government has been disrupted and cannot effectively respond to events.

The leaders of Hamas are corrupt, destructive, violent people; like all the other corrupt, destructive, violent people around the world, they presumably want Trump back in the White House.

This is only partly because he’s a corrupt, destructive, violent kindred spirit. The Hamas leaders know - as the leaders of Iran, as Xi Jinping, as Vladimir Putin know - that Trump will bring more chaos and instability; his impulsive acts come from his deep ignorance and unwillingness to listen to anyone who can be considered expert on any given situation. And if he is returned to power, there will be no advisors on hand to constrain his impulsive ignorance. Chaos and instabilityhere is exactly what they all want. It means there is no one minding the store when the thieves enter.

Ukraine may now be in the impossible situation of competing with Israel for U.S. military aid. Possibly for months. A prolonged war in the Middle East could cost Ukraine its independence. Such a competition is the perfect excuse for House Republicans to vote against Ukraine aid.

As I pointed out yesterday, the signs are grim anywhere you look.

Next Sunday’s elections in Poland will decide if the right-wing theocratic-authoritarian Law and Justice Party wins a third term; they hold a narrow lead in the polls. Poland has already recently dropped much of its support for Ukraine, claiming Ukrainian grain sales in Europe harmed Polish agriculture. If Law and Justice (they provide neither, like all authoritarian movements) wins, Poland will likely become another pro-Putin Hungary.

This past week, the Guardian reported that this problem exists today in Europe in general - as I pointed out yesterday. As of the recent elections in the past year, 32% of voters are casting their votes for anti-establishment, “populist” parties. That’s up from 20% 20 years ago and 12% in the 1990s. The authoritarian parties of the far right are the beneficiaries, as was shown in the recent election in Slovakia that returned a pro-Russian party led by a man who had been previously removed from office for his pro-Putin sympathies as the largest single party in their parliament.

And then there is November 5, 2024, here. If Trump wins that election - or worse, narrowly loses and steals it as his followers now know what they did wrong in 2020, there will be domestic chaos and instability that hasn’t been seen since 1860. With the guarantor of the liberal world order in complete domestic disarray, things would be worse than anything seen since 1940 when Hitler had defeated France and the rest of western Europe and controlled the continent through direct control or alliances with like-minded fascist allies in Italy, Hungary and Romania, with the Soviet Union in a complicit nonaggression pact.

The United States - and the world - are now in a clear danger zone. Anything that happens anywhere in the world, especially in the Middle East, has the potential to push things over the edge in a way that hasn’t been seen since the summer of 1914.

On June 1, 1914, Europe was at peace and there was no potential event on the horizon that could be seen as a significant threat to continued peace. There had been crises in the previous decade, but they had been successfully defused. And then, on June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a man of no real power and importance - which is why he had been sent to Sarajevo as the representative of the creaking, corrupt Austro-Hungarian Empire - was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist who thought he had missed his opportunity when he lost his nerve earlier and was preparing to throw himself in the river, who at the last minute turned and saw the Archduke’s car come to a complete stop 100 feet away because the driver had become lost and needed to ask directions. The driver even called to Princip, asking for help.

Within a matter of weeks, the two major military alliance systems in Europe were mobilizing. Only 35 days after the assassination in Sarajevo, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey wrote “The lights are going out across Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” The war that created the modern world we have lived in ever since broke out the next morning.

Ten days ago, if you had said to me that in less than two weeks we would face a potentially existential threat to the world order, I would have asked you if I could have some of what you were smoking. I’d have looked at you like you had three eyes.

Today, we all live in the time when Nobody. Knows. Anything.

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