Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Paul Krugman: Trump and the Art of the Flail
Protectionism is worse when it’s erratic and unpredictable.
The “very stable genius” in the Oval Office is, in fact, extremely unstable, in word and deed. That’s not a psychological diagnosis, although you can make that case too. It’s just a straightforward description of his behavior. And his instability is starting to have serious economic consequences.
To see what I mean about Trump’s behavior, just consider his moves on China trade over the past month, which have been so erratic that even those of us who follow this stuff professionally have been having a hard time keeping track.
First, Trump unexpectedly announced plans to greatly expand the range of Chinese goods subject to tariffs. Then he had his officials declare China a currency manipulator — which happens to be one of the few economic sins of which the Chinese are innocent. Then, perhaps fearing the political fallout from the higher prices of many consumer goods from China during the holiday season, which would result from the tariff hikes, he postponed — but didn’t cancel — them.
Wait, there’s more. China, predictably, responded to the new United States tariffs with new tariffs on U.S. imports. Trump, apparently enraged, declared that he would raise his tariffs even higher, and declared that he was ordering U.S. companies to wind down their business in China (which is not something he has the legal authority to do). But at the Group of 7 summit in Biarritz he suggested that he was having “second thoughts,” only to have the White House declare that he actually wished he had raised tariffs even more.
And we’re not quite done.
Jamelle Bouie: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Understands Democracy Better Than Republicans Do
The idea that proponents of greater electoral equity have to quiet down because we live in a ‘republic’ is absurd.
Spend enough time talking politics on the internet — or in any other public forum — and you’ll run into this standard reply to anyone who wants more democracy in American government: “We’re a republic, not a democracy.”
You saw it over the weekend, in an exchange between Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Dan Crenshaw of Texas. In a brief series of tweets, Ocasio-Cortez made the case against the Electoral College and argued for a national popular vote to choose the president. “Every vote should be = in America, no matter who you are or where you come from,” she wrote. “The right thing to do is establish a Popular Vote. & GOP will do everything they can to fight it.”
Crenshaw, who has sparred with Ocasio-Cortez before, jumped in with a response: “Abolishing the Electoral College means that politicians will only campaign in (and listen to) urban areas. That is not a representative democracy.” And then he said it: “We live in a republic, which means 51% of the population doesn’t get to boss around the other 49%.”
Crenshaw is wrong on the impact of ending the Electoral College. A presidential candidate who focused only on America’s cities and urban centers would lose — there just aren’t enough votes. Republicans live in cities just as Democrats live in rural areas. Under a popular vote, candidates would still have to build national coalitions across demographic and geographic lines. The difference is that those coalitions would involve every region of the country instead of a handful of competitive states in the Rust Belt and parts of the South.
But the crux of Crenshaw’s argument is his second point. “We live in a republic.” He doesn’t say “not a democracy,” but it’s implied by the next clause, where he rejects majority rule — “51% of the population doesn’t get to boss around the other 49%.”
Tim Wu: The American Economy Is Creating a National Identity Crisis
It has become painfully clear that we are more than just consumers and corporate shareholders.
Europeans often describe the United States as a great place to buy stuff but a terrible place to work. They understand the appeal of our plentiful and affordable consumer goods, but otherwise they just don’t get it: the lack of real vacation, the sending of emails after business hours, the general insensitivity to work-life balance.
That may be just a casual observation, but it identifies something deep and problematic about the economy that the United States has built over the past 40 years.
Since the 1980s, American economic policy has insisted on the central importance of two things: cheaper prices for consumers and maximum returns for corporate shareholders. There is some logic to this: We all buy things, after all, and more than 50 percent of Americans own at least some stock.
But these priorities also generate an internal conflict, for they neglect, repress and even enslave our other selves: our identities as employees, producers, family members, citizens. And in recent years — as jobs become increasingly unpleasant and unstable, as smaller towns and regional economies are gutted, as essential industries like the pharmaceutical and telecommunications sectors engage in outlandish profiteering, and above all, as economic inequality becomes the trademark of our nation — the conflict seems to have reached a breaking point.
Alex Kotch: Death and destruction: this is David Koch’s sad legacy
Anarcho-capitalism was the real cancer plaguing the billionaire libertarian. And it spread across universities, halls of Congress and the White House
In 1992, billionaire industrialist David Koch was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer and given just a few years to live. Thanks to his enormous wealth, he was able to purchase the best treatment in the world, and he survived 27 more years until his death last week. [..]
Koch Industries, a private company, is the United States’ 17th-largest producer of greenhouse gases and the 13th-biggest water polluter, according to research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst – ahead of oil giants Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum and Phillips 66. The conglomerate has committed hundreds of environmental, workplace safety, labor and other violations. It allegedly stole oil from Indian reservations, won business in foreign countries with bribery, and one of its crumbling butane pipelines killed two teenagers, resulting in a nearly $300m wrongful death settlement. The dangerous methane leakage, carbon emissions, chemical spills and other environmental injustices enacted by Koch’s companies have imperiled the planet and allegedly brought cancer to many people. But it took Koch’s own struggle with the disease for him to care about cancer and fund research to combat it.
Michael H. Fuchs: We need to cancel the next G7. Let’s resume them when Trump is gone
Right now, the G7 is not equipped to work towards its goals, and the biggest obstacle is US President Donald Trump
The takeaway from the 2019 Group of 7 (G7) Summit? We need to cancel the 2020 G7.
The goal of the G7 is to bring together some of the world’s most prosperous democracies to coordinate on the most important issues of the day. Whether on climate change or responding to Russia’s invasion of Crimea or making gender equality a reality, the G7 countries are supposed to lead, crafting policies that can foster global peace and prosperity in ways that uphold democratic values.
Right now, the G7 is not equipped to work towards these goals.
The biggest obstacle is the US president, Donald Trump, whose policies are antithetical to the goals of the G7 – he wants America to work alone, to destroy the current global trading system, slash foreign assistance that helps address transnational challenges, ignore human rights, and doesn’t believe climate change is real. When Trump attends, chances are high that he causes a diplomatic incident, like he did at the 2018 G7 when he threw a temper tantrum and insulted his Canadian host. The G7 is an annual long weekend of toddler day care for Trump.