This is a well written and accurate article. This argument should be used and would be very convincing to voters who are have a strong sense of the value of ethics, respect for rule of law, and a strong belief in traditional market capitalism. This is an important segment of voters to the extent that it may describe a key group of swing voter. I think the reason that it isn't getting much coverage in the news or use in campaign talking points is because this doesn't necessarily describe a wide segment of the public overall, particularly activists on either side or partisan media folks. Because it requires a strong emotional and ethical commitment to the legal concept that corporate leaders owe a unique and undivided fiduciary loyalty to their investors.
On the Right there seems to be a new or renewed embrass on strong man politics combined with a strong belief is a divinely ordered market based on the prosperity gospel. For these folks "greed is good" is consistent with the idea that wealth marks those favored by God for the strength of their belief and willingness to submit to authority For them the idea that Trump screwed over his voters isn't any different that the idea that he screwed over business rivals, employees, contractors, or customers. It is part of what make him a ruthless and clever businessman with a strong command of the art of the deal. If God didn't like it, it wouldn't have worked. If it worked, it can't be wrong and is only a sign of strength.
On the Left there is and increasing sentiment that capitalism has gotten too out of hand combined with a sort of ethical limitarianism. The rich are just too rich. They must have gotten there and remained there by exploiting their market share, employees, customers, the environment, and, by using their power to avoid taxation the average Joe. Once you assume that Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have no ethics by sheer dint of their getting too rich by what must have been exploitation, then the idea that someone who is also rich got there by unethical means by bilking investors seems more of the same not a unique wrong. For them, the fact that he screwed over small businesses who contracted with him or students at Trump University is probably more compelling than that he screwed over his stockholders because people rich enough to be invested heavily in the stock market are generally less sympathetic than your average employee or customer. And even these customers may not be that sympathetic to the extent they were attracted by a Trump Brand that the Left finds gross. The idea that people who worshiped and want to connect themselves with Trump or be like him, makes them automatically an "other" that elists less compassion. Corporations being uniquely beholden to their stockholders over other interests is what is generally considered wrong with Capitalism on the Left and so violating that tenant is less shocking than other forms of fraud.
I agree that Trump is a con man and out primarily to line his pockets. I have known two psychopaths in my person life, both of them, no matter what their other vengeful obsessions, were never too busy to stop and line their pockets in ways large and small. Even Ted Bundy was known to take a unique thrill is getting away with shoplifting high cost clothing around Seattle in between his killing sprees. This seems particularly dangerous with Trump because what he has to "sell" to make money or retain power as President is the safety of whole populations and nations and basic liberties. The TikTok flipflop suggests he can be bought fairly cheap and that is scary as hell.
But, I confess that his screwing over his stockholders is no more shocking to me or troubling than any other fraud or corruption he has engaged in. I think lots of folks on the Left, and not just the extreme left, are likely to feel the same way. Which isn't to say they won't performatively express extreme outrage because we have been trained like Pavlov's dog to do that anything Trump. But most of us, expect some folks on the extreme left are also going to all vote for Biden, even if we would prefer someone else in theory.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be put center stage to impact more moderate swing voters or folks center left or center right. But given how many folks at NPR or the New York Times or MSNBC or within the Biden tent are more in my lane than than the center, it may not seem like an emotional knockout punch. I would be very curious to see how it actually lands with a focus group of undecided voters or folk center right.
I honestly think this "Unified Reich" stuff was to get the mainstream media call him a fascist again, since it is so much better for them to call him this great dictator who will overthrow democracy than a petty crook who will cut medicare and increase inflation. If the media starts interviewing economists about what a universal tariff looks like, I expect Trump to paste on a fake toothbrush mustache at his next campaign rally.
It all makes sense until the final para. Once Trump has his hands on the US Treasury and armed forces, with the Republican party (including the Supreme Court majority) safely under control, why would he stop at the petty grifts he's pursued until now? As President for life, he can have palaces, monuments, all the women he desires, revenge on his enemies and much more. And there are plenty of Trumps to follow when he passes on.
"The legacy of Trump’s term is a corporate tax cut, Roe overturned, and January 6."
The botched COVID response would like a word.
We had the biggest crisis of Public Health in modern history - a crisis that desperately needed cool, measured leadership, and the clown at the head of the most powerful nation on earth deranged the entire world's response to COVID.
In the US, the benefit of the Warp Speed development of vaccines was underminded by the foolish way it was deployed by the Public Health community and the right's resistance to vaccination, so we ended up losing almost as many people as we lost had the virus just been allowed to spread through the country, plus we destroyed our economy, social fabric and education system.
Donald Trump is an excellent example of why the US should update it white collar crime laws and increase the enforcement of the laws we do have against white collar crime.
It is entirely true that Trump has always been about advancing Trump's interests, and he will continue to do so if he regains power. However, I am deeply concerned about the people he will bring to power with him. His first administration had a lot of establishment Republicans whose first loyalty was not to Trump, and those kind of people will not be getting jobs in a second Trump administration. There won't be any adults in the room to say no when Stephen Miller wants to deploy military units to round up millions of undocumented immigrants and put them in camps, or when AG Ken Paxton wants to raid newsrooms and arrest people on Trump's enemies list. Congress will also be more Trumpy as his coattails in the event of a Trump victory carries his allies into Congress; there are few John McCains left in the GOP. We can't count on Trump's incompetence and greed to save us in a second Trump term.
A someone adjacent thought: I'm constantly amazed that friends of mine can genuinely believe things like "Biden is a more corrupt and a bigger threat to democracy than Trump" and "Biden is more racist than Trump." Trump has been front and center in our lives for almost a decade and I'll never be able to comprehend how otherwise rational, smart and logical people cannot see that this guy is an epic scumbag. It's like half of our country is under mass psychosis.
