We are living in a moment wherein any number of people are questioning the efficacy of democratic governance. On the one hand, I get it. There are all kinds of problems that seem never to be solved, often in the face of clear public opinion on a given topic. It is difficult to hold politicians and political parties accountable. Indeed, the entire electoral feedback loop could be said to be broken. Some, such as myself, think that the solution to this problem in the United States is pro-democracy reforms that would improve representativeness and democratic accountability.
Others, however, think that democracy itself is the problem and instead want to take power out of the hands of voters and centralize in a more authoritarian type of governance. Some just want a temporary strongman to fix these problems (as characterized by populism) others want to go full-on dictator.
I would note that this is not a new debate. The issue of who should govern and whether power should be concentrated or not is an ancient one (I wrote about this in some detail here
years ago). Of late there have been a number of folks emerging from the tech sector who are arguing for dictatorship over democracy (I cited an example here
). A prominent example is Curtis Yarvin, who was interviewed by the NYT: Curtis Yarvin Says Democracy Is Done. Powerful Conservatives Are Listening.
The interview is worth attention for a couple of reasons. First, as the linked headline notes, some prominent conservatives are listening. Yarvin has been cited by J.D. Vance, for example, and he has become a darling of the reactionary right’s mediasphere.
Not surprisingly, I find Yarvin’s lessons from history and his prescriptions for the future to be lacking.
He believes that government bureaucracy should be radically gutted, and perhaps most provocative, he argues that American democracy should be replaced by what he calls a “monarchy” run by what he has called a “C.E.O.” — basically his friendlier term for a dictator.
I would note that even monarchs need bureaucrats. Also, it is just so very shocking that people such as Yarvin whose basic experience is business thinks that a modified CEO model is the way to go. And it leada to things like this:
It’s an excerpt from the diary of Harold Ickes, who is F.D.R.’s secretary of the interior, describing a cabinet meeting in 1933. What happens in this cabinet meeting is that Frances Perkins, who’s the secretary of labor, is like, Here, I have a list of the projects that we’re going to do. F.D.R. personally takes this list, looks at the projects in New York and is like, This is crap. Then at the end of the thing, everybody agrees that the bill would be fixed and then passed through Congress. This is F.D.R. acting like a C.E.O. So, was F.D.R. a dictator? I don’t know. What I know is that Americans of all stripes basically revere F.D.R., and F.D.R. ran the New Deal like a start-up.
He thinks that FDR is a good example of the kind of CEO/dictator that he wants. However, I must confess that I do not understand how a president working with his cabinet to then pass legislation through Congress is a good argument for why democracy ought to be scuttled.
Also, two other things.
“This is F.D.R. acting like a C.E.O. So, was F.D.R. a dictator? I don’t know.” Then why in the world does he use this as an example?
“F.D.R. ran the New Deal like a start-up.” What does this actually mean? It just sounds like a person with a limited understanding of politics and history applying his own experience. And, moreover, it is the kind of thing that certain people will think sounds edgy and cool because of the mythology that surrounds Silicon Valley start-ups (most of which fail, I would note).
I would counter, by the way, that a parliamentary system wherein a Prime Minister would have to have a majority in the legislature could function in a similar CEO way (because, and hear me out as this might blow your mind, the Prime Minister is a chief executive!) while still having to be accountable to voters. Such an arrangement allows for a coherent policy plan that requires public debate and scrutiny without all the rather obvious pitfalls of power concentrated in a dictator (or monarch, as Yarvin likes to say).
But, Yarvin does like the “start-up” analogy.
If you look at the administration of Washington, what is established looks a lot like a start-up. It looks so much like a start-up that this guy Alexander Hamilton, who was recognizably a start-up bro, is running the whole government — he is basically the Larry Page of this republic.
First, sure, the Washinton administration was a kind of start-up, but only in a general sense of the term. But the analogy to a company/firm is just wrong. Companies produce a specific product or set of products. Governments do far, far more than that. People who think that government is a relatively simple entity that can be analogized to a household or business always demonstrate to me that they shouldn’t be listened to.
