Listen To Lindsey December 17, 2019December 16, 2019 On the eve of the impeachment vote, take one minute to listen. Lindsey Graham is so right! “Impeachment is not about punishment; impeachment is about cleansing the office.” Maybe that clip was a little extreme, given the entirely personal nature of the offense. Clinton was neither obstructing justice nor obstructing Congress. (Nor orchestrating campaign malfeasance; nor misusing $391 million in taxpayer money in a way aides immediately knew was wrong; nor simply disgracing his office.) But Lindsey led the charge anyway. And for those who’ve already made up their minds nothing Trump has done is impeachable? Take one more minute to listen to Lindsey again! Esteemed reader George Mokray notes: “Impeachment Was Inevitable No Matter Who Won in 2016.” . . . “You’ve got some Republicans in Congress who are already suggesting they will impeach Hillary,” Obama added, his voice rising. “She hasn’t even been elected yet. And it doesn’t matter what evidence they just — they’ll find something. That’s what they’re saying already.” Why Democrats don’t play back these quotes to the Republicans who say that the Democrats have been trying to impeach Trump since the 2016 election is beyond me. Yes, the Democrats have wanted to impeach Trump since the moment it became clear he would be President but the Republicans were already planning to impeach Hillary Clinton, and said so, before the vote was counted. Gander meet goose. . . . → But of course, there’s one spectacular difference. And it is that Hillary did nothing impeachable as president. As to her decades of public service, Republicans led no fewer than eight Benghazi investigations (which were politically motivated witch hunts) and found she did noting wrong. And her use of a private e-mail server while Secretary of State — though a mistake — pales beside the things Trump has done in his decades of avoiding public service (and taxes) and in his three years as president. Allen Brand: “After these hearings and endless commentaries, still can’t believe the Dems let the comment go unchallenged: ’63 million voted for him.’ Yes, but, 73 million voted against him!” Dan Magraw: “The impeachment-trial collaboration between McConnell and Trump violates every legal and constitutional test one can imagine.” Our Republicans friends believe it’s okay to hold up Congressionally-mandated aid to an ally under attack from Russia — to Russia’s delight — if you need that ally to do you a personal favor. It’s okay to defy Congressional subpoenas. It’s okay to obstruct justice. It’s okay to deny the oversight the Constitution grants Congress. It’s okay to deny the climate crisis (not impeachable — merely catastrophic, possibly existential). It’s okay to add trillions to the Debt in good times (not impeachable; standard operating procedure for Republicans from Reagan on). It’s okay to blast Hillary for the child sex ring she ran out of the basement of a pizza shop (that had no basement) and for the $2 million she took from the Clinton Foundation to pay for Chelsea’s wedding (even though she didn’t). It’s okay (if mildly regrettable) for the President of the United States to lie constantly and to use words like “scumbag” and “bullshit” when speaking in public. This is not the Republican Party I once knew, or that Mitt Romney or John McCain or Dwight Eisenhower or Teddy Roosevelt — or Gerald Ford or Bush 41 — or even Nixon and Reagan and Bush 43 — once knew. Yet some of our friends support it. We need to let them know they will be warmly welcome as independents or moderate Democrats until they get their party back.