He's an epic scumbag, but, as a registered Democrat for 50 years, I am here to tell you that IMO the Democrats in office (including Biden) are now a much bigger threat to classical liberalism and small-d democracy than Trump and the Republicans are.
Example: multiple blue states have passed laws (with unanimous support from elected Democrats) declaring that a parent who refuses puberty-blockers for their kid who thinks s/he is "trans" is committing the legal equivalent of child abuse, and all the remedies the State has for child abuse (including taking custody of the child) apply to that situation.
Fuck no! That ain't no liberalism, that's tyranny. And EVERY Democrat holding office supports it.
California was the first, and many blue states have copied it:
From the SB 107 Bill Summary: "The bill would authorize a court to take temporary jurisdiction because a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care."
(a) A court of this state has temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this state and the child has been abandoned or it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child, or a sibling or parent of the child, is subjected to, or threatened with, mistreatment or abuse, or because the child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care, as defined by Section 16010.2 of the Welfare and Institutions Code [definition quoted below].
(b) If there is no previous child custody determination that is entitled to be enforced under this part and a child custody proceeding has not been commenced in a court of a state having jurisdiction under Sections 3421 to 3423, inclusive, a child custody determination made under this section remains in effect until an order is obtained from a court of a state having jurisdiction under Sections 3421 to 3423, inclusive. If a child custody proceeding has not been or is not commenced in a court of a state having jurisdiction under Sections 3421 to 3423, inclusive, a child custody determination made under this section becomes a final determination, if it so provides and this state becomes the home state of the child.
(b)(3)(A) “Gender affirming health care” means medically necessary health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient, and may include, but is not limited to, the following:
(i) Interventions to suppress the development of endogenous secondary sex characteristics.
(ii) Interventions to align the patient's appearance or physical body with the patient's gender identity.
(iii) Interventions to alleviate symptoms of clinically significant distress resulting from gender dysphoria, as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition.
(B) “Gender affirming mental health care” means mental health care or behavioral health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient, and may include, but is not limited to, developmentally appropriate exploration and integration of identity, reduction of distress, adaptive coping, and strategies to increase family acceptance.
That's not what the language you're quoting does. "Jurisdiction" here means the authority of the court to adjudicate an issue. What this language does is it allows a California family court to adjudicate a dispute (most likely between parents) about whether a kid should receive gender affirming care. Family courts already adjudicate disputes like this all the time between separated parents and California courts do it for California parents; I am not 100% sure what this language is meant to add but it probably has something to do with addressing a situation where the normal forum state for this kind of dispute has a hostile law about gender-affirming care.
The important thing though is that it's only about jurisdiction: it doesn't change the substantive law of parental authority over medical decisions, it doesn't say that denying a kid blockers is abuse or neglect, it doesn't terminate anyone's parental rights or take away anyone's custody. Your claim in your earlier comment is wrong.
The dispute can be initiated by the child. There are plenty of pro-trans attorneys who will take that case pro bono.
The law provides the same remedy for "unable to obtain gender-affirming care" as it does for child abuse. There is no other provision anywhere in California law about civil remedies for child abuse. And there is no contravening law about parental authority over medical decisions. That is implicit in custody. But now there is an explicit law that says that custody powers can be set aside if the child is abused (which has long been true), OR if the child has been unable to obtain gender affirming care (this is new), with no exception for the reason being that the parents object.
Many people claim that a judge would never use this new power (to order, say, puberty blockers against the wishes of the parents), but that remains to be seen. The language of the law is very clear, and there can be no serious doubt that family court judges now have this new power.
Here is what you said: "multiple blue states have passed laws . . . declaring that a parent who refuses puberty-blockers for their kid who thinks s/he is "trans" is committing the legal equivalent of child abuse, and all the remedies the State has for child abuse (including taking custody of the child) apply to that situation."
Like all states, California has *criminal* laws against child abuse. You agree that nothing about this law changes those, right? If the California legislature wanted to do what you say, it could just provide that Penal Code 270, which governs neglectful failure to provide medical care, covers failing to agree to transition care. It didn't.
Child neglect or abuse can be a basis for termination of parental rights. See California Family Code 7823. Nothing about this law changes that either. So it doesn't appear that California is treating or desires to treat refusal to provide transition care to a minor as child abuse or neglect.
Well, what about custody? You say: "now there is an explicit law that says that custody powers can be set aside if the child is abused (which has long been true), OR if the child has been unable to obtain gender affirming care (this is new), with no exception for the reason being that the parents object."
But (again) that's not what the statute says. The substantive standard for custody determinations is set in an entirely different section of California law (Family Code sections 3011, 3020, 3040-49). The law you quote doesn't change anything about those determinations. It also doesn't change anything about who may petition for a child custody determination or modification. Minors can bring an action to emancipate themselves, which enables them to make medical decisions without parental consent--that's Family Code section 7000 et seq.--but yet again that is unmodified by this law.
So what does the language you quoted do? It's part of California's version of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. The point of this act is to address the problem of contending parents seeking competing child custody orders in different states; it establishes a set of rules for which state's courts are supposed to determine who has custody. But sometimes in emergency situations you might have a case where you need to enter or modify a custody order and you can't get to the right state's courts in time, so the uniform act has a provision for "temporary emergency jurisdiction" in a state that doesn't have primary jurisdiction. What California did is it stretched this kind of jurisdiction to extend to cases where a kid isn't receiving transition care. As best I can understand, the situation California had in mind was a custody dispute in, say, Texas, where the parent who supports transition care doesn't trust the state courts and would rather seek another forum. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, dumb: it undermines the point of the uniform act and it doesn't really work (if you go look at 3424(b) and (c), the other state's courts still ultimately have control so they can undo whatever the California court does). But it only comes up in an interstate custody dispute and it doesn't have anything to do with the substantive standard for how courts should make decisions about custody, parental rights, etc.