Second, this sounds like a person whose understanding of the Washington administration comes from watching Hamilton.
As a general matter, Yarvin’s historical and philosophical understanding is not especially impressive (to put it mildly).
For example:
So when you want to say democracy is not a good system of government, just bridge that immediately to saying populism is not a good system of government, and then you’ll be like, Yes, of course, actually policy and laws should be set by wise experts and people in the courts and lawyers and professors. Then you’ll realize that what you’re actually endorsing is aristocracy rather than democracy.
No. Having a government guided by the results of elections to provide a direction and then using experts to implement policy is not “aristocracy” (which tends to mean government by a hereditary upper class, at least colloquially*).
There is also this, which is the kind of thing that authoritarians love to raise.
What I do know is that if democracy is against the common good, it’s bad, and if it’s for the common good, it’s good.
So, on the one hand, I agree that the goal is to try and work towards the common good. I will even agree that in abstract that the common good is more important than democracy, per se. I will go yet a step further and note that democratic mechanism can produce outcomes that are counter to the common good.
However, the question is not whether or not democracy is imperfect and can lead to problematic outcomes. The question is whether democracy is less prone to such outcomes than autocracies. And, additionally, which kind of governance, democratic or autocratic, has a higher chance of self-correction.
History teaches rather clearly that it is a dangerous brew when a leader with centralized power tries to provide their version of the “common good” for a mass of people.
An interesting question is this: what actual autocratic example would you prefer to live in over all the democratic systems we have seen? Beyond that, if we look at the democratic era (which really only dawns in the 20th century with the advent of true universal suffrage and mass participation, and even then at different times in different places) we see that in the aggregate, democracies outperform autocracies in terms of various metrics of the common good.
These are key questions.
I thoroughly understand the abstract notion that a wise and wonderful king is more efficient than a democracy. This idea dates back to Plato and Aristotle at a minimum. It is at the hear of Christians who long for King Jesus to reign. But finding an actual monarch who is wise and wonderful has been maddeningly hard to come by when we look at human history.
This is why democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.
*It really means, literally, “government by the best.”
WaPo
(“Israel and Hamas agree to Gaza ceasefire, raising hopes of a reprieve“):
After more than a year of painstaking negotiations, Israel and Hamas agreed Wednesday to a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip that, if implemented, could see nearly three dozen Israeli hostages reunited with their families and give hungry and displaced Palestinians a reprieve from months of violence.
Israel’s government still needs to formally approve the deal, in a vote officials say will take place Thursday morning. But the agreement could mark a first step toward ending a 15-month war that has destroyed Gaza and divided Israelis.
The truce, mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, would begin on Sunday and cover an initial period of 42 days.
“This is one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced,” President Joe Biden said Wednesday in remarks from the White House. “And I’m deeply satisfied this day has come … for the sake of the people of Israel and the families waiting in agony, and for the sake of the innocent people in Gaza who suffered unimaginable devastation because of the war.”
Under the first six-week phase of what mediators hope will evolve into a three-stage process for peace, 33 of the 98 remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza — mainly women, children, the elderly and wounded — will be released from Hamas captivity in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli detention, in a carefully choreographed sequence that will involve humanitarian groups and coordination between Hamas, Egypt and Israel.
[…]
There was still much that could go wrong during the deal’s implementation, and Israeli officials have emphasized that so far, it is a temporary pause. The thorniest questions — including who will govern and secure Gaza — remain unresolved, and negotiations over these and other issues are expected to begin later in the process.
[…]
The mediators, at least for now, overcame the herculean task of reconciling the diametrically opposed positions of Israel and Hamas. Israel wanted to continue the fighting after a temporary pause and hostage-for-prisoner exchange, while Hamas insisted on a permanent end to the war before it would surrender any captives.
But pressure on both parties pushed them to close the gap. Netanyahu was under fire from hostage families and those who lost loved ones in the war. He was also in potential legal peril abroad, after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In Gaza, Hamas was severely weakened after Israel killed its top leaders and kneecapped regional allies. Residents grew increasingly angry as they struggled to survive the punishing campaign Israel launched in response to the Hamas attacks.