A Question For Your Republican Friends December 15, 2019 From Nobel Laureate and Times columnist Paul Krugman last week . . . The Party That Ruined the Planet: Republican climate denial is even scarier than Trumpism. . . . A new federal report finds that climate change in the Arctic is accelerating, matching what used to be considered worst-case scenarios. And there are indications that Arctic warming may be turning into a self-reinforcing spiral, as the thawing tundra itself releases vast quantities of greenhouse gases. Catastrophic sea-level rise, heat waves that make major population centers uninhabitable, and more are now looking more likely than not, and sooner rather than later. . . . [There are lots of reasons for this,] but one factor stands out above all others: the fanatical opposition of America’s Republicans, who are the world’s only major climate-denialist party. Because of this opposition, the United States hasn’t just failed to provide the kind of leadership that would have been essential to global action, it has become a force against action. And Republican climate denial is rooted in the same kind of depravity that we’re seeing with regard to Trump. As I’ve written in the past, climate denial was in many ways the crucible for Trumpism. Long before the cries of “fake news,” Republicans were refusing to accept science that contradicted their prejudices. Long before Republicans began attributing every negative development to the machinations of the “deep state,” they were insisting that global warming was a gigantic hoax perpetrated by a vast global cabal of corrupt scientists. And long before Trump began weaponizing the power of the presidency for political gain, Republicans were using their political power to harass climate scientists and, where possible, criminalize the practice of science itself. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of those responsible for these abuses are now ensconced in the Trump administration. Notably, Ken Cuccinelli, who as attorney general of Virginia engaged in a long witch-hunt against the climate scientist Michael Mann, is now at the Department of Homeland Security, where he pushes anti-immigrant policies with, as The Times reports, “little concern for legal restraints.” But why have Republicans become the party of climate doom? Money is an important part of the answer: In the current cycle Republicans have received 97 percent of political contributions from the coal industry, 88 percent from oil and gas. And this doesn’t even count the wing nut welfare offered by institutions supported by the Koch brothers and other fossil-fuel moguls. However, I don’t believe that it’s just about the money. My sense is that right-wingers believe, probably correctly, that there’s a sort of halo effect surrounding any form of public action. Once you accept that we need policies to protect the environment, you’re more likely to accept the idea that we should have policies to ensure access to health care, child care, and more. So the government must be prevented from doing anything good, lest it legitimize a broader progressive agenda. Still, whatever the short-term political incentives, it takes a special kind of depravity to respond to those incentives by denying facts, embracing insane conspiracy theories and putting the very future of civilization at risk. Unfortunately, that kind of depravity isn’t just present in the modern Republican Party, it has effectively taken over the whole institution. There used to be at least some Republicans with principles; as recently as 2008 Senator John McCain co-sponsored serious climate-change legislation. But those people have either experienced total moral collapse (hello, Senator Graham) or left the party. The truth is that even now I don’t fully understand how things got this bad. But the reality is clear: Modern Republicans are irredeemable, devoid of principle or shame. And there is, as I said, no reason to believe that this will change even if Trump is defeated next year. The only way that either American democracy or a livable planet can survive is if the Republican Party as it now exists is effectively dismantled and replaced with something better — maybe with a party that has the same name, but completely different values. This may sound like an impossible dream. But it’s the only hope we have. → Ask your Republican friends: Do they care? Or do they trust Putin over the FBI and CIA . . . Senator Snowball over the global scientific consensus.
Widespread Angst December 13, 2019December 13, 2019 John Mauldin’s December 6 letter will take you a few minutes to read — and not buoy your spirits. Woe are we! And yet when you think about it — though he doesn’t say it — we have the technology and resources, including increasingly-cheap renewable energy, such that every American could have the basics: decent food, shelter, clothing, health care, and Internet (with which come virtually unlimited information, education, communication, and entertainment). Beyond that, all you need is love. (Dum-de-dum-de-dum.) But we sure don’t all have that now . . . and things could well get worse. Read Mauldin’s letter. (And Andrew Yang’s The War On Normal People.) Sooner or later, something’s gotta give. With far-sighted leadership and constructive compromise, there are ways to get there. Look at the game-changing transformations F.D.R. was able to make, even as many of the wealthiest Americans loathed him. FDR’s leadership brought us the social safety net and strengthened the middle class. (Could a wealthy former New York mayor do the 2021-2029 equivalent of what a wealthy former New York governor did in 1933-1945?) Lots to think about. Have a great weekend!