(I said that not a single state had done what you said and I was right. But I also don't think any state but California has passed this particular provision--in New York, for example, which did pass a similar law providing for non-cooperation with other states' bans, there is nothing similar.)
I'm going to try to say this nicely but "Biden and Democrats are a bigger threat to liberal values than Trump and Republicans are" is a take that's divorced from reality.
This was all very extensively covered in 2016: Trump stiffing small businesses and the resulting thousands of lawsuits, the Trump U scam, the Mexican condo scam (long LA Times article on that one), the nonrelease of tax returns, etc etc etc.
Trump is a sociopathic grifter conman who cares nothing for anyone but himself.
And he has my vote!
Because there is a decent chance that he will take steps to stop the ongoing crime against humanity of mutualilation and sterilization of children, and the concommitant destruction of women's right to free association, which the Democrats in office unanimously endorse and wholeheartedly support.
Can you elaborate on what you think success or failure will look like? Both if Biden wins or if Trump wins?
I ask because I actually sympathize to some degree with your point, but I'm not sure how much will happen in either direction at the federal level. The new Title IX rules, for example, aren't great (but could have been worse!), but I'm not sure overturning them is worth Trump. I think you would probably get more action supporting republicans at the state level.
Sir. You've been banging the "Democrats are evil because they support child transitions!!!" drum in every single comment you've made. It's a free country (for now; if Trump gets reelected, who knows), and you're free to vote how you want.
But if you claim to care about women's rights, howabout NOT supporting the party that took away Roe v Wade, that doesn't give a f**k if a pregnant woman dies of sepsis due to not being able to get a timely abortion? Just a thought.
The Republicans are indeed very bad on abortion. I view the mutilation of children (fully supported and backed and defended by EVERY Democrat in office, except for a tiny handful of state legislators in red states) as the greater evil. You are free to disagree.
And yes, I am banging the drum, because fighting that evil is very important to me. Emotionally it is because it is my tribe (the Blue Tribe, the Democrats) who are committing this evil. I feel personally tainted by it, after the many decades I spent volunteering on campaigns at all levels for Democrats. They have all betrayed me. I feel I have to do whatever I can to stop the evil they are now committing, right in front of all of us.
Look if you're going to go all apocalyptic The Battle of Good vs Evil on me, then I can do the same: I consider it evil to let a woman die of sepsis because you won't let her get an abortion, especially when the same Republicans who claim to care so much about innocent precious baybeez do jack all to help babies and mothers once the babies are actually born. So there.
It's more like Evil vs Evil. And I care more about stopping the evil done by the people that I spent that the last 50 years enabling (aka the Democrats). My bad, and now I'm doing something about it.
Trump also funnels campaign contributions to his own legal funds. It’s all in the small print. Despite all this, I don’t see Trump losing. Inflation is the key word in this election.
A theory: Since losing the 2020 election Trump has done everything he can do help Democrats win elections because he knows the better Dems do the better his chances of winning in 2024 are:
1) He tanked the GA Senate runoffs for the GOP candidates, which resulted in Dems having a bare Senate majority. They went on to pass the ARP, spending way more money than would have occurred with a GOP controlled Senate and contributing to the inflationary surge in 2021-22. The inflation surge is Biden's biggest electoral liability.
2) He promoted and endorsed various whackjobs and assclowns in the 2022 midterms, greatly contributing to Dems' overperformance, which led to Biden deciding to run in 2024. If the Dems had had a normal wipeout midterm Biden might have decided against running again. Biden is a very weak candidate who is currently dramatically underperforming the Dem Senate candidates in the swing states. It's true that there's no guarantee that an open Dem primary would've produced a stronger candidate but...
Was all of this:
a) a conscious strategy
b) an instinctual but not conscious strategy
c) a happy (for Trump) accident of pure Stop the Steal grievances?
(c). I will be voting for Trump, but, as Rex Tillerson said, he is a fucking moron. He does have great political instincts (mostly by comparison, because everyone else's are terrible), but I think your scenario is too convoluted for (b) to hold, and (a) is just LOL.
Your skeleton key unlocks most things about Trump the businessman. But there's another key to Trump the political figure - namely, his alliance with the conservative movement. After all, every scammer needs a trusted inner circle, and Trump has found his in the form of the Freedom Caucus.
A central fact about the Trump Era is that Trump and the conservative movement need each other. Ideological conservatives want upper-class tax cuts, welfare-state rollbacks, and abortion bans, all of which are unpopular and difficult to campaign on. So they need a skilled demagogue who can make politics revolve around culture war and whose coattails they can ride to power. And Trump wants power and its attendant benefits - so he needs people throughout the executive, legislative, and judicial branches who will protect him. A purely venal Trump might in some ways be preferable, because he'd be willing to compromise on the conservative movement's most unpopular goals. But the venal Trump theory has a hard time explaining a lot of important outcomes, whereas the Trump-conservative movement alliance theory fits the data. Trying to take health care away from 30 million people, and extinguishing reproductive rights in America, both served Trump's personal interests quite badly. But he did them because that was his end of the bargain if he wanted the continued loyalty of Republican legislators and judges to protect him. Similarly, a venal non-ideological Trump would have been easy to cast aside after 1/6 - but the conservative movement, recognizing that Trump's political appeal is their key route to imposing their agenda, did not do so. And this decision, horrible and amoral as it was, has worked out pretty well for them as a matter of raw politics.