In the end, the deal agreed to Wednesday aligns to a large extent with the phased approach Biden proposed in May: An initial pause in hostilities and release of hostages is intended to lead to “sustainable calm,” according to a joint statement by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. Those three countries are meant to serve as guarantors of the deal, and Mohammed said a monitoring body would be established in Cairo.
Biden and Trump each claimed credit for a diplomatic achievement closed through rare foreign-policy collaboration between the outgoing and incoming administrations. As Biden officials carried out the formal diplomacy, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, met with Netanyahu over the weekend to pressure the Israeli prime minister to agree to a deal before Trump’s inauguration.
As unlikely as this seemed even a week ago, most analysts seem optimistic this deal will hold. Hamas has clearly lost and Israel has emerged radically strengthened, with not only Hamas but Hezbollah and the benefactor of both, Iran, considerably weakened.
Not surprisingly, given how much effort he and his team have put into getting here over the past fifteen months, President Biden is frustrated that he’s not getting more credit.
The Hill
(“Biden on if Trump will get credit over him for ceasefire deal: ‘Is that a joke?’“):
President Biden brushed off a question about who would get the credit for the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal struck Wednesday.
“Is that a joke?” Biden responded when asked by a reporter whether he or President-elect Trump would get credit for the deal, which could bring an end to the 15-month conflict in Gaza.
Trump publicly celebrated the news of the deal before an official statement from the White House was released hours later. The president-elect also claimed the credit for himself, saying a deal would not have happened without his victory in November over Vice President Harris.
While announcing the deal with Harris by his side, Biden acknowledged it will be implemented after he leaves office and said his team has been working with Trump’s incoming team. Trump is set to be sworn in Monday.
“I’d also note, this deal was developed and negotiated under my administration, but its terms will be implemented, for the most part, by the next administration. For these past few days, we’ve been speaking as one team,” the president said in remarks from the White House.
He also highlighted that the deal is the same framework of a deal his administration helped negotiate in May, and that Israel was able to weaken Hamas with the help of aid from the U.S.
“I knew this deal would have to be implemented by the next team, so I told my team to coordinate closely with the incoming team to make sure we’re all speaking with the same voice, because that’s what America’s presidents do,” Biden said.
But, as with the release of the American hostages in Iran—held for almost exactly as long as this war has gone on—as Jimmy Carter was leaving office and Ronald Reagan was being inaugurated, the change of administrations was crucial to the deal.
WaPo
(“Biden and Trump jockey for credit in Israel-Hamas hostage deal“):
President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump jockeyed Wednesday for credit for a ceasefire and hostage-release deal between Hamas and Israel that Biden had long pursued and that came together days before Trump is set to retake the White House.
The Biden and Trump teams worked closely in the days leading up to the deal, talking daily and holding meetings in Qatar and Israel. Biden officials said a meeting Saturday between Trump’s incoming Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was crucial to closing the deal, and Witkoff has called the Biden administration “the tip of the spear” in talks.
Their cooperation represents a highly unusual moment in the polarized world of U.S. politics, especially given the contentious history between the president and president-elect. But it did not stop both Trump and Biden from touting their respective roles.
Trump declared on social media that “the EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November.” The president-elect, who often boasts of his dealmaking prowess, had pushed for an agreement before his inauguration and threatened last week that “all hell will break out in the Middle East” if Israeli hostages were not returned by Inauguration Day, which is Monday.
Trump aides and allies argued that it’s evident that Trump’s approach and imminent return made the difference.
“He made it clear and unambiguous that if the hostages were not released prior to his taking office, there would be hell to pay,” said Matt Brooks, the CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Some Democrats also gave Trump credit. “This was Biden’s deal, but as much as I hate to say it, he couldn’t have done it without Trump — not so much Trump’s performative threats to Hamas, but his willingness to tell Bibi bluntly that the war had to end by Jan. 20,” former Democratic congressman Tom Malinowski wrote on
X.