What Would Evangelicals Do? December 12, 2019December 11, 2019 But first: Your esteemed fellow reader Paul deLespinasse asks: If Trump Isn’t Guilty, Why Has He Been Acting So Guilty? And second: What To Do With An Attorney General Who Disdains Justice? (Thanks, Glenn!) . . . Barr’s conduct has been so egregious that in any normal administration he would have been forced to resign. Since neither that nor impeachment and removal will happen with the Trump crew, state bar authorities should examine Barr’s conduct. If nothing else, the legal profession should hold him accountable for his perversion of his office and rank dishonesty in continually spinning and misrepresenting the law and the facts in service of a corrupt president. And now: Why (White) Evangelicals Still Support Trump — posted more than a year ago, but of as much interest now as ever. John Fea concludes: . . . As I travel around the country listening to Trump voters, it is also clear that many white conservative evangelicals are disgusted by Trump’s rhetoric, character, and even some policy decisions, but because Trump has delivered the Supreme Court, they still believe that their vote for him in 2016 was worth it. Other evangelical Trump voters are having second thoughts about their 2016 vote. They thought Trump would have more respect for the office of the presidency once elected and they do not see that happening. Of course, there are many white evangelicals — the so-called 19 percent — who did not vote for Donald Trump. This group is divided between conservatives who support most of Trump’s policies but reject his immoral rhetoric and disrespect for American institutions. Ben Sasse, the senator from Nebraska, falls in this camp. Others did not vote for Trump because they reject his character and his policies. They believe he champions policies (immigration, the Muslim ban, “America First,” etc.) that do not reflect their Christian values. In the end, the white conservative resistance to Trump is vibrant, and it may be growing, but it still remains relatively small. We need to do all we can to grow it.
The Triumph Of Injustice; A Piece Of The Solution December 11, 2019December 11, 2019 As Greg Sargent explains in the Washington Post: . . . Among the bottom 50 percent of earners, average real annual income even after taxes and transfers has edged up a meager $8,000 since 1970, rising from just over $19,000 to just over $27,000 in 2018. By contrast, among the top 1 percent of earners, average tripled since 1970, rising by more than $800,000, from just over $300,000 to over $1 million in 2018. Among the top 0.1 percent, average after-tax-and-transfer income has increased fivefold, from just over $1 million in 1970 to over $5 million in 2018. And among the top .01 percent, it has increased nearly sevenfold, from just over $3.5 million to over $24 million. I’m emphasizing the phrase “after taxes and transfers” because this is at the core of Zucman’s new analysis. The idea is to show the combined impact of both the explosion of pretax income at the top and the decline in the effective tax rate paid by those same earners — in one result. The declining progressivity of the tax code is the subject of “The Triumph of Injustice,” a great new book by Zucman and fellow Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez. It charts the slow strangulation of that progressivity at the top. . . . The swing toward gross inequality began with Reagan. Republicans have just kept widening the gap. Inequality can lead to crashes and depressions. To electing fascist demagogues. To revolution. And in a properly-functioning democracy, it can lead to peaceful adjustments . . . like a more progressive tax code or this excellent bill that would ding businesses above a certain size if their highest-paid employee earned more than 50 times as much as their median worker. Businesses would be free to pay whatever they wanted. To avoid extra tax, they could raise worker pay and/or lower CEO pay. The basics of the bill could not be simpler — or, to my eye, more directly on target.