Trump benefits quite a bit from the *perception* of non-ideological venality. Many people who like his culture war vibes - a very big chunk of the electorate! - assume he isn't committed to and therefore won't pass an aggressive right-wing agenda. But he will! If he wins, he will absolutely turn over the country to the Freedom Caucus and Sam Alito. And even his pretty open authoritarian aspirations could be understood as a solution to the unpopularity of the bracing right-wing agenda that will result.
The Trump-conservative movement alliance theory explains all of this. Bringing this out of the shadows and making clear to the public that these are the stakes is probably our only hope of defeating him.
Unusual number of crappily written and crappily reasoned comments on today's post. Not to be too elitist, but is this because non-paying subscribers got to read *and* to comment today?
I would hate to see the SB comment section devolve into the kind of sh*t one sees elsewhere. I actually value the daily comments even more than Matt's posts themselves (though they're great!) If the comments section goes downhill, I doubt I'd continue as a subscriber.
I think Matt Y recognizes that having a high-quality commentariat is one of the major draws of SB, and if comment quality starts declining too precipitously, he'll bring out the trusty ol' banhammer. So I'm not too worried.
How about something on the current DJT stock...how its a "legitimate" way to support Trump that has no restrictions other than being willing to lose money ultimately. What better way to legally skirt all election campaign laws than to buy stock in a company he stands to make billions off of in less than 6 months and not reveal who you are to prying eyes?
Yes, Trump is a scumbag who fleeced a lot of rubes with Trump Hotels and Casinos. I have zero sympathy for them and don't care that much that he got so much money from them. Caveat emptor and all that.
What I *am* concerned about is $DJT -- Truth Social. This is a publicly traded company that generated $770,500 in revenue in 2024 Q1 (a little more than twice the gross quarterly revenue of Slow Boring) against losses of $327 million (I'm guessing this is greater than Slow Boring's "losses"). And currently has a market cap of $6.61 billion.
It is beyond me to understand why no team of journalists has done a deep dive into who is propping up this dog of a stock. Who is keeping this stock afloat? Is it some weird effect of mass shorting driving stock prices paradoxically higher? Is it vast numbers of rubes who believe in their God King? Or, just maybe, is it because foreign interests opposed to the United States but seeking to find favor with a likely future President are pushing tons of money into the stock to make Trump fabulously rich and, to the extent he's ever beholden to someone, beholden to them?
I don't know the answer, but is it really that hard to find out? And yet, crickets. I just don't understand journalism anymore.
"This is a publicly traded company that generated $770,500 in revenue in 2024 Q1 (a little more than twice the gross quarterly revenue of Slow Boring) against losses of $327 million (I'm guessing this is greater than Slow Boring's 'losses'). And currently has a market cap of $6.61 billion."
I forgot to mention earlier that my main takeaway from this is that Matt should take Slow Boring public -- he and Kate should easily clear $10 billion in the IPO given its finances relative to Truth Social.
I just don't think there's much of a story here. Per Barron's: "As of April 29, 2024, the company's stock was held by over 621,000 shareholders, the vast majority of whom are retail investors," it said in the statement. It's a meme stock. Probably some of the same rubes that got fleeced last time.
It didn't say the vast majority of shares are held by retail investors. I want to know who is buying the bulk of publicly traded shares, and are the ones keeping the price afloat.
Everything I've read is that it's a meme stock owned by individual retail investors. If the trading and / or the ownership was very concentrated, then Barron's would have called that out.
But I wonder. When I look at trading for a standard stock the volume of shares traded across the day is fairly smooth. But then when I look at DJT I often see these huge spikes. If it's individual retail investors driving trades, why would they often clump like that? That doesn't seem likely.
I've seen it mentioned that the stock is very thinly traded, with a large majority of shares being held by insiders (most immediately Trump himself, who individually owns over 50% of the stock) who can't sell their shares, so it doesn't take much to "prop up" the share price at the moment.
Which would make it an even sweeter bargain for some foreign entity wanting to get in good with Trump. Right now it's only paper wealth for Trump, but we're getting closer to the point where he can start cashing in on some of those shares, possibly by selling them to some kind of buyers (guess what type) who would be willing to pay a premium for Trump-owned shares.
Excellent piece on Trump’s conning history. We would propose some different factors that got us to where we are. Many of Trump‘s followers had come back disabled from wars they felt were wrongly fought. Like Steve Bannon, they have grudges against the government. Life has been more difficult than expected. Conversely, liberal Democrats were so delighted to find themselves with a one person majority they went slightly nuts. Every different activist believed they could get legislation passed for their favorite concerns. Bernie Sanders and followers believed there was a larger voting block of liberals in the US than there is. Rather than adopting one or two pads for 10 years, Biden allowed the enormous BBB bill to be put free for Congress. It didn’t pass. There remained a powerful liberal media relations organization. Trump was not only a television star, he was extremely divisive. This pitted the economic needs of his followers against the many social desiresof the liberals. With the increase of tribalism, the different economic desires are still driving the divisions. Thus, we believe Biden would be smart to come more to the center.
This is a well written and accurate article. This argument should be used and would be very convincing to voters who are have a strong sense of the value of ethics, respect for rule of law, and a strong belief in traditional market capitalism. This is an important segment of voters to the extent that it may describe a key group of swing voter. I think the reason that it isn't getting much coverage in the news or use in campaign talking points is because this doesn't necessarily describe a wide segment of the public overall, particularly activists on either side or partisan media folks. Because it requires a strong emotional and ethical commitment to the legal concept that corporate leaders owe a unique and undivided fiduciary loyalty to their investors.