Other groups — such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the families of several American hostages in Gaza — thanked both Biden and Trump in statements on the deal. Biden officials have emphasized the importance of working with the incoming administration, with one senior administration official calling the level of coordination with Witkoff “unprecedented.”
[…]
A diplomat briefed on the negotiations said Hamas’s diminished position aided negotiations, in addition to Trump’s influence, saying this was “the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal.” The diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss closed-door talks, said the contours of the agreement suggest that Israeli negotiators offered concessions on issues that had previously impeded a breakthrough.
But a senior Biden administration official contested the idea that Trump’s Inauguration Day ultimatum secured a conclusion to talks. The official said that while deadlines can be helpful, the “catalyst” for success was the defeat of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia; a ceasefire deal in Lebanon; and Hamas’s “massive isolation.”
Trump seized on Democrats’ divisions on the campaign trail, often criticizing Biden as not backing Israel forcefully enough. At the same time, Trump courted Arab American voters who were angry at U.S. support for Israel — a remarkable pivot for a candidate who once called for a “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”
That Biden had the foresight and humility to include the incoming administration in the talks despite the obvious animosity between them is a testament to his leadership. That the Trump representative was actually useful in the negotiations welcome, if surprising news.
As to the credit, I would give the lion’s share of it to Netanyahu and company for bringing Hamas to the point where eating a deal it has been rejecting for months was the best option. Next, the Biden administration for both its relentless efforts in pushing negotiations and its politically costly support of the Israeli war effort. But, yes, Trump’s ultimatum clearly helped put additional pressure on Netanyahu and company to come to terms.
Presidential farewell addresses are an American tradition dating back to George Washington’s, in which he famously warned against “entangling alliances.” A century and a half later, Dwight Eisenhower warned against the internal threat posed by “the military-industrial complex.” Last night, Joe Biden warned against the growing power of the extremely wealthy.
After a brief announcement of the Gaza ceasefire
, he lamented the state of the Republic he’s presided over the past four years. He evoked the Statue of Liberty as its symbol:
Long ago, in New York Harbor, an ironworker installed beam after beam, day after day. He was joined by steel workers, stonemasons, engineers. They built not just a single structure, but a beacon of freedom. The very idea of America was so big, we felt the entire world needed to see the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France after our Civil War. Like the very idea of America, it was built not by one person but by many people, from every background, and from around the world.
Like America, the Statue of Liberty is not standing still. Her foot literally steps forward atop a broken chain of human bondage. She’s on the march. And she literally moves. She was built to sway back and forth to withstand the fury of stormy weather, to stand the test of time because storms are always coming. She sways a few inches, but she never falls into the current below. An engineering marvel.
The Statue of Liberty is also an enduring symbol of the soul of our nation, a soul shaped by forces that bring us together and by forces that pull us apart. And yet, through good times and tough times, we have withstood it all. A nation of pioneers and explorers, of dreamers and doers, of ancestors native to this land, of ancestors who came by force. A nation of immigrants who came to build a better life. A nation holding the torch of the most powerful idea ever in the history of the world: that all of us, all of us are created equal. That all of us deserve to be treated with dignity, justice and fairness. That democracy must defend, and be defined, and be imposed, moved in every way possible: Our rights, our freedoms, our dreams. But we know the idea of America, our institution, our people, our values that uphold it, are constantly being tested.
Ongoing debates about power and the exercise of power. About whether we lead by the example of our power or the power of our example. Whether we show the courage to stand up to the abuse of power, or we yield to it. After 50 years at the center of all of this, I know that believing in the idea of America means respecting the institutions that govern a free society — the presidency, the Congress, the courts, a free and independent press. Institutions that are rooted — not just reflect the timeless words, but they — they echo the words of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Rooted in the timeless words of the Constitution: “We the People.” Our system of separation of powers, checks and balances — it may not be perfect, but it’s maintained our democracy for nearly 250 years, longer than any other nation in history that’s ever tried such a bold experiment.
