Dec.23

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Grift, Ego, or Revenge?, Part I: Wind Farms

Most readers will be familiar with the Little Rock Nine, the nonet of Black students who presented themselves at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, AR, and endeavored to be enrolled, per the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The principal of the school, along with Gov. Orval Faubus (D-AR), said "no." Then, President Dwight D. Eisenhower got involved, and said "yes." We all know who won that little argument.

Note again that the Brown decision was announced in 1954. The Little Rock Nine endeavored to enroll, and did enroll, in 1957. This is not coincidental. See, 1956 was an election year, and Dwight D. Eisenhower could not run for reelection with an "integrationist" label hanging around his neck. By 1957, though, he was done running for office, and had a bit more room to maneuver. Even then, he thought long and hard about how to handle Little Rock, because he was concerned about the well-being of the Republican Party, and the Republicans who were going to face voters in 1958 and 1960.

Donald Trump is similar to Ike in one way, and not terribly similar in another (over and above "five stars" vs. "bone spurs"). Trump is also a lame duck who appears to have accepted that he'll never run for the White House again, which means he doesn't really have to care about politics very much, or at all. The difference is that Ike continued to care about his party, even if his personal fortunes were no longer on the line. Donald Trump, by all indications, does not care anymore about his party, or about politics.

This, by the way, is not an easy thing for us to accept. During Trump v1.0, we joined many, many other politics-watchers in trying to discern what the larger/long-term plan was. Eventually, we had to accept that rarely, if ever, is there a larger/long-term plan, and that Trump and his underlings do not play 3-D chess. This time around, we concede the lack of long-term vision, but have continued to search for the short-term political calculations. For example, to take just one story from last week: "What, and how much, does Donald Trump expect to gain politically from putting up a bunch of childish plaques about Joe Biden and Barack Obama in the White House?"

We have thought about it over the weekend, influenced by some of the many letters we got (and ran), and we are finding it hard to avoid that Trump is, perhaps uniquely in American political history, a post-politics president. It looks clear to us, at this point, that his top three agenda items are these, in some order:

1. Grift: With Trump, money has always been tops. He has always had plenty of it, and yet he's never had enough of it. He'll do anything to make a buck, no matter how pathetic, no matter how unethical. He knows that even if he crosses the line, he can always use his army of lawyers to bail himself out. And if that fails, he's always been able to negotiate a settlement. With the presidency, he gains the additional insurance policies of the pardon power, and of executive and legislative branches that have no interest in holding him accountable.
   
   
2. Ego: Trump is a malignant narcissist. We don't like to make that a core element of our analysis, because it's very judgmental and because he's never been formally examined or diagnosed. However, we were also trained in graduate school to follow the evidence. Trump's niece Mary, who is a psychologist, and has come as close to examining him as anyone can (since he won't sit for actual therapy sessions), says he's a malignant narcissist. The letters this weekend make the same point. And the evidence is just too great to ignore at this point. In particular, the "making it all about me" response to the death of Rob Reiner. Can someone send out that message, and THEN double down when they are called on it, and NOT be a malignant narcissist? We don't think so.
   
   
3. Revenge: Trump takes great pleasure in exacting revenge against those who have "wronged" him. Even his chief of staff says so, and we see absolutely no reason to think Susie Wiles is wrong. The unusual thing about Trump, beyond the fact that his need for revenge is so profound as to be pathological, is that he clearly prefers point totals over shooting percentage. By that, we mean that he and his underlings pursue longshot efforts at revenge (see Comey, James; James, Leticia) even if they are likely to fail in high-profile fashion. Most other revenge-seekers limit themselves to high-percentage plays, but not Trump.

Going forward, then, as we try to make sense of what Trump does, the first questions we are going to have to ask are: (1) "Is this a grift?", (2) "Is this about his ego?" and (3) "Is this about revenge?"