On the Right there seems to be a new or renewed embrass on strong man politics combined with a strong belief is a divinely ordered market based on the prosperity gospel. For these folks "greed is good" is consistent with the idea that wealth marks those favored by God for the strength of their belief and willingness to submit to authority For them the idea that Trump screwed over his voters isn't any different that the idea that he screwed over business rivals, employees, contractors, or customers. It is part of what make him a ruthless and clever businessman with a strong command of the art of the deal. If God didn't like it, it wouldn't have worked. If it worked, it can't be wrong and is only a sign of strength.
On the Left there is and increasing sentiment that capitalism has gotten too out of hand combined with a sort of ethical limitarianism. The rich are just too rich. They must have gotten there and remained there by exploiting their market share, employees, customers, the environment, and, by using their power to avoid taxation the average Joe. Once you assume that Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have no ethics by sheer dint of their getting too rich by what must have been exploitation, then the idea that someone who is also rich got there by unethical means by bilking investors seems more of the same not a unique wrong. For them, the fact that he screwed over small businesses who contracted with him or students at Trump University is probably more compelling than that he screwed over his stockholders because people rich enough to be invested heavily in the stock market are generally less sympathetic than your average employee or customer. And even these customers may not be that sympathetic to the extent they were attracted by a Trump Brand that the Left finds gross. The idea that people who worshiped and want to connect themselves with Trump or be like him, makes them automatically an "other" that elists less compassion. Corporations being uniquely beholden to their stockholders over other interests is what is generally considered wrong with Capitalism on the Left and so violating that tenant is less shocking than other forms of fraud.
I agree that Trump is a con man and out primarily to line his pockets. I have known two psychopaths in my person life, both of them, no matter what their other vengeful obsessions, were never too busy to stop and line their pockets in ways large and small. Even Ted Bundy was known to take a unique thrill is getting away with shoplifting high cost clothing around Seattle in between his killing sprees. This seems particularly dangerous with Trump because what he has to "sell" to make money or retain power as President is the safety of whole populations and nations and basic liberties. The TikTok flipflop suggests he can be bought fairly cheap and that is scary as hell.
But, I confess that his screwing over his stockholders is no more shocking to me or troubling than any other fraud or corruption he has engaged in. I think lots of folks on the Left, and not just the extreme left, are likely to feel the same way. Which isn't to say they won't performatively express extreme outrage because we have been trained like Pavlov's dog to do that anything Trump. But most of us, expect some folks on the extreme left are also going to all vote for Biden, even if we would prefer someone else in theory.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be put center stage to impact more moderate swing voters or folks center left or center right. But given how many folks at NPR or the New York Times or MSNBC or within the Biden tent are more in my lane than than the center, it may not seem like an emotional knockout punch. I would be very curious to see how it actually lands with a focus group of undecided voters or folk center right.
I honestly think this "Unified Reich" stuff was to get the mainstream media call him a fascist again, since it is so much better for them to call him this great dictator who will overthrow democracy than a petty crook who will cut medicare and increase inflation. If the media starts interviewing economists about what a universal tariff looks like, I expect Trump to paste on a fake toothbrush mustache at his next campaign rally.
It all makes sense until the final para. Once Trump has his hands on the US Treasury and armed forces, with the Republican party (including the Supreme Court majority) safely under control, why would he stop at the petty grifts he's pursued until now? As President for life, he can have palaces, monuments, all the women he desires, revenge on his enemies and much more. And there are plenty of Trumps to follow when he passes on.
Matt, what makes you think Trump would pull mifepristone’s FDA approval? Has he said something to indicate this?
"The legacy of Trump’s term is a corporate tax cut, Roe overturned, and January 6."
The botched COVID response would like a word.
We had the biggest crisis of Public Health in modern history - a crisis that desperately needed cool, measured leadership, and the clown at the head of the most powerful nation on earth deranged the entire world's response to COVID.
In the US, the benefit of the Warp Speed development of vaccines was underminded by the foolish way it was deployed by the Public Health community and the right's resistance to vaccination, so we ended up losing almost as many people as we lost had the virus just been allowed to spread through the country, plus we destroyed our economy, social fabric and education system.
Donald Trump is an excellent example of why the US should update it white collar crime laws and increase the enforcement of the laws we do have against white collar crime.
It is entirely true that Trump has always been about advancing Trump's interests, and he will continue to do so if he regains power. However, I am deeply concerned about the people he will bring to power with him. His first administration had a lot of establishment Republicans whose first loyalty was not to Trump, and those kind of people will not be getting jobs in a second Trump administration. There won't be any adults in the room to say no when Stephen Miller wants to deploy military units to round up millions of undocumented immigrants and put them in camps, or when AG Ken Paxton wants to raid newsrooms and arrest people on Trump's enemies list. Congress will also be more Trumpy as his coattails in the event of a Trump victory carries his allies into Congress; there are few John McCains left in the GOP. We can't count on Trump's incompetence and greed to save us in a second Trump term.
A someone adjacent thought: I'm constantly amazed that friends of mine can genuinely believe things like "Biden is a more corrupt and a bigger threat to democracy than Trump" and "Biden is more racist than Trump." Trump has been front and center in our lives for almost a decade and I'll never be able to comprehend how otherwise rational, smart and logical people cannot see that this guy is an epic scumbag. It's like half of our country is under mass psychosis.
He's an epic scumbag, but, as a registered Democrat for 50 years, I am here to tell you that IMO the Democrats in office (including Biden) are now a much bigger threat to classical liberalism and small-d democracy than Trump and the Republicans are.
Example: multiple blue states have passed laws (with unanimous support from elected Democrats) declaring that a parent who refuses puberty-blockers for their kid who thinks s/he is "trans" is committing the legal equivalent of child abuse, and all the remedies the State has for child abuse (including taking custody of the child) apply to that situation.