And took credit for carrying the torch:
In the past four years, our democracy has held strong. And every day, I’ve kept my commitment to be president for all Americans, through one of the toughest periods in our nation’s history. I’ve had a great partner in Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s been the honor of my life to see the resilience of essential workers getting us through a once-in-a-century pandemic, the heroism of service members and first responders keeping us safe, the determination of advocates standing up for our rights and our freedoms.
After a brief discursion into why the economy is better than the people think, he warns of darker days ahead:
I’m so proud of how much we’ve accomplished together for the American people, and I wish the incoming administration success. Because I want America to succeed.
That’s why I’ve upheld my duty to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition of power to ensure we lead by the power of our example. I have no doubt that America is in a position to continue to succeed.
That’s why my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern. And this is a dangerous — and that’s the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultrawealthy people, and the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked. Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead. We see the consequences all across America. And we’ve seen it before.
More than a century ago, the American people stood up to the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They didn’t punish the wealthy. They just made the wealthy play by the rules everybody else had. Workers want rights to earn their fair share. You know, they were dealt into the deal, and it helped put us on the path to building the largest middle class, the most prosperous century any nation the world has ever seen. We’ve got to do that again.
After again telling us that the economy is great and the middle class has been uplifted by his presidency, he continues:
You know, in his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us that about, and I quote, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” Six days — six decades later, I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech-industrial complex that could pose real dangers for our country as well.
Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence is the most consequential technology of our time, perhaps of all time.
Nothing offers more profound possibilities and risks for our economy, and our security, our society. For humanity. Artificial intelligence even has the potential to help us answer my call to end cancer as we know it. But unless safeguards are in place, A.I. could spawn new threats to our rights, our way of life, to our privacy, how we work, and how we protect our nation. We must make sure A.I. is safe and trustworthy and good for all humankind.
In the age of A.I., it’s more important than ever that the people must govern. And as the Land of Liberty, America — not China — must lead the world in the development of A.I.
You know, in the years ahead, it’s going to be up to the president, the presidency, the Congress, the courts, the free press, and the American people to confront these powerful forces. We must reform the tax code. Not by giving the biggest tax cuts to billionaires, but by making them begin to pay their fair share.
We need to get dark money — that’s that hidden funding behind too many campaign contributions — we need to get it out of our politics. We need to enact an 18-year time limit, term limit, time and term, for the strongest ethics — and the strongest ethics reforms for our Supreme Court. We need to ban members of Congress from trading stock while they are in the Congress. We need to amend the Constitution to make clear that no president, no president is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office. The president’s power is not limit — it is not absolute. And it shouldn’t be.
And in a democracy, there is another danger — that the concentration of power and wealth. It erodes a sense of unity and common purpose. It causes distrust and division. Participating in our democracy becomes exhausting and even disillusioning, and people don’t feel like they have a fair shot. We have to stay engaged in the process.
As with Eisenhower’s warning, the obvious question is, Why didn’t you do something about this while you’re President? But, in fairness, Biden did make some efforts on many of these related issues and was unable to get cooperation from Congress and the courts.
The reforms he wants for the Supreme Court and Presidential immunity would require amending the Constitution, a near-impossible task. But that fixing the system is unlikely to happen doesn’t mean it isn’t broken.
He ends the speech on a hopeful note:
A fair shot is what makes America America. Everyone is entitled to a fair shot, not a guarantee, just a fair shot, an even playing field. Going as far as your hard work and talent can take you.
We can never lose that essential truth to remain who we are. I’ve always believed, and I told other world leaders, America will be defined by one word: possibilities. Only in America do we believe anything is possible. Like a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, sitting behind this desk in the Oval Office as president of the United States.
That is the magic of America. It’s all around us. Upstairs in the residence of the White House, I’ve walked by a painting of a Statue of Liberty I don’t how many times. In the painting there are several workers climbing on the outstretched arm of the statue that holds the torch. It reminds me every day I pass it of the story and soul of our nation, and the power of the American people.
There is a story of a veteran — a veteran, a son of an immigrant, whose job was to climb that torch and polish the amber panes so rays of light could reach out as far as possible. He was known as the keeper of the flame. He once said of the Statue of Liberty, “Speaks a silent, universal language, one of hope that anyone who seeks and speaks freedom can understand.”