Guilty On Eight Counts December 10, 2019 But first: Former Federal Reserve Board Chair Paul Volcker died Sunday. He was a giant among public servants, both literally and figuratively; an American hero, as fine and modest and brilliant and honorable a soul as you will ever find. I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with him for the New York Times Sunday Magazine in the summer of 1982. It was a long interview (and the italics I relied on for emphasis to make money-supply analysis zingy were dropped n the OCR used to archive articles pre-1994) . . . but it recalls a time when Treasury bills had been yielding 21%, inflation had been running wild, and best-selling books predicted a total economic meltdown (the perfect time to buy). Such a fine man. And such a contrast to you know who. Speaking of whom, you may already have seen this from David Leonhardt. I agree with him. The Eight Counts Of Impeachment Trump Deserves . . . In making the list, I erred on the side of conservatism. I excluded gray areas from the Mueller report, like the Trump campaign’s flirtation with Russian operatives. I also excluded all areas of policy, even the forcible separation of children from their parents, and odious personal behavior, like Trump’s racism, that doesn’t violate the Constitution. Yet the list is still extensive, which underscores Trump’s thorough unfitness for the presidency. He rejects the basic ideals of American government, and he is damaging the national interest, at home and abroad. Here’s the list: . . . A friend who follows it closely writes of ParkerVision: “What’s going on with PRKR is amazing and weird. Law firms are crawling all over themselves to represent them. Two huge suits are being argued next year. Louis Freeh came on board last summer.” → This is a lottery ticket that we — or at least I — originally bought as high as $1 a share. I subsequently bought ten times as many shares at a dime, waited 31 days (to avoid the “wash sale” rule), and then sold the original shares for a tax loss. With 10 times as many shares, if it should ever go back to $1 — let alone to $5 — I will have won the lottery. Only for money you can truly afford to lose! Sean Holzi: “Can you provide some information on the recent special $1-a-share dividend announcement for SPRT? Should we all be purchasing more shares before December 17 to receive the dividend or should we expect that the share price will drop after the dividend is paid? I first purchased shares in February 2017 for $2.29 and then some more at $1.76 in June of this year.” → Who’s to know? The dividend will be taxable, and the stock should drop by about $1 once the stock goes “ex-dividend.” So some may prefer to sell first, before it issues the taxable dividend and drops. But that selling could make the stock cheaper than it “should” be. Others might sell thinking that, well, SPRT could have used the cash to buy back shares if they thought the company was undervalued. But they didn’t, so maybe they don’t. On the other hand, maybe they wanted to reward our patience — because they have plenty of cash to run the business — and make the stock more attractive by giving it more upside. (If it rises back to $2 or $3 from the $1 or so it will be when it goes ex-dividend, it will have doubled or tripled!) Right now, people have been paying about $2 a share for a company with about $2 a share in cash (in effect getting the ongoing business for free). Maybe, with time, they’ll pay $2 or $3 for $1 in cash plus the business. As I say: who’s to know? But I’m neither buying nor selling. I think it’s undervalued here . . . but I don’t know.
Strangling The Life Out Of Democracy December 8, 2019December 9, 2019 Putin-Trump and Hungary — one more assault on American values of freedom and decency. . . . “Orban has quietly and skillfully, with velvet gloves, strangled the life out of democracy,” Mr. Diamond said. “To embrace and normalize and look away from these transgressions in a country that is in the heart of the liberal democratic project of the world is not only disturbing. It’s alarming.” . . . Read the whole thing . . . and understand (Carl): the forces of authoritarianism, fascism, and antisemitism are winning. With your support.
Roth Conversion December 6, 2019December 5, 2019 But first: A young Elizabeth-Warren-supporting hedge fund friend (yes, she has at least one seven-figure-earning hedge fund supporter) finally caved to eight years of my nagging and agreed to give the DNC $35,500. (That’s a round number in political fundraising. Don’t ask.) But then, as we were mulling details — credit card? check? wire transfer? — he texted: “I just don’t want to change my mind. I want to do this but it seems insane but I just am forcing myself to!” “It’s hardly insane,” I texted. “It’s one of the best things you’ve ever done. Would it have been insane to fight back after the Japanese sneak attack in 1941? Here, you are fighting back against the Russian sneak attack — but not having to leave home for four years and risk your life to do it. You’re just decrementing your bonus by 5%.” Jim Burt: “Saturday, we note the 78th anniversary of the ‘Date Which Will Live in Infamy,’ a day on which a foreign power attacked America and caused great harm. On September 11, we commemorate another day of infamy on which a foreign power (though not a state) attacked America and caused great harm. I suggest that when the history of our times is written, November 8, 2016 will likewise be described as a day of infamy on which a foreign power attacked America and caused great harm. Other than the choice of weapons, the big difference in the most recent day of infamy from the earlier ones is that in the earlier ones the United States defended itself and counterattacked.” And second: America’s leadership as seen from Germany. . . . Mr. Trump’s “Art of the Deal” approach to the world is the opposite of what made America great. It replaces trust with suspicion and turns partners into skeptics. It is a global version of the Sicilian world order I encountered in that parking lot — everyone, even the smallest con, using whatever they have to advance their interests. Is that what America wants? If not, it needs to put more trust in what used to be its greatest quality: creating trust. And now (switching gears just a little): Allan Siegert: “It’s been since 2016 when you last updated your book … are you planning to update The Only? If you do update, please give your latest advice on IRA conversions to a Roth. Or, maybe tell us about an app that could help us figure it out.” → After the election? My general rule would be, simply: convert as much each year as you can comfortably afford — if any. Because paying the tax now and switching from a traditional IRA to a Roth IRA in effect allows you to increase the size of your IRA (and increases your withdrawal flexibility). The question is similar to: “If I were allowed to put more into a retirement plan, should I?” The answer, I think, is almost is always, “Yes, if you comfortably can.” You are unlikely ever to regret having more after-tax cash available during retirement than you otherwise would have had. Of course: don’t BORROW to make the conversion. And I would say, don’t use the cash in your traditional IRA to pay the tax on making the conversion. And don’t necessarily defer an amazing vacation or the addition to your home that you’ve been dreaming of building — or the big contribution to saving the world you feel compelled to make. But you get the idea. Click here for more . . . and a calculator that can help you decide. Have a great weekend!