Fuck no! That ain't no liberalism, that's tyranny. And EVERY Democrat holding office supports it.
Please step away from the crack pipe. \S
Not a single blue state has passed such a law.
California was the first, and many blue states have copied it:
From the SB 107 Bill Summary: "The bill would authorize a court to take temporary jurisdiction because a child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care."
https://pluralpolicy.com/app/legislative-tracking/bill/details/state-ca-20212022-sb107/1035849
Family Code, Section 3424, as amended by SB 107:
(a) A court of this state has temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this state and the child has been abandoned or it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because the child, or a sibling or parent of the child, is subjected to, or threatened with, mistreatment or abuse, or because the child has been unable to obtain gender-affirming health care or gender-affirming mental health care, as defined by Section 16010.2 of the Welfare and Institutions Code [definition quoted below].
(b) If there is no previous child custody determination that is entitled to be enforced under this part and a child custody proceeding has not been commenced in a court of a state having jurisdiction under Sections 3421 to 3423, inclusive, a child custody determination made under this section remains in effect until an order is obtained from a court of a state having jurisdiction under Sections 3421 to 3423, inclusive. If a child custody proceeding has not been or is not commenced in a court of a state having jurisdiction under Sections 3421 to 3423, inclusive, a child custody determination made under this section becomes a final determination, if it so provides and this state becomes the home state of the child.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=FAM§ionNum=3424.
Welfare and Institutions Code, Section 16010.2:
(b)(3)(A) “Gender affirming health care” means medically necessary health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient, and may include, but is not limited to, the following:
(i) Interventions to suppress the development of endogenous secondary sex characteristics.
(ii) Interventions to align the patient's appearance or physical body with the patient's gender identity.
(iii) Interventions to alleviate symptoms of clinically significant distress resulting from gender dysphoria, as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition.
(B) “Gender affirming mental health care” means mental health care or behavioral health care that respects the gender identity of the patient, as experienced and defined by the patient, and may include, but is not limited to, developmentally appropriate exploration and integration of identity, reduction of distress, adaptive coping, and strategies to increase family acceptance.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=16010.2&lawCode=WIC
That's not what the language you're quoting does. "Jurisdiction" here means the authority of the court to adjudicate an issue. What this language does is it allows a California family court to adjudicate a dispute (most likely between parents) about whether a kid should receive gender affirming care. Family courts already adjudicate disputes like this all the time between separated parents and California courts do it for California parents; I am not 100% sure what this language is meant to add but it probably has something to do with addressing a situation where the normal forum state for this kind of dispute has a hostile law about gender-affirming care.
The important thing though is that it's only about jurisdiction: it doesn't change the substantive law of parental authority over medical decisions, it doesn't say that denying a kid blockers is abuse or neglect, it doesn't terminate anyone's parental rights or take away anyone's custody. Your claim in your earlier comment is wrong.
The dispute can be initiated by the child. There are plenty of pro-trans attorneys who will take that case pro bono.
The law provides the same remedy for "unable to obtain gender-affirming care" as it does for child abuse. There is no other provision anywhere in California law about civil remedies for child abuse. And there is no contravening law about parental authority over medical decisions. That is implicit in custody. But now there is an explicit law that says that custody powers can be set aside if the child is abused (which has long been true), OR if the child has been unable to obtain gender affirming care (this is new), with no exception for the reason being that the parents object.
Many people claim that a judge would never use this new power (to order, say, puberty blockers against the wishes of the parents), but that remains to be seen. The language of the law is very clear, and there can be no serious doubt that family court judges now have this new power.
Here is what you said: "multiple blue states have passed laws . . . declaring that a parent who refuses puberty-blockers for their kid who thinks s/he is "trans" is committing the legal equivalent of child abuse, and all the remedies the State has for child abuse (including taking custody of the child) apply to that situation."
Like all states, California has *criminal* laws against child abuse. You agree that nothing about this law changes those, right? If the California legislature wanted to do what you say, it could just provide that Penal Code 270, which governs neglectful failure to provide medical care, covers failing to agree to transition care. It didn't.
Child neglect or abuse can be a basis for termination of parental rights. See California Family Code 7823. Nothing about this law changes that either. So it doesn't appear that California is treating or desires to treat refusal to provide transition care to a minor as child abuse or neglect.
Well, what about custody? You say: "now there is an explicit law that says that custody powers can be set aside if the child is abused (which has long been true), OR if the child has been unable to obtain gender affirming care (this is new), with no exception for the reason being that the parents object."
But (again) that's not what the statute says. The substantive standard for custody determinations is set in an entirely different section of California law (Family Code sections 3011, 3020, 3040-49). The law you quote doesn't change anything about those determinations. It also doesn't change anything about who may petition for a child custody determination or modification. Minors can bring an action to emancipate themselves, which enables them to make medical decisions without parental consent--that's Family Code section 7000 et seq.--but yet again that is unmodified by this law.
So what does the language you quoted do? It's part of California's version of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act. The point of this act is to address the problem of contending parents seeking competing child custody orders in different states; it establishes a set of rules for which state's courts are supposed to determine who has custody. But sometimes in emergency situations you might have a case where you need to enter or modify a custody order and you can't get to the right state's courts in time, so the uniform act has a provision for "temporary emergency jurisdiction" in a state that doesn't have primary jurisdiction. What California did is it stretched this kind of jurisdiction to extend to cases where a kid isn't receiving transition care. As best I can understand, the situation California had in mind was a custody dispute in, say, Texas, where the parent who supports transition care doesn't trust the state courts and would rather seek another forum. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, dumb: it undermines the point of the uniform act and it doesn't really work (if you go look at 3424(b) and (c), the other state's courts still ultimately have control so they can undo whatever the California court does). But it only comes up in an interstate custody dispute and it doesn't have anything to do with the substantive standard for how courts should make decisions about custody, parental rights, etc.