Yes, we sway back and forth to withstand the fury of the storm, to stand the test of time, a constant struggle, constant struggle. A short distance between peril and possibility. But what I believe is the America of our dreams is always closer than we think. And it’s up to us to make our dreams come true.
After thanking his family and team, he ends:
My eternal thanks to you, the American people. After 50 years of public service, I give you my word, I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands — a nation where the strength of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure. Now it’s your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith. I love America. You love it, too.
God bless you all, and may God protect our troops. Thank you for this great honor.
The NYT has a full transcription
. YouTube has a video of the full speech:
NYT
(“Trump Begins Selling New Crypto Token, Raising Ethical Concerns“):
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his family on Friday started selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of Mr. Trump drawn from the July assassination attempt, a potentially lucrative new business that ethics experts assailed as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.
Disclosed just days before his second inauguration, the venture is the latest in a series of moves by Mr. Trump that blur the line between his government role and the continued effort by his family to profit from his power and global fame. It is yet another sign that the Trump family will be much less hesitant in this second term to bend or breach traditional ethical boundaries.
“Much less hesitant” than what? He was constantly profiteering off his name and namesake properties in the first term.
Mr. Trump himself announced the launch
of his new business on Friday night on his social media platform, in between announcements about filling key federal government posts. He is calling the token $Trump, selling it with the slogan, “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!”
The venture was organized by CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, which already has been selling an array of other
kinds of merchandise like Trump-branded sneakers, fragrances and even digital trading cards.
But this newest venture brings Mr. Trump and his family directly into the world of selling cryptocurrency, which is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Trump recently disclosed he intended to name a cryptocurrency advocate as S.E.C. chairman
.
A disclosure on the website selling the tokens says that CIC Digital and its affiliates own 80 percent of the supply of the new Trump tokens that will be released gradually over the coming three years and that they will be paid “trading revenue” as the tokens are sold.
That sounds like a pretty good deal for the ownership group.
The move by Mr. Trump and his family was immediately condemned by ethics lawyers who said they could not recall a more explicit profiteering effort by an incoming president.
“It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office” said Adav Noti, executive director of Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit ethics group. “It is beyond unprecedented.”
Having people doing business with the government staying at the Washington Trump Hotel, Mar A Lago and other properties—and charging the Secret Service to stay there—was chump change compared to this.
But even some in the cryptocurrency industry were quick to criticize the new token.
“Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it,” wrote Nick Tomaino, a crypto venture capitalist
and former executive at Coinbase, one of the largest crypto trading platforms, in a social media
posting on Saturday.
Cryptocurrency markets tend to be highly volatile, in part because tokens are not backed by any tangible assets. The website for Mr. Trump’s new venture includes an extensive collection of disclaimers
limiting the ability of anyone buying the token to file a class-action lawsuit related to it and warning buyers that “Trump Memes may be extremely volatile, and price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies could impact the price.”
Mr. Trump has already made clear that he will be working to promote the cryptocurrency industry.
He has announced his intention to appoint regulators who will lift restrictions on the sale of new tokens and ties between cryptocurrency companies and other more traditional financial enterprises.
This stands in contrast to efforts by Biden-era regulators to tightly regulate the industry, out of a concern
that a sudden crash in the value of cryptocurrency could potentially lead to a future financial crash.
Axios
(“Trump launches meme coin, apparently makes more than $25 billion overnight“):
President-elect Trump launched his own cryptocurrency overnight and swiftly appeared to make more than $25 billion on paper for himself and his companies.
The stunning launch of $TRUMP caught the entire industry off-guard, and speaks to both his personal influence and the ascendancy of cryptocurrency in his administration. It also speaks to the nature of the crypto industry that someone could have $25 billion worth of something that literally did not exist 24 hours previously.
[…]
According to CoinGecko price data
, $TRUMP rose more than 600% overnight and was trading just over $32 as of 11 a.m. ET Saturday. That gives the coin a fully diluted market capitalization just north of $32 billion. The meme website says 80% of the supply is held by Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital, and a CIC co-owned entity called Fight Fight Fight LLC. (“Fight fight fight” is what Trump said after being shot at a rally in July.) They are subject to a three-year unlocking schedule, which means they cannot dump all of their holdings at once.