Dinner With Republicans December 5, 2019December 5, 2019 I’ve had two this past week with affluent Ivy-educated contemporaries. They can name the three branches of government. The dinners were enjoyable, disheartening — and scary. Enjoyable, because the food was great (and free! the Republicans paid!) and these are really nice, funny, bright people, on one of whom I had a mad crush when I was 16 . . . and here we were at dinner with his 20-something daughter (who emailed me later to thank me for standing up to him: her politics are like mine), seeing each other for the first time in 50+ years, talking over old times. We talked about his Yale dorm-mate George W. Bush. And we talked about Trump. He’s for Trump. To me, that’s disheartening — and scary. Yes, my friend readily agreed, Trump’s a horrible person in a lot of ways, but he’s standing up to China. Chinese competitors have stolen his family company’s intellectual property and he is rightly angry. (I noted that Obama’s TransPacific Partnership would have gone a long way toward reining in China’s Pacific dominance, and that it was a tragedy Trump scuttled it.) He handed me a copy of The Shadow War: Inside Russia’s and China’s Secret Operations to Defeat America, which I look forward to reading. And then there was also this: he couldn’t vote for Hillary. I found that scary, too. “Why couldn’t you vote for Hillary?” I asked him. (His daughter certainly had.) “Because she’s corrupt.” Skipping the part about . . . wait, what — Trump is not corrupt?!?!?!? (there are not enough question marks in the world adequately to punctuate that) . . . I jumped straight to: “How is Hillary corrupt?” “She’s corrupt!” he explained. “Give me examples.” “She looted $2 million from the Clinton Foundation to pay for Chelsea’s wedding.” “Whaaaaaaat? That’s ridiculous.” “It’s true!” “No. First of all, it can’t be true.” “It is.” “If it were, everyone in the world would have heard about it, endlessly — like her running a child-sex ring from the basement of a pizza shop that didn’t have a basement — and I never heard this one.” “Well, check it out. It’s true.” “It can’t be. Give me another example.” His eyes searched the distance. Chelsea’s wedding was the only one that came to mind. When I got home, it took about 30 seconds, and I wrote him: Thanks for dinner! SO much better than my favorite place in London, the Shed! [I had told him the story of The Shed, which as you know proves how easy it is to deceive people. If a non-existent restaurant can become the #1-rated London restaurant on Trip Adviser, with people begging for reservations, is it not possible that thousands of trained Russians can make people believe Hillary is corrupt?] Do you know the site Snopes.com? It’s neither liberal nor conservative; for 25 years it’s been investigating assertions that seem hard to believe – confirming some of them, debunking others, and splitting the difference I cases where they find partial basis in fact. On Chelsea’s wedding, they found none. (You’ll know you’re at the end of their long report when you get to the part about Trump’s Foundation being shut down for malfeasance.) It was simply another effective piece of Russian disinformation. I say effective, because YOU accepted it as truth and passed it on — as Trump and Putin hoped you would. Per Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Talking To Strangers, we as humans are predisposed to believe people are telling the truth. But that can have really bad consequences. (Don’t miss the chapter on the Brits’ believing Hitler only wanted the Sudetenland, as it relates to Putin’s only wanting Crimea.) You believed Hillary stole $2 million from poor Haitians to pay for Chelsea’s wedding . . . your daughter’s young friend is certain Hillary was complicit in the deaths of four Americans at Benghazi . . . 51% of Republicans believed Obama was born abroad . . . 