(I said that not a single state had done what you said and I was right. But I also don't think any state but California has passed this particular provision--in New York, for example, which did pass a similar law providing for non-cooperation with other states' bans, there is nothing similar.)
I'm going to try to say this nicely but "Biden and Democrats are a bigger threat to liberal values than Trump and Republicans are" is a take that's divorced from reality.
This was all very extensively covered in 2016: Trump stiffing small businesses and the resulting thousands of lawsuits, the Trump U scam, the Mexican condo scam (long LA Times article on that one), the nonrelease of tax returns, etc etc etc.
Trump is a sociopathic grifter conman who cares nothing for anyone but himself.
And he has my vote!
Because there is a decent chance that he will take steps to stop the ongoing crime against humanity of mutualilation and sterilization of children, and the concommitant destruction of women's right to free association, which the Democrats in office unanimously endorse and wholeheartedly support.
Can you elaborate on what you think success or failure will look like? Both if Biden wins or if Trump wins?
I ask because I actually sympathize to some degree with your point, but I'm not sure how much will happen in either direction at the federal level. The new Title IX rules, for example, aren't great (but could have been worse!), but I'm not sure overturning them is worth Trump. I think you would probably get more action supporting republicans at the state level.
Sir. You've been banging the "Democrats are evil because they support child transitions!!!" drum in every single comment you've made. It's a free country (for now; if Trump gets reelected, who knows), and you're free to vote how you want.
But if you claim to care about women's rights, howabout NOT supporting the party that took away Roe v Wade, that doesn't give a f**k if a pregnant woman dies of sepsis due to not being able to get a timely abortion? Just a thought.
The Republicans are indeed very bad on abortion. I view the mutilation of children (fully supported and backed and defended by EVERY Democrat in office, except for a tiny handful of state legislators in red states) as the greater evil. You are free to disagree.
And yes, I am banging the drum, because fighting that evil is very important to me. Emotionally it is because it is my tribe (the Blue Tribe, the Democrats) who are committing this evil. I feel personally tainted by it, after the many decades I spent volunteering on campaigns at all levels for Democrats. They have all betrayed me. I feel I have to do whatever I can to stop the evil they are now committing, right in front of all of us.
Look if you're going to go all apocalyptic The Battle of Good vs Evil on me, then I can do the same: I consider it evil to let a woman die of sepsis because you won't let her get an abortion, especially when the same Republicans who claim to care so much about innocent precious baybeez do jack all to help babies and mothers once the babies are actually born. So there.
It's more like Evil vs Evil. And I care more about stopping the evil done by the people that I spent that the last 50 years enabling (aka the Democrats). My bad, and now I'm doing something about it.
Trump also funnels campaign contributions to his own legal funds. It’s all in the small print. Despite all this, I don’t see Trump losing. Inflation is the key word in this election.
A theory: Since losing the 2020 election Trump has done everything he can do help Democrats win elections because he knows the better Dems do the better his chances of winning in 2024 are:
1) He tanked the GA Senate runoffs for the GOP candidates, which resulted in Dems having a bare Senate majority. They went on to pass the ARP, spending way more money than would have occurred with a GOP controlled Senate and contributing to the inflationary surge in 2021-22. The inflation surge is Biden's biggest electoral liability.
2) He promoted and endorsed various whackjobs and assclowns in the 2022 midterms, greatly contributing to Dems' overperformance, which led to Biden deciding to run in 2024. If the Dems had had a normal wipeout midterm Biden might have decided against running again. Biden is a very weak candidate who is currently dramatically underperforming the Dem Senate candidates in the swing states. It's true that there's no guarantee that an open Dem primary would've produced a stronger candidate but...
Was all of this:
a) a conscious strategy
b) an instinctual but not conscious strategy
c) a happy (for Trump) accident of pure Stop the Steal grievances?
Haha. It is c.
(c). I will be voting for Trump, but, as Rex Tillerson said, he is a fucking moron. He does have great political instincts (mostly by comparison, because everyone else's are terrible), but I think your scenario is too convoluted for (b) to hold, and (a) is just LOL.
Your skeleton key unlocks most things about Trump the businessman. But there's another key to Trump the political figure - namely, his alliance with the conservative movement. After all, every scammer needs a trusted inner circle, and Trump has found his in the form of the Freedom Caucus.
A central fact about the Trump Era is that Trump and the conservative movement need each other. Ideological conservatives want upper-class tax cuts, welfare-state rollbacks, and abortion bans, all of which are unpopular and difficult to campaign on. So they need a skilled demagogue who can make politics revolve around culture war and whose coattails they can ride to power. And Trump wants power and its attendant benefits - so he needs people throughout the executive, legislative, and judicial branches who will protect him. A purely venal Trump might in some ways be preferable, because he'd be willing to compromise on the conservative movement's most unpopular goals. But the venal Trump theory has a hard time explaining a lot of important outcomes, whereas the Trump-conservative movement alliance theory fits the data. Trying to take health care away from 30 million people, and extinguishing reproductive rights in America, both served Trump's personal interests quite badly. But he did them because that was his end of the bargain if he wanted the continued loyalty of Republican legislators and judges to protect him. Similarly, a venal non-ideological Trump would have been easy to cast aside after 1/6 - but the conservative movement, recognizing that Trump's political appeal is their key route to imposing their agenda, did not do so. And this decision, horrible and amoral as it was, has worked out pretty well for them as a matter of raw politics.
