Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: To be or not to be a banana republic...that is the question

[Brexiter]

We begin today with Timothy Snyder writing for his “Thinking About...” Substack that arguments seeking to maintain a place for Trump on the ballot are in bad faith and not in keeping with the plain language of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Those arguing for Trump push the plain wording past the breaking point. It is impossible in good faith to believe that the president of the United States is not an officer of the United States. But, were there to be any doubt about this or the other issues, the majority of the members of the Supreme Court take the view that the legislative, political, and social context would decide what is meant.

This is where historians come in. These bad arguments have been met by good history, provided in two amicus briefs signed by two groups of prominent historians with expertise on the issues in question. The two briefs come to the same conclusions, and I will cite them both. One is signed by twenty-five historians and the other by five historians; I will cite the Brief of Twenty-Five as "25" and the Brief of Five as "5" with page numbers.

The first bad argument, that the president of the United States is not an "officer of the United States," might be dismissed on commonsensical grounds. If not the president, then who?

Philip Bump of The Washington Post looks at polling that strongly suggests that over half of Republicans know little or nothing about Trump’s legal troubles.

YouGov presented American adults with eight legal scenarios to judge the extent of the public’s awareness. Two were invented: that Trump faces charges related to emoluments or related to drug trafficking. Happily, less than a quarter of respondents said those legal threats actually existed.

The other six were real. The one that was familiar to the most people was the federal classified-documents case that is moving forward in Florida; 6 in 10 Americans said they were aware of that case. The one that had the least awareness was the civil suit in New York in which a judge determined that he’d fraudulently inflated the value of his assets. Just under 50 percent of Americans knew about that.


But the pattern among Republicans is clear. At most, 45 percent of Republicans said they knew about legal issues: specifically, the documents case and his being found liable for assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll. Only a quarter knew about the value-inflation suit, and only 4 in 10 knew about the criminal charges in Manhattan related to the hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

When I read this story, I really didn’t even think of Trump and MAGA. First thing that popped to mind was the disbelieving faces of Sen. Mitt Romney’s supporters on Election Night 2012 once Ohio— and the presidency— was called for President Obama.

John Cassidy of The New Yorker sums up the good economic news.

President Joe Biden may have been exaggerating a bit this past Thursday, when he told a group of autoworkers in Michigan that America has “the strongest economy in the whole damn world.” But he has good reason to be upbeat. In the past week or so alone, there have been half a dozen encouraging economic reports, covering everything from the rate of G.D.P. growth to the rate of inflation and the level of consumer confidence. The jobs report was the topper. It showed robust hiring in retail, health care, professional and business services, social assistance, and the government sector. With more people returning to the labor force—another good sign—the unemployment rate stayed at 3.7 per cent. It has been below four per cent for nearly two years, which is something that hasn’t happened since the late nineteen-sixties.

As always, it’s important not to make too much of one month of data. And buried in the January report there were a couple of notes of caution. The average length of the work week fell a bit, and statistical issues having to do with seasonal adjustment may have flattered the headline jobs figure. But the payroll survey is still the gold standard of economic indicators, and it shows that, in the past three months, the economy has generated more than three quarters of a million jobs. Nearly four years into a post-pandemic economic recovery, that is an impressive performance.

Indeed, the U.S. economy is looking so strong that Donald Trump, after spending three years claiming that Biden is driving the economy into a ditch, has changed tack and is now trying to take credit for some recent developments. “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET,” Trump wrote on his social-media platform earlier this week. He went on to assert that investors are expecting him to win in November, and that’s why stock indices have been making new highs. Nice try, but no cigar. The main reasons that the stock market has been going up and employers have been making new hires are that economic growth has been a lot stronger than many economists predicted, and inflation has been coming down faster than expected. That double dose of good news has revived the spirits of investors.

Adam Mahoney of The New York Times identifies pollution as one of the factors in Black people moving back to The South.

Since August 2022, I’ve crisscrossed the United States, chatting with dozens of people about this new Great Migration, what’s driving it and how it’s reshaping Southern life. While most of the research and reporting on the causes of the exodus have rightfully focused on factors like taxes and economic mobility, I’ve found that pollution is also contributing to Black Americans’ decision to move South, in a trend that worries me as much as it moves me.

[...]