53% currently believe Trump is a better president than Abraham Lincoln . . . and of the millions who believe Hillary was involved in a child sex ring run out of a DC pizza shop, one showed up with an AR-15 and started firing. (See: Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal: Inside the web of conspiracy theorists, Russian operatives, Trump campaigners and Twitter bots who manufactured the ‘news’ that Hillary Clinton ran a pizza-restaurant child-sex ring.) I’ll stop. But I’d be really upset if someone set out to ruin YOUR reputation based on totally bogus lies. We may lose our democracy over this. Or worse. Thanks for The Shadow War. It’s real! And we’re losing it. So that was my dinner with this really wonderful guy, who I was very happy to see again. I had the butternut squash soup, as did his daughter, and — as my entree — the taramasalata appetizer, which is served with home-made potato chips that take guilty pleasure to the kind of level where you need a safe word. A couple of nights later: dinner at the Harvard Club with six classmates, some of whom I did not know, like the guy to my right, a strong Trump supporter, as it turned out, whom I instantly liked because he told me that mine was the only investment guide he’d ever needed and asked whether I still had that tuna fish under my bed. Flattery will get you everywhere. But really? He liked Trump? Passionately, as it turned out — as did the guy across the table, a friend of 53 years’ standing. (Two others were Republicans appalled by Trump; and two, strong Democrats like me.) But the two Trumpers could have traded places with Jim Jordan or Devon Nunes. Or the new Lindsey Graham. Or Kelly Ann Conway. Talking very fast, dominating the conversation. It was difficult to stay calm. I brought up the example of Hillary’s looting the Foundation for Chelsea’s wedding, which they had not heard but were sure could be true. Who’s to know? “We’re to know!” I said. Some things are true! Some things are false! The world is not flat! I know it looks flat (if bumpy) but it’s just not! That much, the guy to my right conceded. But climate? Weighing the opinions of 11,000 scientists worldwide against the opinion of Trump and Senator Snowball? He was with Trump. The entire country of Vietnam will be under water at high tide by 2o5o according to the new UN report, but he was unconcerned. (“Obama bought a place in Martha’s Vineyard,” he told me. If climate change and rising sea levels were real, he wouldn’t have done that.”) Weighing the opinions of all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies against the word of Vladimir Putin at that Helsinki press conference? Well, who’s to know which to believe? Those 1,027 Republican and Democratic former federal prosecutors? “So what.” It was civil. And the sauteed spinach and Brussels sprouts, all I had, were superb. But it was disheartening — and scary. Maybe I’ll get the Yalie to vote our way if it’s Bloomberg. Or just to stay home. He replied to my email the next day saying it had made him think. That doesn’t usually happen. One more reason to love him. But the two Harvard Trumpers? They are as passionately for Trump as I am horrified. So I come back to my constant refrain: This election will be about turn-out, not persuasion. Organizing, not advertising. And the organizing snowball only grows huge, accumulating more and more volunteers, if it starts rolling downhill early. From the top of the mountain. The executive director of the Florida Democratic Party told a small group of us Tuesday: “You may not expect to hear this from me, but we had enough money in 2016 and 2018. The problem was, we didn’t have enough TIME. Of the $165 million we got in those two cycles, $160 million came in after the primaries.” Money NOW is SO much more powerful than the SAME money when most people give it. If Florida had had (say) a third of that money a year out, in 2015 and 2017, we could well have won the state in 2016 (and thus the Presidency, and the Court); and Florida’s governorship and Senate seat in 2018. Everything many of us care about is at stake next year. The time to fix that is this year. In case you’re in a position to do so, click here!