Crucially, though, they will have them unloaded well before the end of Trump’s presidency and, presumably, the value of the coins drops precipitously.
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On his last weekday as President, Joe Biden has issued the following statement
:
I have supported the Equal Rights Amendment for more than 50 years, and I have long been clear that no one should be discriminated against based on their sex. We, as a nation, must affirm and protect women’s full equality once and for all.
On January 27, 2020, the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.
It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people. In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.
While I, too, support equal rights for women Biden’s statement is utter nonsense. Indeed, were it otherwise the Amendment would have been declared ratified five years ago—or at some point when Biden’s presidency was not on life support—rather than five years after the Commonwealth in which I reside ratified an amendment that expired when I was in high school. (My 40th reunion has come and gone.)
NPR
(“Biden says the Equal Rights Amendment is law. What happens next is unclear“) adds the necessary context:
President Biden on Friday declared that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution “the law of the land,” a surprising declaration that does not have any formal force of effect, but that was celebrated by its backers in a rally in front of the National Archives.
The amendment would need to be formally published or certified to come into effect by the national archivist, Colleen Shogan — and when or if that will happen is unclear.
The executive branch doesn’t have a direct role in the amendment process, and Biden is not going to order the archivist to certify and publish the ERA, the White House told reporters on a conference call. A senior administration official said that the archivist’s role is “purely ministerial” in nature, meaning that the archivist is required to publish the amendment once it is ratified.
In response to an NPR question about whether the archivist would take any new actions, the National Archives communications staff pointed to a December statement saying that the ERA “cannot be certified as part of the Constitution due to established legal, judicial, and procedural decisions.”
“This is a long-standing position for the archivist and the National Archives. The underlying legal and procedural issues have not changed,” the archives’ statement said.
We’ve rehashed the “issues” many times since Virginia’s action but there really is no controversy:
In 2020, the national archivist — who is charged with making constitutional amendments official — declined to certify the amendment, citing an opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. The department said it considered the ERA to be expired after a 1982 ratification deadline was missed. In 2022, the Office of Legal Counsel released an opinion
affirming that 2020 decision.
It would simply be absurd if an Amendment passed during Richard Nixon’s first term—more than half a century ago—and with a clear expiration date written into it (as had been common by that point) were suddenly declared the law of the land through fiat. The rationale for the deadline is clear: an amendment should reflect a reasonably contemporaneous consensus that the fundamental law of the land should be changed. Indeed, Virginia is only the 37th ratifying state if we ignore the fact that six states that ratified the amendment in the early 1970s subsequently voted to withdraw their approval (five between 1973 and 1979, the original open period, and North Dakota in 2021, after Virginia’s ratification).
Statutory and judicial actions over the last four decades have likely rendered the question moot: for all intent and purposes, gender equality has long been the law of the land. But, if we wish to enshrine it in the Constitution,* it’s easy enough: pass it through Congress again and get 38 states to ratify.
*There are some who argue that doing so would enshrine a binary view of the sexes, which has come under increasing dispute, into the Constitution. Nothing in my reading of the key section (“Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”) would obviously have that effect, in my estimation.
So, last night I did something I rarely do, which is just drop in on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN. I was wondering if there was any update on the California fires and I was still getting dinner out and while there was no fire coverage at the time I tuned in, there was a story on a small community in Kentucky and the focus of the story was what the effects on the local schools would be if Trump followed through on his promises regarding the Department of Education and federal funding for schools.
The state, of course, heavily voted for Trump (almost 65%) as did the county (I forget which one) in which the school district was located. The correspondent interviewed both a principal and a superintendent. Both talked about how desperately they needed federal funding and how catastrophic it would be if the money dried up.
They both said they voted for Trump and for “conservative values” but both explicitly stated that that when it came to losing federal funds for their schools they “didn’t vote for that.”