The roots of this crisis date back to the first Great Migration, when millions of Black people left the South to escape segregation, indentured servitude and lynching and went north in search of jobs and stable housing. Early on, many of the jobs available to them were dangerous ones in polluting steel mills, factories and shipyards. Government policies, such as redlining, forced them to live near these toxic industries, unable to escape contaminated air, water and soil.

The U.S. government has known for decades that these people might one day be forced to flee industrial pollution, uprooting their lives in search of healthier places to raise their children. A 1981 study commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agencyoutlined how Americans were already fleeing “from industrialized areas to the relatively less polluted areas of the country.” But policymakers in those regions did little to prepare for the influx while allowing their own pollution problems to fester.

Nick Paton Walsh of CNN thinks that President Biden has calibrated the retaliatory attacks against Iran just right.

Friday night tried to sound loud, but will likely not echo for long. US Central Command said the US deployed heavy bombers — the B-1B Lancer — to hit 85 targets in seven locations. The strikes may be determined to have caused more damage when the sun rises. But it was far from the most pain the Pentagon was capable of delivering. [...]

That was a clear and calculated choice. The Biden administration faced a near-impossible task: Hit hard enough to show you mean it, but also ensure your opponent can absorb the blow without lashing out in return. The US had telegraphed its response for over five days, with senior US officials briefing about its nature, its severity, and even hinting at its targets.

This warning was likely designed to reduce the risk of misunderstanding, and perhaps enable the militias targeted to shift locations, and lessen the loss of life. It may have also been intended to ensure US strikes were not mistaken for the work of Israel, which could have sparked retaliation against the Israelis and risked another cycle of escalation.

Rory Carroll of the Guardian writes that in spite of the historic agreement leading to Sinn Féin coming to power in Northern Ireland, Irish unity remains a long way off.

It could appear that nationalism’s day has finally come. Sinn Féin’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, this week spoke of a “historical turning of the wheel” and said Irish unity was “within touching distance”.

Except it’s not. Political and demographic winds blow favourably but the republican dream remains distant. The party’s breakthrough at Stormont has symbolic and psychological force but does not signify a looming united Ireland. [...]

...a recent Irish Times opinion poll found that 30% would vote for unification in a referendum versus 51% that would vote against, with the rest undecided or inclined to abstain. Other polls have consistently shown a clear majority favour remaining in the UK, albeit with fluctuating margins.

Faid Husain writes for AlJazeera that in the sunup to Pakistan’s elections this coming Thursday, he is not buying former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s (currently incarcerated) victimhood act.

Former Prime Minister Imran Khan, hailed as one of the most popular politicians in the country, has already been knocked out of the contest. This week a local court handed down two jail sentences that also mean that he is barred from holding any public office for a decade. He can still appeal to the higher courts but as far as the February 8 elections are concerned, his name is already off the ballot.

There are, however, bigger issues at play in Pakistani politics today than the holding of an election. In fact, this electoral outcome may not fully reflect the multiple fault lines that have developed within the political and social fabric of the country.

These fault lines had started to emerge almost a decade ago when Khan and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (Justice Party) had found traction among the voters and formed a government in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2013. After years of twists and turns in which Khan first found favour with the military establishment and then fell afoul of it, the real rupture happened on May 9, 2023. The events that transpired on this date – hundreds of Khan’s followers attacking, torching and ransacking military buildings across the country – have reshaped the politics of Pakistan. The tremors are reverberating to this day.

At least it seems that Pakistan and Brazil know what to do with their insurrectionist former presidents. Speaking of Brazil...

Finally today, Bruno Kelly of Reuters reports that Brazil is deploying military reinforcements to its northern border in response to the Venezuela/Guyana situation involving Guyana's Esequibo region.

More than two dozen armored cars arrived in Manaus by river transport and some left by road for Boa Vista, capital of Roraima state, where the local garrison will be increased to 600 soldiers, the army said in a statement.

The armored vehicle reinforcements include six Cascavel, a six-wheeled Brazilian armored car with a 37-mm cannon; eight Guarani, a 6×6 personnel carrier; and 14 Guaicuru, a four-wheel drive multitask light armored car, the army said. The heavier armored cars were transported on flatbed trailer trucks.

Army Commander General Tomas Paiva said the Boa Vista garrison would become a regiment with the tripling of equipment and men, and part would stay in the city while some would be deployed to Pacaraima on the border with Venezuela.

Everyone have the best possible day!