The Art of No Deal where Europe allies itself with Russia and China against Iran sanctions and works out a deal with China on tariffs

Donald Trump has been making good on promised unilateral

decisions, the latest being the exit from the Iran Nuclear deal,

without ever asking, now what?  He has no appreciation of

linkage or cultivating allies. Possibly his real estate

experience causes him to approach each deal as a local one

where as foreign affairs is about issues, nuclear proliferation

or tariff negotiation for example, so that proceeding in many

geographies at once he cedes negotiating power.

John Bolton, Trump’s latest National Security  Advisor, has

publicly declared that regime change is the desired result of

the break of Iran’s nuclear accord. Isn’t regime change North

Korea’s Kim Jong-un greatest fear?  It’s difficult to see how

Trump will successfully subdue the Kid into denuclearizing.
But he may drive him into China's fatherly embrace.

Trump taking on NAFTA, steel and aluminum imports, and trade

with China all at once is another example.  He has given

Europe an extension until June 12th, the same day he is due

to be in Singapore for the Kim Jong-un Summit, which won’t

change their irreconcilable treaty obligations with other

trading partners so that it is likely the tariffs will go into effect

just when we are trying to convince Europe to comply with

economic sanctions against Iran which they don’t agree should

be put in place.  On the other hand if Trump had chosen to just

go after China on tariffs then Europe would have gladly joined
in an effort as our ally.  Now they may decide to go with China and

Russia against our Iran decision and while they are at it possibly

work out a deal with China on tariffs as well.

Sunday 13 May: Just saw John Bolton on ABC where he expressed
Der Spiegel's opinion that the Trump Administration is driving a wedge
between the U.S. and its European allies as silly.
Wow, just received a like tweet over this comment of silly by a Trump
bot that misinterpreted it as a positive comment about Bolton. What a
perfect metaphor for the mindless Trump reign.

Progressives need to reject their central government heritage and embrace federalism. California's Jerry Brown has.

David Brooks' Future of the American Left misses the point about the current state of the flattened hierarchy structure. Giant top down one size fits legislation from Washington is doomed to fail. During FDR created central government using top down pyramids developed by the Robber Baron's using the telegraph as a means of communication to centralize business. Today's internet media does the opposite, it decentralizes and flattens so as to make elite one size fits all solutions unsatisfactory and local control necessary. Progressives need to reject their central government heritage and embrace federalism.  California's Jerry Brown has.

Presidency is strangled by too much actionable information combined with the hubris of the office that something good and effective can be done about it.

Michael Hayden's "The End of Intelligence" op ed revealed that the President's daily intelligence briefing before Trump was up to sixty pages long. What is a President to do with daily briefing that tells you what? What Putin had for breakfast? That combined with the Atlantic's The Hardest Job in the World make the case that the Presidency is strangled by too much actionable information combined with the hubris of the office that something good and effective can be done about it.    

Political debate suffers from argument that is valid but not sound

An argument form is valid if and only if whenever the premises are all true, then conclusion is true. An argument is valid if its argument form is valid. For a sound argument, An argument is sound if and only if it is valid and all its premises are true

Mixing religion and politics makes for poor religion and poor politics

       Here is the uncomfortable reality: I do not believe that most evangelicals are racist. But every strong Trump supporter has decided that racism is not a moral disqualification in the president of the United States. And that is something more than a political compromise. It is a revelation of moral priorities.

       If utilitarian calculations are to be applied, they need to be fully applied. For a package of political benefits, these evangelical leaders have associated the Christian faith with racism and nativism. They have associated the Christian faith with misogyny and the mocking of the disabled. They have associated the Christian faith with lawlessness, corruption, and routine deception. They have associated the Christian faith with moral confusion about the surpassing evils of white supremacy and neo-Nazism. The world is full of tragic choices and compromises. But for this man? For this cause? 
        It is difficult to see something you so deeply value discredited so comprehensively. Evangelical faith has shaped my life, as it has the lives of millions. Evangelical history has provided me with models of conscience. Evangelical institutions have given me gifts of learning and purpose. Evangelical friends have shared my joys and sorrows. And now the very word is brought into needless disrepute.