Trump benefits quite a bit from the *perception* of non-ideological venality. Many people who like his culture war vibes - a very big chunk of the electorate! - assume he isn't committed to and therefore won't pass an aggressive right-wing agenda. But he will! If he wins, he will absolutely turn over the country to the Freedom Caucus and Sam Alito. And even his pretty open authoritarian aspirations could be understood as a solution to the unpopularity of the bracing right-wing agenda that will result.
The Trump-conservative movement alliance theory explains all of this. Bringing this out of the shadows and making clear to the public that these are the stakes is probably our only hope of defeating him.
Unusual number of crappily written and crappily reasoned comments on today's post. Not to be too elitist, but is this because non-paying subscribers got to read *and* to comment today?
I would hate to see the SB comment section devolve into the kind of sh*t one sees elsewhere. I actually value the daily comments even more than Matt's posts themselves (though they're great!) If the comments section goes downhill, I doubt I'd continue as a subscriber.
Only paid subscribers can comment. I just tested this via an incognito browser.
Yikes.
I hope this isn't a portent of the future.
I think Matt Y recognizes that having a high-quality commentariat is one of the major draws of SB, and if comment quality starts declining too precipitously, he'll bring out the trusty ol' banhammer. So I'm not too worried.
I agree.
Precipitous decline in comment quality is fine but woe betide us if it becomes *too* precipitous.
😀
How about something on the current DJT stock...how its a "legitimate" way to support Trump that has no restrictions other than being willing to lose money ultimately. What better way to legally skirt all election campaign laws than to buy stock in a company he stands to make billions off of in less than 6 months and not reveal who you are to prying eyes?
Yes, Trump is a scumbag who fleeced a lot of rubes with Trump Hotels and Casinos. I have zero sympathy for them and don't care that much that he got so much money from them. Caveat emptor and all that.
What I *am* concerned about is $DJT -- Truth Social. This is a publicly traded company that generated $770,500 in revenue in 2024 Q1 (a little more than twice the gross quarterly revenue of Slow Boring) against losses of $327 million (I'm guessing this is greater than Slow Boring's "losses"). And currently has a market cap of $6.61 billion.
It is beyond me to understand why no team of journalists has done a deep dive into who is propping up this dog of a stock. Who is keeping this stock afloat? Is it some weird effect of mass shorting driving stock prices paradoxically higher? Is it vast numbers of rubes who believe in their God King? Or, just maybe, is it because foreign interests opposed to the United States but seeking to find favor with a likely future President are pushing tons of money into the stock to make Trump fabulously rich and, to the extent he's ever beholden to someone, beholden to them?
I don't know the answer, but is it really that hard to find out? And yet, crickets. I just don't understand journalism anymore.
"This is a publicly traded company that generated $770,500 in revenue in 2024 Q1 (a little more than twice the gross quarterly revenue of Slow Boring) against losses of $327 million (I'm guessing this is greater than Slow Boring's 'losses'). And currently has a market cap of $6.61 billion."
I forgot to mention earlier that my main takeaway from this is that Matt should take Slow Boring public -- he and Kate should easily clear $10 billion in the IPO given its finances relative to Truth Social.
I just don't think there's much of a story here. Per Barron's: "As of April 29, 2024, the company's stock was held by over 621,000 shareholders, the vast majority of whom are retail investors," it said in the statement. It's a meme stock. Probably some of the same rubes that got fleeced last time.
https://www.barrons.com/news/parent-company-of-trump-s-truth-social-posts-328-mln-loss-ef0f3f2e
And I bet most of those 621,000 shareholders own one share. I'd like to know who is making the biggest investments.
Per Barron's ... "the vast majority ... are retail investors". I think that's the entire story.
It didn't say the vast majority of shares are held by retail investors. I want to know who is buying the bulk of publicly traded shares, and are the ones keeping the price afloat.
Everything I've read is that it's a meme stock owned by individual retail investors. If the trading and / or the ownership was very concentrated, then Barron's would have called that out.
One would hope they would have.
But I wonder. When I look at trading for a standard stock the volume of shares traded across the day is fairly smooth. But then when I look at DJT I often see these huge spikes. If it's individual retail investors driving trades, why would they often clump like that? That doesn't seem likely.
See (sorry for the long URL): https://finance.yahoo.com/chart/DJT#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-
I've seen it mentioned that the stock is very thinly traded, with a large majority of shares being held by insiders (most immediately Trump himself, who individually owns over 50% of the stock) who can't sell their shares, so it doesn't take much to "prop up" the share price at the moment.
Which would make it an even sweeter bargain for some foreign entity wanting to get in good with Trump. Right now it's only paper wealth for Trump, but we're getting closer to the point where he can start cashing in on some of those shares, possibly by selling them to some kind of buyers (guess what type) who would be willing to pay a premium for Trump-owned shares.
Excellent piece on Trump’s conning history. We would propose some different factors that got us to where we are. Many of Trump‘s followers had come back disabled from wars they felt were wrongly fought. Like Steve Bannon, they have grudges against the government. Life has been more difficult than expected. Conversely, liberal Democrats were so delighted to find themselves with a one person majority they went slightly nuts. Every different activist believed they could get legislation passed for their favorite concerns. Bernie Sanders and followers believed there was a larger voting block of liberals in the US than there is. Rather than adopting one or two pads for 10 years, Biden allowed the enormous BBB bill to be put free for Congress. It didn’t pass. There remained a powerful liberal media relations organization. Trump was not only a television star, he was extremely divisive. This pitted the economic needs of his followers against the many social desiresof the liberals. With the increase of tribalism, the different economic desires are still driving the divisions. Thus, we believe Biden would be smart to come more to the center.