The Planets Are Spaced Out December 4, 2019December 3, 2019 But first: Pro-sustainability pescatarians! Consider adding these fish to your diet. Scup, anyone? And look! WheelTug in the New York Times. Our main competitor — which for a decade has helped legitimize the concept of electric taxiing (so thank you, Safron!) — seems to have given up the ghost. Not least because their system is so much larger and heavier than ours. If things go well — especially now that they’ve gotten the funding they think should be adequate to see them through to FAA certification — this may not be the last time WheelTug makes the Times. It remains a speculation. But if you bought your shares with money you can truly afford to lose, don’t sell your BOREF. Also in the Times: Trump Is the Founders’ Worst Nightmare. “It is a constitutional paradox: The very behaviors that necessitate impeachment supply the means for the demagogue to escape it.” . . . President Trump has made full use of the demagogic playbook. He has refused all cooperation with the House. He lies repeatedly about the facts, holds public rallies to spread these falsehoods and attacks the credibility, motives and even patriotism of witnesses. His mode of “argument” is purely assaultive. This is the crux of the Trump defense, and not an argument built on facts in support of a constitutional theory of the case. . . . Indeed . . . [He] is a past master of throwing up verbal smoke screens . . . knows equally well the effectiveness of massive oratorical assaults that shake the nerves of his opponents and break down their resistance. He knows how to give pledges that will be broken but serve to divide and confuse . . . uses insults and lies to break the respectable but often weak front of his adversaries. He contradicts himself constantly but his contradictions often crush the best defenses of logic and ordinary morality. Oh wait. Wrong demagogue, wrong century, wrong country. It just sounds like Trump. Back to the Times: . . . Mr. Trump has instead described Adam Schiff, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, as a “corrupt” politician who shares with other “human scum” the objective of running the “most unfair hearings in American history.” . . . The demagogue may be boundlessly confident in his own skills and force of political personality, but he . . . can thrive only in political conditions conducive to the effective practice of these dark arts, such as widespread distrust of institutions, a polarized polity and a fractured media environment in which it is possible to construct alternative pictures of social realities. Weak political parties now fall quickly into line with a demagogue who can bring intense pressure to bear on party officials and officeholders through his hold on “the base.” . . . This is how the Republican Party has become Mr. Trump’s party. It is also why that party will not conceive of its role in impeachment as entailing a constitutional responsibility independent of the president’s political and personal interests. . . . As another fabled demagogue, Huey Long of Louisiana, famously announced: “I’m the Constitution around here now.” The implications for the constitutional impeachment process are dire. . . . Nixon’s resignation appeared to indicate that serious charges could bring the parties together in defense of the rule of law. “The system worked” was a popular refrain . . . The Trump impeachment is headed toward a very different summation. A demagogue can claim that Congress has forfeited the right to recognition of its impeachment power, then proceed to unleash a barrage of falsehoods and personal attacks to confuse the public, cow legislators and intimidate witnesses. So long as the demagogue’s party controls one of the two chambers of Congress, this strategy seems a sure bet. When this is all over, we will not hear warm bipartisan praise for how “the system worked.” The lesson will be that, in the politics of the time, a demagogue who gets into the Oval Office is hard to get out. Tomorrow: Dinner with Trump supporters. (I had the sauteed spinach and Brussels sprouts.) And finally: Mike Martin: “I liked your Buzzfeed link, but it has a false description of our solar system. It is not to scale. One of the things I was astounded to discover in college was the vastness of our solar system. Nobody had ever explained it to me. The four so-called “inner planets” are spaced roughly equally. But Jupiter is much farther from Mars . [And it just gets worse from there.] Showing the inner planets one inch apart, to scale, it takes 4.6 inches to show Mars if the sun is the edge of the paper. Then Jupiter adds about 11 inches, so your paper is over 15 inches long just to show Jupiter. Saturn takes you out to 28 inches; Uranus, to 58; and Neptune, to 90 — about the height of the average doorway. Earth is only 3 inches from the floor.” → And Pluto? They presumably demoted Pluto to save paper.