         This is the result when Christians become one interest group among many, scrambling for benefits at the expense of others rather than seeking the welfare of the whole. Christianity is love of neighbor, or it has lost its way.

The pieces will reassemble back to a two party system, Democrat and Libertarian, and the Grand Old Party withers off just as the Whig party from which it descended did in 1856

Michael Murphy in Politico predicts Trump will be primaried by moderate competent Republicans such as John Kasich or possibly Mitt Romney during the run up to the 2020 Presidential campaign. But Trump will prevail among his base and rupture all that ties the GOP together.  He will lose the national contest because Conservatives with real ideology and honor will split off, most logically to the Libertarian Party whose last two candidates in 2016 where successful Republican Governors, Gary Johnson of New Mexico and William Weld of Massachusetts.  The pieces will reassemble back to a two party system, Democrat and Libertarian, and the Grand Old Party withers off just as the Whig party from which it descended did in 1856.

@FederalismToday: Jeff Sessions is Bobby Kennedy and Jerry Brown is George Wallace

      There is a delicious irony in Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ lawsuit against
the State of California under Governor Jerry Brown for its Sanctuary Laws
meant to impede the deportation of illegal immigrants.  The irony is that today
the Progressive argues for States Rights and the Southern Obstructionist
argues for central government control very much like Governor of Alabama
George Wallace did resisting integration against Attorney General Robert
Kennedy’s insistence not to. While the issues of school integration and illegal
immigration are different the technical aspects of the argument on both sides
and times are the same.  Irony aside Progressives ought to reconsider States
Rights as a noble argument, despite a history of use to obscure and protect
racism, to promote local enhancement of the public good. Health care reform
was enacted in 2006 Massachusetts under Governor Mitt Romney with the
intention to provide insurance for nearly all of the State’s residents. It's a
beautiful example of Federalism, euphemistically called using the States as
laboratories of democracy.      

Federalism, the sharing of power between the States and central
government, was an invention of our forefathers when drafting the Constitution.
Federalism as a word though is confusing because it means State’s rights and
power or exactly the opposite of what you would think it means. But it was how
the unilateral power of the States under the failed Articles of Confederation was
reconciled with the need for some central power to make government
successful. Also it was the practical solution for governance over an expansive
geography with little communication. The Constitution formed a central
government that provided a point for diplomacy with other countries, an economic
free trade zone and a bill of rights leaving other matters for the States to figure
out for themselves. As communications improved so did the realization that
central command was possible. It was the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age
that first understood how communications made possible the command and
control organizational structures they formed to amass great fortunes. As usual
government came late to the same understanding and took forty years until
Franklin Delano Roosevelt organized government as a command and control
entity much as his forebears had done with business.  Ever since Progressive’s
have attributed to central government a god like beneficence and the
assumption that the levers of power would always be managed by good people.
Donald J Trump is the nightmare monster who has taken control of those levers
and destroyed those assumptions. Federalism can take power from that monster.
It is the reason Progressives should embrace it.
Another point to consider is that communication as it progressed from
modern to hyper connected has flattened command structures in business and
media. Today in business there is little profit in the physical, General Motors for
example, and incredible wealth in organizing the digital as in Google. Government
has only illusory markers, not the real sales and profit that guides the business world,
by which to direct itself. Local issues are powerful guides for local government to be
responsive to. Big government on the other hand requires illusions and in a world of
hyper connectivity the good ones are diminished and the bad ones stimy to the point
of chaos. Ron Chernow's Hamilton  and Henry Adam's History of the United States
show the political scene in our country's early years as rampant with fake news and
vain glorious individuals who make our current political debate look tame. The
difference is that central government was in its infancy with little influence and power.  
Today we should rejoice that our Blowhard in Chief has brought Washington's one
size fits all meddling to a halt so that the States will soon make relevant decisions for
themselves. It’s what will save our democracy from morphing into an autocracy.