I will confess to shouting back at the television (at least twice): “Yes! You did vote for that!”
The principal specifically stated that she simply believed in her heart that Trump would take away the funds, but that she knew Trump would “make America first again” (or something to that effect).
Like a lot of people, these Kentuckians understand their needs and see federal spending on those needs as vital, even if all that other spending is just plain wasteful!
He wants to stop illegal border crossings and likes the idea of deporting migrants convicted of serious crimes. But when it comes to Trump’s broader promises to expel all 11 million
undocumented people living in the country, DiMare thinks it would be a disaster for American farmers.
“We have to secure our borders south and north, but you have to have a workforce in this country,” said DiMare, whose family has 4,000 acres (1,600 hectares) of tomato farms in Florida and California. “There’s no doubt that is going to restrict and put pressure on farming and many other industries that rely on this workforce.”
The entire piece is a run-down pretty much of what anyone who has more than a surface understanding of the issue knows. That is, we are dealing here with a complicated, market-driven situation wherein if the actual promises are kept there will be significant downsides for agriculture.
It is truly amazing to me, but it is all too common, for someone like DiMare to prattle on about securing the border while at the same time wanting to tap into the labor supply created by a porous border.
Here’s my guess: he wants to make sure that all the drugs, terrorists, rapists, and murderers are blocked from entering while ensuring a supply of cheap labor. After all, all those folks picking tomatoes are just a bunch of hard-working individuals willing to work for lower wages. They aren’t a security risk.
Or something.
At a bare minimum, it is worth reminding everyone that if Trump actually does what he promises food prices will go up. (And yes, there is a very real conversation to be had that underscores that exploitation of undocumented labor makes food artificially cheaper than it should be).
Of course, this is all a political science reminder (along with some of the public opinion stuff noted in James Joyner’s post
earlier today) that voters aren’t always especially sophisticated about policy and, moreover, they have baskets full of preferences (some of which are contradictory and certainly have different ranks) but only one vote.
Not only do voters have but one vote to cast per office, per election, but there are only two viable parties. That is a lot of ideas, beliefs, preferences, hopes, and the like to shove into one limited set of choices via a very imperfect vehicle for registering what one wants out of government.
And, again, this is how and why someone like Trump can get elected, even as many of his voters tell themselves they didn’t vote for that!
My point is simply something that has been well-known for a very long time: voters have many different, and often contradictory motivations for casting their votes. Further, they often have imperfect (to put it mildly) understandings about how public policy works.
In some ways, this is why democracy sucks, but just sucks less than all the other possible options.
This is why I think that representative democracy, flawed as it is, works best if a system has more parties (making it easier to find a fit between voter preference and their electoral choices) and stronger parties (making it clearer what specific labels mean and how they are likely to perform in office). None of that is a panacea.
It would also be nice if there was more clarity over policy outcome responsibility, but as it stands it is hard to know who is ultimately responsible (federal government, state government, the courts, the House, the Senate, etc.) and so people tend to make very simplistic assumptions about the president’s power.
NYT
(“TikTok to ‘Go Dark’ on Sunday for Its 170 Million American Users“):
TikTok said
late Friday that its service would “go dark” for its 170 million American users on Sunday because of a ban in the United States over fears that its Chinese ownership poses a threat to national security.
The company said in a statement that “unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19” unless the Biden administration assures Apple, Google and other companies that they would not be punished for delivering TikTok’s services in the United States.
The statement was TikTok’s latest attempt to pressure the administration to grant it a reprieve from a law, upheld by the Supreme Court
on Friday, that would effectively ban its service starting Sunday.
The law says that app stores and major cloud computing providers cannot deliver TikTok to U.S. consumers unless the company is sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to a non-Chinese owner.
Given that there will be a radically different administration in place Monday, I can’t imagine why anyone would do anything on Sunday based on what the outgoing administration is doing. Why not wait?
Regardless, while TikTok’s demise would be a disappointment to millions of young Americans, including some in my household, I suspect ByteDance will either sell the company (I hear Elon Musk is loaded) or an alternative algorithm-driven meme machine will take its place.
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