Even when Trump interests himself in politics, it is probably an aspect of these other things, more likely than not. Going back to Eisenhower for a moment, he really wanted to see Republicans do well in the 1958 midterms, because that meant more ability to get legislation passed, and it meant that Ike would leave his party on a sound footing. Trump doesn't give a damn about legislation (and political capital), since he got the BBB, and now he prefers to govern by executive order. And Trump doesn't give a damn about the Republicans once he's out of office; he's not really a Republican, anyhow; he's a MAGAian who merely latched onto the more convenient major party, since only major parties can win presidential elections.

What we are saying is that when Trump ponders the midterms, he's not thinking about anything other than himself. He would prefer that it not be a blue wave, but only because that will be a poke in his own eye. He would prefer that Democrats not gain a majority in the House, but only because he doesn't want the embarrassment of being impeached a third time. The "politics," in this case, aren't really politics, they're just a different expression of his ego. He simply does not care about the things that other presidents, even lame duck presidents, care about. Hence: post-political president.

That brings us to one of the big stories of yesterday. When the week began, there were five offshore wind farms under construction, in various places along the East Coast. As of today, there are none, as the administration announced it was suspending all of the leases for the projects. Previously, the White House had threatened to suspend leases for projects that had not yet commenced, but now it is ALL projects. That includes one (Vineyard Wind) that is already generating electricity. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum offered an "explanation" on eX-Twitter:

Due to national security concerns identified by @DeptofWar, @Interior is PAUSING leases for 5 expensive, unreliable, heavily subsidized offshore wind farms!

ONE natural gas pipeline supplies as much energy as these 5 projects COMBINED. @POTUS is bringing common sense back to energy policy & putting security FIRST!

Uh, huh. We suppose it would be one thing if the things weren't already built, but it's hard to argue that facilities that are nearly complete (and again, one of them is complete enough to be generating electricity) are too heavily subsidized to be worthwhile. And, as per usual, the administration offers little explanation/evidence as to why these projects are security risks—citing radar interference—or what makes them unreliable. The gas pipeline thing, even if true (and "true" depends on specifics that Burgum does not provide), overlooks the fact that wind is renewable and very clean; natural gas is not.

Whatever happened here, it has little to do with politics. What we mean is that Trump promised to cut energy costs when he ran for president (all three times). People are now hammering him on failing to deliver on that promise. Cutting off a source of energy (one that can co-exist perfectly well with other sources, as needed), and to do so just as winter has arrived? That makes absolutely no sense from a political standpoint. And if you doubt our assessment, well, even many Republicans are hopping mad.

But wait, there's more. In Congress, both Democrats and Republicans have been working on a deal to speed up energy and infrastructure projects—basically, the Republicans want fewer regulations, while the Democrats want some money for renewables and more eco-friendly transportation. Progress was being made until yesterday. Now, the Democrats have walked away from the negotiating table, quite rightly observing that you can't promise to support renewables and then cut such projects off at the knees before they come online. Since at least half a dozen Democratic votes are needed to get a bill through the Senate, there will be no bill, and so no new sources of non-wind energy as long as the leases remain suspended. Very impolitic for the White House.

So, what's really going on? In terms of the three categories we lay out above, we suspect two are in play here. The first is revenge. Trump has hated wind energy for years, ever since he fought (and lost) a battle to keep a wind farm from being built next to his golf course in Scotland. He believes that the turbines ruined the view, and thus made the course no fun to play. We're not golfers, but if the only thing that made your course fun to play in the first place was a lack of wind turbines nearby, maybe it's not that great a course. Anyhow, beyond the fact that Trump hates wind, and loves breaking wind, he also hates Joe Biden. And the now-shuttered wind farms were all made possible by Biden's BBB. So, Trump gets to lash out at two bugaboos for the price of one.

The other possible motivation here is grift. Trump got a lot of money from oil producers during the campaign (famously inviting them to Mar-a-Lago for a shakedown dinner), and he and many members of his administration are in bed with Big Oil. They may well believe, rightly or wrongly, that the less wind energy the country has, the more valuable oil will be. Also more valuable: nuclear power (see below).

In any event, the decision makes no sense from a political standpoint, and we're just not going to tie ourselves into knots, trying to pretend otherwise. (Z)